Well this is my second day in Arequipa and ive gotta say, i love this city. Its the second largest in Peru (behind Lima) and is essentially a Spanish colonial city with a very strong British and American affluence. Overall, it balances really nicely. Its abit classier than the rest of Peru but still cheap to stay, eat and do. The hostel here is great aswell. The Point Arequipa is in an old mansion with plenty of space, a pool table, table tennis, free breakfast and free internet. Theres also hammocks in the garden to lounge around in and a cheap bar. What more could you want???
I had to buy a new pair of sunglasses today - i finally lost my old ones after leaving them in one too many places. I was asking for it really! The new ones cost me 30 soles equiv of $11 so not too bad. It still seemed like a lot - i cant adjust easily to the different exchange rates. Im converting soles to dollars to pounds and getting confused. Today was pretty good except for one crucial thing. I think ive lost my USB pen drive. The one with a lot of photos and uni work on. Ive got copies of my uni work on my laptop but not the photos. Thankfully i loaded a few up onto facebook but im still missing some great shots from the Sacred Valley and the Pisac Inka Ruins. Hopefully ill find it!
On an up note, im on a 2 day tour to hike El Misti starting tomorrow. The dormant volcano towers up to 5825m above Arequipa with supposedly great views of the surrounding area and Andean Mountains. Thats if the fog lifts! Its been hanging at about 3500m the last few days. It should be a good trip and by no means trivial. As with anything in that sort of altitude, sickness can become a problem and thats probably the major factor on this hike. I havent suffered too much so far - just a mild headache and lethagia at times so far. I feel good now and got plenty of chocolate/sweets to get me to the top, providing the weather allows! Ive learnt from some guys at the hostel that 2 things can help altitude sickness - coca/cocaine or ibruprofen. Ive got the latter, obviously! Although coca leaves are really common around here - kind of a unpure derivative of cocaine and certain not as harmful (more of a sedative). Ive tried a couple of leaves (u just chew them like mint) and they taste really bitter - didnt do it for me!
Have a good weekend everyone.
Laters
Thursday, 10 January 2008
Wednesday, 9 January 2008
Puno
Unfortunately my hostel in Puno didnt have the internet so ive only been able to write something now im in Arequipa. Puno was interesting, a certain change from Cusco and overall ive gotta say i dont particularly like the city. Its just a little too dirty and scrubby for my liking. However, i was only there for 2 nights and one purpose - to see Lake Titicaca. In anything less than a sober mood, the name is hilarious!
Titicaca (im tempted to abbrieviate it to titi) is the highest navigable lake in the world which im sure ive mentioned often enough. Its something like 170km x 60km at the extremes and you really get the feeling of being on top of the world. Your around 4000m up and this vast flat ocean lies before you on the Peruvian Altiplano. The altiplano itself is a bizarre feature. Both geologically and historically. Im not going to rattle on about the relevent geology (ive got a whole module in that next semester) but its weird how something so big, so high and so flat exists in the middle of the worlds largest mountain belt!
The tour around the lake was long and excruiciatingly slow. It took about 3 1/2 hours to travel the 35km to Taquille Island but was overall worth it. It wasnt the best thing ive done in Peru but certainly an experience. On the way we visited the floating islands about 5km outside of Puno´s harbour. Theses are remarkable. Everything is made out of reeds. The islands, the houses, the boats - everything. You can also eat the reeds (they dont really taste of much) which makes me wonder what they do in a food shortage? Eat the island their living on???
The bus to Puno from Cusco was amazingly confortable, its a shame the same couldnt be said for the one to Arequipa this morning. Cruz del sur, my bus agency, has an annoying habit of cancelling buses without telling anyone so i ended up travelling on a cheaper tourist bus. Although it saved me money, the driver was nuts and the bus was a really old and crappy school bus like we had in the UK. The driver was overtaking lorries on the outside of corners with massive drops either side all on roads considered amongst the worst in the world. (The actual worst is just across the border in Bolivia near La Paz but these are pretty bad.)
Anyway, best be off. More on Arequipa soon.
Laters
Titicaca (im tempted to abbrieviate it to titi) is the highest navigable lake in the world which im sure ive mentioned often enough. Its something like 170km x 60km at the extremes and you really get the feeling of being on top of the world. Your around 4000m up and this vast flat ocean lies before you on the Peruvian Altiplano. The altiplano itself is a bizarre feature. Both geologically and historically. Im not going to rattle on about the relevent geology (ive got a whole module in that next semester) but its weird how something so big, so high and so flat exists in the middle of the worlds largest mountain belt!
The tour around the lake was long and excruiciatingly slow. It took about 3 1/2 hours to travel the 35km to Taquille Island but was overall worth it. It wasnt the best thing ive done in Peru but certainly an experience. On the way we visited the floating islands about 5km outside of Puno´s harbour. Theses are remarkable. Everything is made out of reeds. The islands, the houses, the boats - everything. You can also eat the reeds (they dont really taste of much) which makes me wonder what they do in a food shortage? Eat the island their living on???
The bus to Puno from Cusco was amazingly confortable, its a shame the same couldnt be said for the one to Arequipa this morning. Cruz del sur, my bus agency, has an annoying habit of cancelling buses without telling anyone so i ended up travelling on a cheaper tourist bus. Although it saved me money, the driver was nuts and the bus was a really old and crappy school bus like we had in the UK. The driver was overtaking lorries on the outside of corners with massive drops either side all on roads considered amongst the worst in the world. (The actual worst is just across the border in Bolivia near La Paz but these are pretty bad.)
Anyway, best be off. More on Arequipa soon.
Laters
Saturday, 5 January 2008
Friday, 4 January 2008
Pisac Hike
Ok, this will be a quick blog. I´m tired and hungry, both of which take priority over keep you adoring readers informed! :)
Today i pushed it. Pisac is a large village some 34km´s NE of Cusco over a 3900m pass and surrounded by some simply stunning scenery. So naturally i decided to hike there on something of a whim. I was prepared to go somewhere today just perhaps not quite so extreme but im glad i did. Ive got loads of awesome photos (speaking of which, ive loaded a few from previous days onto my online album - see links to the top right) including some of me standing on a mountain ridge with a 1000ft drop behind me - come on, surely you must be slightly impressed! lol. They´ll go up as soon as possible over the next few days. It was definately one of the hardest and longest day walks ive ever done (25 miles in total) then i decided it would be a good idea to hike up a mountain to the Inka Ruins some 4km away. It was incredulously hard work, i cant tell you - and thats coming from me, a seasoned walked if i may say so myself. The Inka´s all thought it was a good idea to put steps everywhere and trust me, climbing steps at over 3000m altitude is not easy! Still, the sight was unbelievable. I personally put the Pisac ruins about Machu Picchu! Less people visit them and you really get a feeling of awe.
Coming back i jumped on a collectivo (mini-bus type thing) for 1hr of near hell. It was the single worse bus ride ive ever been on. I´ll moan more about it when my travel blog gets up but over the course of 33km, we nearly crashed once, nearly rolled it and red lined the engine more than i care to imagine. And we were still only going 20mph up the hill! It was an experience, ill leave it there!
Anyway, food is calling then bed. Catch you all later, drop me a message or comment if you can spare a sec.
Laters!
Today i pushed it. Pisac is a large village some 34km´s NE of Cusco over a 3900m pass and surrounded by some simply stunning scenery. So naturally i decided to hike there on something of a whim. I was prepared to go somewhere today just perhaps not quite so extreme but im glad i did. Ive got loads of awesome photos (speaking of which, ive loaded a few from previous days onto my online album - see links to the top right) including some of me standing on a mountain ridge with a 1000ft drop behind me - come on, surely you must be slightly impressed! lol. They´ll go up as soon as possible over the next few days. It was definately one of the hardest and longest day walks ive ever done (25 miles in total) then i decided it would be a good idea to hike up a mountain to the Inka Ruins some 4km away. It was incredulously hard work, i cant tell you - and thats coming from me, a seasoned walked if i may say so myself. The Inka´s all thought it was a good idea to put steps everywhere and trust me, climbing steps at over 3000m altitude is not easy! Still, the sight was unbelievable. I personally put the Pisac ruins about Machu Picchu! Less people visit them and you really get a feeling of awe.
Coming back i jumped on a collectivo (mini-bus type thing) for 1hr of near hell. It was the single worse bus ride ive ever been on. I´ll moan more about it when my travel blog gets up but over the course of 33km, we nearly crashed once, nearly rolled it and red lined the engine more than i care to imagine. And we were still only going 20mph up the hill! It was an experience, ill leave it there!
Anyway, food is calling then bed. Catch you all later, drop me a message or comment if you can spare a sec.
Laters!
Thursday, 3 January 2008
Cusco, Peru Part 1
Well i made it. Im here in Peru and even the internet works, even if i did just crash the computer! ah well.
I probably wont be able to write much, the internet´s abit tempermental and theres only 2 PC´s for a lot of people. Im writing something of a travel blog but on scrappy bits of paper (hi-tech i know). I´ll write them up and post them when i get back to the states. For those who remember my DofE expedition diaries, well hopefully they´ll turn out something a long those lines. I´m not promising anything though!
Anyway, for the last 3 days and the next 4, ive been in Cusco in the Andes. Its one of the highest major cities in the world at 3325m above sea level and the center of the former Inka empire. Ive visited some of the ruins around here yesterday - Sacsaywaman (yes, it is pronounced just like Sexy-woman), Quenco and Tambomachay. Still not entirely sure if i want to go to Machu Picchu but we shall see. Sacsaywaman is incredible purely because of the shear scale of the place. There´s more great ruins at Pisac just across the ridge in the Sacred Valley. I might go there today or tomorrow. Cusco´s a great place to acclimatise and get some much need altitude training in before going to Puno on monday (at 4000m) and possibly climbing one of the volcano´s near Arequipa (5800 - 6100m) before i fly back to the states.
Ive got loads of photos just waiting to be loaded up but that will have to wait until later today or tomorrow. It rained quite a lot yesterday and i pushed my luck abit by using the camera lots but fortunately it still works. Anyway, breakfast is calling and hopefully the weather will be decent enough to do jump over to Pisac today.
Laters everyone!
I probably wont be able to write much, the internet´s abit tempermental and theres only 2 PC´s for a lot of people. Im writing something of a travel blog but on scrappy bits of paper (hi-tech i know). I´ll write them up and post them when i get back to the states. For those who remember my DofE expedition diaries, well hopefully they´ll turn out something a long those lines. I´m not promising anything though!
Anyway, for the last 3 days and the next 4, ive been in Cusco in the Andes. Its one of the highest major cities in the world at 3325m above sea level and the center of the former Inka empire. Ive visited some of the ruins around here yesterday - Sacsaywaman (yes, it is pronounced just like Sexy-woman), Quenco and Tambomachay. Still not entirely sure if i want to go to Machu Picchu but we shall see. Sacsaywaman is incredible purely because of the shear scale of the place. There´s more great ruins at Pisac just across the ridge in the Sacred Valley. I might go there today or tomorrow. Cusco´s a great place to acclimatise and get some much need altitude training in before going to Puno on monday (at 4000m) and possibly climbing one of the volcano´s near Arequipa (5800 - 6100m) before i fly back to the states.
Ive got loads of photos just waiting to be loaded up but that will have to wait until later today or tomorrow. It rained quite a lot yesterday and i pushed my luck abit by using the camera lots but fortunately it still works. Anyway, breakfast is calling and hopefully the weather will be decent enough to do jump over to Pisac today.
Laters everyone!
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