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!

Lake Titicaca and Bolivia

My last stop in Peru was Amantani Island on Lake Titicaca. Stayed overnight with a local indigenous family. Great vegetarian food in cluding sage soup (the sage grows wild on the island), cups of wild peppermint tea for altitude and dressing up in local costume for a fiesta.

I also visited Los Uros floating islands where everything, boats huts the islands are made of todoro reed growing in the lake. Now I´m back on the Bolivian mainland this morning after a couple of days on Isla del Sol - the birthplace of the Inca religion and in the 40% of Lake Titicaca controlled by Bolivia.
I arrived in La Paz late this afternoon. Was a bit scared about going to La Paz - warnings from DFAT, a Peruvian friend I have made, other travellers, guidebooks etc. But it really is quite amazing. Went through the witchcraft market which is close by my hotel. Everything for sale there including llama foetuses! La Paz gives the impression of being a giant market!

I leave tomorrow for the lowland savannah region of the Bolivian Amazon which is north east of La Paz. Then I will go south to Uyuni salt lake, apparently one of the wonders of the world. After that I´ll head back to Peru towards Macchu Piccu.

What I have learned of the Incas in my travels in Guatemala, Peru and Bolivia has been such a revelation. But despite all the trekking and high altitude practice recently, I´m still quite unsure of my ability to make the steep inclines of the trek to Macchu Picu. Never mind, there´s always a train.

After that I´m heading up the Amazon on a 5-day boat trip to Iquitos where my Peruvian friend Jesil is taking up a health worker job. Would like to get to Ecuador but I think there may not be enough time. Can't believe my travel is coming to such a fast end....

Yes, I made it back up from the bottom of the canyon

Well the trek down into Colca Canyon and back out again was fantastic. One half-day to get down; another half-day to cross the canyon to the oasis where we lazed the afternoon away by the pool fed from a nearby waterfall. And then yesterday morning we trekked back out by the light of the full moon.





That was a hard slog! Straight uphill; I had to do it nonstop - breaks did me in! And I said my mantra for most of the way in a rather solitary climb. But at 56 (and only a week or two), I was the lead woman at the top! Yeh go Jude! Meanwhile, of course, local people ran up and down every day!

I´m the one in the yellow hat!

And let me tell you about my fantastic group. Three women from Catalan (Barcelona) - Montse a 28 year old pilates teacher; Lydia a 38 year old Olympian gymnast (Seoul, 1988), and Raquel, 28, a teacher of physics at med school and part-time gym teacher. In their defence, they took breaks and 2 of them smoke! And then there were Pierre and Oliver, 2 young French students who skipped and ran up the canyon! And finally Waldo who was our guide.

They are a great group of people and we had a lot of fun together. And I really enjoyed the physicality of the days. We finished with a plunge into hot springs at Chivay and a great massage.

Oh and some fun last night before we headed to all-night bus rides and separate ways...


Next stop - on to Puno for a stay on the islands of Lake Titicaca (and just a little bit of hiking) and then on to Bolivia.

Well my first overnight bus ride in many years went OK - nothing like the journey on the magic bus from Athens all those year ago that put me off forever, well till now! We were even fed too. Arequipa is a beautiful colonial town with the volcanic Mt Misti presiding over all. Visited the most famous monument in the town, the Santa Catalina convent where the nuns lived quite splendidly. Both the mountain and the convent which is described as a city within a city, are in the picture here.

Strolled down the street from the convent into the middle of a big street parade for Arequipa's foundation day. There were fireworks all night and many still heading home when I set out this morning.

Today I went to see something fabulous, the mummy Juanita, a young girl sacrificed by the Incas high on Mt Ampato. She was found by chance when a volcano on a neighbouring mountain erupted and melted the ice that had preserved her for 5 centuries. It is remarkable to see her still intact in the same clothes and same foetal position as when she was sacrificed.

Tomorrow I´m off for 3 days trekking in the Golca Canyon which is deeper than the Grand Canyon. Along the way, we´ll be seeing giant condors as they fly off on their morning search for food. And yes, to put all your minds at rest, I will be with a group!

Lima

Tonight I leave Lima for Arequipa on an overnight bus; don´t know how that'll go down. I got the last seat and it's in front of the loo! Never mind - I figured it was meant to be.

My plans now are to go from Arequipa to Lake Titicaca and from there to Bolivia. I've heard lots of good things about from people I have met here. Then I´ll come back to Peru and head towards Cusco and Macchu Picchu, hopefully it will be a bit quieter in September. People tell me it´s really busy until at least the end of August.

Went to view a great private collection of pre-Inca pottery and textiles yesterday. It was collected by a Japanese Peruvian and is now looked after by a foundation. To see items of the quality and completeness of this private collection, it suddenly hit home for me how hard it must be for public museums to compete.

Can't believe how cold it is (hoodie all day, add scarf and jumper at night) - and it's so close to the Equator! There´s a haze that hangs over the city during these winter months which is due to some meteorological cause.

But that aside, all seems very gracious in the capital of Peru. Expensive, not too many homeless, but glimpses of shanty towns and graffiti suggest there's much more here than meets the tourist eye.

And if nothing else, this virtual dentist was a bit of a clue to something going on..