This end of the lake is very different from Puno. Weve gone from industrial fast paced Puno (kind of like Newcastle) to laid back and beautiful Copacabana which is more like Byron Bay - after only a 2 hour bus trip with an "interesting" border crossing into Bolivia. Lets just say, theres nothing stopping people walking straight through the border.

Car blessing - cheaper than insurance

Cath hiking Isla Del Sol

View to Isla De la Luna from Isla del Sol

There is some bizarre weather up here. The air temperature is probably only 10-15 degrees but when you are in the sun it feels more like 25 and burns your skin in no time. When you venture into the shade, however, the cool breeze off the lake makes you switch from a t-shirt and sun hat to jumpers, jackets and beanies. It has also rained every day that we have been around the lake, and at this altitude it is basically ice and they have some wicked thunderstorms.

written by  Cath & Andy on April 30, 2007 from Copacabana, Bolivia
from the travel blog: A journey to the alter and South America
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- Cath has discovered that there is such a thing as too much cheese. In Chile, cheese seems to be part of every meal.
- Roadsigns are purely recommendations, nobody follows them even when there are traffic police standing on the side of the road next to them.
- Attractive Latino women lose some of their appeal when you see them squat and pee in the street (This is common everywhere outside of major cities, both boys and girls)
- Car horns can mean a myriad of things for instance:
= I am approaching a T intersection with a stop sign but am not stopping so I am letting you know that I am passing straight through (first beep has right of way?)
= Get out of the way
= The light turned green less than 1 second ago and I am not moving so get out of the way
= There is a child, person, pig, donkey, alpaca on the side of the road
= I am overtaking you
= I am passing a bus parked on the side of the road
= I am a taxi and I want your attention (this can be any number of bird like noises for horns including some that sound like a wolf whistle)o
Suffice to say, its a pretty noisy place, we had an Italian fellow from Rome tell us that they use the horn a lot here so that should give you some indication.

- Flushing the toilet is optional, Cath has had a few surprises but thinks this is more a tourist problem than a local one.
- Do not order anything a la carte unless you really aren´t hungry. You can get a 2 or 3 course meal with choices for every serving for a third the price of a single a la carte dish.
- More people speak some English in Peru than they do in Chile
- A tour with an English speaking guide does not actually mean you will get an English speaking guide, Agencies will tell you anything to sell you a tour.
- Children can really make a place, the kids are really beautiful here when they aren´t trying to sell you finger puppets, postcards or beanies on the street.
- American 16 year old tour groups are painful.
- If you return to a hotel after a tour with a night away you seem to get upgraded with either, a TV or a bigger TV, a bigger room, better towels, shampoo in the shower - this has happened to us four times already!

written by  Cath & Andy on April 27, 2007 from Puno, Peru
from the travel blog: A journey to the alter and South America
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We spent a day chilling out and seeing the sights of Puno, so we were bored by 10am but it was good to have a rest day before our overnight tour to the islands around Puno. We headed out to the Uros floating islands that are made out of reeds which were really interesting to see how these people lived. Predictably, these days they live in tin sheds and use wooden boats tucked away behind the tourist created spectacle. Its such a shame that the whole experience is 100% commercial and put on for the tourists but it was interesting, and Andy got to try some more weird food.

Floating Reed Islands - Lake Titicaca

Andy eats a Uros Banana - lake reed

We then putted out to Amantani Island, our boat was capable of about 5 knots top speed and for 4 hours it got a bit tiresome. At the island we were billeted out to families for a home stay to experience how they live. The trek uphill from the waterfront was fairly difficult at altitude but the home afforded great views of the lake and the family were just lovely. Unfortunately they spoke about as much conversational English as we speak conversational Spanish so we didnt get to speak to them much. A severe storm blew in at about 6pm whilst we were out walking around the island so we had to run back in the hail to "one of those mud brick houses over there" that didnt have electricity or heating. We spent the night huddled together in a single bed to keep warm. That said, it was actually quite a good experience.

Andy shivers - homestay Amantani Island

Amantani Island

The next day we went to Taquille island and were once again greeted with rain and sleet which made our hour-long trek across the island a bit painful. However, after lunch the sun came out and we had a nice 4 hour boat ride home.

Andy tucks in to a Guinea Pig - mmmm tasty

Spider Monkey - Amazon Basin

Andy the riverman - boots and all

Lion Monkey - not much bigger than your hand

Macaw - Amazon

We saw tonnes of beautiful birds, some lizards, frogs, caimans, tarantulas, weird bugs, butterflies and a resident Tapier named Carina that hung around the resort as a pet. The Tapier looks like a cross between a Elephant and a Pig but is actually a jungle cow and we were most impressed that it can eat grass whilst it is lying on its side being patted by tourists. Its kind of a jungle wombat with a snout and somehow quite endearing.

Mud path in the Amazon

Amazon River boat

Cath on river boat

Tomorrow we are on a bus out of Cuzco to Lake Titicaca with a few stops on the way to look at ruins and stuff. We plan on a few rest days at Puno before heading out to the floating islands and then crossing into Bolivia (don´t stress mum, its not such a bad place).

Love to you all,
Andy & Cath.

written by  Cath & Andy on April 24, 2007 from Puerto Maldonado, Peru
from the travel blog: A journey to the alter and South America
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He came back and actually turned out to be a nice guy who we had a fairly long conversation with along with the people around us. It ended up with him talking in Italian to another Italian guy across the isle. That guy´s girlfriend was from Peru and ended up talking in Spanish to the Brazillian lady sitting across from us! We didn´t understand a word, but they seemed like good conversations.

At Aguas Calientes we spent a down day going to the hot springs, eating and drinking doing a mini pub crawl on the hill down from the hot springs. It was interesting when we had to meet our tour guide that night after quite a few...

Machu Picchu House

Machu Picchu Street

2 Aussies on top of a mountain

The train ride back to Cuzco wasn´t nearly as interesting as the ride out and we were absolutely knackered after getting up at 5am to get up to Machu Picchu for a 6:25 tour.

written by  Cath & Andy on April 21, 2007 from Aguas Calientes, Peru
from the travel blog: A journey to the alter and South America
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Our arrival in Cuzco was nothing short of whirlwind. Our flight left Arequipa at 8:00 and by 10:30 we had booked into a hostel, and booked three tours for the next three days with an ever so friendly travel agent. It all seemed a bit pushed upon us, but we didn´t get anything that we weren´t after anyway and the price was reasonable.

Cath next to Inca Wall - Cuzco

Plaza de Armas by night - Cuzco

Cuzco is an interesting town. It is in a valley totally surrounded by close mountains and at night when standing in the Plaza it looks like jewels all lit up around you. That said, we would probably like it a lot more if there weren´t so many pushy restaurant touts and people selling crappy textile goods from finger puppets to drink bottle holders. We cannot walk or sit for more than 30 seconds without being approached by someone wanting our money. There are lots of very steep cobblestone streets and the town is really set up very well for tourists.

Yesterday afternoon we did a tour of some churches (both Inca and Catholic) in town and some Inca ruins just outside the city. Simply breathtaking standing next to a 130 tonne block of granite that had been carved, polished and moved 17km into place more than 500 years ago.

Andy at Sacsayhuaman (pronounced sexy woman... almost)

View over Cuzco at Dusk

Today we did a full day tour of the sacred valley culminating with a visit to Ollayantambo which was a Inca fortress and city about half way between Cuzco and Machu Picchu. The 240 stair climb to the sun temple at the top was worth it simply to marvel again at the engineering feats of the Incas. It became fairly obvious to us when we saw it just why the valley was sacred to the Inca (and pre-Inca too) as the valley is very long, wide and fertile at the base in a landscape dominated by the steep volcanic Andes.

Sacred Valley - near Pisac

Market weaver - Sacred Valley

Ollantaytambo - Inca Terracing

Cath overlooking Pisac ruins

Tomorrow we are off on a train to Aguas Calientes just below Machu Picchu to take in the Sacred Valley some more and then head up to Machu Picchu on Saturday. Cath has wanted to go there since she was about 12 years old so the anticipation is palpable.

Talk to you all in a few days time!

Andy & Cath.

written by  Cath & Andy on April 19, 2007 from Cuzco, Peru
from the travel blog: A journey to the alter and South America
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Peruvian Market Lady - Canyon Del Colca

Cath drinking Mate de Coca (coca tea)

Andy with folk dancing girl - Canyon Del Colca

The next day was a 5am start to get out to the Condor viewing area at a high vantage point in the Cañon. The half hour wait in the freezing cold wasn´t fun but we did get to see the town waking up and some spectacular views as the sun came into the valley around us. The cañon is 3191m deep and is second in the world only to another one close by. It was impossible to get any sort of perception of scale, we couldn´t figure out if things were a couple of hundred metres away, or kilometres. Unfortunately, you can´t capture that in photos either. In the picture of Cath with the cañon behind her there is a single lane bridge at the bottom of the cañon which is just tiny. The Condors took a while to show up and we only saw 10 in total but these birds are huge! They have a wingspan greater than 3m and a body to suit, but tiny little heads. At one stage everyone was watching one glide around out in the middle of the cañon when one did a fly-by close to the viewing area too quick for anyone to take a photo. All we could hear was people gasping and saying ¨cor blimey, look at that!¨ well, whatever that translates to in Spanish anyway.

Condor - Canyon Del Colca

Cath next to Canyon Del Colca - look for bridge in picture to see how big this place is!

Back on the bus and a few more roadside stops on the way home before arriving back in Arequipa. A day off today to soak in more around town and then a flight to Cuzco tomorrow morning.

Mountain Market Lady - Canyon Del Colca

There were a few other passengers and, as it turned out, plenty of other drivers doing the same thing. Apparently this is actually a taxi service not something dodgy, but we did share a few nervous glances at eachother during the process. We were dropped at the bus station in Tacna, Peru and shuffled into a bus agency for a transfer to a bus to Arequipa.

All things went well until about 3.5 hours into the trip when in the middle of the desert, half way up a mountain and with no mobile phone reception and no water, the bus stopped. We sat there for nearly an hour while our bus driver donned the overalls and proceeded to venture into the engine bay of the bus to fix it while the passengers looked on. The best we could make out was that there was some problem with a drive belt as there were plenty of spares hanging from a hook inside the rear hatch. Noone mentioned anything to any of the passengers about what was going on and we only found out when we decided to get off the stifling bus to sit in the sun and breeze and have a look for ourselves. We both wished that Gaz was here with his deisel mechanic skills.

The bus being fixed - with supervisors

View from where our bus broke down

We made it to Arequipa and through some Bangkok like traffic and crazy taxi drivers in tiny cars we arrived to the stunning central Plaza de Armas, Wow. We had planned to spend some time here to get some more aclimatisation and do some tours of the surrounding region but after a short walk around, we think that we might possibly stay for a while...

Our hotel room has a balcony with a view to one of the volcanoes covered in snow that surrounds the city, city centre, cobblestone streets and stunning colonial buildings.

View from our hotel room

Carrot art - served with our omlette

We can´t wait to have a coffee at a second story restaurant overlooking the Plaza and people watch tomorrow morning.

ciao ciao
Cath & Andy.

written by  Cath & Andy on April 12, 2007 from Arequipa, Peru
from the travel blog: A journey to the alter and South America
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After a moment of panic thinking that we had lost eachother in the public toilets, we caught our first taxi of the trip into the centre of the city and sat in a park looking for a hotel to book in to. After we had sorted that out and had a shower (we were still in the clothes we put on at 3:30am the day before) we decided to discover the coast by foot.

Arica is a strange town. We are at the same latitude as Cairns but instead of Rainforest meeting the sea, there is just sandy desert and big mountains with no vegitation. There is a massive bluff right next to the city which is where Chile defeated Peru in the Pacific war. Quite an interesting museum and a very impressive sight looming over the city.

El Morro headland, Arica

Where the desert meets the sea

We have just been chilling out for two days in the tropical beach climate. Andy made friends with a waiter who, when we stopped back into the restaurant for a coffee this morning was so happy to see us again, he shook our hands and gave us free biscuits. And finally after about 30 attempts at ordering a decent coffee we finally got it right. Chileans have their coffee black and when you ask for it ´with milk´(con leche) they make it with hot milk, instant coffee and no water.

We have also discovered that Chileans eat big. We have no idea how there are so many good looking Chilean women wandering around because they eat such big meals! All bread, rice and fried stuff. Our lunch today consisted of:

Bread with salsa,
A bowl of mixed vegetable soup,
A main of chicken, a cup of rice, and salad, followed by
Dessert of cake or some other sweet,
A half litre each of freshly made juice

All this for approximately $4.00 Australian each. The food here is not spicy or adventurous, really just a lot of BBQ chicken, fried eggs, hot dogs and steak. The people watching has been great in this city with guitar players and singers roaming up and down the local restaurants (Cath´s dad would love it, they are very talented musicians) and people playing dominoes in the street. Andy has really loved this town as it certainly isn´t set up for western tourists like San Pedro was.

We´ll upload some photos later, we didn´t bring our cables for the camera and only popped in to check email while we´re waiting for the post office to open up after its 3 hour lunch break (this is normal). We´ve noticed some of our pictures are coming up wrong or have been lost by the site so we´ll try and fix that when we can.

Sunset, Arica

Iron Church built by Mr Eiffel

Tomorrow we are off on another bus adventure crossing into Peru and up to Arequipa. Its been great to spend two days doing very little and taking the city in after being toured out in San Pedro.

Talk to you from Peru,
Cath & Andy.

written by  Cath & Andy on April 11, 2007 from Arica, Chile
from the travel blog: A journey to the alter and South America
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