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We have been on the road for a week now and it has been fantastic! Right now I am writing this from La Paz. It is freezing cold so we are layered up in llama wool (Tanya has a Bob Marley look going on with red, green and yellow... total hippy now) and joining the Bolivians following Copa America, the South American football tournament being held in Argentina at the moment. Peru drew with Uruguay a few nights ago, VIVA PERU.
Leaving the orphanage was really hard, vareious tears all around but for me it really made me realise how soon we are going to be back in England and that still I am quite homesick, despite loving Peru. I will be sad to leave but there is no place like home and I feel like it´s calling at the moment! We took a cheap 19 hour bus to Arequipa, a beautiful city in the south of Peru. It is very colonial, clean, colourful and typically Peruvian. A definite highlight of the trip for me will be the 2 day trek we did into the Colca Canyon, the second deepest Canyon in the world, second to it´s neighbour Cotahuasi Canyon. Here I shall say THANKS to Tanya for coming with me on this, not her idea of fun perhaps but hey we did it and it was so worthwhile. What we didn´t realise when embarking on it was that the 2 day trek is just the 3 day trek squeezed onto 2 days... The first day we walked mainly downhill for 8 hours, into the depths of the canyon and through remote villages of 60 people only accesible by mule or foot. It felt like another world, people manually working for everything but still so happy with what they have. A lot of the younger people leave for education in Arequipa (3 hours away) so it felt very quiet and peaceful, with the condors flying overhead (we saw tonnes!). We camped along the canyon at an oasis built or tourists which was a bit strange, it had a nice pool but no electicity! Freezing diop was followed by a candle lit group dinner of semola soup and then tortilla, dishes Tanya and I can instantly recognise as Peruvian from our 11 months here. The next day we began at 5am to trek up and out of the canyon. Most people do it in 3 - 4 hours but me, 2 Enmglish girls called Harriet and Michelle who´d just finished Uni and a New Zealander builder managed it in 2 hours and 15 minutes. The guide was impressed and we were knacked. The biggest steps were the hardest, requiring so muich energy and we hadn´t had breakfast yet. It was really cold and dark to begin with but as the sun came up and we made it higher and higher up the slope, the views were spectacular! The local people had little flags at certain points over the mountain side to mark out where they collect a cactus insect (put in cosmetics apparently!). The guide was great and didn´t mind mine and Tanya´s endless questions about the music and traditions of the canyon, quite differnet ot a lot of Peru but with some similarities. The religion was not very Catholic but more of the older Incan and Indian faiths. Tanya met us at breakfast having taken a scary mule ride up. I think the mule got close to the edge on most corners...
Anyway, also in Arequipa we saw Juanita, an Incan ice princess, mummified from a sacraficial ceremony 500 years ago at the top of a nearby volcano. it was a bit gross but very impressive. The Incas believed the mountains were Gods and that the lightening was the hand of a God reaching down to Earth. These sacarficed children (there have been a few found) have been struck by lightening numerous times and the ice had even preserved her skin... yeah, a bit weird but we enjoyed it...
Since Arequipa we have passed throught Puno and Copacabana (with Harriet and Michelle), seeing the Isla del Sol and sleeping on buses. The island we nice but quite commercialised so we didn´t stay there long. The boat ride was beautiful, Lake Titcaca is a stunning perfect blue with impressive snowy mountains behind and green islands. It was also freezing though!
We arrived in La Paz then the day before yesterday and it is so bitterly cold I think an Inca God wants my lips to fall off. They are scabby and dark red from the cold and the wind, but yet we have blue skies. We met with 5 other Peru PT girls which was nice - they all look fashinable and I´m here in old trainers and my Dad´s (amazing) oversized fleece and broken jeans! Strange how different our years have been even though we are in the same country. As I mentioned before Tanya has gone all Rastafarian on me so we must look like SUCH a funny pair. Today we (me and Tan) rode down the world´sa most dangerous road... it was insane. We started the day with a 7am ride from trhe centre of La Paz with a VERY good tour operator (we got recommendations and chose the best bikes with double suspension, paid 48 pounds and not 28, etc) to a beauuuutfiul place called La Cumbre, 4700 metres above sea level. The mountains were covered in snow and really impressive but it was, again, freezing! Our feet felt like they would drop off any second. We cycled Unduavi, passing a village called Pongo (new cat name Dad? what do you reckon?) on lovely tarmac with big sweeping bends and barriers on either side. After a quick drive uphill we arrive at what is famously known as the Death Road, so called because up until 2007 it was used by lorries, trucks and buses going to Rerrenabaque and then onto Brazil through the Amazin. We actually went along the new road of this in November when we went to the Amazin, via Rurrenabaque, with the Bolivian Project Trust crew. This is where it got a bit crazy. The road was gravelley and stoney, with 400 metre average drops on one side and a sheer cliff up on the other side. We cycled down at a decent speed for 2 and a half hours till Yolosa at 1200 metres sea level, descending from the freezing Andes to hot jungle climate, complete with mosquitoes! It was an adrenaline rush but also extremely eerie and deserted. At about 3000 metres the mist and clouds started, which, combined with the hundereds of grave marks and roadside crosses, made the atmosphere very ghostly and surreal. At the same time the views were stunning (running out of adjectives...) - green, sheer, with the windy camino in front. I don´t know how anyone made it the whole road alive, it was so thin hardly one car could pass but then only four years ago two trucks would meet on the way. The last accident involved a bus of 45 Bolivians in 2007 and all died. The crosses were horrible all the way down but at that point they looked fresh still and were so sad, talking about Mamas and family memebrs. No-one knows why it went over the edge but probaably faulty breaks. I think the state of Bolivian motors is just as much to blame then as the road itself. Before the new road was built about 300 people a year died on that stretch of 60kms.
That´s all for now! I will update in a week. We are heading next to the South of Bolivia (Potosi, Uyuni) and tehn into the north of Argentina (Salta, Cordoba, Tucuman, Iguazu) so lots more to look forwards to.
I hope everything is good in the UK, lots of love and thoughts from here to there :)
Rach xxxxxxx
Leaving the orphanage was really hard, vareious tears all around but for me it really made me realise how soon we are going to be back in England and that still I am quite homesick, despite loving Peru. I will be sad to leave but there is no place like home and I feel like it´s calling at the moment! We took a cheap 19 hour bus to Arequipa, a beautiful city in the south of Peru. It is very colonial, clean, colourful and typically Peruvian. A definite highlight of the trip for me will be the 2 day trek we did into the Colca Canyon, the second deepest Canyon in the world, second to it´s neighbour Cotahuasi Canyon. Here I shall say THANKS to Tanya for coming with me on this, not her idea of fun perhaps but hey we did it and it was so worthwhile. What we didn´t realise when embarking on it was that the 2 day trek is just the 3 day trek squeezed onto 2 days... The first day we walked mainly downhill for 8 hours, into the depths of the canyon and through remote villages of 60 people only accesible by mule or foot. It felt like another world, people manually working for everything but still so happy with what they have. A lot of the younger people leave for education in Arequipa (3 hours away) so it felt very quiet and peaceful, with the condors flying overhead (we saw tonnes!). We camped along the canyon at an oasis built or tourists which was a bit strange, it had a nice pool but no electicity! Freezing diop was followed by a candle lit group dinner of semola soup and then tortilla, dishes Tanya and I can instantly recognise as Peruvian from our 11 months here. The next day we began at 5am to trek up and out of the canyon. Most people do it in 3 - 4 hours but me, 2 Enmglish girls called Harriet and Michelle who´d just finished Uni and a New Zealander builder managed it in 2 hours and 15 minutes. The guide was impressed and we were knacked. The biggest steps were the hardest, requiring so muich energy and we hadn´t had breakfast yet. It was really cold and dark to begin with but as the sun came up and we made it higher and higher up the slope, the views were spectacular! The local people had little flags at certain points over the mountain side to mark out where they collect a cactus insect (put in cosmetics apparently!). The guide was great and didn´t mind mine and Tanya´s endless questions about the music and traditions of the canyon, quite differnet ot a lot of Peru but with some similarities. The religion was not very Catholic but more of the older Incan and Indian faiths. Tanya met us at breakfast having taken a scary mule ride up. I think the mule got close to the edge on most corners...
Anyway, also in Arequipa we saw Juanita, an Incan ice princess, mummified from a sacraficial ceremony 500 years ago at the top of a nearby volcano. it was a bit gross but very impressive. The Incas believed the mountains were Gods and that the lightening was the hand of a God reaching down to Earth. These sacarficed children (there have been a few found) have been struck by lightening numerous times and the ice had even preserved her skin... yeah, a bit weird but we enjoyed it...
Since Arequipa we have passed throught Puno and Copacabana (with Harriet and Michelle), seeing the Isla del Sol and sleeping on buses. The island we nice but quite commercialised so we didn´t stay there long. The boat ride was beautiful, Lake Titcaca is a stunning perfect blue with impressive snowy mountains behind and green islands. It was also freezing though!
We arrived in La Paz then the day before yesterday and it is so bitterly cold I think an Inca God wants my lips to fall off. They are scabby and dark red from the cold and the wind, but yet we have blue skies. We met with 5 other Peru PT girls which was nice - they all look fashinable and I´m here in old trainers and my Dad´s (amazing) oversized fleece and broken jeans! Strange how different our years have been even though we are in the same country. As I mentioned before Tanya has gone all Rastafarian on me so we must look like SUCH a funny pair. Today we (me and Tan) rode down the world´sa most dangerous road... it was insane. We started the day with a 7am ride from trhe centre of La Paz with a VERY good tour operator (we got recommendations and chose the best bikes with double suspension, paid 48 pounds and not 28, etc) to a beauuuutfiul place called La Cumbre, 4700 metres above sea level. The mountains were covered in snow and really impressive but it was, again, freezing! Our feet felt like they would drop off any second. We cycled Unduavi, passing a village called Pongo (new cat name Dad? what do you reckon?) on lovely tarmac with big sweeping bends and barriers on either side. After a quick drive uphill we arrive at what is famously known as the Death Road, so called because up until 2007 it was used by lorries, trucks and buses going to Rerrenabaque and then onto Brazil through the Amazin. We actually went along the new road of this in November when we went to the Amazin, via Rurrenabaque, with the Bolivian Project Trust crew. This is where it got a bit crazy. The road was gravelley and stoney, with 400 metre average drops on one side and a sheer cliff up on the other side. We cycled down at a decent speed for 2 and a half hours till Yolosa at 1200 metres sea level, descending from the freezing Andes to hot jungle climate, complete with mosquitoes! It was an adrenaline rush but also extremely eerie and deserted. At about 3000 metres the mist and clouds started, which, combined with the hundereds of grave marks and roadside crosses, made the atmosphere very ghostly and surreal. At the same time the views were stunning (running out of adjectives...) - green, sheer, with the windy camino in front. I don´t know how anyone made it the whole road alive, it was so thin hardly one car could pass but then only four years ago two trucks would meet on the way. The last accident involved a bus of 45 Bolivians in 2007 and all died. The crosses were horrible all the way down but at that point they looked fresh still and were so sad, talking about Mamas and family memebrs. No-one knows why it went over the edge but probaably faulty breaks. I think the state of Bolivian motors is just as much to blame then as the road itself. Before the new road was built about 300 people a year died on that stretch of 60kms.
That´s all for now! I will update in a week. We are heading next to the South of Bolivia (Potosi, Uyuni) and tehn into the north of Argentina (Salta, Cordoba, Tucuman, Iguazu) so lots more to look forwards to.
I hope everything is good in the UK, lots of love and thoughts from here to there :)
Rach xxxxxxx
posted by Rachel at
17:23
1 Comments:
Trust me, Pongo would suit Nala... sounds absolutely brilliant. Take care! XXX
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