My Journey Round The World

Make your choice! You can also eat it!

After Puno and the Lake Titicaca, we head toward Cusco where we met our next guide – Percy - to visit the Sacred Valley.  Following a good night in a nice hotel – Casa de Campo http://www.hotelcasadecampo.com/-  surrounding the city, which offer a great view, once you reach the top after several stairs…  Good traning for the Inka Trail! We made our way the next morning with Percy and a friendly chauffeur to the famous valley. The Sacred Valley start from Pisac and run alongside the – especially impressive in Aguas Caliente - Urubamba river up to Ollantaytambo.

First stop at Awana Kancha, a project of private initiative associating 14 communities (420 families) of native people, who as made the weaving ancestral process their principal activity and way of life. We could watch the process of weaving with people in their local clothes as well as learn how they get the natural color of the famous alpaga wool. At the end there is of course a shop, pretty expensive but with really high quality products! I’ll come back with more money one day! They also have a lama farm – where we did all those nice pictures

Ollantaytambo – 2 800m – was our second stop. We visited the massive fortress dominating the city, which was never achieved due to the Spanish conquest but which still really impressive – especially when you learn how they build it! - offering a wonderfull view! This was one of my favorite site! We quickly visited Pisac market – not as authentic as Awanakancha – before heading toward our hotel Casa de Campo – really charming but totaly lost on the top of Urubamba city – anyway the city is not really nice! We ended up there with the same really loud French group as the night before, waking us up at 5am while leaving for the Machu Pichu…

Next day, we had a quick stop at Maras Salinas, still running for local use – quite impressive to see that people usually work there barefoot! We made there our stock of bananas chips and grilled maize and beans for the Inka Trail

We then went to Moray amphiteater-like terraces where the Inkas are thought to have used them as an agricultural laboratory. Interesting…

Back to Cusco where we of course had a great diner before getting ready for the Inka Trail starting the next day

Puno – 3 850 m – is the best departure point for Lake Titicaca’s islands. This is also South Americain largest lake – 175 km long, covering 8 340 km2 – and the highest navigable lake in the world – 3 810 m! Incredible to navigate there while not seeing the end of it, surrounded by mountains…

The unique floating islands of the Uros seems a bite fake to me – completly commercialised – though there is still nothing quite like this anywhere else in the world… This islands are built using layers of the buoyant totora reeds that grow in the shallows of Lake Titicaca. Those are 3 metres thick with an immersed based formed with tangled roots. Strange feeling to walk on it!

Isla Taquile seems more real to me. At 3 950 metres, this 7 sp km island feels like a little paradise: no cars, no bikes, no dogs! Landscape seems to be a mix between Ireland and Croatie but without pubs Of course we had the touristic tour with traditional food, locals showing you there dance – & make you dance too! – as well as their handicrafts, hoping to convince you to buy it – which was of quite good quality actualy compare to what you can find on Puno market! - and it was really interesting to learn how people are leaving here as well as the dress code they have: if boys and girls are free, engaged or married, important person on the island…

Colca Canyon is the 2nd deepest one in the world, with it’s 3 200m, bigger than the Grand Canyon in the US, only 1 615m - even if this one is more impressive to see! To arrive there you need to drive over a 4 910 m pass – Pass Patapampa or called Volcan Pass – and even if you’re only sitting in the bus, I could feel the height in my chest!

Arriving in Cabanaconde – 3 280 m – around 12pm, we had a good lunch – after telling our guide that we cannot walk 2:30 hours without eating anything, knowing that we had breakfast at 4am before leaving Arequipa – We ate a typical soup: Caldo Blanco made with pastas, rice, beef and lamb meat as well as beans, follow-up with a main dish: Lentejon: lentils, peppers, potatoes, beef and chicken meat. After that we were ready to leave – would have been great to have a good siesta! – for more than 2 hours hike down to Sangalle, also called the Oasis, where we could have a small swim before carrying on to our refuge for the night. Unfortunately  we  arrived a bit too late for that… After a short break, drimkimg coca tea, we heald to Cosñirhua where we spent the night. We had a good diner (Soup: pastas, pumpkin, carottes, potatoes, beans as welle as omellette with sweet potatoes and rice and an avocado salad. Delicious!) with the landlady in her kitchen, close to fire as it was quite cold. Smoothly wake up and 2 hours walk to the next village – lucky us as Ariane wasn’t feeling very well.

Next morning we had to wake up at 2am in order to climb back to Cabanaconde, more than 1 000 m difference in height from where we were. Our nice guide wanted us to climb 4 hours without any breakfast! No way!!! We finally managed to get 2 pancakes before starting hiking in the dark with frontal lamp – we couldn’t even see the stars… Still while having little breaks we managed to see some shooting stars and we, of course, saw the sunrise!!! Small compensation… Our guide lost us after 2 hours walk – we were too slow – and Gregoire finished with our backpacks as we were absolutly exhausted… Anyway, we eventualy we made it to the top and met our guide who asked us to hurry up – couln’t beleive it ! – in order to catch the bus to reach the Cruz del Condor. At 6:30 am this bus is totaly full as all the locals are going there to sell their products… We ended up standing & totaly squeezed for more than 30min before reaching the point where we didn’t see any condors – only the biggest colibri in the worl, as Swiss man told me… - When taking the bus back to Arequipa, I found out that their is not only 2 bus per day going this way – as our guide said – but nearly 1 every hour… Whatever… We survived!

Just for you Mum… Here a washing machine you don’t have in your collection !

Step by step:

1. put water into the machine with washing powder and put your clothes
2. turn the button to wash as long as you want
3. take your clothes out and rinse it
4. put them in the spin-dryer – next to the washing part and dry as long as you want
5. hang out your washing!

Time of the operation: 1 hour 30 minutes… While Ariane and Gregoire had a rest I’m not an expert!

So on November 13, I met Ariane & Gregoire at Lima airport So nice to see them after travelling on my own - nearly… We spend the night chating & trying to sleep a little bit before our next plane to Arequipa at 5am…

Arequipa was our first stop to get acclimated to height before leaving for the Colca Canyon. The city is situated at 2300m and is really lovely – even if for me it was a little shock as the landscape was really brown and I found it a bit sad coming from green Costa Rica! – with plenty of nice restaurants! We particularly enjoyed Zig Zag, recommended by the agency as well as our guide book. Convinced by Gregoire, we visited Santa Catalina monastery. What a good idea! It was absolutly great! Beautiful red & blue colors – never seen before such a great blue, Ariane, I again forget the name! - I felt like in a dream! Not something you expect from a monastery… I really enjoyed this small town into the town, renamed Club Med by Gregoire Yes, really, how can you expect to feel so relax in a monastery…

After the disappointment visit of Monteverde Biological Reserve – 17$, we couldn’t see anything as it was really cloudy & most of the trails were closed for renovation. Sebastien & Tanguy managed to drag me to the beach… We ended up at Playa Grande by night, hoping to see some turtles. Unfortunatly we didn’t It was 25$ to spend the night on the beach waiting for them. We were pretty dead after the bus travel we had that day… After speaking with 2 German tourists who didn’t see any for 2 days, we decided to give up & go back to the hotel. Good night there & wake up with a bath in the swimmingpool before breakfast Great!

After breakfast we decided to head toward Tamarindo. What a surprise when the taxi driver let us walk to a peninsula – as it was quicker this way (at least for him!), telling us that we should be able to cross by foot… It was fun! Walking for 15 mn with our backpacks – well I just had to carry the small one while Seb & Tanguy carry my big one, lucky me as it was really warm! – & arriving on this peninsula where we finaly had to cross by boat…