The Week of Physical/Emotional Rollercoasters

So. I am getting rather behind with this blogging lark it seems. I am currently in La Paz, capital of Bolivia. First impressions of the country: Warmer, friendlier and more fun than Peru. Yep, I went there. You know the place is going to be good when you get talking to a Mexican gothic metal band on the bus across the border and then meet an old dude with the coolest shoes ever who does a little dance for you to show his appreciation for your compliment. Bolivians are rather cool people.

Anyways, I´m still to put words to the experiences undertaken in southern Peru. The following prose encompasses: my visit to the bizarre Oasis of Huacachina, where the massive sand dunes are just asking you to chuck yourself down on a thin piece of plywood carved to look like a snowboard; the famous lines of Nazca where thre flight turns your stomach inside out and upside down, making it difficult to appreciate the views; the refined colonnial chic of Arequipa where the party was in full swing to celebrate the founding of the city and we took an amusingly guided tour to the Colca Canyon (deeper than the Grand by quite a way) to watch the graceful Condors swoop and dive on the early morning thermals.

Huacachina
Huacachina is a very small cluster of hotels and restaurants ten minutes or so outside of the city of Ica, centered around a natural oasis. It is surrounded by seemingly random, and very massive Sahara-style dunes which really have to be seen to be believed (no pics = sad face). The main reason people go there is to fling themselves down these great natural wonders at high speed on flimsy pieces of wood. It was GREAT FUN! you get strapped into a big dune buggy with a few others and the drivers are genrally lunatics who love driving as fast as possible up vertical ´theres-no-way-he-can-make-that´ angles, only to drop down almost vertically the other side. For someone who hates rollercoasters I think I did pretty well to let go of my fear and laugh like a fool at every turn. There was a couple of times I doubted his sanity though as he turned around and shot us all an ice-cool wink after one of the most pant-wettingly obtuse climbs. At the top of some dunes, they let you lose sliding down, its ridiculously fast and despite sand getting into every orifice, its stupidly great fun... except if you try to stand up on a very small hill like I did, going great guns until the moment of stopping and then fall dramtically directly onto your ribs and spend the next couple of weeks moaning about a suspected hairline fracture!

The other great thing about being at the oasis was that I randomly met up with my friends Eric and Lacey from Austin who I´d originally met up in Ecuador. Some of the most lovely people you´d ever wish to meet and it was my very great pleasure to spend the next week or two travelling around with them (and guys, if you hadn´t been there for me to despair at when my bag got nicked... well who knows!). Speaking of which...

Nazca
We arrived in Nazca on a scorchingly hot day unsure if we´d even get to fly. Having booked a deal with the hostel in Huacachina and then turning up to be told "maybe today, maybe tomorrow" shit was about to kick off (by this I mean myself and Eric frowning and tutting to ourselves and later making the guy´s office stink of tuna).

In the end after a walk around the town (dry, dusty, not much going on) we returned to be told that yes, we could fly after all so headed off to the purpose built airport which was full of tourists and I began to regret my decision. After all, they rip you for the flight which lasts half an hour in the tiniest, wobbliest plane ever. Now it took me a long time to get over my fear of flying and I still can´t completely relax in aeroplane so this was a real test of my mettle. Suffice to say I returned feeling rather sick and had to rush to the loo after landing! The fact I was sat up front by the pilot who was making the most arrestingly hard turns - I was looking directly down at the ground at some points - didn´t really help matters. Trying to concentrate on the actually quite spectacular lines in the earth far below whilst the G´s and the sickness permeates one´s being was rather difficult and I defy anyone (except Eric who was somehow fine) to not feel the same. Still, glad I did it, just!

I´m not going to go into too many details about the bag incident for insurance purposes but it can only be described as a very real test of detachment from material possesions. Still, it wasn´t exactly the experience I´d been hoping for in South America, in fact it had all been going so well up until that point. Onwards and upwards, onwards and upwards.

Arequipa
We arrived in Arequipa and my mood wasn´t exactly great to say the least. A nice man with a fisherman´s beard gave us a map and told us how to get to our chosen hostel, The Point. They have a chain of places around the country and its a pretty sure bet to meet some other travellers and have a few drinks. Nice people too. Most of my first morning in the city was unfortunately spent in the police station relating my story of the bag incident and between my averagly bad spanish and the clerk´s pretty rough english we just about managed to figure out the report and get it all sorted out. I was fingerprinted about six times though, which was a first and couldn´t help feeling like a criminal rather than the victim. Afterwards, good old mum and dad were on hand to provide superior moral and financial support in my time of need. God bless Skype and all who dial with her.

That all dealt with, it was time to soak up the party atmosphere. The whole city had turned out it seemed, lining the streets for various parades of a real carnival nature. There were floats with full live bands playing latin-reggae, young peruvian ladies provocativly dressed in burlesque outfits throwing sweets to the crowd (and believe it or not fights almost broke out for this) to beer floats of the local brew Arequipena offering free booze. It was a great time to check the city out (again, sans camera). That evening myself and Eric did an impromptu bar crawl, ending up at some bizarre 3rd floor bar where the locals were singing terrible karaoke sat down on leather sofas. It was weird as you could never see who was actually singing, these awful disembodied vocals spewing forth from the speakers, and of course we were the only gringos stupid enough to be there, giggling into our drinks.

The last couple of days we spent wandering around the Santa Catalina Convent, famous for being female only and being closed to the public for years, only opening in 1970 after four centuries of mystery. Inside, it is a complete miniature wallked colonial town and around 450 nuns lived there in total seclusion. It was a strange monument to a life of compete devotion and although I could never imagine such a life for myself, it was fascinating, tranquil place to explore and to imagine the lives that had been lived out there.

Our final day in the city was spent on a slightly over-priced day trip to Colca Canyon, known for being (almost) the deepest in the world and deeper than the much more famous Grand, and also for the place where groups of elegent condors rise and fall with the thermals from its depths. We had a very dry guide, a peruivan guy who spoke english with a German accent and insisted in saying "Ja" after every sentence. This caused much stifled giggling as he pronounced "terraces" as "terrorists" and continued in this vein until curtailing the tour an hour early as he had some "urgent business" to do which then never materialized. I did however try the most sour fruit ever, a kiwi-like creation which comes from one of the desert cacti in the area and will make your face pucker like nothing else.

Next: Hanging out in Gringo-central Cuzco and the stunning five day Salkantay Trek to Machu Picchu.

Up in the mountains and down by the sea

This latest post comes to you full of the joys of the pure mountain air of the Cordillera Blanca, gets thrown into stark contrast by the brash metropolis that is Lima and spends a day or two navigating the the war-zone vibe of earthquake ravaged Pisco. Unfortunately, it is also tainted by the sadness of loss. I know, its a tad heavy for a blog post but there is a reason why there will be no pictures associated with the next couple of posts.

At a Nazca bus staion I popped my smaller backpack down on the floor for a few seconds, turned around and... GONE. Rather gutting to say the least, as I had been very vigilant about such things up till that point. One tiny slip up and some dodgy Peruvian was there to capitalise. Needless to say I was rather upset for a day or two, losing a couple of almost-full journals, my Ipod and a few books, not to mention my camera and a couple of weeks of photos. Ah well. One to learn from I guess and roll on the insurance claim.

Let that smidgen of darkness not cast a shadow across my experiences though, for my week spent at The Way Inn, a gorgeous farmhouse-style lodge nestled right up close to the grand Cordillera Blanca mountain range became one pof the best experiences of my trip. It is a shame I cannot share the imagery (and there were some really fantastic photos, you´ll just have to believe me) except for one single picture that escaped via facebook, but I am already of the mindset that I shall return there one day.


This was taken on a really quite exhausting hike up to Laguna Churup, a gorgeous azure lake right at the foot of a glacier. It sits at around 4500m above sea level, about then highest I´ve ever been on land and was a real sight to behold. The landscape around the lodge is all about gigantic rock faces that hover either side of winding rivers, strewn with boulders and grasses. Snow-caped peaks seem within touching distance and dotted across they valleys below, small families of Andean famers work the dry land for all they can get. It was bright and sunny every day, with views across the valley to the mountains beyond and down below Huaraz was just a small twinkling of light in the dark of night.

It was probably one of the most beautiful places I have ever had the pleasure to spend time in, made all the more special was some amazing, inspiring people, delicous home-cooked food and beds composed of orthapedic matresses with proper down duvets and pillows. Sounds luxurious, but believe me you need it, it gets REALLY cold at night. I left feeling better than I have ever felt, very at peace with the world. Leaving took me from one extreme to the other however, as I was to find out.

Lima is big, foggy and loud. I walked around Miraflores, undertook some essential purchases (hair and beard trim and a new thermos - pretty rock n roll) and found a well stocked high-end supermarket called Vivenda that rather resembled a Whole Foods or a Waitrose. Walking back I got talking too long to a dodgy guy who said his name was Ricky. Long story short, he was a shady con man who tried to extort me but I gave him five soles (about a pound) and he left. Weird. Still, not exactly nice. Decided to leave Lima straight away the next morning to meet my friend Adrian who I met up at Los Cedros down the coast in a small town called Pisco. The one good thing about Lima though, the beautiful tranquil hostel run by a young Peruvian girl named Melissa, One Hostel. It was a great refuge from the chaos outside and just being there reminded just why I never feel comforable in such big cities. Give me green rolling hills and the English channel any day!

Pisco, a few hours south of Lima by the coast is rather a sorry-looking place. Famous for the drink that bears its name, it was mostly destroyed by a powerful earthquake in 2007. It is slowly recovering (not helped by evidence of millions of dollars of goverment aid mysteriously dissapearing) and there are piles of rubble, bricks and the ruined shells of buildings everywhere. Not exactly a tourist destinaton, except for the Ballestas Islands that lie a few km to the south, famous for the vast numbers of birds and sea lions that live there and cover the place with their guano(read: shit). It´s so thick in places all the rocks look white and fishermen have traditinally gathered it up for fertilizer. I did a boat ride to the Islands, and the rocks were so thick with birds blackness almost covers the white. They take to the air in their hundreds and the noise and sight is impressive. Some big daddy sea lions were lazing on the rocks amidst the avian chaos, oblivious. Again, shame there are no pics, but dust off that imagination and try to see.

Next: sandboarding down the bizarrely massive dunes of Huacachina, a woozy afternoon flight in a five-man Cessna over the famous lines (and one shitty robbery) in Nazca, and mixing a big fiesta with visits to the police station, a fascinating monastery and the worlds deepest canyon in and around Arequipa. Rollercoaster ride or what.

Going all ´Time Team´ in Northern Peru

Peru: It´s drier and flatter than I expected. So goes the first observation as I left the paradise of Vilcabamba and took the International bus from Loja over the border to Piura. With little to no border control, (get off bus, get a stamp, walk five metres, get another stamp, get back on bus) it was an easy journey, excepting the fact that I arrived in Peru with $2.50 and no idea where the nearest bank machine was. In the end I found one, had a quick plate of cheap and tasty fried rice to get change for my 100 soles and quickly found a bed, the Hotel Moon Night. After the sort of sleep that you only get in a very cheap and vaguely prison-like room, I took the advice of the helpful sign outside my door and left very early the next morning:


After spending less than twelve hours in Piura, I caught an early bus down the coast through the desert to Chiclayo for the first stop of what became something of an archaeological mini-tour.

Chiclayo
Chiclayo is a pretty standard town. Very busy and bustling due to national holidays and bringing in visitors due to the fact that it is the closest settlement to a number of important pre-Inca sites developed by the Moche people; Tucume, Sipan, Sican, Batan Grande to name the main players. The Mercado Modelo, what has to be the largest market, anywhere, ever was fun to get lost in. Apparantly you can buy San Pedro at the curandero stalls on the south-west side but I wouldn´t know anything about that. I spent a couple of days in Chiclayo treating myself to a private room in a little hotel with (shock) cable TV as it seems the idea of hostelling hasn´t quite taken off there as yet. My little routine went something like this: Get up, eat bread and jam, pack lunch of sarnies and fruit and take a taxi to the randomly scattered combi stops, walk around the sites and visit the obligatory museums, return to hotel, drink beer and watch films. It was definately interesting but after a couple of days you get a bit historied-out and one mud-brick pyramid begins to look much like the next:


Combis are mental however. They are tiny little white vans that act as the main bus servoice around most Peruvian towns and whilst dirt cheap, they cram as many people in as they can so you are literally squeezing your buttocks against those of your neighbour. It was mostly fun though as I chatted to some really nice Peruvians doing the same sightseeing trips as me. I had managed to arrive in Chiclayo for the main national holidays of the year in Peru and consequently loads of people were out taking in some national heritage. Tucume was first and its sprawling mounds of eroded adobe pyramids impress through sheer size alone, Huaca Larga claiming the much sought-after title of largest single adobe structure in the world:


In the afternoon I went to the Sican museum at nearby Ferranafe. I bet you didn´t know that the Sican dude was the founder of CND did you now? Way ahead of his time that guy.


The original maskz were rather impressive:



Afterwards I had a picture taken with this looney tune:


The next day I went to the site of the Sipan musuem and yes, another large series of adobe pyramids. It houses the well preserved remains of the Lord of Sipan, supposedly a great past leader of the Mochila people in that area. He had a pretty cool tomb:



On the combi there I got talking to a lady from Lima who was up there on holiday and we ended up wandering around the museum together (with me sporting some typically scatty spanish) attempting to converse about each others lives. It was a nice bit of cultural exchange even if some of it was lost in translation.

Huanchaco
Next stop down the coast was the little beach town of Huanchaco, famous for its reed boat fishermen who surf the waves back to shore after a hard day on the ocean and stack their boats up on the beach as the sun goes down:



Met a couple of really nice Kiwi brothers, Chris and Alex, and Will from the USA. We spent a few days hanging out at the really rather cool Hostel Naylamp, complete with two rather speedy Tortoises...


...although I managed to develop my first head cold of the trip and consequently didn´t feel like doing much apart from sniffing into tissues and drowning myself in Vitimin C and good old Lemsips. I was cheered up by the antics of one of the Artesania guys who I got talking to. His name was Winston and he told me my spanish was pretty good and then, much to my amusement, proceeded to energetically mime blow jobs with his penis-shaped ´back massagers´!


The next day Will and myself made it out to another famed site, the Huaca De La Luna just outside of Trujillo and this time I was actually suitably impressed. The friezes, original patterns and paint were all ridiculously well preserved from what must have been an utterly mindblowing temple in its day. This stuff is over 1500 years old!




After checking out the tastefully lit church that overlooks the town...


...we made it back for an evening with the Kiwi boys and woke up the next day feeling pretty rough so spent it just hanging out, nailing more health-boosting chemicals and eating as much fruit and vegetables as my body could handle. It seemed to work as by the next day I was beginning to feel better. A good job too as we had an eight hour bus ride up into the stunning Cordillera Blanca mountains to deal with! It was busy and cramped but I did chat to a lovely primary school teacher from Huaraz who´d spent the weekend visiting her friend in Chimbote. Nothing unusual about that you might think but hells bells michelle, its only a 14 HOUR round trip!

Things I Liked About Ecuador: A Brief Retrospective

I've been in Peru less than a week now and surprising myself by how much I am missing Ecuador. In honour of that country and my travels therin, I present a brief retrospective of the best things about the country for me. In no particular order:

• Meeting and having broken but understandable conversations with lots of friendly people


• The amazing variety of jaw-droppingly beautiful landscapes


• The abundance of weird, wonderful and totally tropical fruits


• Most dramatic bus journeys ever


• The fact that there is a street sign or shop in every town, city and village that says COLON in massive letters. Its the small things eh


• Cheap and tasty Rum (Ron), its 'Superior' and its four dollars a bottle.


• Cheap, reliable buses, despite the sometimes crazy drivers who like overtaking anywhere and everywhere


• Surprisingly, lots of good, cheap veggie restaurants


• Natural supplement shops selling products that look like they were made in the 1970s - my favourite featured a picture of Lindsey Lohan and went by the name 'Ultra Vaginal'!

Bizarre random memory:

The poor old man who got onto the bus and proceeded to take down his trousers to his ankles to reveal a cheap and very scabby-looking colostomy bag attached to his body. He then spent the next five minutes lecturing the passengers, squeezing his bag and making his point (whatever it was) and nobody batted an eyelid...