Peru to Bolivia and enter the A dogg.

The previous post saw me being pretty damn harsh on Peru after a series of misfortunes cast us into a bit of a funk. Luckily, Jesus/Allah/L Ron Hubbard took pity on us with one of the assorted deities casting their benevolent gaze upon us ensuring the past few weeks have gone as smoothly as a George Clooney one liner. Things started to take a turn for the better after we left Arequipa for a 2 day tour of the Colca Canyon, a place billed as the deepest canyon in the world. Indeed this canyon is so deep it apparently makes the ‘Grand Canyon’ appear more like a ‘mediocre crevice’ when compared.

Waking up at ridiculous O’clock we hopped onto our tour bus and were quickly whisked away from the city towards a series of stunning locations. Much of this stunning scenery was somewhat lost on me, however, as the repeated sight of alpacas and llamas in their native climbs sent me into an apoplexy of photo taking. Ignoring much of the dramatic landscape I instead chose to harass the huge numbers of these ridiculously cute animals that dotted our route. Aside from this, our journey also involved a stopover at the chilly heights of 4800m where we observed a multitude of small rock stacks, created by locals as good luck charms. The first day thus concluded, with ended up hitting up yet another thermal bath, bathing in the hot water whilst watching over yet another stunning sunset.

Pretty darn cute.

The next day, again arising at what seemed like the witching hour, we set off for the canyon proper and a viewpoint known as ‘cruz del condor,’ a point in the canyon which, as the name suggests, condors can be viewed. Paul and I were initially a bit skeptical about condor spotting as we have no interest in our feathered friends whatsoever, but arriving at the canyon itself it was hard not to get excited about glimpsing them as in flight they are undeniably majestic, and ridiculously huge, creatures. The canyon itself was also ridiculously big, so big in fact that my limited adjectival grasp is insufficient to properly encapsulate it. It was just fucking big.

Stunning terracing in the Colca Canyon.

Leaving the canyon, after a brief detour where we had eagles stand on our heads, we grabbed a night bus to the most touristy place we’ve visited so far: Cusco. Arriving knackered on a fairly dismal day at around 6am we were initially unimpressed with the city, luckily, after a few hours nap in our lovely hostel this unfavourable impression was quickly banished, with us finding Cusco to be a beautiful place with excellent food and history seemingly dripping from every Inca stone lined street.

Incan brickwork in Cusco.

This was good news indeed as we were due to stay in the city for 6 days, the longest time we have spent anywhere besides Quito. These days we crammed in a hell of a lot, stuffing history during the day and alcohol during the night. We were also lucky in that our hostel seemed to be mostly peopled by nice aussies with whom we partaked in our previously mentioned activities. Amongst the historic highlights was a plethora of Inca sites liberally sprinkled inside and outside the city, with the stunning, jagged walls of Sachsaywaman and the dramatic terracing of Ollyantambo being particularly impressive testament to their craftsmanship.

Incan ruins of Ollytaytambo.

Unfortunately my enthusiasm was slightly dampened after i developed a bad cold, caught off Paul, on the third day. All would have been ok had I not made the major error of taking some San Pedro, a legal, natural cactus extract that is supposed to give a mild, day long high. After mixing the green powder with some orange juice and downing the vile concoction Paul, Vinnie (one of the Aussies) and I set off for the Temple of the Moon, not actually a temple but essentially a large rock set amidst a wonderfully idyllic valley outside of Cusco.

Whilst Vinnie and Paul were having a lovely time wondering around admiring nature I spent much of the next 4 hours seeing dinosaurs in clouds whilst feeling queasy, eventually curling up into the foetal position and falling asleep. Waking up sunburnt (we were at about 4000m) we walked back into Cusco where I was to greet my uni buddy Arthur. What was to be a wonderful reunion was spoilt slightly by the fact I felt rough as, with me wanting to get as horizontal and asleep as quickly as possible.

Our reunion with Arthur was related to the fact we were due to go on the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu together, a plan sadly derailed by the mass flooding that hit the area in January leaving access to the site impossible. Unfortunately for us we’d already paid a non refundable deposit for our trip and so we were given the stark option of either losing $175 or paying an extra $175 to go on an alternative trek. Not wanting to lose money we chose the latter option and a couple of days later we were clambered onto another bus bound for the Lares Valley, a site deep in the Andes. Thankfully, unspecified deity once again took pity on us and the trek was actually pretty good, with our all anglo-phonic group (the first one we’ve encountered) and the scenery both being lovely. Amongst the landscapes snow-capped peaks and mountain lakes were particularly impressive, seemingly jostling each other in our vision in a contest to be the most photogenic.

4,500m in the Lares Valley.

After four days of trekking we finished the hike in yet another thermal bath before returning to Cusco, a journey made slightly irritating by the driver’s decision to show the abysmal film 2012 in Spanish. Paul and I have now seen this celluloid lobotomy about six times on various buses, it being a particular favourite amongst South Americans due to the fact that the flimsy plot is predicated on the Mayan calendar.

In Cusco Paul and I immediately jumped on a bus bound for Bolivia and Lake Titicaca. We had to leave Arthur behind as he had his camera pick-pocketed just before we set off for Lares and he had to sort out his insurance claim. A process made ridiculous by Peruvian bureaucracy, with Arthur yo-yoing between tourist police and bank, with the Peruvian government enforcing a bizarre rule where you have to pay tax at the (closed) bank for any report to be made.

Whilst Arthur was dealing with his kafka nightmare Paul and I arrived in Bolivia with no hassle at all. Our first stop was Copacabana, a pleasant town which overlooks Lake Titicaca. First impressions were very favourable when we discovered just how nuts cheap Bolivia can be, with our hotel costing $2 each and decent food even less. The day after arrival we set off into the vast expanse of Lake Titicaca on the slowest boat in the world bound for the Isla del Sol, an island used extensively by the Incans as the site played an important part in their cosmology. Arriving at the Isla del Sol we spent four hours trekking the length of the island amongst scenery reminiscent of Greek trips. Only unlike Greece it was fairly tiring due to the fact we were above 4000m, also, unlike in Greece, our voyage back was made more spectacular by first sailing into a thunder/hail storm at what seemed like 1mph.

High above Copacabana and Lake Titicaca.

Spending another night in Copacabana we met up again with Arthur the next morning, a not entirely happy meeting as Arthur had another tale of woe featuring Peruvian beauracracy. Arthur had been doing earthquake relief in Peru for 6 weeks but it turned out the authorities had only stamped his visa for 15(!) days, meaning he had to borrow $50 from another traveller in order to get out the country.

Sympathising away we immediately hustled the poor guy onto a bus bound for the highest capital in the world, La Paz. La Paz lies at over 3800m and is dramatically nestled at the base of a bowl, with houses ascending vertiginously all around the surrounding area. Expecting a bit of a shit city we were again pleasantly surprised to find a compact, colourful and bustling city, the entire centre of which is seemingly devoted to a mad cheap market where anything and everything is for sale, often at the same store. Wondering round the market we picked up loads of bargains, including some dope Bolivian football shirts, before retiring to the various excellent restaurants which are silly cheap. I got so excited to see curry on the menu that I proceeded to eat it three days in a row at three different places, heady times indeed.

La Paz is buzzing.

We were also lucky enough to be in La Paz during St Patrick’s Day, a day which was unsurprisingly messy, involving copious amounts of drinking at an infamous Irish run hostel called the Wild Rover. Whilst in la Paz Paul also had an enjoyable day mountain biking down the ‘world’s most dangerous road,’ an experience that Arthur and I couldn’t afford, with my finances in particular running perilously close to that of ‘Dickensian pauper.’

World´s most dangerous road innit.

From La Paz we continued on to the mining town of Potosi, the highest, and perhaps most tragic, city in the world. At almost 4100m the town is dominated by the towering form of Cerro Rico, a mountain that once possessed so much silver that in the 17th century the inhospitable are became a boom town, with Potosi quickly becoming the largest city in South America, with the town at its peak supporting a population of 160,000 people and a number of impressive colonial buildings. The tragedy relates to the fact that the indigenous miners who ensured Potosi’s splendour worked in near slave conditions, with Cerro Rico having had up to 8 million deaths attributed to it. The tragedy still continues today with workers as young as 12 still toiling away inside Cerro Rico’s bowels.

Partly due to its tragic history Cerro Rico has today also become somewhat of a tourist attraction, with numerous tour companies offering tours inside its depths. We decided to take the plunge into the mines, though not without some reservations on my part regarding potential exploitation related to my conception of poverty tourism.
Nevertheless we booked a tour and ventured into the mine after buying coca leaves, foul cigarettes and drinks as gifts for the miners. Scrabbling around inside was unsurprisingly unpleasant if interesting and half way through we bumped into some ridiculously young-looking miners, their eyes glazed and unfocused, no doubt due to the fact they each had a large wad of coca leaf inside their mouths.

Exiting the mine after occasionally having to crawl through small gaps our guide proceeded prepare and set off dynamite which we had bought at the miner’s market. This was pretty jokes with us each holding the dynamite next to our wangs before the guide scurried off to place it a safe distance away from us. Unsurprisingly what followed was a large bang that sounded a lot like dynamite going off.

Leaving Potosi we arrived in our current destination the lovely, whitewashed city of Sucre, a Unesco world heritage site since 1991. Here we have eaten loads more delicious food and visited a bunch of well preserved dinosaur footprints accompanied by guide who kept walking backwards slowly, holding a tiny umbrella and repeating to us the words ‘Imagine every step we go back 68 million years in history’ in an English accent. He was brilliant. Tomorrow we’re off to the salt flats before moving on to Chile. Fingers crossed that the flying spaghetti monster continues to look favourably on us.

Dinosaur park, Sucre. RAWR!