Posts tagged hostel

Lima, Peru

The gap between my blog entries seems to be getting considerably longer so I’ve made a pact to to try peg it back to at least once every two weeks. The problem with leaving it so long is that I tend to forget some of the things I’ve done between entries. Well we are in Quito Ecuador at the moment after spending 3 weeks in Peru.We booked our tickets to the Galapagos Islands this morning and I’m pretty damn excited because its another place that I’ve always wanted to go to. Hopefully I can get a dive in and see those Giant Tortoises!

Back tracking a little to Potosi Bolivia which seems like a long time ago now. We left at night and arrived at a fancy bus terminal and caught the bus to Copacabana with an early morning stopover in La Paz. We booked into a fairly nice hotel and had a really nice day in Copacabana and walked up the mountain nearby which was literally breathtaking due to the 3800metre altitude. It was an amazing view over Lake Titicaca and the town of Copacabana and definitely a recommend destination for views of over the highest Lake in the World. We had some very tasty trout while in Copacabana, some of the best seafood of the trip and in a continent not known for its exquisite cuisine it tasted that much sweeter. The next morning we headed to Isla del Sol for a night on the island. Walking around this island was frickin hard work due to the altitude and we ended up sticking to the south of the island to look for the “numerous” Inca ruins. We came across the coolest cat on Isla del Sol. It had one green eye and one blue eye and had a mainly white body but had a love heart shaped black patch on the side of its body. The weather turned fairly bad and cold that night so we went to bed fairly early after more trout for dinner. The next morning we caught the slowest boat in the world back to Copacabana and caught the afternoon bus across the border to Arequipa in the next country, Peru. Fairly painless bus ride and boarder crossing this time!

We arrived in Arequipa late at night on the 22nd of March 2010. The hostel was really nice and we got a late night feed at Mamut a cool sandwich bar just off Plaza de Armas and crashed early that night. The next day we spent sightseeing around Arequipa. It is a really nice city with some really nice restaurants around the main Plaza. Arequipa is also flanked by two snow capped volcanoes which make the city even more beautiful when the clouds clear. We went to a monastery fairly early that morning and got a nice meal for lunch. We headed to the Plaza to book our Colca Canyon Trekking Tour and then had a few drinks at a bar/restaurant overlooking the Plaza. The next morning we had to get up at 4am to start the trekking tour in the Colca Canyon. We drove for three hours that morning to fairly high altitude and stopped at Condor Pass to see if we could get a glimpse of the second largest bird in the world, the Andean Condor. We got lucky that morning and we manged to see at least ten condors that got fairly close to the viewing point. They are absolutely amazing creatures and to see them up close was really a privilege. We started the decent into the colca canyon a bit later that morning and we descended for three hours before lunch. Our tour guide was a wealth of knowledge and he rattled of facts on pretty much everything. After lunch we had another three hours of walking till we got to an Oasis down the bottom of the canyon. The place we stayed at had a swimming pool and even though it was fairly cold and raining we all jumped in for a quick dip. We had a tasty meal that night and spent the night in huts with no electricity. The next morning was another early 4am start and we started the hike up the mountain which was a fairly steep ascent. We got to the top around 10am and without any breakfast we were all absolutely starving. We climb around 1500metres that morning so we smashed about 4 eggs each and at least 4 rolls of bread. We finished the day by stopping off for lunch at a buffet and then another stop at 4910metres to get some photos before getting back to the hostel at 6pm. We were all pretty tired and decided to get the overnight bus directly to Ica. The hostel organised the fanciest bus ever it even had Wifi on the bus!

It was a fairly smooth bus ride and we arrived in Ica early the next morning then caught a ten minute taxi straight to Huacachina. We checked into El Huachachinero Hostel which was pretty much a hotel with a decent sized swimming pool right on the edge of the twenty storey sand dunes. We spent the first day just chilling by the pool, playing table tennis and walking around the town which was very relaxing. The next day we organised to do a wine tour which ended up being one of the hardest nights of my trip. The wine tour was around the town of Ica and we organised it at a cost of 40 soles for the four wineries. We started off drinking pretty heavily straight away. Getting tastes of different whites and reds and moved onto the different piscos which is afamous local grape base spirit which tastes absolutely foul. So we went to four different wineries having shots and drinking wine and getting tours of the different wineries. We got very boozed to say the least and we ended up getting a feed at a fairly cheap local place. I was pretty drunk and decided to get a couple of beers with my meal which was a massive plate of some sort of stir fry. We got dropped back to the hostel at around 8pm and had a few more drinks. We had heard there was a party down the road which we ventured to, I was feeling pretty drunk at that stage but I was feeling more sick than anything and I only lasted one beer and had to leave to go home before midnight. I instantly went to the toilet to take a crap cos I was feeling pretty average and I knew something was wrong cos I turned to the right and made myself spew. Pardon the graphical description but I was sitting on the toilet and spewing into the shower at the same time none of it solid. I went to bed after about an hour to try and get some rest but every half an hour I had to get up and either spew or take take a liquid crap. At one stage I managed to stumble out onto the grass near the pool and continued to spew my guts up. This happened till 6:30am when the hostel restaurant opened and I managed to get a bottle of sprite to help with my guts. I’ve only once ever experienced such gastro trauma and I was thankful it didn’t return again the next day. I’m pretty sure there was nothing left in my body by the morning and I forced myself to eat to get my appetite back up the next day. There was no way I could do the dune buggies and sand boarding and I spent most of the day in bed feeling sorry for myself. The following day I was feeling a lot better and we managed to get on a sand dune buggy tour and get some sand boarding in. The drivers hurtle the dune buggies at breakneck speed and it was actually really fun. The sand boarding wasn’t so good as the boards weren’t the best. Standing up proved to be alot less fun then lying down and trying to get as much speed as you could down the dunes. We got a really tasty meal that night and decided to book our bus to Cuzco for the next day. The bus ride was absolute torture and we arrived in Cuzco after 17hours of winding around the mountains.

We checked into the Loki hostel in Cuzco on the 30th of March and met up with Rhys, Sal, Ricky, Jimmy and Anton. It was really good to see them and we had a good breakfast and had a massive night that night in Cuzco. We started pretty early by 8:30pm everyone was boozed. Jimmy Wardrop found a spiderman costume in the room and entered the bar in style hanging from the rafters and starting the dancing on the tables. The whole bar got into the spirit and by the end of happy hour everyone was dancing on the tables. We all headed to Mama Africa’s at around 1am and continued well into the early hours of the morning. We were all feeling pretty sorry for ourselves the next day and it was an even slower day for some. We went to get some Guinea Pig that night which turned out to be the worst meal of the trip. The Guinea Pig was disgusting and our steak was well and truly a complete f*ck up. We all left the restaurant severely dissatisfied. We did however manged to back it up that night and repeat our efforts at Mama Africa’s Pub though there was less participants after the debauch night the night before. Its amazing what a round of Jaeger Bombs can do….

Before we arrived in Cuzco we were given a good contact to do the Salkantay Trek to Machu Pichu. It was a 5 day & 4 night (average walking 20-25km a day) tour with the last day at Machu Pichu. There was 8 people (7 of us from Perth and Ronja from Germany who we met in Huacachina) in our group so we had our own group. The trek started on the 2nd of April fairly early. We met our tour guide Wilson on the bus that picked us up from the Loki Hostel and we made the journey to the starting point.The first day wasn’t too bad and we realised instantly that we were going to get pretty dirty on this trek. The trails were very muddy and even though it didn’t rain on the first day we were filthy by the end of the day. We set up camp at 3900metres and had views of the amazing snow capped mountains. The food for the entire trek was amazing and well presented. We had soup with every meal followed by a main and even dessert. It was absolutely freezing the first night and my 12degrees Celsius sleeping bag fell well short of the mark. I got about an hour of sleep that night.

The next day was the longest trekking day, 10hours. We climbed to 4600metres the highest point of the trek and we had amazing views of Salkantay one of the highest peaks in the area. A few of us were feeling the effects of the altitude at this height so we didn’t stay there for long. We walked most of the rest of the day down hill and got to camp just before dark.

We all slept very well that night and started day three with a bit more energy. Day three was probably the easiest day and we manged to buy a pig from a local farm. It cost us 160 soles around $70 which was divided by 8 people. It was amazing to witness the whole process they killed it then shaved all the hair off it. They then gutted the pig and cut it up into little pieces. After that they put the most amazing marinade on it and started the process of building the fire to cook it. It didn’t help that it was heavily raining but to their credit they managed to churn out the most amazing tasting meat. We all crowed around eating pieces of pork with our hands, oil dripping down on to the floor and washing it down with pisco and red wine. It was an unforgettable experience and one I will never ever forget. We were very lucky that Wilson our guide could organise this for us at such short notice.

Day four ended up being the hardest day, We spent the first half of the day walking up a steep section of a mountain. It took it out of us and we needed quite a few rests on the way up. We then had to walk down a really steep section which was made alot harder because the rain made it extremely slippery and there was a few good stacks and near misses on the way down. We eventually made it to Aguas Callientes later that afternoon after a three hour walk along the rail tracks and we checked into a hotel for the night. We had a fairly early dinner and got some good sleep that night before the early start the next morning.

We got up 4:00am to make the journey up to Machu Pichu. It was steep set of steps up to the top and it took around 40 minutes to to the top. We had to wait till 6am to gain entry to Machu Pichu but when we got in we realised that the previous 4days was well worth it. The view was amazing once the rain stopped and the clouds cleared and we got some fantastic photos of the Inca ruins. We decided to make the last climb up to the top of Wayna Pichu another 1 hour steep ascent. The view from there was equally as breathtaking and we managed to get some great photos of the entire site of Machu Pichu.

We were pretty tired by the end of the last day of our trek and we had a bit of time to go to the hot baths at the top of the town of Aguas Calientes. It was really good for our muscles to get in the hot water and I felt exponentially better after doing stretches in the hot water. That afternoon we spent playing cards at a restaurant. We had the best milkshakes and frozen lemonade of the trip at the restaurant and we told Anton to get the bill in his fluent Spanish. Just ask the waiter for the bill we all told him. Just say “Dame un beso”. The waiter was obviously offended and responded with a sharp “what” we all absolutely lost it with laughter! It was soo funny, the english translation is “give me a kiss”. Poor Anton

We caught the train back to Cuzco that night and got home fairly late at around 2am. We all slept in the next day and decided to have a massive night to celebrate the end of thE trek. It was exactly that and we all got heavily boozed again and made the trip down to Mama Africa again The next few days were a bit more low key for me. We flew out to Lima on the morning of the 9th of April. We didn’t think we would meet up with our Lima contact Alberto but he was waiting for us at the airport. It was really good to see him and he drove us to our hoste, The Loki. We spent most of the day chilling and I met up with Ronja and she was my tour guide for the afternoon and showed me around Lima and down to the beach. It was a really nice afternoon! That evening Alberto took us out in Lima and we got fairly drunk, well he got alot more drunk than we did and we went out to some cool bars and clubs. He ended up losing his wallet and we walked back o the hostel at 4am. Ronja met us at our hostel in the morning and we had some breakfast and coffee before driving to the airport to catch our flight to Quito Ecuador. We got VIP lounges again and we stuffed ourselves before the flight. On the way to the gate we bumped into Pato a uni friend who happened to be waiting for a plane to Santiago. It was crazy to see a good friend from Perth at an airport on the other side of the world! Anton and Jimmy just made it to our flight as there flight from Cuzco was delayed but we all manged to get to Quito safely. I haven’t managed to do much sightseeing in Quito yet but we will be back at least once if not twice after the Galapagos and maybe after the Amazon Jungle Tour. I really want to go to the Equator too! Well its early start tomorrow morning. I haven’t uploaded all the photos but will endeavor to upload them when I get back. I’m sure there’ll be also be some good ones over the next week or two I will try to write more often!

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