Sandboarding, pisco tasting and a wine tour

Huacachina: Image courtesy of wikipedia 

We took a bumpy and not so comfortable overnight bus ride to Ica from Cusco, and after an argument with the driver about our bags, grabbed a little taxi to the tiny desert oasis town of Huacachina. The town is based around a blue and occasionally smelly lagoon in the middle of the desert, flanked by high dunes and sand mountains.

We stayed at a cute little place with a pool, hammocks and pretty lax security, made up for by its bar and delicious guacamole (the guac is becoming a firm favourite on this trip). Despite being knackered we decided to dive into Huacachina life headfirst, and booked ourselves on a sand boarding trip, and a wine and pisco tour the next day too.

Now sand boarding is a sport I could get used to, mostly as you have the option of taking your sand board for a  ride down a seemingly huge sand dune on your tummy, bum or even, if you really want, standing up, surfer style. I tried all three, and loved it so much we did it again the next day, this time on our own, without the jeeps to take us far out. For 5soles (just over a pound) we grabbed a board and a chunk of board wax (in actual fact, a candle broken into chunks...no lies), and practised our sand boarding style for a few hours while the sun went down over the dunes.

The second day we moved to a nearby hotel as the hostel was full (we had only booked one night). It might have been several times the cost of our hostel but it felt like paradise. Towels, more than one pillow, a mattress where you cant feel the slats underneath...not to mention a powerful, hot shower, and the mecca of hotel accessories, a TV with cable TV. So happy.

We set off for a pisco and wine tour with a Aussie- Swiss girl named Steffi, who was great fun. We learnt about the traditional way of making pisco, the local grape brandy, the methods and timings involved, and the yearly grape stomping festival. Naturally, we also sampled a few pisco liqueurs. The wine tour was all together more modern and industrial, but still interesting. Peruvian wine, like its Bolivian counterpart, is much sweeter than you expect.

Our last adventure in the Pisco making region was to the Islas Ballestas, which is also known as the poor man`s Galapagos. We had a short boat trip around the Islas, which I`m not sure was worth it. We saw black footed boobies (that`s a bird, by the way), sea lions, penguins, commodores and lots of other birds. The penguins were tiny and super cute, but the most interesting sight of all was a huge trident or candelabra that has been carved into the rocks, visible to see from far away at sea. Theories abound, but who created it and its meaning are still unknown.

On the way back the boat ran out of fuel (not like that's something you might wan to check before you set sail into the ocean), so we spent a while bobbing about waiting to be rescued.

Next, we're off to Mancora, a beach town near the Ecuadorian border for some rest and relaxation. Here comes the sun!

Trek to Machu Pichcu

It's been almost a week since we trekked to Machu Picchu but we're still riding on a high from the experience.

While we had some initial issues with the company we went with (I probably wouldn't recommend mountain biking with Reserv Cusco to friends) the trekking and our guide were really excellent.

Jules and myself, plus the two couples we've been with since Copacabana (we seem to attract lovely couples, so no complaints there), began with a day mountain biking, mostly downhill, and then followed this by three days trekking to reach the site of the Inca Ruins at Machu Picchu, as above. I look tired, I know. 4am starts do that to me.

Our first day trekking was by far the most challenging. We've done quite a lot of active stuff on the trip, but vertically climbing what seems like the world's most steep mountain was definitely up there in the strenuous stakes. Throw in some foothold paths half way down a sheer cliff face and some ridiculously jaw-dropping views and you've got yourself a pretty stupendous, if exhausting, way to spend the day.

We stopped intermittently for offerings to the Pachamama (Mother Earth, and a very important ritual for Quechans) and at various huts along the way for water and respite. Lots of them have monkeys tied up for the tourists, and at one we had traditional local designs painted on our faces.

Lunchtime came and we fell on it like gannets, devouring some of the most delicious and most welcome food I think we've had this trip. Freshly made, perfectly ripe guacamole with just the right amount of garlic and red onion, hearty soups and a delicious chicken curry, all washed down by lip-smackingly good homemade lemonade. My mouth is watering just thinking about it.

Having demolished lunch with such vigour, we were given a welcome break for an hour, collapsing into hammocks for a little siesta snooze. 

The afternoon included some hairy moments, the best of which has to be a canyon crossing from two peaks. To cross the daunting abyss three people must sit in what looks like a metal milk crate. The crate hangs from a pulley system, and you are pushed then manually pulled across the valley, with nothing between you and a certain death fall but a small iron bar. Health and Safety would have a field day.

The temperatures began to drop and the end of day 2 included a welcome sight - three hot spring baths at the end of our route. These outdoor pools vary in temperature, and were paradise to sore muscles. The best one is that wonderful perfect bath temperature, where you sink in and don't intend to leave until your fingers are all wrinkly. Paradise.

That evening we wolfed down another yummy meal and headed out for Happy Hour drinks and a quick jaunt to the local 'Incateca', purely based on how much we liked the name. Easily pleased!

The next day's walking was a little more tedious, following railroad tracks and tailed by a matted dog who decided to befriend us along the way. Machu Picchu was now in sight, and as it towered above us I think we were all a little daunted by the prospect of climbing such a huge summit. A relaxed dinner in Aguas Calientes and a quick shop at the market for provisions for our final day, we climbed the four storeys (four sets of stairs...my legs were not happy) to our hotel beds and promptly fell asleep.

 Our last day began with the aforementioned 4am start and a quick breakfast before walking in the pitch dark to the entry gates for what, for most of us, would be our final challenge. The walk up to the ruins at Machu Picchu consists of a very steep hike up big stone steps set into the mountain. Much of it you do in darkness, which I think helped, as all you could focus on was putting one foot in front of the other and not falling.

Getting to the Inca city ruins was an exhilarating feeling, and such an adrenaline rush. You feel really smug to have climbed up as the buses of tourists begin to arrive (yes, there's a bus option. It takes 20 minutes of comfort. But it doesn't deliver quite the same feeling of pride.) We had a 2.5 hour tour of the ruins, which are a fair size (see above) and really quite ingenious in their layout, accounting for sun, agricultural benefit and positioning. 

A quick picnic lunch and Steve, Nicole and I decided to climb one of the two summits that overlook the ruins (team extreme, pictured below. My money belt is round my back and makes me look a little misshapen...promise I haven't ballooned in the past few months).

 

I'm not quite sure what we were thinking, as the sun was pretty intense and the walk up to the top of Machu Picchu summit is much, much higher than the more popular Wayna Picchu. However, once we got going it was a case of 'well we've come so far now...' and we soldiered on. I'm so glad we did!

Jules had kindly lent me her iphone so the melodious voices of Prince and Billy Joel got me to the top (you can take the girl out of Fingers Piano Bar...), and I managed to snap some photos as well.

The views made the effort so worthwhile, and we were three of just 15 or so people who climbed both to the ruins and the summit, so we felt a real sense of achievement. 

I'm not sure I'll be ready for another hike for at least a few weeks but this really has been a massive highlight of our trip, and definitely something none of us will forget in a hurry!

The tale of Julia, the hospital and the pensioner

 

Once upon a time a little backpacker named Julia ate some dodgy things. She travelled boldly across Bolivia, and despite her companion´s insistence that fresh fruit juices, salads and tap water for tooth brushing would be fine, she very sensibly avoided such things and ensured she had her handy medical pack close by at all times.

Such was Julia´s prowess in the medical kit stakes, she was known across hostels far and wide for her supplies, distributing dioralite, Imodium and the likes with a generosity not incomparable to Santa Claus himself. Indeed, the aforementioned ´team poo and puke´ of the salt flats would have been lost without her.

But I digress. Our story begins a fortnight before, a doomed 14 days, where disaster repeatedly struck. Food became the enemy of Julia, and while her traveling companion happily devoured packets of wafers, poor Jules could barely keep a Pringle down. By day 14, having shared a delicious home cooked meal of ratatouille but still feeling awful, Julia admitted defeat. Maybe she should see a doctor.

The doctor arrived at the hostel, not on a white horse but in a small ambulance van, and proceeded to cart Julia and her companion off to ´the clinic´. Here Julia was adorned with a fetching IV and spent her day with her companion playing Monopoly, cards and watching US TV. Her companion had a great time, gorged on the hospital food with relish, and delighted in having a double bed in Julia´s room for a sleepover. In retrospect she was perhaps having too much fun at Julia´s health insurance´s expense.

 

Julia was a model patient and very brave the whole way through, even eating all her chicken, rice and jelly for dinner. Her companion rather fancied a second helping of jelly so was somewhat disappointed about that. The pair watched a Harry Potter film, scorned CNN reporting, and became obsessed with Project Runway.  

The nurses and doctor at the hospital were lovely, and Julia´s knight in shining armour, Direct Line Travel Insurance, was very accommodating in paying for her sojourn. The same cannot be said for the artwork in Julia´s bedroom, it being rather scary for a place of recuperation and health...

 

The next day, Julia was let loose into the world once more. Armed with even greater medical supplies than before, the traveling duo decided a trip to a local Irish pub might be in order. Such abodes are widely known to have curative qualities, after all. Indeed, it was here they discovered the restorative powers of Irish chicken soup in a Peruvian city. 

Chicken soup consumed and ready to face the day, a sudden turn of events occurred, heralded by a white haired, middle aged Australian lady. The Oz looked Julia up and down and politely requested Jules place her in a headlock. She had a crick in her neck, you see, and wanted to do Machu Picchu tomorrow. Could she just squeeze her neck a little to help? No, just a bit tighter than that. A proper headlock, yes that´s right.

Happily, Julia, pumped full of antibiotics, new superpowers and a few hundred litres of weird IV fluid stuff, cured the Australian woman´s neck problems, received a small koala for her troubles, and is now fully on the mend. Happy days.

Lake Titicaca pics

 

A few phone photos from Lake Titicaca and Copacabana, our last stop in Bolivia before Peru. Copacabana is a place of terrible food but spectacular views. Happily we shared our time there with Steve and Nicole again, of Salta and briefly pampas tour fame, and new friends Jon and Carlene.

Jules, having been unwell on and off for the past fortnight, really got worse in Copa. Luckily our hotel room was dirt cheap but with beautiful views, so she spent a day relaxing while I went off with the others on a 6 hour hike around Isla del Sol.

The Isla del Sol is nestled a two hour boat ride from Copacabana´s shores. It´s a place of over 80 ruins and, as the name might suggest, the Incas believed the Sun and Moon were born in the lake, the sun god on the island. Lots of interesting things to see and a hike that was pretty grueling at times even for five relatively fit people. We were blessed at one point at an Inca sacrificial site, pictured a few photos down. A local chanted over us with water and flowers, and explained the use of blessings and the like in Inca society.

The next day the others went to the Floating Islands in Puno while we took it easy, with Jules not feeling much better, and later boarded an overnight bus to Cusco, Peru, meeting the rest of the gang at a stop off in Puno. Having lived off crackers, wafers and the occasional terrible meal for the past few days, we´re all looking forward to cooking our own food and stocking up on some good old fruit and vegetables when we hit Peru.

  

Above, love the local designs

Below, the view from our hotel room

 Views from Isla del Sol

Looking out on to Copacabana....we took a few swan shaped pedalos out. Wild times!

 

Agricultural formations and Inca ruins, below 

Traditional reed boat on Lake Titicaca, below  

Blessed at an Inca site 

 

 

Pampas Pirates

 

Our next adventure... a tour of the Amazon Pampas! We said farewells to Devon, Sonya and Jon and headed off on a tinpot plane to Rurrenebaque. Rurre is a small town nestled conveniently close for Amazon jungle and pampas tours, and is home to what is quite possibly the world´s most rugged airport.

I should probably admit something here. La Paz airport is very, very small also, and we may have boarded the wrong plane. In my defence, you expect your plane to be the one directly beside your gate, no? Not the one a few hundred metres to the right.

Anyway, we were sent off the wrong plane and directed to the correct one, and just a mere 30 minutes in the air later we began our decent. Rurre's landing strip is basically a clearing in jungle like environs. You climb down on to a dirt track where a clutch of tourists wait to board the aircraft back to La Paz. There's a wee minivan that greets you, your luggage gets chucked on top and it bobs along another dirt track, swerving past cockrels, until you reach the town centre.

We'd played a wild card and decided to rock up and find somewhere to stay rather than relying on the few hostels advertised online, and really glad we did. Found a lovely sun-lit courtyard place with hammocks, cheap as chips and with the yummiest French bakery nearby.

We headed out on our pampas tour the next day, along with an American girl, Rachel, an English girl Emma and four guys who were individually nice enough and together were very ladish. Made me appreciate the lovely, curteous boys we've travelled with so far and how lovely our male friends at home are! Example: most boys do not steal cigarettes, bottles of rum and water at any given opportunity, and their humour tends to extend beyond 'tiiiiiitttssss!´

We stocked up on rum and cokes for the three hour canoe ride to our lodge, and as we were loading on our rucksacks, Jules spotted Steve and Nicole, who we'd met in Salta. Small gringo world!

Anyway, we played Pampas Pirates, sipping rum and cokes and spying all sorts of wildlife on our way to the lodge, from exotic birds to howler monkeys, dolphins to crocodiles. Our lodge itself had its own cayman, who sat and eyes us suspiciously as we played dumb tourists and took photos of him.

The tour included an anaconda hunt (slodging through marshland looking for a giant snake and batting off millions of mosquitos...not my idea of fun), watching the sun set over drinks, pirannah fishing (one guy caught a turtle, which the cayman then went for...cue panic all round) and swimming with dolphins. For me, the tour mostly consisted of fending off mosquitos (what sort of mossies bite through jeans and tropical strength deet I ask you?), but I admit the huge array of wildlife was spectacular.

On return to La Paz Emma and I did some splurging at the markets, before Jules and I headed off to Copacabana. More on that later!

Mountain Biking World´s Most Dangerous ´Death Road´

Every day we´ve seen people come back to our hostel with broken limbs, casts, sprains and tales of the Death Road. What with Jules continuing to have bank issues and Jon and Sonya unsure whether their travel insurance would cover the World´s Most Dangerous Road, Devon and I set off on a day of mountain biking without the rest of the gang.

A 6am start and a quick breakfast later, we were joined by three others - an Irish man, and English man (this sounds like a bad joke, I realise), and a Portuguese guy. We´d opted to go with Barracuda Biking, and when we arrived at the starting point for the day´s biking I was really relieved we had. I might have been the only girl in our small group of five, plus the guide, but the other groups were huge, and it was fantastic to have that little bit more attention.

We started the whole affair with a blessing to Pachamama, Mother Earth. Our (fantastic) guide Jubbi produced a small bottle of 90% proof alcohol, and we each had to dribble some over our bikes and the ground, before taking a swig, so as to ensure our safety on the road. We had a dry run on our bikes, testing out the super sensitive brakes. The most common injuries come from not paying attention and braking too fast...and with the last mountain biking death a year ago we were all pretty keen to stay firmly attached.

The death road is almost 70km long, a small part of it being paved and the rest gravel. It´s still used by motorists, although there is a new, much safer alternative route. 200-300 people die a year on the road (mostly in vehicles), which is an insane number, emphasised all the more by the frequent crosses of remembrance and barriers where people have gone over. One girl recently fell 200ft from her bike down the mountain and survived.

On that cheery note, I´m happy to say that while I found the paved section more difficult, I loved the gravel, and (hurrah!) didn't keep the boys back. You ride from the very top of the mountain, down through the cloud line and eventually through the jungle. The scenery is incredible, and it was difficult not to become distracted by it all. Luckily, Jubi the guide was on hand to take photos and videos as he went. The guy is a nutter but great fun, and he took us through waterfalls, pouring rain and blazing sunshine. We had a few stops along the way, doing ´the llama´pose (see below), getting snaps on cliffs and the like. Completely exhilarating and one of the highlights of South America so far.

The stories Jubi told of the road were fascinating (and morbid), from the van police had discovered was crammed full of drugs, plantation busts in the jungle to whole buses simply going over the cliffs. Wreckages of smashed vehicles can still be seen which made for a heart fluttering viewpoint, as we craned our necks down sheer drops.

At the end of the ride we relaxed with a drink, a shower, and a meal together at a little lodge where we spotted a parrot, monkey and went hunting for some puppies. On return to La Paz we found the others playing darts, with the loser having to down shots or wine. Guess who´s really, really terrible at darts? Jules has a charming video of me necking wine which I very much hope never makes a public appearance.

Next we´re off to the Amazon, where we´ll spend a few days on a pampas tour before making our way northwards to Peru.

Sucre

 

So here´s the thing. We didn´t do a huge amount in Sucre. It´s a UNESCO city and a University one too, and very pretty when there´s a fleeting moment of calm in the crazy traffic and hoards of people in the streets. We did try to be cultural, but ended up going places when they were closed and eventually resigned ourselves to a few days relaxing - not exactly a hardship.

We moved hostels to a place called Wasi Masi, which, despite having some less than friendly staff, was lovely - rooftop terrace where we drank rum one evening until the sun went down, BBQ area, big sunny courtyard. Really fantastic people staying there too. We had a huge BBQ one night (correction: óssado´, Argentinian style) and I learned a lesson in drinking Pisco Sours at altitude.

Our last day was spent lazing about (mostly in a hammock in the courtyard, my saving grace for the day) and getting snacks for our 15 hour overnight bus jounery to La Paz, Bolivia´s capital. Was super excited when Jules found me some quinoa cereal bars for the road. 

We paid less than 14GDP for a ´cama suite´ seat on the bus, which meant we could sleep fully reclined. Really quite impressed by it, watched a little Lincoln in Spanish and dozed the whole way. The beauty of being a non driver means I was oblivious to the many hairy moments and near misses for the whole journey. 

We´re now in La Paz, and having spent the best part of 3 hours in a bank trying to explain the ATM had swallowed Jules´card yesterday, now having a sightseeing day, hopefully money/bank/cards stress free. Booking Pampas tour and Death Road mountain biking too - bring it on!