Day 50 to 56 – Machu Picchu, baby

After I spent a few days in Cusco, which sadly isn’t that impressive, I went on to visit the most important Inca ruins – Machu Picchu.

Honestly, I wasn’t expecting much. I think Machu Picchu is kind of overrated. But it’s a "must do" after all. Who knows when I will be around here the next time…

It’s also not very easy to get there. First I wanted to do it on my own, take the train to Aguas Calientes, the city right next to Machu Picchu and then climb the mountain. Turned out that the tour agencies book the tickets for the train in advance and so all the “cheap” ones were sold out for 2 or 3 weeks. The available ones were 140US round trip which is a lot in a country where you can buy lunch for 2US ;)

I booked a tour after all. My first one – and even though I met a lot of nice people, I gonna try to avoid those things… It felt like back in school, on one of those trips. In the morning you get told what the day will bring, some people take care of not losing anybody and your food is served in cheap restaurants on large tables…

But now the good parts :)
I booked the Jungle Trail, because the Inca Trail is booked out for month… The Jungle Trail is the more adventures way to go to Machu Picchu. It involves downhill biking, optional rafting and zip lining, and hiking.
First day was a 3000m descent from 4300m to 1300m on bikes. Sounds fun, right? And yes, it was fun :)
But with all those crazy Peruvian drivers on the narrow road, it’s also quite an adrenalin kick.
It took us about 3h to bike down the paved road and another hour for the gravel part.

Next day we went hiking – 7h…
Not much to tell though, it was hiking after all just check the pics ;)

Day three was also hiking. The finish on this day would be Aguas Calientes. We walked the last 4h of our 6h hike to the town on the railway. That meant watching out for upcoming trains which would alert us by the sound and smell of diesel engines.
Aguas Calientes is a town, build in the last 50 years for us tourists. Accordingly are the looks. Full with hostels and hotels in every imaginable price range and all are cramped into the narrow valley – I spent just the night, so I didn’t mind too much.

Day 4: Machu Picchu…
Getting up at 4am (no idea why) and joining the crowds. The Machu Picchu national park opens at 6am – to be one of the first you have to arrive at 5, otherwise you will stand in line for ages. The first few steps on this holy place were accompanied by sleepy moaning and small eyes behind shades. A massive amount of people were pouring into the park and it looked like an anthill at half past 6 already…
Spending almost 8h on Machu Picchu, always escaping the crowds, I need to admit it was nice. Not epic by any kind, but definitely worth seeing it. Also it got a bit better in the afternoon because all the day tourist had to be back in town at 1ish for their train. I had a great nap between the ruins (burned may face though) and enjoyed the mystical place encapsulate in my own world with some nice music :)

Tonight I leave Cusco and also Peru – next stop: Lake Titicaca, Bolivia :)

Have a nice day,
Alex


Biking

2nd day - hiking

Who knew that a pineapple plant looks like this?!

Wait, how do you dance on a pole again?
Sleeping with Hannah Montana (I guess)


3rd day - morning shower
Walking...

Aguas Calientes

Machu Picchu

Day 39 to 49 – Half way there

That’s time wise… There are still some km left to travel :)

My last post was about the big and pulsating capital of Peru. The next stop brought me to Ica or actually to a small oasis nearby. This totally deserted place in the middle of dunes is the perfect spot to chill for some days. I know, you probably think there is no reason to chill for me – I’m on vacation after all. But my travels are hard work, it’s not really relaxing to go from one place to the other and start every day exploring the new surrounding – it’s fun though :)

So I spent 3 nights in this quiet place, watching the dunes and listening to the sound of V8 sand buggy’s all day long :)

Certainly I also needed to try sand boarding, how hard can it be?!

The answer is: Harder than someone would expect…

The boards (at least the cheap ones) are just made of a piece of wood and to straps to hold you in place – but you got no control over this thing what so ever!
I ended up going straight down the dune (which was a pretty large one because: how hard can it be :) ) the oasis getting closer very fast and after one or two tries of stopping the board with an actual turn, I ended up planting my bud into the soft hot sand. This probably looked funny – at least Lu had troubles stopping laughing… The reason for that might also be the fact that the last words, before I started the downwards journey, were: “Watch me, I show you how it’s done!”

I then spent the afternoon in a more relaxing way – sand buggy

After the more or less relaxing days in Huacachina I got in a bus to Arequipa, to meet up with Caro and Eva. They also had a very tight schedule, which meant we only had one night together – and I mean this in a totally innocent way ;)

When I arrived at their place, a whole bunch of volunteers were already circled around a table, discussing the upcoming night. We ended up getting pizza in the city and going to a club. No idea what the name of the place was, but it was pretty fun – guess I came home at 3:30 or something (correct me if I’m wrong)

Arequipa is a really nice colonial town, with coble stone streets and old buildings and a lot of churches… I was quite lucky, because the weekend I arrived, Arequipa-Day was going on (the foundation of modern Arequipa in 1540 – Wikipedia is a gift :) )

Just check the pictures, have not too much to tell

The last 3 days were dedicated to the Colca Canyon, one of the largest canyons in the world. I planned to do a 2 day hike there, but wasn’t quite sure because I was on my own.

Luckily I than met a French couple doing exactly the route I planned to do and they were kind enough to take me with them on their adventure :)

The information we got in Cabanaconde, the city from where the hikes start, were not quite precise… 3 different maps, with 3 different altitude indications and trek length – but, how hard can it be ;)

As it was a 2 day hike, we planned to spend the night in a town called Tapay, a mere 6h away. The first part of the journey was quite easy, it was a 3h decent from 3200m to about 2100m to the bottom of the canyon. Having been to the Grand Canyon, this was a totally different (not saying better) experience because the landscape had much mort ho offer than red rocks and snacks. The canyon is one of the few places where you can see Condors in their natural habitat. It also has more vegetation although the most of it are giant cacti…

After we arrived exhausted in Tapay we checked the map again. It took us about 5h hours to go there. The only problem was the bus connection back to Arequipa. The bus left Cabanaconde at 2pm, which is a really stupid time for all hikers. As it was only 3pm, we decided to go to the 2h faraway Malata and spend our night there. We found a really nice place to sleep. It was as basic as it could get… I mean we had electricity and a roof, but that’s it :)

As we wanted to get up at 5:30 the next day to catch our bus, we went to bed pretty early. Unfortunately I had a really restless night and this didn’t help improving my mood in the morning. We had a really nice 2h hike down to the oasis while the sun was still rising. We arrived at the bottom at around 8:30. From this point on, the hardest part begins: the 1100m ascent to Cabanaconde. There is not a lot to say – it took us about 3h to climb the canyon and it wasn’t easy :)

In Cabanaconde we rested out legs and ate our so deserved lunch…

In a few hours I gonna board a bus to Cuzco – more hiking I guess ;)

All the best

Alex

PS: pictures taken with a Canon PowerShot ;)

Huacachina

Arequipa

Colca Canyon