B10[mg]

This year, we decided to spend our vacation days (and money) in Peru. The reason for this is quite easy. We've never set foot on the Latin American continent and Peru offers Machu Picchu and the famous Nazca lines Both were high on my "to visit" list.

Lima

We arrived in Lima and went straight to Casa 667 a lovely small hostel ran by friends of friends of friends of my wife (and of course the name is cool. 667, the neighbor of the beast). The place was small, but offered a very friendly environment with a good location (Miraflores).

Quickly we noticed the similarities between Peru and Indonesia. Both countries have bad drivers, and houses aren't always the nicest (although unlike Peruvians, the Indonesians at least finish their homes). A big difference though: the weather. It was cold :-(

After spending some time in Lima, it was time for us to start our tour of ~2700km. First stop: Ica / Huacachina.

Ica / Huacachina

Due to the national strikes starting a day earlier than planned, we were stuck on the road for several hours, waiting for the police to remove the roadblocks (burning tires). After many hours, our bus finally arrived in Ica and we were brought to Huacachina.

Huacachina is an oasis in the middle of sand dunes and from there, many hotels offer sandboarding tours, in the sand dunes. Since I can't surf the waves, nor am very good at snowboarding, I decided to lay flat on the sandboard and go down the dunes in breathtaking speed. Fun!

Nazca

Because of the above mentioned planned strikes, we changed our itinerary and left the same evening for Nazca. In Nazca we spend the night and were welcomed by a small earthquake. I never experienced one before, so was quite amused by it (again: it was a small earthquake).

The next day, a flight over the famous Nazca lines was planned. After waiting for too long, our plane finally left the ground. But within 5 minutes, we were back. Some blinking light caught the pilot's attention and he decided to call off the flight.

After more hours of waiting, we finally managed to get airborne again and see the spectacle of the lines, still shocked by the US-citizens in the terminal claiming (too loud, as usual) that before they arrived in Nazca, they never even heard of the lines. People like that should not be allowed to see the beauty of it.

Arequipa

Without much hassle of strikes, but in a bus with a strong and foul urine stench we went to Arequipa. A lovely small city and a base for our upcoming excursion, the condors at the Colca Valley.

Arequipa has some monasteries, some old colonial houses and a lovely town square but besides that, nothing much happens. Our hotel's WEP encryption of the WiFi they offered was easily cracked, saving us some money, but more importantly, allowing us to use the EeePC in the bedroom, rather than the PC in the dining room.

After a day or so, we went to Chivay.

Chivay

Chivay is cold. During the day (while the sun is visible) it's ok, but as soon as it goes away, it's taking the heat with it, so our little radiator in the hotel room was a pleasant surprise.

After inspecting the hot springs (also very nice in a cold area), and a good night's rest, we went to the Cruz del Condor, where we should be able to see the huge birds. Initially, the condors seemed to sleep in a little, but after a while, they finally came and flew over our heads, a mere 2 - 3 meters above us. Wonderful!

Too bad the altitude got me and made my stomach do crazy things. Fun tip: if you have to vomit every 15 - 30 minutes, drink different colors of Gatorade. It makes it a lot more fun. After a while, Coca Cola seemed the best remedy and so my stomach relaxed a little again.

The environment was still dry and green trees weren't easily spotted. By now we longed for trees and I started to feel like an Indonesian who visits the Netherlands during fall or winter. You do miss the color green!

Anyways, back to Arequipa!

Arequipa / Puno

We took the bus from Arequipa to Puno, to see the floating Uros islands. But due to more planned strikes, we had to cut a day off Puno, to make sure we'd be in Cusco by the time our Inca Trail started.

The floating islands were ok, but I could've done without. Puno, again, was very cold and I can't really enjoy "locals" showing us how they live / work etc. in exchange for money. I don't care about giving them money, I just don't care about their style of living that much.

The solar panels did catch my attention though and made me giggle.

Cusco

The Inka Express bus took us from Puno to Cusco, the old Incan capital. The small town was way too touristic for my liking and to make matters worse, the hotel was owned by a Dutchmen (the people I tend to avoid during holidays).

Massages, souvenirs stores and way too many restaurants all try to make a buck out of the many many tourists that roam the streets. Due to our change in itinerary, we had an extra day off here, which was good, because we needed to prepare for the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu (rent sleeping bags, a big backpack, buy chocolate, insect repellent etc.). After we've gotten everything, we took a good sleep and the last hot shower for some days to come.

Inca Trail - Day 1

The first day was supposed to be the easy day, but in the blazing heat and with close to no trekking experience, it was already quite tough on my smoking lungs and muscles. The cheap hamburger the day before decided to mess up my stomach (once again), making it even worse.

Our group existed of but 6 people (us included) and a guide (and the 6 porters, carrying food, tents and our bag ;-). After 9 kilometers walking, we made it to the campsite, where a dinner was waiting for us. The tents were already awaiting us, and soonish I found out I was too tall for them. So I had to sleep diagonally, in a sleeping bag that was too small as well.

We decided to hit the hay (on mattresses thinner than an average magazine) early (after dinner), for the second day was going to be tough. But before that, I looked up to the sky for quite some time in awe. The starry night was beautiful and I suddenly realized why the Mayans, Egyptians and Incas were so impressed by it.

Inca Trail - Day 2

A "challenge", the brochure called this day. I'd rather call it "pure hell". Climbing up to 4000+ meters was definitely harder than expected. The last few meters up were close to impossible (walk 10 meters, sit and rest again) and I suspect we were the last people who made it up to the Dead Woman's Pass.

Luckily the road after that was only going down to the second campsite. We followed our tradition of sleeping before dinner, and straight after. I was completely beat and during the trek up, I toyed with the thought of returning and taking the train up to Machu Picchu, like some people seem to do (we noticed people walking the wrong way, obviously giving up).

After asking the guide a hundred times if this was really the hardest part of the trip, I ate my dinner and went to sleep.

Inca Trail - Day 3

The final day and indeed, not as hard as the second day. Still climbing up to two passes, the trail mostly went down and we made good progress. Both my wife and I had close to no problems walking down, although the 3000+ steps of the Inca Stairs got quite annoying after about 1500 steps.

In the end, we arrived at the campsite, with the horrible "restaurant" that offers hot showers (woohoo!) and beer (again woohoo!) although I was too tired for that, so I went for Coca Cola, still remembering the medicinal features of it in the Colca Valley.

We had to prepare for the last day, a good hour walk towards Machu Picchu and did so with a huge meal. After dinner, we payed the porter and tipped them. I figured 50 soles for both of us was the least we could do (~ €12.50 per person) for these poor souls literally had to run up and down the trail, making the tents and cook for us, but the rest of the group decided to pay even less. We Dutch are stingy? Try the French! Bah, it sickened me.

Inca Trail - Day 4

An early breakfast waited for us and as soon as we finished it, the first drops of rain fell out of the sky. Our flashlight broke down, so we had to walk in the dark and in the rain. Not fun!

To make matters worse, the rain got stronger, making our rain ponchos close to useless and due to the fog, we couldn't see much.

After the hour walk, we arrived at Machu Picchu, soaked, pissed off because we couldn't see anything and cold.

So that was it. Three days of terror for a rainy Machu Picchu, covered in fog. Words can't describe our disappointment, but because we were there finally, I wouldn't leave without at least some pictures, so after the guided tour, we went to take a few pics quickly, before going to Aqua Calientes.

The fog did give the place a bit of a gloomy atmosphere though, which was somewhat ok.

Puerto Maldonado

After arriving back in Cusco, we took the plane to Puerto Maldonado the day after. The sun greeted us on the airport and my heart was skipping a beat when finally we saw green trees again. Hot weather + mosquitos + green trees; this must be the jungle!

A little boat brought us to the jungle lodge after cruising the Madre de Dios river (which flows into the Amazon, if I recall correctly).

The three days we've spend here contained some jungle trails where we saw a lot of caymans, many birds and monkeys and even an anaconda (luckily sleeping).

Because we were stuck in the jungle lodge, we had no choice but to eat at the restaurant, which served the exact same buffet every day for lunch and dinner. We got quite tired of it, but oh well, at least it wasn't bad food.

After the Puerto Maldonado, we went back to Lima, where we spent one more day before returning home. Time flew by and we had a lot of fun, although I can't really say the dessert attracted me much. The jungle was a lot better (I like hot weather). All in all a nice vacation, but I'm dying to visit Indonesia again, next year!