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