With Peruvian Airlines we arrived in about 1,5 hour in Lima... as we taxi along the runway I looked out the window of the plane and I thought I was hallucinating, there was the coolest plane I have ever seen, it was the iron maidens plane, with all monsters and graffiti all over it, apparently they were playing in Lima tonight! We inquired about tickets but all sold out, bugger.
We decided to flip a coin where to go North or south as we didn't have any plans or didn't know were we wanted to go, we didn't know shit really!! heads north, tails south, heads it was so north on the bus we went, with chooks and goats and rodents destined for the kitchen, rat and Guinea pigs are a delicacy here.
We headed to a place on the coast called Barranca,its a small fishing village with the freshest seafood you could imagine and huge surf, all up the coast is big surf, I was unaware that Peru was renowned for its waves, be good if I was interested in surfing!!
But instead we got into the local (fish) food 'ceviche' Its raw fish with onion and lemon..very tasty. Barranca was really nice and quiet (not many tourists) After a few days on the coast it was time to explore the Andes of Peru. The bus ride was windy and steep (and sometimes scary cliffs) into the mountains but beautiful scenic. 5 hours later and only 150 km the temperature dropped with 15 degrees. It was dark and raining when we get of the bus in Huraz and of course a Peru-en dragged us to his hotel to stay and expected from us to go on a 3 day hike.. but we rather try to get used to the altitude and relax a bit. (that’s pretty much the greatest down side of travelling in South America.. many people haress you to sell souvenirs,tours or drugs) Understandable but annoying.
In Huraz we moved the next day to another hostel with the best views over the snowy mountains..and in this place we found some great souvenirs for the family. In the mountains we really got the feeling of 'proper' Peru. Beautiful dressed people!
At the information centre the told us our options in the Andes, and a one day walk to a lake suited us well. We moved to the next town (Caraz)which was closer where the track started. Early in the morning we went to the start of the track which was an hour drive up the mountain.. wow beautiful but chilly.. and we started to walk. We thought we were not unfit but walking at a hight of 5000 meters feels like walking against a wall. Every 5 min we needed a rest for 10 min. To much for us to walk all the way up to Lake 69. But the scenery so far was great. We decided to give the lake a miss and headed back. The taxi driver supposed to wait for us but no sign of him so we walked down along the river. Out of a sudden he rocked up and we drove down the mountain. Under way we stopped at a trout farm with all different sizes of trout jamm.
Back in Caraz we discovered a restaurant where they served 'Coy' (Guinea pig) James was keen to give it a try. But with already an upset stomach this did not seemed to be a good idea. After the cool mountains it was time to warm up a bit on the coast. We arrived after a horrible 12 hour bus ride in Trijillo and we grabbed a taxi to Huanchaco. Where we crashed out in the hostel. We ended up here for 2 weeks.. James suffering from a gastro and Karolien with a flu.. Great when you are far from home.. Lucky the hostel was really nice with a little restaurant and the pharmacist around the corner. Some days we were able to walk down the beach to watch the impressive surfers.
When we felt a bit better we headed North to Mancora, another (really touristic surfing town) and our last stop in Peru.
From here we are going to catch a bus into Ecuador
