Chile & Peru – The Atacama Desert & Arica, Arequipa, Cusco & Machu Picchu - Conquering the last of the 7 wonders of the world
We begin our journey through the dreamy Atacama desert and the magnificent Salinas Grandes (the salt flats between Bolivia and Chile). The scenery is just breathtaking. After that more desert and salt and copper mines and small villages built of mud bricks, It is just an amazing road trip, highly recommended.
We cross the border at “Paso de Jama” (over 5,000 metres) crossing the border into Chile. We then proceed to the towns of Calama and Arica, cross the border again into Peru and arrive in Tacna. From there its a shared taxi to the bus station and the final bus ride to Cusco, Peru.
On the way we stop at the nice, if a bit boring city of Arequipa. We have the feeling that most of the places have been re-built, probably due to an earthquake in 2001. We have some “pollo con papas” (chicken & chips) and then go for another bus ride. We arrive in Cusco in the morning and take a taxi to the hotel. The room is nice if a bit small and breakfast is fabulous. Cusco (3,300 metres) is really a beautiful city, we know as we’ve been here before and we can even appreciate it better as we are more heavily medicated now. We chill out on the first day and get up at 5.30 AM as we are going to be picked up at 6.30AM for our trip to Machu Picchu. First a taxi, then a lovely train ride, then a bus up at to the ruins and we finally arrive at magical, mysterious, enchanting and literally breathtaking (sorry, couldn’t miss this one) Machu Picchu. Well, it is really majestic and beautiful but I don’t need to tell you that, just check out our photos. So, we listen to the guide for a few minutes and then we do our thing, walk around the site taking in the views and the vibe.
Finally we realize that our train back only leaves very late, so we have a lot of time to kill. After a long wait, we catch a van to take us back to Cusco, all included in the package for the mere bagatelle of USD$260 per person. The van takes ages to leave as they try to fill up all their seats and for different reasons, we get back to the hotel at 11.30PM, so tired we can’t even think straight but happy for having ticked off our 7th wonder of the world.
Next day, it is time to start making our way back to Salta, Argentina, to pick up our car and continue our trip down south. So, we take the bus at night and when we arrive in Arica, Chile, we have to make a pit stop as there are no connections to Salta. We check in at a pretty nasty hostel close to the bus station, go out for a set menu, drink plenty of nice Chilean wine and sleep like a log. As we wake up we try to fill up our day with movies and books as the bus only leaves at 10PM. We board the bus at 10PM, go back through to Paso de Jama (5,000metres) and change buses again back in Calama, Chile, for another 10 hours and then we arrive back in Salta, Argentina. The whole Machu Picchu exercise takes us one week, we arrive and it is our 20th wedding anniversary and we are too tired to celebrate but very happy to have this last wonder of the world sorted!!! We go out for an enormous portion of gnocchi and delicious red wine and back to the hotel, where we sleep for 10 beautiful hours.
