16th June 1999
Hi everybody,
Here we are again from Huaraz, the hiking paradise in Peru. Our previous report ended in La Paz, when Greet’s mother arrived. We enjoyed the stories from our families and were treated with Belgian chocolate, cheese, beer, ….
After a few days in La Paz we took the ‘most dangerous’ road in the world, to the mountain village Coroico. In the beginning of the road, we didn’t really understand where the danger was, but after a while it was very clear to us. The road became a small sand path, just wide enough for 1 car. At one side of the road there was a precipice of 1000m or even more deep. It’s quite scary if the bus you sit in rides only a few centimetres from this.
After 4 hours we arrived safely in Coroico, a marvellous village in the middle of mountains. The next day we did a very beautiful hike and relaxed a little bit at the cold swimming pool of our hotel. After Coroico we had to go back to La Paz for one day to take the bus to Sorato, another village in the mountains. There we did a hike of 32 km, pfff!. In the evening we enjoyed of a well-disserved pizza and beer.
After Sorato we travelled on to Copacabana at Lake Titicaca, the highest lake in the world. There we did a trip to Isla de Sol, an important island in the Inca-culture. After Copacabana we crossed the border to the city Puno, also on Lake Titica. There we did a very touristy trip to the floating islands (20 on 20 m) and to island Taquille. The islands were nice to see, but very touristy. We doubt if people really still live on those islands. On Island Taquille you can see if a man is married or not on the hat they were, white is not married, red is married. Also the women have different skirts if married or not. You can not make a mistake!
From Puno we take the train to Cuzco for a change. A bumpy trainride, but nice as a change. If you have to sit 12 hours on a bus, you get bored after a while. Also because we never met people that can stink so hard as here in Bolivia and Peru. It’s a smell that makes you put the window open, even if it is freezing outside. Probably a shower or bath once a year, we think without soap.
Cuzco was very nice. The Plaza is amazing. The restaurants on the Plaza have European prices, but they serve very nice food. After a day of sightseeing we visited some Inca-sites close by Cuzco. Greet’s mother did a daytrip to Macchu Picchu. Thursday May 6th she flew from Cuzco back to La Paz and then back to Belgium. Probably she told her travel stories already at home.
After a few days we left on our own on the 4-day during Incatrail to Macchu Picchu. Those 4 days hiking, climbing with our backpacks were heavy, we crossed peaks of 4200 m, but it was worth the effort. We made it, what else can you expect from us and were happy to reach Macchu Picchu on the 4th day, which is impressive as expected. With the train we went from Aguas Calientes back to Cuzco, where we relaxed for a day and took care of our feet full of blisters.
After 14 days we left Cuzco and went to Arequipa. The temperature was nice here, like spring weather. We visited the Santa-Catalina Monastery. The nice colours and beautiful buildings here made us stay longer than 2 hours. It is wonderful!
We also visited the Museum of the University. They have a few mummies here that were recently found in mountains close by. The mummy of Juanita is also here, a 14 year old girl that was offered to the Gods on a mountain of 6000 m height. She was found frozen in 1992 by some archaeologists. Unfortunately there was only a replica of her at that moment. She is on a world trip and is for the moment on a exhibition in Tokyo. From Arequipa we did a 2-day trip to the Colca-canyon with the giant condor-birds. And we saw them, even 20 and they flew right above our heads. After Arequipa we went to Nazca, where we visited another cementary. Quite a lugubrious place, in the middle of a dessert landscape. The only thing that is left of the bodies are the bones and a lot of long hair. Not a place to visit at night. Jurgen flew with a small airplane over the famous Nazca-lines. Beside from this lines, Nazca is not really worth a visit and so we went on to Ica, a village with huge sand dunes. In a village close by we tried sand boarding, comparable to snowboarding, but a little more difficult. After Ica we went to Pisco to make a boat trip to the Ballestas islands. We saw a lot of sea lions, penguins, different kind of birds and even a whale. From Pisco we went to Lima, where we did some sightseeing. Lima is nice, but not really the safest place. We also visited one of the richer areas. Big houses, good ice cream, expensive French cakes, but not really worth to see.
After 5 days in Lima we went to Puerto Bermudez in the jungle. In Albergue Umboldt we enjoyed first from a few days of rest. This hotel is owned by 2 Spanish guys, Jesus and Raoul. After 18 year, Jesus was tired of travelling and together with Raoul he takes care of other travellers with things like : delicious Spanish food, a lot of hammocks, loads of books, cats, dogs, a beautiful garden and travel stories. Together with a German and Norwegian couple we did a jungle trip of 5 days with Raoul as guide and also a few Indian guides whose names were very complicated. The first day we went with a boat to San Juan, a small Indian village. Our accommodation was with el jefe of the village, it was a wooden skeleton with a floor in bamboo (approx. 5 meters above the ground because of animals). In daylight everything seemed OK but at night we were happy that we had mosquito nets. The cockroaches had a party on our sleeping floor, samples of 10 cm were not an exception. The second day we hiked for 9 hours to waterfalls, our Indian guides made the tempo really fast, fast, fast!!! For them the jungle is nothing new, it is like their backyard. Before we reached the waterfalls; we had to climb for a few hours over slippery rocks, adventurous. Luckily we only had some scratches and bruises. The third day we walked from San Juan to Hawai, another small Indian village. El Jefe and his family welcomed us very warmly with delicious food. Again our accommodation was a wooden skeleton, now also with poisonous spiders. We are still normal at the moment, so we think our mosquito nets were OK.
The fourth day we built a float together with El Jefe and his son. With this float we would try to raft back to Puerto Bermudez. The float or Balsa was made with 100% jungle material. A little difficult to explain, but we promise you slides with explanation. The boat ride was good and funny, some of us managed to fall from the boat and other things. We reached Puerto Bermudez at 2.30 pm, after marvellous jungle days with Indian families, children that hardly had seen gringos, every evening a bath in the river with big interest from the locals, etc….
After 2 days rest in Albergue Umboldt we travelled back to Lima. When we sat in the back of the pick-up with 14 other passengers and kids that were throwing up, we asked ourselves if it wouldn’t have been better to stay longer in Puerto Bermudez. But we are getting short in time and we still have a lot of things we want to see, so Lima it was. Unfortunately they robbed us there. We thought we had some adventure already, but this is a special story from Peru. When we walked on a busy street in Lima and made a picture, the camera was stolen out of Greet’s hands. Before we could react, the robber was already gone and also the camera (the 3rd one now). After visiting the police we went to the black market to look for a second hand camera. Everything that is sold on that market, is once stolen from tourists. If you ever need something : suitcases, perfume, sleeping bags, expensive clothes, shoes, expensive camping gear, cameras, … Malvinas in Lima is ‘ The place to be’. On a certain moment we saw the guy who robbed us. He also saw us, so ran away. 5 minutes later Jurgen sees a guy in shop with our stolen camera in his hands. Accompanied by the police (If we told the shopkeeper that he was holding our camera, we probably wouldn’t have written this report, Malvinas is not the safest place) we went to the shop, but the camera had disappeared!?? The next day we went back twice to the shop accompanied by the police, but the shop was closed!
We told the police-escort that we still would like to buy another ‘stolen’ camera. They even helped us bargaining. We never saw policemen shaking so many hands on a market. A cooperating partnership! For this adventures you have to be in Latin- America.
Since yesterday we are in Huaraz, like we told before the hiking paradise in Peru. Yesterday we hiked to a lake on a height of 4600 m. Today is a relaxing day. Tomorrow we travel to Trujillo on the coast. We will send you a report from there next time.
Our holiday is getting shorter, for the first time in 9.5 months we really have to plan because we still want to see a lot of things. On July 28th we will come back to Belgium.
We hope that you all voted this weekend on the right party. We want to be able to enjoy Belgian meat, Belgian fries with MAYONAISE, cheese, things that are on a black list in Belgium you at the moment. Fortunately we can drink Cola here, because that also seems to be a problem there. We count on you!!!!!
See you later.
Greet and Bossit
Bossit Adventures 