Peru

After pushing some of my travel boundaries the last couple of years I decided to get out of my comfortzone that is Europe and the US. My mum has wanted to go to Machu Picchu (pronounced /ˈmɑːtʃuː ˈpiːktʃuː/ by the way) for years, she didn't think it was going to happen though, but then I decided to push myself. So She got to fulfill her travel dream and we got to see a country very different from our own. After some research I came to the conclusion that the time between the rain season and the peruvian winter would be the best time for us, and I'm very happy with the decision of going at the end of March. Read on if you want to know everything about our 2 week peruvian adventure.

Our adventure started with an early morning, about 20 hours travel time and 2 flights. Upon arrival in Lima, Peru we got our luggage, after a while, and my suitcase was really damaged. The top of my suitcase looked like someone had taken a swing with an axe and then had tried to rip the soft lid from the plastic casing, there was a gaping hole at the top where the zipper had been ripped at the seems. (And this was not an old and worn suitcase, I think it was the 4th flight it was on.) So we had to wait in line at the KLM desk to log the damage, but as we were moving on from Lima after about 36 hours they couldn't provide a new suitcase. I had to use some of my short time in Lima on finding a suitcase and hope that I get reimbursed. And in all the hassle I managed to forget my handluggage suitcase in the baggage claim area, luckily the airport staff was able to find it and gave it back to me. But not really a great start to the holiday. We were traveling with Lamatours and would have a guide with us at all times, without a guide I probably wouldn't have been able to get my hand luggage back, and it really was helpful to have guides on this trip so I'd recommend traveling with a tour company. We were driven to our hotel and as it was late my mum and I decided to just get some food and drinks from a small shop across the street and go to bed. We were liking the temperature though and were exited for the next day. Our first full day in Peru started with a half day guided tour in Lima, we saw Huaca Pucllana, a pyramid dating back 1000 years before Machu Picchu, a couple of churches and catacombs (which I didn't like, it's both creepy and disrespectful to display human bones like that). We also saw a couple of plazas and went to a museum.

After beeing droped off by the hotel again we walked around a bit but didn't see any shops selling suitcases, so we headed down to the mall in the cliffs, we did find a suitcase at this mall and decided to go back for it after lunch and a walk along the cliffs. We ate at fridays, no surprise we'd end up at a typical US og European place. The menu was different from the ones I've seen before though. After lunch, and a fabulous tropical iced tea for me, we started walking along the cliffs.

The view from this path is amazing. I got so many great photos on this walk. And earlier in the day we learned that all the big black birds we were seeing were vultures, on this walk we got a closer look at some. We looked for a few geocaches too but only found one. We walked from the mall all the way to the lighthouse, and then decided to go a little further before turning back. We stopped at one of the Beso France's creperias on the way back because I was so thirsty in the heat and wanted to try some drinks. Their nutella milkshake and tropical juice were both amazing. Before we got back to the mall the sun started setting, and what a beautiful sunset it was. We took our time and walked slowly so we could really take it in, and get photos.

After buying the suitcase and getting back to the hotel we changed and went for dinner. We ended up walking a bit in circles, not finding much appealing and ended up right next to the hotel, where the burgers were decent. After dinner we went back to our room so we could get packed, in my case that meant moving everything to the new suitcase, and get enough rest for traveling by plane again the next morning. We were picked up before 7am and driven to the airport where the guide came in with us and told us where to go after check in before leaving us. He was a pretty good guide and as we would learn later; one of the better ones when it comes to the English language, and he generally seemed to care about us and doing a good job. After a short flight we arrived in Arequipa, at 2400 meters above sea level. We were picked up by a new guide and had a little free time after getting our rooms at the hotel. My mum and I tried a couple of new things; the fruit we'd been given with our packed lunch before we left Lima in the morning and the coca candy we bought the day before. The fruit tasted a bit like a sour clementine, I suppose it was a variation of clementine, the coca candy had a bit of muña in it, which is a mint like plant growing in the Andes, so the candy tastes a bit minty, we could soon feel the strange affects of the coca. What the coca actually does is help your body with the oxygen intake, as well as other health beneficial things. The first time we tried the candy we felt a little strange, but that was only this first time. Then we decided to walk towards the city centre via the main street.

We'd been told we would easily see which street it was as there was roadwork going on in the street. What met us was not what we expected though. There was only a tiny, and at some parts sandy, path you could walk on along the side of the street, and the roadwork was being performed by hand. Meaning there were men with shovels in and around the hole running down the street.

Once we got passed all the roadwork we were met by a street filled with shoe shops. We walked from one to another for a little and then got KFC food to eat on our way back to the hotel, as we had a guided afternoon tour. Some parts of the tour were cool, but as I'm not a church kind of person quite a bit of it got boring. The last stop was the Santa Catalina convent, where we were handed over to another guide for a 2 hour tour. That was not for us. And it had started raining. We stayed with the group for half an hour before excusing ourselves. Took a quick walk through the convent, which is quite nice if you look past the part about girls being isolated from the world outside back in the day, then we headed back towards the main square. Where we could walk around under cover from the light rain. We went into small shops selling chocolates and cookies, and tried a few things. Then we sat down in an ice cream shop, after getting to taste some of the stranger flavours first, including the local speciality "frozen cheese", it tastes nothing like cheese. After the ice cream we started going back towards the hotel, via a few shoe shops, for an early night.

The next morning I went outside to see the view from our hotel before getting repacked and ready for our 8am pick up. The view from the hotel terrace was pretty good, we could see the whole city and the surrounding volcanoes, which were not very visible the cloudy day before.

We were picked up by our bus and headed towards Chivay. We had a new guide again and for the next few days we were in a group with some tourists who didn't understand english too well, so the guide had to say everything in both English and Spanish, which was really not ideal.

To get to Chivay we had to drive for a few hours and pass a point at the altitude of 4910 meters. My mum and I decided not to try the coca tea, instead we took an altitude sickness pill in the morning. We didn't like the feeling of it though, we got headaches and felt lightheaded after only a few minutes. On the way up we had some coca candy and grape suger in the hopes that that would be enough to get us through the high point of the trip. The scenery was fascinating on the way up, it's so different from what I'm used to seeing. We had some stops to take photos and the guide made sure to point out some local animals like the Vicuña and the Viscacha. A little before reaching the top we had a break to use the restrooms and have tea, my mum and I opted for muña rather than a tea containing coca. On the move again the snow covered mountain tops came closer and closer until there was snow on the side of the road. The view at the top was great, we could definitely feel the altitude though. And on the way back down both my mum and I were sick, although not everyone in our travel party were ill right away it seemed most of them had some sort of reaction within a weeks time.

Arriving in Chivay we all had a buffet lunch, and although my mum tried alpaca we didn't eat much. After lunch we visited the market in the centre of town, I didn't really like this market but there were some shops around too and I needed a few things. Then we checked into our hotel, Casa Andina Colca. The rooms were rustic and quite nice, and the hotel area was pretty, but it got really cold in the room, and at this altitude you really shouldn't run to get back under the covers fast. Some of the people in the group were staying at another hotel so we had about the time it took to take them to their hotel and drive back to us to get checked in and get ready to head out again, because we had a visit to the natural hotsprings included in our tour. The area where theres small pools built for the naturally hot water is very scenic, and it seems the pools have slightly different temperatures. We started in one of the pools and moved on to a warmer one after a little bit, while enjoying the beautiful nature with the Colca river running passed. After the bath we needed to relax, we were feeling the altitude. I was mostly just tired, short of breath and a little dizzy, but my mum was feeling nauseous as well. She eventually joined me in the hotel restaurant so I could get some dinner, she didn't order anything but managed to eat a little off of my plate.

On the 5th day of our Peruvian adventure my mum and I finally decided to try the coca tea, and we both felt better within minutes. Then we headed out early for a bus tour in the area towards condor crossing, we made a few stops in the area around colca canyon first though. We took photos with llamas and alpacas, and saw locals dance before stopping at a beautiful view point of the canyon. Getting closer to condor crossing, so named because there are normally condors close by, we started spotting the big birds. We stopped for a couple of minutes to enjoy the first birds we spoted before continuing. At condor crossing we were more lucky than I could have imagined, a condor was sitting on a cliff in the canyon about 40 meters from a lookout point. My mum and I spent most of our time at condor crossing looking at it and taking photos of it. It turnes out the bird sitting on the cliff was a young female, and she was joined by a young male while we were watching. We did see a few adults flying around too but they were too fast for me to get any good photos of them.

After condor crossing we had lunch at the buffet restaurant again and then headed back up passed the highest point again, we didn't stop this time though. We did however make a couple of other stops, including a beautiful lookout point over a lake at 4444 meters.

After about 5 hours on the road we arrived at our hotel for the next two nights in Puno, by the famous Lake Titicaca, the highest navigable lake in the world. We went for a walk down the main street, which was littered by souvenir shops, and saw kids protest for the environment. I think the first thing Peru can do in that regard is make it easier to throw away waste, we saw bin bags littering the side of the road in cities and countryside a like. Anyways, we walked through the streets in slow motion as Puno is at 3800 meter and we were feeling the altitude, the shortness of breath, headache and dizziness were never far away. After exploring a little we found an okay restaurant for some dinner, and we also shared a coca tea, even though it's not recommended late in the day as it has similar effects as caffeine. The food was okay, but not great. And this was the first time we saw people ordering whole guinneapigs, which grosses me out, luckily I was sitting with my back to the couple eating them though. And if you don't get my reaction; I am a little like that with a lot of animals and I would probably be a vegitarian if I wasn't so picky. Also, my family has had several guinneapigs, so it's sort of like someone is eating my pet. Unfortunately it's a big thing in Peru though.

The next day was one I had been looking forward to for quite some time, an outing on lake Titicaca. We were lucky as we were a small group, apparently there's normally over 30 people in each group but we were only about a dozen. Our guide started by telling us to correct him if he made mistakes when speaking English, however his English was better than any of our other guides, so the day was off to a good start.

Our first stop was to visit the Uros people living on floating islands made out of reed. Arriving at the island we were visiting first the leader had a little show and tell about the people, their history and how they make their islands and houses. Their houses are also made out of reed, and they're made liftable because they need to put new layers of reed on their little islands quite often, including under their houses. After the introduction into the uros people and their ways one of the men on the island invited my mum and I to come look inside his house. We had noticed when arriving that they had a sollar panel on the island, not all of them did, so the man was very proud of his little box tv and radio, which we were very surprised to find they had out there. After trying to sell as much as possible of their homemade stuff, like embroideries, to the group it was time for a boatride on the reed boat, for everone who wanted. We were dropped off at the "main" island where our boat would pick us up to head out for our next visit on the lake.

Getting to Taquile, a natural island, took about 2 hours, by the time we got there the sun had come out and we were in for a lovely warm summery day. We were told we'd be let off the boat on the southern part of the island, this is the less touristic part of the island and most of the boat drivers won't go to this part but our driver who was from the island had said it wasn't a problem. We went for a nice walk to the top part of the island with an amazing view the whole time.

My mum and I found a geocache near the top before heading towards our lunch spot. We ate at a nice little restaurant with a view towards Bolivia at the other side of the lake. And the food was alright too, at least I really liked the choux buns we got with the quinoa soups, which wasn't bad either. After lunch we were given a little show, and we learned a bit about the culture on the island before another beautiful walk. And before getting back on the boat some in our group decided to dip their toes in the water, since the shoes I was wearing are a nightmare to get back on I settled for putting my hand in, it was refreshing. And interestingly the water is perfectly drinkable, I didn't try it though. Coming back into town after another few hours on the boat we started packing a bit and I needed a thick layer of aftersun, I got a tinsy bit sunburned on the lake, the altitude really does make a difference. Then decided to go for a walk on the main street of Puno before dinner. A pretty crappy dinner it turned out, but it seems it's not easy to pick the right restaurants.

I was okay with leaving Puno the next morning as our room, although huge, was dark and gloomy, I didn't like it. After our 6:30am pick up we had a long bus ride ahead of us. It turned out to be a "super VIP" bus with pretty comfy seats and a hostess. Driving towards Cusco we had a few stops along the way including an approximately 2400 year old pre-inca Pyramid, an old church and a buffet, another sort of bad one at that. For my mum and I the highlight was the highest point on this drive, not only was it a scenic place, but at 4335 meters it's the highest geocache we've found.

We arrived in Cusco early enough to go for a walk and explore a little before finding a restaurant, and for the first time in a long time we found a place I really liked. My mums burger was okay, but my chicken fillet was great, just like they make it in Greece actually. We walked a bit more and saw the Plaza (Plaza de Armas), it's quite beautiful in the dark, with blooming flowers and the lights of the city behind the old buildings. On our way back we stopped at a cafe right by the hotel, their cakes just looked so good. The chocolate cake we got really was heavenly.

Our first full day in Cusco started with a free morning, we still woke up pretty early though, so we took our time showering and getting ready before breakfast and went out for a geocache walk round 9am. We started with a multi and did the first couple of steps of it. we'd do the rest later. I had found a shop I wanted to check out so as soon as they opened at 10am we did a little shopping. I found some pretty cool stuff.

At lunch time I wanted pancakes, it took them a while, probably because I said I didn't want bananas but I eventually got great pancakes with loads of good fruit. And then it was time to get back to the hotelt for an afternoon guided tour in the city and surrounding area. The tour started pretty good with some information about how the incas built their buildings in ways that make them earthquake proof, which is needed in Peru. But the tour quickly spiraled into pretty bad, at least my mum and I thought so. The guide kept walking too fast, some of us were feeling the altitude still and we couldn't keep up, and he seemed a little rude. And I was sort of done with churches.

To be honest we were getting a bit tired of beeing told the same thing over and over but with slightly different facts too. The view from our second stop was great though, you could see all of Cusco and the mountains beyond. Then it started raining and for the first time since we arrived in Peru we got heavy rain during waking hours, which didn't help our moods. We stopped by a factory for llama and alpaca garments before heading back into town, little tip; if you're allergic to wool, like me, don't go into a place filled with wool like fur. After a few minutes my skin started itching, then it felt like my skin was burning, a not so fun ending to a not so fun tour. Getting back to the hotel we were cold and tired so we just went to McDonalds for a sharer box for dinner, and got one of the cakes from the cafe, Dumbo's. A tv night with take out was exactly what we needed after the afternoon we had, and honestly I was in a pretty bad mood.

The next day a sacred valley tour was on the program. The first stop was a bathroom break and a guineapig farm, and once again I felt sick to my stomach, they seem to be really proud of it. It's like someone being proud to eat your pet honestly. We moved on to Pisaq, a scenic inca city with a very nice view. And the inca terraces at Pisaq were huge, like 3-4 meters tall. After Pisaq we went to a market and a silver jewlery factory/outlet before lunch, another buffet. The company was nice, we had some new interesting people on this tour, but the food was about the same as all the other buffets.

The last stop of the day was Ollantaytambo and another inca ruin, this time a sun temple in between tall mountains. So, again, beautiful views. Whats a bit comical about traveling around like this is that you keep bumping into the same people even though you're not on the same tour. And this happened a lot in the sacred valley, we saw people we'd met on other day trips, different ones at that. And when you do you sort of have to wave like an idiot, I promise we were not the only ones doing this.

One of the guys who we'd been on the same journey as us from Lima until this point asked if we wanted to grab coffee together after the tour, he was about to walk the inca trail the next day and therefore we wouldn't be on the same tour anymore. So one of the other Norwegians joined us too and we went to Dumbo's, where also the Danes showed up, so we all had a nice coffee/cake break together. And Dumbo's delivered again, their pastries are just as good as the cakes.

Before leaving the hotel the next morning we had to pack everything we needed for the next two days in our handluggage, our suitcases would stay at the hotel as we headed towards Machu Picchu Pueblo. We were picked up and driven to the train station, where we'd board a bus. The railway between Cusco and Ollantaytambo is deemed unsafe during rainseason and we were there at the end of it. We switched from the bus to the train in Ollantaytambo. The trainride was nice, we got food and a passion fruit we hadn't seen before. As we were approaching Machu Picchu we could see the scenery changing. Machu Picchu is concidered the gate to rain forest and we could tell the climate was a little different here. After checking in my mum and I went for a little bit of a walk to explore before finding some food, none of us had liked the food on the train much. But we were a bit wary about sitting down for food as the electricity was out in the whole town. We found a place that seemed to have a pizza oven or such though. And seeing as we were now at the low altitude of about 2000 meters I dared for a beer with my lunch. It's been strange to be on holiday and not be able to have a drink with dinner so it was nice to enjoy a beer again. And we saw some pretty cool birds from our second floor table. After lunch we went to find a geocache and in the process we saw more cool birds and I met a couple of cool guys, from what I understand they're spiny whorltail iguanas.

We figured we should have hats for the trip up to Machu Picchu the next day so we stopped by the marked (the touristic kind). I had a slight problem with it though, seeing as I'm really arachnophobic and they apparently like to stuff huge spiders in these parts, too many of the shops had them for sale. This resulted in me telling my mum to walk ahead and look before I could move anywhere in the market, I really freak out and get the shivers. We did manage to get hats though. In the evening we ended up going to a very wrong place for dinner, after ordering we realised the place didn't look clean and the waiter handed the kitchen a ready meal soup thing. We didn't eat much and got out of there again quickly.

On day 12 we were finally going up to Machu Picchu, my mums dream destination. I was a bit sad the others in the group didn't want to go up as early as we could, so I didn't get the morning feeling up there, the others wanted to wait an hour. However we were in the park just before 8am, and the sun was already blazing hot. We were with our guide for a couple of hours before heading off on our own. What my mum and I hadn't realised was that following the guide for as long as we did meant we couldn't go back up to the high point. I really wish he had said so and offered to end the guided part while still at the top. But the place delivered, it was beautiful and my mum was pretty happy. I honestly found other angles more interesting than the famous one, although we did get photos from that angle too. We also saw a newborn llama, beautiful flowers, lizzards and birds, I was pretty happy about them too.

Going back down my mum had "her heart in her throat" as we say in Norwegian. The ride up had been bumpy and all, but going down was so much worse. It seemed like we only had about a cm clearing from the edge, and like a 100 meters, or two, straight down. And the driver was going pretty fast for such a small and winding road. When we finally got off the bus back in Machu Picchu Pueblo I wanted to take some photos of the blossoming trees with the river in the background. Then my mum noticed a hummingbird sitting still just a couple of meters from us, such a cool experience, and it wasn't alone, they clearly like these flowers.

After getting some pretty good shots of the birds we went for lunch, and we found the place we should have had dinner the day before. We had a savory pasty at Toto's house, and dessert, they were both great. It was so great in fact that after relaxing a bit at the hotel, we went back for ice cream with a view, because I wanted ice cream and because we needed to kill time. Honestly we had too much time in Machu Picchu Pueblo before our train out of town. By the time we were on the bus from Ollantaytambo back to Cusco it was late and I planned on napping but there was a clear sky and we were driving on roads without street lights. The stars were so bright and beautiful I couldn't help but just stare out the window.

The next day and a half was free time in Cusco, and the last day and a half of our peruvian adventure. We started our free day with a walk and the next couple of steps of the multi cache we'd started. Then headed towards the main street for a little shopping before lunch. Turnes out we chose the wrong place for food again, the cafe we ate at sort of looked good, but the food didn't taste too good, and the cupcakes were really dry. After the underwhelming meal we went back to the hotel for a nap, we'd gotten so used to napping on buses every day we needed it.

For our last night in Cusco we got a little dolled up, had a mini photo shoot on the roof, and then went to dinner. We decided to try the irish pub and it was a good decision. We ordered sandwiches and because it was the last night, and I wasn't feeling the altitude as much anymore, I wanted to try some local drinks. The sandwiches were great, I think I ate more than I had in like a week, and I quite liked the local beer, cusqueña. I found the chilcano, a celebrated drink made with pisco, alright at first but after a little bit the raki tequila like flavor got a little too much for me. I ordered another beer instead. Our last few hours in Cusco were spent on the multicache, what's great about geocaching is exactly this; they sometimes bring you to cool places. The previous steps in this multicache took us to nice parks and a touristic market. The last bit took us through really narrow roads, past a pretty cool market that was better than all the other markets we'd seen. My mum wanted a photo with one of the ladies selling stuff and she was so proud, and wanted me in the photo with her. Anyways, after the stop at the market we continued up an elevated dirt path, and it seemed once we were here people said hello in passing, like we do in the woods and that in Norway. At the end, the coordinate we needed to take a photo of for the geocache, a park, a small but beautiful park overlooking the city of Cusco.

When we came back to the plaza we saw what looked like another demonstration, we'd seen a few since we came to Peru, luckily we asked someone what was going on rather than just shying away from it. I'm really surprised, and disappointed, that the guides hadn't said anything about this. Every Sunday there is a big parade in the centre of Cusco, with marching bands and everything. It was great. And what a way to end our Peruvian adventure. After lunch we had to get back to the hotel for our airport pick up, a 25 hour journey to get home awaited.

So in summary; Peru was a good first step out of the European/US comfort zone. It's a country with beautyfull nature and loads of history, but unfortunately also poverty, polution, littering and dogs everywhere. I recommend coca tea for the altitude, but it's wise to read about it before trying it. My favorite days were our day in Lima (should have had more time there), the day out on the lake and honestly our last morning, it was a nice walk and such a good way to end the trip. And obviously Machu Picchu was good, and I loved the moments where I got to watch birds we don't find in Scandinavia.