Cusco and Inca Trail

After the panic of getting there in time, the two days before the Inca Trail were spent organising ourselves and generally chiling out and knocking about Cusco. We were very impressed with Cusco, a lot nicer than we expected it to be, touristy yes but not in a tacky way. Plus it had a fair few decent bars and places to eat which was well appreciated after a few weeks of Bolivian food! We especially enjoyed Paddy Flahertys pub which was the first proper Irish bar we´d been in, as in it looked like an Irish bar, served decent Irish food and the staff were even Irish (Compared to some of the kips we had seen calling themselves Irish bars in BA and Mendoza). So we did the very cultured thing and ate fries for breakfast, sheppards pies, drank bottles of Guinness and watched a few Premiership games.

We had a 4.30am start the morning of the Inca Trail. After the usual few hours of faffing about we finally got going at mid morning for the first day which we had been told would be a gentle introduction before an extremely tough 2nd and 3rd day. The first day was more or less that, around 4hrs hiking broken up by the first of many huge (and gorgeous) meals laid on for us. The group consisted of 16 of us, mainly couples from UK, Oz, Canada with a few other randomers thrown in. We set off with 2 guides, 20 porters and a cook. The porters were something else, carrying all our gear (tents, seats, kitchen equipment, food etc) on their backs as they practically ran (and did a lot of the time) from point to point to be ready for us arriving...it was unbelievable to see them fly past us carrying such a load.

We enjoyed the novelty of sleeping in a tent for the first tine in years and slept pretty well most nights after all the exercise and early starts. The 2nd day we started out at 6am after being up at 5am for the long days uphill hike to Dead Womans Pass. We were hiking 1200m straight uphill for around 5hrs. It was tough going with the sun blazing but the two of us fared a lot better than we thought, following the good advice we got to take it slowly at all times . The other great advice we got was the I-Pods, a godsend when your going up steps for 5hrs, music pumping to keep ya going. Anyway, guess who were the first two up Dead Womans Pass at 4215m above sea level? We were pleasantly surprised to say the least. And what did I say at the top? "Told ya the hill in Isla Del Sol would help us"! It went down better this time. In reality, it probably did help, plus the fact we´d been at altitude for over 2 weeks and the hostel in La PAz was four blocks uphill which was killing us the first few days we were there.

The rest of the day was a killer. Down the steps in the other side for 2 hrs, and these were Inca steps laid hundreds of years ago so not exactly even. Every step you risked going over badly on your ankle. The third day was similar, a few uphills but mainly downhill, except it was also bucketing rain all day. We had to go down what the locals refer to as "Gringo Killer", over three thousand steps downhill for 3-4 hrs. Not as tough physically as going up but very monotonous and sore on the already very stiff joints. We definitely deserved the few beers we had that evening after we made it, knowing the hard part was over. The folowing morning we were up at 4am and queuing to get onto the Trail from 5am. Our group was first in line which menat that everyone was mad anxious to get to the Sun Gate first (first glimpse of Machu Picchu)...which meant that any ideas of a gentle 2hr stroll to finish off went out the window. We ended up practically running there and the two of us struggled, nothing left in the tank after the previous two days. We got there before the other groups anyway so had the spot to ourselves for 10-15mins in the end.

The first glimpse of Machu Picchu was pretty class but a bit of an anti-climax after a couple of minutes. We certainly werent brought to tears like other people we saw. It turns out we were very lucky though as it started to bucket rain just as other groups were arriving and the view was very quickly almost gone with the clouds. Out with those bloody ponchos again! At least the sun came back out when we got down there and the ruins themselves were actually far more impressive than we expected them to be. The place was way bigger than it looks and was like a proper city. We took a tour around for two hrs with our guide to round it off which was enjoyable and then it was off to the nearby town of Aguas Calientes for lunch, beer and hot springs. The hot springs were a huge disappointment, bit of a dump really. Like sitting in swimming pools of warm dirty smelly water. Had we known we certainly wouldve given them a skip but hot springs just sound very appealing when your stiff and sore after 4 days hiking. All in all though the trek itself was incredible experience, we re both delighted we did it and pleasantly surprised at how well we got through it. Definitley better than just getting the train up with all the middle aged Americans decked out in all the latest hiking and safari gear (absolutely hilarious). We were all full of contempt for all the lovely well dressed, clean smelling tourists rolling up in buses that morning, they just didnt deserve to be there!

After the trek we planned to take it easy for three or four days in Cusco but ended up going out the following night (Halloween night) with most of the group from the trek which turned into a pretty messy night. At that stage we had moved from our very quiet pre Inca Trail guesthouse to Loki s Cusco branch which meant three days of sauce and the two of us pretty shook by the time we were leaving for Lima the following Monday. An excellent week or so in the Cusco area though and just a week to go before we left South America to head to Fiji!

Lake Titicaca

We left La Paz first thing the following morning to head to Copacabana on the Bolivian side of Lake Titicaca. From there we took a ferry to the lovely Isla Del Sol. As we were under pressure for time we headed straight there rather than a night in Copacabana first. Bad move. We arrived at the little port on Isla Del Sol to find it located at the bottom of a pretty steep hill. Of course, people who stayed in Copacabana knew this and had stored their rucksacks in the hostels there. We on the other hand had all our our baggage. Almost an hour later, on the verge of collapsing, we made it to the top of the hill after climbing the hundreds of steps on the vertical Inca Stairway and fell into the first hostel we saw. At that stage, we realised there is actually nothing to do on Isla Del Sol, except hike to the other side of the island that is. The island was gorgeous but it was a little like our favourite Father Ted episode in the caravan, what will we do now Ted, will we walk over and back to that rock there? As you can imagine, the words hike or hill were not popular, not good considering the Inca Trail was less than a week away. It also didnt go down well when I joked the hike was good training for the Trail. Anyway, we just chilled out for the evening and decided to leave the following morning. We spent the following day chilling out in Copacabana which was also lovely but not a whole lot to do again.
The next morning we left for Puno on the Peruvian side of the Lake where we intended to visit the (in)famous floating reed islands. We had heard mixed reports on these, a lot of people saying they were exploitative and like human zoos, but we thought there´s only one way to find out. Unfortunately, we never made it to the islands as our plans were thrown in the air totally on arrival in Puno to the news that the road to Cusco had been blocked for the previous 4 days by disgruntled farmers. Considering we had two days to get to Cusco this was a bit of a disaster. Straight to the train station we went, trains also not running. Into LAN airlines office, all flights booked out. Panic stations. Eventually we had to take a chance on the bus. We were told that Wednesdays bus left at 8am and eventually got through the road block and to Cusco in 16hrs (usually a 6hr journey!). We arrived in the bus station on the Friday morning to hear the bad news that Thursday´s 8am bus was still at the road block 24hrs later. Eventually the bus company decided to take an alternative route over the mountains. We were warned it would be a rough ride and there was no guarantee this road wouldnt be blocked either, in which case we´d have had to simply turn back. Cue the most anxious, rough and uncomfortable bus journey ever. Every time the bus stopped every head on the bus shot up expecting bad news. We took dirt tracks and mountain roads similar to those we cycled the week before, stopping loads of times to remove rocks and boulders from the road so at all times we were fearing having to turn back. Finally though, we made it to Cusco, 13 anxious and uncomfortable hours later. Wrecked but happy to have made it in time for the following days deadline to pay off and sort our Inca Trail. And more good news, the Bolivians are getting their referendum, looks like the marches served their purpose after all!

La Paz, La Paz, La Paz

We left Tupiza after two nights on the overnight train to Oruro (3 hrs south of La Paz). After 6 weeks of buses it was our 3rd train in a week. And our last for quite a while if we have any say in it. It was another hot, dusty, bone jarring 13hr journey. We arrived into Oruro at 7am with 2 hrs sleep at best under the belts. We then arrived into the bus station in Oruro only to be accosted by a dozen or so mental old women screaming and pulling at us "La Paz, La Paz, La Paz". Seems like its a popular destination for gringos in Oruro (a town which certainly neednt be worried about having to deal with too many tourists any time soon). In Bolivia, if you didnt laugh you´d cry.

Our first sight of La Paz, however, was pretty breathtaking. We´d been driving for 3 hrs (on a bus packed to the rafters which ridiculously smelly locals...they sell as many tickets as they can to tourists and then pile the locals on!) through the usual barren dusty roads when all of a sudden the city appeared below us to the right in a huge canyon/valley with the edges of the city sprawled up the hillsides. Worth the admission fee alone. La Paz itself was as hectic as we imagined it would be, being the capital of a pretty mental country. The only way to describe it would be organised chaos. There seem to be no shops in Bolivia, all markets and stalls, selling anything from touristy stuff to cooked meals to toilet bowls to llama foetus! It all made for a few interesting days strolling around the place and enjoying the craziness.

We stayed in a huge hostel (Loki) owned by Irish guys which was pretty cool. There was a decent bar serving great pub grub (bacon and eggs for breakfast, sheppards pie/Irish stew/steak sandwiches etc for dinner). Needless to say we ate there most days (bar a great Indian one night!) as its cuisine wouldnt be Bolivias strong point as we found out in Tupiza. It helped that everything in Bolivia is ridiculously cheap so you could eat out every day of the week. I even got to watch a few Premiership matches on Fox Argentina so happy out!

It was in the midst of one of a few decent nights in the hostel bar that the decision of the trip so far was made. A couple of Irish girls would had cycled the Worlds Most Dangerous Road that day convinced a semi (!) drunk Louise that she´d nothing to be scared off as they had got through it no bother despite being terrified beforehand. So off we went the following morning and signed up. We were brought the next morning to the starting point of the cycle at 4700m above sea level and given a seriously thorough safety briefing whereby we were told countless horror stories of what has haapened to people who dont follow the advice. At that stage every last one of us (Louise especially) were pretty sh%tless! The road is officially the Worlds Most Dangerous. Apparantly, the IMF carried out a 3 yr study and concluded that no other road in the world has as high a death toll!! So they gave the Bolivians a wack of money to build a new road and now this is mainly a tourist cycle track although some locals still use it. There hace been 54 deaths so far this year, only 2 cyclists though! Anyway, after an hour of bombing downhill on the good road, we hit the dirt track and it was squeeky bum time. It didnt help that we were soon into the clouds and it started to lash rain, for fear it wasnt tough enough already. Anyway, it was an unbelieveably thrilling and enjoyable day, once we got used to it everyone got a lot more confident and started to rip it. Even Louise was well tucked into the middle of the group by the end after being mostly at the back during a very nervous beginning. The day was capped off with a few well deserved beers before we drove back up the road in our minivan which was almost as bad as cycling down it!

We were due to leave the following day but 250,000 people decided to have a march in the city centre in support of the proposed referendum for a new constitution. Basically, the new president (Evo Morales) is the first ever indigenous president and a former cocoa grower and union leader. He is like a God in Bolivia to the masses (most of whom are indigeneous and live in poverty...the average wage is 80USD a month), slogans and posters of him everywhere. So he has proposed a new Constitution nationalising industries and basically taking land from the rich farmers to give to the peasants (a modern day Robin Hood eh). So they all came down from the hills to march in a huge show of support for Evo. And grounded every bus leaving the city. Not impressed. But we did enjoy watching the march and the rallies. Luckily, it all went off peacefully and we left for Lake Titicaca the following morning with under a week to go to the Inca Trail.

Tupiza, Bolivia

Well after 4 weeks it was time to leave glamorous Argentina behind and head for the crazy, wild Bolivia! I was a little apprehensive about coming here as there had been some rioting in the country mid September but then I thought to myself... it´s nothing a girl from Belfast cant handle!!

So we left Salta for the 7 hour bus to the border and as we got of the bus to walk though the border controls we were holding on to our bags for dear life, convinced that we were going to be robbed or lured into some scam! But after 5-10mins of walking up the main straight (being the only white skinned people there!) we realised no one was paying the blindest bit of attention to us and we started to relax (a bit!).
A disgustingly hot 3 hour train trip took us to our first Bolivian destination- Tupiza. Lets just say, the look of horror on my face as we pulled into the train station said it all. It was dirty, smelly, windy, noisy and certainly didn´t look like the quaint little backpacker spot that Lonely Planet described it as!!

But we didn´t write it off straight away and that evening we ventured out for a walk and started to come around to place. We even found a semi-decent looking restaurant to eat in, although looks can be deceptive as the food turned out to be pretty rank. Our hostel was however very nice, more of a small hotel with a TV in our room so we had a couple of early nights watching CNN news and films.
The town itself, although very run down and primitive had a lot of character and the people were very friendly. We didn´t do an awful lot here, just explored the place and chilled out. But overall it was an enjoyable few days and a nice introduction to crazy Bolivia!!

Salta, Argentina´s last stand

It was SuperCama all the way for the 18hr journey from Mendoza to Salta, only our 2nd time to have the pleasure so the novelty value was still high. When we leave South America we sure will miss the weird and wonderful bus journeys. This one was memorable for good reasons, our first time ever playing bingo on public transport and one of the nicest dinners we´ve had in our 6weeks so far. The bingo was comical, we´d more fun lughing at how into it some of the locals were getting than anything. It also helped us practise our Spanish numbers! On the meal front, it would be hard to describe how sick of ham and cheese rolls we are, literally every bus you get onto that is the lunch or dinner, along with very weak Robinson´s style orange juice. Imagine our joy when a roast beef dinner was landed in front of us. In a plastic container admittedly but roast beef, mash and carrots with a serious amount of gravy, we were in heaven...six weeks without a Sunday roast is a long time!

On arrival in Salta, it was very clear that it was very different to anywhere we´d been in Argentina. Not in any way touristy like Bariloche/Calafate etc and not exactly glamorous looking in the way BA/Mendoza were. The people were a lot more native looking and the place was a bit run down and hectic looking...and these were the reasons we actually loved the place. A real hustle and bustle, busy, working class city with a lot more character than a lot of the other admittedly lovely spots we´d been to. This was a proper South American city (as Johnny Giles might say), in the same sense as Rio was. The city centre was bedlam to try and walk around at night with the sheer amount of people and market stalls everywhere but it was very enjoyable and the people were friendly and we had no hassle whatsoever.

After a relatively quiet (daytime wise) time in Mendoza we decided to be a bit more active here and do a bit more touristy/sightseeing stuff. So we took a tour to Cafayate our first full day with the hostel which took in some incredible Mars-like scenery on the drive. After weeks of snow capped mountians and lakes, it was great to see something so different. It was so mountaineous and barren from the extremely warm weather (we were passing out and this was only their spring too) that it was surreal at times. Anyway, it was a very enjoyable day. The town itself was small with not a lot happening and we were brought briefly to 2 "altitude wineries" which weren´t a patch on the ones in Mendoza. We even got to meet (and get spat at by) a Lllama.

The other tour we took in Salta was "El Tren a las Nubes" (Train to the clouds) which is the main attraction of Salta for tourists. It required a 6am start for the 16hr trip which was to be our first train ride in Sth America. Of course, we managed to forget our camera for the trip, both presuming the other had it. The scenery again was breathtaking, we were sitting across from a lovely couple from England and Scotland who very kindly offered to email their photos so we may get some yet. We stopped at two cool tiny markets way up in the mountains where we got gorgeous empanadas and cakes from the local indigineous people for around 25c. Along with the steaks, the empanadas have been our favourite food (such tasty little pies filled with mince similar to chilli con carne and so cheap everywhere!). The height of the day (literally) was the last stop at the breathtaking viaduct at 4200m above sea level, just unbelievable really. Anyway, as great as the scenery was, the journey back was a bit of a drag to say the least, eventually trundled into Salta at 11pm so it had been a long day. On a positive note, the altitude didnt seem to affect us at all so fingers crossed we wont be too bad in La Paz/Cusco etc too.

No rest for the wicked also as we had bought tickets for the 5.30am bus out of Saltathe following morning to head for the Bolivian border where we planned to catch the train north there (to avoid the very high risks associated with travelling on Bolivia´s dirt roads in chicken buses).

Mendoza

The best view we saw of Pucon was out the back of the Cama bus as it pulled off for the overnight journey to Santiago. After a rather boring 2hrs in Santiago bus terminal at 7am we left for Mendoza. The drive straight over the top of the Andes was spectacular. The bus wound its way up and up via ridiculously tight chicane type bends for a good half hour until we reached the top of the pass. At which point we had to get out for border control,by God it was nippy standing in the queue for half an hour at that altitude. We arrived in the hostel to meet up with our newly made friends from Pudu in Bariloche as we had made it our business to be there for the scheduled "Bikes n Wines" tour the following day.
The following morning we made it to the start of the route, were given our bikes and maps and off we went. Our first stop was a big commercial winery called "La Rural" were we were given a tour of the place and detailed explanations as to how the wine is produced. All very interesting but we were there for one thing and one thing only! Finally, we got our first free glass of wine at midday and off we were to our next stop. We decided to cycle to the end of the route while we were fresh and make our way back from there. Turns out cycling 12km is harder than it sounds. When we finally got there we were treated to a lovely tiny winery and were given the special treatment as we (Shane,Louise,Zoe,Rosanna,Vicky & Marcus) were the only people there. We tasted 4/5 of their wines for the equivalent of 4euro. We decided to have lunch at the next stop as the day was flying by. As we waited for lunch we tasted another 4/5 wines (at that stage we told them we were fine for the tours,we´ll go straight for the tasting). Another 2 bottles between the 6 of us during lunch as the sun shone, things could have been a lot worse. By the time we left, there was only time for one more stop,the chocolate liquor factory. Guess whose favourite stop this was?! We tasted the gorgeous chocolate and liquors and finally had to call it a day. Great fun all round, despite the rather sore rears. Topped off by more ridiculously cheap supermarket wine in the hostel that night.
The next few days were spent chilling and doing very little, a number of these days due to serious hangovers, a bottle of cheap red wine each before heading out is not good for the head. Mendoza itself was a very nice spot, lovely small city centre with a lovely square and park. A fair few more steaks were had as our time in Argentina counted down. Hostel Lao was really class, up there with Pudu and America Del Sur in Bariloche and Calafate, met some great people there and the cable tv helped when hungover (even got to see a live Premiership game on the Sunday morn live on Fox Argentina!). In the end, we had spent 5 nights (2 more than planned) there so were ready to leave when the time came and head to our last Argentine destination, Salta.

Pucon, Chile

As we had a few days to kill we decided to nip across the border to Pucon to see what Chile had to offer. It was an early start leaving Bariloche and after about 10 hours we arrived in a stopover town called Osorno...what a kip that turned out to be! We were sat waiting (impatiently) at the platform for our next bus to Pucon for a good hour wondering why it was so late and grumpily asked the guys at the desk where it was at least 3 times (which they told us bemusingly that it was coming soon), when Shane finally copped that Chilean time is an hour behind Argentinian time...felt like right eejits then! The lack of Spanish is killing us!
So we were glad when we finally got on our bus and after another 6 hours or so, arrived in Pucon to be greeted by the hostel owners who kindly give us a lift which was great as it was lashing rain.
Unfortunately the rain continued the next day and other than climbing the volcano in the town or other outdoor adventure stuff, there´s not alot else to do there. It was clearly low season as the town was pretty dead. But we decided at about 11am when the rain had eased a bit that we would rent bikes for the day. Within 5 minutes of leaving the bike hire shop the heavy rain had started again. We braved it for an hour or so before giving up (when we were literally drenched to the skin) and headed back to the hostel to dry off. We spent the next couple of hours trying to warm up in the hostel which was by the way like a boot camp, run by a German couple and had rules about absolutely everything and was zero craic! Decided that afternoon that instead of waiting until the next day to get our bus on to Mendoza we would catch the overnight bus that evening instead...and besides, the weather was set to be crap for another few days so we wouldn´t be missing much. So off we went to the bus station that evening....bit of a wasted trip but sure you win some you lose some. Next stop....."bikes and wines" in Mendoza...much more fun!!