Peru: Arequipa, Colca, Misti, Cusco, Machu & Manu

Hello All,
From Copacabana it was on to southern Peru, to Arequipa. The buildings in its city center are made out of huge blocks of sillar volcanic stone. In fact, the whole region is volcanic. The city sits at the heels of El Misti, which is due for an eruption any day now.

Our friend Cody convinced us to hike for a couple days into nearby Colca Canyon, one of the deepest in the world (which is next to the Ampato volcano where the famous Inca ice maiden Juanita was found. you can visit her now in her little temperature and light controlled box, and have the guide squwak at you that she´s not a mummy because she still has internal organs. Darryl just calls her the frozen popcicle).

We took a bus to Cabanaconde, a village on the edge of the canyon and spent the night there so we could get an early start.

Those smiles are fake. The sun´s barely up, it´s too damn early for hiking.

Colca Canyon, as Darryl contemplates, is twice as deep as the Grand Canyon.

We found an oasis at the bottom, tended by Steve the alpaca (proficient in both upkeep of lawns & spitting on tourists).

The following morning was a dark 4:30 start using head torches to arrive at the rim by 8:30 & catch the bus back to Arequipa. Once there we alternately rested (watching the olympics) and ate & loitered with our friends Cody, Rob & Saskia, Nick & Sheryl and Louise & Louie. Darryl also did some construction work at the school where Rob & Saskia teach local kids.

Our next trek was up El Misti. Its summit sits at 5800m or 19,000ft. And up until about 4000m, it was covered in wildflowers.

It took one day to trudge up to base camp. We set up, ate dinner, watched the sun set and jumped into our sleeping bags as the temperature plummeted.

Our guide woke us up at 1:00am to have some coca tea and start the climb up a rocky ridge to the summit. Arequipa´s electricity and a partial moon lit the way until the sun came up and cast Misti´s shadow far below us.

Misti is actually a straightforward climb, just steep. The altitude makes it difficult. Darryl is a phenomenon and could have made it to the top in record time, but generously hung back with the pale & blue-lipped slow poke who kept wanting to lie down and pass out.

There´s a sulfurous smoking crater at the top, where we took a nap for an hour before making the descent.

This is the best part of the trek, because after a 12 hour ascent it only takes 3 hours to run down the scree to the bottom.

The next stop for us was Cusco, us and every other backpacker in S America. Suddenly we became uncharacteristically efficient in an effort to get in and out as fast as possible.

Cuzco is a beautiful city built on solid Inca foundations. The Spanish stonework is appalingly inferior to the Incas and locals like to tell the joke that the Incas were 'capaz'(means capable) and the Spanish were 'inca-paz'(means retarded).

A good place to see the difference is Qorikancha, the sun temple, religious center of the Inca empire.

Machu Picchu became a mission to see how quickly we could experience it. Bus, train and leg power got us in and out in under 48 hours. It lived up to both our ideas about it, spectacular even though it´s a circus.

We thought we were clever to get up at 5 & catch the first bus from Aguas Calientes. But at the bus stop 200 people were already lined up, it´s all organised and efficient though with at least 20 buses arriving on time to whisk the masses away at 6.
Once at the top we rushed to wait in the next line to climb Huayna Picchu. We were 196 in the 1st group of 200. Only 400 are allowed to climb it each day.

The Temple of the Moon sits on the other side of Huayna Picchu, consisting of overgrown ruins set around several caves.

Next day we were off to the Manu Biosphere Reserve in the Amazon lowlands for a week. We boated up the Madre de Dios river to different jungle lodges, lakes and licks.

The macaw clay lick was on the first day. There were hundreds of red & green macaws, blue headed parrots & mealy parrots squawking as the sun came up.

We saw a tapir munch its way through the mammal lick the following night. They´re the biggest mammals in the rainforest and interested mostly in eating leaves. Tapirs are gentle herbivores but continue to be hunted for their meat.

The next day we saw giant otters (a large family with 2 babies), endangered, but starting to recover there again in the oxbow lakes of Manu.

We also saw a ton of beautiful plants & insects during night & day walks.

And got a chance to swing on vines, punt on lakes, eat wild cacao & watch toucans from a 40 meter platform in a Kapok tree.

Every day there was something new to see, and our guide (Juan de la Selva) spotted a 3 toed sloth with a baby clasping her back on the next.

Also 8 species of monkeys including Red Howlers, the rare Monk Saki, Brown Capuchins, Black Spiders, Squirrel Monkeys, Wooly Monkeys, the Dusky Titi and the Saddleback. Some sat still and watched us from the treetops.

Howlers

Monk Sakis

One of the last nights we spent on a leaky catamaran in the dark looking for black caiman. Our guide caught (carefully) two babies so we could have a closer look.

It was difficult to leave the jungle but there´s always the next trek to do. . .

Love, d&j

Bolivia, La Coca No Es Droga

Hello All,

After an unexpected week in Santa Cruz, experiencing all the joys food poisoning has to offer, we made our way to Parque Ambue Ari, part of the Inti Wara Yassi volunteer organisation. We had no idea if we were on the way to the right place as directions and our chosen bus company were vague at best.

Ambue Ari is a rescue and rehabilitation center for Bolivian animals that have run into trouble due to human ignorance. At the park volunteers and Bolivian full time workers, which included two vets, look after more than 20 cats(including jaguars, pumas, ocelots & one lion), several monkeys, a tapir, two deer, two collared peccaries, two coatis and heaps of beautiful birds.

Peepshow Pete, waiting for breakfast

The living is basic. No electricty, dorm or tent style habitation, zero privacy, laundry done by hand(not often), 3 meals per day(including potatoes, rice & pasta in various combinations), a poop hole, and the occassional break-in of your backpack by either the monkey Faustino or Mimi & Tess the crafty coati theives.

Home

Communal laundry area, where wild squirrel monkeys came to visit on occassion

Obviously we did arrive, and started work the morning after. Darryl agreed to look after 3 beautiful puma sisters, aptly named Inti, Wara & Yassi, on a daily basis.
Inti (Darryl´s favorite)

The sisters down at the river

Wara & Yassi in their enclosure

I was asked to care for Katie the 3 year old jaguar, taking her on 2 daily walks, cleaning the platforms in her enclosure-which was massive, and feeding her a kilo and a half of meat per day. This is Katie (on her favorite log) with Daniel and Lisa, who trained me to work with her

And this is Katie intently watching the capuchin monkeys taunting her from the trees

Napping on her trail on a hot day

We stayed for a month, working seven days a week, also doing construction on two new enclosures for Nico and Leoncio, two pumas coming from their other park. The work also included looking after the 'house animals' each morning which included the parabas(macaws), toucans(blue ninjas!), amazonas(parrots), pios(rheas), Faustino, chancos(wild pigs), Herbie the tapir, and Bambi & Rudolfo the deer. Darryl fell in love with two monkeys he looked after as well, Rumi a small red howler and Talia, a black howler.

Bambi, Rudolpho, Herbie & Gachi

Faustino, Red Howler & generally grouchy old man who nevertheless likes a lot of attention

Blue ninja living up to his name, biding his time for the attack

The ever-curious pios

Chancho getting a scratch

The animals are treated with great care and all their needs are promptly looked after by the volunteers and permanent workers. We met some amazing people there as well, which we will be coming to visit someday. Look out!

Fiona & Ian de Leeds, at the Santa Maria porn bar

Darryl & the lovely Lupe, one of the vets(who fixed volunteers as well)

Loitering around camp, waiting for dinner, Tess looks for food in Rob´s guitar

Hitchhiking was the easiest way to get to the closest village 10 minutes away.

Portia and I getting windblown on the back of a Bolivian lorry

Another night at the porn bar with the lovely Ian, Georgie, Dave, Fiona, Lois & Kate

Samiapata was a quick stop before leaving Santa Cruz for La Paz. It´s near the jungles where Che Guevarra met his end.

La Paz is the other capital of Bolivia. It has a more official feel than Sucre and a lot more people living in its valley surrounded by high mountains. Much like Rio de Janeiro, the rich people live down at the bottom and the poor people carve their houses into the hills. So the rich sit in more smog and the poor get the good views, seems like some kind of sweet justice.

La Paz was full of markets, murals and angry demonstrations/protests/blockades, a microcosm of the rest of Bolilvia-which forced us to calculate a new ratio, 10% safety 40% general political unrest, 50% altitude.

One excursion from La Paz is Death Road, which runs from La Cumbre to Coroico. It´s a 3.6 km vertical descent from snow-covered mountains down to hot steamy jungle on a road the Inter-American Development Bank declared "The Worlds Most Dangerous". A name like that sticks and for some reason gringos flock to it; you don´t see any Bolivians on the road, other than the ones that have to use it. The first hours are on pavement, so the guides can watch new riders and subsequently weed out the weak.

Eventually you come to the narrow dirt road with sheer drop offs and still visible car wrecks at the bottom. You can´t look over the side when you´re riding because the bike follows your line of vision, so everything goes by in a blur until you can get to a rest stop and actually see how close you were to falling off a ridiculously high cliff.

Set in the jungle and pampas, Rurrenabaque is either a 45 minute flight or 18 hour bus ride from La Paz. Dodgy plane versus dodgy bus, always a difficult decision. Plane won a victory in a heated rock paper sciccors game. From there it was a 3 day tour with Darryl´s long lost friend Nick, into the pampas to catch & eat a couple pirhannas and pester a few anacondas with guide, Negro.

Edging ever closer to the border with Peru, Copacabana was a mere 3 hours away from La Paz. It sits on the edge of Lake Titicaca, which is not a bad view from the Horca del Inca.

Every morning at the Copa basillica, decorated cars line the street in front of it to be blessed by the priest. Followed by a celebration with exploding beer.

Titicaca sunset, out of breath from climbing up yet another hill

Isla Del Sol is where the Incas believed the sun god was created. After a tortuously slow boat ride to get there we explored some of the ruins like Chicana, a building that would be easy to get lost in except it doesn´t have a roof anymore and thankfully the Incas were pretty short.

We walked for a few hours to get from the north of the island to the south, getting taxed at every step by random yet friendly Bolvians saying they needed money for trail "upkeep".

On the day of the Bolivian recall referendum(which President Evo won), borders were shut, so there was an extra day to row out to the reed islands.

On to Peru.

Love d&j