Peru - Part II
Nasca
Flew over the Nasca lines in a small plane. The formations were a bit smaller than I had imagined, and some were a bit unclear to see. It was really amazing, though, to see these formations out in the middle of the mountains and desert. I got motion sickness from all the turns and bumps in such a small plane, but it was a great experience. :)
Arequipa
Took the most disgusting smelling bus overnight to Arequipa. Someone had taken a shit on the bus before they even picked us up, and the stench filled the entire bus. I couldn't really sleep. Even when we opened the windows, the smell was still there. It was absolutely horrible, and we had to live with it for 7 hours!
The same morning we arrived, we started our 2 day trip to the Colca Canyon. It was about 3 hours outside of the city, so we got to get a bit more sleep on a nicer bus this time. :) We tried some local tea and went for a short walk to see some nice views of the canyon. Some people in our group went to the hot springs in the afternoon, but we decided to spend some time in the local village instead. It was very, very small so that didn't take long at all. Only a main square with a market right next to it. After dinner, we were going to meet up with our group for a folk dancing show, but when we walked by, it looked too boring and touristy for us, so we skipped out. it was so cold there as well! We ended up staying in our room because we had 3 blankets there to keep us warm. The next day we went to Cruz del Condor. The condors are supposed to fly out of the canyon at that particular point around 9am or so, but it's not the season now so we only saw one. :( Got back to Arequipa in the afternoon and walked around the main plaza. Cute little town but not much to see at all. We made more veggie pasta for dinner. It seems to be the only time I can eat in South America. I thought Central America was bad, but it's been even worse here because they don't even have beans so all I can eat is rice. Well, I usually can get one tiny slice of tomato with it as well.
Puno
Arrived in Puno and organised a tour to the islands in Lake Titicaca. The best part about our hostel was the cable TV! I got to watch Friends in English!! :) We spent the next day at the floating islands of the Uros and Taquile Island. The floating islands are amazing...They are built from reeds! They can last for almost 20 years. Then, when they start to sink, the people just build a new island. :) On Taquile Island, we went for a short walk and saw some terraces used for agriculture and a couple of small villages. While the other people in our group were having lunch, Kai and I walked to some Inca ruins at the top of the hill. We were a bit disappointed though, because it was really just a small stone wall. I guess it was sort of unimpressive after Machu Picchu. The next day in Puno we walked up to a lookout point. Very impressive view of the city and Lake Titicaca! Then we walked around the village a bit before we had to catch our bus to Copacabana, Bolivia.
On every long distance bus in Peru, we had to listen to a couple of people preaching about how everything they eat and drink is going to kill them. They would ramble on for about 30 minutes, yell at everyone, and show graphic photos of people with diseases. It was basically just a scare tactic to convince the poor people that they had to buy their product to cure them. Apparently, Ginsing is the cure for everything. :)
Bolivia
Stayed in a really nice hotel (that was surprisingly very cheap) in Copacabana. Not much going on in this town, but it was nice just to wander around the streets and see all the street vendors. There are lots of stray dogs there. One got sort of attached to us, and he walked all around town with us. Made me miss my Roxie!
We found out that some people were protesting and blocking the bridge we needed to take to La Paz so we had to backtrack a bit and take an alternative route. That meant we had to go back into Peru. It was crazy, but it didn't add too much time to our trip.
Got to La Paz in the evening and settled on a really crappy hostel, The Cactus Hostel, because we were tired of looking. It smelled of cigarette smoke and the shared bathrooms were very dirty. The next day we changed to a much better hotel because I couldn't take it another night. We did a small city tour through markets and plazas and went to a lookout point at sunset. The city lights were beautiful against the mountains. The city is much nicer to look at from far away. Away from all the cars, people, noise, and pollution.
Came to another obstacle when we learned that the border crossing we wanted to use tomorrow to get into Chile was closed because of a strike. Great. So we had to find an alternative way to get to Arica, Chile. We had to go into Peru again, get to Tacna, and then cross the border from there. It took us over 12 hours, when the route we wanted to take would have been 8 hours. And then, when we finally got to the Chilean border, we had to wait in a long queue to pass customs for 2 hours! It was the most inefficient process I have ever encountered. We made it to Arica just in time to catch our 11:30pm bus for Santiago....And we left our hotel at 6:30am that morning!!
Chile
We splurged for the comfortable, roomy, first class seats on the 30 hour bus ride from Arica to Santiago. We got pillows and a blanket, and they even gave us snacks! They played movies on the TV, but they were all in Spanish with Spanish subtitles. Very helpful. It was really quite nice, and I was able to actually get some decent sleep which hardly ever happens on a bus. We were surprised to still see the bare, dry terrain outside. Besides Brasil and Columbia, we've hardly seen any green trees and plants in the rest of South America. The landscape is desert like.
The two Chilean women we met on our Machu Picchu trek invited us to stay with them while we were visiting Santiago. They are so nice! We stayed at Jackie's the first night. It felt great not being in a hostel or hotel! We walked around the city all day. It's very modern and clean compared to places in Peru and Bolivia. The next day, we went to the beach about an hour outside of the city to Valparaiso and Vina del Mar. The drive there was very pretty....trees and green fields again! The beach was nice, and it was a beautiful sunny day...just not warm enough to go into the water.
That night, we stayed at Claudia's place. She was having a bbq with a couple of friends. We tried nice Chilean wine, and Kai got to eat lots of meat for a change. :) We had a great time seeing our new friends again!
Uruguay
Yet another long bus ride....22 hours from Santiago to Buenos Aires. Then we took the ferry across to Colonia, Uruguay. Colonia is a cute little town. Narrow streets, lots of trees, cute houses. There are a couple of beaches as well, but they aren't too nice (and it was cold & rainy). We just wandered around the town for a couple of days. It's a very sleepy town and not too much goes on there, but we really enjoyed it. We went to Montevideo next. For a big city, there really wasn't much to see here. We walked around the slum areas of the city (during the day, of course). There was a big sidewalk next to the beach, but it was overcast, cold, and windy so we didn't enjoy it too much. :) After a couple of days, we decided it was time to continue on to Buenos Aires.
Argentina
Buenos Aires is beautiful! There's so much to see here! We did a bike tour around the city and to the areas of Palermo and Recoleta. There are lots of parks and pedestrian streets so it was nicer to ride the bikes there. The weather turned around as well, and it was sunny and hot again. :)
We met up with our friend, Anne, from Sydney. She's living just outside of Buenos Aires, and she invited us to stay with her for a couple of days. We had a great time hanging out again. We all went to Tigre one day, but of course it started raining again. We had a good time anyway.
Kai and I went to San Telmo for the street festival on Sunday. There are hundreds of people in the streets. It was packed. People were selling all sorts of things. There were bands performing in the street, and couples tango dancing. Quite an experience!
Our last day in Buenos Aires, Anne came to meet us in the city. We walked to an old part of town, La Boca. The houses are colourfully painted, and there was another street fair going on. It's a poor part of the city, but it's relatively safe during the day. (Although we were repeatedly warned to never go there at night.) I think this area has a bit more culture, and I really liked it.
So, we're off to Florida now for Thanksgiving. We're really looking forward to seeing friends and family again!!
new photos are posted - http://dulceandkai.blogspot.com
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