Back in Peru and not a day too soon! Read on..

Well changed my mind a couple of hours before my bus was due to leave and decided to go further down the Peruvian coast to Trujillo; partly because I didn´t like the idea of arriving in Chiclayo at 3am and partly because, I just can!

Well that´s not quite right but the 2 couples I´ve been doing things with in the last 24 hours (Australians I travelled with on the bus and Americans here in Trujillo on a visit to pre-Inca ruins), bickered away and I thought thank God I have only me to please, coz I can do without that. (The second reason really was that I thought maybe I didn´t have enough time to go both to Chiclayo and Trujillo).

These hairless dogs were bred to live at these pre-Inca sites

Checked my flights while I was on the bus last night and what do you know - in fact I go a day earlier than I thought! Well the plane goes at 1am which is very confusing for a woman who has to backtrack to August 10, a Sunday when I left the US, to work out just what day of the week and what date it is!

My last day in Ecuador I spent in Guyaquil. There´s a park there full of iguanas!

But of course, even better was my last day in Ayampe when I came across the whales at Los Frailles beach in the national park - here´s a big whale´s-tail splash for you!

Whale watching

View from my room at Ayampe, a small fishing village on the Ruta del Sol of Ecuador´s Pacific coast. Lots of surfing here too, reminds me of home...

I came here to visit Isla de la Plata, the poor woman´s Galapagos. Catch the cute blue-footed boobie in the photo at left - lots of them nesting on the island, almost tame they are too so long as you skirt the small circle they make out of their poo which the female sits inside of to hatch her eggs!



Didn´t set out to do it but I spent yesterday whale-watching just sitting on a beautiful deserted beach further up the Ecuadorian coast in the national park. Saw some earlier in the week also on the boat trip out to Isla de la Plata.

Crossed over the headland to `little turtle´ beach (translated that myself from the Spanish - comprendo muchas, speak very little!) folowing turtle tracks up the sand and found a fossilised turtle jaw. Saw the real thing swimming near the boat just off Isla de la Plata, but mostly I´ve heard about dead turtles washed up on the beaches. Plastic victims.


Saw a beautiful church today in Olon as I made my way down the Ecuadorean coast to Guayaquil. It sat high on a cliff edge at the south end of the bay with open sides down to a half-wall made of stones. It´s Sunday so it was full of people - many children.

I am now in Guayaquil which is Ecuador´s biggest city on my way back to Peru to visit some adobe pyramids from pre-Columbian times (AD 750) in Chiclayo on the coast. There´s also a very famous witchdoctor´s market there. Since Cuzco, there have been quite a few opportunities in this region to explore shamanism. But in La Paz I stayed just near the witchcraft market and that was close enough for me. But I´ll check out the witch doctors and let you know...


There´s been a referendum today and voting is mandatory. Every one has to go back to their home town to vote so it has been busy on the road and the bus station. Took half an hour just for our bus to turn in there. Got my ticket for tomorrow´s ride. We leave at 11.30am and arrive in Chiclayo at 3am. Not looking forward to that!

Ecuador

Well here´s a surprise - some photos of me, and in some pretty amazing places in Ecuador. I´ve been hiking around the Andes in southern Ecuador - drinking water from streams reputed to give the local people long life - but the wrinkles didn´t fade!

Celebrating with a banana on the top of the world after climbing into tropical cloud forest - straight up it was too!

Here I am at El Pato waterfall on the Rio Yambala in a different part of the Podocarpus National Park to the cloud forest. As you can see I´m still short, the waterfall´s 15m.

Met a nice American woman who´s looking for somewhere to live here and we´ve now travelled on together to Cuenca, the city of panama hats. And then we´re both off to the coast tomorrow. Too soon i fear, it´ll be back home. Mixed feelings on that one!

Spent the last few days up the Amazon River - wet wet wet but fantastic, and although the Bolivian pampas was better for wildlife spotting, what gorgeous jungle flowers and plants there were in the rainforest and river islands around the lodge where I stayed.

Bird of paradise

Walking Palm tree

Heliconia

I also saw my first breadfruit trees at the local Rio Amazon sugar cane whiskey distillery - brought to the Amazon from Polynesia - now I know just what to expect in Tahiti! The leaves of the breadfruit tree dangle in front of this wondrous sight of mother, baby and the hitchhiker!

Giant lily pads, Isla Yanamono, Rio Amazonas

Sunset through the plantation, Isla Yanamono, Rio Amazonas

This time I was with 4 Dutch people - not as much fun as the Irish that´s for sure. At least they weren´t couples (1 woman), and in an amazing coincidence, they live in a village only 5kms from Aarle Rixtel where I lived with Caroline and her family all those years ago!

And now I´m just killing time in Piura in north west of Peru waiting for my overnight bus to Ecuador! Saw some great gold burial items that are locked up in the vault in a museum here, and there´s a vego restaurant on the plaza, so the waiting is not so bad!

In the Amazon

Have now arrived in Iquitos, jungle town on the Rio Amazonas, after a wonderful few days sailing in on the Eduardo IV from Yurimaguas.

Needless to say life along the river made for a really interesting few days - stopping (and not stopping!) to load cargo, (bananas and more bananas), in the most novel ways.

And to add to the flavour there were plaintains served at every meal by the gayest galley staff!

Sunsets and sunrises, life on board was spent swaying in a hammock, and then on our last night on board the rains started. How I love the jungle in the rainy season!

Tomorrow I´m off to the Amazon rainforest for a few days....oh this part of the world is just truly fantastic!

Lares Valley to macchu Piccu

I arrived back in Cusco last night from a wonderful 4 days of trekking through the Lares Valley. We were between 3350 and 4450m so nights, and days going over the passes, were cold. But it was a truly wonderful experience.

The Lares trek is an alternative route to Macchu Piccu, much less travelled and much more interaction with local villagers and their customs. At our first campsite we were woken at 4am by preparations for Sunday market day - or barter day as our guide, Jose described it, when people from surrounding communities bring their crops to trade with others.

It´s not all work though - we came across this women´s soccer match (teams in full-skirted indigenous dress of course), as we entered the village of Patacancha - our second campsite.We ended the journey at Macchu Piccu in time for a wonderful meditation session in the Temple of the Condor looking out over Macchu Piccu mountain.

Bolivia

Had a wonderful time in the Bolivian Amazon. Great group of people -just met 2 of them again in a nearby street here in La Paz! We saw monkeys, pink dolphins - captured one on camera at last but all you´ll see in this photo is a hump!



Alligators by the hundreds.. we went swimming with the dolphins and the alligators, apparently the dolphins keep the alligators at bay?? Well our guide was a funny old guy but we believed him.

Josh is in the photo hanging on to the boat while that alligator `bump' glides around in the background encouraged by Jamie!

We saw anacondas and cobras, big birds and a sloth lazily swinging in the wind, stretching out a paw to grab some leaves as they swayed towards him. (It´s the dark triangle in the centre of the photo.)








And then it was back to La Paz and on to the Salar of Uyuni. More days of jolting around in a jeep covered in dust (the lady in the lavanderia knows just where I´ve been by the colour of my clothes each time I take them in), but this was truly a spectacular experience.


The flamingoes had arrived just 2 weeks ago on their annual migration and they were a very special sight. Flocks of them in all the lagunas. (I think I´m turning into one of those birding people!)

We skirted the western border with Chile past volcanoes shared by both countries.There were islands in the salt plains with coral grottos from the time when it was part of an inland lake.

Vanessa (a Swiss member of our group) and I knew there was something special about taking photos here. We knew it had something to do with shadow to create an illusion of floating. Got it completely wrong tho´- here I am celebrating my shadow when I needed to face 90 degrees to my left so I would have no shadow!
But we weren´t fussed because we were then treated to a concert on the salt by local musicians who come once a month to celebrate in the Salar.

And now following my third all-night bus ride in 3 weeks, (after vowing 33 years ago post-Magic Bus from Athens that I´d never do it again), I´m back in La Paz. More washing, some shopping, but that is a killer, and I´m now getting ready to leave Bolivia for Peru. I´m heading to Cusco for some more trekking to Machu Piccu.

Adios..my is the Spanish improving!