Peru hasn't failed to impress. Within a week we went from great surfing beaches, to big cities with concerts and top night clubs, to sand boarding in the desert and then two days later driving through mountains covered in snow, then hiking from over 4000 metres down into a canyon 3000 metres deep. Each place eating great food and staying in pretty nice hotels or hostels for fuck all money.
After Lima myself, Adrian moved onto Huacachina further down south to go sand boarding. Here we met up with most of the rest of are group that had gone ahead a few days earlier. They had told us what hostel they were going to and we checked in but couldn't find anyone. It was a very strange hostel indeed. The people working there were just way to over enthusiastic and very much pushing you to eat at their restaurant and do their tours. We didn't like it at all. Like the following morning when we woke up they ask us do we want breakfast, first thing. We said no and they ask us where were going what were doing etc etc and tell us to come back for lunch. Then we told them we were moving to another hostel with friends they said why and told us to bring all our friends there. Sounds simple really but it was just non stop. Travelling Asia this happens all the time but its normal there and were used to it. But in this part of the world they don't need to do it. We later found the others and they didn't really like the place either so they had also checked out. We found a nice hotel across the street with friendly staff, a pool and all for $5 per night. About a week later we realised that a lot of money, ipods, sunglasses etc had been robbed from some of the others bags here while we were sandboarding.
Huacachina is a small little oasis in the middle of the desert. More like a little pond with a number of restaurants around it. We wake up to blue blue skies and dry heat every day. Whats crazy is in New York I found very little Wifi that was free or fast around the place and the same in Ireland. My phone has Wifi so I usually just use facebook to contact people or to find out advice about where I'm going etc so always handy. Don't use it for calls or texts. In South and Central America there is Wifi everywhere and even here in the middle of the desert I could pick it up outside sitting on a bench beside the oasis. A lot of the buses in Peru even have it. Later on on the second day the Canadian girls Mallory and Amanda followed us down from Lima to do some sand boarding.
The sand boarding is crazy. Riding around in these dune buggy's at top speeds, turning crazy turns on steep massive hills of sand, bouncing around. They take you from dune to dune and then give you a board to go down. It was scary but more exciting than any roller coaster I've been on!! Some people had actual snowboards for the sand boarding but its totally different to snowboarding. People who have snowboarded before actually are at a disadvantage for it usually. To be honest most of us didn't even bother standing as lying down head first on the board makes you go way quicker. Don't know the actual height of these hills and in the pictures the size doesn't give a great perspective but some of them are scarily high especially when going down head first!! This went on for a few hours and then we stopped to watch the sunset before heading back to the hotel.
The people in Huacachina were all a bit weird. Maybe it was because they were all trying to sell something. Either over enthusiastic over nothing or something. Was hard to describe. Not dangerous in anyway though. But we felt we needed to move on so took another luxurious night bus the following night to Arequipa. We were talking about stopping off at the Nazca lines which are these massive drawings in the middle of the desert. They can only be seen from the air but when they were done back in BC or the first century or something like that they obviously didn't have planes. So nobody knows why they are there. Plus there are drawings of dogs and astronauts ands stuff which in this part of the world back then didn't exist. But anyway, we were too lazy to stop there and just sat by the pool for the day.
Funny story about when we got a taxi to go get our bus tickets. The driver asks us where we are from and we said Ireland. He then made an explosion sound and boomed his two hands together and then pretended to start firing guns off!! Talking about how dangerous it was and how a friend of his got shot of something in Belfast. I think an Irish friend yrs ago. But just goes to show the false stereotype some people will have of places like Mexico or Colombia and still people have that impression of Ireland and how dangerous they think it still is!!! He was a funny guy though.
Arequpia is another colonial city in the south. Reminded me a bit of Granada in Nicaragua or Antigua in Guatemala. Lots of high volcano's surrounding it. Some of them over 6000 metres high. The main reason we were stopping here was to do a trek through the Colca canyon the deepest canyon in the world. Now everyone has heard of the Grand Canyon in the States. This is pretty impressive and pretty deep. But its actually only 1830 metres. The Colca canyon is 4160 metres deep from top to bottom. The rest of our group, the Dutch girls and Dara from Ireland and another couple wanted to do a three day trek but we were kinda stuck on time so decided on a two day trek. This was 21km in total, 14km on the first day and 7km straight uphill on the second.
We got up at 3am and our bus started driving through desert, mountains and then snow. We stopped for breakfast, broke down for a while, went to this amazing view point called Cruz del Condor which s 4300 high and has many condors flying around. Looking down from here we were looking down on a river at 2180 metres. At about 11 that morning we stopped in the middle of nowhere and met a guy called John who was our guide for the next few days. The moment we met him he was smiling and didn't stop been friendly and smiling for two days! He was great. Would definitely do a trek with him again. Anytime we were in difficulty he's stop and wait. And had lots of patience with me stopping for tonnes of photos!! Also quite funny. At one stage we were taking photos and he said to tag him in on facebook. Were asking does he have facebook all the way up here in the mountains and his reply was: "Of course, everybody has facebook... except the Chinese"!!!! He speaks Spanish, English, Italian, German and two other local languages here as well I think. Great guide to bring us around! He was also telling us that in August the busy month there could be 400 people on this trek. But in November its more like 30 to 40. I usually don't care too many tourists around but definitely got the feeling for it here. Was great to be out in the middle of nowhere by ourselves. Lots of photo opportunities without people in the way. Keep in mind that the Inca trail is 500 people per day max but there are all sorts of treks to machu pichu and a train there so I'm guessing that must be a few thousand people per day there.
So the whole first day we spent walking around steep mountains edges, no barriers and very steep drops. Mountains all around. Blue skies and the sun shining. Quite warm as well despite the height. It is honestly the best scenery I've ever seen in my life. We stopped for lunch where we met the others that were on the three day hike and then kept going for another three hours until we got to an oasis at the bottom of the canyon. This was a little green area with bungalows and pools and food. Funnily enough proper toilets, running water, sinks etc which when we have done things like this in other parts of the world you wouldn't find. Had a great feed and was in bed by 9 for the tough trek the following day. Here is a photo of the path we had to do. It was a 1100 metre vertical climb in three hours. Started at 5am and John held back for anyone who was finding it tough. Keep in mind that this wasn't starting from sea level. The bottom of the canyon where we were at is at 2200 metres which already you can start feeling altitude sickness. We took our time and stopped frequently for photos. I was just awestruck at the views.
One thing I noticed in Central America is a lot of people I had met have travelled all over the world and seen a lot. I had this conversation with a few people but a few of us just weren't so impressed with beaches or scenery that we really should have been cause we had all seen better in other places. That's the problem when you travel a lot. And this was the general consensus that I found from a lot of people. They figured they were spoilt. But since we have been to Panama and all of South American so far this has totally changed. Everything I have seen here is by far more scenic and awestruck than anywhere else.
At the top of this mountain there was a short walk through some crop growing fields and into a little village for breakfast before heading back to Arequipa. Funnily enough in this random little restaurant if that's what you can call it at the top of the mountain, miles from anywhere they were blaring out westlife at 8am in the morning. Driving back we stopped for views, some hot springs and lunch and then finally got back to Arequpa at around 6 in the evening absolutely tired out. These were two of my favourite days of my trip and I would highly recommend it to anyone. Also the cost for the guide, all the transport, accommodation and all the meals except the last lunch was 25 euros. Not so expensive. Right now I'm on the bus wrecked after the last few days on our way to Cuzco to organise a hike to Machu Pichu.
No comments:
Post a Comment