Cusco & Colca Canyon

This part of the trip wasn't too fun for us both and (touch wood) it was the only part that went wrong. Touching down from Puerto Maldonado heading back to Cusco, I took a turn for the worse on our flight and just before landing suffered from a convulsion. This set us back by a few days and after a few days of resting, filling in numerous forms, skyping home and being in hospital I began to feel much better. 

We hadn't really written about Cusco yet, but we were there before the Inca Trail and the Amazon so we had seen the little city inside out! It was a lovely place, with many squares (plazas) to watch the world go around with a coffee and see the beautiful architecture it had to offer. It had a chocolate museum, Inca museums (we will let you guess which we thought was better), a Peruvian version of Christ the Redeemer (which was smaller and white), many restaurants, many hostels and a few Peruvian children with sheep that you could have your picture with. Oh and a 8 cornered or sided or something rock. Something that seemed to be a big deal, but really, really wasn't. We also saw my friend from college, Louise and her boyfriend Darren and did a bit of Alpaca shopping.. Not the animals, things made from the fur. It was a nice middle stop between all our bigger adventures. 

Not wanting this to ruining the trip, after a few extra days spent in Cusco to rest up, we made our way by an 11 hour bus to Arequipa. It was here that we went on our second trek, this on to the Colca Canyon. This was the home of many condors, the biggest flying bird in the world. The trek was over three days and we had another wonderful group who we trekked with. The trek began with an early 3am (3.30am Peruvian time) pick up to see the condors move from the morning and migrate. These birds were absolutely huge and were a little terrifying to watch circle over us, but after being informed that they were scavengers and only fed on already dead animals, we were okay. 

The start of the trek was a downhill walk right into the canyon, along the way we were greeted by the sounds of the river and a small waterfall and we had spectacular views throughout the trek. We got to a cute little village that was really only made up of the hostel that we were staying in and a couple similar occupancies, here we were told that was all the walking for the day. We enjoyed a delicious lunch, possibly a small nap and then dinner before going back to bed. That day was pretty wild. 

The first day had been a tough walk for me coming out of hospital only a few days earlier but the second day was our favourite. This was through the bottom of the canyon so no tough climbing or knee burning descents, just really walking along the river, ending in the next hostel after a few hours. Once there the boys were challenged to a 'Rest of the World' vs. Peru football match by some of the locals, suffering a highly contentious loss of 9-10 before a dip in the pool and a traditional (and unusual) Easter weekend Peruvian dinner of fish egg soup, which wasn't our favourite dinner and was probably the worst dinner we had have all trip! The only option was to take advantage of happy hour ($1.50 mojitos) and learn a new Islamic card game called Cambio before bed, ready for the hardest day of trekking. 

The last day was all up hill back to the top of the Canyon, which was a tough hike starting at 5am. With the promise of breakfast at the top and hot springs to relax in after, we had something good to aim for! The walk was hard but the view was amazing, going further up the canyon meant we could see all the way down into it from the top and watch the condors circle looking for meat. Determined not to take a donkey up to the top, which was an option for people who didn't fancy the rest of the trek we made it to the end with team condor - the rest of our group and we had never been so happy to see scrambled eggs and toast!

After munching away breakfast, we ended our trek in the hot springs, which were in the middle of the valley, creating a spectacular background whilst in the water. With the sun itself almost being as hot as the springs, a run to the river to cool down before dipping into the springs was needed. We then all hopped into the mini bus, ready to get back to our beds before our next adventure, as we neared the end of our time in Peru. 

The Amazon Jungle

Puerto Maldonado, Peru

Our plane touched down in Puerto Maldonado to chaos. The port way to our Amazon adventure was a small town which had been rioting for a few days. Walking out of the airport we hopped in a tuk-tuk to go to our hostel and a little way down the road our driver turned around to take a longer route after seeing hundreds of people lining the street we needed to take, Georgie and I looked at each other, wondering what we had let ourselves in for. We got to the hostel with little hassle though and things could have been far worse, a couple who arrived there shortly after we did had to deal with their driver demanding double the previously agreed fee after also taking the long way around. Talk about extortion. Unable to speak adequate Spanish to confidently diffuse the situation, they turned to the hostel owner behind the check-in desk who shrugged and said "well with the riots I can understand it, it is a dangerous time for them, they shouldn't really be working."

 I'm sure Puerto Maldonado is a very nice town normally, primarily used as a gateway to the Amazon by fellow travellers, the scenery and weather were fantastic but, unfortunately we arrived at a time when most of the locals were protesting new laws that the Peruvian government had put in place -whereby everyone who mines in the Amazon would need to be registered. For this they have to pay a large amount and their argument is that if they can't afford to register they will be out of work. The sad thing is that the sheer amount of illegal mining going on is destroying parts of the jungle. Once checked in we grabbed a quick lunch in the only restaurant around us that was open because of the riots of Chicken, cooked with Passion Fruit sauce for Georgie and coconut husk sauce for me. Different, but both very nice. With no shops or tour operators open and the two of us needing to while a day away before our pre-booked trip in to the rainforest, the rest of the day was spent in hammocks. Oh the joys of travelling.

Wildlife watch day 1: bugs, tons and tons of bugs. I also spotted a humming bird while G was resting in her hammock.

The next day we were off in to the rainforest. A 20 minute boat trip down river led us to our getaway for the next few days, Inkaterra, a beautiful ecolodge, with amazing butler service and anything you needed plus a pet baby piglet! Also where we were told Mick Jagger had stayed last year (and that his girlfriend had ordered no females could work for the duration of their stay -this is what we were told, anyway). Upon our arrival we were treated to a welcome drink of refreshing lemonade (the lemons for which were grown on site) and briefed about the excursions we'd get to enjoy during our stay. After this we went on a short walk through the rainforest and were shown what to touch and what not to touch, the list for the latter was considerably longer. Here we saw fire ants, birds and lots of various plants. That night we had a pisco sour on the house before getting on to a boat to do a night time wildlife watch. On this little trip we saw caymans, heron and a night bird that was trying to sleep that our tour guide woke up pointing a huge light at for five minutes. The bird was not happy and soon flew off for some peace and quiet. On our walk back to the lodge we spotted a snake cross our path. With our tour guide nowhere in sight we took a photo and later asked him what it was. "Poisonous." He replied.
We then enjoyed a delicious steak before heading to an early bed for an early rise.

Wildlife watch day 2: fire ants, cayman, heron, deadly snake and angry sleepy bird.

Day 3 was started with a 5AM wake up call. We were then served a buffet breakfast and I feel we need to mention that there was bacon - something we had both been craving since leaving England. For us, this was a big deal.
While we were eating our breakfast a group of monkeys swung past the window.
So after almost all the bacon on the buffet had been consumed we headed out for our morning excursion to Lake Sandoval. Here we had to hike an hour through a nature reserve where we saw squirrels, howler monkeys, squirrel monkeys, a tarantula and one of the most dangerous animals you are ever likely to come across in the wild, the bullet ant. You may read this and think I'm kidding and ask "how dangerous can an ant be?", well the bullet ant is named such because being bitten by one has been likened to getting shot, that's how much it hurts.
After the hike we hopped in a canoe and went out on Lake Sandoval where we saw bats climbing trees and more birds, monkeys and cayman. After this we headed back to the lodge for lunch before heading up to the treetops for a canopy walk. The idea was to enable us to see the wildlife that lives higher up than is possible to see from just walking through the base of the rainforest. We, however, saw squat.
The rickety walkways made the event more of a challenge to just get across and we were only allowed to go one at a time as they were so weak so we were pretty scared. We were shown a room that is available to rent out up there though that costs $1000 a night and you get butler service and dinner in the treetops. All very nice but Georgie and I both agreed that we wouldn't be able to sleep as we'd be too scared of the floor giving way in the middle of the night!
Afterwards we headed back to the lodge where our evening activity was a night walk through the rainforest. Here we saw loads of creepie-crawlies. Loads of poisonous spiders, more birds, bullet ants and bats. This was when we had to be most careful of where we were treading as all sorts of dangers could have been lurking underfoot.

Wildlife watch day 3: monkeys, squirrels, monkeys, tarantula, bullet ants, birds, monkeys and cayman.

And with that, our final excursion in to the rainforest was done, we got up the next morning and took the 20 minute boat ride back up the river to Puerto Maldonado where we were dumped back in to the chaos by our tour company. This is where I have my only complaint of the whole experience. We had no idea what we were coming back to, no shops or restaurants were open and no taxis were running services to or from the airport. While the rest of our group went straight to the airport in transport organised by Inkaterra but our flight not until the next day we were left to fend for ourselves. Luckily our hostel found us an open cafe to eat at and this was quite an experience. The sort of place the locals go where no English is spoken, we just pointed at other peoples food to order and hoped we were understood. On our walk back to the hostel we saw loads of protesters setting fire to things and turning tuk-tuks on their sides.
We then spent the night in the hostel too scared to venture out, hoping things would be calmer by the morning. Sadly they weren't and after the hostel rang three taxi companies to try and get us to the airport we finally got a lift. Only instead of a taxi turning up to collect us, a couple on scooters did and we had another adventure in store. Winding down side roads and avoiding the crowds of protesters, we frequently had to turn back to find another way around for the the swathes of people or fallen telephone poles. It was a challenging journey for all as we had to keep our big rucksacks on our backs which meant my abs got a work out every time we accelerated as I tried to keep my body upright. We arrived at the airport and I felt I'd done a gym workout, but we were there and our Amazon adventure was over.