Bear and Jackie’s Travel Diary

Our 5 week stay in this crazy place is coming to an end. It more than served its purpose of providing us a cheap, relaxing place to stay over Xmas and New Year. New friends made, colossal amounts of fun had!!

Xmas dinner was a predictably raucous affair. Roast chicken replaced traditional turkey, Pisco replaced mulled wine and the veggos provided Polish mushroom dumplings. Yummy

We saw in the New Year from Aqua, one of our favourite bars. Michelada Inferno is beer, mixed with lime juice, salt, Worcester Sauce and chilli! What could possibly go wrong?

A lighthouse overlooks Mancora’s crazy, surreal environment. Where better to enjoy sunset and a sandstorm? The 3 story white building is our Airbnb.

Mrs O taking some time out to knock up a few bracelets. No idea when we will get these in the post, nearest post office is hours away!

When you are blessed with miles of virtually deserted beaches, we decided to go for a long wander and take in some of the swanky end of town. Rude not to blow the froth off a couple whilst we were there

This one has a thong Xmas tree!!

Sunsets here have been consistently awe inspiring to enjoy as the heat of the day subsides.

Back on the bus next for the long run to Guayaquil in Ecuador. This will be our launch point to the Galapagos Islands, a massive, dream bucket list must for us both. Can’t wait

40 minutes in a Tuk Tuk into the middle of the desert and you find….

WTF? A bubbling hot spring! Not a soul here when we arrived. Our Tuk Tuk driver dropped us off and waited for us.

Loving Mancora xx

Mancora is one of Peru’s top resorts Think desert meets beach, bung in a few restaurants and hotels. Add a sprinkle of Mad Max and you are here

Food here is crazy and awesome. Cheaper to eat out than DIY. AU$80 for a turkey? I think not! Will be grabbing a chook.

Put a few lights up in our pad



Have knocked up a spot of gravy, even if a few of the ingredients look unusual!

Have vegetarians joining us for Xmas dinner, may be a touch awkward.

Bloody oath mate!

Peru Hopping!!!

Spent about a week traveling by bus from Bolivia to our new home in Mancora near the Ecuador border.  Many hours on buses, some awesome places and people, much fun had.

Bus gets on a raft to cross Lake Titicaca!

Isla del Sol

Unbelievable hostel in Arequipa! “Youth Hostels are for Youths Mum!” Not this one

Started looking like Coco the Clown’s demented dad so time for a trim!!

Dune Buggies around the Oasis in Huacachina. Surfed down the dunes on snowboards, too much fun

Jackie not convinced by the Nazca Lines! Kinda pleased that we didn’t splash out on a flight for a better view! Never forget what the Greenpeace dickheads did here!!

Eating again

Jackie’s mates in Paracas

Crazy, desert meets ocean

If you have to spend 19 hours on a bus, grab a bottle of port and hop on one of these puppies!

In Mancora now, Peru’s answer to Manly! Mad Max meets Sydney.

OMG!

This 3 day 2 night adventure blew our minds. The scenery was spectacular. Time to show you some wacky pictures!!

Salt walls on our hotel and coca leaves for brekky!

Highly sensible behaviour here, walking through super heated sulphurous steam!

An ‘island’ in the Salt Flats full of giant cacti

Lakes full of flamingoes, canyons full of llama surrounded by volcanoes

 

We had a heap of fun on our last night in the Salt Flats, slurping beers with new friends in hot springs under a sky full of stars, magical. 3 weeks above 3000m most of Bolivia above 4000. Looking forward to seeing the sea in a couple of weeks!

We crossed the border on foot having been evicted from our bus!!

Then boarded another bus which took us to Copacabana a small, lazy beach town, where we stopped for pizza before we headed off for La Paz.

We arrived in La Paz around midnight, dropped off our rucksacks in the hostel and headed to the bar for a free beer! At the bar we met a couple who had been on our bus and we hit it off over several more beers!

La Paz is a very poor city, the people appear to have given up hope! The political situation is a shambles. We did a walking tour of the city and listened to mad Dave a previous inmate of the infamous San Pedro prison, his stories were erratic but fascinating to actually be sitting outside the prison and hearing his tales!

We didnt dare take a picture of mad Dave or the prison! We were warned that touts still try and persuade innocent tourists to take guided tours of the prison! But after hearing of rape and mysterious diappearances we were not inclined!!

We have however downloaded the true story “Marching Powder” to get a clearer understanding of life inside San Pedro.

Onwards to the Salt Flats……..

Found ourselves in Puno on the way to Bolivia for a few hours so hopped onto a boat to check out the floating islands. I thought that maintaining a pool and sweeping up leaves was hard work! Thankfully the house didn’t sink if I missed a week or two! Sadly, despite the tedious maintenance and traditional reed boats, many areas are only really here for the tourists.

La Paz, Bolivia and the Salt Flats next

Cusco is an awesome town but it is time to move on. Jumping onto a bus tonight for the long drive to Lake Titicaca then onwards to Bolivia and the Salt Flats of Uyuni. Some photos here of the Witches Markets with the traditional dried llama fetuses that they put in the foundations of new buildings, some highly suspect looking roast Guinea pigs, (Cuy), and a few other market morsels!

We had a glorious night in a hotel in Aguas Calientes, where we showered for the first time in five days!! Then met the group for our last dinner!! Early start 03:30am to reach what we had trekked so far to see. Machu Picchu was now only a matter of hours away!!

We were one the first groups to go through the entry of Machu Picchu, hence you can see by our pictures no-one around. It was an amazing experience to wander around these grand mysterious ruins.

Built in the 15th century and later abandoned, the history of Machu Picchu and what it’s function was, remains hotly disputed amongst archaeologists and historians. However one thing is for sure, the essential magnificence and mystical majesty of Machu Picchu is undeniable.

Four days, four nights, 100km to cover at altitudes up to 15000 feet. We had 4 days in Cusco to acclimatise to the altitude, just walking up the hill to the hostel at 11000 feet had us both panting in the thin air. What could possibly go wrong?

Day 1

4am start and a 3 hour drive to the start point and a fairly easy 3 hour hike to our first camp site

Lunch followed by a siesta then a distinctly less easy climb to Humantay Lake at almost 14000 feet. This climb is used to give an indication of how we would cope with the high pass on day 2. Yippee, the rest of the group were all under 30 and shot off at a near trot! Still full from lunch and chomping on mouthfuls of coca leaves, we completed the climb in about an hour. The lake at the top, utterly spectacular, time for a few awesome photos and a few more leaves before trying to beat the approaching storm back to the camp site.

Calling the Sky Lodges a camp site is not strictly accurate. Massive glass roofed domes with a double bed, comfy mattress and sleeping bags rated to minus 18.

We 

Everyone knackered, in bed by about 8pm!

Day 2

Coca Tea at 4.30am and the obligatory altitude sickness checks

Brekky and straight into the brutal climb up Salkantay Mountain. Nobody made the overeating errors of day 1! 12900 feet to 15200 feet doesn’t sound too bad if you say it quickly. The reality is a little more challenging including the trail of the 7 snakes. We counted 11 of the buggers. The last few hundred metres is known as the Gringo Killer. It didn’t, but there was plenty of huffing and puffing and a few more chomps on the friendly leaves!

Getting down probably worse than the climb. Steep, slippery descent down a rocky path we finally made it to camp 2. Dinner was a struggle followed by early bed for all!

Day 3

4.30 am Coca Tea and a gentle 20 odd km stroll following the river to camp 3

3pm arrival at camp 3 meant an afternoon at the hot springs which turned into an impromptu drinking session! Possibly not the wisest of choices when facing a massive hike on day 4!

Day 4

4.30am again and feeling a little seedy for the 2000 plus foot climb and descent into Hidroelectrica.

Then a 3 hour walk in the pissing rain along the rail tracks into Aguas Calientes. Almost 100km walked/staggered/stumbled over 4 days. Felt emotional and unbelievably happy that we not only completed this but managed to keep pace with such a wonderful bunch of people half our age. Properly chuffed!! Many thanks to our wonderful group and our awesome guide Odi from Salkantay Trekking