Arequipa and Colca Canyon

I arrived in Arequipa on Sunday evening after a 10-hour bus ride from Cuzco. I'm staying in Hostal Sol de Oro, which is a much smaller hostel than the huge place I stayed in in Cuzco, and I much prefer it. Arequipa itself is a pleasant city, perhaps not quite as attractive as Cuzco, but much less touristy.

On Monday I saw the sights of Arequipa, including the massive Cathedral in Arequipa's own Plaza de Armas (below).

I also went for a walk around the Santa Catalina monastery, which was founded in 1580 and is like a town within the city (there are some pictures here, here and here).

I then booked myself on a 3-day trek into Colca Canyon, which at 3191m is the second deepest canyon in the world (the deepest is the nearby Cotahuasi Canyon). I got an early night on Monday, because the following morning I was picked up by minibus at 3:30am for the start of the trip. There were two others from my hostel also on the trip - Margot from France, and Markus from Germany - as well as Chris and Joanne, a Liverpudlian fireman and his girlfriend, both on career breaks.

Our first stop was Cruz del Cóndor, which is the spot at which condors fly out of the canyon at about 9am every day (this was the reason for the early start). The condors did make an appearance as expected, but they didn't come particularly close to me, so this was about the best photo I got of them.

We then drove to Cabanaconde, a small town at the edge of the canyon, where we had lunch, and we also witnessed schoolchildren staging a strange protest. They all seemed to be protesting about different things, so I guess it was some kind of a school project.

After lunch we began the trek down to the bottom of the canyon. This is the view we got from the top, and a few hours later, this is the view we got from the bottom. We then continued walking along the bottom of the canyon until we reached our lodgings for the night in a village called San Juan de Chuccho. We stayed in very basic adobe huts with only candles for lighting, and not a lot of other amenities. They did have a good view though.

The following day involved just three hours of walking along fairly flat terrain, only passing through a few small villages, to our second hostel in Sangalle. Below is a view of Sangalle, and on the left of this photo you can also see the zigzag path out of the canyon that awaited us the following day.

If our rooms were basic the previous night, they were beyond basic this time - bamboo huts erected directly onto the ground, with no lighting at all. However, the hostel did have a swimming pool, and we were expecting to spend the afternoon relaxing here. However, due to the 15C temperatures and heavy rain, that didn't happen. After an hour or two of sitting around wondering if the weather was going to improve, some of the guides suggested a game of football, Peruvians vs Gringos, and we took them up on their offer. The rain got even heavier, and the pitch turned into a mudbath, but I'm pleased to report that the gringos won 5-4.

The following morning we woke at 5am to begin the climb out of the canyon back up to Cabanaconde. This was obviously the most difficult part of the trek, and the fact that we had to do it before breakfast seemed pretty crazy to all of us, but we didn't have a lot of choice. We completed the climb in about two hours, and were treated to a view of the mountains around the canyon with a fresh dusting of snow. This is a picture of the five of us with Verónica, our guide, at the top of the canyon.

It was at about this point that I started to feel ill, so I didn't enjoy the rest of the trip so much. After breakfast in Cabanaconde, we were driven to some hot springs near another town called Chivay, where most of us took a dip (although since I was feeling ill I didn't). After lunch we were taken back to Arequipa.

This evening I'm catching an overnight bus to Lima - it's a 16-hour journey, which I'm not really looking forward to, because I'm still not feeling particularly great. I'm taking it easy this afternoon, and hopefully I'll be OK by this evening.

Cuzco

I've spent all week in Cuzco since returning from Machu Picchu. I've been attending Spanish lessons every afternoon, which means that I haven't had much spare time, but I have managed to see the main sights of Cuzco, including the Cathedral (below) and the Iglesia de la Compañia de Jesus in the Plaza de Armas, as well as the Iglesia de Santa Domingo, which is built on top of the remains of the Inca temple Qorikancha.

I also found time to visit Sacsayhuamán, which is an Inca fort and the nearest archaeological ruin to Cuzco (just 2km up the hill). The Inca leader Pachacutec envisioned the city of Cuzco as being in the shape of a puma, and Sacsayhuamán's zigzag walls formed the teeth. It had some impressive examples of stonework, which I've also seen in other Inca constructions around the city. There were good views of Cuzco (below), including the Plaza de Armas.

I've now completed my twenty hours of 1-on-1 Spanish lessons at a language school called Proyecto Peru. My teacher was Carina - she was very friendly, but she did have a tendency to ask very personal questions in the interest of practising conversational Spanish. Some examples of the less personal conversations we had (in Spanish) are Peruvian politics, the UK general election, the Spanish civil war, the plot of the movie Avatar, abortion, witches, magic, and the differing merits of South American women (she had a particularly low opinion of Colombian women). To be honest I was surprised I was able to have conversations in Spanish on any of those subjects.

Carina has been encouraging me to try the local foods, so I've been ticking them off one by one. So far I've had chicarrón (fried pork belly), rocoto relleno (spicy pepper stuffed with ground beef and vegetables), ceviche (a spicy lime-marinated seafood dish served cold), and pollo a la brasa (charcoal-cooked chicken with french fries). I haven't yet tried cuy (guinea pig), but I may take the plunge this evening.

For my final lesson this afternoon we left the school and went to what Carina called a 'mercado negro' to see a bit more of Cuzco life. I always thought 'black market' was an expression rather than a physical place, but apparently this was an actual black market, where most of the goods on sale were stolen. My only purchase was La Fiesta Del Chivo, a novel by the Peruvian author Mario Vargas Llosa, which Carina suggested I buy (unsurprisingly the book was a facsimile rather than a genuine copy).

My Spanish has definitely improved a lot, but I've still got a long way to go, and I may do some more lessons later in my trip.

I'm off to Arequipa early tomorrow morning, so this is my last night in Cuzco.

Salkantay Trail to Machu Picchu

I arrived in Cuzco last night, and I've booked myself on a 5-day trek along the Salkantay Trail to Machu Picchu. The Salkantay Trail is a longer and more challenging alternative to the Inca Trail, which is always booked up weeks in advance.

I leave early tomorrow morning and return late on Monday night, so hopefully I'll tell you all about it on Tuesday. The cost of this trek is suspiciously low (about US$200 compared to the US$450 that the first trekking company quoted me), so I'm not really sure what to expect...

EDIT: OK, I've been back now for a couple of days now and have just about had time to recover. Firstly, to address the issue of the price, I needn't have worried because $200 is the going rate for treks booked in Cuzco (although it definitely didn't buy luxury). $450 is way over the odds, and I don't know what extra that would have bought me. Right, it's time to write about the trek.

It was a 4am start on day 1. I was picked up by bus from my hostel, and the bus took us to the start of the trek in a small town called Mollepata. It was there that I met the other members of my group (all 16 of them, a lot more than I was expecting). The group included people from many parts of the world (Australia, USA, Israel, Brazil, Argentina, Germany, France and the UK), but the person that immediately stood out was Adrian, who I soon learnt was an Argentinian-born American living in Miami, where he drives a taxi for a living. Adrian turned up dressed in army fatigues (he served in the US army until 2005) and carrying his big backpack containing all of the belongings he'd brought on his trip, which turned out to be a big mistake (everyone else left most of their things in their hotel). Adrian was a very funny guy and kept us all laughing even when we were suffering (and when he was suffering even more).

Day 1 was a hard day, involving about 20km of walking and a vertical ascent of nearly 1km up to Soraypampa. The scenery was spectacular, particularly as we approached the snow-capped Mt Salkantay itself. It was a particularly hard day for me, because I'd caught a cold a couple of days before the start of the trek and wasn't feeling 100%. I completely lost my appetite, but forced myself to eat lunch anyway, and as a result I felt sick for the whole afternoon. In the end it was probably the hardest day of physical exercise I've ever had, and I only just managed to stagger up the last hundred metres to the campsite at the foot of the Umantay glacier. Needless to say, it was a freezing night and I didn't get much sleep.

Day 2 was billed as the hardest day, because it involved a 4-hour uphill climb to the highest point of the trek, the 4600m Salkantay pass. It was a tough morning, but as I was feeling a bit better it wasn't as bad for me as the first day. Here's a group photo taken in front of Mt Salkantay before the climb got serious, here's me at the highest point, and below is a photo of Mt Salkantay as I saw it from the pass.

It was five hours downhill from that point, which wasn't much easier on the legs. The scenery continued to look like something out of Lord of the Rings. We descended to our campsite at Challway, which at an altitude of 2920m was slightly warmer than the previous night's (at 3200m), but still I didn't get much sleep.

Day 3 was jungle day, as we descended into completely different scenery, including a large waterfall. There was only half a day of walking, so once we reached our lunch spot at Playa Sahuayaco, a minibus took us to our third campsite at Santa Teresa. It was an extremely uncomfortable ride - they managed to cram 22 people into a minibus with 15 seats (although strictly speaking three of those people were on the minibus rather than in the minibus). I would rather have walked. At least there were a few more facilities in Santa Teresa, so I was able to have my first shower of the trek.

Day 4 was the hot day, as we were at comparatively low altitudes. After about an hour's walking we had to cross Rio Urubamba in a cable car - unfortunately every other group following the same route had to do that too, and we were at the back of the queue, so we had a two-hour wait for our turn to cross. Shortly afterwards, we passed an amazing waterfall coming directly out of the cliff face - I'd never seen anything like that before - quickly followed by another even bigger one. At Hidro Electrica the route joined the railway to Aguas Calientes, but fortunately we only had to dodge one train. We also passed an unreal-looking group of boulders in the river (the photo doesn't really convey how weird it looked). We finally arrived in civilisation in the early evening, where we were thankful to be able to sleep in a proper bed for the first time in four days.

However, we didn't get much sleep because we were woken at 3:30am the following day to allow us to get to Machu Picchu when it opened at 6am. Most of the group chose to walk up, but I'd been advised to get the bus, and I think I made the right decision, because it's a horribly steep walk. I was in the queue for the bus before 4:30am, even though they don't start leaving until 5:30am. I got on the third bus to leave, and arrived at Machu Picchu just before 6am, where I met up with the others. Our guide, Reynaldo, then gave us a two-hour guided tour of the ruins. Here's a picture of some of the group during the tour. I then climbed up to the House of the Guardians to get the famous view of the city, below.

There are some other photos here and here, and of the Temple of the Condor here.

At 10am we began the climb up Wayna Picchu, which is the mountain in the background of the famous view of Machu Picchu. This gave us some amazing views, including this one looking back towards Machu Picchu. And below is a picture of Machu Picchu and me, taken near the top of Wayna Picchu.


I walked back down to Aguas Calientes at 2pm, after about eight hours at Machu Picchu. Our train to Ollantaytambo wasn't until 9:45pm, so we had a long wait. I met up with some of the others in Aguas Calientes, and we spent most of the afternoon eating and drinking until it was time to catch our train. I finally arrived back at my hostel in Cuzco at 2am. I was aching in my neck, back, legs, feet, and pretty much everywhere else, but it was worth it because I got to see Machu Picchu, and anyway the pain and discomfort are a distant memory now. Looking back on it now, it was a pretty great experience.

I'm going to be staying in Cuzco for the rest of the week (and maybe longer) while I take some Spanish lessons. I'll write some more about that in my next post.

Puno

I've now arrived in Puno, which is my first stop in Peru, on the opposite shore of Lake Titicaca from Copacabana. There's not very much to see in Puno itself, so the reason most visitors come to the city is to tour the nearby Islas Flotantes (Floating Islands) of the Uros people. The islands are unique in the world, and are built using layers of reeds - the reeds rot from the bottom, so a new layer is added to the top every couple of weeks.

I duly booked myself on the tour, and it was interesting, but it was also one of the most shamelessly touristy things I've ever done. Lonely Planet describes the islands as like a reed Disneyland, which isn't far from the truth.

After a half an hour boat trip we disembarked at one of the 50 or so islands, where we were greeted by about ten Uros people in traditional dress. Firstly two men gave us an explanation of how the islands are built, even building a model to help us understand (one of them joked that they have to anchor the islands to the lake bed to avoid them floating into Bolivia).

One of the families then invited me into their house, where they were happy to pose for photos.

Predictably enough, the hard sell of the souvenirs then began, although they were polite enough when I declined to buy their handiwork. I managed to escape long enough to take another photo from their lookout post.

At the end the island's inhabitants gathered to sing us some songs in a variety of languages (the English song was Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star). That was a bit much to take, and it made me think that these people probably are being exploited by the tour companies.

In the afternoon I had my first South American haircut, and despite a few communication difficulties, I was very impressed. I've never had someone take so much care when cutting my hair - he spent half an hour on it, and it cost me the princely sum of 3 soles (about 70p). In London they'd do it in a third of the time and charge more than ten times as much.

Tomorrow morning I leave for Cuzco, where I'll try to book myself on a trek to Machu Picchu.

Copacabana & Isla del Sol

After watching the general election results on the BBC on Thursday night, the following morning I took the bus from La Paz to Copacabana, which is a resort by the shore of Lake Titicaca, the largest high-altitude lake in the world. There are a few Inca remains in the town, including the Horca del Inca astronomical observatory, which I climbed up to see.

In the afternoon I walked up Cerro Calvario, a nearby hill, which gave me a great view of the lake.

I also got a good view of Copacabana town and of the harbour. I then stayed to watch the sunset over the lake.

The following morning I got up early to catch the boat to Isla del Sol, which is a small island about ten miles from Copacabana, and which according to Inca mythology is the birthplace of the sun. I got off the boat in the north of the island, where there are some Inca ruins, as well as the sacred 'Puma's head' rock. Well apparently some people think it looks a bit like a puma's head. Below is a picture of me near the rock.

There are also some impressive views across the lake of the Cordillera Real, part of the Andes.

After lunch I walked the entire length of the island along the ridge trail, until I reached the southern end of the island. It was about a three hour hike, a lot of it up steep hills, and considering the altitude is about 4000m, it was extremely hard work.

The island has no paved roads or motor vehicles, so this is how most goods are transported. The island is very peaceful as a result (apart from the noise of donkeys braying). It was also extremely dark during the night, due to the lack of street lighting and also because there was a new moon, so it was one of the clearest night skies I've ever seen.

I spend the night in a hostel in the southern part of the island, and the following morning I caught the boat back to Copacabana, from where I took the bus to Puno in Peru. That brought my time in Bolivia to an end, a bit prematurely because I had planned to spend time in Rurrenabaque. As a result I'm now well ahead of schedule.

By the way, I found out yesterday that the road to Rurrenabaque has been blocked for over two weeks, so I'm a bit annoyed that the lady that sold me the bus ticket chose not to tell me that. On the other hand I'm sure I'll have plenty of other opportunities to go to the jungle.

The World's Most Dangerous Road

There's been a bit of a change of plan. I was told at the last minute that my bus to Rurrenabaque had been cancelled because protesters were blocking the road, and nobody knows when the road will be clear. Also all of the flights to Rurrenabaque are fully booked for the next two days, and they're often cancelled anyway due to rain. All of this means that I've decided not to go to Rurrenabaque, because I could end up spending days waiting and still not be able to go. Instead I'm now spending a fourth day in La Paz, and tomorrow morning I'm taking the bus to Lake Titicaca about a week earlier than expected.

This also means that I've had a chance to get the CD from the biking company and upload some photos and videos. There's a photo of me near the top of the road and another of me as the weather got a bit worse. Below is a picture of us at probably the most famous spot on the road.

There's also a group photo as well as the obligatory jumping in the air photo.

Finally I've uploaded a couple of videos to YouTube. In both of these I'm the one in the orange helmet.

La Paz

I've enjoyed La Paz a lot more than I was expecting to. It's not the easiest city to explore - at 3660m above sea level and situated in a steep valley, walking around the city is seriously hard work. But the sight of the buildings clinging to the sides of the canyon is pretty amazing. I've got a good view from my hotel room, but to get a better view it's necessary to put in a bit of effort. I walked a long way up a very steep hill to bring you the following photo (there are a couple more in my May 2010 album).

If you stand in the right place, you can also get a glimpse of Mt Illamani looming over the city in the distance.

I did a bit of sightseeing on Monday and Tuesday. I saw the Palacio Legislativo, the Cathedral and the 16th century Iglesia de San Francisco. I then went to the Calle Jaén museums and the Museo de Instrumentos Musicales, which had on display a lot of strange and unique musical instruments. I also paid a visit to the Witches' Market, which among other exotic things sells dried llama foetuses - apparently locals believe that burying these under the porches of their new homes will bring them luck.

And yesterday I went for a gentle bike ride down the WMDR.

If you're wondering what the WMDR is, it's the World's Most Dangerous Road, also known as the Death Road. It leads from La Cumbre down to Coroico, and it's 39 miles long and not much wider than a single vehicle in places, with a vertical drop from one side that explains the road's name. In reality the road is nowhere near as dangerous as it used to be, because a replacement road opened in 2007, which means that the old road is now mainly used only by cyclists and support vehicles. However, there is still a risk to cyclists, and we were told that an Israeli girl died only a couple of weeks ago after going over the edge in wet and foggy conditions. We also passed numerous other memorials to people that have died on the road (before the new road opened, an average of 26 vehicles per year went over the edge).

I decided to do the WMDR trip with B-Side Adventures, which is one of the companies recommended by Lonely Planet. It was a good choice too, because there were only four in our group (me, a Russian/British girl called Jana, and two Swiss guys), whereas some of the other groups had 15 or more people with only one guide, which is surely less safe.

It was a good day out, and not particularly dangerous, because the weather conditions were good (the most frightening bit was the drive back up the road afterwards in the minibus). Our guide took some photos and videos during the day, and we were all meant to get a CD with them on, but I haven't been able to pick the CD up because I'm leaving La Paz this morning and the office isn't open yet. I'll add some of those photos if I ever get hold of them, but for now I'll just show a couple of photos of the scenery (here, below and a couple more in my May 2010 album).

On Tuesday I bought a fairly ridiculous-looking alpaca jumper, which will hopefully allow me to cope a bit better with the cold nights in the mountains. I won't need it immediately though, because later this morning I'm getting the bus to Rurrenabaque in the Amazon Basin, where heat and humidity (and mosquitoes) are more likely to be the problem than the cold. I'm told it's been raining in Rurrenabaque, which means that road conditions may be bad, so it'll be interesting to see how long the scheduled 18-hour journey actually takes.

Sucre

This post is a bit late, due to a lack of internet access again. I wrote this yesterday.

I spent the weekend in Sucre, which is Bolivia's former capital city. It's still the judicial capital, but La Paz is now the capital in every other respect. Sucre is known as La Ciudad Blanca (The White City), and you can see why from these photos of the Supreme Court, Liberty Square and the Cathedral.

I went for a step up in quality of hostel this time. For the first time I had a private room with en suite bathroom and TV, and it would have been quite relaxing if the room hadn't been so disgustingly filthy. I know I can't expect luxury for £8 a night, but it would have been nice if they'd cleaned the room.

Saturday was May 1st, which is Labour Day in Bolivia, which meant that almost everything was closed, so it probably wasn't the best day to be there. On the positive side, there were some celebrations, including a big parade through the city (see photos here and below).

On Sunday I went to a market in a village called Tarabuco, about 40 miles south-east of Sucre (photos here and below).

I didn't buy anything, but I did bump into Alessandra from the Salar de Uyuni tour while I was there.

I decided to skip Cochabamba, so I'm now in La Paz after what was probably the most unpleasant bus ride of my life. It was a 13-hour overnight journey, in near-freezing temperatures, in a bus without any heating. It was unbelievably cold. I arrived in La Paz at 5:30am, and then sat in the freezing bus station, teeth chattering, for an hour until it was a reasonable time to check into a hotel. I'm surprised I feel so good today after that ordeal - maybe it's because I'm so glad that it's over.

Potosí

On Wednesday I arrived in Potosí, which at 4070m above sea level is the highest city in the world. Potosí owes its existence to the Cerro Rico (Rich Hill), which was discovered in the 16th century to contain silver ore. Potosí became the wealthiest city in Latin America, and the Cerro Rico mines apparently underwrote the Spanish economy for two centuries.

The mountain is still being mined today, but most of the silver has gone, so these days they extract mainly zinc and tin. And best of all, tourists are now allowed to visit the mines, so that’s what I did on Thursday morning. I went on the mine tour with four of the group with which I went on the Salar de Uyuni tour (Ben from Australia, Hanno from Germany, and Tamara and Alessandra from Switzerland). Here’s a picture of me ready to go down the mine.

It seems pretty crazy that tourists are allowed to go into an active mine where miners are regularly exploding dynamite, but I guess this is how things work in Bolivia. I think the only reason the miners put up with it is because everyone that goes on a mine tour is expected to take gifts with them to give to the miners, so before our tour we were taken to a shop where we bought things like dynamite, fuses, cigarettes, coca leaves and fruit juice.

Going down the mine was a pretty hairy experience - in some places the tunnel was not much more than a metre high, and we had to keep dodging out of the way of trolleys being pushed along by the miners. We also had to jump over a couple of deep holes where the floor had caved in. And to give you an idea of how crazy things are down there, Julio (our guide and a former miner) told us that if the tunnels being dug by two rival groups of miners ever happen to coincide, one group will try to drive the other group away by burning rubber boots and even lobbing small sticks of dynamite at them.

Here’s a picture of a miner packing dynamite into the rock face. Here’s a picture of Tamara and Alessandra down the mine, and another of Julio and Alessandra after the tour.

On the way back to town we stopped to look at the view of Potosí.

We also saw the miners’ football pitch, which Julio told us was the highest football pitch in the world.

In the afternoon I went for a walk around town to see the sights of Potosí, including the Cathedral and the Plaza 10 de Novembre.

In other news, I've had to go sock shopping because the hostel laundry lost all of my socks. And I've also now shaved off my beard because it was getting too irritating. I managed to block one of the hostel washbasins in the process, but I don't feel too bad about that, because they did lose all my socks. The beard may make a reappearance later in the trip.

After spending nearly a week travelling with Ben, Hanno, Tamara and Alessandra, we’ve now gone our separate ways, and I’ve moved onto Sucre, where I’m planning to take it easy for a couple of days.