We met up with our GAP tour group in Lima to begin our trip down the coast of Peru towards Cusco and the inca trail. Our group is awesome, everyone is early 20's with 6 Aussies, 2brits and 8kiwis including ourselves. Wicked bunch of people and everyone gets along really well. We left Lima for Nasca on a bus where the group decided to stray from the intinerary and visit an Oasis called Huacachina. Best decision yet. The oasis was amazing with a small little village around a little lake surrounded by the biggest sand dunes we had ever seen. We spent the night at the bar getting to know the group over a cerveza and pisco sour. The next morning we had the biggest pancake in the world filled with beautiful fruit and covered in chocolate sauce before we set for the dunes in our souped-up dune buggy.
We hit the slopes with the craziest Peruvian driver who enjoyed making all 10 passengers scream with both excitement and fear. We thought the highlight of the dunes would we sandboarding down the huge drops which was wicked but the buggies took the cake and left every one of us buzzing for the rest of the day. The highlight of the trip so far.
We spent the afternoon chilling in the pool before we set off for Nasca in 3 huge American muscle cars, we picked the Dodge charger. We reached Nasca and stopped at a look out to see the famous and mysterious Nasca lines. While the lookout didn't do the lines full justice we got a pretty good look. GAP does not advise the flights over as there have been a few deaths so we decided against the flight over them.
In Nasca we went to a traditional Peruvian meal that is cooked in the ground on hot rocks AKA hungi bro. We then set off on a night bus to Arequipa, the second largest city in Peru. The night bus really nice with reclining seats but the ride was horrible with a man snoring the whole 10hours. We got no sleep. We arrived into Arequipa which is very beautiful, quite different to the rest of the Peru we had seen. The people in Arequipa were quite different to everywhere else. A lot less intrusive. It appeared to be a bit wealthier than other areas. The main plaza had some beautiful colonial architecture, with a wicked church as the centre piece.
We went to an exhibition to see a frozen girl from the Inca empire 600 years ago. The 12 year old girl was a sacrifice to the Inca gods and was preserved in ice at the top of a volcano. She was a pretty cool thing to see, we were surprised how well the ice had preserved her and how much she had shrunk. That evening we went to a lookout for a beautiful view of the city and the huge volcano next to it before going out dinner. This was round two for tradition food where we tried guinea pig. We had been warned, but the others were not aware it came out more or less whole, head intact with buck teeth and all. Put off by it's appearance, it didn't taste too bad, most people compare it to chicken but it's more like pork.
We had a 3am start the next morning as we were setting off to Colca Canyon, the second deepest canyon in the world. Reluctant to get up, we set off on our morning bus out of Arequipa towards Colca reaching altitudes of almost 5000metres above sea level. We started our epic 7hour walk into the canyon with our awesome Peruvian tour guide Marcus.
We walked down the canyon for 3hours straight down a dusty rock zigzag track. While we were struggling with our minimal day packs local villagers would pass us carrying 8 metre water pipes and bags of concrete in home-made sandals. Insane. We reached the bottom of the canyon in the scorching heat and head up for a village on the other face of the canon for lunch. We indulged in some more local cuisine, stir fried alpaca. Much like lamb but more tough. After our feed we set off for another 3 hours towards our amazing oasis lodge at the foot of the canyon.
Enjoying the surreal views above us we leant a bit about the agriculture and the awesome water channels that feed the terraces with water. We reached our oasis huts late afternoon where we would spend the night. We cooled off in the pool after our long day trekking before dinner and chilling out. The cabins we're legit traditional huts with straw roofs and dirt floors. They were awesome, we had proper beds though so we got a good sleep.
We got up at 5am the next day to set off back up the canyon, it was already light. We started trekking up hill when Necane hopped on a mule to take her up the track while the rest of us hiked up on foot. We reached the top by 8am in time for breakfast before going to the hot springs. On our way we saw a couple of condors, massive birds with wing spans if 3metres and got photos with an eagle on our head. 
We got back to Arequipa in the evening before setting off on our 10hour night bus to Cusco. We arrived early morning and once again didn't get much sleep on the bus so checked into our hotel and caught up on some sleep until lunch. We got up and went to explore the famous city. Cusco is amazing and lives up to it's name. Once the capital of the inca empire, the city was destroyed by the colonizing spanish. Like all cities in Peru, cusco is centered around a colossal church in the main plaza. What sets cusco apart is the incorporation of the old inca ruins into the colonial architecture of the Spanish. While it is a shame the spanish knocked down the inca buildings, many of the beautiful inca stone walls remain and are used at the base of the colonial buildings. it is a really cool mix of styles. We are loving Cusco so far, especially the markets. We bought all our alpaca gloves, scarves, hats jerseys and socks for our treck up the inca trail to machu picchu. That night the group went out for dinner, searched around for our free pisco sours before we hit the clubs for a bit of salsa dancing. Luckily we were able to get some free lessons. We all got into the groove, so we thought and had an awesome night a few cervezas later. We are currently on a bus to the sacred valley where we will visit some ruins and spend the night before we set off on our four day hike tomorrow. The inca trail and machu picchu is sure to be one of the highlights of our trip if not thee highlight so we are pretty excited to finally experience it. We look forward to telling you all about it on our return to cusco in 5days.Missing you all but loving every minute of our amazing trip.
Love Frano & Necane.
No comments:
Post a Comment