Peru and Bolivia Highlights

OK so this one is well overdue, but we thought still worth it…

Cusco and the Sacred Valley:

• Machu Picchu/Lares Trek with SAS – This one is of course a classic, but we also have to recommend doing a trek in the area. Most people we know did one of the classic alternative treks and loved it. There are a number to choose from based on your interests, but we were really happy with the Lares Valley and SAS did a great job. The day at Machu Picchu was the most tiring part, so don`t think you can`t do the trek, you can. You have to climb Wayna Picchu when you get there for the best views.
• Jack´s Cafe – Order yourself a ¨gordo¨ and enjoy. Perfect after coming back from a Sacred Valley trek.
• Tratamundo Cafe – On the second floor of the South side of the plaza, this place has great views of the Cathedral and serves up devine sandwiches and cafes…yum.
• Korikancha and the Convent of Santo Domingo – Our favorite sight in Cusco and one of the most impressive Inca structures.
• Pisaq – Our favorite sight in the Sacred Valley (aside from Machu Picchu). There are a number of temples to see, but not are all worth the effort. Do this one first or make sure to leave time because it´s big and worth the time.
• San Blas Neighborhood – The best place to stay in Cusco, without a doubt.
• Alpaca gear – You`ll need it to keep warm and it`s cheap!

Lake Titicaca:

• Reed Islands – It only takes a few hours but they are one of the most unique places we went.
• Quinoa Soup – The lake is almost like the heartland of the Andean experience and it wouldn´t be complete without trying some quinoa soup. Delicious.

Other stuff in Peru:

• Segundo Muelle in Lima – Considered one of the best cebicherias in Peru and it doesn´t disapoint. Absolutely worth going to if you go through Lima.
• Cruz del Sur – Our favorite bus company in Peru, bingo included.
• Monasterio de Santa Catalina in Arequipa – Awesome convent in Arequipa worth wandering around in for hours.
• Fez – Really good falafel house in Arequipa.
• Chicha morena – Special juice made from purple corn and fruit juices.
• Pisco sours – It´s not a trip to Peru if you don´t try one of these. Refreshing and delicious.
• Dunkelvolk – Cool Peruvian surf brand.

La Paz and around:

• Salteña tasting – Heaven in a little pastry. Our favorite place was Pacena La Salteña (get tumbo juice as well).
• Wagamama (not the UK chain) – Get your sushi fix here since we know you´re probably craving it about now.
• Coca museum – Small, but packs a punch. Really interesting museum with cafe for tasting coca products.
• Adventure Brew Hostel – One our favorites so far, this place was big and fun with most of the amenities you could ask for at a cheap price. The free beer every day helped!
• Biking World´s Most Dangerous Road – As if the bragging rights aren´t enough of an incentive, it´s actually a kick ass ride and totally worth whatever you pay. We went with Gravity Assisted and loved ém.

The Jungle:

• Pampas tour - This is a good intro to the jungle with the most opps for viewing wildlife. Whatever you do, the jungle is fun and you get to hang out in hammocks a lot. Getting to Rurrenabaque is an adventure though, so good luck with that one.
• Moskito bar – Good bar in Rurrenabaque with damn good caipirinhas.
• Casa de Campo – Really good restaurant in Rurre with patio seating at someone`s house. The couple cooks everything you order fresh.

Eastern and Southern Bolivia:

• Southwest Circuit and Salar de Uyuni – This was one of the true highlights of our trip. Surreal scenery for three days on a four wheel drive trip you won`t forget. It gets cold, so bring your alpaca purchases along. A definite must see!
• Minuteman pizza – Excellent pizza place in Uyuni that´s warm and cozy and totally yummy.
• Sucre – The white city. This one actually lives up to its billing a bit better than Arequipa in Peru and is worth the one or two day stop when travelling between Uyuni and La Paz.
• Convento de San Felipe Meri - You have to knock on the door to get in, but the courtyard is gorgeous and head to the roof for a view you´ll never forget.
• Para ti chocolates – Divine!

General tips…

• These countries are cheap!! So soak it up while you can…
• Prepare yourself for some ugly bus rides. The system in Peru is pretty good with tourist buses, but there is no real system in Bolivia (meaning lots of random stops and locals crowding on along the way).
• Everyone says everywhere in South America is dangerous, but it`s all exaggerated. Watch your bag at all times, but don`t be scared because its not nearly how it sounds.
• Look up the expected temperatures before you come. It`s cold here, even on the coast. Come prepared.
• Girls, bring toilet paper with you everywhere and get used to peeing behind rocks.
• They speak a little more English here and are more accustomed to tourism, so no problem if you don`t speak the language. No need to book ahead either, you can do almost everything when you arrive (except Cusco).

So that´s the quick rundown on what we liked most in Peru and Bolivia. If you have other questions about the area then drop us a line and we´ll answer what we can.

Salar de Uyuni and the Bolivian Southwest

(heads up, lots of pics included)

Uyuni and the Bolivian Southwest. This has probably been my most anticipated part of the trip since we started to do planning back a year or so ago. High mountain deserts, enormous salt flats that stretch almost as far as you can see, lakes in the middle of nowhere, what more could you want? There isn´t a whole lot that needs to be told about the trip, but the basic itenerary was a 3 day trip starting in Uyuni going through the Salar de Uyuni (highest salt flats in the world) then continuing through various desert country in the Bolivian southwest to see beautiful lakes (with flamingos?), geysers, rock formations, etc, and ultimately taking us to the Chilean border where we crossed over. Anyways, the pictures say it best …

As you can tell we had quite a bit of fun on the Salar and the landscape is completely amazing. Sadly, on the morning of the second day we had a rude awakening and a reminder that we were very much off the beaten track …

luckily that wasn´t our car, so nothing happened to us at all. that car was however the second car in our group and all we know is that something happened to the wheels, they lost control and the car tumbled a few times before landing on its side. the passengers were very fortunate that injuries were comparatively minor and the worst we know of was one woman who broke her clavicle, most everyone else suffered just bumps and bruises. So naturally that added to the already surreal environment we were in …

So for now we are in Chile checkin` out a thing or two before we bus our way back up to Peru where we´ll finish a couple things there which we didn´t get to do before and then it´s off to Brazil and the other side of South America!

Sucre

We don’t particularly have a lot to say about Sucre, but it was quite a beautiful place and we were a little sad that we only had one day to spend there, but oh well. Sucre was the old colonial capital of Bolivia before it changed to La Paz and it’s commonly called “The White City” which you will understand after seeing the pics …

La Paz, Salteñas, and The World´s Most Dangerous Road

So, before and after going to the pampas our base in northern Bolivia has been La Paz, the world´s highest capital city at 3600m. We did such a whirlwind of activities in La Paz that I don´t even know where to start, but why not start with the food, Salteñas. Mmmm, so good. Here´s a couple pics to wet your appetite a bit …

Salteñas are a kind of food filled pastry, usually coming in either pollo or carne, and they have a nice semi hard exterior and a juicy and delicious mix of meat and other goodies inside. They are typically eaten in the late morning, kind of like a second breakfast (gawd what a brilliant idea that is!) We pigged out on Salteñas while we were in La Paz and it was thoroughly enjoyable.

Aside from getting fat on Salteñas we also walked around the city a fair amount and probably our most interesting stop was the Coca Museum (yes, coca as in cocaine). The museum itself is very small and unassuming yet totally fascinating. We had already taken for granted that coca is part of the way of life of people (mainly andean people) here in the mountains and it´s been steadily available since we got to Cusco, but we hadn´t had a chance to learn much about where it came from and why it was so important. The museum explained lots about how the plant was discovered (there is a nice religious tale to that), how it became important for andean people, and how it was exploited to make cocaine.

It was quite fascinating to learn some things like … Coca Cola really did contain cocaine originally and that`s where it´s name is derived; Pretty much the only legal growers of the coca plant are the most powerful countries in the world, supposedly allowed to grow it to use for medicinal purposes. Anyways, it´s a fascinating plant and has had an equally fascinating history. Cool stuff.

So now that we are fat on Salteñas and high on coca we are ready to mountain bike down the World´s Most Dangerous Road! Chels isn´t big on biking so she passed on this trip, but I couldn´t resist it. Basically what we did was started in the morning by busing up to La Cumbre at 4700m up in the high mountains, then we went bombing down about 30km of paved road (well, as much bombing down as you can do on a mountain bike) before we reached the entrance to the dangerous part, from there it was another 35km or so down a fairly narrow road which has no rails and the shortest drop off the side is about 120m. We ended down at the bottom as some tiny place i can`t remember, but it was at 1100m, so that means we covered 3600m of altitude in about 5 or 6 hours, on a bike. whoot! Okay, the pics can say the rest …

I wish I had some kind of downhill video which I could have used, but couldn´t get anything setup. There are some more pics coming as well as some videos of people going down the road, so I´ll post those as soon as I can.

So, that´s what we did in and around La Paz. After La Paz it´s on to Sucre and Potosi on the way down to Uyuni where we´ll do what sounds to be a pretty great trip around the salt flats in the southwest of Bolivia.

Bolivian Pampas

Finally some warm weather!!!

So we´re back from the jungle now. We spent 3 days staying in an eco-lodge, taking boat trips down the Yacuma river to view wildlife, and hanging out a lot in hammocks. It was super relaxing and a nice change from our practically 2 straight months in the mountains. (Although now we´re happy to be away from the mosquitos and not sweating profusely!)

Although it was a little difficult to get there (because the tiny planes that only fly a few times a day are often cancelled or delayed due to weather), we luckily made it! Our bus did break down for a short bit and we passed through mutiple big dust clouds on the way, but we arrived to the sleepy town of Rurrenabaque on Sunday.

The next morning we took a jeep ride (again dusty – glad I put on clean clothes for the ride!) to our lodge right on the Yacuma river. After lunch and a nap in hammocks, we set off to explore the wildlife of the pampas. While floating down the river, we spotted tons of alligators, birds and turtles as well as native animals called a capybaras (giant rodents), some monkeys, and more.

At night, we set out in search of more alligators. If you shine a flashlight on the river, you can see their eyes popping out of the water in bright red. We rolled up a little too close for comfort to some of them and got a few good scares ourselves. As you can see from the pics, we were inches away from them, just waiting for them to jump. I was freaked out, but it was good fun.

The next day we went swimming with pink river dolphins. It was a bit of a risk because there were actually still alligators in the waters near us, but the dolphins protected us (or so the guides said). We weren´t sure how safe it was given we passed a good 100+ alligators on the way and could barely see the dolphins in the water, but we did it anyways and survived.

That afternoon we got the chance to go fishing for piranas, which is not easy, but of course Al caught a few. You can see their nasty little teeth in the pictures. We tasted them later as well, but they have no flavor. Not really worth it since they are so small….

Finally, on our last day we went out in search of anacondas (world´s largest snakes). Unfortunately after a gruelingly hot walk along a dirt road for hours, we didn´t find any. Maybe that was for the best since I probably would have screamed, but I think the 2m long fresh skin we found was at least a taste of what it might have been like to find one…

All in all, the jungle was good fun and very relaxing. I have to say I love hammocks, so am looking to get me one of those. You also can´t be riding through the jungle on a boat…

Luckily we also made it back to La Paz, but I wouldn´t want to try my luck again…

Journey to the Jungle

getting to the jungle proved a little more challenging than we expected…

…ahhh Bolivia…

Lago Titicaca

So after tons of fun and adventure in the Cusco area, we were excited to see what laid ahead in the rest of Peru and Bolivia. Our next stop was the Peruvian side of Lake Titicaca and then onto the Bolivian side….

After a half day bus ride from Cusco, we arrived in Puno and booked a tour of the three main Peruvian islands for the next two days. Not much to say about Puno except that its a touristy port for trips to the islands. On day one of our trip we visited Uros, which is a cluster of tiny islands made of reed that are completely artificial, but surprisingly interesting to see. They were a real higlight because they were so strangely unique and a bit spongey to walk on. It was hard to believe that people actually live on these tiny islands pretty much made entirely of straw. Although now they are primarily for tourism (the people live with solar panels, etc), you still got the idea of what they would have been like to live on a long time ago.

After Uros, we headed to Amantani, the largest island on the Peruvian side, where we stayed overnight with a local family. Although the island is primarily set-up for tourism now, the families and the way they live were all still authentic. We thought it might be a bit padded for the tourists, but our was stay was pretty real, down to taking our meals in their tiny stone kitchen with no light. The food was really good, primarily consisting of quinoa soup, boiled potatoes, and vegetable omelettes with rice. That night after a short hike up the island, we dressed in the local clothing on loan from our families and joined them in a traditional dancing ceremony (again touristy, but fun). The second day we made a quick stop to Taquile island, which mostly just had beautiful views of the lake.

After a quick border cross the next day, we dropped our bags in Copacabana (the main port for the Bolivian side) and headed straight for Isla del Sol. After a lot of steps to reach the top of the island, we were rewarded with great views from both sides. We watched the sunset over the dark blue water and had a “home-cooked meal” (b/c restaurant means lady cooking from her house) before bed. Day 2 we hiked from the South side of the island (Yumani) to the North side, where we did a quick ruin tour and spent most of the day just getting the ferry back to Copacabana. Be forewarned the ferries only run a few set hours each day and take a long time!

While the culture and history of the Peruvian islands were interesting to experience, the views from Isla del Sol were spectactular, making both sides of the lake worth a visit. The funniest part of our whole 4 days on the lake was that we didn’t realize in advance that there are no cash machines in many small towns in Bolivia. Hence we crossed the border with only $40 to spend until we reached La Paz. Luckily accomodation and food is cheap here, so we scrounged by, but after a few unexpected boat expenses, we had to not eat all day until we realized there were some shops that gave cash advances on credit cards in Copacabana. We were able to get some cash just in time to load up on snacks and luckily get dinner and a bus to La Paz…it was a close one and a lesson to read the guide book closely before you arrive somewhere…

We are now in La Paz enjoying the sights, the delicious saltenas, and our awesome hostal (Adventure Brew). So far, we are impressed with Bolivia as the people are more pleasant and it seems less touristy. Although there are a number of backpackers roaming through, it’s a much less travelled country, so you don’t get the same hassling as you you will find in Peru.

We’re off to the jungle tomorrow (hopefully if the flight goes) …