Ok.So the previous entry ended with the fateful words of;
"we´ve decided to leave our wonderful group of friends and head to Copacobana tomorrow and Lake Titicaca and then onwards and upwards to explore Peru."
..this didn´t exactly go to plan. For one reason and another we got our (very easily twistable) arms twisted that very night and somehow ended up with a job at the wild rover itself...What followed was 4 weeks of extensive hilarity,much of which is unmentionable to parents and relatives as im sure you can imagine but it all passed way to quickly in a messy storm of cross dressing,terrible dancing and me trying my best to perfect my irish accent (which is still being judged as average to poor by most..). But seriously it was great fun,and made loads of new mates,two of which we met up with again in peru, and could see me going back in a few summers for a months work.. (like many before i think i´ve got stuck in the whirlpool of la paz!)
Soo,from la paz we finally tore ourselves away from the wild rover family and got a bus to copacabana on the shores of lake titicaca,we arrived just before sunset and promptly chucked our bags into a hostel (for 1 pound 50 a night,score.) and ran up the hill overlooking the town with the rest of the population to watch the sunset itself.A good deal sweatier we made it just and it was well worth it,i hadnt quite imagined the scale of the lake,you´d think it was the sea to look at it until you realise you´re a good 2 or 3000 metres up.
Because we had spent so long enjoying ourselves in la paz it meant we onyl had about 3 weeks to cover peru,oops. Consequently there was a big shock to our systems as we had to a)be organised and b) get up early.
However,get up early we did.remarkably. At 8 o clock we stumbled to get the ferry to the isla de sol on lake titicaca which is stacked with incan history,we handily though only left ourselves an hour on the island so in the blistering sun we sprinted around the island taking in as much as possible and in the process nearly missing our boat.The island was beautiful with amazing views of the lake itself and the mountains of bolivia in the distance,we also managed to take in a few of our first incan ruins which were pretty fascinating,as with all we´ve seen they all seem practically untouched and unaffected even after 500 or 600 years. Annoyingly though, as i said, we had to leg it back on the boat to grab a bus from copacobana to arequipa in peru.
Rich is to blame for the next set of errors,he remarked firstly "we havent missed a bus the whole trip yet..",and yep..we missed it. However we managed to jump on one across the road and got into peru.Once in arequipa,rich again tempted fate, "it´ll be fine-we´ve never failed to get a hostel.." Consequently the first 3 or 4 hostels we went to were full and i was considering letting rich go as he seemed to have become a bad omen..We did find somewhere though thankfully. Arequipa was a beautiful city which could easily have been France or Spain on first look,with a lovely square in the centre where all the people seemed to congregate. The peruvians also seem alot more friendly and open than the bolivians as they all tried their best to get me and Rich to sign up to one of their tours. This we did eventually and were due to be picked up at 3 o clock the next morning o a tour of the colca canon tour.
The Colca tour lasted 2 days and 1 night.We firstly stopped off in the morning at a look out point to catch a glimpse of the condors with about a thousand other tourists (mostly americans),the condors were absolutely HUGE. Their wingspan was something like 3 metres,and they seemed to perform for all the onlookers sweeping right past everyone for some handy photo opportunities..From there on we started our hike,the first day we walked a fair distance in pretty harsh heat along both sides of the canyon (which is deeper than the grand canyon so im told..) with our funny crew of 6 spanish and 2 dutch,led by a tiny peruvian called salomé who looked about 13 and was an absolute pocket rocket. We arrived at our very nice little over night spot as the sun was going down which had a pool to soothe my feet which in standard fashion had been ripped to shreds by my boots which must be about a size and a half too small. The scenery on the way was pretty incredible,alot more of a desert look about it all as we followed the river from higher up,passing through remote villages and crossing dodgy bridges. The next morning at the unenjoyable time of 430, we rose to do the last and hardest part of the trek,a 3 hour uphill slog at altitude. I still hadnt shrugged off my illness at this point (lets call it ´la paz lurgy´) and really struggled which wasnt too nice but we made it eventually,admittedly looking like shadows of our former selves. We then visited the hot springs before catching a night bus to Cuzco which was 40 degrees but good for the phenomenal (yet impressive.) amount of blisters we seemed to have collected between us...
Arriving at cuzco blurry eyed early on in the morning,we could already tell it was a beautiful place,lots of old stone buildings and quaint squares.We spent a few days wandering around the numerous little markets and getting hassled by lots of sweet little peruvian women "mr!you want massage?good price!" (rich did eventually give in one day and get a massage...) We also managed to get a sweet slice of home at an english pub there called the Real McCoy where i finally found a full english breakfast (sorry mum) which was awesome. We then met 3 friends from the Wild Rover in La Paz,2 who we´d worked with behind the bar,Laurence and Dave, and Gi aswell. Rich,Laurence Dave and me booked a trek to Macchu Picchu while we said a fond farewell to Gi who had to leg it up to colombia for a mad few weeks before flying to canada for a year (its a hard life for some...).
The ´Salkantay´trek we booked was 5 days and 4 nights and was...painful. Its one of the most physical of all the treks and we covered just over 80 km in the first 4 days with a visit to Macchu Picchu on the final day. Everyone of us struggled at some point or another but all made it (admittedly looking like we´d all just come back from some epic battle with any number of limps,bruises and blisters..) The first day was a pretty easy 20 km walk to our first camp in the shadow of Salkantay,a real giant of a mountain,standing at a grand snowcapped 6300 metres. We all stayed in tents for the first 3 nights,and teh first night was the toughest because of the cold.Unfortunately,both Dave and Rich contracted the same illness at the same time the night before the trek began (blaming me as the cause...) so really struggled teh first few days. Thus,the first night was ripe with the sounds of the two invalids coughing and spluttering incessantly...The 2nd day was sold as the hardest by our guide,Henry. As all teh guides seemed to be Henry was about 5 foot 3 and had absolutely nothing to him,despite this i´d say he could probably walk twice as fast as us no problem,making us all feel ever so slightly inadequate..Anyway yes, the 2nd day. All teh guides callld it ´The gringo killer´,which was helpful.And 3 hours in we could tell why. The first half of the day was effectively all uphill on rough terrain at over 4000 metres. Me and laurence rather selfishly left the two invalids behind us and raced up,we were very proud of ourselves for beign about the 4th or 5th to the lunch stop,especially as most groups had left about an hour before us-this did leave a 2 hour wait for the rest of our group however which involved alot of sleeping and moaning about general aches and pains..After a stay in a much warmer but equally spectacular campsite we embarked on our longest day, a 32 km epic which finished spectacularly in some thermal springs in the middle of teh Andes at night. The last 16 km were optional and we were the only 4 of about 80 people doing the trek at the same time to walk it as they all took vans to the next campsite. This was foolish,very foolish and we hobbled into teh campsite feeling both very proud,but stupid. Thsi meant teh next days walk to Aguas Calientes(base town to Macchu Picchu) was the toughest for me personally,i was completely nackered and felt as though my thighs no longer existed. We were fairly slow due to our exhausted states so arrived in the horribly touristy but spectacularly placed Aguas Calientes at night...
And so as the sun rose we walked the last few steps up to Macchu Picchu gate and the trek climaxed spectacularly as we looked over Macchu Picchu in bright sunshine.It was really worth all the effort we put in,and Macchu Picchu was more impressive than i´d imagined. The sheer setting of the lost inca city,placed precariously in a seemingly impossible place amidst the high peaks. I was also fascinated aswell at how the stone work was all so well retained,despite 600 years of being totally exposed to the elements,so so worh it. We spent a good 3 or 4 hours lazing aorund Macchu Picchu taking it all in,not just the city itself but the views from the city across all the other mountains and valleys. And it makes us three of the family to make it to Macchu Picchu,Mum all those years ago (i know she wouldnt like me to say how long ago..!) and Barley a few years ago. The four of us stumbled down from Macchu Picchu eventually to the town and rewarded ourselves with an overexpensive but lovely buffet for all our effort before our train back to cuzco.
From cuzco the next day we said goodbye to Dave who´s travelling for a little longer round S.A and us three took a night bus to Ica to play around in teh sandunes. We tooka dune buggy across the dunes,which was a great rollercoaster ride due to a good reckless driver and tried out some sandboarding down the dunes. We were all awful.Me probably the worst of the bad bunch,while the others tried the technique i rather lost patience and just tried my best to bomb it down the dunes,which consequently meant i got sand.everywhere.It was great fun though and nice to have a bit of sunshine at lower altitude after so long in La Paz and Cuzco at high altitude,i no longer feel like an old man walking down the road!And from there we took abus to Lima where we are now.Lima is pretty grim but we are only here one more night before we fly hoem tomorrow!It has been the most amazing trip,covered 8 countries over 5 or 6 months and however many thousand miles by air,sea,campervan,bus,train..and met so many people and seen so many things and then back to sleepy old cheltenham tomorrow,it will all be very odd!But it feels th right time to go back to begin new things at university and beyond. If you´ve bothered to read my blogs,i feel sorry for you being subjected to my awful grammar, spelling and general descriptions that tend to make things sound much worse than they actually were!But thanks if you did.
Over and out.
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