Lima, Peru

We arrived in the capital of Peru, Lima in good time after an 8 hour drive back down to sea level from Huaraz. We have stayed in a very central hotel only 2 blocks away from the main shopping street and also Plaza de Armas which is the main square. The plaza is a UNESCO site and is very beautiful during the day and also at dusk. It's home to the government palace, cathedral and city hall and lots restuarants. The day was spent having a mooch in the streets off the square, a spot of shopping (I bought another bag!) and we also managed to catch the changing of the guard outside the palace which was pretty musical! Lima has been a great stop but it's time for a couple of bush camps as we head further south along the coast.

Huaraz, Peru

Yesterday after a very scenic drive and heights of 4200m we arrived in the snowy mountain surrounded town of Huaraz. There is plenty to do here- trekking, mountain biking, horse riding, ice climbing and rock climbing. This is the 1st opportunity we have had to go climbing so myself, Lisa and Antony spent a couple of hours going up and down the 20m high wall. It wasn't hugely difficult but it was great fun and the view was amazing. Tomorrow we head back down to sea level and Peru's capitol, Lima.

Huanchaco, Peru

Chan Chan

Temple of the Moon

We left Punta Sal and headed South on the Pan Americano Highway through a very dry and barren landscape. It was a long day and we arrived in the coastal town of Huanchaco in time to go out for tea which was an experience as it's low season so not much is open resulting in a very long wait (1.5 hours) for our food.

The next morning we awoke to sea views and suprisingly cool temperature as we headed out with the truck and a guide to visit the pre Inca ruins of Chan Chan and the Temple of the Moon. The Chan Chan complex was built by the Chimu as an Imperial city in and is the largest Adobe (type of clay brick) city in the world. There are 10 palaces and we had a look around one of them. It was huge! The palace has 12m high surrounding walls and each new king had a new palace. When a king died he was buried in his palace next to all his women who were sacrificed and his treasure. The décor inside the palace was linked to the fishing trade with reliefs of fish, pelicans and nets. The Incas attacked and the Chimu's surrended around 1471 after all their irrigation canals were cut off. The city was left deserted after the Inca's didn't fancy it. It was nice to have a wander around, but the city has been heavily conserved with the reliefs actually being completely covered by a modern replica which made the place look like a cheaply made film set. I couldn't see the point in conserving the place if you couldn't see what you were conserving.

After lunch we went to have a look at a much older site, the pyramid shaped, Temple of the Moon. The temple was build in 300AD by the Moche people who were keen on ceramics. The temple had 7 levels and the preservation of the reliefs was amazing as the temple had been buried in sands since its abandonment. The original colours were still visible on the reliefs which showed, priests, prisoners, fisherman and animals. The temple built up into layers as after a priest died he was buried and then a new level added for the next priest.

The day was very interesting an a great introduction to Peruvian ruins. Next we head up into the Andes to Huaraz at 3700m.

Beach time, Peru

From Banos we headed further South to Cuenca. This town is famous for being the place where the Panama hat originates from. To be honest I haven't got much to say about Cuenca which didn't seem to hold much apart from museums and the weather wasn't great. We had a whole hostel to ourselves so I did a spot if relaxing, internetting, got my laundry washed, and ate lots! It was a necerssary stop enroute to the border though.

Getting into Peru from Ecuador should have been easy as it's a well used route for overland trucks and we had a brand new immigration office block where we could get stamped out of Ecuador and enter Peru at desks just next door to each other. Sadly it wasn't so easy for 6 of us, including me! When we entered Ecuador some of us were given a traditional rubber stamp and some a fancy electronic stamp. It turns out that some of the rubber stamped passports entry wasn't recorded into the system properly (seems to be a common problem that we are having with Ecuador) with the border post on the computer not matching what the stamp says. We were told that we would have to go back to the border we entered in from, which wasn't going to happen! A couple of hours later the immigration people realised that we did all come through the same border together and someone higher up the rank managed to get code to overwrite what had been typed into the computer. Who would have thought that getting out the country would have been so difficult!!

As soon as we headed into Peru you noticed a change from Ecuador moving from green and wet to brown and dry. The sun was shining as we headed to Punta Sal, meaning Salt Point about 30km from the town of Mancora. We arrived in time for sunset pitching our tents on the beach with sea views. We had 2 full days of beach fun. The first day some of us headed into Mancora by a combination of tuk tuk and flagged down minivan to change some money and also to learn to surf. Myself, Lisa, Vanessa, Francois and Antony braved the waves for an hour with an instructor guiding the surf board from behind into the waves and giving us a little extra power before yelling for us to stand up. It was great fun. The first wave we attempted I managed to stand for a couple of seconds before falling but the waves after that I surfed them into shore. It would be interesting to see how easy it is without a chap behind you yelling instructions. I'm really glad I did it as a surf lesson is something I never got around to in Australia.

After an afternoon of relaxation we started one of many 'farewell Pete' parties. This one included a huge BBQ, a photo slide show and Rogan hosted a couple of games of Limbo and pick up the cardboard box. Great night had by all. The next day (today) has been a day of sleeping, swimming and book reading. No complaints so far!

Banos, Ecuador

The town of Banos is a relatively short hop south from Quito. The mountain roads were beautiful and we stopped for lunch in a layby which gave us the chance to go on a cable car across the valley to see a waterfall. It was the best $1.50 I've ever spent as it hurtled us pretty quickly down a cable that looked like it was in the process of being replaced. Very good fun!

We stayed in a lovely campsite 17km outside Banos in the cloud forest which meant that we have had rain since we arrived. One day we caught the bus into town which is at the bottom of an active volcano (last eruption 2009) but sadly low cloud spoilt our views. It's not the prettiest of towns but it has served needs of a post office and ATM and was nice to have a wander. The cathedral had some unusual paintings inside all relating to the volcano erupting and alarmingly one showed the cable car cable across the valley snapping and a man falling to his death.

The second day some people went walking, others for a massage but myself, Lisa, Geoff, Francois, Terry and Lesley went white water rafting on the Rio Negro. After all the rain recently it was touch and go whether the river would actually be raftable. We were given the go and donned wetsuits, buoyancy aids and helmets and braved the rain and cold water to have a great day out. Most of the rapids were class 4 or 5 making fantastic rafting and we actually had to walk the river bank for two sections of class 6 as they can't be commercially rafted. It was a great 2.5hours of all go and I was very glad I did it.

Galapogos part 2

Continued- apparently no more space for photos on part 1

Giant Tortioses- We saw in the Charles Dawin Research Centre on Santa Cruz island. The tortoises are bred here and released back to the wild, microchipped when they are 5 years old. It was great to see the size of the tortoises as some had shells well over a meter long.

Turtles

White tipped reef sharks

Various rays

So many fish

We only visited the Southern islands on our cruise but I was pleased how much we did see. I think there will be a few returnees in years to come for further exploration! We flew back to Quito for one night before heading further South to Banos with one extra person on board. Rogan has joined us a crew as sadly Pete has to leave us in Lima, Peru to prepare and crew another upcoming trip. Rogan has driven for Odyssey many times before and seems like a nice guy so I'm sure we will still be in safe hands with him and Kirsten for the final sector of the trip back to Buenos Aires.

Galapogos, Ecuador part 1

Most of us arrived in Quito knowing one thing, that we were off to explore the Galapogos Islands. The Galapogos cruise had been booked since before we left the UK so 16 of us, very excited flew out the 3 hours to Baltra island to start our 4 night cruise.

The Galapogos Islands were made famous by Charles Darwin in 1831 when he visited the islands, looked at all the plants and animals and then wrote all his books on evolution. The islands are a UNESCO site and the Galapogos National Park protects 97% of the land with the other 3% being areas where people live.

We visited 6 islands and all were different in what they looked like and also what animal species they had living there as some species are endemic to certain islands. It was safe to say that from the moment we got to the dock to get on our boat, the very appropriately named 'Darwin' we had smiles plastered on our faces until the end of the trip as we were constantly treated to wildlife delights. Without even starting our cruise we had already seen sealions, pelicans and a swimming marine iguana!

The cruise had a busy schedule and I didn't actually realise how tiring it was going to be as we had many short walks planned and lots of snorkelling. If I'm honest, the underwater world beat the land world hands down and I could have happily had a week's worth of snorkelling. Saying that, the whole trip was great and worth every penny and the only thing I could fault was that there was far too much fish served on board. Yuk!

The wildlife was amazingly unfazed at our presence. There was a 2m distance rule applied but most things I'm sure you could have got closer to. The only thing that we saw from a big distance was the Galapogos Penguin. Even when on the boat we saw plenty as the birds followed us and one evening we had moored up so were able to watch nature's TV from the back of the boat which involved circling sharks, sealions and pelicans catching fish. Here's a list of a few things we saw and a fact if I can remember one:

Pelicans- can scoop up 2 gallons of water in a beak full and then filter the fish out.

Marine Iguanas- have adapted their tails to make them longer and flatter to aid swimming

Sally lightfoot crabs- unusually can walk sideways and forwards

Land Iguanas- we saw 2 species. One species had yellow feet and belly which it had got from eating lots of yellow flowers

Painted Locust

Lava lizards-males have the red throat.

Frigate birds- males have the red throat, females are brown and white colour

Sealions

Nazca booby

Blue footed booby- males do a dance for the females but ultimately the male with the bluest feet wins.

Lava Heron

Swallow tail gulls- the only bird to feed at night to avoid competition with frigate birds.

Mockingbirds-the male makes the nest as colourful as possible using bits of plastic collected from the ports. The female then picks the male with the most colourful nest. After eggs hatch the female leaves and then the male is left to look after the chicks.

Galapogos Hawk

Waved albatross

American Oyster catcher

Darwin finches

to be continued....