Islas Ballestas/Paracas

The first stop after Lima was the 'Poor man's Galapagos Islands' - the Islas Ballestas, home to lots and lots and lots of seabirds. Plus some Humboldt penguins and sea lions. The islands are a resource for fertilizing guano (harvested every 5 - 8 years) and also mainly a tourist attraction - there wasn´t really anything else to do in Paracas but wait for the boat tour and eat at bad, over priced tourist restaurants with other tourists doing exactly the same thing. There isn´t all that much more to say at the moment, so see photos below!

Lima

Lima, the big show, the Peruvian big smoke, city of nearly 9 million. A town of sights and sounds interesting to tourists refreshed from some time on the beach. We decided to check it out, we heard something was going down in the museum of Larco. Something lewd....

 

Our first three suspects weren´t saying nothing, their lips were sealed - paid off by by the reprobate Incans godfather princes. We tried the shelves next, the hustle and bustle hiding a menace, we found nothing but we could see the museum was bursting with hidden faces. Time to go all the way and face the problem head on. No problem we can´t handle....surely¿

 It was far worse than we thought - the depraved ceremonial hierarchs flaunting their ill gotten-gains for the world to see. We were in trouble....deep trouble...trouble we couldn't handle.

Exiled from the musuem and emprisoned on the Plaza de Armas, we watched the arrival of the the newly appointed president - all pomp and circumstance, nothing but lies and threats.

There was only one way out, and we took it - the catacombs of San Fransisco monastery. We´d never minded coming close to death before, it didn´t bother us now.

The catacombs emerged into bright daylight, with gunsong filtering though the prison bars. We took this as our cue to leave - chartering a bus up somewhere high, evading out enemies by escaping through the local favelas. So long Lima....

Peru: Huanchaco/Trujillo

We took our third night bus in a row and arrived into Chiclayo feeling somewhat worse for wear... Chris had an unfortunate bout of food poisoning and Spike's eyes were inflamed so we decided to take a short bus to Trujillo and hang out in Huanchaco, a beach resort, to convalesce. We arrived and sank, very thankfully, onto soft, real beds. Chris had a nap while Spike and I scouted out the town, observing a surfing competition and finding a restaurant that served pancakes (mmmmm). We spent the rest of the afternoon watching Planet of the Apes, drinking lots of water, and slowly recovering from our respective maladies (mine was grumpyitis caused by sleep deprivation). 

We enjoyed the rest of our time in Huanchaco relaxing by the beach, sleeping in, and visiting some nearby pre-Incan ruins - a site called Chan Chan, with an internal lake, intricately carved mud walls and a picture postcard perfect view of Chris and Spike leaning against said walls. We took it very easy for three days, and subsequently all felt much better. On the fourth day, we took a taxi to Trujillo, explored the cathedral there and spent a long time in a cafe eating chocolate cake, playing cards, and waiting for our next night bus to Lima, which we caught without a hitch.

Peru: Chachapoyas

Another night bus later, and we were in Chachapoyas (which wins Chris' award for favourite place to say). Katrina was somewhat grumpy, having played 'bum wars' all night with the Peruvian attempting to sleep next to her (and steal her rightful snuggle space). With military precision, we booked a tour, bought tickets for the NEXT night bus (please note this is three in a row, some sort of world record, i'm sure) and got breakfast. 

The tour took us to Kuelap, the second most impressive pre-Columbian site in Peru, at least according to Lonely Planet (it's pretty damn impressive). It's a giant stone fortress, built painstakingly on a mountain over 800 years, with houses and walls and views and steep, defensible drops. And llamas shagging. Looky looky!
(not at the shagging llamas you dirty people)

(we also saw some Chachapoyas terraces)

(the sacred walls)

real human bones... If you die making the wall, you become the wall...

(knew you wanted to see them)

Peru: Chiclayo

Our arrival into Peru did not go as smoothly as we might have liked... We arrived, somewhat sleepily, into Piura, at about 6am. We were immediately mobbed by taxi drivers wanting our fare to take us to other bus stations (there is no centralised bus terminal, but a series of bus companies in different parts of town...) We eventually picked a taxi driver, who proceeded to charge us (as we found out later) about four times as much as we should have paid (still not that much), AND to give us fake coins as change. Grrr. 

We were nevertheless dropped off at a bus company and took the next bus to Chiclayo, at 7am. We had great seats at the front of the bus and could see the desert scenery out of the windows, but our pleasure was somewhat marred by the bus driver's choice of movie  - a movie about domestic violence at 7am is not to be advised... We arrived into the bus terminal and bought an overnight ticket to Chachapoyas, leaving us the whole day to explore the ruins near Chiclayo. We had a quick lunch first, and then headed out to Tucume to see huge complexes made of sand bricks, with a large structure built on a hill. They were vast and very impressive, though now crumbling into the desert - must have taken a LOT of time and effort to build them.

After the ruins, we took a bus to the much-lauded museum nearby, which was AMAZING. It had exhibits. Turns out they really used to like gold. And earrings. 

(me, looking singularly attractive)

Ecuador (14 - 21 Sept 11)

Time to catch up on the blog! Ecuador in one post! Read all about it!

14-17 Quito, 17 Otavalo, 18 Banos, 19 Banos - Guaranda, 20 Salinas, 21 Guayaquil

We arrived into Quito and thankfully got off our last bus (too many days in a row and bus number seven), had ceviche for dinner and made good use of having proper beds. The next day we went strolling round the old town with Alex, our new-found travelling partner. The highlight of this day was climbing the Basillica and seeing Quito from high moral ground. The low point was a monastery tour with a rapid-fire guide and a man-women (Katrina found this more interesting than the guide). 

View from Basilica

Monastery

We also journeyed to the centre of the earth - Mitad del Mundo, where they calculated the position of the equator. We celebrated this fact by taking touristy photos on the line itself (Spike was super keen for these) and Spike practised his handstands. There wasn't much else to do... although we did meet some lovely kids. They called us "Gringo. Fatty Americans!"

Our next trip was to Otavolo, the biggest market in Ecuador, with many people in indigenous dress running around, and many many touristy stalls all apparently selling the same things... It was awesome. We tried on many very touristy alpaca jumpers (see below) and Spike bought a red woollen one with slightly less of the llama touristyness. On the way back from the market we found a dessert place with real chocolate cups containing chocolate. Alex and Spike are pictured over the moon with chocolate happiness. 

On the bus back to Quito, Katrina (I) sat next to an American and was thoroughly out travellered. He was reading Che Guavara. I was reading Jilly Cooper. He was saying how touristy the market had been. I was wearing a touristy alpaca jumper with llamas on. He was keen to move off the gringo trail and get to Patagonia. Our next stop was Banos, the most touristy town in Ecuador, some say. DOH!

We duly went to Banos, which despite being touristy, is also beautiful, a town in a bowl in the mountains. It has natural thermal baths next to waterfall on the edge of town, and we visited them at night, when they were rammed with Ecuadorians having a good time and relaxing. The hottest bath could only be managed for five minutes or so before plunging into a cold one, which produced a pleasant tingly sensation... We tried all the baths, soaking up the minerals and unwinding from a rather bumpy bus journey.

We made the most of the morning after by going white water rafting in level three and four rapids just outside Banos. This was AWESOME. We went over waves, rocks, whirlpools, all sorts of rapids, getting thoroughly soaked. Kwolis had a brief trip off the boat after our first wave, but soon our German 'eins, zwei' had us in a good rhythm (we had two massssssive, classically built German uni students in our boat). Unfortunately we didn't manage to take any photos, not wanting to risk our cameras with either thermal baths or white water, and we've been to lazy to draw photos of rafting to upload...

We unwound from whitewater rafting with a second trip to the thermal baths, warming up again after the rather icy water. We then took the bus to Guaranda, encountering problems firstly with our pronounciation of the word 'Guaranda' (we still can't say it for toffee) and secondly with our bus change - one bus dropped us off on the side of the road, and our second bus would go from the other side. That might sound simple, but the road had two or three lanes on each side, and had lorries, buses and mental taxi drivers continually driving at what felt like hundreds of miles an hour past us. We made our suicidal dash to cross the road, and successfully caught our second bus and a taxi from the centre of Guaranda to our hostel. 

The next day we woke up, full of the joys of the steaming hot showers our hostel had, ready to head out to Salinas, a small, somewhat remote town, famed for its cheese, chocolate and salami production (our mouths were watering). We moved outside the door, and the world began to spin, and my legs to feel distinctly wobbly. We're still not sure what it was, probably an unfortunate combination of altitude and dehydration, but only sitting down very quickly prevented me from fainting. Chris was also not feeling great, so we had a pause at the hostel to recover, and then headed to Salinas for the promised foodstuffs (they were amazing). We managed to leave Salinas still with some food remaining (it was a close run thing), and then Spike and Chris had an adventure riding in the back of the pick up back to Guaranda while I stayed cosily inside...

Salinas

The next morning, after hurried phone calls to my mum, we decided to abandon my cash cards which may or may not have been in customs somewhere in Ecuador (long story, but Fedex and Ecuadorian customs don't mix) and head for Guayaquil with a view to getting over the border and into Peru. We took a bus to Guayaquil and bought a ticket onto Peru for the evening, and settled into a restaurant in the bus terminal, spending our last few Ecuadorian quarters and nickels on water and some fruit, and making up a brand new card game, called 'the meaning of life' (the object is to pass 42...) We whiled away the time very happily, and boarded the bus by using our passports and giving them our fingerprints (Peruvians are very hot on bus security). We had a little nap and then woke up at the Ecuadorian border, were duly stamped, moved onto the Peruvian side, were stamped again, and then entered Peru!