Buses to the Middle of Nowhere

'Here?' asked the bemused bus driver when we asked him to stop. We were two hours outside of Riobamba, itself not the most touristy of towns, and another three hours to the next town of note, Macas.

The lagunas, near where we got off the bus

We'd chosen this spot as it was the most accessible place to do a day hike in UNESCO-listed Sangay National Park. There wasn't much (any) information about any trails, but we had heard that just walking along the quiet road made a nice trip. It didn't disappoint. We started off walking up to a pass amongst páramo - high altitude grassland - surrounding a series of beautiful lagunas. The landscape changed completely after the pass into lush cloud forest, with multiple waterfalls cascading down next to the road.

The cloud forest on the other side of the pass

The only problem was - how do we get back? We'd seen a couple of buses pass back the other way early on, but hadn't seen another for several hours. We found an indigenous Quichua lady tending to her cows and she told us there'd be another one 'imminently'. Time is a different beast here to what we're used to at home - 'imminently' turned out to mean in an hour. But it didn't matter - we were surrounded by gorgeous landscapes and had a new friend to chat to.

Another of the lagunas

The complete opposite of our bus journey into the unknown was to take the train from the town of Alausí down the Devil's Nose mountain. This used to be a steam train, known for coming off the rails during its precipitous descent along several switchbacks and for people riding on the top. Sadly it's been rather sanitised and turned into a tourist attraction now; however it does still offer fantastic views, and a chance to reflect on the amazing engineering that allowed this train to descend 500m in only 12km. At the bottom, you're greeted by a local dance. This wasn't our favourite thing.

The switchbacks descending down the Devil's Nose

We're now heading on to Baños, where we should be able to see a bit more of Sangay National Park in the form of the smouldering Tunguruhua Volcano.

The Third Highest Waterfall in the World

After leaving the mountains of Huaraz, we continued zigzagging north through Peru. This first took us to some ancient ruins near Trujillo on the coast then, back in the sierra, to Chachapoyas, with more ruins and the third highest waterfall in the world.

The foot of the Gocta Waterfall - note the tiny people!

We wanted to visit Trujillo as it is close to the UNESCO site of Chan Chan. This was the capital of the Chimu culture that was built around 850 CE. It consists of ten huge citadels, although only one has been restored enough to be worth visiting. As the culture lived by the sea, the walls are covered in designs of fishing nets, fish and sea birds.

Fishing net decorations on the walls at Chan Chan

The highlight of the area around Trujillo was some other, earlier, ruins from the Moche culture (approx CE 100 - 800). Now called the Temples of the Sun and Moon, they are two massive pyramids that are still being excavated. Only the Moon temple can be visited, and the excavations have revealed, amazingly, still intact wall paintings.

Painted walls at the Huaca de la Luna

Continuing on to Chachapoyas, we climbed back up into the mountains to see some more ruins - those at Kuelap. This is an enormous fortress that, like Machu Picchu, is on top of a mountain, giving it fantastic views of the surrounding area. It's the largest pre-Colombian structure in the Americas, with huge outer walls 20m high. The construction was begun in 600 CE by the Chachapoyas culture, and was later occupied by the Inca. It's a fascinating site, and many of the remains are still covered by cloud forest. In fact, Chachapoyas is a Quechua word meaning 'cloud forest'.

Trees covering the ruins at Kuelap

Also close to Chachapoyas are a series of incredibly tall waterfalls. We visited the one at Gocta, which is claimed to be the third highest in the world at 771m. It's an astounding sight seeing it from a the nearby village, then getting closer and seeing the water turn into mist as it falls.

On the way to the Gocta waterfall

We're now heading back south towards Lima, breaking up the journey by visiting some more ruins along the coast.

Rural Chiloé and a Volcanic Eruption

Our original plan from Punta Arenas was to proceed back to Puerto Natales and then take a four day ferry up to Puerto Montt, significantly further north in Chile. However, the boat schedule turned out not to be in our favour and we were faced with the choice of a 32 hour bus journey or a two hour flight. It didn't take us too long to decide!

We were lucky to be able to get on a flight the very next morning and after landing in Puerto Montt headed straight to Ancud, in the north of the main island of Chiloé. Chiloé is an archipelago of islands off of the west coast of Chile, and was one of the last places remaining under Spanish rule before finally becoming part of independent Chile in 1826. It is famous for its fertile soil (and wet weather!), its folklore and its iconic wooden Jesuit churches.

The beach at Ancud, with the volcanoes of Osorno (left) and Calbuco (right, before it erupted) in the distance

We had a day exploring Ancud, which is a quiet town with a really beautiful seafront. The museum was all in Spanish but informative about Chiloé's history - plus it had a blue whale skeleton on display. We watched the sunset over the bay from Fort San Antonio, one of the last Spanish strongholds, looking over the sea with the mainland and surrounding islands in the distance.

Some of the sunken forest

We decided we'd like to see some more nature so spent a couple of days at a homestay in Chepu, a tiny settlement just north of the Chiloé national park. Chepu was very rural and a welcome change for us. It was really just a string of farms spread out along a couple of dirt roads, set in picturesque hilly scenery. We had a long walk one day to Playa Aulen beach on the west coast, where we watched huge waves rolling in from the Pacific Ocean. En route we saw a sunken forest. This surreal spectacle was created by the earthquake and tsunami here in 1960, which caused the ground to sink 2m.

The farmstay

The Chilote family we stayed with were incredibly friendly and welcoming; we felt like part of the family and were very well looked after. The home cooking was incredible - on the first day we were served a three course meal with fresh seafood soup, followed by roast ham (from the farm itself) with homegrown potatoes and tomatoes, and then creme caramel. The second night our portions of a meaty local fish, cooked beautifully with lemon and tomato, were so large that we could barely manage half each! We had the rest for lunch the next day. All this for incredibly cheap and we got a lot of practice with our Spanish as the family spoke no English.

The beach near Chepu

The rolling hills around Chepu

During early evening on our first night at the homestay we went for a short walk and noticed a very dense looking cloud. Later on we discovered this was no normal cloud but the ash cloud from the eruption of Volcan Calbuco, near Puerto Montt. So far we have been lucky not to be affected by this but flights have been cancelled, nearby villages to the volcano have had to be evacuated as they are 50 cm deep in ash, and there is a strong chance the river might flood. We'll stay in Chiloé for now...

The volcanic cloud from Calbuco