Intrepid

We scored the best seats on the overnight bus from Piura to Lima - at the front upstairs, so we had a panoramic view of the sun setting over the desert. The bus was very comfortable and even provided dinner and breakfast, so we were quite refreshed by the time we arrived in Lima. We checked into the hotel booked for us by the tour, and were pleasantly surprised at how nice it was. That evening we met our Peruvian tour guide, Arturo, and the other 10 people we would be travelling with, mostly Australians with a couple of Americans and a German guy thrown in for good measure. We all get along pretty well so far, and since then it´s been a fast journey through southern Peru to Ollatayamba where we are now.

We first went to Pisco, home of the drink of the same name. There was a bad earthquake there a few years ago and the town is not in great shape. To begin with we felt rather strange about being tourists in a place so obviously struggling, especially when we saw how incongruously nice our hotel was. However Arturo says that the town had previously had tourism for income and they were trying to encourage people to come back and bring more money so they can rebuild. Apparently the governmental money is not getting to the right places. It still felt weird though.


After Pisco we went to Nazca, stopping off at Huacachina Oasis on the way. I have never seen real sand-dune type desert before, and it was spectacular. This is a real life desert oasis in the middle of a load of sand dunes, although has been developed to contain tour companies and hotels now. We went on some hair-raising dune buggies and then boarded down some of the dunes. I went for the lying down option, which was very fast and good fun, while Snowboard Dude Chris tried the standing up option, which ended up being mostly somersaults down the hill. Turns out snow and sand are not the same. After a dip in the pool to wash the sand out of Chris´s ears, nose, etc. we went on to Nazca. For those who didn´t see the latest Indiana Jones film, this is where some ancient civilisation carved huge numbers of designs and geometric shapes into the desert and no-one really knows why. We opted not to fly over the desert (although some others in the group did, and said it was great), instead we saw a couple of the designs from an observation tower and spent the day shopping for our secret santa gifts and visiting a pre-incan cemetary.

Next stop Arequipa. We are moving away from the desert and coastal region towards the highlands. Six of us from the group went to a museum devoted to a mummy found in the ice at the top of a nearby mountain. It was very interesting. Despite being 700 years old, the mummy herself and all the offerings and coverings were incredibly well-preserved. She was a young girl who was sacrificed to the inca gods and they have even done DNA studies to find out where she was from.


The next day was Christmas Eve and we went on a tour to Colca Canyon, in the highlands. On the way, we reached the highest altitude we´ve seen yet, over 4200m and it was snowing! A white Christmas. We stopped off to try some Coca tea, which is said to be good for warding off altitude sickness. It tastes a lot like green tea. Chris and I took the opportunity to buy some ludicrous yet toasty warm Chullo hats made from baby Alpaca wool. We also saw llamas, vicunyas and alpacas along the way, and traditionally-dressed women carrying big bundles of sticks on their backs while herding cows into the path of the bus. When we reached Chivay we were supposed to go for a short hike but it was raining, so we went straight to the hot springs. The boys all got beers and we chilled out in the pool for a couple of hours. What a nice, and weird, way to spend Christmas Eve. We all went to a restaurant for a very strange Christmas dinner that night. It started with Panetone (cake) and hot chocolate, followed by chicken stuffed with alpaca meat. It was tasty, but the wrong way round and wot, no roast potatoes?


Christmas day dawned cold and bright, and the shower didn´t work. We went to a viewpoint to see Condors flying around the amazing backdrop of mountains, all very Mysterious Cities of Gold. After that we went back to Arequipa and celebrated Christmas with Mexican food and drinking games. Next day we travelled to Cusco, which took over 10 hours and was not the best journey ever. Cusco is lovely, and we spent the following day wandering around and doing important things like laundry, stocking up on socks for the Inca Trail, etc. Today we visited a local community and watched them making artesan crafts like pottery and chocolate, and now we are in Ollatayamba for the night before starting the Inca Trail tomorrow. It´s a four day hike at high altitude and we are hoping that we are fit enough to cope. There are 10 of us hiking, including Arturo, plus two guides and 16 porters to carry all the food and tents and so forth. I feel like J-Lo (B-Fu?) with my entourage.


So stay tuned for the next installment, and find out whether either of us started crying on Dead Woman´s Pass and had to be carried home by a porter.