Friday 22nd April - Getting closer!

We're now in Madrid airport waiting for the last leg of our journey back to Heathrow. There's nothing very interesting to take photos of so here is the nun at Mcdonalds in Lima :-)
It has been a fantastic holiday and I have enjoyed every minute (almost!!) - interesting, intriguing, exciting, colourful and contradictory. Sarah, Linda, Emma and Ben have been great adventure companions and I will miss hanging out with them (roll on Sarah's hen do :-) It was too short to get more than a snapshot of Peru and I would go back again in a heartbeat, to visit the places we didn't get to see (the coast, the north, the jungle, lake titikaka, the nasca lines) and to revisit the places we did see, but more slowly and looking more closely at the small things (eg walking the inca trail).
But for now, I am looking forward to getting home, being rescued from the airport by P and spending a nice quiet evening in.

Thursday 21st April - On the way home

We're at the start of the next epic journey. It's 13.20 local time (18.20 UK time), just over 24 HOURS before we arrive back in London. Just said sad goodbyes to Emma and Ben who came all the way to the airport and helped us get everything sorted for the journey...have had such a nice time and they have been so lovely :-)
Pic is of our plane waiting patiently for us on the tarmac in Arequipa with El Misti (volcano) in the background.
Now in McDonalds in Lima airport where Sarah has just stopped 2 nuns pushing in front of her in the queue. Only another few hours before the next flight, to Madrid, and then on to Heathrow...

Wednesday 20th April - Last day in Arequipa

We were all feeling slightly delicate today so decided against the original plan (a 4-hour bus tour round Arequipa and the surrounding area seemed like an unnecessarily high risk activity...) so after a gentle breakfast and the catching of a few rays on the terrace we ventured out into a few of the nice touristy stores (deliberately selecting the ones closest to the hostel).
I bought some things for myself (obviously) and some things for my family (note to family: don't want to spoil the surprises y'all but sure you'll be relieved to know that the hat in the pic was not one of my purchases), engaged in a little light bargaining and generally felt quite pleased with myself.
We packed most of our stuff up ready to go and watched the sunset on the terrace, thinking what a pity it would be not to have snow capped volcanos overlooking us all the time.
In the evening we went out for a lovely goodbye meal with Emma and Ben in the same place we had cocktails the other day. Chicha is the nicest restaurant in Arequipa and makes super tasty food. We shared cuy (guinea pig) pancakes for starters and scallops, and I had alpaca papardelle for mains. For dessert we shared a trio of chocolate mousses and all was yum. Definitely an excellent way to end our stay :-)

Tuesday 19th April - Not in Colca Canyon

All our best-laid plans of condor watching failed :-( Sarah was suffering mightily from the Lurgy of Peru and by 2.30 am it was pretty clear that 6 hours in a minibus was not the way forward. We tried to console ourselves with the thought that we saw a condor yesterday (today's pic shows view of volcanos from the terrace - the condor was flying towards us) (NB condor isn't on the photo! - you need to use your imaginations!). We spent some time googling condors and are pretty sure it was a young female.
Linda was at Emma's school today (only immediate family allowed hence doing the planned condor trip). She found it quite unsettling - there is so much deprivation there, the area is very poor and some of the kids have really tragic backgrounds. The volunteers (Emma et al) are making a real difference but some of the regular teachers, including the head, don't turn up for their lessons, some of the kids don't even start primary school until they're 11, and a lot of them are out working for families all the hours they aren't in school (only 3 hours each morning anyway). The school is outside Arequipa in the desert and is in a very dusty small community. Probably some things need to be addressed at a higher level than a local one before things really start to change for the kids there.
By the end of the day I was feeling pretty ropey too (various pieces of evidence point to the cerviche being to blame all round) and everyone was in bed by 9.30.

Monday 18th April - Arequipa

In today's pic you can see my lunch - super tasty cerviche (raw fish in lime juice) with two slices of cold sweet potato (a surprisingly excellent accompaniment to the limey spicy fishiness). Sarah and I were sharing that and a sandwich but unfortunately I had eaten both my halves by the time she decided it was too spicy so ate her portion as well.
Sarah, Linda and I had a quite cultural day today and went to visit the santa catalina monastery while Emma and Ben were at work (poor things). It is like a tiny ancient secret city hidden away behind high walls right in the centre of town and had the most peaceful atmosphere as you walked around its terracotta coloured streets. The nuns actually had very nice rooms and apart from all the religious stuff I suppose would've been necessary I could definitely have lived there. There are still some santa catalina nuns (aged 18-90) but they live in a new modern bit, which seems like a shame. It can't be as nice as the old bit even if they have more mod cons.
After breakfast we sat on the terrace for a bit and are absolutely convinced we saw a condor flying over. Not that either if us have ever seen a condor, but we happened to have brochures about condors on the table at the time (going to go on a condor spotting trip tomorrow!) and it looked just the same. Apparently they never come into Arequipa but what do the locals know!
We're in bed now ready to nest as tomorrow's trip starts at 2:30 am...aaagh.
PS you may be interested to know that channel 17 is pretty much non stop reruns of Friends with an occasional other American sitcom thrown in :-)

Sunday 17th April - Chillin' in Arequipa

We rolled in from the overnight bus at about 6.30 am and were all feeling the need to settle for a bit. We're now in Arequipa until we start our epic journey home. We started off by asking the friendly hostel lady to wash our stinky gear, then had some breakfast, sunbathed for a while on the roof terrace and ate half a box of chocolates.
We headed to the town market to start on our various purchasing missions. A lot of the shops and stalls were closed because it's palm sunday, but we did manage to get some veg and fish (complete with heads) to cook for our dinner this evening. We also went to book a table in Arequipa's finest restaurant for our last night and were enticed in by the cocktail menu. Ben (Emma's boyfriend, a teacher with the same organisation and also an ultimate fighter) came with us and lead us into bad ways. An hour or 2 and most of the cocktail menu later we were the last punters to leave. In spite of the alcohol we cooked a tasty trout and veggies meal in the guesthouse's kitchen for our dinner.

Saturday 16th April - Cusco

Another early start due to the unreasonable checking out times of our (very chilly and noisy) hostel, but at least there were hot showers which were very welcome, and cinnamon and clove tea and olives for breakfast.
We decided to stick around in Cusco and do some cultural things. We started with the cathedral, complete with audio tour by man with nice voice (still beaten to top audio guide spot by the tour of the forbidden city in beijing, which is done by Roger Moore, especially nice because he thanks you for keeping him company). It was an interesting blend of Christian and Andean - solid gold all over the place, dresses influenced by incan designs, and a roast guinea pig on the table in the painting of the last supper. Outside the cathedral we watched a parade of all the schoolchildren of Cusco showing off their clubs (gymnasts cartwheeling, basketball players bouncing balls and the chess club carrying chess boards under their arms). Strangely it was only girls, no boys were in the parade at all.
After catching the man u msn city match over a sneaky drink in paddy's bar (the highest 100% irish-owned bar in the world!) we decided to cash in on our v expensive tourist ticket which covers some of the museums. In the museo historico regional we saw a nascan mummy with 1.5m long hair, a green hummingbird snacking on fuschias and a rather graphic depiction of the virgin mary with leaky breasts.
We caught a bus round the town to say goodbye and are now on our overnight bus back to arequipa, all dosed up with nytol and hoping for a good night's rest...

Friday 15th April - Machu Picchu

We were up and ready for action by 4.30, ate breakfast and were queuing (?!) for the bus up to Machu Picchu by 5.15, in the hopes of seeing the sunrise. We took a  hairraising bus journey up to the citadel, arrived by 6.30, queued again, showed our tickets (mine said I was called Alison Afhburme and was a 61 year old male, but they still let me in) and went up to a good vantage point. Unfortunately it was too cloudy to see the sun come up, but it was an absolutely magical view even so.
We spent the next 6 hours touring round the site, being amazed by the incredible views, finding out about the different buildings and the cleverly carved and aligned rocks, trying to get closer to / stay away from the sheer drops at the edge and watching a new born llama trying to learn how to walk. Thankfully the guide (Carlos) spoke much better English than the lovely Bernie and was also quite cute (Emma isn't so sure...Bernie is the only man for her). Neil (Doherty sibling)'s hat starred in a number of photos.
Could hardly believe we were really actually at Machu Picchu - it seems like such a far away exotic place and there it was, looking just like on the telly, with towering pointy mountains and gravity defying terraces.
After we came back down to Aguas Calientes we had a leisurely lunch, were serenaded by a nice Peruvian band including panpipes (until they had to pack up because a sudden shower was threatening their electrical gear), got stung for a 20% service charge on our dinner and spent the rest of the afternoon drinking mojitos in the thermal baths. Hard life.
After a 2 hour train journey + a "2 hour" bus journey (about 3 hours, freezing and listening to loud peruvian pop music) back up to Cusco, we had originally planned a wee visit to Paddy's Bar (no really!) for a nightcap but by the time we arrived at midnight the call of our nests was much stronger.

Thursday 14th April - Cruising the Sacred Valley

Our pet tour organiser guy in Cusco (Victor) offered us the chance to have a tour along the sacred valley rather than get the train straight up to Aguas Calientes (village by Machu Picchu), so this morning we stood all perky and ready only to be met by yesterday's tour guide again (Bernie) (Bernie?!). Booo. Having had a proper night's sleep we hoped to be able to understand him better but our hopes were in vain.
In spite of only understanding 40% of what he said (the 60% included all the key words), we had a pretty amazing day. One of the highlights was the huge inca citadel outside Pisaq (see pic for view),  and there was also a fountain that stopped if you ran a finger across it, high terraces which we climbed up to a sun temple and a huge buffet lunch including a rather tasty alpaca stew and sweetcorn the size of my fingernail. We drove through some really poor areas with houses made out of mud bricks and dogs, children and pigs wandering all over the place. Done if the houses have images of incan gods sculpted in mud on the walls (condors, pumas and snakes, in charge respectively of the worlds above, here and below)
In amongst the rest of the tour group are two brazilians who spend their time trying to befriend the rest of the group (particularly Emma and Sarah). They keep trying to get us to go out drinking with them but so far we have managed to resist.
After our tour we met Victor in  Ollantantambo (the last stop) and got all our documents for Machu Picchu. We caught the train to Aguas Calientes and arrived late at night, all excited about tomorrow.

Wednesday 13th April - Cusco

We arrived at 6am after 10 hours which while pretty much sleepless were spent on the world's comfiest (sp?) bus which came complete with a dinner of rice, green mashed potato and an animal of dubious origin. A lot of the food seems to heavily relient on carbs + almost obligatory slices of cheese (my 1st meal in arequipa was whole boiled potatoes in cheese soup). This might go some way to explain the predominant body shape too (short and square).
Sarah, Linda (Emma and Sarah's mum) and I were all feeling the effects of the altitude when we arrived and had to drink coca tea. Although it smells like dried peas and leaves in hot water it definitely did the trick (although P, how did you actually chew on the leaves for hours on end?...)
We then spent an unintentionally busy day, first pottering round cusco, getting out of breath going up hills and trying not to pay peruvian ladies for photos of them with their llama / alpaca / goat / child, then going on a bus tour recommended by victor, the guy who collected us from the overnight bus.
We thought it was a nice placid tour of the town that cost 15 soles but it tuned out to be a tour of all the inca ruins in the hills nearby which cost 40 + 130 for all the entrance tickets so we did feel a little diddled, but it was fantastic to see all the ruins and would have been impossible to get to them all otherwise. We did have a guide but his english was much like the words had been minced up in a blender and then squeezed out in a selection of linguistic sausages...almost totally incomprehensible so we didn't learn a huge amount.
Unfortunately I took pics on my camera and am now trying to use the hotel's wifi on my phone so the only image i can offer is sarah being a condor. Enjoy!
Dinner was in an amazing restaurant where I had beef on a bed of native herbs and emmahad alpaca on sticks and the most incredible range of different coloured potatoes. The alpaca was the tastiest thing.
In bed by 9.21! Ahhhh :-)
Ps linda's case has been found safe and sound!

Tuesday 12th - Mostly the tourist office in Arequipa

It was sooo nice to have a good sleep in a bed, and we started the day with breakfast on the roof of the hostel overlooking el misti (huge snow capped volcano nearby) in the sunshine...lovely start to the holiday.

Our next challenge was to sort out tickets for going up to Macchu Pichu. As it´s the main tourist destination nearby you might think that would be simple but it turned out not to be... after several hours trying to get things arranged, having to visit a succession of banks to get dollars out, and finding that journeys had suddenly doubled in price, we finally got booked but have to leave this evening to be able to fit it all in. We are leaving tonight on the overnight bus (aagh) and coming back Sunday.

We recovered with cervezas and toasted sandwiches on another sunlit terrace :-) and all we need to do now is fit all the stuff we need for now til Sunday into a tiny rucksack. Hm.

Wish us luck!

Sarah´s mum´s case is still lost...but she is managing with the help of a pants loan from Sarah.

No idea if there will be internet in Cusco or not, but if not, just google some pics of it and feel suitably envious until I can report back.

Monday 11th - Everywhere

We are finally in Arequipa after an epic journey...after Heathrown first Madrid, then back off the plane and Madrid for a little while longer (3 hour delay) then 12 hour flight into Lima, an excited little run around the airport trying to rearrange our missed connection and finally a flight into Arequipa, where we discovered Sarah´s mum´s suitcase had gone missing. She had already fallen over some woman´s suitcase in Lima airport and we hadn´t really slept for what seemed like about 5 days so all was not going that well.

Since then we have made it into Arequipa with Emma, who looks suitably tanned and exotic, and got ourselves settled in a guesthouse with high ceilings made of huge blocks of stone. After the most welcome shower ever, we had lunch in the sun on a balcony overlooking the main square, met some of the people Emma is lodging with (the aunt is trying to marry her daughter off to an Italian) and and had a general introductory potter around the town, which is quite colonial-looking with big white shiny buildings and squares with grass and trees. We also tried our very first pisco sour...not as close a relative of a mojito as I had hoped but still nice, particularly considering it apparently contains egg white. For lunch Sarah and I toyed with the idea of ordering some deep fried guinea pig but the picture in the menu looked so much like road kill it put us off. Maybe when we are less jetlagged.

First impressions of Peru (from the plane as we flew into Arequipa) were that it is huge and incredibly barren, with mile after mile of brown/orange/grey/beige with the only signs of life around rivers. I had had in my mind that it would be a lot greener - but then we aren´t anywhere near the jungle yet and I think that will change when we go up to visit Cusco etc.

Sunday 10th - Heathrow

Whiling away the hours before our flight leaves...oops suddenly the gate is closing...amazing what a large glass of sauvignon blanc can do :-)
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Saturday 9th April - Horsham

It's nearly midnight and I have been in a frenzy of packing (or packing avoidance) for about 12 hours, for tomorrow I head off to Peru.

Hurray!

Well, hurray once I have actually done the case up and left the house, until which point I may feel compelled to unpack and repack it a few more times. Crucially, I have got my passport, and some new sunglasses (purchased from Specsavers this very afternoon) and of course the half price tent lamp that I got when I bought my hiking socks, so nothing can go wrong now whatever combination of black / stripy / white t-shirts I decide to take. I also have a fair amount of Immodium. Just in case.

The cast:

Ali: Me

Sarah Doherty: Colleague from Ashcombe days, seasoned explorer of Paris, Ireland etc

Emma Doherty: Sarah's big sister, currently living in Arequipa in the south of Peru

Sarah and Emma's Mum: Chaperoning us young things :-)