Well, we´re back (by popular demand) blogging and its been so long we can barely remember the places we left off...but we´ll try....
Headed into the beach town of Mancora in Northern Peru, as we still needed more beach days before moving into trekking territory. Our times...arrival time into new city, 3:00am, time to find place to sleep, 3:03am, time for rain to start pouring down, 3:04am. Streets were completely deserted, but somehow we find the one person out n about at this early hour who happens to have accomodation connections. Not sure if we have mentioned this before, but we now have a travel fairy accompanying us. Wooshaaaa, she strikes again.
Ohhh Mancora, a sifty strip of beach with a perfect wave. (perfect for absolute beginners that is) Here we ate some good food and hung out with some fun kids, its also the spot of our joint surf lesson, the highlight being our attempt at sharing a wave and completing a high five whilst riding that said wave. Unfortunately, we choked in the manoever and wiped out just after we´d stood up. Plan to is now to head to Brazil for some more waves (and lessons!)
From Mancora to Lima to Huccachina, decided to go straight through after riding into Lima on the bus. Stuck in traffic we decide to look out the window at a bit of culture on the streets. We see a man, a man a bit agitated, a man weilding a stick, a man who is yelling at another much older man. Now this man runs at the older man with his stick, which we realise is not just a stick, but a stick with a weapon like nail sticking out of one end. He takes the weapon nail stick and strikes the older man´s scooter light, knocking it clean off. Now the older man, was quite calm up until this point, but seeing his scooter de-lighted takes a few steps towards Nail Stick Man. Nail Stick Man doesn´t like this, discards nail stick weapon and reaches inside his leisure suit hoody for a gun. A gun. A gun. That´s right a gun. Older man instantly and wisely backs off. Gail Stickman strolls off down a darkened alleyway. We decide not to stop in Lima.
Huccachina. We planned to stay two days, one night. But this tiny town, with just one main street, a big lagoon surrounded by massive sand dunes won us over. We ended up 6days, with a bit of sand boarding, a bit of sand sitting, a bit of sand sliding and a bit of sand climbing. A day tripper to Poor Man´s Galapagos, which lived up to its name....wild life count: 7 penguins, 4 sea lions, 5 boats of tourists circling sea lions, 400 odd birds and a lot of bird poop. And a day tripper to go up in a plane to see the Nasca lines...brilliant for the first ten minutes, which was also the point at which the guy beside the pilot began utilising his sick bag.
Next destination, Cusco, 18 hours by bus. 18 hours that is if you are put on the correct bus. 34 hours if you are not told that your bus has been cancelled and that this new bus takes a completely different route. Oh well, lucky our really strong sleeping pills were at hand. Great on the first overnight stretch. Not so great on the second leg, when half an hour after taking the pills the bus breaks down and we have to return to town. Now we´re so so so sleepy because the pills have kicked in. Decide to stay awake by arguing with the bus company boy for a discount.
Cusco is a beautiful town, we loved it. Its located at high altitude, 3300m, so the steep steps were pretty tough to get up. We had a few days drinking coca tea acclimatising and after a big night out salsa ing, we realised why they don´t reccomend alcohol whilst aclimatising. Hang overs are quadrupled.
Now what we´d been waiting for....finally our next and final trek. We knew that we were going to love this, from the very first moment in our first initial trek meeting. When our guide first called us his ´family´, spent a full hour and a half detailing in detail the exact planned journey times and activities in minute detail, even the points where we will be able to ´make nice beautiful photos´, even everything which was already summarised on the three page handout - we just knew that this was the trek for us.
So the Trek was definitly different to our Lost City Trek, we definitely weren´t used to being told what to do and its true to say that we may have missed out on some excellent photos since we rebelled against our guide´s persistant instructions to ´make beautiful photos now´. The mountains, scenery, animals and locals were amazing. The high altitude made for some chilly nights camping...minus 15 degrees, Note, negative 10 degrees is the officially ok temperature to commence spooning for warmth at. It was awkward so we´d rather not talk about it.
Quest to Machu Picchu.
On the waking of the rooster and the crow, thy two young ´maidens´ set forth to scale the mighty ancient forgotten city of the Incas. The youngest of the maidens woke beset with an illness of such great proportions that the elder sought herbs and potions from the others that were settled at the inn. With refreshed limbs and both a bounding in steps, our two young maidens tamed and then mounted that steel creature, known through all the lands as Machu Picchu bus number 21 and before the sun´s crest hast reached the tip of the five fourty five littleth hand, our fair maidens hadth conquered thine first and holy challenge in their might quest. We were awake and on the bus.
For those of you who think our last little story is a bit weird, just imagaine how you would want to tell stories if the last 3 books you´ve read have all been fantasy fiction. Not much choice in back packers book exchanges. (F n F and the almighty Twilight series, note, we´ll be writing in teenage vampire talk next, don´t you worry)
We were actually very lucky that our Machu Piccu guide had incredible and vast knowledge of the Incas and their lost city and we both thought the actual city was breath taking.
Back to Cusco for hot showers and some admin travel days, plotting the next b and b adventure. Decided that it was time to say goodbye to True Peru as we now knew it and head into the much anticipated Bolivia.
