Hola!
The last week has been my last in Peru. Honestly, I had had high expectations of this country and in reality it has managed to exceed them in every way. I had been expecting awesome views during my Salkantay trek but not only was this trip way more beautiful than I imagined but I have been lucky enough to visit many other landscapes that have been difficult to capture fully on camera. One of these places was Colca Canyon, which I explored the day after I arrived in Arequipa. At my first breakfast at my hostel I met Martina, a Dutch solo female traveller who was travelling while working on her own leather bag brand as well as designing for another brand. She said that her and another Dutch girls she had met were booking to do the two day, one night trip to the canyon and I asked to tag along. I met the other Dutch girl, Pleuni, that day and we all went on a free walking tour of beautiful Arequipa.
Our guide was pretty quirky, giving us very random and hilarious ‘facts’ including, at one point at the end of the tour, showing us a photo of a friend because he thought his friend looked like a pit bull. The next day I woke up at 2:45 for a 3am pick up for the canyon tour. We travelled to the area in an extremely cramped minibus and after breakfast went to visit the condos viewpoint, where we saw around 9 of these impressive birds. After this we started our steep walk down into the canyon.
The walk was beautiful with lots of interesting rock formations and cacti but I was happy to get to the bottom as I don’t think my knees could cope with any more downward steps. In the valley we walked along the river until we got to out stop for the night, a green oasis in the middle of the dusty canyon. Our accommodation was basic but did have a pool which, although it was cold, was soothing for our aching legs. After dinner we got an early night. The next morning we started walking before the sun rose, and as we had spent the previous day walking downhill, it was time to walk back up. We walked up non-stop for around 2 hours, which was tough but allowed us to see the sunrise in the canyon which was stunning and as always, the experience of reaching the end of a difficult trek makes you feel a bit like a superhero.
After the trek we went to our guides village to eat a much needed breakfast and then took a minivan to some natural hot springs to relax. These springs were much better than the ones I had visited near Machu Picchu and we sitting in the 38 degree water drinking beer we could almost forget the gruelling hike we had completed that morning.
After the hot springs we had lunch and head back to Arequipa, stopping at a lookout point for the huge active volcanoes in the area and to take some photos of grazing alpacas and llamas.
That evening Martina, Pleuni and I went out for some dinner and a couple of beers and stayed chatting about life for a few hours. I was sad that both of them would be leaving Arequipa the next day. It’s amazing how quickly you get close to people when you travel and I hope to visit them in Holland soon (and for them to come to London). The next morning I tried to do some life admin, which turned out to be quite stressful when my iPad decides to crash every 10 minutes. I was able to book something exciting for when I get to Bolivia though, but I’ll leave that as a bit of a cliffhanger! As I was eating breakfast an American girl came and sat with me and it wasn’t long until we realised that her parents were from them same town that I went to college in! Kim (her name) and I then decided to visit a museum in the afternoon after grabbing a crepe for lunch. The museum was famous for being the home of the perfectly preserved remains of a girl who was sacrificed by the Incas at the top of one of the local mountains. She had been discovered by complete coincidence when the smoke of a nearby volcano had melted the peak of the mountain causing her tomb to collapse and her remains to roll downwards. A few days later, an American mountaineer was happening to hike past where she was lying. The museum starts with a film explaining the history of Incan human sacrifices (all beautiful young children from noble families), the process of bringing the remains to the museum and the other remains that had been found in the wake of this discovery. We then walked through and saw many artefacts from the tombs and finally the remains themselves. What struck me the most was that her hair was exactly the same as a living persons, also, the skin on her elbows was eerily life like. That evening we had some delicious pasta for dinner and a couple of drinks at the hostel bar.
The next day I relaxed at the hostel in the morning. Kim and I checked out a vegetarian restaurant for lunch, which was delicious and super cheap and then that afternoon we booked onto a chocolate workshop at ChaqChao chocolate factory. It was AMAZING. The instructor was a chocolate expert and taught us all about the history of chocolate from how the Incas used to drink the cocoa beans in a hot drink with chilli for courage before battle and as an aphrodisiac to which companies he believes are making good chocolate nowadays.
We started by peeling the cocoa beans, roasting them and then trying the Incan drink. Then we learnt about how to split the beans into cocoa mass and cocoa butter. The process of then mixing both of these back together with some sugar is what makes chocolate. We then moved downstairs to see how the chocolate is tempered and then got to make our own chocolates using flavours of our choice. After the workshop Kim and I tried a Peruvian beer tasting board at the cafe and then had some pizza (including one with berries and cheese as toppings) and some Peruvian gin and tonics at a cool restaurant below the chocolate cafe called La Gringas. A truly perfect (and indulgent) day to end my time in Arequipa.
The following day I travelled by coach to Puno, a town on the banks of Lake Titicaca, the highest lake in the world. When Kim arrived on a later coach we walked to a viewpoint to get our first real glimpse of the lake and decided, as Puno itself is pretty quiet and uninspiring, that we would book onto a two day tour of some islands for the following day.
The tour started early and we hopped on board a small boat to travel to our first stop, the Uros floating islands. I have never been anywhere quite like it.
They are a group of small man-made floating islands made of reeds and buoyant earth, each with a few reed houses which people live, work and go to school in. We spent some time here learning about how they make the island, what life is like for the local people and why the islands exist before heading off to our next destination, Amantani Island. After three hours of travelling through beautiful blue waters we reached the island and were introduced to our local host families, who we would be spending the night with. Everyone of this island wears the traditional clothing, and the colours of the women’s skirts relate to which of the 10 island communities they belong to.
The island is also completely vegetarian and has very limited electricity, which makes it a very calm and peaceful place. Our host was an old lady called Francesca who lead us up impossibly steep paths to her home, right next to the quaint main square. She prepared us a lunch of three types of potato, rice and Andean cheese (a bit like halloumi) before we went to join the other tourists and hike up to the temples at the highest point of the island (4,000m above sea level) to watch a glorious sunset.
When we returned to the house we sat and admired the Milky Way. Thanks to the lack of electricity we got an absolutely stunning view of it from our balcony. We had dinner of more potato and rice (it was more tasty than it sounds) before getting the very exciting opportunity to dress in the islands traditional clothes and go to a party with local musicians. I loved wearing the layered skirt and beautifully embroidered shawl and blouse and didn’t want to take it off after the music and dancing was finished!
The next morning we woke up early (again) and left the island after breakfast to travel to our final stop Taquile island. Here we spent some time in the main square visiting the local market and seeing some of the UNESCO recognised textiles that the men on the island knit together. We then took a lovely walk around the perimeter of the island with views of the sparkling blue lake and distant islands around us. We stopped for lunch and our guide told us all about the specific clothing traditions of this island, where all the men wear different hats and belts depending on their age/ marital status. The people on this island were certainly not scared of colour or the use of huge rainbow Pom Poms, which I greatly appreciated. We were also shown how the local people make their natural shampoo from a plant and were assured that even the 95 year old people on the island did not get grey hair thanks to this recipe.
After lunch we jumped onboard our boat again and head back to Puno, feeling like we’d been away from the mainland for much longer than just one night! Kim and I grabbed a pizza and watched a film before saying our farewells and going to bed. I hope to see Kim after her travels, as she is thinking of moving to London!
Now I am on a coach heading to the Peru/Bolivia border and onto my next adventure!
Can’t wait to see what Bolivia has in store for me!
Thanks for reading,
Emma
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