Sucre - Day 2

Saturday 26th April

We had a very cool day. We visited two museums, the first was the Textile and Ethnographic museum run by a foundation called ASUR. The foundation was set up to preserve the ancient methods of weaving in the indigenous communities around the Sucre region. They have set up many workshops in rural communities where women (and some men) make weavings using traditional methods, and then they are sold through ASUR at the museum shop and other outlets, with the profits being used to train more weavers.

Anyway, the museum was absolutely fantastic. It had a combination of ancient (1600-odd years old) to modern day weavings from several different ethnic groups from around the region. They also had english translations for all the explanations (which was really helpful). It was fascinating to learn how the weaving is done and how it has evolved from 1,000´s of years ago to the present day, and to learn about the differences between the weavings of the different ethnic groups. We purchased two weavings so you´ll all be able to see how cool they are when we get home – it´s like each time you look at them you discover something new in them.

In the afternoon we went and visited the Museum Charcas, which has collections of contemporary art (i.e. more religous paintings), and colonial furniture. But the best bit was their achaeological collection, which consisted of a cool collection of tools, household implements and weapons from Pre-Incan cultures and a huge ceramics collection from several different ethnic groups from around the region covering the last 3,500 or so years. It was fascinating to see the progression of design and decoration of the ceramics, and how different they were in each area.

Sucre - Day 1

Friday 25th April

We had a good sleep-in this morning and didn´t get out of bed until 10am! Alter brekkie at a café on the main plaza (Plaza 24 De Mayo). It was 1200 by the time we had finished brekkie, and all the museums and a lot of the shops etc shut between 1200-1230 & 1400-1500, so we went and found an Internet café and update our blog and check emails etc.

We then decided to go and visit the central market, where you can buy pretty much anything under the sun – if you know where to go. The fruit and vege stalls were pretty cool, such a variety, but not a lot that we didn´t recognise - and so cheap. There is also a meat and fish market (minus any form of refrigeration), a household goods market, and a clothing market. We also wandered around the few Artesania shops that there are here (no where near as many as the other cities we have been in). Sucre is known for it´s yummy chocs, so of course we had to sample them. We bought 8 chocs for B/8 (NZ$1.25) - and they were sooooo good, but very rich.

We wandered around the city a bit more, and late afternoon headed back to to hostal for a rest before dinner. We went to a fab cafe for tea, called Biblio Cafe. I had the yummiest crepes with ice cream and choc sauce for dessert!

A day in Potosi

Thursday 24 April

I was keen to do a tour of the silver mines while in Potosi, which was something Michelle was not at all keen on doing - she´s somewhat claustrophopic. After arriving at our hostel at 2:30am I was having a hard time deciding if I could be bothered getting up early enough to do the tour. I did manage to drag myself out of bed in time to have a quick breakfast and dash off to a tour agency, and I was very glad that I did.

All of the mine tours are guided by ex-miners. Our guide had spent a reletively short five years in the mines before becoming a guide. Fortunately his English was very good, he gave a great idea overview of the different systems the miners work under, and what they prefer. The conditions are pretty harrowing, we only spent a couple of hours in the mines, and that was more than enough. Upon entering the mine, which has been worked for about 500 years, I was thinking it wasn´t too bad, and that Michelle may have found it ok after all. The first level was reasonably cool, the air wasn´t too dusty and the tunnel was plently big enough. As soon as we started to descend to level two I realised I was wrong, the tunnel descending down was a tight awkward passage, leading to tight, hot tunnels thick with dust. Breathing became difficult through the bandana I´d bought to keep the dust out.

The miners used dynamite to blast the ore, shovelled it by hand into trolleys that ran on rails, which they then halled by hand to vertical shafts. They dumped the two tonne loads onto the floor, shovelled into rubber buckets that were winched up the shafts by electric winches. Four miners managed 400 tonnes of ore a day. In the past it took 40 miners to mine 200 tonnes a day without the trolleys and winches, carrying the ore in sacks on their backs. Ironically they see these advances as great progress.

One of the guys in another group asked about the fatality rate in the mines - and apparently it´s about 60 mining related deaths per year, about 40 of which are from lung damage due to the dust. He was told that on a per-person basis they have fewer accidents per year than other mining operations throughout the world. I don´t think that´s particularly relevant as so many people are exposed to the risk, especially compared to the rate of ore the extracted - also their accident reporting´s probably not to the same standard as those of operations in developed nations. (Bolivia is consider "third world" by the way). They also don´t employ mining engineers, they have the attitude that they´ve been mining for more than 500 years, so they know what they´re doing better than anyone else!

Anyway, to demonstrate their dedication to health and safety we had a bit of a play with dynamite at the end of the mine tour, the guides lit the stuff, ran off to a safe distance, dropped the dynamite and ran back. The fuses took about ten minutes to burn, and their ability to judge the timing well was demonstated by the bit of video I captured - their countdown was accurate to a few seconds.

Michelle had a rather frustrating morning trying to sort out bus tickets for us - she spent most of the morning walking around trying to find the bus terminal, hindered in the process by misdirections given by the locals.

I will eventually update this post with a couple of video clips if I can, but that probably won´t happen 'til I get back home, which really is that far off...

Salar de Uyuni - Day 2

Wednesday 23rd April

We got up early (0545) to go and match the sunrise over the Salar. All was going fine until our guide manager to get the jeep stuck! Goodness knows how he managed to get it stuck, but we turned around and he had the back wheels buried up to the axles. So he spent the next two hours digging it out – major bummer, as we hadn´t had any brekkie and were starving!

We finally got back to the Salt hotel at 0900, and had a very quick brekkie and then packed up the jeep and travelled to Isla Incahuasi (or Fish Island to the tourists). This is basically a small island in the middle of the Salar covered in cactuses. We had a wander around for an hour and then had lunch and travelled to a volcano on the other side of the Salar. This was a pretty cool looking volcano, which still erupts every 3 years or so. There was a village at the bottom with Incan ruins etc, and people still farming the Incan terraces. There was also a salt lake where we saw some Flamingoes – very awesome!

We then travelled a few hours back to Uyuni where we arrived at 1700. We had already bought tickets on a bus to Potosí that night leaving at 1900 (so we didn´t have to spend any more time there than we had to). We dropped our bags off at the bus office and went and had pizza for dinner – one thing Uyuni can do right – bloody good pizza! The bus to Potosí on the other hand was a different story – it was a public bus (no tourist busses run from Uyuni to Potosí), there was very little leg room, and it smelled bad – Andrew said it was one of the worst seven hour periods of his life, as he was very uncomfortable.
We finally got in to Potosí at 0230, and caught a taxi to our hostal (Hotal Felimar) where we collapsed into bed.

Salar de Uyuni - Day 1

Tuesday 22nd April

Arrived in Uyuni at 0730. The trip from La Paz wasn´t too bad, I slept pretty well, and even Andrew manager some sleep! The whole point of comino to this one horse town was to go on a 2-day tour of the famous Salar de Uyuni (Salt Flats of Uyuni).

We wandered around the various tour agencies trying to find a 2-day tour, but most don´t do them. We eventually found a couple of private tours and chose to go with Andes SALT Expeditions for US$200. So basically it was just us and our spanish-only speaking guide – Evid for 2 days.

We left Uyuni at 1030 and stopped just out of town at the train cemetry – basically just a whole lot of rusting locomotives that have had anything of value stripped off them, but a cool place to take photos none the less. Then it was off to Colchani, a salt processing village on the edge of the Salar. When the salt is harvested it is still damp, so they dry it out over a fire, and then grind it up, put it in bags and send it all over South America.

About 10 minutes from Colchani is the Salar itself, which is just amazing – white as far as the eye can see. Here there are people harvesting the salt. They mark out a square in the salt and then shovel a tic layer of salt into a pile in the middle where it is left for a few days for as much water as posible to drain out and then it is shovelled onto the back of a truck and taken to Colchani for processing.

The Salar used to be connected to the sea millions of years ago, and then was blocked off by tetonic plate activity. So all the water dried out, leaving all the salt behind in the soil. Each year during the rainy season (Dec – Feb) the whole Salar (2000 sq km) is covered in 20com of water, and this solubilises some of the salt and when the water dries out the salt is left behind on top of the soil.

From there we visited a Salt Hotel, where everything is made out of salt – even the tables and chairs, where we had lunch. Then we travelled to Atulcha where there is another (much nicer) Salt Hotel where we stayed. We also visite dan area call the Galaxias Caves, and Cactus Corales. Again, these areas were under water many millions of years ago, and algae formed beautiful stalagmites and stalagtites in the caves which then fossilised – the colours were pretty cool. There are also cactuses which have had coral grow on them and then fossilise. We also visited a cave where 90 Chullpa (local indigenous people) mummies where found buried and a museum displaying some of the mummies – a bit weird but very interesting.

I made a couple of new friends with a couple of the young boys at the hotel. I gave them colouring pencils and balloons, and they drew me pictures and wanted me to help them practice their maths. We also taught them how to make squealing sounds with the balloons, and how to rub the balloon on your hair to make it stick up – they thought it was pretty cool!

La Paz - Day 4 and the 10 Hour Bus Trip to Uyuni

Monday 21st April

As we had planned to go mtbing on Sunday we had arranged our bus ticket to Uyuni for Monday night, so we had a spare day in La Paz. We visited the AeroSur office to try and rearrange our flights so we could come back to La Paz at the weekend to do the mtbing trip, but it was going to cost US$400, so we decided that was a bit too much Money, and the time schedule was really tight – so we were both pretty bummed that we aren´t going to get to do the Death Road L

However, we did finally manage to visit some Museums. We visited the Archaeological Museum which was very interesting and had a good display of pre-Incan ceramics from the islands in Lake Titicaca – which interestingly showed some Asian influence. We also visited the Museum of the Church of San Francisco which was very cool, as we got to see all parts of the church including the choir stalls, and even got to clima the tower to see the view from the roof. We also got to see the cloisters, where there are many religous paintings and some displays of how the monks lived their daily lives (including wine and pisco sour making). We also visited the Museum of Ethnography and Folklore which had an interesting display of textiles from all over the region from various eras. There was also a very cool display of carnaval headresses and costumes, from the last 100 years – they were so elaborate and detailed, quite amazing. Next was a display of headresses and costumes entirely made out of bird feathers. Again, they were very detailed and some of the headresses were HUGE, but I hate to think how many birds were killed to make them all. They also had another good exhibition of ceramics from the different cultures in the region, from ancient history until colonial times.

And of course we had the obligatory coffee and cake at Alexander´s during the day as well.

We met Anna and Dave at Yusseff´s for our Last Supper. It has been so cool to catch up with them, and yet weird too cos we aren´t in NZ. We have spent loads of time with them while we have been here, and they have been fab, taking us lots of cool places and especially knowing the best places to get great food! It was so good to see some familiar faces at this point of our trip, and can´t wait to see them again when they come home.

After dinner we had to go collect our bags from ABH and then match the 9pm bus to Uyuni (10 hrs – oh joy!). We went with a company called Todo Turismo, and they were really good - highly recommended.

Photos:
1) Pottery artifact.
2) A Mummy - burial techniques of the Incan, and pre-Incan cultures resulted in well preserved mummies, and they're quite common in museums throughout South America.
3) A skull - well born people had their skull shape modified by fixing boards to the head from a young age. Such a skull shape was a sign of status.

La Paz - Day 3

Sunday 20th April

Anna and Dave were busy with work stuff in the morning, so Andrew and I again tried to visit museums, but were again thwarted cos they were all shut (as they had been open until 0100 that morning). So again, we explored more of the central city, and I visited the Witches Market and the handicrafts market.

We were back at the hostal in the early afternoon when I heard a bit of commotion outside, so went to investigate (thinking it would be another protest), but found that it was actually a religious parade, with a statue of the Virgin in a decorated car at the front, with dancers and a band following behind, followed by the congregation that had just attended a mass at Inglesia San Francisco.

We met Anna and Dave about 4pm and went for coffee and cake (yes, more coffee and cake!), and then went shopping at a supermarket to stock up on food for Uyuni (as we are expecting the food on the Salar to be edible at best).

we went to a very nice café for dinner, not far from Anna and Dave's place, called Café Mediterraneo. Both Andrew and I had the lamb special – which was absolutely fabulous (as was everyone else´s food). We also had some great Argentinian cabernet sauvignon, and a free antipasto platter – if you are ever in La Paz – I world highly recommend this place!

La Paz - Day 2

Saturday 19th April

We hung out by ourselves in the morning as Anna had to work and Dave had some work to do on his bike. We tried visiting some museums, but found they were all closed because they were having a special opening session at night from 2000-0100, so we just wandered around and had more coffee and cake at Café Alexander´s. We then decided to take a city tour in the afternoon on a double decker bus.

The tour was very interesting and we got to see all the major sights of the central city (statues, churches, city lookout etc), and then we went out to the southern part of the city (called Zona Sur). It is like a different World out there, very upmarket, flash houses and shopping centres and lots of green space. Compared to the city centre which is quite dirty, everything is crammed in, there are throngs of people everywhere, and everything is quite rundown. We also visited Valle de Luna (Valley of the Moon) which is a very interesting landscape where water has eroded the soil away over 1000´s of years to form a lunar like landscape – very cool.

Caught up with Anna and Dave later that afternoon, and found out that our mountain bike ride tomorrow has been cancelled – major bummer!!

Had dinner at a great Lebanese restaurant called Yusseff´s – B/40 (NZ$8) for so much food I had to get Andrew to help me finish it!

La Paz - Day 1

Friday 18th April

Had a bit of a sleep-in and then indulged in the free pancake brekkie on offer at ABH befote meeting Dave at Casa Gravity at 1100. He then took us around the corner to the Gravity workshop and showed us all the cool bikes and gear there, and we manager to pick up a new chain-ring set for my bike and new handle grips for Andrew's.

Then Dave took us to Café Alexander´s (a bit of a chain like Starbucks) for coffee and cake (and we met more Gravity people there) – it was damn good coffee and cake – oh yeah! After stuffing ourselves full, we went on a bit of a walking tour of central La Paz on the way to meet Anna when she finished work at 3pm. We booked in to do a mountain bike ride down “The World´s Most Dangerous Road” with Dave and Anna on Sunday – woohoo, can´t wait!

We went to Dumbo´s Café (yes – the Elephant) for lunch, and then wandered around the markets for a while before heading back to Casa Gravity for a bit of R & R before dinner. We all ended up going to a fab little Indian restaurant for dinner and had some pretty nice curry for the first time on our trip. We then walked back to ABH via the markets around Plaza San Francisco.

Photo: Electrical supply, La Paz style.

Copacabana and La Paz - Here We Come!

Thursday 17th April

Had a bit more of a look around Copacabana in the morning – saw the Cathedral with the famous Virgen de Copacabana statue and had a nosey around the food and craft markets. Then we jumped on a bus to La Paz in the afternoon, arriving about 1700 at The Adventure Brew Hostel (ABH), which is owned by the same people as Anna and Dave work for at Gravity.




Anna arrived to meet us about 1830 and we walked to their “local” – Oliver´s Travels Pub – which is owned by an Englishman named Ollie, who used to guide for Gravity. So, we hung out there for a while and then headed over to Casa Gravity (where Anna and Dave live, in a very nice part of town called Sopacachi) to meet Dave after he finished work for the day.

We ended up back at Ollie´s for dinner with a few of the other Gravity guides and had great laughs when one of the guides fell asleep at a table full of gringo girls he didn´t know!

Update at Last……..

Apologies for not updating our blog sooner, but we have been having a fab time catching up with Anna and Dave, and haven´t had time to jump on the Internet!

We are now in Sucre, which is a beautiful city - with yummy chocolates, but painfully slow internet!

Happy very belated birthday to my Bro – hope you had a good one, and are enjoying living in Hamilton.

Read on for an update on what we have been doing over the last week or so……..

Laguna Titicaca and Isla del Sol

Wednesday 16th April
This morning we caught a boat at 0830 to Isla del Sol on Lake Titicaca (which is the island where the Inca god was created) and spent the whole day there, visiting ruins and walking from the Northern to the Southern end.

Our transport was definitely "the slow boat to China" and it took 2hrs to get to Isla del Sol, which really isn't that far from the mainland - but, what can you expect for less than NZ$4 return.

Once we arrived we visited a small museum of artifacts from the island and then walked about 30 mins to see the Incan ruins which represent the birthplace of the Sun. The ruins were not as well constructed as others we have seen in Peru, but were just as special in their own way - they certainly chose a spectacular setting.

The island itself is absolutely beautiful, with new stunning vistas around each corner - it would be a great place to chill out for a few days that's for sure. The walk from the Northern to the Southern end took about 3 hours and we loved every minute of it. We just wish we had a bit more time to spend on the Isla. There are some really nice looking hospedajes (people's houses that they open up for guests) and restaurants on the island as well.

At 3:30pm we caught a boat back to the mainland, and now we are just chilling out at an internet cafe.

In some ways we wish we had more time here, but on the other hand I can't wait to get to La Paz tomorrow evening and catch-up with Anna and Dave! It is going to be so nice to see some familiar faces again.

Arequipa to Copacabana

Tuesday 15th April
Spent a LOOONG time on buses today travelling from Arequipa to Copacabana (Bolivia).

Booked the bus with Cruz del Sur (the flash company) for S/40 each (about NZ$15) for a six hour bus ride to Puno. The trip was pretty uneventful - I slept a bit and Andrew read and stuff.

We arrived in Puno at 3pm and thought we were going to have to catch about 3 different collectivos (local vans, usually stuffed FULL with people) to get to Copacabana. But, we had a lucky break as the 2:30pm bus to Copacabana hadn't left yet as it didn't have enough people (this is quite common, the bus will hang around until it has enough people to make the journey profitable). So we managed to jump on that bus (and it was a tourist one at that) and left about 3:30pm for the 3.5hr journey to Copacabana.

We crossed our first ever land border between Peru and Bolivia with no problems (it was surprisingly easy in fact, despite some of the stories we had heard). Then continued on for 10km to Copacabana and arrived just after 7pm. On the way through we saw the most spectacular sunset - the sky was such a fab mix of red, pink and orange. I tried to take some photos from the moving bus, but there wasn't enough light, so I have some impressionistic sunset photos.

Once in Copacabana we wandered around for a bit and found a hostal - it is a pretty quite place, and mainly just a tourist town for Lake Titicaca. It was good to stretch the legs a bit after having sat in a bus for close to 10 hours! Even though it was 8pm there were still tour shops open selling tours to Isla del Sol etc, so we sorted out a tour for Wednesday and booked bus tickets to La Paz for Thursday. Then found some dinner and crashed for the night as we had to be up at 0630 to get sorted for our Isla del Sol tour.

Photos:
1) Mountains across Lake Titicaca
2) Michelle's "Artist's impression of the sunset without my glasses on"

Colca Canyon Day Three - Cruz del Condor

Monday 14th April

This morning we were up at 0630 to catch the 0730 bus to Cruz del Condor - the Condor viewing point. We got there about 0815, and within the first 5 minutes we started seeing Condors. There were lots of people there already, but the Condors didn't seem to be upset by our presence.

As you can see from the photos above, Andrew got some stunning photos (about 120 all together I think)! They are so graceful and beautiful, but boy are their faces UGLY close-up. They came very close to us a couple of times and were swooping right over top of us - very cool.

At 0900 we jumped on another bus to continue to Chivay. Once in Chivay we headed straight for the hot pools outside of the town and had a good soak there for a couple of hours (in a very picturesque setting, with steep mountains all around). Then we travelled back into town to a buffet restaurant for lunch - all you can eat of really yummy food - needless to say I nearly rolled out the door.

We caught the 1430 bus back to Arequipa, which actually arrived 5 minutes before scheduled at 1755 (that is practically unheard of in South America, where you add at least 1 hour to all scheduled times). After getting back to Casa de Avila and dropping off all our stuff, we headed out to the Plaza de Armas to see if we could satisfy Andrew's craving for pizza. We looked all around the square, and were disparing of finding any pizza's with more than two toppings when we decided to walk up Calle San Francisco and came across a Pizzeria called Brunno's, where we had a great Meat Lovers pizza and Sangria for S/38 (less than NZ$15). And of course being our last night in Arequipa we had to stop for cake on the way home - I had some really yummy choc mud cake!

Overall, I loved our trip to the Colca Canyon. The scenery was stunning and very dramatic (especially the rock formations), and it was very interesting learning about local village life along with way and interacting with the locals. And of course, the condors were a highlight at well. We've had so many fabulous experiences on this trip already and we can't wait for more!

Colca Canyon Day Two

Sunday 13th April

Today was a VERY cool day! We had a leisurely lie-in until 0700, and then began our trek at 0830. We walked to the next village - Malata - and stopped to have a chat with a family at a stall selling fruit and got to try two different types of cactus fruit - one of which us called Tuna (like the fish), and was bright pink and tasted kinda like melon, and the other was bright green and full of black seeds and kinda sour, but very refreshing. I gave the kids some solouring pencils and balloons, and the little girl was playing around with her balloon, and then decided she would turn it into a water balloon! We talked to them about life in the village and the state of education at the school etc (much like rural schools in NZ, there were 2 teachers for 25 kids from 5-12 years old, but unlike NZ these schools have literally no resources and get very little money).

Then we visited the village medical centre and Carlos explained that most people still use traditional medicines and will only visit the western trained doctor if it is a matter of life and death. The we continued on to the main square and saw the church in the picture above, and then visited a small museum showing items related to daily life in the valley. It was immensely interesting to interact with the locals and find out how they live etc - very cool.

We then continued on for another 1.5 hours to Sangalle - the Oasis- literally an Oasis at the bottom of the canyon. Here there are three companies which have set up as lodges and have swimming pools etc. The setting was beautiful and a great place to have lunch and a swim before our mega 3 hour climb out of the canyon in the afternoon.

We left at about 1430 and started climbing......and climbing.....and climbing. It was very hot for the first 1.5 hours and the track was very steep. There were three other groups out that day as well, so we had lots of company on the way up. Finally, just before 1730, we made it to the top! Here we had a bit of a rest and some food, and saw another really cool sunset (also in the photos above).

Then we had a quick 20 minute walk through fields of maize in the rapidly fading light to get back to Cabanaconde. Here we stayed in another really nice hostal, with private bathrooms (with great showers - a real luxury over here), and a nice comfy bed. Then it was down to the local pub, for some pretty crap food - the only lowlight of the whole trip, and then back for another well-earned sleep.

Colca Canyon Day 1

Saturday 12th April







Another early start this morning ready for our guide - Carlos - to pick us up at 0530. There was only one other person in our group - Kirsty from Scotland. We booked the tour with Land Adventures - who actively support the villages in the canyon with education and volunteer programmes (as well as Christmas parties for the kids!).

We caught a bus from the main bus terminal in Arequipa to Cabanaconde, which was the starting point for our trek. The trip was rather interesting as it was a local bus, and the bus driver would stop anywhere along the road to pick people up and drop them off, and people just kept piling in until we literally could not have fit one more person on the bus.

We passed through such varied landscape on the way from fertile valleys to very arid altiplano (high desert) - the contrasts were spectacular. We also passed through an area of National Park and managed to spot some vicuñas, which are rare members of the Alpaca family.

It took 4 hours to get the Chivay where we stopped to grab food and have a loo break. Then it was back on the bus for another 2 hours to Cabanaconde. Once there we had lunch at a simple restaurant and then set off on our trek at 1330.

After walking for about 30mins we reached the edge of the Colca Canyon and got our first view. It was pretty stunning - and also a lot greener than I expected. Then came a 3 hour walk down the steep side of the canyon into the valley at the bottom, on a zig-zag path covered in loose gravel, so very slippery. Then we crossed the river and and walked up to the first village - San Juan de Chucco. Most of the tour companies stay at this village, but we continued on for another hour to Cosñirhua, where Land Adventures have helped build a hostel for trekkers.

The hostel was pretty cool, with adobe mud rooms, but proper beds and even hot water from a solar heated system! So after a lovely warm shower and some decent food, we crashed into bed about 2130, so we would be bright eyed and bushy tailed for another day of walking tomorrow.

Arequipa

We spent the day checking out Arequipa "the white city". It has some impressive churches, and we went to the local museum that displays frozen mummies that were Incan sacrifices to the volcano gods. These mummies (the museum has six, but displays only one at a time) were recovered in excellent condition, still frozen in the glacial ice at the summit of the local volcanoes some of which are higher than 6000m. The tour provided was excellent and the museum visit is a definite highlight to Arequipa. We also visited the Convent de Santa Catalina which takes up a whole block, has its own internal streets and is also a major highlight. It´s a very beautiful historic site.

We´re off to the Colca Canyon for a three day trip tomorrow, so you won´t hear from us for a few days.

Rainforest - Day 4

Wednesday 9th April
Today our time in the rainforest came to an end - and so did my runny nose! I am going to miss waking up to the sounds of the birds and howler monkeys each morning and the general peacefulness and relaxed atmosphere out here. But we are headed back to Cuzco and civilisation.

We all boarded the canoe about 0800 for the ride back down river to Puerto Maldonado. We had a LONG wait in the tin shed airport with no a/c, only fans, cue sweaty armpits. Our flight wasn´t until 1240, and we were there at about 1100, as some others had the first flight back to Lima, so we had a while to wait. Well, their flight time came and went, and after a while an announcement came over that the flight had been canceled and they were consolidating their flight with ours. All good. But then our boarding time came and went, and still no sign of a plane. Eventually a plane turned up at about 1300, and we eventually left at just after 1330.

Once back in Cuzco, we came back to Pirwa hostel again to have a nice HOT shower (only cold water in the jungle, but it was OK as it was so hot all the time) and get into some clean clothes before updating you lot on what we have been up to in the last week or so.

So, that´s pretty much it for now really. We are off to Arequipa tomorrow, and from there will visit the Colca canyon and hopefully see some Condors! Will be in touch again soon (yes Mum, Poppa Goat´s comments are soooo funny :-P). Catch ya later!

Photo: Hazy view of the rainforest from the plane.

Rainforest - Day 3

Tuesday 8th April

Yeah - sleep in this morning! After brekkie we headed out on a walk along one of the trails around the lodge to see a clay lick (where birds and animals come to eat the mineral rich clay) and to see a giant Capoc tree.



The track was quite muddy and even swampy in places - the lodge provides gumboots for everyone to wear - so we eventually got to the hide across from the clay lick and, yep - nothing was happening! Not a bird or animal in sight. So after we waited for a while to see if anything would show up, Rodolfo (our guide), just showed us the types of animals and birds that go there on a chart. Then is was off to find the giant Capoc tree. After walking for about 30mins and through yet more swamp, we got to a part of the track where the swamp was too deep, so we had to head back to the ldge - so all in all a pretty unseccessful morning (all we managed to see was some monkeys, a toucan, and some coati (which are a funny looking mammal that looks like a cross between a monkey and an anteater). One bit of good luck we had, was that we arrived back at the lodge just before a short, but really heavy downpour of rain - at least we didn´t get stuck out in that!


At the lodge we rested a bit more, before and after lunch. It has actually been really nice having a few relaxing days of enforced rest after the exertion of the Inca Trail, it means we have built up our energy reserves for the next leg of the trip.


at 1600, we headed across the river to visit a local farm/orchard - this was very different to anything we would call a farm/orchard in NZ. Bascially the Infierno community have one 10,000 hectare land title from the government, and they have put all the land on one side of the river aside as a reserve (where the lodge is located), and the land on the other side is for subsistence farming. The community get no aid from the govt whatsoever, and the money they get from Eco-tourism has allowed them to build schools, water storage and roads to transport their produce. Each family is allocated a block of land and they can grow whatever they want. THe most common crops are rice and maize, but the farm we visited grew bananas (several types including some pink ones), avocados, pineapples, oranges, mandarins, yucca, rice, papaya, mango etc. There appeared to be very little organisation in the block with jungle constantly encroaching from all sides and fruit trees just planted anywhere, there were no specific blocks or rows of each species of tree, they were just anywhere and everywhere. But it was very interesting to learn about how they live and how their community has developed.