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| Peru - a Pleasant Surprise |
Wed 02/04/03 |
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Things I got in Arica:
1) A bus ticket to Arequipa (which was a total ripoff and is best bought in Tacna in the bus terminal directly at the Flores or Cruz del Sur counter)
2) A lift across the border to Tacna in on of the taxi collectivo style shuttles (also got ripped off but was part of the ripoff when buying the bus ticket in Chile so doesn't really count)
3) Got to meet another British traveller in the car
4) And in the end got a bus from Tacna to Arequipa sitting next to Celine the rather sympathetic Brit I had just met.
Arrived in Arequipa after a somewhat interesting bus trip during which the bus broke down due to overheating, but was "fixed" through water donation from oncoming buses of the same company. In the end we swapped into a less comfortable bus which then brought us all the way to Arequipa, where we arrived at 3pm almost 2 hours behind schedule.
Checked into a nice and safe Hostal called Real which gave me an awesome deal for a room and then headed off into town to explore the surprisingly beautiful and interesting town centre of Arequipa together with Celine.
Started off by having a very decent sized portion of tasty pollo with papas fritas and ensalada for an incredible 3.5 Sol just down the street from the hotel.
In the evening I spent more time walking around town looking for a charger for my mobile phone which also had been stolen some days earlier in Chile. (Succeeded in the end but the charger is far less stylish than the Ericsson one I had lost)
| Arequipa around Town |
Thu 03/04/03 |
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The morning I spent visiting various monasteries and churches in the town centre, followed by some time looking into climbing El Misti (5822m) or Chachani (6075m) which ultimately failed due to the lack of trekking shoes of my size (UK 13) in Arequipa. Ended up booking the alternative I had sought out - a 2 day trek to the bottom of the Colca Canyon, with a company that I don't even remember the name of anymore.
The sheer abundance of adventure outfits is frightening, and it is very hard to get get an overview or an impression of which ones are better, as they all seem to promise the eight seater minibus which, didn't realize for any of the people I talked to during my trek. A local called Jimy roams the streets and chats to foreigners with advice which seems surprisingly accurate and decent. When booking a tour to the bottom of the canyon make sure you are staying at Paraiso (one of the two hostels at the Oasis which I thought much nicer than "Eden" their only competitor)
Whilst walking around town I stumbled across the Museo de la Universidad Catolica which houses a small but very informative collection of Inca and pre-Inca artefacts, namely tools, textiles, ceramics and several mummies, the most famous of which is the Ampato Ice Maiden. This mummy was found by American anthropologist Johan Reinhard and his assistant Miguel Zarate at 20,700 feet on Mount Ampato near the village of Cabanaconde in May 1995, and made headlines in the National Geographic that year. The visit is by Peruvian standards rather expensive but I thought it worth the money, despite the absence of the ice maiden which is rotated around between the freezer at the university and the display freezers in the museum.
In the evening I decided to join Celine, who had left for Lima the previous evening, on a tour to the Amazon River and the surrounding jungle, so quickly booked all flights I needed to get to Iquitos via Lima as well as a flight to Cusco. In retrospect this was very unwise as there is no financial advantage in booking return flights, hence it would have been much better to get a one way ticket and then use the gained flexibility to find a cheaper way back - (Obvious and hence annoying) Lesson to be learned here: delay decisions which decrease degrees of freedom and in return do not bring significant financial benefits.
Went out to a pub in the evening after having spent 2.5 hours in an internet cafe uploading all the pictures from chile again, which I had accidentally deleted (that --delete option on rsync is dangerous).
After a few drinks on the roof terrace of the rather nice Deja Vu headed back to the Hotel for 1.5 hours of sleep before I got picked up for my local bus to the Cruz del Condor at 1:30 am.
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Hotel Real -
Santo Domingo 305
Arequipa - Ph: (54) 281888 |
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| Municipalidad Arequipa |
Catedral |
Plaza de Armas |
Claustros de La Compaņia |
Claustros de La Compaņia |
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| Claustros de La Compaņia |
Plaza de Armas |
Santo Domingo Interior |
Santo Domingo Interior |
Santa Marta |
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| Iglesia de La Compaņia |
Banco BBV Continentale |
Arequipa Zona Turistica |
Catedral |
Plaza de Armas |
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| Colca Canyon Tour |
Fri 4/04/03 |
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After barely having gone to sleep, had to get up again and headed out to the Bus Terminal for the local bus to Chivay and on to the Cruz del Condor, leaving Arequipa at 1:45 am on Friday morning.
The tiny legroom made sleeping almost impossible so arrived rather tired at Cruz del Condor after a long and bumpy ride, for the most part on gravel roads, at 7am.
Watched the condors soaring on the first thermal winds of the day above the Colca River flowing 1200m below in the canyon. The birds are apparently left some food at night which practically guarantees that they stick around the area as a tourist attraction. Nevertheless it was undisputably an awesome sight when they flew above the heads of the onlooking tourists at a short distance, seemingly looking down curiously at the crowd.
The lookout got rather crowded at around 8:30, so after meeting up with the two other people, Sarah and Jo and our guide Alicia we headed up the road to another lookout called Tapay from where we started our descent into the canyon.
The descent took us much longer than anticipated and we only reached the bridge at the bottom at around 2pm, from there to our rather late lunch stop in San Juan we walked for another hour.
Then we passed two other villages before finally reaching San Galle, or better known as the Oasis almost at dusk. The location of the two hostels there is spectacular, as they are perched on a plateau rising maybe 100m above the river, with a breathtaking yellow and orange cliff face and several palm trees as a backdrop.
Had a very simple dinner after a quick dip in the magnificently constructed pool and went to bed very early after the short previous night.
(If you want to arrange your own accomodation at Paraiso, email Sebastian Cayani a week or
two so in advance)
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| Caņon Vista Alto |
Caņon Vista Alto |
Condor Cerca |
Condor Arriba |
Condor Arriba |
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| Condor Arriba |
Condor en Frente |
Niņos Cruz del Condor |
Caņon |
Pano Caņon |
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| Pano Caņon Lado |
Rio Colca al Fondo |
Puente Richard |
Formacion de Rocas |
Iglesia Matala |
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| Formacion de Rocas |
Cactus y Rocas cerca de Oasis |
Cactus y Rocas cerca de Oasis |
Cactus y Rocas cerca de Oasis |
Pano Puente Oasis |
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| Hostal Paraiso - Alicia |
Habitacion en Hostal Paraiso |
Hostal Paraiso |
Hostal Paraiso Habitaciones |
Hostal Paraiso Habitaciones |
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| A Day of Change |
Sat 5/04/03 |
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Rose at 5:30 after a pretty decent night's worth of sleep and started on our ascend of the canyon at around 6am, initially we made good progress but I had to often wait for the others and decided to meet them at the "Esquina" restaurant in Cabanaconde for breakfast.
Once I started walking at fast and constant pace, I made excellent progress (sweating lots) I reached the top of the canyon at 8:25 in about 2:15 hours. Decided to have breakfast right away and then checked on bus departures for Chivay and Arequipa whilst looking around the small town centre.
In hindsight it turned out that the best option would have been to take the 9am bus to Chivay and continue on with Bus Andalusia at 12:30 reaching Arequipa at around 4:30 - an option which to my dislike did not materialise.
My transport schedule looked slightly different, as I waited for the rest of the group to arrive, taking the bus at 10:30 which seemed to stop really everywhere picking up lots of people with numerous bags, kids and luckily no livestock. Finally arrived in Chivay at 13:10, an amazing 2:40 hours for the fourtysomething km distance, and booked the next bus leaving at 14:30 for Arequipa.
Initially this seemed like a good option until we were overtaken by the Audiencia Real bus which had left half an hour after us. So when we finally pulled into the bus station at around 6:30 I was slightly worried as I still needed to pick up my backpack from the Hotel Real and make it to the airport by around 7pm, an impossible schedule as I was informed by a very nice 70 year old ex-policeman taxi driver, who then did his best to get me to airport as quickly as possible.
In the end everything worked out fine and I easily made the evening LanPeru flight to Lima, where I almost immediately had to face the challenge of withdrawing money as I had practically run out of Nuevo Sols.
The rather unpleasant evening in Lima started off with the ATM informing me that my EC card had expired, I then caught a licensed cab to a recommended hotel which set me back an extortionate US$10 for the cab and US$30 for the Hotel Rosas. Which in all fairness was probably not a bad price for the fairly new and safe hotel, yet I had been looking for a more reasonable alternative to spend the 5 hours which I had in Lima before heading back to the airport at 5am for my flight to Iquitos.
After my VISA card had also been unreadable at the Hotel the string of unpleasant surprises finally came to an end when I managed to withdraw some money on that card at a nearby shopping centre. With my financial woes finally sorted out I headed back to the hotel past a huge variety of bars and night clubs for another very short night.
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| Piscina Hostal Paraiso |
Piscina Hostal Paraiso |
"Oasis" Abajo |
"Oasis" al Fondo |
Niņa cerca de Chivay |
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| Welcome to the Jungle |
Sun 6/04/03 |
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Taxied back to a surprisingly busy airport at 4:55am and checked into my 7am Aero Continente flight to Iquitos with plenty of time to spare. The airline's fleet seems to consist entirely of old Boeing 737 aircraft which reminded me a bit of the local carriers that I had seen operating between the Hawaiian islands.
Arrived with little delay after a 1:30 hour flight in the steaming hot Amazonas town of Iquitos, where I was met at the airport by José the guide for the jungle tour. We took a mototaxi into town, which is the predominant mode of public transport in Iquitos, and after some d-tours due to road closures finally arrived at the "Green Travels" Office. The latter company or rather their guide José had been recommended to Celine, who was also on the tour together a Norwegian guy, who would be joining us for the first two days.
After paying a painfully expensive US$140 and some last minute shopping we were off in a small speedboat up the Amazonas and later the Black River - "Yanayacu" (owing it's name to the decomposing leaves, resulting in a dark colour) to the "Green Travels Jungle Lodge" (All tour operators seem to have their own) located about 140km upstream from Iquitos.
At the end of the 3 hour boat ride we were served a very good lunch at the lodge before heading out into the water logged swamp, with the somewhat vain hope of catching Piranhas for supper.
Right after having sat down in the boat I had to acknowledge that the abundant mosquitos seemed to have no problem with biting through trousers and other clothing so quickly proceeded to cover the textiles with a strong and efficient mosquito repellent.
During our trip saw a small pack of monkeys and many interestingly coloured bird species, before starting to cast our fishing rods into the dark waters which in the end only yielded a couple of tiny fish including a small to medium Piranha that our local guide Jairo had caught.
After sunset explored the seemingly stagnant rivers looking for the red eyes of Caimans and water snakes in the shelf with torches. On the way back found a "sleeping" Kingfisher which was promptly removed from it's branch and demonstrated before being let go again. (I wondered wether this bird would suffer any lasting damage from this incident)
Returned to the lodge for some more great food and some local beers - salut.
| Jungle Tour - Day 2 |
Mon 7/04/03 |
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Started off early on a birdwatching exhibition which was called off at the last minute due to an intense downpour, a wise decision as the heavy rain lasted for almost an hour.
So after some more rest the rain died down and we headed out in the small canoe to look at more wildlife and a large waterlily with a diameter of about 2 metres.
Then embarked on a tour of the jungle surrounding the lodge looking at huge frogs, various medicinal or poisonous plants and trees as well as huge ant hills and their inhabitants. Then tried the Tarzan style liane swing and ate of some small white worms found in coconut type fruits - they taste like nothing much, except a slight coconut aftertaste.
Our Norwegian companion left us after a lunch stop at the lodge and Celine and I spent the afternoon looking to the local village San Juan de Yanayacu, with it's football field, pharmacy (sort of), and primary school. Tried some more interesting fruits which were sold in the village and watched a magnificent sunset before we set out by canoe again to try and catch a Caiman.
After lots of looking we finally came across one which was slightly hurt in the process of being captured by Jairo, so he ended up getting a ride back to the lodge where he would be kept until he recovered or would be eaten... The whole experience didn't really make for an enjoyable one but the local guides had not really left the impression of being overly concerned about the wellbeing of the animals, despite them constituting part of their livelihood.
| A Fun Ride Back - Day 3 |
Tue 8/04/03 |
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Set out at about 7am and saw some more wildlife before exploring a different part of the jungle on foot which brought about some more culinary delights in form of a fruit which almost had a white fish like consistency and a small type of coconut.
Had another great lunch at the Lodge on return and then started to make our way back to Iquitos in the fast boat. The speed of the boat was somewhat compromised by the engine overheating after having been trapped in the dense floating water plants, so whilst our captain started to take the engine apart we paddled and drifted along, only getting a short glimpse at the sweet water dolphins.
To my surprise the engine started to work again, yet seemingly trust in the motor was not entirely restored as we rode the thing back without the outer covering, making the return a rather noisy ride.
Got back in time for Celine's flight that evening and even had time to drop my stuff off at a local hospedaje and go out for a good bye drink as a group.
In the evening met up again with José and went to a "Video Pub", a horribly tacky and locally popular type of bar which basically consists of a large room painted in dark colours with some neon writing or paintings to lighten up the walls and a TV which shows music videos. On occasion people then get up to dance with or without their friends in front of the television...
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Green Travels Jungle Lodge
San Juan de Yanayacu |
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| Rio Yanayacu |
Rio Yanayacu |
Mangrove Tree |
Firefly |
Celine with Eliconia Plant |
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| Jairo with Large Frog |
Large Frog |
Large Frog |
Ant Hill |
Niņo with Caiman Skull |
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| Tucan in Village |
Celine with Facepaint |
Jose with Anaconda |
Richard with Anaconda |
Sunset at Lodge |
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| Sunset at Village |
Sunset at Village |
Sunset at Village |
Sunset at Village |
Tarantula |
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| Green Travel Lodge - Group |
Caiman in Boat |
Richard at Lodge with Caiman |
Jungle View from Boat |
Tree Snake |
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| 360 pano of Jungle |
Tin House by Eiffel in Iquitos |
Derelict Hospital |
Building Iquitos |
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Read more about Iquitos, Lima and Huaraz in part II
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