Month: October 2018

We didn’t stay long in Lima, it’s the capital of Peru but there wasn’t masses to do in the city, we took a walking tour around the old town which was interesting, we found out lots of cool facts like how it is the 2nd largest desert capital city after Cairo, Egypt, it has the largest bull fighting ring in Latin America, A third of Peru’s population live there and it never experiences rain, only dribble. We also saw the world’s smallest Catholic church and tried our first pisco sours, which was delicious!

Pisco is the national spirit of Peru made from fermented grapes, it was developed by the Spanish as an alternative to the expensive gin imports from spain. Unlike most national drinks we’ve tried (looking at you aguardiente) it is actually very nice! The second day we went shopping and I bought some trainers, I finally don’t have to decide between cold toes in my sandles or looking like Dora the explorer in my walking boots!

That night we headed to Huacachina on an overnight bus, we were told it would be cold there so wore our warmest coats, Huacachina is a beautiful oasis in the desert so we should have known it wasn’t cold, but we listened to the locals which again was probaly foolish as they tend to be in a duffel coat in any temperature lower than 25 degrees. After lookong like idiots and peeling off our 500 layers we really enjoyed the oasis, it’s like nothing weve ever experienced before, a tiny little village around an oasis, it was so beautiful. We spent the day sunbathing and relaxing and in the evening we climbed up a huge sand dune behind our hostal and watched the sun go down. It was absolutly stunning and picturesque until the boys got bored and started trying to push eachother down the slope and of course me and Grace had to show them how it was done with a sneek attack rolling down the hill to take out their legs from underneath them.

The next day we went on a pisco tour, ‘tour’ is a strong word, what actually happened was after a guy approached us asking for $100US for a tour and we laughed him out of the hostel a local guy offered to take us for S./25 (£5.80). It turned out to be him and his mate driving us there in old bangers but it did the job. Once we reached the winery we were given a free tour around and the process of making peruvian wines and pisco was explained to us. It’s much the same as in the rest of the world only much faster as it is warm year round here and is stored in big pottery urn type things, technical I know, you try remembering facts when you’re several glasses down! After the tour we also got to taste some peruvian wines and like most things in south america it is far to sweet! The pisco however was absolutly beautiful and we ended up buying a few bottles of different flavours, straberry, passion fruit and coffee. We were then taken to another winery but as wed already heared the ‘official tour’ our driver took us on his own tour which consisted on giving us as much as every kind of alcohol he could get his hands on, which we gleefully accepted. We also got to try pouring the drinks ourselves using the bamboo stick they dip in the pottery urns and then pour from, it was a lot more difficult than it sounds, especially when already quite tipsy, I was voted best in the group, im not quite sure what thay says about me! We decided to carry on our pisco tasting at our hostel with our newly purchased bottles and after watch the sunset from a lovely rooftop bar over dinner before heading off on yet another night bus.

As always I’ll keep you updated on what we get up to next,

Lots of love,

Alice x

Our first week in Peru was mainly spent at the beach, from here on out it will be getting colder and there isn’t masses of things to do in the north of Peru, so after meeting up with our friend Scott and two other guys he is traveling with, we spent the first week or so here traveling down the coast for beach town to beach town. Scott is still teaching Grace to surf but I’ve decided I’m more of a fair weather surfer, I’d rather soak up rays on the beach than surf in the Pacific. You have to wear a wet suit here to surf and me in a wet suit is the opposite end of the spectrum to what I consider fun, there are whales here and I don’t want to run the risk of a mistaken harpooning! So lately it’s just been lots of tanning, I’m now the most brown I’ve ever been, which mainly just makes me look like a need a good shower.

So far our thoughts on Peru are that it’s nice, the food is a lot better than the rest of South America, especially chifa a mix of Chinese and Peruvian cooking, although were less keen on Inca kola, a fizzy drinks that seems to be a national treasure here, it kind of tastes like panda pop and is a bit to sweet for our taste. Women here love an oversized hat and taxi drivers always think you want a taxi. Even if you just got out of a taxi, even if you’re getting onto a bus, even if you’ve just told the previous 10 taxis in a row of traffic you don’t want a taxi, they still think if they bib and nod at you, you’ll cave and decided they’re right, it really was a taxi you’ve been after this whole time, you’ve just been playing hard to get. In fact everyone here loves bibbing, it seems to be a trend in South America, bibbing for no reason, even if you’re the only car on the road, but here in Peru they have personalized horns, which is an unexpected and loud twist. The people here are very friendly and actually speak some English which makes life a little easier.

Eventually we had to leave the beach and headed to Huaraz, a really beautiful town up in the Andies. It is absolutely stunning but also freezing cold and coming from the coast I really felt the change in altitude. This is the first time I’ve had altitude sickness badly, normally I just get headaches but this time I could feel my individual organs throbbing and felt constantly sick, luckily Scott was a diligent nurse and brought me tea made with Coco leaves every few hours which helped a bit.

We spent the first day in Huaraz exploring the town, it’s the third most populated town in Peru and is absolutely bustling with life, we managed to find a shop selling coats and bought some fake North Face jackets that so far have kept us warm against the wind, we just have to hope they don’t fall apart at the seams when it rains!

On our second day in Huaraz we wanted to do a hike to one of the beautiful glacial lagoons in the mountains. The boys all opted to do the 8 hour hike to Laguna 69, an absolutely stunning blue lake at 4700m, but as I was struggling to climb the stairs of my bunk bed without feeling queezy, I thought a 4700m climb may be a bit much (fun fact the average skydiving height is 4000m). Instead we opted for a trip to Laguna Llanganuco, a lower down Laguna which is apparently the inspiration for the paramount pictures logo, how could we refuse?

The Laguna itself was stunning, the trip to see it however was an absolute shambles. The trip was supposed to be 9am-5pm, we were picked up late and then walked around town to different agencies, none of whom seemed to claim ownership of our tour, we were eventually added onto a group of people on another tour. However no-one would read our ticket or speak to us to clarify we were headed to the same destination, until Grace lost her temper and shoved our ticket at the guide shouting “will you just look at it!!”, which terrified the guide into finally helping us and became a fun catchphrase for the rest of the trip (Grace is not a morning person incase that was not immediately clear). Once we were shuttled to the correct bus we realized we were the only English speakers on the tour, that included the ‘english speaking guide’ we had paid for, I guess they didn’t specify how much English he spoke, but we were expecting more than just the word ‘okay’. That did not however deter him from directing his whole tourist information speech directly at me, for several hours. To be fair it was nice to know my Spanish is now good enough to understand a talk about geology, but unfortunately that was only a small part of the tour and I didn’t get much of the rest! The first few hours of the tour consisted of a long drive accompanied by a Spanish guide to the scenery, our first stop was a pretty plaza, we’re still not too sure why, but there was a photo opitnity infront of a random church that we’re still kicking ourselves about missing out on! After that there was a long drive to the lagoon.

The lagoon is beautiful, with cristal clear blue water, surrounded by beautiful snowcapped mountains, we could have spent the whole day here walking around, but unfortunately we only had 40 minutes before we had to be back on the coach. We walked about a quarter of the way around the lake before we had to head back. Although the walk was beautiful it wasn’t the best idea while still suffering from the altitude and I managed to throw up on the side of the lake, which Grace found hillarious and pointed out that I’m always sick in the most beautiful places we go to, lake Atitilan, the Galapagos Islands and by a glacial lake.

We left the lake at 3pm and were taken to a restaurant nearby, unfortunately the only food available was chicken feet soup or fried Guinea pig, after just being sick I didn’t think I could stomach either. As it had taken so long to get to the lake and the trip was supposed to end at 5pm we assumed we would be heading straight home afterwards, so we just grabbed some biscuits.

Instead of heading back south we headed north for another two hours, again stopping at another plaza, we we marched off the bus and into a shop to try a spoonful of caramel and immediately marched straight back onto the bus and began traveling back in the direction of home. The caramel was nice but not quite worth a two hour trip! On the way back we had several more 5 minute stops to take photos infront of churches and to look at not much at all, one stop was to look at a rock that ‘had a face on it’, if you can call a circular rock with a lump in the middle a face. Everyone on the bus was getting more and more frustrated and less people bothering to get off everytime. Around 7:30pm, on our 9am-5pm, tour we stopped to watch a pottery demonstration, the guy was literally in his pajamas watching TV when we turned up, it was actually quite interesting and I’d decided to just go with the flow at that point and enjoy it. After a full day stuck on a coach haven only eaten a packet of biscuits Grace however, was about to explode with anger and when the guide spent another ten minutes trying to chat to her in Spanish instead of getting on the bus…well let’s just say it was probably a good thing he didn’t speak much English!

We got back home around 8pm, a total of 11 hours on the tour probably about 4 hours of that we spent outside of the coach! We grabbed a quick dinner and then had to get straight on an overnight coach to Lima! Hopefully our time here will be a bit more rewarding.

I’ll let you know what we get up to here!

Lots of love,

Alice x

So the Galapagos was amazing! We’ve seen a lot of cool things and animals on this trip but it’s just so different on the Galapagos, the animals here have no fear of humans what so ever, you step centimetres away for tiny little birds and they don’t even flinch let alone fly off, they also just sit about your table when you’re eating and perch next to you on benches, the same with all the animals here, I feel like a Disney Princess! The golden rule is to always stay 2 meters/6 foot away from the animals at all times, the problem is no-one tells the animals this, you basically have to watch not to trip over sea lions or get hit by a low flying pelican. The islands themselves are absolutely beautiful especially on a good day. We went out of season so it was slightly overcast for a lot of it but on the plus side this made it a bit cheaper, when they say paradise comes with a price tag they mean it! Food here was so expensive we were eating one meal a day and living of Oreo biscuits the rest of the time. In the first day getting there we spent; £270 on flights, £20 on a permit, £100 on entry to the island, £5 on a 5 minute compulsory bus and another £5 on a 3 minute boat ride across a gap between islands so small you were over half way across when you’d walked to the front of the boat, then another £25 on a taxi to our hostel, £20 for the hostel and £30 for a small dinner £470 in the fist afternoon! After that we decided to stop counting money, that way bankcrupting ourselves would be a slightly more enjoyable experience.

On the first day we stayed on Santa Cruz island and decided to do a taxi tour of the island. Our first stop was the twin craters, two giant caterers in the ground formed when the magma chambers under the island emptied leaving vast holes and the roof of the chambers fell in, now it’s covered in vegetation and wildlife including Darwin finches, we had a walk around and a watch of the birds and then moved onto the next spot, there’s only so long you can stair at a hole in the ground no matter how pretty it is.

Next stop was a giant tortoise ranch, they were everywhere and huge! We thought there would be one or two but there were so many you had to watch not to trip over them, apparently as it’s now the cold season here the lowlands are much greener so they migrate down from the hills and the ranch is one of their favourite spots. It used to be a farm but the farmer was overrun with tortoises and couldn’t keep them off his crop so he decided to just let them be and open the ranch up as a tourist attraction. The tortoise migration seems to case havoc here as they’re not exactly fast and you’re not allowed to touch or move them even if they have decided to take a nap in the middle of the highway, but it made even the most boring journey feel like an off-road safari.

After we had our fill of giant tortoises we visited some volcanic tunnels, again created by lava flows when the outside rocks solidified but the inner lava kept moving, leaving tunnels. They started off huge but at one point they reduce to a tiny point you can just about crawl under, I hadn’t planned to start a trip of a life time with my face in the mud but there you go, after that we were dropped at our hostel in the main town on Santa Cruz, where we booked our activities for the next day and went on the search for dinner, we found a street of people selling freshly caught fish and lobster and decided if we were spending £30 for dinner anyway we might as well take advantage of the cheap local seafood and go fancy with lobster!

The next day we both went on trips, Grace went scuba diving and I went on a trip to Santa Fe island, only a few of the islands here you are allowed to visit alone the rest you need to book trips which range from $100-$150 a day. Our boat consisted of me, a English/German couple and a family of 5 Argentinians and a guide in her 20’s on the way to the island she was chatting to us about growing up here, how you are only allowed to be a permanent resident of the islands after marrying in or having a required job and living here for 10 years, to try and avoid over population, she was also pointing out large groups of fish and different species of rays swimming alongside the boat and even jumping out of the water. Once we got to the island we had an hour of bird watching and learning about them and which ones are unique to the Galapagos, it wasn’t hard to spot the birds as they were absolutely everywhere and were even diving into the water catching fish in front of us, I felt like I was in a documentary, we even saw the famous blue footed boobies.

Next we got to snorkel in two spots off of the island, it was incredible! The best snorkeling I have ever done in my life, the water was so thick with life, I was scared to swim incase I hit something, the water was just so packed and all of the fish were beautiful colours and in big schools. We saw a billion different types of fish, eels, crabs and several different types of star fish. We also got to see marine iguanas, iguanas that have adapted to fish and can hold their breath and fish underwater for 30 minutes! My favourite part of the day was the sea lions, they are just so friendly here, you’re not allowed to approach them but as soon as they see you in the water they come over and swim all around you doing loops and jumping in and out of the water, our guide showed us that they love it when you blow bubbles and at one point I blew I bunch of bubbles to find my self nose to nose with a sea lion once they’d cleared only for it to speed off again, for such clumsy animals above land they sure are speedy and agile in the water!

After several hours hours of snorkeling we were all knackered especially our guide, as it turned out none of the five Argentinians who had signed up for a snorkeling trip spotted the potential floor in the fact none of them could swim. So our pour guide had to pull them all along in floats while trying to point out all the different species of fish. She thankfully got a sit down as the captain of the boat took us fishing and explained how they fish here only with lines in attempt to reduce the impact on the environment. We then had some lovely barbequed fish and rice for lunch.

Next we headed on to a tiny nearby uninhabited island, where our guide showed us all of the different plants and animals, and I felt the softest sand I’ve ever sat on, apparently the product of a lot of parrot fish poo! They grind down and eat rocks, dead coral and sand to try and absorb algae, giving out a fine dust as their waste products, so not only are they amazingly colourful beautiful fish but they also create lovely beaches! We also saw a lot of lava lizards and some baby rays in the water, our guide was hoping we’d see turtles as the beach is one they come to to be cleaned by other fish but unfortunately there were none about. We headed back to Santa Cruz and what do you know in the harbour there were turtles! So we got to see them after all, we also got to see lot of tiny black tip sharks. In the evening we went to visit the only brewery on the Galapagos with the couple I had met on the boat trip, and they also sent me some photos they had taken on the trip as Grace had my waterproof camera on her trip, so that’s why the photo look a lot nicer than my normal ‘point and hope for the best’ blog photos!

The next day we headed to the Darwin research center, here they research the species on the island and their genetic make up, they also do a lot to combat and educate people on the ecological problems on the island such as invasive species. People bring cats and dogs which often eat animals, blackberry bushes aren’t native to the area and are much more aggressive than indigenous plants and have already killed 99% of the Scalesia forests on the islands, there are also fly’s that lay their eggs in nests to each hatchlings, even barreling against eruptions, which on some islands nearly wiped out certain species. They spend a lot of the breading native species or collecting eggs and rearing them until they are big enough to have a good chance at survival when released into the wild. So we spent the day reading about the work they do and cooing over baby tortoises! In the afternoon we got the ferry to Isla Isabella where we would spend our last few days and booked a trip for the next day.

The next day we decided to go on another snorkeling trip as Grace was a bit gutted she’d missed the last one. This the we would be snorkeling through some small open top volcanic tunnels, this trip was $95 but not as good as the last one, we only snorkeled in one place, most of the trip was getting there. The water in the Galapagos is also very cold, hence why it has so much life in it, so to snorkel you need a thick wetsuit, (don’t worry there are no photos of me in a wetsuit in case you’re reading this while eating!) But the ones they gave us on this trip were really thin for the temperature, only 2mm, so poor Grace, who doesn’t have the extra bit of insulation I do, had to get out after 15 minutes as she was too cold. But I made sure to take lots of photos for her! We saw a lot more large scale stuff this time, there were turtles everywhere, several rays, a large sea horse and even sharks! Okay they were only about the length of your arm but when the guide said not to move to much incase we woke them I followed that instruction to the tee! After that we headed onto some tunnels where the bridges/roofs were still intact to have a look at the nesting sites of some blue footed boobies, it was really surreal scenery like the set of a different planet on doctor who or something. We saw a few chicks, one of which took a liking to Grace and came up right close to inspect her.

On our final day we couldn’t book a trip as we needed to get a ferry back to the island closest to the airport and the last one left at 3pm, so we decided as it was a nice day to just sit on the beautiful beach by the ferry terminal and have a swim. But this actually turned out to be my favourite day, not only was it free, always a big plus for me! But we ended up spending the day swimming with some super playful sea lion pups, they came over to investigate as soon as we sat down on the beach, and were then excitedly speeding about in the water as soon as we went for a swim, it was so much fun playing with them, we were no where near as fast as them in the water and they swam circles around us, literally! We also saw some more tiny sharks in the shallows although I didn’t follow them too closely! It was an absolutly beautiful day and a great end to our short trip!

Keep you updated on what we get up to next.

Lots of love,

Alice x

We awoke in Baños to a horrible hangover and a lot of noise, there was a huge festival in the town (of course there was on the day we were hung over!). We decided to go explore, we weren’t sure what exactly they were celebrating, but boy were they enthusiastic about it! People were dancing traditional dances in traditional dress which was really entertaining to watch and the crowd were shouting and banging along to the loud music, which was a lot less fun for our headaches! But we soldiered on and actually had a really fun time, the locals seemed to enjoy us joining in, especially our friend Scott who is a really tall, very blond Australian who is so pale he’s almost translucent, the locals were fascinated by him wherever he went there were stares and eyes following and being the nice supportive friends we are, we obviously bullied him about it relentlessly, trying to charge people for photos with him.

We joined in the festivities and met a few local people through our friend Scott, he’s a musician (although he refuses to play wonder wall…) and has been playing guitar in local venues, where we get dragged along to meet everyone afterwards, normally getting evil stares from what ever group of girls happen to be swooning over him that particular day and afterwards we spend a lot of time taking the piss out of him until his ego returns to a normal size. We went out with some Ecuadorians he knew and had a fun night drinking and partying with them, me and Grace brought out our amazing beer pong skills out of retirement, along with our not so amazing salsa/dancing skills. Again we went to bed far to late and drank far to much, which has started to become a theme this week, I blame hanging around with musicians!

After a morning nursing our hang overs we made the assent to a high point overlooking Baños called the end of the world, there they have these huge swings the swing out over the edge of the mountain, they were absolutely terrifying! I played it cool and got in the swing and almost fooled myself I wasn’t scared until I went out at speed and let out a huge scream! A rookie mistake as Grace and Scott smelt my fear and kept pushing me higher and higher! We also had a race on some zip lines which was super fun until we hit the end of the line and nearly got thrown off.

We spent the next day organising our trip to the Galapagos Islands, as all we had so far were our flights, when our accomodation was sorted we booked a bus to Montañita on the coast where we planed to relax for the three days before our flights. The hostel we’re staying in here is right on the beach and has two donkeys and a horse that wander around like dogs, they come over for a fuss and you have to be careful they don’t eat your lunch or in one guys case, your box of cigarettes. The weather hasn’t been so great here, quite overcast and the sea has been really choppy but luckily Scott knows how to surf and offered to teach us while the waves were big, I was dubious after my last attempt, which consisted mainly of me being beaten up by the board and waves, but he was actually a really good teacher and I got more out of the first 10 minutes with him that the whole three hours we had before, and this time only cost me a few beers! (And a lot of being laughed at) but I managed to stand up this time, and didn’t have half as many bruises afterwards!

The next day was our last by the coast and as we were leaving that evening and everyone was going to miss us so much, they decided to throw a pool party for us. Someone mentioned they do that every week but we know it was for us really! It was a lot of fun and they had a surf competition in the pool which consisted of one representative of each nation jumping on a surf board and whoever went the furthest without falling in won. I was going to volunteer for the UK as I had now stood on a board once and was pretty much a professional, but apparently some guy had lived in Australia for two years and nipped me to be representative, he did not win which I think says it all really.

The party finished around four and we packed and headed via bus to a home stay near the airport, which is where I’m writing this now, although ‘home stay’ is overstating the niceness to be honest, I’ve seen better conditions in prisons! But it’s only for one night and tomorrow we fly to the Galapagos Islands!

I’ll keep you updated on what we get up to there!!!!

Lots of love,

Alice x