A Whole New Horizon

Hey guys.
Sorry it's been a while but things have been crazy.

I guess I should start off by telling you all about the end of our time in San Pedro.

San Pedro de Atacama

We visited the Valle de la Luna one day, so called because it looks like the surface of the moon. We had to go through a dark cave which was a bit freaky. The guide said there were no lights so that it would be more of an adventure... So I took out my torch. I hate caves! But it wasn't for too long so it was alright. We climbed some rocks that were made entirely of salt. In fact there were intire hills that looked like rock but were actually salt covered in dirt. Because it hardly ever rains they stay dirty. We visited the grand dune, which was a huge 50m high sand dune. It was a pretty cool viewpoint. The wind would blow sand and it would really hurt your skin. We also visited Valle de la Muerte, which was supposed to be called Mars Valley but the local people didn't understand the Frenchman who said 'Mars' in French, they heard 'muerte'.

la cordillera del sal 

the great sand dune

sunset over Valle de la Muerte

Our last two days in San Pedro were spent in a lazy haze of walking around the village, plannng bike trips but not going on them because we were chatting to people in our hostel too much. We met some really lovely people. On our last night we had just had a big dinner of pasta, when we were told that the owners wanted to throw an asado for us seeing as we were leaving. Thanks to several months of living in Chile our stomaches have expanded enough that we were able to force some food down.

Arica

We arrived in Arica and walked up the big hill there called 'el morro'. It gave us a great view of Arica. It's like the city is built in a valley, with big hills on either side. Saw lots of birds flying below us. We walked to the docks and saw lots of crabs, turkey vultures, seals and other birds. Amina has a thing about dead animals and made me take a picture of them all. This was sad when we saw a dead baby seal being eaten by the vultures.

Arica

The Pacific again

So much fruit!

We found the scariest family of manikins ever

"Why did the vultures have to eat the seal?!"

We found a desert puddle

We chatted to people in the hostel, I now know all about how trains work in Germany and where not to stand if you don't want to die in a train crash. We had some evening walks along the beach and saw the pelicans flying in the sunset. It was really funny to walk by the fish market and see the pelicans standing on the roof and being chased away from the fish.

Peru

I should probably mention that our plans changed in San Pedro. Meeting so many travellers that have been places we decided we just couldn't ignore thie country. So we moved back all our Bolivia hostel bookings and got on the first bus to Arequipa. Crossing into Peru was quite easy. We took a taxi from Arica to Tacna, stopping at the border on the way. We had to eat all our fruit standing in the customs queue. When we asked our taxi driver what we should do with our oregano, he said to put it down our trousers. 

In Tacna we had our first experience of Peru. First it is quite noticeable the difference in the econemy. Everything was just not as nice as in Chile and things were a lot cheaper. Lots of ladies were in the traditional dress which is really cute. Skirt, socks, top, cardi, hair in plaits and a hat. And we saw lots of people carrying stuff on their backs by tying a blanket around their necks.

 The bus to Arequpia was quite long. We didn't leave until an hour after we were supposed to, and the bus was searched three times on our journey bus customs officers. Apparently some people hadn't declared some new clothes or something. Bus driver in Peru are insane. It was pretty scary because we were sitting at the front and could see everything that was happening. Basically he had to overtake every vehicle that was in front of us. Sometimes you wouldn't be able to see around the corner and didn't know if there was traffic coming, but they would overtake anyway. Freaky.

Arequipa

We arrived in Arequipa around 10pm and it was raining. It was glorious! After two weeks in the desert you miss the cold and wet. So soothing for the soul. Took a taxi to our hostel and settled in. The next day we explored the city. The roads are full of taxis, there's basically nothing else. Makes it really easy to get around. The central plaza was really pretty and full of pigeons. We met up with some friends by chance and went out for lunch together. Me and Amina shared a meal of rice and chicken, while our friends had guinea pig! In mind of trying new things I tried a little bit. It was quite tasty, quite like chicken, but I could just feel Maisie turning in her little grave. 

Cathedral 

Guinea Pig :(

The highlight of our time in Arequipa was our trip to the Colca Canyon. At 4.5km deep it's the deepest canyon in the world (although not as striaght down as the Grand Canyon). We went on a trekking tour down the canyon. It was so beautiful. Very green which was a nice break from the desert landscape we'd been in for a while. There were six in our tour group and the guide and they were all lovely. We managed to get down the canyon in two hours which is 2km (seeing a condor on the way) and had a break to recover from our shaky legs. Then we walked a little bit uphill to get to a little village for lunch. I comp`letely forgot about the altitude we were at (around 4200m I think) and I tried to keep up with our guide. I was dead after 10 steps. You really have to go slow at that altitude. We had rice and alpacca meat for lunch and after resting for a while we continued on. The rest of the days trek was a mixture of flat and uphill. It was a bit freaky at times walking along and peering down the steep slope right next to you. I'm glad no one fell. We spent the night in an 'oasis' hostel which was really nice. Our room was lit by candlelight.

The next day we climbed out of the canyon. It took me just under three hours to make it up to the top. It was such hard work! I didn't think I could make it at one point but by resting a lot I made it. It got harder the further up you got as the altitude was higher. I think at the top the altitude was 4800 metres above sea level. We had breakfast in a small village and then started driving back to Arequipa. Along the way we stopped quite a few times to see things. One time it was to see the Inca terraces that are still being cultivated. It's really hard to describe the valley because it was just so huge. And long. You would stand there and be completely surrounded by hills and greenery and then in front of you was just this huge drop. So pretty.

Another time we stopped at 4900m up to have a snowball fight. We stopped in a little village to get photos with an eagle on our heads and we also went to a natural hot spring swimming pool. This was really nice and we used it as an opportunity to stretch our muscles and relax a bit. Lastly we stopped in a reserve and saw lots of llamas and alpaccas. They are so cute!

The Inca terraces

(If you think that's a lot of photos you should see how many I have on my camera.)

We're currently in Cuzco. We've explored a bit today and bought some mangoes. They are so cheap here! Cheaper than apples. I think we're just going to live on them. We went to a kareoke bar last night with an Australian guy which was fun, though Amina didn't sing. She did beat us both at darts though.

Really excited because we're heading to Aguas Calientes tomorrow and the day after we're going to Machu Picchu! I'll tell you all about it when we get back.