To the Copa, Copa-ca-ba-na...sing along!

What a lovely surpirse this little village on the lake was. We found these amazing, funky suites (complete with indoor hammoks and kitchen) that had massive windows displaying Lake Titicaca. Las Olas - remember that name - and stay there if you every have the opportunity. They a expensive by Bolivian standards, but we quickly realised how cheap Bolivia was, starting on our first night with a gorgeous meal at the towns best restaurant, La Cupula. Grilled Trout, salad, wine...the works, and all for only 6GBP! So good it was that we went back the next day, but this time we had a chocolate fondu and red wine for dinner (we are on holiday, we can do what we like)

We spent the first day in Copacabana relaxing, reading in the hammoks and exploring, which meant our second day was destined to be a lot more energetic! We headed off early to the dock and booked a boat to Isla de Sol (advertised as 90min journey, but more like 2 hour trip) on the slowest boat in the world. Think 20hp motor on a boat of 80 people! Any normal boat would make the journey in 30min! The island itself was very baren, but lovely and we followed a long walk along the ridgeline from the north to the south. Now I calmly use the word ridgeline there...remember we are at 4000m above sealevel - this was not an easy 3 hour hike up and down some really mighty hills...my lungs will never be the same again. The locals have cottoned on to all these tourists walking along their island and we were periodically stopped and asked to pay a toll for walking along their part of the path/island/dirt-track! We had been warned about this and insisted the first chap gave us a ticket for our payment, which we produced each time we were stopped by the next man (much to his disappointment and arguing that it was not valid for his section of the path...we only paid once!)

The reward for reaching the south of the island was a very dry sandwich, some Inca stairs and another slow boatride back! Oh joy! This time surrounded by local ladies knitting and falling asleep in a knit-one-sleep-one style...very funny.

End of Peru (Puno) and into Bolivia (only just)

Getting very brave with the whole rock-up-and-go approach to travelling, we headed to the Cusco bus station very early to get bus tickets to Puno. And we were SO right! Saving 80Soles (11 pounds) by not going through an agent! We did however make one big mistake and assumed that (like Asia) they would stop 5 times during the 6 hour journey for us to get something to eat. Needless to say all we ate that day was 2 Oreo cookies and half a Twix each. Even ran out of water! Not doing that again. I was also nearly left behind when I made a mad dash for the baños at one of the brief stops and had to chase the bus down the dust road as it drove off without me (Simon assures me he was trying to get them to stop)

We didn´t really want to go to Puno, but crossing the Bolivian boarder you can´t really avoid it as all buses transit through there. So we decided a night in a basic hostel and a morning at the floating villages (that is all Puno has to offer) was a good way to spend our time before heading into Bolivia. We managed to find a rather cool little hostel called Inca´s Rest. Owned and run by a crazy man from Uruguay who made a joke out of everything which was rather refreshing after a long bus journey. We suffered as many jokes as we could to be polite and then headed off in the direction of dinner...Oreo cookies can only last a girl so long.

Our trip to Puno was not going to be a complete waste of time and early the next morning we headed off to the floating villages. This was in fact a very interesting morning and rather amazed at how a whole community survive on a floating reed island. They (the Uros tribe, which pre-date the Incas) moved to the middle of the lake to avoid the Spanish colonist rule and in turn created a whole new life floating out there. We visited Tribuna (the largest of about 40 islands) where the islands are made and re-made from the totora reeds which provide home for their residents. The totora reed bed has dense roots to support the top layer, which rots and must be replaced regularly by stacking more reeds on top of the layer beneath. We managed to stay on top and not put our foot through the island, but did feel a little like we had been shipped out there to buy souvenirs.

On our bus trip from Cusco I had asked the couple next to us if I could read their Lonely Planet guidebook. I came across a section on crossing into Bolivia and notice a box that said ´some countries (including South Africans) require visas in advance´. Don´t panic I thought, I can get one at the border and they are regularly changing the law, so this may not even apply now. I then read that there was a Bolivian consulate in Puno and that they were open until 2pm...so I just popped-in to check after the floating island tour. Oh GREAT, here I go again with another visa requirement! And it was a good thing we popped in to check, as the very nice little man at the consulate said I definitely needed one in advance, please produce the following forms, certificates and info and they will think about issuing one!!! (for free I might add) Simon and I ran around like mad things getting copies of passports, vaccination certificates, itinerary, hotel bookings in Bolivia etc. (you have no idea how difficult it is to find either a printer or a photocopier in Peru!) We only took 30min to get all the paperwork done, but when I handed the form in at 1pm and said I had a bus to catch at 3pm, the very helpful little man gave me ´oh no´big eyes! It is amazing how well my very bad Spanish worked and he did it for me in 15min...for which he got lots of blowing kisses and a handshake (better than having to pay an official at the boarder I thought)

Again executing our turn-up-and-pay strategy for buses, we managed to get a very smart (brand new) Mec Benz taxi for the 3 hour trip across the boarder for only 15Soles each! Oh we are good. Although we almost didn´t make it! Peru is 1 hour behind Bolivia and the boarder closes at 7pm on the Bolivian side. This didn´t seem to bother the Peruvian roadworks man who calmly said we would have to wait 2 hours while they closed the only road to the boarder!!! Driver vs Roadworks man arguing ensued and we then headed off behind a grader for 3kms in order to make it on time. And no problems with the visa...he was a little surprised (disappointed) I had got one and reluctantly stamped my passport. The Americans in our taxi had to pay $100 per person for their visas - ouch!

Arriving safely in Copacabana for the evening we were ecstatic to be in Bolivia. Oh what drama for one day!

Ups and downs to Machu Picchu

And so we set off on our alternative expedition to see the wonders of the Incas. After our previous few nights in the pub with the boys we decided to have an early(ish) night and were ready and waiting when our guide Washington (he said we could call him Washy) came to collect us bright and early.

We started out with a short cab ride to the local bus station where we boarded one of the most agriculturally smelling buses we have been on so far. We also met up with Gary, the lucky chap who was the only other person in our group...ominously though his name was Gary Fitt, and he lived up to it throughout. After a 3hr ride up to the start point we clambered off the bus and started the important job of finishing our snack pack and finding somewhere to have a pee...easier for the boys than Cath!!

The first portion of the trek was not actually walking, we were mountain biking down into a small town called Santa Maria @ 2000m from a mountain pass @ 3500m. This was supposed to have taken 4hrs but due to some issues with the equipment, gears giving up the ghost after an hour (for the few uphills) and brakes that would have been better suited for a kids trike, we finally rattled in exhausted and dusty much later than planned. After a shower and a beer or two we were ready for bed, no romance here as the three of us were sharing a room...not that we got much sleep as it turned out that the "homestay" that was promised turned out to be a motel cleverly disguised as a truck stop and all night petrol station. Please forgive the negative tone of this part, we were not happy campers and there is not much glossing I can put on the day!!

Our second day started out in a similar tone to the first, this was the main trek part and our guide decided to set a break-neck pace in order to catch his mate up who had started a few minutes ahead of us. This meant very red faces and panting from Cath and I (Gary seemed to take it in his stride but I have already told you his surname) until we reached the other group. It turned out to be a blessing in disguise as Washy´s chum was Percy (I know) who was guiding another couple closer to our pace. Over the next few hours we climbed and dropped and mounted and valleyed and tramped and trekked to our hearts desires, there was some very punishing uphill sections that left you with no breath for the stunning views at the top of each pass. A few stops for water and snacks sandwiched the yummiest almuerzo (South American set lunch) we have tasted on this continent, some avocado straight from the tree and a post lunch siesta in hammocks...ahh hammocks!! The day´s walk ended with a soothing dip in some hotpools but not before we crossed the surging River Urubamba on a contraption that involved you pulling yourself across in a small metal box supported about 30ft up.


We had climbed from where you can´t see the river anymore


Mountain Cath


Then we went round this one


Finally along this riverbed!

A few beers flowed that evening to celebrate the fact that we made it past through our hardest day, we also found the local nightclub in the town we were staying...I won´t make any patronising comments about the quality of the venue but the DJ had 2 cd players on top of each other and his gran sat behind him!!

Our last day of walking was rather surreal, we had to walk along the rail tracks that took us to Aguas Calientes (hot waters in Spanish) but we found to our dismay that Peruvian rail workers don´t space sleepers evenly meaning that our strides altered with each step, very off putting. Thankfully Washy had promised us some fishing and a decent trout lunch halfway up so we bravely marched on...do you reckon this was a large country estate with freshly tied flies? When we reached the trout farm there was a small delay as it was the owner´s birthday (or so we were told) and they had to clear the hosting area of the beer bottles. We then got ourselves psyched up for a spot of sport...off to the lake...um, no...concrete trout pools. We climbed on the walls and were given a giant net with which to delicately locate our lunch. Trying to balance whilst laughing and trying to take photos meant that it took a while before we caught anything but once we did we were on a roll, even having to throw a couple of tiddlers back in. Once cooked they did taste quite good...you know there is a however...however we did have to dodge the mossies attracted by the pigs and other assorted farm animals who became more and more curious about our visit as it progressed.


Lunch!!

After lunch a short trek bought us to our destination with enough time to check into our hostel and have a look around the town and pop off a few emails..."just a quick note from Machu Picchu.." We met up with Washy for an amusingly average dinner and to say our goodbyes as we were to get a new guide for the next day, it is here that I can change the tone of this post, almost! As you can guess we were not particularly impressed with the service provided by the guiding company so far as to be honest they were rubbish, our guide Washy did his best (even walking through a fever on the last day and a shot in the bum as a result) but this was the price we paid for not being able to sort everything out months beforehand and paying about 3 times as much (but you definitely get what you pay for here!!) And we did have a lot of fun and met some very cool people, much of the amusement came from comparing horror stories with other groups!!

Now I can gush...Machu Picchu was a highlight of our whole trip, we decided against the pre-dawn 1000 step challenge seeing as they now had some fancy shuttle buses leaving just in time to get to the top. We had got up and hurriedly dressed at 5am to ensure a view of the sunrise, we were in and climbed to the corner of the mountain where everyone get´s "that" photo in plenty of time to get a quick history from our guide, if you are interested then here´s the wiki - link


Here comes the sun

It really is a magical site and a magical sight to see the sunlight come over an adjacent mountain slowly illuminating the buildings and terraces and unlike our experience in Angkor Wat it is big enough to "hide" the amount of people there so we got some photos that looked as though we were amongst a few select visitors. One of the added extras that some people chose is to climb the pointy mountain, Huayna Picchu, that you see in the background of the iconic pictures. Only 400 people are allowed to climb this each day due to the small path up and down as well as the lack of room at the top, well not ever wanting to miss out on stuff Cath and I got in the queue and were lucky to be nos 180 and 181 up. It took about 50 minutes of hard climbing and a bit of rock scrambling to get there but the views back across the site and surroundings took what little breath we had in our lungs. The route down was no less precarious but we made it safely and took great pleasure in the faces of the people coming in the other direction and gave a few nearly-there´s where needed!!


Top of the world!


WooHoo!!


This was quite a distance out - Peru, health and safety...I think not!!


Gary, Gary and...um Cath

We reached the bottom at around 10am where we bumped into Dan and the boys who had done the real trek, they looked awful but told us they were pleased that they had made it over Dead Woman´s Pass and we spent a good while swapping stories and chatting on the grass taking in the day on top of the world!!

Peru...well Cusco to be exact

After a rather lovely time in the Galapagos we had run out of time for any more Ecuador adventures, Peru and some Inca ruins awaited us. I also put my foot down with all these long South American bus journeys (2 hours is enough for me) and we opted to fly via Lima to Cusco. Good thing too as it would have been 30 hours by bus to Lima and then another 24 to Cusco (not my idea of a honeymoon) The problem with any flight to Cuso is that they all leave at 5am from Lima, so this meant a late night flight to Lima and then napping in the airport. This was by no means as bad as our Thailand experience and we met lots of people doing exactly what we were. I stayed awake and looked like I wanted another beer, while Simon dominated the only comfortable couch in the restaurant for a nap.

Lovely Cusco

Cusco was a lovely change from Quito. A very charming city with clean cobbled streets and cute little cafes and bars. Lots and lots of locals selling alpaca everything from hats to socks and everything in between. I am not surprised we instantly felt at home here, it is after all the tourist capital of South America and the quality and cost of things is an instant indicator. We opted to stay in the old town area called San Blas (the area with the most charm, but it is also up the hill and at 3500m you really feel it on the walk home) My first welcome to Cusco was being chased by a local and her two llamas. I had stopped to take a picture of the square and she was within the shot...she immediately ran over to me to demand money for taking pictures of her llamas. I refused (not really knowing that this is customary for this area) to which she insisted more. I walked away and she initiated pursuit with the two beasts in tow. Not an easy escape running up a hill with my backpack at altitude, but I never made that mistake again!

We stayed in a rather charming hostel called Casa de la Gringa - in the honeymoon suite! Best described as basic accommodation in the annex with a view of the street...the very noisy street! For some reason this particular quiet lane was patrolled at 3am by policemen who thought it was appropriate to blow their whistles to let us know they were there! Just as this had finished, the milk/bread man walked up the street ringing his bell to invite sales...and then the day began. Our comedy purchase of earplugs before we left the UK were put to good use here!

One of the biggest attractions of Cusco for us was meeting up with Mr Daniel Morris and his sidekick Dom. Coincidence meant we (travelling in opposite directions through SA) landed here at the same time. As you can imagine, this called for celebrations and a fair few beers were consumed that night. Dan was naturally on top form and he and Simon got all the mandatory Everton chatting out the way early. We had a largish drinking evening at the Irish Pub (those Irish are everywhere) reputedly the highest Irish Pub in the world. I cannot confirm the validity of the height claim, but I can confirm the best Shepherds pie I have had in a very, very long time.

When in Cusco an Inca trekking one must go, but with a 6month booking requirement, we didn´t do THE Inca trail. We managed to find what I thought was a good deal for an ´alternative.´ No sleeping in tents and biking the first of the 4 days! Oh how wrong I was! As we were all off doing some form of walking/ biking the next day, a much quieter night was had the second night. Definitely the first time I have seen Dan do the yawn-put-the-beer-down ´I have packing to do´at 9pm!

...back from Inca Trekking however this was not the Dan. What a massive night! I am still not sure he has recovered from all that partying. We on the other hand left the boys to it at about 8.30pm and headed off to Km0 for some really good Thai food and much needed packing time. So nice to have a backpack full of clean clothes, but that never lasts long as we are always off getting dirty on another trek soon. Cusco is rather cool and we should really have spent a few more days here, but at this rate we will never get to Bariloche to meet Andrew by the 14th July, so on we must go.

BOOBIES!!

After another day chilling at the Secret Garden we were ready for our close up with nature that was the Galapagos Islands tour. This was the "big thing" in South America that we ahd been getting excited about for a few weeks...and the animals didn´t let us down!!

We started the experience in a rather nice hotel in Quito where Cath and I both bathed in asses milk...well it was actually the free bottles of bubbles but luxury none-the-less. We got an early night and in the monrning were whisked off to the great islands, but not before being accosted by a school full of kids friom Quito whose teacher had suggested they practice their English. This would have been fine for a few minutes but they swarmed around us (there were about 30) for an hour and a half before our flights were called...guess where they were going!!! Yup, high fives all the way down the aisle as we boarded and lot´s of excited oohs and ahhs as we took off and landed.

I won´t go through each days events as so much happened but touch on some real favourites...and then I have some other stories to bore you with when we get home!!

A good trek to start off with was on our first day on Santa Cruz island where we walked out to Tortuga Bay (Tortuga means turtle but only as this is where they lay their eggs!) We cought our first excited glimpse of Marine Iguanas fishing and sunning themselves, some Pelicans who despite their gangly nature on land are rather graceful when cruising the sand dunes and some Sally Lightfoot Crabs which Cath spent the whole trip trying to photograph.


Pensive


Our first Marine Iguana

The absolute best (and Cath is nodding frantically) was swimming with Sea Lions, we were initially sceptical as we hadn´t seen much on that particular day apart from some birds and were not in a hopeful mood as the weather was looking bleak over lunch. Once we had put our togs on though the clouds parted and we dove off of the back of our boat and followed the directions of our crew to some rocks. Mum was first to check us out, she came up and blew bubbles at Cath which we took as a form of approval as there then followed 5 pups who tumbled and turned all around us. I tried to copy some of their moves, think underwater Justin Timberlake, and was rewarded with a couple of close encounters as they started copying me!! All in all this was magical and we spent a good 45minutes mucking about before being called back for our next voyage...not before Cath joined the crew in jumping off of the 7m high roof of the boat!!


Non-swimming pup

When you go to any of the souvenir shops on any of the islands you cannot get away from the t-shirts with any number of Boobie gags!! Blue Footed Boobies are one of the unique (sub) species that evolved on some of the Galapagos Islands and as their name suggests they have bright blue feet that the males use in a dance to prove their worth to future mates...a bit like a night down the Roxy!! They also collect sticks to build nests but instead of creating the conventional nest type shape they simply move the sticks around the floor in a bit of a half hearted effort.


Dancing Boobie


How blue?

The Frigate bird also uses a bright colouration to attract mates with the males puffing out their red breasts and shaking thier wings about in an exuberant display for the females. Sadly once used this pouch then retracts leaving them looking like old men with wrinkly double chins.


Puff Daddy

We paid a visit to the Chalres Darwin centre where the most famous resident, Lonesome George, remains as the last of his kind of Giant Tortoise. Despite numerous attempts to get him to mate he seems to be destined to be the last in his line, a sobering thought when you think that the reason for this was the trade in tortoise shells and oil when the islands were first discovered. When we visited there were even 2 lady tortioses in his pen to try and get produce some little Georges...but they seemed more interested in each other than the old fella.


Not George but nearly

As a backdrop to all of this was the hugely varied landscapes that the siesmic activity continues to throw up. We sailed from pancake flat islands, to volcanic cones, moonscapes and dense forests with each being a perfect environment for the endemic speices that now inhabit them.


Cactus o´clock


Moonscape

We also met some cool people who helped us get over the next travel hiccup when the plane we were due to take back to Quito was ruled unfit to fly, meaning a 5 hour delay and much homemade fun!


Kym´s impromtu performance

Oh yeah and there were finches everywhere!!! They looked like the LBJ´s that you see in UK but were a source of great interest for everyone.