Last Days in Peru

I am writing this from our apartment at Club La Santa in Lanzarote, which I guess will be the last instalment of our blog. For now though here is the last part of our travels in South America.


After leaving the Sacred Valley (Machu Pichu and Ollantaytambo) we cabbed the 60k back to Cusco where we stayed one more night and then took the night bus to Arequipa.

Arequipa is the second largest Peruvian cities and is surrounded by huge snow-capped volcanoes with many old buildings made from white volcanic rock.

Arequipa and Volcan Misti

We think they were deep fried sheep heads at the local market in Arequipa

The central part of Arequipa was beautiful and this is the main Plaza de Armas

The volcano dominates the city

From the roof of the Santa Catalina Monastry

We stayed for  4 days sightseeing the city and relaxing quite a lot, the hostel had a TV with DVDs,  Playstation and computers so the kids were happy. Well not so good for Bob as some of the Playstation games made him quite angry and aggressive, so was quite pleased when we left!

Great colours in the Santa Catalina Monastry

JUst a nice picture!

...and a big cactus

Now that we were at a lower altitude we did try a couple of runs around the city but with the pollution and still at 600m it was not all that pleasant.

The national drink , Pisco Sour and yes Steve did actually like it

The national kids drink, Inca Cola

Another night bus took us to our next destination close to Ica. Huacachina is a resort village set around a desert oasis, built for the Peruvian elite a 100 years ago is now a foreign tourist playground. Here we all tried our hand at sand boarding which was a good intro for the kids into the delights of snow-boarding. Unfortunately it was not in the same league as snow, too hot, too much climbing back up the hill and too slow!

Steve enjoying the dune buggy ride

Sarah sand bording

Bobby getting low on the board

Amber speeding down the dunes

Bobby's new friends

Up in the dunes above the oasis

The Dune machine

Sand everywhere

A nice place to do your homework

Onward to our final destination in Peru, Lima where we had been invited to stay with Steve’s old friend Luchu Nieri.

Lucho was the perfect host, not only putting us up in his fantastic apartment but cooking some wonderful food and taking us on a guided tour of the old city. The highlight however was a visit to his new restaurant, not yet opened, called Amaz and which specialises in dishes either from or using ingredients from the Amazon . We got to sample a variety of the dishes and have to say the food was amazing and unique but not for kids!

Lucho and his great dog Lucca

Pre lunch cocktails at Lucho's Restaurant Amaz.

The kids loved the dog

We also met with Dan Simms and his family. Dan moved to Lima from London  15 years ago and is now married to Fiorella and has 2 lovely daughters.

Dan and Fiorella with daughters Chloe and Emma

So Lima was a bit of an eating extravaganza but we did manage a couple of runs to work off the excess.

And back to London for one night before heading off for our last 2 weeks in Club La Santa, Lanzarote for 2 weeks of fitness activities which should help get us back into shape .

Uyuni to Machu Pichu

So we arrived in La Paz after a 11 hour very bumpy  night bus, they served us food and drink before we left and if you hadn’t finished it before setting off there was no chance after without throwing it over yourself.

La Paz is quite a spectacular city sitting at 3600m and surrounded by snow capped mountains and volcanoes. We actually didn’t really do much though except a bit of shopping, a city walk and eat some nice food. The big tourist  thing here is to mountain bike down ‘The most Dangerous road in the World’ , this a 60km down hill road from La Paz to Coroico which has claimed many lives and of course we didn’t do it and with Steve scared stiff of sheer drops, no way, although did think about it.

Overlooking La Paz

Dead baby LLamas on sale in La Paz, apparently it is good luck to bury one under your house!

La Paz and the mountain backdrop

Some lovely Bolivian ladies off to a party

A tired Bobby with his new mask

From La Paz we bus'd to Copacobana, Bolivia, on the shores of Lake Titicaca. Here we enjoyed the warm daytime sunshine for a few days and visited the Isle Del Sol.

Sheep invade our hotel in Copacobana

View over Copacobana

Coulldn't have said it better

At the port in Copacobana before setting of top the Isla Del Sol

The view form the top of Isla Del Sol

Isle del Sol is a small island on the lake which is home to many Inca ruins and this and the nearby Isla de La Luna are supposed to be the birthplace of the sun and the moon in Inca mythology. Also  the origin of Manco Copac, the first Inca. All very nice but the ruins are not particularly great, a little too ruined!

At the Peruvian border, the beer of choice

Then across the nearby  border into Peru and Puno again on the shores of lake Titicaca, three quarters of the lake is in Peru the rest in Bolivia. Puno is famous for mainly one thing, the floating islands of the Uros people. These people, to get away from the warring Incas, decided to make islands out of reeds and live out on the lake. So their existence is entirely dependent on the reeds, they eat them, make the islands out of them and their houses and boats. They do keep a few pigs as well which is probably to eat their sewage!!  Nice half day boat trip to the islands, a bit touristy and felt we had to buy something from them, which we did.

The Uros islnders await us

A local Uros man demonstrates the making of a reed island

On the floating island

Sarah gets friendly with a local lady

The next morning up bright and early for the 8 hours day bus to Cusco.

Cusco is the main base for most travellers before they head up to Machu Pichu, most to acclimatise to the altitude. Fortunately we had been staying at over 3500m for the last few weeks so acclimatisation was not an issue.

The main plaza in Cusco

The old part of Cusco is a very pretty with many old colonial buildings and also some very good Inca ruins just a short walk from the city. We stayed in a very nice small hostel 15mins walk from the main square, the only downside being the 200m uphill climb which puffed us out every time we had to nip out for something to eat.

The Inca fort at Cusco (Saqssahuaman)

Finally we caught a taxi to a place called Ollantaytambo where we then caught the train to Aguas Caliente, which is the nearest town to Machu Pichu and exists purely as a tourist hub. The following morning we caught the shuttle up the mountain to the ruins. There is a walk which is only 2km but takes 2-3 hours, we took the walk down which still took 2 hours.

On the train to Mach Pichu

Bobby with the statue of an Inca king

The view from the train to Machu Pichu

Machu Pichu

and again

Sunrise on Machu Pichu

One sees pictures and reads about this place, but it is truly a spectacular place and what  a feat of construction, even the kids were quite impressed.

That afternoon we headed back by train to Ollantaytambo where we stayed the night and enjoyed the final day of a local festival in the square, lots of music, dancing and fireworks with no health and safety so you can imagine what that was like - a bit like a firework display we had a John and Fionas some years ago which I'll never ever forget.

Dancing in the square in Ollantaytmbo

In the morning we explored the nearby Inca ruins, not as spectacular as Machu Pichu but worth a look and much quieter.

The Inca ruins at Ollantaytambo

The tmple at Ollantaytambo



...and just to make you all jealous we haven't seen rain for 2 month since New Zealand.

Now off to Arrequipa and the homeward stretch



Chile to Bolivia



We are writing this from the roof top of our hotel in La Paz, so I guess at about 3,700m, the sun is shining and I can see the sprawl of the city and a massive snow- capped mountain called Illamani in the distance, which stands at 6402m

So, we arrived in Santiago de Chile at 11.30am on Tuesday having left New Zealand at 2.30pm the same day, if you have ever travelled across the date line you will know it is a weird experience having to experience the same day twice ... also very tiring.

Santiago is a very modern, clean and friendly city and very much like any large European city. We spent 4 days here just pottering around and catching up on e-mails and blogs and sampling some local Chilean dishes. The only touristy thing was a wonderful day spent horse riding in the foothills of the Andes just outside Santiago.

Sarah and Bobby at the start of our horse ride with Rose





On the trail



Rose Deakin, the grandmother of one of Amber’s old school mates, Stanley,  lives just outside Santiago in the Cajon Del Maipo and coordinates horse rides using the local horsemen. So we headed out to the outskirts of Santiago on the Metro and were picked up and taken up into the Andes about 45 minutes drive. After a coffee and a chat with Rose we were saddled up and off we went up in to the mountains with our two local guides.  The path was pretty treacherous  but of course the horses had done this many time before so we felt safe. We stopped for lunch by a stream and pool, did some fishing and Amber caught the only two fish. The scenery was spectacular although there was no snow on the mountains and was very dry as they had had hardly any rain for 6 months (it’s all in the UK so we hear).

Bobby is shown how to gut a small fish

After 4 days in Santiago we headed north, making our way over a few days  to San Pedro de Attacama stopping en route at La Serena, Caldera, Bahia Ingles and Antofagasta. Bahia Ingles was a deserted beach resort which might have been nice in the summer but had nothing to offer us this time of year. All these places were interesting to see but that’s about it.

Alpacas in the park at La Serena

We didn't make it to Easter Island but this is an original Moai in the museum at La Serena

We all got a look at some planets and a close up of the moon at the observatory at Vicuna

Picture of the moon through the telescope

This clock was given to the city of Antofagasta by Great Britain

So after 4 day travelling we arrived in San Pedro. A good place to begin our acclimatisation to altitude being at 2500m. Although its main raison d’etre  now is mainly for tourists travelling to the nearby desert  and salt plains, it still retained  great character with traditional buildings and dusty streets of a desert town.

The biggest supermarket in San Pedro



Volcan Lincancabur overlooking San Pedro

Our hostel in San Pedro and yes Amber is doing her homework

The main street in San Pedro

17th century Iglesia San Pedro

There are many tours to do from here but we decided to stick to one that didn’t involve getting up at 4 am plus Steve took a mountain bike for a day to explore the surrounding desert. The scenery here is spectacular with volcanoes dotting the landscape and huge ranges of unusual  rocks rising from the salt plains.

Unusual rock formations in the Valley de Luna on the edge of the Salar de Attacama

The road into San Pedro

After a very relaxing 4 days in San Pedro we decided to take the well worn tour to Uyuni in Bolivia, which crosses the Andes at just under 5000m and into the Salar de Uyuni - the largest and highest salt plain in the world. Apart from a little dizziness and the occasional head ache we survived the altitude and amazingly the kids were both fine. What a fantastic tour, the first day we stopped at multi-coloured lakes, volcanoes, thermal springs , geysers and flamingos and we slept in a 6 bed dorm at 3600m by the side of the Laguna Colorada where the water was bright red and full of feeding flamingos (the red colour is algae that the flamingos love to eat). The night time temperature here was -10 and there was no heating, we had 5 blankets, slept in all our clothes and hats, and were still cold!

An old wreck of a bus at the Chile/Bolivian border, now a toilet!

Just before setting off into Bolivia with our 4x4 and driver Alberto

Amber posing at the border post at 4000m

The Laguna Verde, green due to large amounts of Arsenic!

A welcome hot bath at 4000m, the water was about 35 degrees outside was zero

More thermal activity at the highest point of our tour at 5000m

Our lodgings for the night, very basic and no heating

The second day was equally as spectacular and we stayed at an ‘Hotel’ made entirely of salt on the edge of the Salar de Uyuni. A little warmer this time but up at 6 to see the sunrise over the salt plain, then  on to Uyuni itself for a few hours before catching the night bus to La Paz.

Flamingoes on Laguna Honda

They call this the forest of Rocks



This one does look like a tree



The Salar de Uyuni stretches far in the distance

Yes it is salt as Amber taste checks

Kids snuggle up in their salt room

Giant cactus seem to be the only thing that grows here

Bob has grown a lot

Breakfast on the Salar de Uyuni

More fun with camera tricks

The tour group, 4 Brits (us), 3 Germans, 2 French, 2 Brazilian and 1 American