Mysterious, Adventure and muchos turistos
Trip Start
Jan 12, 2008
1
35
41
Trip End
Jan 15, 2009
Cusco,
Peru
Saturday, July 12, 2008
So, We caught a bus down from Lima and as we were researching tickets every vender was telling us about this thing they called "El Paro" (Literal translation - The stop) which is a protest throughout the entire Peru on there independence day where everyone protests about the government.. And nothing in unison.. Anything about the government as I understood it... Anyway, a few of the bus companies were not running because of it and we found a few that were and they, as they always do, reassured us by telling us what we wanted to hear, and said "it wont be a problem".. Let me tell you.. It was! Maybe not that day but our bus journey was supposed to be a 21 hour overnight bus journey to arrive us in Cuzco around 1:00pm the next day... Well we arrived at midnight because at around 6:30 in the morning, we ran into our first road block and protest in a little town in the middle of nowhere... They weren't agitated - yet.. and we ended up bribing them - 1 sol (30 cents) each, between all the passengers, to get through their road block... We ended up having a good chat with the other passengers in our cabin and were told we had another three towns to get through yet.. We had no such luck at the next town and ended up waiting there until around 6:00pm until the protest died down... Other bus companies arrived to where we were waiting with words painted all over them and paint on the windscreen and they had had a much harder time getting through the Paro that we bribed our way through...
01 Protest - El Paro in the first town
We got going again, but it was a bit dangerous as all traffic was supposed to be stopped for the 24 hours of that day and people didnt take very nicely to people ignoring their protest rules... There was one point when the hostess for the bus came running into the cabin, rushing to tell everyone to close the curtains as we drove through some town... As we kept moving, people began to throw rocks at the side of the bus which made a huge noise from the inside! Anyway.. Most of the way to Cuzco from that point, we were dodging rocks and logs that had been left on the roads which was slow going... We made it to Cuzco - by midnight!!!!!!!! Yay... Only 11 hours late! And saw a number of large dints in the side of the bus which I imagine wont be coming out anytime soonAfter our arduous 31hour bus trip through riots and protestors from Lima, we arrived to Cusco over 12 hours late!! Cusco is a beautiful touristy town and is of course full of tourists, hasslers, tourist agencies and more tourists - the kind of temporary tourists that come for a week or two with there fancy pants and rolly suit cases. Being over 3000m high in altitude it is rather nippy but does create a stunning backdrop with clear crisp blue skies. We decided that wanted to do two tours whilst in Cusco - Macchu Picchu of course and white water rafting. The Famous Inca trail has been booked out for months so Joe and I settled on this hike called Santa Maria, where on the first day you mountain bike for 6 hours and then hike for 2 days to Aguas Calientes (the town at the base of Macchu Picchu). The hike itself wasn't too impressive having just done Santa Cruz but the company we had was great. Joe and I also got to taste the famous Coca leaves with the stimulant, a black gooey stuff. It is awesome, this stuff really works, and I found it so much easier to walk up the hills at high altitude!! We really lived it up on this hike, staying in Hostals and eating at restaurants the whole time. We even got to spend a glorious evening floating in beautifully clean hot springs!! Arriving in Aguas Calientes we had a little sleep before getting up at 3.30 in the morning for the hike up the hill to Macchu Picchu. It felt like we were caught in a trail of very anxious, competitive ants as we made our way to the top. We lined up with the other 300 000 (yeap - no exageration) tourists and made our way inside.
Due to the massive amounts of tourists that come through Macchu Picchu daily, they have set restrictions on climbing Wynapicchu. Wyn (I will call it for short) is the mountain in the background of nearly all the Macchu Picchu postcards. Only 400 people are allowed each day, so we bypassed our tour guide and went straight to line up for this lil bit of adventure. We were told that about a week ago a tourist fell to his death from this mountain, so that was encouraging news. Anyway we climbed about a million stairs straight up the side of the mountain for about 45 minutes arriving to some Inca platforms. The views were amazing. The heights staggering. The very top of the mountain was covered in hoards of people spread across the massive boulders which call this magnificent place home. I had wondered whether or not Macchu Picchu would be all it is said to be. I can now honestly say it is magnificent. The views are amazing, the heights death defying to us Aussies who live at sea level. What amazing people the Incas were to create and live in this place. Even on the top of the mountain they have running water!! AMAZING
We met some amazing people on this hike who just made the experience all that much better!!
Our next and my favourite adventure so far was white water rafting for 3 days and 2 nights down the Apuraimac Canyon. We decided on River Explorer (a tour agency) partly because Joe had met a really great Maltese couple before booking who were going with them at the same time. They would also be filming and taking pictures for us as we went. I was a little nervous of this adventure being that I had never done rafting before and that we would be doing levels 1-5 rapids. Sounded a little scary to me, especially since this agency has an advertisement picture of a boat standing up right and people falling out. But off we went.
I felt immediately at ease when our 5 guides came on the bus and introduced themselves. They were all hilarious, reminding me of the Aussies that try anything and get away with it. Arriving at the drop in point we had an awesome fried rice lunch and then slipped into our completely sexy wet suits, spray jackets and life jackets - oh and don't forget helmet. We jumped in the boat and then jumped out of the boat to practice rescue techniques. The water was freezing!!!
White water rafting is amazing and everyone should do it. We spent the first day doing level 1-3 which were fun but not scary rapids and found our way to our first nights campsite. I thought all our other hikes had great food, tents and what have you. Well I was blown away. Not only were our tents massive, our guides had bought a toilet seat and made a nice toilet for us. The food was incredible. We had BBQ this first night, with delicious chicken and beef cooked over an open fire, plus, salads, soup and teas and all sorts of other things. AMAZING
The stars were clear as I have ever seen and we woke up the next morning to bright sun and our guides bent over tables styling fruit salad, porridge, bread and yogurt. What a great start to today's rafting!! Another day of a little more extreme rapids and fun.
We woke up the next morning to PANCAKES...
02 Cuzco
can you believe it. Today was our final day and we were to complete level 5 rapids before the day was out. I was pretty excited cause I had loved the rapid so far. Well what a hoot. We had so much fun bumping our way down the river. Our guide Frank would make things a little more exciting by running us into rocks and over bigger rapids!! We did a few drops on the boat which were fun. ¨Get Down, Get Down, forward forward, back paddle, get to the left, get to the right¨. There you go some rafting commands for you.
We just finished our level 5 rapid when Frank asked us if we would like to jump off a cliff (about 10 m high) into the river. We were all keen so up we climbed. Joe and a few others jumped off first. Then came my turn. I was sooo nervous, the last time I had jumped off a cliff was to impress Joe and I had ended up with a huge Wedgie and bruises so I wasn't that keen. But I went up to the ledge with the help of Frank who was holding me steady by my life jacket. They started to count me down when the camera broke, so I had to wait a few more seconds. YIKES I was getting nervous. So they counted me down again and when they got to # one, Frank still had not let go so I yelled ¨Let me go¨ as he let me go I took a step, slipped and started to fall off the edge, frank caught me by my life jacket but couldn't hold on. So down I fell with a nice little scream!! I back slammed into the water. I surfaced feeling a little dazed and wobbly to see good old Noel our safety kayaker who came and got me and took me to the boats!! So I survived and have a great little video of it all!!!
We then continued down the water to level 2 rapids which we floated down, just us in the water. Man we all thought we would drown ahahaha, it was great fun though!! What a bang to end our trip. When we got back to Cusco we watched the video in a club and had a great time.
All in all this was my favourite trip. Our guides were amazing and I loved every minute.
03 First day to Machu Picchu on bikes
We are now off to Riberalta in Bolivia.. Our bus leavers Cusco tonight for La Paz (the capital of Bolivia) where one of Miks friends will pick us up from the bus station (first class treatment baby!) and help us find flights with the various companies around...I would love to show you piccies of the white water rafting but, they gave us the photos on a disc so it is a matter of finding a computer over here that has a disc drive... Soon... I´ll put them up soon...
Over and out, Love Joe and Katie
