Top 50 Trip Photos

The Itinerary:

• 13 October - Get There (SF - Miami - La Paz)
• 14 Oct: Copacabana, Lake Titicaca
• 16 Oct: Rurrenabaque, Bolivian Amazon
• 20 Oct: Sacred Valley (Ollayntatambo, Machu Picchu)
• 22 Oct: Cusco
• 24 Oct: Arequipa
• 27 Oct: Lima
• 29 October - Get Home (Lima - LA - SF)

As is our custom on these trips, we 'splurged' on our final hotel by using points to stay in the Lima Sheraton, where we didn't have to worry about 3 important things: good water pressure, availability of hot water, and having a comfy bed. As is custom for these nice hotels we stay in, we got a little bit of the evil eye as we rolled into the marble lobby straight off the overnight bus, but they found a room for us fairly quickly and we cleaned up and headed out for the 'trendy' district of Miraflores, a section of Lima that runs right up against the Pacific Ocean. It reminded us of a combination of Santa Monica + Miami, with striking cliffs atop of which were perched a bunch of condominiums, shopping malls, and restaurants (why is there a Tony Roma's in Lima Peru?). It was significantly more clean and nice compared to some of the other places we have been on our trip, which in a way made it a little uncomfortably strange.

In the evening we strolled through central Lima, through a few plazas filled with people and a pedestrian shopping/eating area. We settled into a restaurant that had a bunch of people in it and dined on another new item, skewers of grilled cow heart (antichucho). It wasn't all that bad and tasted more or less like any other beef we've eaten before. It was a Tuesday night and while we looked long and hard for any sign of nightlife, we didn't find anything great so we just called it a night - we knew we had a long day ahead of us the next day as our flight to LAX did not depart until 2AM.

On our last day of the trip, we did most of the central Lima sights, the highlight of which was the Church of San Francisco which included a library straight out of Indiana Jones, with books that were over 300 years old! It was really interesting but unfortunately no photos or videos are allowed inside. An added bonus to our final day was the crazy celebration taking place in the streets of Lima, it was some kind of religious festival having to do with Miracles, but nonetheless it was really busy on the streets, a few of which were closed to traffic, and there were food carts all over selling various tasty treats.

When it came time for dinner, we were ready to hit up a pena, which in Peru and Bolivia refers to a place with live music or other entertainment as well as dinner; unfortunately the one Pena in walking distance to our hotel was closed for a private party. Lucky for us, the street party was still going on so we decided to do a food cart crawl. Given that in a couple hours we were to board a plane for a long flight home, this was a pretty risky call, but we crossed our fingers that our stomachs could take it.

We wandered the streets and stopped at each and every cart that caught our eye. We ended up spending about 6 Soles for dinner for both of us, which is a little less than $2 USD! We had some tasty fried meat (which upon googling the name we now realize to be calf liver), some kind of fried potato with unknown items inside, some quasi-Asian noodles, a chicken sandwich, and a few dessert-like items...all in all an adventurous meal that we probably would not have had at the pena.

Around midnight we decided to call it a trip and head for the airport. The flight home was fairly uneventful, both of us slept pretty much the whole way to LAX and then hopped over to the domestic terminal to standby for the earlier flight to SFO, which was delayed of course, but still had seats for us. We made it home around 1PM, had some lunch, and then immediately started re-packing - we were due back at SFO the next day at 8AM to fly out to Indianapolis, where we had planned to visit for Halloween and the 49ers - Colts football game...and thus our whirlwind 2 weeks in Bolivia & Peru came to an end.

Travel Pace - for me, the most difficult part of this trip is our limited time...we kinda backed ourselves into a corner by committing to go to Indianapolis for Halloween. Two weeks would have been fine for Peru, but as we heard more about Bolivia we become convinced we had to include it in the trip. I'm definitely glad we ended up making it to Bolivia, but that decision has also meant constant movement, nearly every day, to a new city; unpacking and repacking the backpack. The pace we have traveled on this trip is about as fast as I think I can handle anymore.

Planning - this is an interesting trip in that we literally had nothing planned or booked ahead of time except for our flight home from Lima. Those of you that know us probably know that is about as opposite of our nature as can be, but it was a good experience to try travelling that way for once. I think we were helped by the recession and the fact we were visiting in shoulder season - I know a couple times we got some of the last tickets for transportation that were available, which made for a few stressful moments; but overall we did quite well considering we never had a reserved place to stay or a reserved seat on a bus/place until the day we needed them.

We had hoped to arrive in Arequipa at 6AM and join a trip to the Colca Canyon (most leave around 8-9AM), but due to general ineptitude of the Cruz Del Sur bus company we didn't make it to Arequipa until 9AM, and all the trips had already departed for the day. So instead we stopped at nice-looking cafe and indulged in an 'American-style' desayuno (breakfast) with scrambled eggs, a nice treat after the monotony of simple bread rolls and papaya juice which is served up at pretty much every hostel/hotel in Bolivia & Peru. But our culinary adventures did not end there. For dinner we had a Peruvian delicacy of cuy, which is guinea pig. The whole animal, buck teeth and all, splayed out and crispy on a dinner plate. I can't say it was anything spectacular - tasted very much like tender chicken meat, but took a heck of effort to get at the very small slivers of meat within - then again, maybe I just had a thin one...the ones I saw alive in the pens in other restaurants looked a lot more meaty.

Since we had missed out on a two-day tour of Colca Canyon, we instead booked a day tour, which is a pretty aggressive trip that begins with a 2AM pick up and wraps up around 5PM the same day. We decided not to press our luck by partying until 2AM and instead called it an early night, around 10PM. The early pickup is necessary so that you can arrive at the lookout point for condors at a good time. Fortunately we were rewarded for our early rise with three condor sightings! We had a great tour guide, Irena from Colonial Tours, who told us a ton about the Colca Canyon, Arequipeno culture, and history. The Colca Canyon is deeper than the Grand Canyon but not as visually stunning (in our opinion). Still, it made for a solid and entertaining day trip.

On our final day in Arequipa we did some mountain biking. We had hoped to join with a larger group, but we ended up on our own private trip down the side of the Chachani volcano (one of three volcanoes that surround Arequipa). Starting from an altitude of 4900 meters, we (mostly) descended for about 2 hours on fire roads, rough single track, sandy single track, and finally asphalt. The views of Arequipa were amazing, the wildlife mostly lacking; and we finsihed with only one very minor crash along the way. It had been a long time since either of us had done any mountain biking, but it was a good way to get some activity in before our 16 hour overnight bus ride to Lima, which left later that day.

Todd had booked the bus tickets and we had expected to get a full cama seat for the long bus ride to Lima. However, Passport Junkie clearly has some additional research to do in South America - we stepped on the bus and noticed only regular seats, even less comfy than the 'semi-camas' we had on our previous trip. There was no choice but to buckle down and try to bear out the ride. At first we were worried that no food or drink would be served - in anticipation of the cama/1st class service we had only a small bottle of water and had left our emergency food (CLIF bars) in our checked luggage. Fortunately about 3 hours into the ride we were served a little dinner and drink. Then we popped the Advil PMs and fell asleep to the sounds of others' snores and the movies (but not before Todd finished watching the movie Troy). Recommendation for travel in South America - bring an eye mask and earplugs - they can make the bus rides a lot more comfortable!

Fortunately the bus was in better working order, we rolled into Lima on schedule around 9AM the next day, to begin our final two days/one night in Peru.