First of all, after a gruelling bus journey from Huaraz (which left me sleeping for about 20 hours after we reached our destination), we went to Huacachina (near Ica) - literally an oasis in the desert. It is a little village built around a lake in the middle of tall and impressive sand dunes. Very touristy, as you can imagine. We spent one afternoon visiting the wineries of Ica: we tasted pisco (the local spirit, very similar to vodka I guess) and local red, white and sparkling wines. While Pisco can hold its own, neither of us were very impressed with Peruvian wine. I guess we'll stick with the occasional (yeah, right!) glass of Chilean or Argentinian wine while we're out here.
Anyway, back in Huacachina, we also went on a "dune buggy" tour, which was really good fun. You are basically driven around the desert, up and down huge fat sand dunes, in a car which looks like that...
... and it feels like being on a roller coster! One of the other tourists in the buggy was actually sick. The poor guy was sitting right at the front.While driving around the desert, we also made a couple of stops to do some sand boarding. You basically lie down, head first, on something very similar to a snow board and go down a very steep slope (given that you can't slide down on sand as fast as you do on snow, the incline of the slope needs to be quite steep if you're going to get down to the bottom). Unfortunately it's hard to get a real impression of how steep the descent was on a photo, but here I am in action for the record:
Finally, before heading back we were treated to a stunning sunset:
After Huacachina, we took a bus to Arequipa, the second largest city in Peru, which also boasts some stunning colonial buildings. We didn't get up to very much there apart from walking around the city, drinking good coffee and eating cakes, and visiting the "Juanita Museum". "Juanita" was a Peruvian girl, 12 to 14 years of age, who was sacrificed and buried on top of Mount Ampato about 500 years ago. She was discovered in 1995, her body perfectly conserved. It was a common Inca ritual to sacrifice children of noble blood (never older than 15) as a gift to the mountain gods, asking for their mercy (especially as local volcano eruptions were concerned!) . On top of "Juanita" (although not literally), another 18 children were found buried atop of volcanoes in Peru, Argentina and Chile - having died and been buried in the same conditions.After a couple of days in Arequipa, we headed over to Cusco, the base city to go off and see the world renowned Machu Picchu. Cusco is nice enough but incredibly touristy. Around the Plaza de Armas, every step you take you are asked if you want a tour, a restaurant, a massage... we hadn't been harrassed like this since visiting the north of Vietnam. It gets a bit weary after a while!
We booked a 4 days/3 nights trek to get to Machu Picchu. We left on Thursday last week and the first day consisted in a 4 hours drive followed by 3 hours' mountain-biking downhill to get to the small town of Santa Maria, where we spent the first night. We were in a small group of very nice people: Anat and Nadav (a PHD student and psychologist from Tel Aviv); Gloria (she was from Lima, working for a law magazine. It was great to be able to practice our Spanish with her, but she spoke incredibly fast - especially for someone who was so tiny!); and Svente (a Swedish investment banker who lives in London). Here we all are...
On the second day we trekked for about 7 hours. We got some breathtaking views of the surrounding canyons before heading into the jungle; it was a nice change, walking in a jungley forest when the last treks we had done had been high up in the mountains.On the evening of the first night, after we had reached the (once again small and remote) town of Santa Teresa, two Australian girls - Linda and Felicity - and two Brasilian/Japanese guys - Flavio and Mauro - joined our group for the rest of the trek. After dinner, our guide treated Gary to a birthday drink called a "Machu Picchu": layers of lime, pisco, grenadine and mint. He did drink it in one go but said it was disguting... happy birthday, Gary!
This was actually the night before Gary's birthday, but it was more convenient to go out and celebrate then rather than on the actual evening of his big day because we were to get up early the next day to visit Machu Picchu.So on day 3, we had a 3 hours' long and rather dull walk along railway tracks and we reached the town of Aguas calientes, which is right at the bottom of Machu Picchu, at lunchtime. After a big meal, we set of in the afternoon to climb up this baby:
It's a mountain called Putucusi, located right next to the Machu Picchu mountain. To reach the top you need to go up steep (and rather scary) ladders like the one in the picture below, and climb endless stone steps. All in all, a pretty physical and sweaty walk up...
... however once you reached the top, you are rewarded with views like these:
(that's Machu Picchu up there in the distance!)
We got back to Aguas Calientes early in the afternoon, legs slightly exhausted from all the walking up and down steps of the past couple of days. We hung around most of the afternoon waiting for our train/bus back, and were back in Cusco at 10.00 pm last night. So all in all a rather long day! But we were happy with the trek overall, and would definitely recommend it to people who do not want to pay the $500-$800 that is charged to do the famous Inca Trail!So, what's next? Well, we decided we fancied a bit of a change from the Andean Mountains landscapes we've been visiting in the past few months. So we are now headed for Brasil! We are taking a bus to La Paz tonight (we will be crossing Bolivia to reach Brasil).
More news soon, until then, take care!
C.
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