Sucre, Potosi, Tupiza and the Salt flats of Bolivia

The bus ride to Sucre was possibly the worst I ever had in South America, and that's saying something. Whilst PK slept blissfully next to me, I was kept awake nearly the whole way by nauseating bends, and the lady in the seat across the aisle from me peeing into a bottle. This was a 15 hour overnight bus ride. There was no toilet on board. And our driver had a bladder of steel, stopping only once to let people out to line along the roadside or squat behind bushes to relieve themselves. A very stern reminder there to NEVER book the cheapest bus company. It is just not worth it.....

Luckily making it to Sucre was definitely worth it, and we spent a lovely couple of days not doing particularly much other than wandering round the beautiful city enjoying the sunshine, and darting into the market several times a day to enjoy an amazing juice! This was probably one of the most wonderful things on the entire trip- there are stalls full of strange and amazing fresh fruit and a local lady will make you up an incredibly tasty fruit salad (which will quite literally last all day!) or you can choose a fruit that you have never seen before and she'll make it up in a juice for you for about 40p, giving you a free refill! Wonderful!!

Wonderful fruit stall!

We also went to a dinosaur park where we saw some 'dinosaur footprints' that had been discovered in 1985 by local miners. The huge slab of rock contains more than 5000 footsteps 462 separate trails, making it the largest and most diverse collection of dinosaur tracks in the planet! It is at a vertical angle due to the movement of the tectonic plates, causing that particular slab to be forced upwards, but back in the prehistoric times it was a watering hole for many different types of dinosaur. It was a cool park with lots of models of dinosaurs, and we were lucky to get an English tour with an informative guide. We then took the 'dino- express' back to the city and climbed up a beautiful hill to watch the sunset over the city.

Dino-Express!

Dinosaur footprints

Sunset over Sucre

Early the next day we pressed on to Potosi, a mining city. We met a girl on the bus who was recommended a hostel, so we shared a taxi with her and PK booked onto a mining tour. I opted to check out the city centre and find a coffee shop as, being slightly claustrophobic, I could think of nothing worse than scrambling through small dark tunnels hundreds of meters below the surface!! It did sound like an incredibly interesting tour though. Potosi is home to thousands of mines, where the local men still dig for silver and minerals in appalling conditions. Almost everybody who works there knows somebody who has died from a cave-in, or from carbon monoxide poisoning. The gulf between their lives and our own is stark, PK told me how he watched men shoveling huge mounds of earth and rocks for hours and hours at a time, all in terribly dark and dusty conditions. They earn about $80 a month. Before entering you had to offer gifts to the shrine of a devil, to make an offering for entering his territory. I heard a terrible story from someone who'd been the week before on one of the miner's holy days where they sacrificed a llama to the devil. The poor animal was forced 95% alcohol down its throat, followed by coca leaves and finally had its throat cut, the blood spattering onto the statue. Whilst sounding like an interesting albeit harrowing experience, I was glad to have stayed behind!

Devil- worship!

Another early bus journey took us to Tupiza, home of the wild wild west and where Butch Cassidy and Billy the Kid met their ends! Needless to say I immediately booked onto a day of horse riding, and was pleased when PK decided to give it a go as well! It was so much fun galloping around cowboy country, red mountains, giant cacti, canyons, ravines and some of the weirdest rock formations. The horses were good and everybody in our group were happy enough to go fast which is always much more interesting!

Tupiza was nice enough city, and not as touristy as we expected. Most of the streets had shops and stalls aimed at locals.

Except one.

In the street leading up to the pretty main square was a street that could be dubbed gringo- alley. On it, there are 6 identical Italian restaurants. Not similar, identical- from the same Italian menu to the same bamboo decor. They even had the very same dried cactus model pirate ship (to celebrate the land- locked Bolivia's rich maritime history we can assume?)

Somewhere, someone is making a fortune selling Tupiza women Italian Restaurant Kits. 

We had hoped to do our salt flats tour from Tupiza as we'd heard it was better, but it also turned out to be at least 500Bs (£50) more expensive than if we went to Uyuni and did it from there. Not only that, but as we wanted to end the tour at San Pedro de Atacama in Chile, it was a further expense and we'd end up doubling back on our route. As a result we hopped on a bus to Uyuni which took 3 hours longer than we expected and fell short of even our poor expectations of Bolivian buses. The window was closed when it was sweltering, and open when it was freezing, with the last 3 hours spent huddling inside our alpaca jumpers. Thank god for Game of Thrones which kept us sane!

We were exhausted when we got to Uyuni and decided to spend the next day relaxing on the city before finding a salt flats tour. This turned out to be a good idea as a big market and fete type thing was going on so we spent a nice sunny day drinking more juices and buying lots of cheap things on the market- making the most of our last day in cheap cheap Bolivia by sticking up on everything from socks to toothpaste!

Finding a tour was very easy with lots of people approaching us and all of them pretty much identical. We set off the next morning with all our luggage, but a little worried as we'd been told the snow had closed the border crossing into Chile. We were really hoping they'd be able to clear it as PK had a bus to catch in Chile in a few days and we didn't want to spend our final day together on a rickety bus retracing the same route we'd already been down!

The first part of our tour was visiting a train cemetery, which had been made into a playground of sorts. It was quite cool, in the middle of the desert with the mountains in the background! Then we moved into the start of the salt flats, where it is commercialised and mined. It was exciting to catch our first glimpse of the largest salt flat in the world! We then drove right out into the centre until you could see nothing but white on all sides, a little reminder of the insignificance of our tiny little lives. We passed a little island with flags from around the world, and a bigger island with strange cacti. And then we took lots and lots of perspective defying photos, not as easy as they might look....

Enjoying the train cemetery!

Salt mining

Looking out on endless white!

Crazy photos!

 

That night we stayed in a salt hotel which unfortunately was not as wonderful as I expected, but still nice enough.
The rest of the tour we saw some absolutely amazing things! Beautiful lagoons full of flamingos......

Hot geysers.....

Mountains....

Crazy rocks.....

And more amazing lagoons!!

The last day we woke up to hear that the border to Chile was open!! Hurray! We were so pleased and relieved and piled into the 4x4 for the journey to the border, where we were the first one. Gradually other groups arrived and we waited for the border office to open. And waited. And waited.... Eventually one of border control guys got a phone call. Whilst the Bolivian side was open, the road from Chile was impassable due to the ice and snow. Our guide told us they needed salt and sand to treat it. Now, I wonder where salt could be gotten hold of in the largest salt flat in the world? Or indeed sand, in a place bordering the Atacama desert, the driest desert in the world?! I can't express how angry I was at this point!!!! As with the border closed we had to spend the whole of that day in the jeep driving 7 hours back to Uyuni, before catching the bus to Chike which left at 3am. Which is the most annoying time for a bus to leave, surely, as what do you do?! Get a room only to leave at 2.30, what a waste!! In the end we stayed in a restaurant/ bar playing checkers, but we were exhausted!! Not the best end to our time tin Bolivia, or the start of Chile...... But after the whole of the next day on the bus.... we got there in the end!

The Chilean border, closed!

Welcome to the jungle (aka: A-mazing Amazon)

Chilling in a hammock in a semi- stilted hut on a steamy jungle morning I am jolted from my kindle by the rustling of trees, and look outside to see a family of tiny squirrel monkeys swinging through the trees just outside our hut. Amidst the unearthly sounds of the howler monkeys, I can hear them squabbling, and look out to the river beside them, hoping to catch a glimpse of another river dolphin. I love the Amazon!

Squirrel Monkeys outside our hut!

One thing that I was very excited about before coming to South America was to visit the Amazon rainforest. There's a children's book by Iva Ibbotson called 'Journey to the River Sea' which I always loved, and I always said to myself that I would go there one day. I also have an obsession with dolphins and as a little girl always wanted to see the pink river dolphins, one of the rarest dolphins in the world and certainly the strangest! Whilst most people think of Brazil for the Amazon, the Amazon basin extends to many other South American countries, and due to Brazil's expense and the continued deforestation, Bolivia is an excellent alternative! And tours abound from La Paz, where you can book to go to Rurrenbaque, in the middle of the Bolivian Amazon, and take a boat through the Amazon delta seeing loads of wildlife, and even swim with the river dolphins!

We shopped round alot of different operators trying to find one that was friendly to our budgets, but also friendly to the environment. We read a few horror stories on the internet about terrible guides and operators that chased and handled the animals and were pretty destructive, but luckily everything is alot better regulated now and most of the agencies follow the proper guidelines. To get to Rurrenbaque we had the choice of a 21 hour local bus (complete with rigid seats and infrequent toilet stops) or a 45 minute flight.... needless to say we chose the latter despite being a bit more expensive! Taking off in a rickety little plane (where you could see out the front window) and landing in a tiny little airport in the middle of the rainforest was pretty mental, but very cool! :D

Airport!

We then set off on a nauseatingly bumpy trip in a 4x4 to reach the river, where we were transferred into small motorised canoes. Almost immediately we began to see wildlife, with crocodiles and alligators lining the river banks, families of capybaras (giant semi- aquatic rodents), squirrel monkeys scrambling around the trees, and so many birds (egrets, herons, parrots, eagles, kingfishers, and lots of other ones I can't remember the name of!) Also along the way we saw a few river dolphins which was SO COOL!

Family of Capybaras

One of many crocodiles!

Incredible birds

After 3 hours of going down the river we arrived to our lodge which was a really cute set of wooden structures on stilts. We expected to be in a dorm room with the other 4 guys in our group, but luckily me and PK ended up with a room to ourselves, complete with an en-suite! So we were very happy. For some reason, for our meals we had to go to another lodge, which actually turned out to be quite cool as we traveled by night down the river we could see the alligator eyes shining back at us from the torchlight, very creepy!

Our lodge

The food was really nice as well actually, with special vegetarian for me! And in the evenings our guide, who was really funny and spoke excellent english, helped us build a campfire and we stayed up around it chatting until late about all the animals in the area and what it was like to grow up in the Amazon.

The next morning we went searching for annacondas, which turned out to be just a long trek through grasslands with not a snake in sight! That's the luck of nature watching I guess. Luckily the afternoon was alot better when we set off to go swimming with the pink river dolphins! After about 20 minutes I spotted some (after years of practice, my dolphin spotting abilities are well-honed by now...) and we stripped into our swimwear. Lots of people eyed the brown river water with suspicion but my thoughts were firmly on swimming with the dolphins so I ended up in the water about 10 minutes before everyone else. Which was excellent! As when it was just me in the water a couple of the dolphins swam really close and seemed quite curious, but when the other people from the boat started to splash in and move towards us they got a bit scared and began to disappear. It was a little unsettling to be swimming in the water with a huge crocodile about 2m away from us on the bank, but they luckily didn't seem too interested in us!

Swimming the pink river dolphins!

That evening we went to watch the sunset from a beautiful place, and joined up with a few of the other tour groups for some games of football and vollyball. Unluckily, the mosquitoes also decided they wanted to play, but some bug spray managed to see most of them off!

Our final morning was spent piranha fishing, which I decided just to watch (and occasionally laugh as the clever fish had seemed to perfect the art of nibbling off the bait without being caught!) But a few did get caught, along with a couple of catfish! It was a little disconcerting seeing how many piranhas were around seeing as we'd been swimming around in the very same spot the afternoon before.....

Piranhas have SHARP teeth!

Catfish!

After that, we piled back into the boats to head back to Rurrenaque (and then the terrible 4x4!) where we managed to find a cheap hotel to have a well deserved shower. The next afternoon we got our flight back to La Paz, witnessing on the way the most incredible rain storm, which whilst cool to watch managed to majorly delay our flight. Which, as we had a bus to catch, was not ideal! Luckily we got to the bus station on time and were on our bus to Sucre, which was a whole other adventure in itself.......

Flying High in the Heights of Bolivia

Whilst doing the Lost City Trek in Colombia, I met an absolutely incredible Bolivian girl. It was therefore with some confusion that I heard that the people of Bolivia are said to be the rudest in the world. Whilst surely a stereotype, in which exceptions abound, for us it was true that our first taste of Bolivians was a rather strange affair.

After crossing the border from Peru, we skirted the edge of Lake Titicaca, the highest navigable lake in the world to land in Copacabana, a rather ugly little town but the gateway to the Isla del Sol, a stunning island in the middle of the lake. We spent two wonderful nights there, paying a pittance for a room in a house overlooking the water, and marvelling at the fact that it looked like we were on the coast, but were in fact over 3800m above sea level, with mountains in the distance. The confusing thing about the Isla del Sol is the multitude of tickets you have to buy. There's a ticket to get there. And then there's a ticket to access the north side of island, which allows you to walk by a few Inca ruins. Then, if you want to get the boat roand to the south side of the island, that's another ticket. At which, upon arrival, you are required to buy a ticket to be able to step foot and walk around the south. Finally, if those tickets were not enough, if you wish to walk back to the north side rather than take the boat, halfway along the path some local people will start to shout out at you to buy another ticket. A walking ticket. This all grew incredibly tiresome, and whilst we were always polite, we met many other travellers in heated arguments with the local ticket collectors. The constant complaints is perhaps why these local people were immediately so rude to us, understandable but slightly offputting! Whilst all this was a little annoying, the real nail in the coffin in 'good first impressions of Bolivians' was when as we were walking along (after buying one of our tickets) we came across some llamas grazing, which we (of course) began to coo over, and took some pictures. After another 5 minutes of walking a local lady was walking along the path the opposite way herding a small group of llamas. As the path was narrow, I stepped off onto the side and smiled, wishing her a good afternoon. She didn't reply but stared back at us with narrowed eyes, before exclaiming "Propinas! Las llamas, propinas!!" She was demanding tips off us, because we had taken photos of the llamas. In some disbelief, we decided to play the ignorant 'ICan'tUnderstandSpanish' tourist card and shook our heads with a "No entiendo" after which she eventually let us pass her. We were a little saddened at how this was how the locals viewed and interacted with tourists, which was deepened a little further along the path (after we had bought our walking ticket) when a small girl who couldn't have been more than about 8 years old, aggressively stepped across our path holding a llama and exclaiming that we had to pay to pass. That we should take a picture of her llama, and then pay to walk on down the path. I suppose it isn't so surprising that children will act like that when they see their adults doing so, but it was a strange and disappointing introduction to Bolivian hospitality..... but luckily did not ruin the beauty of the island.

After the Isla del Sol we headed on to La Paz, stopping half way so the bus could be boarded onto a ferry across a canal. Why isn't there a bridge across this tiny patch of water?? More south american madness:

Anyway, we reached La Paz, which is probably the most ridiculous place to build a city in the world. Located at 3600m above sea level and boasting the highest airport in the world (which seems to be expressibly designed to just make people ill who fly there from sea level) there is also a 400m elevation difference between the top and the bottom, which just means that every single street is at a ridiculously street slope. Of course, we decided to choose a hotel at the top of such a ridiculous slope and with a cough and chest infection that had suddenly crept up on me I felt like I was going to die every time we went for a little shopping trip (but this probably also had something to do with PK's ridiculous fitness and fast walking pace!) In any case, to add to the madness, La Paz is really just one huge market. Whatever you want, you will find on the streets somewhere in La Paz. Be it socks, batteries, pens, chocolate, coca leaves or llama foetuses, someone will be selling it. And yes, that is llama foetuses there- they're good luck apparently. We were staying near the infamous 'Witches Market' which is where rather witch- like looking ladies in bowler hats and big skirts sell all manner of strange potions and mixtures. We spent rather more days than we'd planned walking around the markets and buying all manner of alpaca and llama wool related items- here is warning, all birthday and Christmas presents from me for the next five years will be llama wool related! Everything was so unbelievably cheap and I can't help myself when it comes to bargains so left La Paz with one extra huge bag in addition to my rucksack! (Which was all fine when PK was being the chivalrous gentleman and carrying it, but when we had to part ways in Chile I did begin to regret my present stock- up.....)

Anyway, the main reason for our delay in La Paz was not entirely due to wanting to buy the entire market, but because I was suffering from this horrible chest infection/ cough/ sore throat thing and I wanted to get better before we went on our next hike- to climb the awe- inspiring Huyani Potosi, a 6088m mountain looming over La Paz! After delaying as much as we reasonably could, we set off on a 3 day tour to attempt to reach the summit. We had heard about it from the American girl we met in the Galapagos, and whilst she warned it was the toughest thing she had done in her entire life, she said it was as awesome as it was horrendous, and we thought well, what a rock star you'd sound to go home and say you'd climbed a 6000m mountain!!! Whilst it is one of 'easiest' 6000m mountains to climb, because La Paz itself is so high, we were told that less than half the people who attempted it made it to the top as the altitude completely wore them down.....

Huyani Potosi Mountain!

It was thus with some apprehension that we donned our ice axes, crampons, snowboots and snowsuits and prepared for the mountain! Things would have perhaps have been more reassuring if the people at the agency had remembered our booking- we were waiting outside the shop with two american guys who were in our group for nearly an hour until we found the telephone number and called, to the response of "but you guys are tomorrow!" Erm, no. No we're not....

Anyway they eventually came to pick is up and we set off for our first day, where we got driven to the 'low' base camp (low being about 4200m) which turned out to be a beautiful little cabin type thing next to a bright turquoise lake, with the mountain we hoped to climb looming above us! In the afternoon we donned our snow gear and hiked up to the nearby glacier to practice using our iceaxes, snow shoes and crampons. I'm not the most co-ordinated of people and so was quite worried about walking along on snow with 10 huge spikes on my feet, so it was good to get a bit of practice, and quite exhilarating to be able to walk up near vertical slopes of ice and snow without slipping backwards!! It was then time for a spot of ice climbing- another thing I dreaded as everytime I have attempted a climbing wall I have embarrassed myself profoundly. Luckily ice climbing was alot easier for me, and it was alot of fun to climb up, digging the front spikes of your boots into the ice and then the ice axe above and making your way up. It was definitely something I never would have done if I had been travelling by myself, but was very glad I did!

Our low base camp cabin

One part of the glacier we practiced ice climbing on!

That night was ever so cold, and we spent the evening huddling round a fire in the living room, after eventually getting some wet wood to catch! We then huddled into our beds dressed in about 5 layers with thick sleeping bags and blankets covering us. The second day was earmarked as an 'easy hike' up to the second higher base camp. Easy hike???? PAH. It was probably one of the toughest things I had ever done in my entire life! I was in pretty good shape fitness wise, after having done about 4 long hikes in as many weeks, but the combination of the altitude and my chest infection (which I had antibiotics for) really wore me down. Also, hiking through snow is freaking hard! The first part of the hike was done in our normal walking boots, and then we switched to the snow shoes and crampons and were trekking up ice and snow.... all with our huge backpacks on which must have weighed about 15kg. Anyway, somehow, SOMEHOW I managed to make it up to second base camp which was at 5500m, with the last part a vicious slope upwards. My head was swimming and I felt quite sick. But hey, enough excuses! After chatting to the guide he explained that he took a maximum of two people up with him to the summit, but if one of the people couldn't go on, they all had to turn around and come back down to the high camp for safety reasons. PK had found the hike to the high base camp fine and was feeling really well acclimatised, and so I made the difficult decision to stay at the camp while he attempted the summit. I never would have forgiven myself if I had attempted it, failed, and caused him not to make it to the top as well! Looking back it was definitely the right decision, but I still felt so useless and annoyed at myself at the time for not being able to make it. But I consoled myself by meeting some other very fit and strong looking people who had also succumbed to the altitude and failed to reach the summit!

On the way to the base camp- a rather strained smile!

Hiking up with all our gear...

I was very proud that PK managed to reach the summit though, as well as the two American guys who were in our group. The pictures looked absolutely incredible, and such an achievement! But I was also quite pleased in a small way not to be attempting the summit when all the others were woken up at 1am to get dressed and start hiking! The idea is that you hike for 6 hours in the night, and reach the summit just as the sun rises. I woke myself up at sunrise back at the camp and also enjoyed a stunning sunrise over the mountains at 5500m, so didn't feel like I'd quite missed out on everything!

PK at the summit!

Some wonderful pictures PK took at the summit!

All the guys who'd reached the summit looked absolutely dead when they came back down, and that was only the beginning! That day we hiked all the way back down to the low base camp where we had lunch and then were transferred back to La Paz. At lunch we met the next group set to go up- all looking so fresh and optimistic. We probably crushed a few spirits by telling them how horrendous it was and that lots of people didn't make it, but hey that's the privilege of the people who go before!

Anyway, what other shennanigans did we get up to in and around La Paz? One day we did the infamous 'Death Road', which was cycling down the world's most dangerous road. We had some plans to do this in advance but I thought it wise not to advertise them too much so as to not give rise to unnecessary parental anxiety! It was a really fun day, as the route comprises of 3400m of decent from nearby La Paz into the Yungus valley. It was christened the world's most dangerous road in 1995 when it was the only route down into the Yungus valley, and was no more than a stony track wide enough for a single vehicle, with a sheer 600m drop to the side, with no less than 200 to 300 vehicles hurtling over the edge every year. Luckily a new road opened up in 2006, so the 'Death Road' is now used almost exclusively for cyclists, with the odd vehicle passing you every now and again. Since it's opened to cyclists however, 18 people have died on the road, but the guide said the vast majority of them were idiots who thought it was a clever idea to take a picture of themselves whilst they rode along.....and over the edge. It is still pretty dangerous though- I don't watch top gear but apparently there's an episode where Jeremy Clarkson is forced to the edge of the road by an oncoming vehicle and the road starts to crumble under him. Luckily this didn't happen to me, but I did have a rather scary experience where I was heading round a bend and came face to face with an oncoming car! The car should have beeped before it came round the bend apparently, and been on the inside of the track (cyclists going downhill are given priority for the wider left hand side) so it was completely his fault, but there were a couple of heart stopping moments where I felt my wheels skidding!

It was my first real experience of actual mountain biking and by the end of the day my hands and arms were aching from the death grip on the handlebars as we hurtled at about 30mph over the rough and stony track! We went through waterfalls, splashed through fords, and the guides took loads of pictures of us which we got on a CD at the end. We also got a free t-shirt, a really cool free t-shirt! Whilst probably not the best reason to choose a company, it is 100% true that we chose our company based on the t-shirt.......

Ready for the death road!

La Paz also had a huge parade whilst we were there, which we granted a first row view from outside our hotel window! Which was nice for a while, but after starting at 6am did the parade really have to continue until 3am?! Who needs that many twirling dancers and costumed dragons!? It was fun for a while but I couldn't believe the enduance of the men walking along for hours in huge heavy costumes, or the women walking along in high heels! I can't even walk for 5 minutes in heels without my feet and back hurting, the thought of dancing for 8 hours in them with a huge costume to boot fills me with horror! Perhaps they're all just drunk and this chap below has the right idea:

Bolivians do love a good parade!

We also spent a day or two with my Swedish coushsurfing friend who happened to be in La Paz at the time, a wonderful coincidence and great to catch up!

We also went for a 3 day trip to the Amazon rainforest from La Paz, but more on all that in the next post, I think this one is long enough for now!

Peruvian Misfortunes

I've noticed that my most popular blog posts are the ones where unfortunate things happen to me. Well, here you are. A post dedicated to the string of bad luck that followed me from the moment I crossed the border into Peru and got stuck on a mosquito- infested night bus that didn't move, to when I finally tried to leave the country, and got fined 20 soles...

Now, Peru is a country of outstanding natural beauty, wonderfully kind people and fascinating history.

It just didn't seem to much like me being there and enjoying it.

After our incredible 10 days in the Galapagos, we caught our flight back to Guayaquil and headed straight to the bus terminal, hoping to just hop on the first bus that was heading south and towards to Peru. Eventually we were headed to the border, and after a few difficulties with the taxi driver taking us to the wrong building to get our passports stamped, we arrived into Peru in the little town of Tumbres.

Ah, Tumbres. Tumbres doesn't inspire. A god forsaken border town with a dodgy reputation, we arrived in a taxi at 10 o clock at night, with the Peruvian couple we were sharing a taxi with much alarmed at the idea of letting us out of their sight, after we'd disclosed that we weren't sure where we were going. Keen to head further south (much of the far north of Peru is desert and beach resorts) the taxi driver, also concerned, ran off in search of a bus for us. As we settled into a night bus which we had managed to catch mere minutes before it was departing, we congratulated ourselves on what good luck we were having. Oh, famous last words...

After about 5 minutes of driving our bus came to a halt. Rapid Spanish ensued. We turned around, drove a bit and then stopped again. A woman came round asking for each of the passengers to give a few soles each. We didn't understand what was happening. Eventually, after another half hour of waiting, the woman returned our money to us. The bus began driving and I thought, hurray, we are finally on our way. And then we stopped. And I looked outside..... to see the very same bus terminal from where we had started. We eventually found out that some fisherman had blocked the only road heading south, because they were angry that they weren't allowed to fish as many anchovies as they wanted. The money had been a failed bribe..... We were told we'd go again in 2 hours.

4 hours passed and we were still in the same place. “We're going at 8am!”. I thought to myself, well that's okay, I can deal with another 3 hours. So, I settled into a seat and went to sleep, waking a little while later to the unmistakable and terrifying whine of mosquitoes. Now, I'm not good with mosquitoes- in fact I'm allergic to the bites. In Croatia last year I got bitten so many times my body wasn't sure how to cope so decided the best thing to do was to make each bite swell to the size of a small orange and give it to the sensation of fire. After making a pharmacist shriek at the site of my overinflated arms, I was swiftly directed to an emergency doctor who promptly gave me an anti-histermine injection in my arse. So, all in all, I was not thrilled to discover that we had inadvertently climbed aboard Mosquito- Bus, and I could feel myself already beginning to itch.... a sensation that certainly did not appease when the driver walked around with some kind of spray that he applied to the seats and I saw literally clouds of mosquitoes emerging from the seats. For days afterwards I had painful and swelled bites up the whole of the back of my legs, my back and my arms from where they had bitten me through the seat. And we hadn't move an inch! Eventually, when we were still not moving at 10am, hunger and an ardent desire to get off that awful bus and get a shower forced us to leave. We managed to get our money back for the bus drive and promptly checked into the hotel next door. The following day, a really kind man who owned a cafe we had gone to , and who we had asked about trying to get round the blockade, tracked as down to tell us that the blockade had lifted. At this, we booked seats with Cruz del Sur, the most expensive and luxurious bus company- about 3 times the price as the other company but there was no way I was getting on another bus owned by them! And this one had fully reclinable seats, wifi, dinner and breakfast served and most importantly: no mosquitoes....

After the Tumbres disaster we headed to Huaraz, an adventure sports town in the Andes where we hoped to do some trekking. The town itself is pretty ugly, but we were lucky enough to be able to couchsurf in a small village a short collectivo ride outside the town. It was really beautiful- we lived with a local family in a small little farm right at the foot of the mountains, with not a tourist in sight. For the grand sum of 5 soles (about £1), our host's mother cooked us an amazing traditional Peruvian breakfast and dinner every day, and we were free to explore the beautiful landscape. It was both of our first experiences of high altitude, sleeping at 3400m every night, and so to prepare ourselves for the trek we wanted to do we did a hike up to a beautiful lagoon that was at 4800m. It was the strangest experience. What should have been a relatively easy hike at sea level suddenly felt impossible! After walking a few steps we were exhausted and had to rest, and what looked like a small hill took an age to climb- our brain couldn't figure out what was happening, and we'd never felt so unfit and light headed!

At Lagoona Chrup!

Exhausted climbing up.....

Our amazing couchsurf hosts, cooking for us on a
woodburning stove in the middle of the Peruvian Andes!

Oh, except, of course every good thing must be outweighed on the karma scale! At the top, I dropped my shockproof freezeproof waterproof indestructible camera to discover it is not quite so indestructible.... Despite its claims to be shockproof to 2m, maybe it hit a rock at the wrong point, in any case the screen broke so I could still take pictures- I just couldn't see what I was taking a picture of. Great timing considering Machu Picchu was coming up....

So, what was the next misfortune? Oh yes, the clothes debarcle. The morning of the start of our 4 day hike, me and PK piled all of our belongings into a collectivo, as the plan was to leave our bags at the agency and push straight towards Lima the evening we got back from the hike. Collectivos in Peru are a chaotic affair, with women in huge skirts and bowler hats continually hauling off and on huge bags of potatoes, coca leaves, children....... Anyway, it wasn't a good place for two gringos to be with huge backpacks and assorted other bags for the hike. I suppose it's not surprising really that when we clambered off at our stop one of my bags was missing. And I suppose I should be grateful it wasn't a bag with anything valuable in it. But, it was a bag with all of the clothes I needed for the hike, including annoying little things like knickers and socks. The money I'd spent on Spanish lessons felt extremely well spent as we were able to explain the problem and one of the bower hatted ladies declared that she knows the woman who has it. PK and the collectivo driver go running off down the street armed with a name and a phone number and I'm left with our multitude of bags, stranded at the side of the street and acutely aware that we were already 20 minutes late for meeting at the agency for the trek. To my delight, my Spanish was understandable and I managed to borrow a passerby's mobile phone to call the agency, the number of which through some lucky accident was on the receipt that I happened to still have. They were sympathetic and drove round to pick us up and 5 minutes later PK returns with.... no bag. Apparently the woman wasn't at her house, but the collectivo driver would try again in the afternoon. I'm not sure whether she stole them or whether they had just got caught up with everything else, but I half expected to see them on the market for sale. In any case, there was some last minute shopping to be done before the trek where I managed to replace the essentials, but I still missed the beautiful purple trousers I'd bought in Quito.....

Anyhoo, the Santa Cruz trek itself was a welcome respite from my bad luck! It was absolutely stunning, and we were fairly well acclimatised now so didn't suffer from any symptoms of altitude sickness. The weather was good, we camped in unspoilt places at the base of the snowcapped Andes , and came across bright little turquoise lagoons around every corner.

Spot the difference!
Montana Artesenraju- reputedly the mountain
used as the basis for the Paramount Pictures logo!

After the trek, we tried somewhat fruitlessly to fix my camera and to get my clothes back, but to no avail.... On to Lima!

We actually spent only about 8 hours in Lima, waiting for our evening bus to Cuzco. PK was heading back to Peru in a couple of months to meet his brother and do the Inca Trail, so would be coming back to a lot of the places then. In the nature of compromise, I agreed to skip out a few places like Nazca and Arequipa and push on to Bolivia as quickly as we could with one exception- he had to wait while I went to see Machu Picchu! (I didn't think my friends and family would accept me back if they found out I had spent 7 months in South America and not been!) And so, as we were both not a fan of big cities, we spent as little time in Lima as possible. We got a taxi straight from the bus station to Miraflores area which is the strangest place I think I've ever been, right amidst the poverty and pollution of Lima is a little mini America, complete with Starbucks, McDonalds, and 'tourist police' who work to make sure only tourists or rich Peruvians hang around the 'Parque Kennedy' which has free wifi...... Completely bizarre and of course unjust- I was glad to leave.

The bus from Lima to Cusco was 6 hours of comfort followed by 20 hours of nauseating mountain bends. Two night buses in a row spat us into Cuzco in a rather bedraggled state, and we staggered to find a hostel that had been recommended to us. The official Inca Trail gets booked up at least 6 months in advance, and costs upwards of $600. My couchsurfing host in Miami urged me to just do an alternative trek at a mere $200, and that could be booked the day before. This suited my budget, and my preference for flexibility, so I booked onto the Salkantay Trek upon arrival and was off to trek to Machu Picchu! Perhaps not along the Inca Trail, but there thousands of trails the Inca used, and so thousands of Inca trails, it's just there´s one that the government decides to publicise.

Views on the way...

Anyway, the trek was nice, but nowhere near as beautiful as the Santa Cruz trek, and it was disappointing to stay in established campsites rather than as really part of the nature. But it was nice, we climbed 2000m and descended again by 2000m in 2 days, which was tough for a lot of people (some were so tired they had to be carried by horse) but it meant that we walked through very different landscapes and ecosystems each day. And we had a fantastic guide who told us all about the local plants and Inca culture. The penultimate day we arrived to Aguas Calientes, which is probably the most disgusting town I have ever been to. Built purely for tourists, it has overpriced restaurants and souvenir shops lining the streets and nothing in the way of character or charm. At 4am the next morning we set out to hike up to Machu Picchu itself (or, for the weak, take the bus....) It was pouring with rain. I arrived to the site soaked in rain and sweat, to see absolutely nothing due to the thick cloud and mist. Before the trek I was estatic to be able to get the very last ticket to climb the Huanapicchu mountain. In defiance, I did, and was rewarded for my efforts with a blanket of white fog. It was a terrible day. The mist cleared at odd intervals at which point everybody sprang to pose before the site and try and take as many photos as they could before it covered it again. Disenchated by the weather and the crowds and crowds of tourists I headed back to the town to meet PK in a coffee shop and finally get warm.

Surely my bad luck couldn't get any worse? Oh but of course. For some inexplicable reason I was the only member of my group who wasn't handed a train ticket back to Cuzco. My guide assured me that it would be faxed to my accommodation, and not to worry. Of course, when I descended from Maccu Piccu and went back to the hotel, they said they didn't have a fax machine. Cue several hours of desperately trying to get through to the agency I had booked my tour through, truly terrible phone lines, and incomprehensible spanish. After a lot of trouble and lot of trips around time, I eventually managed to get my ticket. By some incredible coincindence, I was also allocated a seat directly next to PK on the train. Spooky.

After all of this, we decided to get on a bus to Bolivia as soon as we could......

But Peru wasn't done with me yet! On the border to Bolivia I discovered that the little piece of paper that they give you when you enter a country had somehow disappeared from my passport. I never even realised that this piece of paper was important, but for some reason it is, and they want to have it before they give you the exit stamp and let you leave. Frustrated, tired, fed up, I eventually managed to pay 20 soles (about £5) to get a new form to leave the country....


Hello Bolivia, at last!! Peru- you may have beaten me this time- but I will be back....

My view from the top of the Waynapicchu mountain...... yayyyyy