Peru

So after my 1 night in Arequipa on the way back East it was on to Puno, a small town on the shores of Lake Titicaca, the highest navigable lake in the world at 3812m above sea level and the 2nd largest lake in South America. The lake straddles the border between Peru and Bolivia and is home to some 40 odd islands as well as the floating communities of the Uros.

The Uros is home to (from memory so not totally trustworthy) approx 300 Uro people who originally built them to escape from the Incas as they captured more and more territory. These people live on islands completely constructed from reeds and anchored using a complicated system of ropes - originally this was for defence purposes but now is a major tourist attraction. To get out to the islands you of course take a boat and then when you get to the first one you hop of and they explain the history of the lake itself and how the islands came into usage then they try and flog you stuff as basically is the case throughout the whole of Peru. Still its worth doing as it is pretty interesting - also amusing to note the sattelite dishes and solar panels that are tucked away from prying tourist eyes! You can even go and stay on the islands yourself as they have a few little hostel type places where you sleep on reed beds and hope you don't freeze your ass off overnight. Anyway that was the floating islands - more about the real ones when I get on to Bolivia.

So the carnival then.....well I happened to arrive in Puno on the last day of the 2 week festival in honour of the Virgin of Candelaria(credited with saving the town from invaders in 1781), it is one of the largest, longest and most lavish celebrations in fiesta-mad Peru. So what happens then? Well you walk down the street to the sound of jazz type bands trying to avoid being pelted with water balloons and being blinded by foam in a can (those crazy peruvians eh?) and then come upon the parade where you have the most elaborate masks and costumes on show that you're ever likely to see. Wierd mix too - wholly surreal to arrive into a town and find almost everyone in bear costumes (thing Jabba), spangled drum-majorette dresses (very short ones with matching hooker platform knee high boots mostly sprayed silver -strange for a country where most of the women dress very conservatively), silver and black matador suits or many-skirted dresses and shawls of cut velvet and damask for the older ladies.

The marching bands were consistently male and they wore a collage of many coloured pastel dress suits. Add alcohol and general mischief to the mix and then you have a festival! Good fun it has to be said although the fear of losing my eyesight was ever present in my mind - never been so glad to wear glasses in all my life! And if I never hear that music again it'll be too soon!

Leaving behind the madness that was Cuszo the next destination was to be Ica, or more precisely, Huacachina - home to some of the biggest sand dunes in South America and prime spot for those thrillseekers amongst you!

On the west coast of Peru about 6 or 7 hours south of Lima lies the little oasis that was Huacachina. Leaving behind the congested, polluted town that is Ica, a short 8km taxi ride away lies this little place for relaxation and excitment combined. Basically its tiny and has a man made lake right in the middle with huge sand dunes surrounding the town from almost all directions. Why do people come here? Well basically to strap on a sandboard (same as a snowboard but minus the snow) and throw yourself down massive dunes hoping that:

1) If you fall its not going to hurt
2) That you'll actually manage to stay on your feet for more than 2 seconds and not look like a complete ass
3) If you can't stand up you will successfully manage to get down to the bottom whilst lying on your stomach and not 'sand' off your most precious parts!

So that's basically what I was hoping......and thankfully I managed number 3 without 1 and 2 coming into it! (minus a little bruising and sand in every crevice imaginable)

You start off by ripping up and down the dunes in big old sand buggies going at speeds that feel like 100mph being thrown about all over the shop and hanging on for dear life whilst hysterically laughing as the adrenalin rushes through you and that's before you even set foot on the sand - racing up huge hills at a rate of knots and not being able to see over the tip before getting there and then screaming like its a roller coaster ride as it speeds down the other side - lunacy I tell you - lunacy! That's the start.....then you get to the top of one of these monsters and suddenly the buggy stops, out hops the driver and then before you know it you are staring down this precipice of sand.....oh my god! Do I have the balls to actually do it you ask yourself and then away you go - the best fun you can have with your clothes on! As the hours tick by you progress to bigger and bigger dunes and realise that first one was nothing - the real fear is saved for the last one..... This one had a lip so you couldn't actually see the bottom so had no idea how big it was until you are over, and believe me it was big! Basically you stand at the top watching those who have gone first and when you realise that they themselves disappear for about 4 or 5 seconds before rocketing out at an impossible speed and distance away from the start point do you realise what you have let yourself in for.....but what a rush. Then when its over and you reluctantly get back into the buggy and rip off over the dunes again you get to stop and watch the most beautiful sunset - a perfect end to a perfect few hours. HIGHLY recommend.

On the relaxation side there are a couple of hostels here and we managed to find a hotel standard one equipped with a great pool, sun loungers, hammocks and strongest (and most disgusting) cocktails a girl could ask for.

Great little spot to spend a couple of days - made even more so when a crowd of people from Cusco turned up a day later, many laughs were had and was a shame to leaveand split up again but that my friends is the nature of this backpacking thing, time to move on and up! Next it was to be back to Arequipa for 1 night whilst awaiting my connection to Puno and Lake Titicaca.

So leaving behind Arequipa and the Colca Canyon and on to Cusco and that place where everyone has to go if they are in Peru - Machu Picchu.

Let me start with the city.......gringo central and party town of Peru. This is the first city where it is really obvious that there is a lot of people travelling in South America and the prices reflect that. Cusco is without doubt the most expensive place in Peru - everything from food down to the souvenirs are much more expensive here than anywhere else in the country,but still affordable from a european perspective.

OK then - food......well let´s just say that it isn´t worth trying to save money by eating in cheaper places. It is possible but your stomach WILL NOT thank you for it! I personally spent a lot more time on the toilet here than I wanted too and from comparing notes with others it appears that was the common experience! So much so in fact that if you visit the post office there is a poster in the window advertising for travellers with diarrhea to help the hospital and the drug companies to develop a new antibiotic to cure it - they even go so far as to offer $20 towards helping with a taxi and other incidental costs. Maybe that goes a little way to explain the epidemic in Cusco! And its not just the chronic need for the loo its the crushing stomach cramps, sweats, fear of being just that little too far from a toilet that goes with it! Not pleasant it has to be said....

That aside a little more about the place - the hostel of choice was a place called Loki which had been recommended to us by several other people along the way, and not a bad recommendation either. The place is pretty big and is set in an old 17th century house/mansion that could well have been some kind of monastery before it was restored for its current use - it had everything from single rooms up to 12 bed dorms and with a surprising amount of space in them. Had the usual bar, etc but the best thing is probably the views of the city, particularly at night - stunning! The only problem with having a view is that that invariably means that it is set on a hill. The steps and the hill up to the hostel can only be descibed in one way - lungbusting! In fact if you were bored all you had to do was go sit out the front and laugh at all the huffing and puffing from fellow guests as they made their way up the steps trying not to give themselves a coronary. In our defence though it wasn´t a lack of fitness (that´s just me), it was more to do with the altitude (above 3500m I believe).

So anyway after a couple of days aclimatising I booked a trip with Elena and Claudia (the Spanish and Venezualan girls) to the Sacred Valley and on to Machu Picchu. I had the option of booking the Inca Trail but after having it explained properly and learning of the amount of knee crushing steps I opted for the easier way!

Leaving Cusco you first arrive in Pisac for the artesano markets and look for ways to spend some more of that hard earned cash - and not too difficult a task either. Usual altiplano items are on offer - by that I mean woolly jumpers, socks, pashminas, scarves, jewellery, hats, art, tat of all descriptions, etc so of course I indulged myself but not too much as the only problem is once you buy it you have to carry it! After Pisac its on to Calca and Urubamba stopping at some amazing ruins on the way and negotiating towering staircases to the top of the mountains to get the best view of the valley around you and of course to get up close and personal to the ruins - the most impressive of which for me were at Ollantaytambo and of course the one where I forgot to take my camera up with me - sod´s law and all that. This is the first place for me that gave me a little insite into the ingenuity of the Inca´s and their engineering ability - truly astonishing how they can build something so perfect on the top of a mountain.

The Valley itself is beautiful - stacked top to toe with rows and rows of terraces built hundreds of years ago for the Inca´s to keep their livestock and cultivate their crops. It´s not that hard to imagine how they lived as contrary to nearly every other place in the world things really haven´t changed that much around these parts. People are still living hand to mouth here, farming for their food, weaving clothes to wear and living in small communities with whole family groups. It really is like a step back in time but then you look around and see the tour buses and think that maybe the gringo trail really isn´t that great a thing for the people.

From the town of Ollantaytumbo we caught the train to Agua Calientes (literal translation is Hot Water - so called because of the natural hot springs here) where we would stay that night and get up the next morning at stupid o´clock in order to make our way up to Machu Picchu in time to see the sun rise over the site and watch the clouds disappear in front of our very eyes........yeah right! We got up there at 6.00 and waited for the gates to open at 7 - so far so good, then we went in and begsn our guided tour and then the heavens opened and continued to stay open for the next 4 hours by which time we admitted defeat and made our way back to town, cold, wet and bedraggled! That however is not to say that we didn´t see anything - the site itself is pretty amazing. Again you wonder in amazement how they managed to build such a perfect city at the top of a mountain, complete with a still perfectly working water and drainage system. Dating from around the 15th century it was built by an Inca king, Emperor Pachacuti, as a centre for ritual (or at least that´s waht the experts say anyway). It was not discovered again until 1911 by a gentleman called Hiram Bingham who was on a search for the lost cities of the Incas. The Inca´s kept its location secret from the maurading spaniards who would almost certainly have destroyed it had they discovered it on their colonial conquest as a lesson to the Inca´s and as a way of keeping them in line as well as converting them to catholicism and abandoning their worship of the sun and moon. So there you go - now you know.

Back to the site - its huge! Even though it was cloudy and wet you still get to see amazing things. I thought it was beautiful - the mist made it seem dark and brooding but utterly inticing. Every so often a cloud would drift and you would get glimpses of the nearby mountains and a glimpse of the valley below emphasising once again the feat of their engineering ability. My only regreat was that I didn´t get to climb Wayna Picchu which is the mountain inside the site and is the place where you can take those picture perfect photographs that make the site as world famous as it is today - alas the weather was not keeping its part of the bargain. Guess it means I´ll just had to come back again some other time.....preferably in the dry season! Anyway - wet or dry its an amazing place and definitely worth the visit.

Back to Cusco - apart from drinking what can you do? Well it has the usual musuems and churches which are worth a visit - just buy the tourist ticket which gives you access to all the main sights and it works out that little bit cheaper. There are several markets around town although you need a strong stomach for some of them....but really interesting all the same. The countryside around the town is ideal for walking and hiking and of course the nightlife and restaurant scene is jumping.

I spent a total of 3 weeks in Cusco getting to know the place and working in the aforementioned hostel, on the whole....apart from the stomach issues I have to say I enjoyed it (but surprising amount of drugs around the place). Final thought...... I really must work on the willpower to say `no` to a night out every now and then.

My usual name thing....Carlos, Andrew, slightly scary Courtney, Avi, Dan, Tim, Patricia, Zara, Andrea, Aimee, not so scary Courtney and Christian.

So first stop in Peru was to be Arequipa and not a bad stop at that! After an introduction to 2nd class (crap) bus services and a 3 hour wait stranded in the middle of the night on a godforsaken end of the earth type road, with the local women praying that bandits weren´t going to turn up and rob, strangle and eat us (I kid you not......well maybe not the eating bit) we eventually arrived in Arequipa at 4 in the morning and then had to find somewhere to stay......but as luck would have it our taxi driver took us around to his mate´s house and woke him and his family up in order to make up our room bless their little cotton socks.

A couple of hours later (or at least it seemed that way) time to get up and explore our surroundings. The city itself is very quaint with the usual churches and museums and is also the place most people come to to arrange trips and hikes to the Canyon del Colca or as us gringos refer to it - the Colca Canyon, one of the deepest in the world (more so than the Grand Canyon) and famed for the regular morning appearance of the Andean Condor.

We opted for a 2 day 1 night trip to take in the local surrounding villages, markets, stunning scenery on the way through and of course the condors as well as the by now common llamas, picunas and alpacas (all handy for making a woolly jumper out of and eating!). The landscape on the way varies wildly from day 1 to day 2, day 1 is barren scrub and rolling mountains with views of the Volcano Misti and stops at various miradors (lookouts to you and me) on the way through until you descend from the dizzy height of around 5000m to the village of Chivay at 3633m. It is here the terraces the Inca´s are famous for begin to be seen with the river snaking through the valleys thousands of metres below -beautiful.

Chivay itself is a small andean town which (you´ll love this) has an Irish pub! My god - what is this world coming to? I managed to avoid the temptation and after taking a shower by candlelight (yep the power cut out) we all headed out to dinner and to watch some traditional Peruvian folk dancing. Have to say the candlelight gave it that little bit of extra atmostphere and the dancing, if somewhat unusual was entertaining, particularly the one where the bloke goes round trying to hit the woman with what looks like a big sausage (control those minds people.....) but basically is a cyclindrical shaped bag filled with sand - and bloody hurts when it gets you as I was to find out some weeks later! So off to bed with folk music ringing in my ears - a 5.00 start the next morning ensured an enforced early night.

Next morning a quick breakfast and then back to the bus in order to make it to the Canyon del Colca and La Cruz del Condor, the highpoint of the trip and a wonderful reminder of the beauty of nature and all that entails. A mere 2 hours from Chivay will bring you to the mirador where around 8.30 in the morning the condors rise on the warm thermal airs and circle a mere 5 or 10m above you - a completely mesmerising sight it has to be said. I was lucky enough to be sat on a rock about 10m away from where a condor landed and preened himself, basically showed off for those watching - he spread his wings, plucked a few feathers, then turned around did the same, closed his wings and sat there staring at us with his beady little eyes. He must have been there a good 10 minutes (and 100 photos later) which was perfect - don´t think I´ll ever get to see anything like that up close again (unless I take up twitching that is). As I mentioned before the Canyon is one of the deepest in the world and is formed by an enormous fault between the Coropuna (6425m) and Ampato (6325m) volcanoes. In fact on the way there you´ll see signs warning of seismic activity - very encouraging........especially when you can look over the edge of the road you´re driving on and look down several thousand feet knowing a slight miscalculation could perhaps end up being a serious one!

So that was the Canyon and the Condors - a complete bargain at $18 including accommodation. Highly recommended!

Back to Arequipa - one of the most beautiful cities in Peru. What else there is to do? As mentioned before lots of churches and museums but are they worth investigating? Well in a word - yes. The Santa Catalina Convent is here and although a bit of a steep entry price at 30 soles, it is definitley worth exploring. It´s been in business as a cloister for just over 400 years before opening its doors nearly 40 years ago to the public. Inside it has been restored to almost perfection and with a maze like setup and named streets it is a minature city within a city. With colourful courtyards and flower covered patios it is an oasis of peace and tranquilty. There are still some nuns living here but as they live a cloistered life we don´t see them and they don´t see us. If you´re not sure what a cloister is basically when you enter as a nun that´s it - the only people you see are your fellow nuns, all transactions with the outside world are conducted via screens and rolling screens to allow the transfer of goods - you are even buried inside. So beware! Other holy things.....the cathedral is extremely ornate, the art galleries of the nearby San Franciso church are full of holy art and the locals themselves seem to strictly observe catholicism (more than me anyway....).

Museums - (although I didn´t go myself because the girl I´m about to describe was in the fridge at the time) the Museo Santuarios Andinos where you can see the famous "Juanita, La Niña de los Hielos", (the girl of/in the ice) a 550 year old Inca girl who was sacrificed in her childhood. Her body was found in 1995 by mountaineers in the ice on the summit of a nearby volcano and she has been preserved for all the world to see. Her discovery gave up a lot of information about the practices of the time, in particular of course that of human sacrifice.

Well - that was Arequipa, not a bad start to Peru! Next stop Cusco.