Settling into La Paz - 13th Feb 2011

Today we continued to get to know our new home, dealing with the effects of altitude (shallow breathing, high heart rate and bizarrely in my case, swollen lips) and researching accommodation and language school options. We visited a gigantic Sunday market, where stall after stall featured miniatures of everything you could imagine, from cars and money to shops, clothing, electrical goods etc. These were all made so that people could take them to be prayed over, in the hope that they would acquire them in the coming year, and it was quite a little industry in Bolivia.

A large part of the afternoon was spent sitting in a cafe with wi-fi trying to work out what our options would be, something which we are still not sure of exactly. In the evening we decided to try out La Paz’s art-house cinema, watching a documentary about SA politics over the past decade or so which was absolutely fascinating (although a challenge to our Spanish skills in parts). On the walk home we discovered the Japanese cultural centre, which had an excellent restaurant in it – two more reasons to be deeply enamoured of La Paz.

Copacabana to our new home - La Paz! - 12th Feb 2011

A pleasant morning lying on the beach waiting for our boat back to Copa this morning, and we had time to check out the Inca steps leading up to where we had stayed the previous evening. Our money was running out, and fuelled only by chips and salsa and an apple, my tummy was grumbling all morning and I was started to grumble myself. Once back on the mainland, Laura did a market run and soon we were happily eating cheese rolls and on the bus again to La Paz, our final destination for the time being.

me being unhappy with dinner last night

more reed boats in the Isla del Sol port

The bus trip across the straights was broken up by a short ferry crossing where we had to disembark and our bus went on its own ferry across the water while we went onto a passenger one, a very efficient operation as tens of buses would pass through this area each hour. We seem to be travelling with young germans now who are a suitably enthusiastic peer group, and also running into other gringos from different stages of the same circuit, in that way that you do.

Our bus catching the ferry across the straights

My holy footwear

The rest of the bus trip seemed to go quite slowly as the landscape changed around us – Bolivian mountains being more rounded with funny-shaped peaks, and the ever-present snow-capped peaks of the Cordillera Real mountain range in the distance, which we had admired from afar on Isla del Sol.

the Cordillera Real

And what an amazing sight greeted us when we finally rounded the corner from El Alto – the indigenous town above La Paz itself – and saw the dramatic location of the city. It is set into a huge crater, with green land on one side and houses steeply built into the rim of the crater on the other side spilling down into the main centre. It was huge and impossible and one of the most awesome city views I have ever seen – up there with Tokyo at night from on high, or London from the air.

We used our last Bolivianos getting a cab to a place we thought we had booked by email (it turned out the message had somehow not gotten through – the guy gave us a very suspicious explanation as to why this was), and experienced the madness and bustle of La Paz on a Saturday night, we seem to be really good at turning up in new places at their busiest times. There were people, and soldiers, everywhere, all happening on streets that banked sharply upwards and downwards in each direction, lined with a heady mix of colonial buildings, new and crumbling modern buildings and dotted throughout with distinctly Bolivian religious and public buildings.

Booking in a the Austria Hotel, a colonial stalwart of the backpacker scene, we were perfectly located in the centre, a block from the presidential palace and cathedral, and wandered out to experience La Paz without our luggage. A pleasingly cheap and high-quality dinner later and we were ready for bed, determined to start our research into language schools and homestays in the morning.

Isla del Sol - 11th Feb 2011

We packed up most of our stuff leaving it with the hostel, then headed off on another public boat to Isla del Sol, the legendary Inca birthplace of the Sun and a hot tip from many of our friends who had visited the area. It was raining heavily on the way over which didn’t seem appropriate and the engine of this boat kept stopping too, but we made it eventually and as if by magic the rain stopped and the sun came out for the entire duration of our stay.

Inca greets us on Isla del Sol

Cacti on Isla del Sol

The Island was gorgeous and situated in breath-taking turquoise waters, and we spent an enjoyable day navigating Inca ruins and being floored by the views in either direction as we walked along the spine of the mountain range which ran the length of it. Hardened by our recent trekking to Choquequirao we found this walking a lot easier despite the relentless sun, and made it to the south end of the island by late afternoon.

Midday heat on the Island

Wild flowers on the isle

ceremonial table in the Inca ruins

dung beetles in action

That evening from our hostel balcony we were treated to some of the most spectacular sunset views I have seen anywhere in the world – hopefully the many photos that Laura took will in some way do justice.

the sunset begins...

the sun dips

Laur checks out the colours

the sky is aflame

those colours again

Crossing the border - 10th February 2011

Today we took off early in a luxury bus to make the border crossing into Bolivia. We got a bit of a shock as the driver emphasised how important it was to produce the tourist entry card which we’d filled in on the plane arriving into Peru – I’d kept this but Laura hadn’t. Fortunately, and perhaps predictably you could pay to overcome this problem, and Laura lucked out as the official in charge of people who’d lost their landing cards was incredibly nice, going out of his way to help her queue-jump so we could be on our way.

The Bolivian side of the Lake immediately felt different (although this may have been in our minds), more peaceful and scenic. Our first stop was Copacabana, prompting some predictable Barry Manilow comments from me. The town itself was small and comfortably geared up for backpackers, who were there in abundance wearing Llama colourful clothing and listening to Bob Marley in ethnic-themed cafes – the lingua franca of water-oriented tourism.

A station of the cross - one of 14

the dolores (pains) of Christ

We settled into a nice hostel with friendly, chatty staff who helped us along with our Spanish, then went for a wander up the hill overlooking the town, featuring 14 stations of the cross - large cruxifixes with dedications on them periodically set on a winding path up a steep (naturally) hill. At the top were further monuments depicting crucial stages in the crucifixion story, and a great view over the bay.

illicit photo of the inside of Copa Cathedral

Cholita vendors outside the Cathedral

More Candeleria - 9th Feb 2011

A less hectic day of Candeleria celebrations greeted us in Puno today; we spent the morning wandering up to the massive Inca statue at the top of the town, with great views around the bay of Lake Titicaca that puno is situated in , then caught a great procession featuring people in traditional dress and playing traditional instruments like massive pan-pipes that stretched down to the ground, a welcome change from the now ubiquitious and constant brass bands. There were even a couple of gringos in the traditional bands, which all were attached to cultural clubs – we were stationed outside the main church, and interestingly some of the bands stopped and bowed in front of this while others – notably made up of Quechan/indigenous people didn’t.

Dancers posing for us in Puno

Long pan pipes

The Virgen makes an appearance

and makes her way down the street

A face in the crowd

After lunch we headed down to the port and onto our local boat for the tour to the floating Islands of Uros. A really cool concept, where villagers actually lived on floating islands constructed from the reeds which were abundant in that part of the lake, constructing boats, buildings, bridges and lookout towers as well as “solid” ground out of the reeds.

Laur on the way to the floating reed islands

boats and the reed islands

Unfortunately it had degenerated into a bit of a tourist trap and felt quite inauthentic – Laura even heard rumours that people from the mainland would come over and pretend to be floating island villagers for the day, then head back once the tours were over, and I believed this. They’d even hung out fake washing to make it look inhabited! The engine on the public boat we were on kept breaking down, but it was still a nice jaunt and the lake looked lovely

Gathering the reeds

Safe cooking on the reed islands

Celebrating Candeleria - 8th Feb 2011

Now almost completely out of clean clothes and craving the simple things in life – wireless, a working kitchen etc – we tapped up the Thorn Tree for some recommendations to change our hotel. As usual it came through and we relocated to a gringo-friendly place near the centre of the Candelmas action – as I type this we can hear bands, singing and fireworks and it’s set to continue for the next few days. We spent the afternoon getting to know Puno while there was a lull in proceedings, and wandered down to the shores of lake Titicaca where we saw pink flamingos and oxen wading through swampland to get at the fresh grass.

It’s nice to be with friendly gringos and to have a conversation in English, and we chatted to a guy from Melbourne who has been living in an obscure Chinese town in Szechuan province for the past 9 years, and had picked up some of the Chinese way of phrasing things. Tomorrow we’re hoping to do a tour of the floating reed islands on Lake Titicaca before we head for the Bolivian border; now it’s time to chill a bit and update our friends and family on where we are.

Cusco to Puno - 7th Feb 2011

Today we finally broke free of the gravitational pull of Cusco, and boarded a cushy double-decker bus for the 6 hours to Puno, high up on the altiplano. It was a fairly uneventful ride with the majority of other passengers being gringos like us, but all that changed when we hopped off in Puno which was hosting the largest and most frantic festival in Peru for the year – the Virgen de Candelaria. The streets were crushed and the sun beat down on us as we vainly struggled to make sense of where we were and what was going on, directions from drunken businessmen enjoying the carnival atmosphere only serving to confuse us further.

After some aborted attempts to do the “independent traveller” thing and find some cheap accommodation, we settled for something near the bus station, dumped our gear and headed out into the mayhem. It was an interesting evening, punctuated by loud brass bands, legions of colourfully-costumed locals parading through the centre of town, and thousands of domestic tourists boosting the population.

Brass bands abound during Candelaria in Puno

We surmised that, in a culture where drinking is not widespread, when it does happen it happens to excess, and after the dark thousands of casualties emerged, staggering and senseless (and sometimes with children in tow!). The rain inevitably began to pour and we fought our way back through the crush to our hotel and a very compromised night’s sleep as the partying continued outside.

Choque trek comes to an end - 6th Feb 2011

Our last day started a little later as we thought we had less ground to cover. We’d been lucky with the weather thus far, but this morning and throughout most of the day it rained like a bitch, so much so that all the paths turned to thick, sticky mud. This didn’t present a problem until I started slipping around near the edge of the path, sometimes with heart-stopping drops beyond. With some coaxing and some very careful steps taken however, we made it to the top, and the rest of our walk was essentially downhill and on a road.

Going back down the mountain

I’d faced a number of fears on this trek – heights, spiders (which seemed to love crawling all over our tent) and even claustrophobia, but I had won through. It was a gruelling few days but we both felt a huge sense of achievement at their end, and slipped back into life on the gringo trail once we’d finally made it back to Cusco.

Laur demonstrates this cactus is big

Choque trek day 3 - 5th Feb 2011

Another early start and we were heading back the way we had come, down the steep mountainside had struggled with the day before – in a moment of inspiration I remembered about “tacking”, and my trek performance increased out of sight. Laura grumbled a little bit about how much distance we had to cover that day, however we were rewarded when we reached the campsite for the last night – an incredible vista looking down a canyon with towering green mountains on either side, and from our cliff-edge we saw condors circling in the gathering dusk.

Outside Choque in the driving rain and mist

Riding the Moolah down the mountain

Earlier that day I had been innocently trudging along at the back when suddenly Laura yelped and reeled back – in front of us was an actual, fricking tarantula, swaggering around as if it owned the place. Being Peruvian and comfortable with all types of fauna, our guide Renato simply urged the beast onto his walking sticks and placed it up on the embankment above the path. From then on I was constantly on the lookout for another one to leap out at me – none did luckily.

An actual, fricking tarantula - right there!

Choque trek day 2 - 4th Feb 2011

Sore from the previous day but raring to go, we headed off after an excellent breakfast to ascend the mountain to our next campsite near Choquequirao itself. The climb, quadrupled in intensity because of the altitude, was difficult for the first two thirds, but became an ordeal for me, and thus it was that some 15 minutes from the top and on the verge of collapse, I succumbed to the temptation to get a mule-back lift to the summit (others were doing the entire trip on horseback I hasten to add – and we had not done any training other than climbing down from Machu Picchu).

Laura gets a new hairstyle from a Quechan girl

A chastened Doogs is led into camp by horseman

This made all the difference, and by the afternoon I was back on form; we were hoping the sun would hold out for our visit in the afternoon. There was still 2 hours of trekking through jungle to get to the site which was high above the valley, and the changes in landscape, trees and plants were rapid. I arrived at Choquequirao on horseback, then we toured the ruins with our guide telling us about the historical events and personalities behind it, as well as pointing out what various buildings had been used for. It was interesting, but not a complete mind-melt like Machu Picchu had been.

On the trail to Choquequirao

Ceremonial mummy-storage centre in Choquequirao

Laur ponders the ancient mysteries of Choquequirao

Back to camp and another great Peruvian comida, then we went to bed early, sore again from walking (and in my case probably a little saddle-sore).

View from our tent in Marampata campsite near Choque

Choquequirao trek begins - 3rd Feb 2011

Bundled into the back of a “van” (it was actually a station wagon) at the crack of dawn set the pace for what was to come over the next four days. In our car was our driver, our chilled-out cook Mario (not Italian, but Peruvian) and our guide Renato. The drive to Chacora, not far from Abancay where we had come from a week before took over 4 hours, due to the traditional hazards of driving Andean roads – cattle, chickens, “death-wish”dogs that hurled themselves at passing vehicles smaller than a lorry, tuk-tuks, Aymara farmers laden with bundles of vegetation twice their size, fallen rocks and boulders, and extreme hair-pin bends that presented a challenge to the machismo of any driver to take as fast as physically possible.

Church in Chacor asquare as we set off

Arriving at Chacora we met our horseman, who would be in charge of the two mules we travelled with in the coming days, then once we’d off-loaded our main packs we set off through fields and eventually climbed into the mountains, oddly for me through eucalyptus groves which messed my head up a little bit. Andean mountains are incredibly bio-diverse, and the types of vegetation and fauna changed constantly, as did the temperature (hot and sunny in the valleys, cold and misty in the high passes and mountain-tops).

Renato shares his knowledge of the Apurimac Valley

The rest of the day was spent chatting with Renato who was a wealth of information about not only the surrounding vegetation, but a lot of the Inca history of the area too. We lunched on the side of the road, chuffed to see that our cook Mario put on full chef’s garb of puffy white hat and apron. The food would be consistently excellent throughout the trip, and introduced us to a number of Peruvian stapes (including about 10 different types of soup made with wheat, quinoa, maize), incredible considering that the cook and horseman were doing the same gruelling walking as us – and then on arrival cooking, cleaning, setting up camp and tending to horses while we kicked off our boots and I moaned quietly.

Mario dons his chef garb in the middle of nowhere

The first day ended in a cool valley at dusk, with the awe-inducing sight of the mountain we would have to climb tomorrow the last thing we saw before dropping off to sleep.

Back in Cusco, briefly - 2nd Feb 2011

Spent the morning trying to research going it alone to Choqueqierao; this turned into a bit of a non-day. In the end we decided to go with a small firm called Cusco Native, who support education programs for Quechua children and who got some good write-ups. We packed up to once again leave Cusco, and got to bed early, ready for our rude awakening at 5.30.

Gran Hotel Machu Picchu in Cusco, our colonial base

Where next? - 1st Feb 2011

So we entered the “worst month” of the rainy season with a gloriously sunny day, getting the slow train back to Ollantaytambo surrounded by excited gringos, and giving our hotly-contested patronage to a small colectivo back to Cusco, and our bags. It was a quiet evening of salad, wine and planning our next trip – a hike around the under-discovered ruins of Choquequirao, for what we expected would be an experience not unlike that which those hiking the Inca Trail in the 70s might have had.

As I write this we are deciding whether to take a tour or to go it alone (with a local guide), a difficult decision as there are pros and cons to both.

Exploring the Picchus - 31st Jan 2011

Up at the unholy hour of 4.15 so that we could join the queue for the first buses up to the Machu Picchu site. There were stacks of peopled queuing already when we arrived at the bus station half an hour later, mostly under the age of 25 and white. There was a sense of keen competition in the air as we were all vying (so we thought) for 400 tickets to climb Huana Picchu – this is the massive mountain that you see behind the ruins in the “classic” Machu Picchu photo (second in popularity only to that photo everyone takes in front of the Taj Mahal!).

First glimpse of MP from on high

Despite a desperate last-minute rush to buy bus tickets (everyone else had done this the night before we discovered), we made it and in fact were among the first into the Huayna Picchu site. It was a clear morning and walking through the centre of Machu Picchu was an intense and magical experience, very much worth the expense and hassle of getting there.

Llamas in the central plaza

Ceremonial Baths

I girded my loins and faced my fear of heights, the climb taking about 3 hours in total up and down the mountain; when we came down for a late breakfast it had started to rain, and soggy tourists were clambering all around the ruins. Despite the rain and the anachronisticly colourful guided tour groups, it was an amazing experience. We rounded the day off by walking back down the mountain, an experience we are still recovering from as I write this more than a day later.

Laur and me near the summit of Huayna Picchu

Sacred Valley from Huayna Picchu

Laur outside caretakers hut, huayna picchu in background

Farewell to a genuine wonder of the world

In the late afternoon, we soaked our aching limbs in the hot mineral baths that gave Aguas Calientes (hot waters) its name, drinking Cusqueno beer with the towering Andes in the background. We rounded off probably my favourite Monday to date, with dinner at an eccentric frenchman’s restaurant – far and away the best food we’d eaten in Peru, picky westerners that we are.