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