Cusco - Historic Inca Capital (And Tourist Capital Of South America)

We took a nightbus from Arequipa to Cusco, where we've spent the last five days. Although best known as the tourist hub for the thousands of visitors that flock to Machu Picchu each year, it is also a fascinating place in its own right, with some amazing Inca sites to check out in the city and surrounding area.

Inca walls in Cusco

Cusco was the capital of the Inca empire, founded in the 13th century. It's now a world heritage site and is an interesting mix of Incan and colonial architecture. Inca walls built with huge blocks of stone line many of the streets; the blocks, despite being all shapes and sizes (one is 12 sided!), fit together like a jigsaw so well that you cannot see any sign of mortar holding them together. Alongside the Inca features, you see plenty of evidence of the Spanish conquest - the main square with its Catholic cathedral and Jesuit church, for example. Despite being full of tourists, it's a beautiful city and we've enjoyed exploring it.

The cathedral in Cusco's main square

On our second day here, we met up with our German friends from the Colca Canyon and took a bus out to Tambomachay, one of four Inca sites within a few km of the city. We walked back, taking in all the other sites and managing to avoid tour groups in the main. The largest of these sites is Sachsaywaman ('sexy woman' is the best way to remember the name!), which was an enormous fortress guarding Cusco. Some of the stone blocks here were simply gigantic - the largest weighed around 300 tons. It's hard to imagine how such might could have fallen to a Spanish force of around 50 horsemen.  

The Inca ruins of Sachsaywaman

Other Incan ruins around Cusco include those at Pisac, an insanely touristy town nearby. We took a taxi up to the ruins from the town centre and were dismayed to find at least twenty tour buses outside, while inside were umbrella carrying tour guides and megaphones galore. Fortunately most groups seemed to be on their way out, so within an hour or so we had the place almost to ourselves. The site is a citadel and small town, with impressive agricultural terraces carved out of the steep hillside right down into the valley.

Inca terraces at Pisac

We saw more agricultural terraces at Moray, another Inca site nearby. The terraces here are unusual in that they are deep and circular - very striking. Research has shown a temperature variation of 15°C or more between the top and bottom, and it seems that the Incas used the area as a kind of laboratory to test the effects of different microclimates on crops.

Circular agricultural terraces at Moray

Perhaps my favourite of all the sites we visited here was the salt pans or Salinas near the village of Maras. This is a set of several hundred rectangular ponds on several levels, into which salt water flows from a subterranean source and evaporates to form salt. The view from above is quite stunning - a patchwork of rectangles, punctuated by local people harvesting the salt in buckets and bags. The pans vary in colour depending on how long they've been evaporating, from brown to sparkling white. You can walk across the whitest ones, which reminded us of the salt flats in Bolivia.

The Salinas (salt pans) near Maras

While in Cusco we've met up with several friends from the last couple of weeks in Peru. It's been lovely catching up over craft beer and pisco sours. Most of these have already visited Machu Picchu, but we have decided not to rush things... Instead we have booked ourselves on an epic 9 day trek to get there! We leave tomorrow and trek first to Choquequirao, another Inca city, before heading onto Machu Picchu. We look forward to telling you all about it in ten days time...

Arequipa and Trekking the Colca Canyon

We've spent the last few days sightseeing in the old colonial city of Arequipa before getting out of the city for some trekking in the nearby (only 6 bus hours away!) Colca Canyon.

The cathedral in the main square in Arequipa

Arequipa - more Jesuit churches

Arequipa itself has a very pretty centre, mostly constructed from sillar - a white stone taken from the three volcanoes overlooking the city. There are ornate churches, a huge cathedral and a frozen mummy of a 12 - 14 year old girl called Juanita. It felt a lot like Sucre, in Bolivia, to us. Apart from Juanita.

Juanita was an Incan sacrifice to one of their mountain gods. It would have been a great honour to her to accompany the priests to the freezing summit to offer herself to appease the gods that were causing the nearby volcano to erupt. Preserved in nearly perfect condition she was found in 1996, ironically due to another nearby volcano erupting and melting her icy tomb. She has been on display ever since, and it's a very moving experience to come face to face with her in the museum.





One of our favourite things was spending an afternoon wandering around the picture-perfect Santa Catalina Convent. The convent occupies a whole block in the city and has its own interior streets and cloisters - a quiet island cut off from the busy streets outside. It was constructed in 1579, and there is still a section where a few nuns live in seclusion today, as in days gone by.

The quiet streets of the Santa Catalina convent

Running through Arequipa is the Chili River, which is well known for its whitewater. We spent half a day on the river - Jo for her first time in a raft and me kayaking. We both really enjoyed it - the rapids were continuous class III with little respite, with a class IV in the middle. It was great for me to be back in a kayak on whitewater again, for the first time on this trip, and Jo found the raft to be a good level of fun and fright.

Running the Chili River

From Arequipa we made our way to the Colca Canyon, the second deepest canyon in the world. The deepest is another few hours away by bus, and is very difficult to explore properly without paying a lot of money for a tour and a guide. The Colca Canyon is a lot more visited by people doing day trips from Arequipa to a great viewpoint for seeing condors. We skipped this, and continued further along the road to get closer to the canyon.

The Oasis of Sangalle at the bottom of the Colca Canyon

We spent three days trekking. The first was spent gradually descending down the steep wall to Llahuar where we were rewarded with (almost) hot springs to soak our aching muscles. There, we met a great group of people to continue for a full day along (with a lot of up and down) the Colca River at the base of the canyon to San Juan de Chuccho. From our basic lodgings there we could see the daunting ascent for the following day - we'd be climbing over 1000m back up to the trek's starting point. We hadn't anticipated that the bit we could see would be the easiest part of the climb - it turned out that part only took an hour. The next two hours were even steeper and we were exhausted by the time we reached the top.

Our smiling group, before the exhausting ascent

We did make the top in time to catch the bus back to Arequipa. Perhaps 6 hours in a bus isn't the best thing for stiff legs after such a climb, but we're moving on again and will take a night bus tonight to the heart of the Inca empire - Cusco.

From Bolivia Into Peru - Lake Titicaca From Both Sides of the Border

We left La Paz wishing we'd had a bit more time there, but also excited about the thought of a new country before too long. First, we wanted to stop in Copacabana, 7km from the Peruvian border, to see Lake Titicaca and Isla del Sol.

Our bus to Copacabana - it got on its own little boat for some of the way!

We decided to treat ourselves again in Copacabana as we'd heard great things about a rather unusual hotel there, Las Olas. The hotel is made up of several 'suites' that are in fact little freestanding houses, all with very quirky designs. Our suite was the Sea Tower, three floors high and with a fantastic view of the lake from our top tower room. All the floors were circular and we even had a specially designed circular bed! We also had a little fireplace, which kept the place cosy during the freezing Copacabana evenings.

Our Sea Tower home in Copacabana

Lake Titicaca is the highest navigable lake in the world at 3800m, and even before arriving in South America we'd intended to stay a night on its largest island, Isla del Sol (the Sun Island). However, it turned out this was not meant to be. Having been talking in La Paz about how we always have good luck with the weather, we appeared to have jinxed it... Storms, heavy rain and snow put paid to any plan to head across the lake by boat. The first time either of us have seen snow in August!

The Basilica of Our Lady of Copacabanca, in a very grey Copacabana

Despite the weather, we still enjoyed our time in Copacabana. We visited the town's basilica, which is very grand - completely out of proportion to the size of the town! The church contains a famous 16th century icon of the Virgin of Copacabana, the patron saint of Bolivia, who is traditionally worshipped on the 5th August. Although we were there a week later there were still queues and queues of vans and buses arriving from across Peru and Bolivia to see the icon. We also managed between snow showers to climb the steep hill behind our hotel, for a wonderful vista of Lake Titicaca and the town spread out below. This hill was another pilgrimage site, with stone crosses marking the stations of the cross and another icon at the top. Sadly though, everywhere was completely strewn with litter after a lot of people came up here for the festival on the 5th.

Looking down on Copacabana and Lake Titicaca

We decided not to waste any time waiting for the weather to improve and after two nights in Copacabana took a bus over to Puno, in Peru. Puno is also on Lake Titicaca and is the main entry town from the Peruvian side, so there are a LOT of tourists here! Quite a shock for us. On the plus side however, we have already noticed a dramatic improvement in the food here compared with any of the previous countries. It's great seeing dishes with sauces, spices, herbs... we are feeling quite positive about Peruvian cuisine!

The beautiful Lake Umayo, at Sillustani

Near Puno there is an interesting archaeological site at Sillustani; it is a hillside scattered with 'chullpas' - huge funerary towers or urns varying from around 4 to 12 metres in height. These stone, cylindrical structures were used as tombs by pre-Inca cultures from this region and then by the Inca themselves, dating from around the 12th to the 15th centuries. They are now in varying conditions, with some remaining almost perfect and others reduced to piles of rubble. There were other remains to see, including stone circles used by the Inca for sacrifices. The complex is in a beautiful location, on the shores of Lake Umayo where we even saw a couple of flamingoes.

Local ladies sitting outside one of the Inca chullpas

While in Puno we also paid the mandatory visit to the Uros Islands, which are artificial islands built entirely of reeds. Despite taking a ferry rather than taking a tour, the experience was still massively touristy - think floating souvenir shops. However, it was still worth doing to learn how the islands were built and to see what life is like for people living in such an unusual place. The islands are tethered but still move slightly with the wind and with the movement of people walking around; it felt a little like being on a boat.

Uros islands - reed islands in Lake Titicaca, near Puno

We are leaving Puno tomorrow for Arequipa, Peru's second largest city, and renowned for its cuisine.

La Paz - Not As Scary As You Think

We arrived in La Paz having heard tales of people kidnapped in taxis, fake police officers, bag snatching, etc. However, with a bit of common sense (don't just get in any old taxi, police officers should be wearing uniform...) we felt perfectly safe. We were staying in a more upmarket area called Sopocachi, outside of the traditional backpacker district, with plenty of good restaurants in the area. Unfortunately, we didn't get to try many of them - our visit was tainted by another bout of food poisoning.

The cable car descending into La Paz from El Alto

Having recovered after a day shuttling between the bed and the toilet, we braved going on a walking tour in the city centre. Although there weren't many stand-out sights, La Paz is a fascinating city to explore. It is situated in a deep valley, surrounded by snowcapped mountains, with buildings lining the vertiginous sides. Atop one side of the valley is a plain on to which the city extends; it has now been designated as a separate city, El Alto - the highest city in the world (4,150m). Lots of parks have great views across the valley. Unfortunately, they were all designed by an evil genius. Inviting looking paths wind down a cliff face, only to leave you at a high fence, with the next path that you want visible beyond, but inaccessible so there is no way to go but back up the cliff. There are also plenty of markets in the city, including the famous witches' market where you can buy love potions and llama foetuses among other outlandish things.

One of the parks in La Paz, with fence-lined paths

La Paz and El Alto also have significant, if not majority, indigenous populations. The Aymara women in particular have a very distinctive fashion with long, wide skirts and brightly coloured shawls, topped with a too small bowler hat. These were introduced by the British when building the railways, and soon became an integral part of the culture. Unfortunately for us, it's not the done thing to take photos as they believe it steals part of their soul.

Buildings lining the valley wall up to El Alto

We spent one day outside of La Paz to see the UNESCO site at Tiwanaku. The Tiwanaku culture dominated the region for around 2000 years before the Inca arrived in the 15th century. We visited one of their largest religious sites, close to Lake Titicaca. It was mostly destroyed by the Spanish colonialists, but excavations have revealed grand pyramids, statues of heads protruding from subterranean walls and giant monoliths. It was a fascinating trip to see something of a less-celebrated, but no less influential, culture than the Inca.

Faces inset into the wall in Tiwanaku

We are coming to the end of our time in Bolivia now - we have a final stop in Copacabana on the shore of Lake Titicaca before heading into Peru.

In the Jungle and Pampas (With a Butterfly Phobia)

We flew from Santa Cruz to Rurrenabaque, down in the lowlands in the Amazon Basin. It's a pleasant, if very touristy, little town right on the bank of the Beni River, and felt the most like Asia of anywhere we've been so far. The humidity, the motorbikes carrying four people, the bamboo bars, the wide, muddy river and the beautiful sunsets - we liked it! We didn't have long to explore Rurre though as we'd booked ourselves onto a 6 day trip to the nearby areas of jungle and pampas with Mashaquipe, a local tour company that came highly recommended by some travelling friends.

The tiny airport in Rurrenabaque

The first three days of the adventure were spent in the jungle, more specifically in Madidi National Park, a huge protected region including part of the Amazon rainforest.We were joined by a Belgian couple for these three days, forming a group of five with our amazing local guide, Ismael, who actually grew up in the jungle and was therefore a fount of knowledge about all aspects of jungle life.

Our guide, Ismael, with the boat along the Beni river

We travelled from Rurre by boat for around three hours to our base for the next few days, Mashaquipe Ecolodge. En route we stopped at a local village to taste fresh sugar cane juice - Ismael cut the canes with his machete and we pressed the juice ourselves using a rustic wooden contraption! The lodge was great: despite being in the middle of the jungle, it was a comfortable place, with a dining room, running water, mosquito nets and even electricity (from 6-10 pm each day). The food was delicious too - 3 course meals that were better than most we've had in Bolivia.

It's thirsty work making sugar cane juice

Over the next two days we spent most of our time walking in different areas of the jungle, spotting animals and learning a lot too about the trees and plants that local tribes use medicinally or for cooking. The craziest thing was possibly when Ismael extracted a maggot like white larva from a seed pod and ate it! In fact we tried the larvae ourselves later on, toasted, and they were rather tasty.

To eat or not to eat? Larva from a seed pod

We saw plenty of animals - capuchin monkeys, lion monkeys, squirrel monkeys and howler monkeys, a boa constrictor snake, plus a lot of birds and the footprints of jaguar, tapir and ocelot. The monkeys and birds were mostly high in the trees and Ismael was fantastic at spotting them; he could even make noises like most of the monkeys and birds to encourage them to come out. We spent quite a while following him through dense jungle in search of a peccary, or wild pig, that he could hear walking along nearby (none of us could hear anything!). Eventually we were rewarded by seeing not one but a whole herd of peccaries, around 30-40 of them, marching with intent through the jungle. Early in the morning one day we hiked up to a viewpoint at the edge of the cliff and watched the canopy emerge from the mists, with scarlet and green macaws flying by and making an incredible amount of noise.

Jaguar footprints

This boa constrictor snake appeared right next to our dining room!

View of the jungle canopy and Beni river below

Of course, the Amazon rainforest is full not only of animals but insects. Thus you can guess that it was quite challenging for me trying to cope with my phobia of butterflies and moths; we saw some of the largest butterflies I have ever seen. Fortunately Ismael soon got the idea of the problem and protected me from anything flying too close. He also cleared the dining room and bathrooms of moths every night! We also saw a huge tarantula and of course were hounded by mosquitoes and ants of all sizes. We were warned not to leave anything on the floor or we might find it in pieces later due to the industrious leaf cutter ants!

Tarantula just sitting on a tree next to our cabin

Unfortunately Kev came down with a severe case of food poisoning again during day 2 and spent most of that afternoon and the next day in bed - we think it must have been something he ate prior to the trip, as the rest of us were fine. Thank goodness Ismael was brillliant and supplied us with antibiotics plus his own homemade herbal tea made from a leaf in the jungle. The latter was incredibly bitter but definitely and he was feeling a lot better by the time we arrived in the Pampas.

Capybaras grazing next to the river in the Pampas

The Pampas was a different experience from the jungle but still fantastic. The area is mainly wetlands and we spent most of the three days cruising along the river with Ismael and our new Canadian companions, looking for animals. While there is less biodiversity here overall, the animals are a lot easier to spot than in the jungle. We saw caimans, one 4 metres long, alligators, turtles, capybaras, more monkeys and best of all, pink Amazon river dolphins (yes, they really are pink!) The highlight was swimming among the dolphins; they were playful and curious and liked to play or to nibble your leg at times.

Squirrel monkey jumping across our boat

One of the many alligators in the Pampas

We were assured that the area in which we swam with the dolphins was not frequented by caimans or piranhas. One evening however we went to a shallower area and fished for piranhas using raw meat as bait. The Canadians caught a couple, but we failed - I did however catch a catfish of reasonable size, which we ate for dinner along with one of the piranhas.

Piranha for dinner - look at its teeth!

On the last day I had an interesting time - Ismael was worried about a couple of my mosquito bites and on examining them decided that they were not ordinary bites but had mosquito larvae growing in them - eurgh! He treated this by extracting nicotine from a cigarette and leaving the nicotine on the bites overnight. The next morning he checked and proclaimed the larvae were 'muertissimo' (very dead). In fact he extracted the head of one of the larvae. It was too small for me to see, but I'm sure he knew what he was doing...

Turtles basking in the sun 

Overall we had an unforgettable few days, regardless of illness, bites and butterflies. Waking up to the sounds of the jungle or Pampas, learning about living in the jungle from an indigenous guide, and seeing such a variety of wildlife was amazing . Furthermore, Mashaquipe give a large proportion of their proceeds to the local community - Ismael told us they are supporting 48 different families in the jungle at the moment -  and we were happy to be giving something back.  It's certainly one of the high points of our trip so far.

Our Pampas group, with Ismael and the boat