Into Chile

After crossing the border into Chile we took a bus down south to La Serena, a nice town about 8 hours north of Santiago. The busride down took 22 hours and was exhausting since we had to get off the bus several times for police controls (one of them at 1.00 in the morning). They make you take all your luggage off the bus and then go through your stuff searching for drugs - in our case all they found was dirty clothes and stinky socks. Must be a really unpleasant job!

Chile has been nice so far even though it is a lot more western than Ecuador and Peru and also A LOT more expensive! :(
Talking to locals can be really frustrating and makes me feel like the 4 weeks of Spanish classes were worth nothing! The people here talk sooooo fast and shorten a lot of the words. Most of the time when I listen to them I just go : "Whaaaaat???!!!???" afterwards... and they´ll repeat it again... in the same speed!!! Buhuuuu!

Peruvian Hospital-Hell!!!

Have been travelling through Peru for the past couple of days with a from Diarrhea suffering Nigel. When it got to the point where he couldn´t keep anything in anymore & lost his appetite completely we decided to go to the hospital in Tacna, a bordertown close to Chile.
I don´t think anyone of you has been to a hospital like that before, the word CHAOTIC describes it perfectly!!! When I walked into the emergency room I could watch a surgery going on through an open door, the patient unconscious on the table and the doctor stitching his head back together, blood everywhere... YUM!
After struggling with explaining what Nigel´s problem was (the fact that the nurses & doctors spoke REALLY fast didn´t make the whole situation easier) we got sent from one place to the next one, had to pay for the consultation in a different part of the building, head back and hand in a stoolsample, pay for the labratory expenses (again in a different part of the building), get all the medication in the hospital farmacy and additionally stop at a farmacy outside the hospital complex cause apparently they didn´t have syringes in the hospital...!!!
After 3 hours they eventually injected some undefinable liquid into Nigel´s vein and sent us home with some antibiotics.
I´m more than glad that I haven´t been seriously sick on this trip! I have to say I don´t really trust this whole system.

Earthquake in Peru

Something REALLY weird happened today!!! Nigel and I were just sitting in a restaurant having breakfast when the whole place starts shaking, the paint comes off the ceiling and the people around us start screaming hysterically! It only lasted for about 5 seconds and at the time we didn´t even realized what had just happened. We just sat there looking at each other not knowing what´s going on. Must have looked reeally odd!
I found out by a local that it was an earthquake, apparently 5.8 on the Richter scale. The epicentre was somewhere between Arequipa (where we are now) and Tacna (where we´ll be heading to next)
I didn´t even know they have earthquakes that strong in Peru. Pretty crazy experience!

Bolivia is off the list!

Unfortunately we have to cancel our plans to go to Bolivia :(
We headed towards the boarder to Bolivia (lake Titicaca) a couple of days ago and our old friend the high altitude sickness said ´hello´again! Nigel spent another night throwing up and feeling terrible. It was even more scary this time since we were trapped in Puno for a night and had to wait for the next morning to take the bus back to Arequipa (about 1000m lower in elevation).
The plan is to head to Chile from here (take the route along the coast) and spend some more time there and in Argentina.
I would have loved to go see Bolivia but everything is so high there (most places are above 3000m) and for me it´s not worth it to risk Nigel´s health just to go see it.
I already know that I will come back to South America at some point anyway! I´ll just go and see it some other time...

Machu Picchu, Blisters & Mosquito bites

After checking out prices for the original Inca Trail ($300) and alternative tracks to Machu Picchu we decided to do a combined 4 day mountainbiking/hiking trip through the jungle that ends up at Machu Picchu the last day.
The night before we left we found out that part of the road where we were supposed to start biking was closed due to road constructions. The only way to still do the trip was to start the 6 h busride at midnight to pass the closed part before the construction work starts in the morning. We didn´t really get a lot of sleep that night and I felt dizzy for the whole first day of the trip.
The biking sucked big time - riding shitty bikes on a shit road - do I need to say more?!?
The landscape was pretty amazing though, riding through jungle forests with tons of banana trees and seeing snowy mountains in the far distance.
The second & third day was mostly hiking through jungle. I didn´t get much sleep during the next nights either since I was scratching the tons of mosquito bites like crazy!!! I counted about 30 - just on my right leg!!! I also get the impression that the mossi bites here a way more itchy than anywhere else... they won´t stop itching for days and days... not pretty!

In the evening of the 3rd day we got to Aguas Calientes, a town especially constructed for the Machu Picchu tourists. It´s annoying how you can´t walk down the street without having several people try to convince you to eat at their restaurant, stay in their hostel etc.

From there we started our climb up to Machu Picchu at 4 a.m. the next morning to see the sunrise. It was a one-hour climb (only stairs) and it was soooo exhausting. I was glad when we finally got up there. So worth it though! It was an extremely cloudy morning and the views were fantastic.
The ruins were pretty amazing too! I have no idea how the Inca´s managed to construct something like that. The stonework is just incredible, huge blocks of granite, carved and fitted perfectly!
After a while we decided to climb up the next highest peak, Wayna Picchu, which was another hour of tough climbing, and got rewarded with awesome views on the ruins and the surrounding. If anyone of you ever makes it out here I´d totally recommend struggling up that extra hour to Wayna Picchu cause it´s almost more impressing than Machu Picchu itself.

Motorbiking in Cusco

Went motorbiking for the first time ever - the fact that you can just rent a motorbike here without having a licence or any experience at all is funny but scary at the same time! We went into one of the agencies when we checked out prices and told the lady that we´ve never been riding a motorbike before, her answer was: "oh! no problem! You´ll be alright!" Great! So you can basically just get out there and kill yourself...

We went to a dirtfield and practised for about an hour before we went out on the raod. It was so confusing at first... gas, clutch, 2 different brakes, the 6 different gears... you have to think about so many things at the same time! But my biggest problem was the fact that my legs were too short to reach the ground! :( I fell over twice when I tried to stop (motorbike on top of me)... not so much fun!

Anyway, after a while we felt pretty confident and drove around the Cusco area for 3 hours. It was really pretty! ... and FAST!!! 115 kms/h was my maximum... pretty fast for a bloddy beginner.
I´m thinking about getting my licence when I´ll get back to Germany cause I wanna be able to go out there and ride a bike without constantly being worried about killing myself or someone else!

No much news apart from that. Cusco is a nice city but REALLY touristy - it´s commonly called ´Gringotown´! It´s a good idea to get a shirt saying ´No Gracias! No necesito algo!´before coming here cause you´ll get offered all sorts of stuff EVERYWHERE you go! It gets quite annoying after a while.

Canyon de Colca

Have been trekking at Colca Canyon for the past 4 days and it was simply AMAZING! The busride from Arequipa to Cabanaconde (a small mountan village in the Canyon from where we started our hike) took about 6 hours. It was´t even that far away (about 250 km´s) from Arequipa it´s just the roads are so bad that a jouney that would normally take 2 hours in Germany or elsewhere in Europe gets streched to 6 hours.

The tiny villages in the canyon were really impressive. I´ve seen places that are just out of this world. The way people live their lifes there seems so hard, they live in tiny houses build out of rocks and dirt, most of them without electricity and running water. The work they do everday on the fields, in the scorching heat, is back-breaking! But after all they seem happy with their lifes and they´re really friendly people.

We stayed the first night in Tapay, in the frontyard of a family with two little kids, Raul & Jesus (who the hell names their kid ´Jesus´?!?). The two boys were so funny and really impressed by all our equipment (tent, backpacks, waterbottles etc.)They kept jumpimg up and down and were all over the place!

During the second day of hiking we met these two old men and started talking to them. They were probably in their 70´s and the one was blind on one eye. He kept talking to me for about 10 minutes, holding my hand the whole time and repeating " rubia bonita" (blonde Schoenheit) while the other one kept inspecting my teva-trekking-sandals going "ooohhh - ahhhh!". It seemed like he´s never seen something like that before.

Some of the hiking was extremely strenuous since we hiked down into the canyon back up on the other side, back down to a Oasis and on the third day all the way back up to Cabanaconde. Most of the evenings we ended up crawling into the tent at 6 in the evening and passing out cause we were so exhausted.
It was also really frustrating to see how the locals manage some of these treks. You can sort of get what I mean if you picture us, two tourists, with huge backpacks with all our hiking & camping-equipment, struggling down these really steep mountain trails trying not to slip or fall and then opposed to that the locals running down the mountain like crazy!!! They probably manage to do a trail that took us about 4 hours in like 40 minutes... how frustrating!!!

After we got back to Arequipa we had another day and am just about to catch the nightbus to Cusco to check out Macchu Picchu and then move on to Lake Titicaca and into Bolivia.

In Arequipa

After a total journey of 32 hours (17 hours to Lima and then another 15 to Arequipa) on the bus I finally arrived!
The buses here in Peru are surprisingly comfortable. The only annoying fact was that they were showing aweful movies for most of the ride (started with a really stupid American war movie - in Spanish - and then went on to a Chinese Kung-Fu-movie). They also turned up the volume all the way which made it almost impossible to fall asleep. Earplugs for the next busride are on my shoppinglist!

Once I got to Lima I only spent about 5 hours walking around and figured it´s not what I´m looking for right now - too busy, noisy and bustling.
Had some nice lunch though ("Ceviche", a specialty here which consists of different types of raw fish in lemon juice)with a local who showed us around the city.

To hop on the next bus and go straight to Arequipa (the far south of Peru) was the best decision ever! It´s such a nice and cute city. There are some really nice old colonial buildings and the flair is similar to the one in Cuenca except a lot nicer.

Yesterday I checked out the Santa Catalina Convent. It´s in the middle of the city and huge but so pretty! The architecture and wall paintings are just amazing! Most of it was opened to public in 1970 but there´s still a part where some nuns live today. It´s weird but it seems like a totally different world within the main city.







I´m just about to finish the last preparations for a 3 to 4-day hiking-trip to Colca Canyon starting tomorrow. Hope to get to see some Condors there and get a bit of exercise after sitting on a bus for such a long time.

Ripped off in Peru!

We finally made it to Mancora on the north coast of Peru! Crossing the boarder from Ecuador to Peru was quite scary! We had to get off on the Ecuadorian side and wait almost an hour to get our passports stamped (meanwhile our bus took off with our backpacks and the other passengers - luckily it returned after a while, but it was scary to think ¨damn! we just lost all our stuff"
Then on the Peruvian side there was a guy who almost ripped the passports out of our hands, filled out the immigration-form for us and then wanted us to pay 5$!!! Nigel refused to pay that much and the guy got really angry! Holy shit! I seriously thought he was gonna beat him up... pretty scary! We ended up paying 2$ and then found out that normally they get paid about 50 cents. :(
Getting ripped of like that went on for the rest of the trip to Mancora... Busdrivers, Taxidrivers etc., they all just want your money, and if you´re not careful they charge you three times as much as the normal price would be.

We stayed the first night in Mancora in a pretty lousy hostel, paying 15 Soles (about 3 or 4 Euros) each for the night. Then we found this really nice place right next to it, nice rooms, an awesome terrace to hang out on right by the beach... for the same price!!! This was too good to be true. We found out the next morning that it costs 15 DOLLARS per person - a huge difference! We tried to argue with the lady cause she totally didn´t make it clear that she meant dollars! I mean, common?!? Who would tell you the price in Dollars if you have to pay in Soles anyway??? We both got pretty annoyed...
I guess we just have to get used to being really careful with what people are trying to sell.

Same thing with the busticket to Lima: we asked yesterday at one office and the guy told us it´s 80 Soles, we return today and find out it´s only 70?!?
Anyway, we´re just about to hop on the bus and somehow survive the 17 hours to Lima! It´s gonna be pretty bad but we figured that a flight to Lima and further on to Cusco is out of the question cause it´s way too expensive.

Apart from the whole getting-ripped-off-thing we spent some really nice days at the beach. We rented surfboards for a day and it was a lot of fun but soooo hard. When you watch them it seems so easy but until you get in the water yourself you have no idea how much effort it is! We were able to catch some nice waves and just lying on your board and cruising back to the shore was tons of fun.... kind of scary as well cause you get so much speed. We ended up with some minor bruises and cuts... but I´d totally do it again.

I´ve also learnt my lesson about using insect repellent and a mosquito-net at night(thanks again Julie!!! I´m so glad I have one with me now!) as I got bitten all over and had to spend the whole last night being super itchy! Really annoying... guess I´ll be more cautious next time!