Road To Cusco

  Arequipa, Peru
Monday, June 9, 2008

And so after leaving Lima at lunchtime our group headed south on a bus for 6 hours towards our first of a few destinations en route to Cusco;

Peruvian Boobies

PARACAS -  Nothing much to this coastal town but it was to be our base for a tour of the Ballestas Islands.  We were up mega early to catch our boat around the islands and I was told I was guaranteed to see Peruvian boobies which I was particularly excited about - except my guaranteed Peruvian boobies turned out to be just a type of bird.  There were lots of birds and sea lions on the Ballestas Islands and it was a nice little trip.

PISCO - Famous above all for the Pisco sour, the Peruvian national drink, although we learnīt that this is hotly contested with Chile who claim it to be their national drink causing much debate and rivalry between the two countries.  We had lunch here and then went on a tour of a Pisco vineyard and saw the brewing process before having a pisco tasting session.  The large earthquake from August 2007 hit this area of Peru and there is still evidence of the quake with buildings still under construction.  However I also heard that houses arenīt taxed if theyīre incomplete so there are a lot of incomplete houses around for this reason also.

Dune Buggying

Return Of The Sand Surfer

ICA - Stop off town on the way to Nazca, where there are some huge sand dunes and we took some dune buggies around the place.  This really surprised me at how exhilarating this was, like a roller coaster on sand with more chance of falling off.  This was really cool and after this I did some sand surfing too.

NAZCA - Town within the northern section of the Atacama desert famous for the Nazca lines.  These are thought to have been created by the ancient Nazcans around 900 BC, but were only found in modern times when commercial airlines started crossing Nazca in the 1920īs.  Quite fascinating history behind the lines, especially with their alignment with the sun and stars, but just like the English crop circles phenomenon their is lots of intrigue about how they built these massive shapes including an astronaut, a humming bird, a condor, a monkey, a parrot and a spider.  We went up in a 4 seater Cessna, smallest plane Iīd ever been in and the flight alone was fantastic as I sat in the front seat next to the pilot, but viewing the lines from the air was really awesome too.

Monkey

Humming Bird

Condor

AREQUIPA - Second largest city in Peru and also known as the white city because of the many buildings made of white stone.  Nice little city with the most taxis Iīd ever seen and some nice restaurants and cafes, but other than the main square and the monastery there wasnīt a great deal to see in the city (although I had a good night out here too and Belge our guide taught me how to salsa here - wont be repeating that performance again anytime soon).  Also of note was that in Arequipa, and most of Peru for that matter, I had been having 3 course dinners for just 20 soles (about 4 quid) - absolute bargain. 

Colca Canyon

COLCA CANYON - The real reason for heading to Arequipa was to use it as a base to go to the Colca Canyon.  It took 4 hours to reach the canyon with various stops, first of all at a cafe where we had coca tea.  Earlier on the bus Iīd had my first taste (or should I say chew) of the coca leaves that the Peruvians who live at high altitude swear by.  The coca leaf, which you couldnīt legally take out of the country, is rolled into a ball with some brittle stone and then placed in the corner of your mouth or chewed until the leafs properties come out.  It was supposed to help with altitude adjustment and digestion but didnīt do much for me - the tea was better.  As I said the Peruvians swear by it though and it has been proven to enhance work rate, and at a time was worth more than gold due to the reliance on coca leaves by workers in the mining industry.

Alpaca

On arriving at our overnight accommodation we had a buffet lunch of various local foods including banana fritters and alpaca stronganoff (alpaca being a kind of lama - very cute animal but also very tasty).  In the afternoon after digesting the very nice lunch we headed on a 40 minute walk up to the thermal pools where we all relaxed in the hot pools watching the sunset.  In the evening we went to a restaurant that put on a traditional Peruvian music and dance show for us and I tucked into more alpaca, this time an alpaca steak.

Condor

We were all up at 6am the following morning to head to the canyon proper to see the condors gliding on the early morning thermals.  Itīs amazing to see these majestic birds gliding through the canyon with very little movement from their wings and we were told by our guide Jamie that they do this everyday between 8 and 10 am (... and then they presumably head of for tea and biscuits).  The canyon itself was amazing to see too as itīs the second deepest canyon in the world reaching a depth of 3140 metres which is twice as deep as the grand canyon.  We were told that part of the canyon forms where the amazon river starts too.   After lunch we headed back towards Arequipa traveling past the canyons highest altitude point of 4,900 metres and also a section where ice has formed making for a strange visual image of ice and dessert.

Barbed Wire Peruvian Style

Ice And Desert

Me At The Canyon

Next stop would be Cusco and the Inca trail which was a short flight away ......