Our first stop in Peru was the colonial town of Arequipa. A beautiful little place with a very old, city like convent where nuns lived in isolation for hundreds of years before opening their doors to the public. Its very beautiful and apart from the religion, no men, and boredom aspects I think I could have happily lived there. Oh and I'd have had to forego the uncomfortable underwear too I think (and therefore saint status, ah well).
We stayed in Arequipa for a few days before heading to Puno, on Lake Titicaca, to visit the floating islands and their very jolly inhabitants. The islands are made by the islanders themselves using reeds from the lake. They weave these together until a huge platform has been constructed and whole families then construct their houses on top. If they decided they no longer like their neighbours they simply cut them away. An excellent feature if you ask me. The local Cholita women wore neon clothes and were some of the happiest I´d met. They waved and sang us off saying ´We´re all going to the beach´ Not strictly true but a nice sentiment nonetheless.
Our next journey took us to historic Cuzco, the nearest city to Macchu Picchu (forgive the invariably poor spelling) and home itself to many inca ruins. While I´m not hiking the inca trail until April, we decided instead to explore a little of the Sacred Valley. The remains of temples and terraces there are amazing, the engineering feats of the Incas impressive and baffling (carting 12 metre blocks of solid rocks from quarries in distant mountains). Photos as ever on facebook. The experiences in Cuzco were only slightly marred by absolute dickheads staying in our dorm. Not 1 but 2 couples having sex (and this in a 5 bed dorm) despite seeing that other people were clearly awake and annoyed. I also had a top and shorts stolen from my bed, which was bizaare to say the least. Needless to say we moved to a nice hotel with a private room as soon as we could. At the end of the stint in Cuzco, sadly one of the party left to fly back home and so the 3 now down to 2, we continued on a 70 hour bus journey to Bogota.
Sunday, 16 March 2008
Saturday, 15 March 2008
Adios Bolivia, Hola Peru (and a bit of Chile)
The final flourish of the Bolivian trip was a tour of the Salt Flats. We arrived in Uyuni 2 hours early after a heartstopping bus ride in the rainy season. Most buses end up delayed for hours in the rainy season, which gives you an indication of exactly hoow scary our journey was. But I digress... after much searching for a reputable tour company we booked our trip with an english guide for 3 days in a 4 by 4 jeep into the salt flats, dropping 3 of us off at the Chilean border.
Our first stop on the tour was the train cemetary just outside Uyuni. The delapidated steam trains are a small boy´s fantasy and in fact there were several small boys playing amongst them when we got there. A train track was built specifically to take them to there final resting place, it seemed a little harsh making the trains drive themselves to the grave, and then I remembered they were inanimate objects and I should stop being so silly. So, onward and upward to the flats.
The Bolivian salt flats are apparently the size of Northern ireland, being crap at geography this meant very little to me, although I knew it sounded BIG. Arriving at the salt flats is a surreal experience. A vast expanse of pure white and many, many jeeps and tourists. As its the wet season there were a few inches of water covering the whole area reflecting the salt and the (very few) features around the site. We spent around 20 minutes trying to devise and execute the traditional perspective shots - the featureless landscape allows you to take photos where it looks like yourholding your friends in the palm of your hand for example. Cue lots of running around and posing. The photos weren´t completely successful (I refer my honourable friends once more to facebook) but were quite fun at least. After a quick lunch outside the salt hotel, no prizes for guessing why its called that, we were on teh road once again.
There are several surreal places in this area, mostly caused by a prehistoric massive lake that receded leaving huge rock formations in its wake. We stopped at a few places of interest and clambered around on the forementioned huge rocks, before reaching our first hotel of the night in a small town with one shop and some stone doorways to nowhere at either end. There was literally nothing else there. Teh hotel only had limited electricity provided by a small generator, so we drank through our first litre of vodka and bedded down for the night.
Our second day was a day of lakes and flamingos. Each new stop brought us to yet another stunning mirror lake or coloured lagoon. Easily the most spectacular of which was the pink lagoon which had not only flamingoes but also llamas, together at last. Our stop that evening was at an isolated hotel where there was no light pollution and all of the Souther sky´s stars were visible at night. This hotel was far more sophisticated than the previous one if only because it had 2 shops that sold (admittedly extortionately priced) cans of beer. We used these to top up the second litre of vodka we needed to get through that night. Talking until gone midnight proved to be a mistake as we had to get up at 4.30am the next day. Bleary eyed we drove in the darkness to an area full of geysirs, after a few photos in the freezing cold we leapt back into the car and drove to the thermal springs nearby as teh sun rose across the mountains. Not everyone braved the initial cold to get into the springs, which is understandable (I did, before anyone asks), waht is less understandable is the degree of wussiness shown by some people, mostly men in their 20s accustomed to posing, while getting into the hot spring. Just to be clear, the temperature of the pool was like that of a lovely bath, not too hot and not too cold. After goading a few pathetic wretches we got out and drove off into the Dal desert, so called as the artist came here and was inspired by the landscape, the features are very reminiscent of some of his works. We continued through to the border between Bolivia and Chile and onto San Pedro de Atacama. A desert town (of course) where we spent a couple of nights resting before heading into Peru.
Our first stop on the tour was the train cemetary just outside Uyuni. The delapidated steam trains are a small boy´s fantasy and in fact there were several small boys playing amongst them when we got there. A train track was built specifically to take them to there final resting place, it seemed a little harsh making the trains drive themselves to the grave, and then I remembered they were inanimate objects and I should stop being so silly. So, onward and upward to the flats.
The Bolivian salt flats are apparently the size of Northern ireland, being crap at geography this meant very little to me, although I knew it sounded BIG. Arriving at the salt flats is a surreal experience. A vast expanse of pure white and many, many jeeps and tourists. As its the wet season there were a few inches of water covering the whole area reflecting the salt and the (very few) features around the site. We spent around 20 minutes trying to devise and execute the traditional perspective shots - the featureless landscape allows you to take photos where it looks like yourholding your friends in the palm of your hand for example. Cue lots of running around and posing. The photos weren´t completely successful (I refer my honourable friends once more to facebook) but were quite fun at least. After a quick lunch outside the salt hotel, no prizes for guessing why its called that, we were on teh road once again.
There are several surreal places in this area, mostly caused by a prehistoric massive lake that receded leaving huge rock formations in its wake. We stopped at a few places of interest and clambered around on the forementioned huge rocks, before reaching our first hotel of the night in a small town with one shop and some stone doorways to nowhere at either end. There was literally nothing else there. Teh hotel only had limited electricity provided by a small generator, so we drank through our first litre of vodka and bedded down for the night.
Our second day was a day of lakes and flamingos. Each new stop brought us to yet another stunning mirror lake or coloured lagoon. Easily the most spectacular of which was the pink lagoon which had not only flamingoes but also llamas, together at last. Our stop that evening was at an isolated hotel where there was no light pollution and all of the Souther sky´s stars were visible at night. This hotel was far more sophisticated than the previous one if only because it had 2 shops that sold (admittedly extortionately priced) cans of beer. We used these to top up the second litre of vodka we needed to get through that night. Talking until gone midnight proved to be a mistake as we had to get up at 4.30am the next day. Bleary eyed we drove in the darkness to an area full of geysirs, after a few photos in the freezing cold we leapt back into the car and drove to the thermal springs nearby as teh sun rose across the mountains. Not everyone braved the initial cold to get into the springs, which is understandable (I did, before anyone asks), waht is less understandable is the degree of wussiness shown by some people, mostly men in their 20s accustomed to posing, while getting into the hot spring. Just to be clear, the temperature of the pool was like that of a lovely bath, not too hot and not too cold. After goading a few pathetic wretches we got out and drove off into the Dal desert, so called as the artist came here and was inspired by the landscape, the features are very reminiscent of some of his works. We continued through to the border between Bolivia and Chile and onto San Pedro de Atacama. A desert town (of course) where we spent a couple of nights resting before heading into Peru.
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