Day 100 - Potato heaven

Huanchaco

We woke to glorious views and for once an abundance of natural light, we had stayed in a few dark and dingy places so this was very pleasant, the apartment had floor to ceiling glass on the veranda and the beach view was superb.

After walking into town for breakfast we caught a local bus into Trujillo to do some shopping. Huanchaco is quire small so only has small mini-marts, while Trujillo is the third largest city in Peru. There was a giant mall on the Huanchaco side of town with a huge supermarket (with an equally huge potato section, amongst other things), so we were able to stock up on supplies for the next few days.

Back in Huanchaco we found a restuarant to sit in and had a drink while we watched the sun set over the Pacific.

Day 99 - Condors everywhere

Lima to Huanchaco

Another long bus ride out of Lima, heading to Huanchaco in the coast for some time near the beach. The bus ride had great scenery, mainly desert landscapes with the ocean on one side and dead dry desert on the other. We saw lots of condors along the way, flying in groups larger than we saw back at Colca Canyon.

We arrived in the city of Trujillo in the dark and then took a taxi for the remaining twenty or so kilometres to Huanchaco, a small beachside town that started off as a fishing village. We had decided to airbnb it this time, and booked a second floor apartment with great views overlooking the beach, it was great to fall asleep to the sound of waves.

Day 98 - Erotic pots

Lima

After a morning coffee overlooking the ocean at Larcomar we caught a taxi to Museo Larco. There was an attempt by a taxi driver to extort us by telling us the fare was 50 sols, a quick mention of "Uber" resulted in another taxi driver offering the ride for only 20.

This museum is a private collection, the work of mainly one man, Rafael Larco Hoyle. It is a beautiful museum and the ceramic exhibits are unusual in their quality, nearly all of them all in one piece. The museum also had some great gold and silver pieces, as well as a collection of erotic art (which you don't seem much in archaeological museums).

In addition to the museum proper, visitors had access to the storage rooms, with thousands of ceramic pieces. They were in groups, in some cases hundreds of similar pieces (e.g. bowls with cats on them) all together. Finally, it had a nice restaurant where we had a late lunch, before heading back to Miraflores.

The taxi ride back was interesting, from the minute we got in the taxi drive didn't stop talking, and didn't seem to care that we may not understand a word he said. M had no idea about most of it, but was able to practice nodding in the right spots and appearing to understand (a skill which should also come in handy back home).

Day 97 - Lots of bones

Lima

Today we decided to catch the Metropolitano to downtown Lima. The metro in Lima is not a train but buses in their own dedicated lane. After we purchased our travel card and credit (a good thing here is that one card can be used for more than one person) we gave the first bus a skip as it was too crowded. The second bus was only slightly better so we forced ourselves on, even though the proximity of people made us uncomfortable, we did have the advantage of feeling very tall, in general the people here are shorter than at home, especially the women.

We disembarked near the Plaza de Armas and wandered around, even stopping in on a wedding in the main cathedral. From there we ended up at the Monastery of San Francisco. There was a massive snaking queue leading into the church, with many people carrying flowers, K asked one of the women what it was going on, apparently it was some saint's day (we didn't quite get which saint it was) and they were taking flowers to put on the altar. We would have loved to have seen what all those flowers must look like inside the church but the length of queue made it seem we would need to dedicate all afternoon to get to it so we decided to give it a miss.

The entrance is not that big door in the middle, it's on the right side of the building!

We did buy tickets to visit the catacombs though and were shown into a waiting room and told to wait five minutes for the tour to start. Five minutes later we were told to wait another five, then the Spanish speaking tour started and we were told to wait another ten minutes. That was enough for K (who is not known for her patience, even when she is on holiday) so we left and went for lunch. We returned about half an hour later and immediately joined the English tour with the same people who had been waiting with us earlier .... the original "five minutes" was more like 45! The tour was interesting as they described all the tunnels that supposedly criss-cross under the city, most of them still undiscovered. We went under the church and visited the catacombs and came across more skeletons than you would ever expect to see, mainly femurs and skulls as they had all been categorised at some point and placed neatly in piles.

There is a large number of Chifas (Chinese restaurants) in Lima so we decided to head to Chinatown, with its large Chinese gateway and hopefully find a supermarket with something tasty to cook. Chinatown was crazy, the streets were closed to traffic and jam packed with people. All the shops, including the pharmacies were full of people, we were trying to work out whether there was something special on or if this was just a normal Saturday in Chinatown. We didn't have any luck in the supermarkets so with our hands in our pockets wrapped around our phones (to thwart any potential pickpocketing) we slowly walked out of Chinatown only to run into a huge protest, kilometres long that had stopped traffic on a major arterial as the protesters made their way up the road with their anti-abortion and anti-gay placards. We watched for quite a while as the size and length of the march was incredible until we decided to make a dash for it, weaving in and out of the protesters.

The bus back to Miraflores was quite uneventful and if felt a little like home when we arrived back in more modern Miraflores.

Day 96 - Through the fog

Miraflores, Lima

I thought he lived in the UK?

This part of Lima is so nice, modern and clean it's hard to believe you are in Peru, we really haven't come across a city like this since we left Santiago. However we hadn't really read the fine print when we thought Miraflores would be a nice place to take a travelling break. There is a nice modern shopping and restaurant complex on the edge of the cliff overlooking the ocean but for the majority of days at this time of the year Lima is overcast pretty much all day and blanketed in a thick fog in the mornings.

Miraflores has a lovely path that goes for miles along the cliff tops with lots of different parks along the way with various themes and sculptures, a really nice way to spend some hours. We walked north a fair distance, then returned along the beach edge. The beach is covered in rocks, no sand, and as the waves crash they move the rocks over each other and make quite a sound.

You should see this from the other side

We walked past the local surf schools, all of them tried to get us to sign up for lessons, and at least they joined in the laugh with us when we told them we were from Australia and we didn't consider this much of a beach and didn't need surfing lessons (neither of us can surf by the way).

Cat heaven?

Later in the day we walked up to see Kennedy Park, though much of it was closed due to some sort of construction. The weirdest thing about the part of the park we did see is that it is home to what could be hundreds of stray cats - we've never seen so many cats in one place before.

Day 95 - "You don't have a reservation"

Lima

We were changing to different accommodation today, in Miraflores which is the upmarket beachside suburb of Lima. We had decided to treat ourselves to a nice modern apartment for a few days and do a bit of self catering as well.

We turned up to a lovely apartment building with a beautiful foyer and went to reception to book in. We had read on some reviews that the man at the desk was quite rude but nothing could prepare us for the way we were treated. He said "You don't have a reservation" and then put his head back down and ignored us. We argued that we did have a reservation and showed him our confirmed booking through booking.com. He ignored us and left us standing there!! We got booking.com on the phone and passed the phone to him but he just told the booking.com people the same thing! There was nothing we could do but find alternative accommodation which wasn't easy for the same day, similar location and similar price.

We finally booked somewhere else close by and walked to the address shown on booking.com. This place also didn't have our booking, but at least this time the man at the desk went out of his way to help us figure out what had gone wrong. It turns out that as there are so many apartments in Miraflores in varied locations rented by different companies, they either use their office address, or as in our case, use an address that is unrelated to the either the apartments or their office!

Eventually someone came and met us and we all caught a taxi to the apartment - third time lucky. This apartment was almost brand new and quite modern, and though it didn't have the ocean view we had hoped for, it was still in a good central location.

By the time this had all been sorted it was late in the afternoon, so we headed out for a coffee at a nice french bakery nearby, then did the round of the local supermarkets - at least there were plenty to choose from.

Day 94 - Doing lines in South America

Nazca to Lima

We were picked up at 7am to be taken to the local airport for our flight over the famous Nazca Lines. These figures have to be seen from the air to be fully appreciated and there were plenty of gringos at the airport waiting for their turn, even at such an early hour.

The ancient Nazca people made the lines (figures of things like animals and humans) by removing stones exposing the ground underneath, the limestone in the earth hardened and changed colour to leave a permanent display (unless they are damaged, yes Greenpeace we mean you).

We flew in a light plane over the lines for about 20 minutes or so, we did notice though that the Pan American highway goes right through at least one of the figures.

After the flight we had some hours to fill until our bus trip to Lima in the afternoon, so we caught a taxi to the Puquios, still functioning aqueducts with spiral holes and water flowing through the bases, bringing water into town.

We arrived into Lima quite late and as we decided to stay the first night near the bus station, the only open restaurants we could find were Chinese (called "chifas" in Peru) - so we had our first taste of Chinese food in South America. It wasn't quite the same as chinese food back home, but was still pretty good, which was a bit of a surprise.

Day 93 - Desolation

Arequipa to Nazca

Back on the bus again, and in the front seats as well. The landscape after leaving Arequipa was amazing, total desolation, sand and rocks for hundreds of miles and barely a living plant in sight, except for the irrigated areas which were strips of green heading towards the ocean. There were plenty of condors to see as well - more than we ever saw at Colca Canyon.

We had read that Nazca wasn't that nice a town, but it seemed fine to us. It looked like a primary school concert was in in the town plaza, kids and parents everywhere. It was definitely warmer, and quite pleasant walking around in the evening, and we spent the evening at a restaurant on a terrace overlooking the square.

One very noticeable thing was lack of traditionally dressed people, not a bowler hat or pleated skirt to be seen anywhere.

Day 92 - Frozen

Arequipa

Arequipa is a beautiful city, the city centre has a lot of European/Spanish style buildings, all made from the same white stone. The city is also very clean and the main square and some of the surrounding streets are closed to traffic which gives the inner city a more calm and relaxing feel than some cities where you feel you could be hit by a car every time you attempt to cross the road.

In the morning we went to Museo Santuarios Andinos. This museum held the mummified and frozen corpses of "Juanita", a girl in her early teens who was sacrificed by the Incas more than 500 years ago at the summit of Mount Ampato, presumably to appease the gods when some natural disaster struck. The body was found in 1998, and it was only by pure luck that it was discovered, as the body had only been exposed for about two weeks. Other mummies have been found since, but Juanita is the best preserved and most important, as she had been frozen so well her body and internal organs were intact. At the end of the tour we were taken to see Juanita in her freezer, where she is displayed complete with hair and skin, although it was quite dark and difficult to see much detail.

It was another beautiful day so we enjoyed another afternoon sitting on one of Arequipa's terraces, before returning to "Indian Cuisine" for a final dose of Indian food, who knows when we will get the chance again!

Day 91 - Flight of the condor

Arequipa

The dreaded 3am pick up wasn't too bad in the end, the bus arrived pretty much on time and we tried to get a little more sleep as we headed off towards Colca Canyon. We stopped in the small village of Yanque for a basic breakfast (dry rolls and black coffee), then another stop in Maca to see the colonial church while we tried to avoid the souvenir stalls and bowler hatted women touting for photo opportunities with alpacas.

We reached the Cruz del Condor lookout on the edge of Colca Canyon around 8:30am along with hundred of other visitors in the hope of seeing Andean condors gliding over the valley. The condors visit and fly this area in the mornings because of the updrafts rising out of the canyon. At first it seemed we would be out of luck but after about 20 minutes the condors started appearing, initially a few but by the time we left we had probably seen at least 15.

From there we piled back into the bus and made varied stops on the way back to Chivay for lunch. There was an hour long stop at some average looking hot springs that very few people wanted to swim in, but we lucked upon some more natural springs around the corner by crossing one of the most unstable rope bridges we've ever crossed.

Back at Chivay we skipped the buffet lunch and found an ice cream instead, while we looked at the large statutes (with explanations in English) of many of the local characters that are used in dance and folklore, including the masked men we'd seen at the festival back in Ollaytantambo.

On the way back to Arequipa we stopped a couple of times, once to see some grazing alpacas (as if we hadn't seen enough already), the other at the Patapampa lookout at the highest point in the road (4850m) where we could clearly see smoke from the very active Volcan Misti.

No, those aren't clouds

We were back in Arequipa around 4:30pm, just in time to sit on the terrace at a restaurant and have a couple of Pisco sours. In the end we were quite pleased  that we hadn't put our hands up for the 2 day trip, though we paid the price by having a very early night.

Day 90 - Too spicy!

Arequipa

We had two options for our planned trip to the Colca Canyon the next day - a one day trip with a 3am (!) pickup, or a two day trip overnighting near the canyon in the village of Chivay. After visiting a few agencies we settled on the one day trip, neither of us was keen on stretching what could be done in one long day into two days - we suspected there would have been a lot of waiting around.

Last Supper ... complete with guinea pig?

After sorting that out, we visited the Santa Catalina Monastery. The monastery was huge, covering about 5 acres, and had streets named after Spanish cities, that even looked a little like those cities .... for example Calle Cordoba had flower boxes, Calle Seville had a a water feature, Calle Granada sloped. The old nuns' quarters are very well preserved, many of them were like apartments, with individual kitchens with clay ovens, sitting rooms, and one even had an area for keeping guinea pigs (with live guinea pigs). At its peak it supported up to 450 people, now there are about twenty, living in more modern accommodation away from the prying eyes of pesky tourists like us.

K had read about a well reviewed Indian restaurant in town (imaginatively named "Indian Cusine"), so for dinner we took a gamble and ate there. It was an excellent meal, a little different to what we are used to at home but still quite tasty, though we overdid it by asking for "spicy" - we hadn't expected that it would actually be hot (almost too hot to eat,), this being South America! We did wonder though where they source their spices, as we'd seen nothing like that in any shops in South America so far?

Day 89 - " I don't understand Spanish"

Cusco to Arequipa

We caught a taxi to the bus station for our trip to Arequipa, and for the second time a taxi driver told K he couldn't understand her because she spoke Castellaño (i.e. Spanish from Spain)!

As we were boarding the bus we were videoed by a camera on a tripod, it was a bit strange, we think it was for security purposes (thievery etc.) but over the next 11 hours the bus would stop anywhere and pick up / drop off people on the side of the road - so I'm not exactly sure how useful the video would be. We had great seats at the front on the second floor of the bus, perfect for admiring the view as we left the greener landscapes of the altiplano and entered some quite desolate country.

Around lunch time some women got on the bus and the smell of roast lamb wafted through. It was too much for K who decided she fancied a roast lamb sandwich. She paid up without querying what was on offer and of course was shocked when she received a number of unidentifiable lamb scented objects .... she bailed from this little experiment and managed to get her money back.

It was quite late by the time we arrived in Arequepia as the bus didn't take the direct route, instead we retraced our path back to Juliaca on the shore of Lake Titicaca and then went on to Arequipa from there.

Day 88 - Altitude sickness?

Cusco

K was suffering from something that we think was altitude sickness, a surprise after having avoided it so far, but the symptoms (lack of energy, nausea) and the fact that we'd just come back to Cusco after being at a lower altitude in the Sacred Valley for a few days all seemed to add up.

While K spent the day barely being able to drag herself around, M visited Saksaywaman, an old Inca fortress on the outskirts of  the edge of Cusco that was within walking distance (though the way was pretty much all uphill).

Stone walls with closely fitting stones .... that's gotta be Inca work

K was feeling a bit better, so we walked to San Blas again and had a nice lunch in the sun in the courtyard of a lovely cafe, then had what M thought was perhaps the best fun of the whole trip so far with a spot of souvenir shopping.

Day 87 - Return to Cusco

Ollantaytambo to Cusco

There are a number of old Inca sites in what they call the Sacred Valley, so we managed to negotiate a taxi to take us back to Cusco via Pisac. We arrived at the ruins above the town of Pisac a bit before noon to find the place swamped with buses and masses of people, luckily though they were on their way out, they would have been on tours from Cusco. We had looked into doing a Sacred Valley tour from Cusco, now we're glad we didn't decide on that option.

Follow the leader

Pisac was mainly an agricultural site, with stone terraces built into the side of the mountain and supporting buildings at the top, it was a beautiful day and we enjoyed the site, as well as the views on the drive back to Cusco, which was a lot more comfortable than our minibus ride the other day.

Once back in Cusco we walked to the bus station to purchase bus tickets for Arequipa. We had found that the tickets available online were overnight trips only, and even though they are premium services with "cama" seats that lie flat, we prefer to travel during the day. So far we've always been able to find a time that suits us at the bus stations. We found a bus that left at 8am, so booked it for two days time.

Day 86 - Six wonders down

Ollantaytambo / Machu Picchu

Machu Picchu is capped at 2,500 visitors per day (we had heard that before the limit was applied up up to 6000 people would visit), so we'd had to book our places online in advance. Getting there for sunrise is a big deal for some people, but we weren't too fussed, there is often cloud and/or rain in the morning, and we wanted to avoid the crowds, so we had opted for the 8:30am train from Ollantaytambo to Aguas Calientes, and from there we'd take the bus up to MP.

After a pleasant train trip which included breakfast (nothing special though, just a chocolate croissant) we arrived at MP around 11am. to find (as we expected) hordes of people. As we planned to stay until the end of the day we broke away from the masses and took the trail to the Sun Gate (which is the first sight of Machu Picchu for those doing the Inca Trail hike), not realising it was a 90 minute return trip, but we had some great views of Machu Picchu on the way and it certainly helped us with our plan to try and avoid the masses.

There were a couple of annoying things about visiting MP, one is that your passport gets worn out with everyone looking at it. First of all to buy the tickets - MP entry, train and  bus, then again on boarding the train, then entering Machu Picchu, and as there are no toilets inside MP you need to exit and then show your ticket and passport again! You are also only allowed two toilet visits for the day - to bad if you have a bad case of diarrhea!

Back to MP itself, we arrived back from our trek to the Sun Gate to find the main area much quieter and we enjoyed wandering the area listening to various guides suggesting information (they really don't know for sure about much of the information) about all the different areas. The ruins are very impressive and managed and restored very well and being there towards the end of the day was very enjoyable.

We caught the bus back to Agua Calientes (yes passports again) and we had some time to fill in until our (and everyone else's) trains were ready to leave for Ollaytantambo. We had read in a few places that Aguas Calientes isn't a nice town but we liked the way it fitted in next to the river and the steep mountain slopes on either side. There was a crowd of people at the station as there had been a two hour break since the previous train had left, which seemed strange when MP itself closed at 5pm.

The return train trip was a bit cheesy, with loud music and clown type entertainment, and a "fashion show" of alpaca clothing to buy (which amazingly some people actually bought, perhaps they hadn't noticed the stalls and shops in every single town and tourist stop in Peru selling the same sort of stuff?).  We could have done without the extras - a cheaper no frills train trip would have done us just fine!

As an aside, Machu Picchu is the sixth of the "new" seven wonders of the world that we've seen - so we just have the Great Wall of China left!

Day 85 - Festival time

Cusco to Ollantaytambo

The train we had booked for Machu Picchu left from the town of Ollaytantambo, so we had booked two nights there. We caught a taxi to the mini bus area to catch a bus, and were swamped by taxi drivers offering to take us, but we'd done our research and knew that the minibus was cheaper and apparently safer as well. We hopped onto a half full bus, we knew the bus wouldn't leave until it was full so we were prepared to wait, not so the locals though as they soon got sick of the delay and made their feelings felt until the bus driver started the 2 hour bus trip. By the time we arrived into Ollantaytambo about lunch time we were the only people left on the bus and we walked the narrow cobblestone streets dragging our cases until we found our hotel.

We then headed back into the square for some lunch only to find we had arrived during Santisima Cruz de Señor Choquekillca, the annual festival to honour the town's patron saint. There was music and dancing in the square, with all sorts of costumes and masks, which lasted all day and into the night.

After finishing lunch and watching the dancing for a while we climbed the Ollantaytambo ruins at the edge of town. Once again there were hordes of people - a sign of what we should expect at Machu Picchu.

Day 84 - Sunday strikes again

Cusco

We were really surprised at how busy Cusco is - tourists everywhere, and a corresponding number of locals trying to extract money from them - massages, restaurants, jewellery, llama/alpaca products and more. We should have expected it though, as Cusco is the gateway to Machu Picchu, so pretty much everyone that goes to MP goes through Cusco on the way there and on the way back. There was also some some sort of procession that continued for most of the morning which made it even busier.

We were finishing breakfast at a cafe when M saw Pan (the Thai lady from our Uyuni trip) walk past. It was a lovely catch up, she had been in Cusco for a week and was flying to Lima at lunchtime. Pan helped show us around the town and we bought our Machu Picchu train tickets. We had just been talking the night before about how reasonable the entry price was into Machu Picchu but we hadn't taken into consideration the expensive train fares to get you there, there are no direct roads to MP, though it is possible to get there by combining road and hiking, however 95% of people go for the easy option.

Grilled guinea pig .... yum!

As it was Sunday not all sights in Cusco were open, the markets were though (plenty of freshly grilled guinea pig available), and we were also able to visit Qorikancha, which is a church built on the site of the old Inca Sun Temple, so it was an interesting mix of Inca stonework and more modern architecture. It was incredibly busy with lots of large tour groups competing for space, but as the afternoon progressed the crowds did thin a bit.  

Qorikancha

In the evening we walked up to the area of San Blest, to find of course that most of the shops and restaurants were closed - Sunday strikes again!

Cusco by night

Day 83 - Travelling in style

Puno to Cusco

We walked the couple of blocks from our hostal to the end of our street at 7.30am to board our luxury train for the 10 hour trip to Cusco. The Andean Explorer is run by the same company that owns the Orient Express so we were looking to forward to being waited on while enjoying the scenery. The train was very luxurious, highly polished timber and brass fittings, huge wing backed chairs and a four person table just for the two of us.

We settled in with a coffee as the train got going, and an hour or so out of Puno we passed through the city of Juliaca, and right through the middle of the local market. K realised that she had seen a clip on the internet of this extraordinary market and couldn't believe she was actually going to travel through it. The market is set up on the railway tracks, not just either side! As the train approaches the locals grab some of their produce and pull up their canopies as the train passes with only an inch or two to spare. A lot of the produce they leave for the train to go over, and the minute the train passes they run back out putting up their awnings and spreading their goods back on the train tracks. We passed all sorts of goods, at one stage there were children sitting at school desks with books facing the tracks and just inches away from the side of the train. Click here for a video of what we saw.

The countryside was amazing, first with views of Lake Titicaca, then the mountains and valleys either side. Some of the villages were quite basic, with mud brick buildings and few fences as the livestock are either tethered or more commonly shepherded by the farmers and their children. They spend their days keeping the animals grazing in a group, they must have a lot of thinking time! Many homes appear unfinished, we were told that this is to avoid tax, as taxes are paid on completion.

Lunch was an hour long silver service three course meal which made the whole experience very incongruous with the passing landscape. Not long after lunch we arrived at La Raya, the highest point of the journey at 4319m and the only spot that we were allowed to leave the train, where there was a small market with a  heavy sales push at elevated prices (get it?).

The train had a great viewing carriage at the back, though it did get quite busy at times, as well as a bar carriage, and entertainment during the day. There was indigenous music and dancers (I think I've had enough of El Condor Paso to last me a lifetime), as well as a lesson in how to make a pisco sour, a drink we have come across repeatedly through South America.

When we finally pulled into Cusco it was getting dark, and we were almost run over in the car park while trying to find a taxi, it seems that 95% of the people on the train were part of organised tours and had transport waiting for them, the train staff didn't seem to consider that there were solo travellers on board who had to find their own way to their ultimate destination!

Day 82 - An audience with the President

Puno

We booked what we thought was a ferry trip to the floating islands of Uros, which are islands in Lake Titicaca constructed entirely of reeds that the villagers live on.  We had hoped to be able to wander around for a while and catch a ferry back whenever we wanted.

From a distance the area of the floating islands covered quite an area. We landed on quite a small island which consisted of half a dozen little reed huts and many souvenir stalls. We were then required to listen to a talk in Spanish from the island's "president", though it seemed he only presided over his wife and a few old people manning the souvenir stalls. Amongst the information he gave in the talk there was a heavy focus on money. We were told we should financially support the islanders and their children (even though it seemed no-one actually lived on the island we were on), it seemed like a scam. They were even selling stuffed ducks .... no way we'd ever get one of those through customs!

All hail the president!

However we fell for the scam even further when we were offered the choice of paying to go the "capital" (a larger island about 100 metres away) or staying where we were for the next hour and a half until the others returned. Against our better judgement we paid for the boat trip (we didn't have much else to do and we felt like we were trapped), which was on a reed boat, moved by pushing it with another boat with an outboard motor, which was driven by the "president" (so I guess that makes him a "captain" as well). Along the way we passed many empty islands very similar to the one we visited - each probably with their very own "president". The "capital" was a larger version of the first island, but this one has more souvenir stalls as well as a couple of restaurants. After a few minutes we then saw that the people from our group who hadn't paid for the trip to the capital were also on the island, they'd come across on the original ferry for nothing!

By this stage we'd had enough, and sneaked on to a boat that was leaving earlier and headed back to town.

We could have (and should have) visited other islands from Puno (such as Taquile Island), but we only had one full day in Puno. We had heard that the floating islands were "a bit touristy" but never expected it to be as poor as it turned out to be!

She's a beauty, ain't she? Top speed about 5km/h!

Day 81 - On the gringo trail

La Paz (Bolivia) to Puno (Peru)

Mainly a travelling day today as we finally say goodbye to Bolivia and head into Peru on our overpriced bus tickets! The border crossing at Desaguadero was very busy and made worse on the Peruvian side with exits and entries in the same queue, and only three people working on passport control as busloads of people travelling in opposite directions all hit customs at the same time. Our bus then inexplicably stayed parked in the middle of the street for another half an hour or so after our passports had been stamped!

Queuing at the border with all the other gringos

Puno is known as a convenient stop between La Paz and Cusco on the shores of Lake Titicaca (the world's highest navigable body of water), and has the floating islands of Uros as one of its main attractions. We had been warned that the whole thing was very touristy, but of course we are tourists on the tourist trail through South America (also known as the Gringo Trail).

We had booked train tickets from Puno to Cusco on the Andean Explorer, feted as one of the great train journeys of the world (and priced accordingly of course). We went to the train station just up the road from our hostal to collect our tickets before walking down to the harbour to try and work out our options for visiting Uros for tomorrow. It was more touristy than we'd seen for a while, with touts trying to get us to book boat trips for the next day, but that also meant it was obvious there was no need for us to commit to anything now .... the touts will all be there tomorrow as well!

The clear blue waters of Lake Titicaca

Day 80 - Don't always trust the hotel guy .....

La Paz

Get your safety pins here!

Today was our last day in La Paz so we took it easy getting organised for our trip into Peru and planning the next few days of our trip.

We did make a tactical mistake though, we had asked the guy at the hotel two days ago how best to get to Puno in Peru, and he offered to arrange the bus tickets for us. It ended up being a mistake, since by this afternoon we hadn't seen the guy for two days, we were told by his assistant that he had the tickets for us, but we had to hand over the money first .... and it was at least twice as much as we thought they should cost. We hoped he was getting buses from a better company (we've found quite often then there is more variety and flexibility in bus quality and departure times when buying direct from the bus station, when compared with the internet).

After waiting all day he finally showed with the tickets, and of course they were exactly the same as the ones we could have bought online for half the price .... lesson learnt!!

Day 79 - Old relics everywhere .....

La Paz

Today we went on a day tour to the ruins at Tiwanaku, which is not that far from La Paz but because of the traffic it took two hours to get there. We were collected on foot from our hotel and walked down some side streets until we came to the concrete and metal divider between us and the major road. Here we were told to climb the divider and we waited on the edge of the road (no emergency lane) until our bus pulled out of the traffic and picked us up - no safety considerations here!

Not sure which of the faces in the photo looks the most bored

Tiwanaku is an ancient complex of ruins that is still being excavated, our guide told us that not enough money is available to complete the work required to uncover the ruins. There weren't that many tourists there, mainly school groups who all looked a bit on the bored side as they were marched around the ruins. The ruins covered a large area, and we did get some interesting information from the guide on the cosmological significance of the alignment of the various parts of the site.

Also, as it was K's birthday today it seemed quite apt to be visiting the ruins of an ancient civilisation .........!!!

Day 78 - Relocation time

La Paz

Letters typed while you wait

Today we changed accommodation as the airbnb we had been staying in was a bit out of town, the steep hills are a killer (especially when combined with the altitude) and the traffic noise meant we hadn't had much sleep. The traffic in La Paz is always bad, but it had been made worse by the protest/blockade. Everyone uses their horn continually even when it is obvious that no one can go anywhere. Horns are also used for information - to let you know they are turning or passing near you, and a multitude of other reasons, so staying on a major road makes sleep very difficult.

It also meant that it took about 30 minutes in a taxi to get to our new lodgings, we could have walked it in 15 minutes! Our new hotel was very close to the tourist centre of town, but we were given a room at the back so even though we now have a lot less room than an airbnb at least we can sleep.

There are still police everywhere because of the protest which is now into it's third week, the police seem to have an incredibly boring job, there are lines of them sitting in doorways and windowsills playing on their phones - all dressed up but nothing to do. At least their lunch is delivered - at lunch time they are all sitting down on the ground and in doorways, with their lunches in identical plastic bags.

Day 77 - Teleferico

La Paz 

La Paz has a new teleferico (cable car) with three lines so far, and many more lines under construction. The idea of this cable car though is not for tourism, but as a means of public transport, as La Paz is built all the way up the sides of the mountains surrounding the central city area. A ride on the teleferico is cheap and each car holds 10 people. We caught the red line from the old railway station to the end of the line at the top in El Alto, where the Sunday market was being held.

We wandered around the market and somehow found ourselves in a huge car parts section, all sorts of bits and pieces were there, including a stall selling only sun visors. Further on we saw all sorts of other products - lots of stalls with pirated movies and software, food, clothing, kids rides on miniature (young?) llamas, someone trying to sell something related to prostates (!), thousands of finger puppets and much much more.....

Anyone want to buy a finger puppet?

Back in the city centre, there are lots of souvenir shops and people selling all sorts of things on the street but there isn't any pushiness or hard sell, everyone seems relaxed and easy, apart from the driving! We noticed in Chile that pedestrians were treated courteously, you only had to think about crossing the road and the cars would stop for you. Not so here in Bolivia though, in fact quite the opposite, the cars will not slow down or stop, they honk their horn at you if you consider stepping out and if you find yourself stuck in the middle of multi lane traffic with cars whizzing past a couple of inches of you from you on either side not one car will slow down and let you cross the road.

Taxis are so plentiful that they are the majority of cars on the road, however they all (even the newer ones) do the same thing with the seat belts. They tuck the click into piece through and out the back of the seat so there isn't any way you can use them - don't want them worn out I suppose.

Day 76 - We are no threat to the president, let us in!

La Paz

Today we went to a bookshop/cafe to get a decent coffee only to be told we had ten minutes as they closed at 12.30, us and the many other tourists who wanted coffee and lunch had our normal tourist discussion on how difficult it is to be a tourist in a country that closes its doors so often.

We then headed off to an afternoon walking tour, this one wasn't free though, we paid in advance about $6 each, which is around what we would normally tip on a "free" walking tour, perhaps a little less in fact. This one was different in other ways as well. Generally we've found that walking tours have a good mix of ages, this one though was all backpackers in their early 20's plus us two oldies. The group was also huge, almost 40 people, we are used to groups this big being split - not a good start!

We did get to see the regular market (food etc.) as well as the witches' market again, this time with some explanation of the various potions you could buy (love potions being quite popular of course).

Obligatory market shot with brightly coloured food in sacks

There were still police everywhere, the main square with the presidential palace was still blocked to traffic and only a few pedestrians were being allowed through, the guide on the tour had to negotiate with the police for the walking tour to be allowed in. The pigeons had no trouble getting in though ... the square (Plaza Murillo) must have the highest pigeon density in South America - they were everywhere!

I wish these pigeons would flock off

The walking tour was supposed to be around two and a half hours, but it really dragged - long walks, then a long stop, and a very long stop at another market towards the end .... we bailed after three hours, it was getting really boring by that stage!

Day 75 - Enough with the foetuses already!

Cochobamba to La Paz

We had read that flying in to La Paz is an amazing sight so we requested a window seat and the check in guy was kind enough to tell us we needed the right side of the plane as well. It was the most beautiful scenery with a mountain topped with snow right outside the window, followed by the sight of La Paz with all the houses almost hanging on the mountains surrounding the town.

La Paz is back at altitude and we could feel the difference in the air in the terminal before we had even stepped outside. It is also a city with lots of steep steps and streets so combined with the lack of oxygen it's a good work out - we were in an almost constant state of breathlessness.

We wandered around town for the afternoon, and found the famous El Mercado de las Brujas (Witches' Market) which was similar to the one in Cochabamba, though it seemed a little less "authentic", and geared more towards tourists.

Spot the dead llamas

The main square and parts of La Paz were blocked off, due to a protest by the disabled citizens who want an increase in their pensions. They were wanting to talk to the president direct, but as he'd pretty much ignored them they had parked their wheelchairs across one of the main streets into the city, and we also found that the main squaure was heavily protected by police, they let gringos like us in and out easily, but some of the locals were having a bit of trouble.