Lake Titicaca & La Paz

Hola!

Richard & I are currently in La Paz, Bolivia! Last time I finished up I think we were in Cuzco, Peru. We really enjoyed having some time off in Cuzco, catching up on some sleep, soaking up the atmosphere in a few cafes & of course seeing some of the main sights. Unfortunately, while in Cuzco, one of our team members was hospitalised with Altitude sickness & suspected Salmonella poisoning. After inhaling half an oxygen tank & a number of antibiotics, she decided to continue to travel on with us rather than be left behind.

The most amazing sight was Saqaywaman (pronounced "Sexy Woman" :) & pic on left - the dots are people!), which is believed to be an old Inca fortification of the town in the shape of teeth. The whole city of Cuzco was apparently designed in the shape of a Puma in the Inca times, and these fortifications are the teeth of the puma. The stones are massive (up to 300 tonnes I believe), and are so carefully carved & placed that there is barely a crack between them.

Anyway, after resting up in Cuzco, we travelled onto Puno, which is a largely tourist town situated on the edge of Lake Titicaca, the highest navigatable lake in the world. Puno didn't leave a great first impression, with unfinished buildings, roads and dirt & rubbish everywhere. The main center of Puno however is tourist heaven. Western food in chic restaurants & souvenirs everywhere! We were in Puno for a free day (as we travelled a day earlier than planned due to a national census during which everyone has to stay home & there is no transport, food, shops etc open). Unfortunately that meant that we had a day to do nothing much more than sit back & relax! Also unfortunately our team member who fell ill in Cuzco became worse in Puno (which is at 3,800 m above sea level), and the local doctor diagnosed bronchitus (rather than salmonella) and altitude sickness. She decided to cut the trip short and travel home at that point.

The day after we arrived we were picked up at 7:30am by our local guide with a number of local tricycles with seats on the front (being the local transport). The cyclists took us down to the port on Lake Titicaca where we started our trip out onto the lake. Lake Titicaca was massive, to the point where you feel as though you are on the ocean. Our first stop was on the floating islands. They are completely reliant on tourism & appear to be very popular. The floating islands are made with reeds which grow abundantly in that area of the lake. The houses, boats & the islands themselves are made with reeds which need to be regularly renewed as they rot over a number of months (2 pics on right of the people and the reed boats). We were given a tour of one of the islands & travelled in a local reed boat across to one of the main islands where we had the opportunity to buy some of the many souvenirs there. Lots of fun, but felt a bit as though we were in a museum, with everything carefully arranged and displayed to give tourists a lesson on the local life.

From the floating islands we travelled onto Amantani island where we were split into pairs and allocated to local families with whom we were to spend the night. Richard & I stayed with a young couple (Nancy & Victor) with a 3 year old daughter (Anna) . Victors parents also live with them. Similarly to the floating islands, the main income on Amantani island is tourism. Nancy & Victor told us that they have around 10 couples stay with them per month. The tourists are rotated around the families to ensure everyone participates and the money goes to the community. We were told to bring around 20 soles worth of groceries as a gift to our family, which included oil, rice, noodles, sugar, and salt. The house we stayed in was very basic, with reed mattresses & the house made out of mud brick.

We were lent local beanies to wear (pic of us in our beanies on left) for the night & our group climbed up to the top of the island where we had a fabulous view of the sunset over Lake Titicaca. Absolutely gorgeous (pic of us watching the sunset on left).

After dinner (delicious soup & then vegetables & rice prepared by Nancy), we were dressed up in the local dress (poncho for Richard & huge skirts, blouse, & headscarf for me, pic of us with Nancy, Victor & Anna on left) and taken to the local disco which is put on for the benefit of tourists every night. Victor & Nancy had us up and dancing the local dance as soon as we arrived which was a fun, if breathless activity (due to the altitude!) .

All in all, a bizarre experience, if only because it was so put on for tourists. Still it was interesting to see how these people live & learn a bit about them.

The next day we headed onto Taquile Island which is famous for its knitting which is done by the men (Pic on right of 2 of the men knitting). Again, it is a very cute island, but relies on tourism and is therefore very tourist oriented. Young girls constantly harrassed us to buy bracelets & when taking a photo, would rush to be in the photo so they could ask for money. It's hard to know whether the tourism is good, as it helps to maintain their customs & way of living & gives a better lifestyle, or if its bad as the local customs etc are so obviously maintained just for the tourist dollar.

All in all a very interesting experience.

We travelled onto La Paz after Lake Titicaca, crossing the border into Bolivia & stopping at Copacabana for lunch (no where near the same Copacabana as the one in the song!). After lunch we crossed a stretch of Lake Titicaca on the local ferry, where the bus goes on what looks like a few rotting pieces of timber & we go on a small boat. The swell was pretty high & the boat (with its tiny engine) took ages to get across. The bus was even worse. We watched with some trepidation as it seemed to continue rocking and floating far far down the stretch rather than going to the other side. Very bizarre, but it made it in the end :)

Anyway, we're now in La Paz which is a gorgous colourful place, packed to the brim with people everywhere! (pic of La Paz from the hill on the left). We're planning to chill out for the day before we fly to Patagonia tomorrow. Our group disbanded last night (pic from our last group dinner on right), so we're on our own for the next week before meeting up with the next group trip.

Hope you are well & happy!

Lots of love

Richard & Corryn.

Inca mysteries

Hola!

Hope this blog finds you happy & well. We´ve just returned from a 4 day trek over the Inca trail which was heaps of fun!

After the last blog however we were on our way to Cuzco. Cuzco was once the Inca capital & is absolutely gorgeous (Pic of one of the streets on the left). We only had a night in Cuzco before travelling onto Ollantaytambo in the Sacred Valley using a public bus which was an adventure in itself. We stopped on the way in a small village to have a demonstration of how the locals weave many of the brightly coloured textiles we´ve been seeing everywhere. The children are trained from as young as 9 years old (Pic on the right of one of the weavers) & are experts by the time they´re 20. They use Alpaca and Sheeps wool which is converted into yarn by hand and dyed into bright colours using pigments found in local products (including a bug which is found on cactus plants). The yarn is then woven by hand into all sorts of products from belts to bags to table cloths. A small meter square table cloth takes around 4 weeks of labour.We bought one of the small cloths for 180 soles.

We also stopped at Pisac on the way to have a meander through the markets and lunch. Pisac was once an Inca town and therefore has very narrow streets which are largely cobblestones. It´s a cute little town, & had heaps of gorgeous markets. We nearly bought several of the brightly coloured textiles but stopped ourselves in time (remembering the size of our backpacks).

Finally in the afternoon we arrived at Ollantaytambo which was also once an Inca Town. It has narrow cobblestone streets and a lovely big square in the middle. Overlooking the town are huge Inca terraces and the remains of a temple on the top. Our guide gave us a detailed tour of the terraces and the temple remains and we admired the Inca design where the stones are so perfectly fitted together so as to be almost seamless (Pic on the right of part of the temple). It is mindboggling to think how they managed to get such huge stones up onto the mountain and carved into place.

The next day we travelled from Ollantaytambo to the kilometre 82 marker which is where we began the 4 day trek to Machu Picchu. We had a crew of 14 porters, a chef, a guide, and an assistant guide! The porters were incredible. While we were puffing our way slowly up a hill at high altitude, the porters were almost jogging past with burdens of up to 25kg. On day one we saw two Inca ruins which are believed to be resting places for travellers and/or agricultural farms and greenhouses. Our guide also explained many of the properties of the plants we passed on the way. Plants for indigestion, shampoo, to assist the lungs etc etc. Incredible stuff. We arrived to our lunch stop to find that the porters had set up a large tent & cooked a delicious 3 course meal for our lunch. They did the same for lunch and dinner on every day, and in the evenings even had our tents up before we arrived to the camp sites!

Day two is said to be the most challenging as it is almost straight up to Warmiwanusca (Dead woman´s pass) at an altitude of 4,215m (Pic of Richard on right & Pic of me on the left with some Llama´s which wandered onto the path). We found it quite difficult, especially as it is quite difficult to catch your breath at that height & it was incredibly cold.

After getting over the pass it was another 2 hours down many stairs to the bottom of the valley where we camped for the second night. It was very cold that night & we all rugged up & went to bed quite early.

I actually found day three the hardest as it was mainly downhill using steep stairs. It was the longest day of treking and was quite hard on the leg muscles & knees. The views on the way was very rewarding though (Pic on the left of one of the views on the way). We saw the ruins of Phuyupatamarca (the "Town above the clouds") toward the end of day three before heading to camp.

The final day to Machu Picchu was raining quite heavily. We rose at 4am in the dark to pack up camp & head to the Sun Gate which is perched on the mountains above Machu Picchu & which, when the clouds cleared, gave a fantastic view (Pic of us with Machu Picchu in the background on the right). We arrived at Machu Picchu at around 9:30 am covered in mud & rain and exhausted.

Our guide gave us a detailed tour of the site after which we headed down to Aguas Calientes for lunch & to catch the train & a bus back to Cuzco which is where we are now!

We are in Cuzco for another couple of nights to rest and relax before we head to Puno and Lake Titicaca and finally La Paz in Bolivia. Lots to look forward to!

Lots of love

Richard & Corryn

Peru - Earthquakes and desert lines

Hola!

We´re currently in Arequipa, Peru & have just arrived back from 2 days in Colca Canyon where we saw huge Condors! I´m going to try & summarise the last week fairly quickly as we are off again tomorrow morning. Sorry!

We met up with our Intrepid group in Lima around a week ago and are in a group of 10 people with a local guide. Lima was interesting, but very dirty and under a constant mist/haze. Apparently it only rains for around 3 months of the year there. Not a city I'd like to spend a lot of time in. The most interesting part of our quick visit was seeing a statue with a Llama on its head (Pic on right). Apparently the local craftsman confused "Flame" with "Llama" as they are the same word in Spanish, so rather than a crown of flames, the poor statue ended up with a small Llama on her head! Very amusing.

From Lima we travelled to the coastal town of Pisco which you may have heard in the news recently as it was hit by an earthquake measuring 7.8 on the richter scale in August. The epicentre was Pisco. Much of the town was leveled, including the big church in the city center, with only rubble left. Trucks and bulldozers were working well into the night still trying to clear the rubble. Many people are living in tents or in temporary shelters which resemble a small garden shed. Surprisingly the people we met were quite upbeat & were working hard to get the town back on its feet as soon as possible.

From Pisco we took a boat out to the Ballestos Islands where we saw heaps of birds, and sea lions. The Ballestos Islands are also known as the Gallapagos Islands of Peru, however we´re not sure that they´re quite that good. We didn´t spend long as the area is protected so you can´t get out of the boat. From Ballestos Islands we headed on into the desert to do some sand boarding before lunch which was heaps of fun, although I managed to stack it on the way down my first dune. We continued on after a lovely lunch to the city of Nazca.

We stayed for 2 nights in Nazca in a nice hostel with a gorgeous big pool! In Nazca we took a flight out over the Nazca lines where we were astounded by the strange figures in the ground. The plane was a little six seater with me in the co-pilot seat (see pic on right) & 4 people crowded in behind. Also, to ensure passengers on both sides of the plane had a chance to view the lines, the pilot swung the plane from side to side which was extremely disorienting & quite sickening. We spent the rest of the day feeling rather ill.

In the afternoon we went out to one of the old cemetaries of the Nazca peoples. The mummies are very well preserved due to the hot dry temperatures which are fairly constant, however many of the graves have been plundered due to grave robbers. Archeologists have reconstructed some of the graves & mummies however, which makes for a rather spooky/morbid tour.

That night we hopped on an overnight bus to Arequipa at 2,700m above sea level, in the Andes. The next day we visited an old nunnery in the centre of town which was very colourful & our guide explained how the nuns lived in the 16th century. Very interesting stuff.

We headed out to Colca Canyon yesterday which took around 4 hours, with a peak at 4,800m above sea level. We were very breathless & Richard ended up with a slight headache for the rest of the day. In the afternoon we walked around some of the reconstructed Inca sights before resting in the hot thermal pools. Very relaxing.

In the evening we went to have dinner with a local family. They showed us how they live & also managed to get most of the group up for a traditional dance which was lots of fun. The group helped prepare dinner for the night, which was an Alpaca (similar to Llama - pic on right) soup, followed by the common dish of Guinea Pig. One of the group was lucky enough to get to pluck the guinea pig, after which it was pan fried whole (although minus entrails). Being vegetarian I was able to skip on the Alpaca & Guinea Pig and had a porridgy Quinoa with cheese & egg. The rest of the group told me that the Alpaca was quite nice and the Guinea Pig was a bit like chicken except for the paws and the many small bones. There was rather a lot of guinea pig left over (although that might have been due to lack of appetite due to altitude). One of the guides mentioned to us (after polishing off several pieces of guinea pig) that he could never imagine eating hamster as it was so cute. Bizarre.

Anyhow, completely exhausted (from the full day & the altitude), we all collapsed into bed. 5am this morning we were woken up to travel up into the Colca Canyon to Condor cross (see pic on left). The place where the condors tend to use the thermal air pockets in the mornings. We were lucky enough to see a number of Condors, Hawks and Falcons, which were all magnificent birds. Amazing.

We drove back to Arequipa this afternoon & are chilling for the evening before our 7am start tomorrow. We are taking an 11 hour bus on to Cusco which should be great fun.

Hope you´re all happy & well!

Lots of love

Richard & Corryn

Ecuador!

Hola!

What an adventurous start! We arrived in Quito, Equador (pic on right) on Friday afternoon after a 15 hour transit via Madrid from London. Saturday we spent mostly sleeping, only venturing out in the afternoon to see the old part of town. Quito is dirty, crowded & gorgeous. A vibrant city perched amongst the mountains at 2,850m above sea level, there is latin music everywhere, coloured buildings and heaps of people!

The old part of town has cobbled streets and big old buildings. Quite a few of the streets are closed to cars, making it a pleasant walk. Between the altitude & the steep streets though, I seem to be breathless quite often.

On Sunday our guide picked us up & we drove for 5 odd hours over the Andes mountains (we got to 4000m above sea level on the way) and down into the Amazon jungle. On the map on the left you can see the red star where Quito is and the red dot where we stayed. On the way we visited the hot thermal springs in the mountains. Freezing wind up in the mountains, and water which is 30 to 40 degrees. Bizarre. Anyhow, we arrived on the banks of the Napo river in the afternoon, where we were met with a canoe with a speedboat engine which took us 20 mins up the river to Yacuma lodge where we were staying (down to 600m above sea level).

The area is actually relatively developed, with the jungle broken occasionally with banana plantations or, as we were driving in, petroleum plants. Parts of the road were also sealed. Apparently Oil & Bananas are Ecuadors 2 top income earners, followed by sea products (mainly shrimp), followed by tourism.

The lodge uses no electricity & all the cabins are open, meaning that the windows and much of the wall is covered with fly mesh and otherwise open. Apparently because Ecuador is on the equator (runs through approx 22m north of Quito) the temperature is virtually the same year round. That is, very high humidity & quite warm. We were greeted by around 20 huge cockroaches (around 2 inches in length) in our room & managed to kill around 12 of them, the rest escaped through the bamboo walls. After securing our beds tightly with the mosquito netting we were able to head up to the communal bathrooms where we brushed our teeth etc while dodging/killing the many more cockroaches we found up there. Lovely.

On Saturday we headed down the river in the canoe to visit an animal rescue centre (Amazoonia) where we were treated to a guided tour of the monkeys, Toucans, short tigers (Richard's favourite, see pic on right), turtles, parrots, and many more amazing and fascinating animals. Apparently the centre has trouble releasing the animals once rescued as they are in danger of being killed or hit on the road.

After a relaxing lunch on the side of the river, several of us (Richard, myself & some german tourists who were with us) hopped into the river & went tubing down through some minor rapids. Heaps of fun & quite bizarre to think we were in a rubber tube floating down a river in the Amazon jungle in Ecuador! See pic on left.

On Sunday we headed out into the jungle in our gumboots & walking stick along with the local community president (Orso, from the Quichua tribe), our guide from Quito to translate & our driver came along for the walk too. First stop was a community school, where the local children & teacher entertained us with a song and dance & answered lots of our questions about how the schooling works in the jungle. The school has 10 children, from kindergarten age to grade 6. They were very cute (pic on left). We paid a USD$3 fee each to visit which goes toward the cost of the school. The school is privately funded (mainly through the lodge we stayed at), as the government only provides a primary school if there are more than 25 children.

We then continued on & visited an older man's house, where we paid another USD$1 each to be shown some of the cooking methods & learn about how the community operates, including how the house is built from local materials. We were then face painted with red berry juice so the jungle would know it was our first time, and so our enemies would know we were brave and strong (and hopefully therefore wouldn't mess with us!). Orso took us on a 3 hour hike through the jungle proper, where he showed us lots of the local plants & explained their uses, including one which, when the leaf is chewed, provides an antidote to maleria and yellow fever. Amazing stuff.

We ended up back at the lodge exhausted and starving for lunch. After lunch, Orso gave us a demonstration of using the blow pipe, which is a 2 mtr long pipe which can shoot up to 50m. Apparently the neighboring tribe uses one which is 5 mtrs long and which can shoot up to 80-90mtrs! After having a go ourselves (with Richard managing to shoot the target & me falling short :P Pic on the right), we hopped back into the canoe to go up the river where Orso showed us how they pan for gold on the banks where the river curves. Apparently gold comes down from the mountains & 1 day of panning will yield on average 1 gram of gold which is worth $10. Its back breaking work though, & not something you'd want to do for too long!

We finished off the afternoon with some piranah fishing (pic on the left), which coincidentally happened to be in the same spot we were tubing down the day before!!! Unfortunately no one was successful, although a few of the lines came back minus the hook, the bait & the sinker!!

Anyway, back in Quito today (Monday) & heading out to grab a bite to eat. On Wednesday we head to Lima where we'll be embarking on a 3 week journey down through Peru & ending up in La Paz in Bolivia. Will keep you posted!!!

Hope you're all well & happy!

Lots of love

Corryn & Richard