Our travels really are at an end now. Since leaving Arequipa we headed to the North coast by Trujillo for a week, and stayed in a really great place caled Huanchaco, where surfing allegedly originated 4000 years ago on reed float things (will provide a picture at a later date). It felt like a proper holiday with sea, sun and a bit of surf...although my patience for falling off a surfboard over and over deteriorated pretty quickly.
After a week of sunning ourselves and generally over-indulging in nice restaurants, we headed back into the Andes to Huaraz and the Cordillera Blanca mountain range, where FINALLY we paid for a proper guided 4 day treck (Santa Cruz)through some really stunning scenery. It actually wasnt as arduous as I expected as we had 3 donkeys and a donkey driver between our group of 4 to haul all our stuff over the mountains. Luxury. We also had all our food prepared for us by our guide which was brilliant, as I doubt we would have had any energy for cooking a decent meal after 8 hours of pretty hard trekking every day.
The other two people in our group were a super-nice Dutch couple, who luckily had a decent digital camera. I thought I would be able to upload the photos thay gave me now, but the computer in our hostel is a real dinosaur and can´t handle that sort of stress. Pah. As I already said though, the scenery was amazing- snowcapped mountains, the bluest lakes and deep green valleys. We actually did the trek in 3 days rather than 4, as we took a shorter route on the 3rd day due to one of our Dutch friends suffering really badly from the altitude at our 2nd campsite (4,200 m). I´m glad we have been at altitude on our recent trips to Puno and La Paz, otherwise I think we would have been sick as well.
At the moment I´m waiting for Steve to come back from a second treck he decided to set off on yesterday. I cant remember what the mountain is called, but it´s big and it has snow on it (that really doesnt narrow it down around here). He wanted to do a proper climb to the summit with crampons and all that shiz, so he hired our Santa cruz guide Benito to take him by himself for 2 days. When he gets back we are getting straight on a bus back to Lima and staying there for a night before flying to new york for the day and the flying home that night. We are going to be KNACKERED when we get back! Can´t wait for NY though!!
Tuesday, 8 March 2011
Wednesday, 23 February 2011
End of an era
Things had just started to settle down for us in Arequipa...and we decided it was time to leave. Due to the running out of money (as always seems to happen) we have decided to take our original march flight home instead of postponing it as we had thought we would. But the thought of coming home (wherever that might be...!) is pretty exciting.
Yesterday we left our Arequipa life- job, apartment and frinds (sob!) and travelled to the Northern coast of Peru for some Trujillo sun and some hiking in the Cordiera Blanca before we come back to Europe. Travelling feels a bit funny at the moment (...and a bit tiring to be honest), but that might be due to a bad nights sleep on a bus last night- I´m sure when we hit the beach tomorrow it will all feel jolly nice indeed.
The bad news is that our wonderful trusty camera was pickpocketed at a big festival we went to a few weeks ago, so I cant share any photos. Not being able to take any has been pretty torturous as well, as since then we have had a brilliant week in Bolivia (which was beautiful- especially the jungle), and Trujillo where we are now is also pretty darned photogenic- all colonial architecture painted in bright colours. Maybe when we get back and get some films developed from Steve´s Olympus Trip (which has saved the day) I can scan them and upload a few.
Anyway, that´s all for now- feeling a bit bus-lagged, but felt the end of our Arequipa life should have a quick mention. It´s been brilliant.
Lots of love xxxx
Ps. In the last post Steve suggested I have a problem with swearing verging on Tourettes. It´s so BEEPing well not true. Just thought I should clarify that.
Yesterday we left our Arequipa life- job, apartment and frinds (sob!) and travelled to the Northern coast of Peru for some Trujillo sun and some hiking in the Cordiera Blanca before we come back to Europe. Travelling feels a bit funny at the moment (...and a bit tiring to be honest), but that might be due to a bad nights sleep on a bus last night- I´m sure when we hit the beach tomorrow it will all feel jolly nice indeed.
The bad news is that our wonderful trusty camera was pickpocketed at a big festival we went to a few weeks ago, so I cant share any photos. Not being able to take any has been pretty torturous as well, as since then we have had a brilliant week in Bolivia (which was beautiful- especially the jungle), and Trujillo where we are now is also pretty darned photogenic- all colonial architecture painted in bright colours. Maybe when we get back and get some films developed from Steve´s Olympus Trip (which has saved the day) I can scan them and upload a few.
Anyway, that´s all for now- feeling a bit bus-lagged, but felt the end of our Arequipa life should have a quick mention. It´s been brilliant.
Lots of love xxxx
Ps. In the last post Steve suggested I have a problem with swearing verging on Tourettes. It´s so BEEPing well not true. Just thought I should clarify that.
Monday, 10 January 2011
Christmas holidays
Happy New Year yaalll.
Firstly, I want to acknowledge the sad loss of the original written entry for this post. Lucy lost an hour and half of her life into the unsaved regions of cyber space. After one or two swear words, she very politely asked me to "write the BEEEEPing thing, it's your turn anyway!!! BEEEEEEP. " and so i obliged.
We spent my birthday and our Christmas at home in Arequipa where we enjoyed ourselves opening a few presents, watching Home Alone 2 and cooking and eating a huge Christmas feast. I treated myself to a christmas/birthday present, a recorder (seen below) which has been a delight to both of us as I have been practicing the Harry Potter theme tune pretty much constantly ever since.
In the evening we had a group of friends over for mulled wine and a slice of my amazing nutty Italian chocolate birthday cake, made by Lucy.
Peruvians celebrate Christmas with a midnight feast on the 24th and we were invited to spend it with with the family of our spanish teachers. It was fun watching the kids ripping open their prezzies before we tucked into another massive meal. There was a strange dish of mashed sweat potato that was roasted with marshmallow and sugar, which I had only just managed to eat. yuk!
On boxing day we took a 12hr bus journey up the coast to meet with some other friends. We stumbeled into this fiesta of the virgin where we saw plenty of dancing and fireworks. Unfortunatly all the hotels in the town were booked up so we ended up with accomodation that seemed to double up as a guni pig farm. Still, after all the buzz we slept pretty well.
A photo of part of the Arequipa crew from our visit to the pre inca remains tambo colorado.
This candalabra strangly etched into the sand near Pisco is thought by some crazy yanks to be mearly a sign post for visiting UFO's pointing the direction to the Nazca lines.
Firstly, I want to acknowledge the sad loss of the original written entry for this post. Lucy lost an hour and half of her life into the unsaved regions of cyber space. After one or two swear words, she very politely asked me to "write the BEEEEPing thing, it's your turn anyway!!! BEEEEEEP. " and so i obliged.
We spent my birthday and our Christmas at home in Arequipa where we enjoyed ourselves opening a few presents, watching Home Alone 2 and cooking and eating a huge Christmas feast. I treated myself to a christmas/birthday present, a recorder (seen below) which has been a delight to both of us as I have been practicing the Harry Potter theme tune pretty much constantly ever since.
In the evening we had a group of friends over for mulled wine and a slice of my amazing nutty Italian chocolate birthday cake, made by Lucy.
Peruvians celebrate Christmas with a midnight feast on the 24th and we were invited to spend it with with the family of our spanish teachers. It was fun watching the kids ripping open their prezzies before we tucked into another massive meal. There was a strange dish of mashed sweat potato that was roasted with marshmallow and sugar, which I had only just managed to eat. yuk!
On boxing day we took a 12hr bus journey up the coast to meet with some other friends. We stumbeled into this fiesta of the virgin where we saw plenty of dancing and fireworks. Unfortunatly all the hotels in the town were booked up so we ended up with accomodation that seemed to double up as a guni pig farm. Still, after all the buzz we slept pretty well.
A photo of part of the Arequipa crew from our visit to the pre inca remains tambo colorado.
This candalabra strangly etched into the sand near Pisco is thought by some crazy yanks to be mearly a sign post for visiting UFO's pointing the direction to the Nazca lines.
The day that we went to the Ballestas islands and saw a million birds and sea lions.
Teasing some pelacans... they deserve it.
Racing in the desert.
YEEHAAAAaa. The day my life ambition was fulfilled. Driving around like a redneck in a 1950's ford pickup truck on the same day that we thumbed a lift on the Pan American highway in a fuel truck.
Living my dreams.
New Years Eve
Due to a slight cock-up involving bank holiday bus timetables we celebrated the beginning of 2011 while stranded in the a tiny fishing village surround by barren desert. We rented a room in the back of a beach shack style restaurant where we were invited to share Panaton and watch their firework/TNT display.
Finally we made it to Camina to meet with some other Peruvian friends and their family for a nice day on the beach.
YEEHAAAAaa. The day my life ambition was fulfilled. Driving around like a redneck in a 1950's ford pickup truck on the same day that we thumbed a lift on the Pan American highway in a fuel truck.
Living my dreams.
New Years Eve
Due to a slight cock-up involving bank holiday bus timetables we celebrated the beginning of 2011 while stranded in the a tiny fishing village surround by barren desert. We rented a room in the back of a beach shack style restaurant where we were invited to share Panaton and watch their firework/TNT display.
Finally we made it to Camina to meet with some other Peruvian friends and their family for a nice day on the beach.
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