Posts filed under ‘Peru’
Toro Meurto and Dino footprints
Yesterday I went to Toro Meurto, a site used by the Wari people in the middle of desert half way between Arequipa and the coast. The area is about 25sq kilometers and is basically full of these rocks with carvings on. They vary from llamas and dancing people to rivers and foxes. The place is now a desert, but once would have been green with a river running through it.
Toro Meurto is really amazing and really off the beaten track a bit. I was the only person there and apparently it only receives about 500 tourists a year, yet is an amazing place. Annoyingly it is not well looked after and theives regularly come and chop off the carvings for sale on the black market.
After getting rather hot in the desert we headed back to the little town nearby and got in a Combi (little local minibus) to the dino footprints. Yet more walking in the scorching heat, except this time upwards, to where the dino left its mark. They say it was from a Gigantasaurus, but a quick look on wikipedia shows that this animal is nothing like the sculpture they´ve got of what it looked like… so not really sure what made them, but they look a bit T-Rex like.
Finally had a little lunch by the river before heading back to see if Carly had survived the day…. luckily she had, so it was a good day in the end!
Arequipa, Peru
So it´s been a week of illness for us, but we are both fine now! We delayed our bus trip to Arequipa for a couple of days but arrived on Tuesday.
It´s a nice city and sunny as well! Nicer than Puno we think. Surrounded by huge volcanoes, which are beautiful. On our first day here we wandered around town and visited a 16th century monastery. No tourists were able to go in it until the 1970s so it is really interesting. It´s like a mini village behind huge walls. They have had to keep rebuilding it because of the number of earth quakes they have here – loads! It´s quite scary really, every few years they have one and there hasn´t been one since 2001. Think we will move on swiftly!!
After that we went to a creperie for lunch – yum!!!! Then we visited a museum which contains Juanita the Ice Maiden. It´s all about human sacrifice – sounds disgusting but actually is really interesting!! The Incas used to believe that the mountains were alive, so when volcanoes erupted they thought the mountains were angry and needed to sacrifice a child to appease them. The most famous of these sacrifices is Juanita and we saw her in the museum.
All in all we have loved the Andes. They are beautiful and we have seen so many amazing things and met lovely people. However, we are really looking forward to getting down to a normal oxygen level (where we won´t feel tired all the time and have a constant blocked nose!! Weird). Can´t wait to lie on the beach in Rio!!! Will also be nice to have something other than dry bread and hard jam for breakfast (would kill for a cup of PG tips right now!!!!).
I´ll hand over to Dave as he is going to tell you about his trip to dinosaur land!
Lake Titikaka & Happy Birthday Dad Eady!
We first went to the Uros islands, which are islands made completely out of reeds – so they float, which is kind of odd. They were quite close to shore and there is a little village of them all close together. We got to meet the locals, who hastily put on their traditional dress over the top of their normal clothes when they saw our boat approaching, and learnt a little about how they make the islands and what they do. They were all very friendly, but it was a little touristy really, but we did buy some nice cushions covers.
Next was the island of Amantani, a small island about 3.5 hours from Puno. A nice little settlement with no real electricity (apart from that generated using solar panels) and no flushing toilets, which made for interesting times. We stayed in a little lodge and were well fed and watered before heading off to see the sunset from the Pachatata (Father Earth) ruins, yet another 400 odd meters upwards! After all that excitment we had pasta for dinner, which was a bit of a treat (although no meat, as they don´t have it on the island) before heading off for a bit of a dance in some local costumes the family of the lodge lent us. Really good fun, although I don´t think they were ready for some of my dance moves – they were more in to dancing in circles a bit like the hoki-koki.
In the morning we got back on the boat and over to Taquile island for a bit of a walk and some lunch before heading back to Puno in the afternoon. It was all very nice, but it did remind me a lot of the Greek islands, hot, blue water, lots of islands, toilets that don´t work and dodgy electricity.
PS. Happy Birthday Dad, hope it was good… speak to you tomorrow!
Machu Picchu the Lost City of the Incas
Day 1 – 15km
We awoke at 5am and met with our group ready to begin the Inca Trail! The group was a really nice group of people, mainly from Australia and another honeymoon couple from the United States. The trail began at quite a quick pace (I, Carly, started to panic!!). However the Peruvian guides, Orlando and Cesar, seemed to know when to stop so that we could get our breath back. It was a very hot day, which made it harder and we hiked until 5pm before diving into our tents for a rest! We had already noticed how amazing the porters are. They carry extremely heavy loads and then clap you when you arrive at the campsite!!! They also prepare a really nice lunch and dinner for you, which is probably better than what you could get in Cuzco restaurants!! Words fail us…
Day 2 – 19km
Another early start (5am). This was without doubt the hardest day. The guides had warned us about 2 mountain passes (one of which being called ´Dead Woman´s Pass´ at 4200 metres!! aaaaghh). So we set off for this first one. It was very very hard work. The altitude makes it even harder. We walked up a steep hill for 4 hours to get to it. So you can imagine our relief at the top!!! Then we had some snacks in the valley below, although bizarrely, you don´t really feel like eating. So after getting back down to 3600 metres we had to go back up to 3900! Again, very hard work because you are already so tired. All in all we walked 19 km on day 2.
Day 3 – 9km
A much easier day. We got up at 7am (a lie in!!!). It was mainly down hill (900m), which hurts your knees, but you are just glad to have some breath. We were introduced to each of the porters and told about their families which was nice (1 chef, 1 sous chef, 15 porters, 2 guides – that´s a support team of 19 for our group of 11). A lot of them are younger than us with an average of 3 children so it was quite interesting. In the evening they made a surprise honeymoon cake for us and the other honeymoon couple, which was really lovely (as if they don´t have enough to do already! There was no oven to bake it in either – Magic!!).
Day 4 – 5km approx
Obviously the best day of the trail. We got up at 4am feeling very tired from the previous day´s events and set off on our journey to Machu Picchu. It was very cloudy at first (and pouring with rain!!) so we were concerned that we wouldn´t see much. After a 1.5 hour hike, we arrived at the sun gate. We were so happy to have made it, but couldn´t see much yet! Our guide said that it was rarely as cloudy as it was for us! However, as the minutes ticked by the cloud began to rise and we were greeted with an amazing view. On this blog I keep saying that things are really cool, so this was really really really really cool!!!! The photos don´t do the scale of it justice, but we have posted some snapshots for you.
All in all the trail was well worth doing. Our group was so nice and only 200 tourists are allowed on the trail each day, so you usually have the path to yourselves. In addition you beat all the many train tourists to Machu Picchu, which is great, although you do feel a bit smelly when they come in all clean!!!!
PS. Nanny hope you had a good birthday on the 3rd!
Cuzco, Peru
So far we really like Peru! Cuzco is very touristy, because of Machu Picchu obviously. However, it´s still a really lovely place, surrounded by mountains.
We´ve been really busy since we got here. We took some local buses (26 people crammed on a 15 seater bus, but truly we think it´s the best way to travel!) around Sacred Valley. It was a really good trip. We saw the Inca ruins at Pisaq and another place that I won´t embarrass myself by trying to spell! Despite being 3300 metres high here it´s actually really hot, which is quite nice. We feel we are now having the summer we wanted at home back in June!
Our Spanish is coming along nicely. Our main phrases are ´how much does it cost´, ´hello´and ´thank you´! Note that I would add question marks but they don´t seem to exist on this keyboard!
Today we went white water rafting. I (Carly) was scared at first because only me and Dave were in the group!!!! So we had one side of the raft each, with the guide of course! So I actually had to put some effort in – I was hoping to be in a big group so I could float along and paddle lightly, but no! It was really good though and we survived category 3. So Dave now wants to tackle a 4…
Dave
Carly
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