Knowing me, knowing Peru, aha (Puno, Arequipa, Nazca, and Huacachina, Peru)

We left Cusco on an overnight bus to Puno, which arrived early the following morning. After three nights sleeping in tents on the Inca Trail, the reclining leather seats on our bus felt even more comfortable than they might have done otherwise and we both welcomed the chance to catch up on some sleep, particularly as we'd been up since 3am that morning. We were met at Puno bus station by Edgar, the owner of a tour company Peruvian Dreams, who was to look after us fantastically over the next couple of days. We'd booked a two day tour of the islands on the Peruvian side of Lake Titicaca with Edgar's company and he was kind enough to come and meet us at the bus station even though we arrived at 5am!

After catching up on some more sleep in Edgar's office and wolfing down some breakfast at a nearby hotel, we set off on our two day trip to Lake Titicaca. Avid readers of this blog (I know there are a few of you!) will remember that I had already spent a couple of days on the lake, visiting Isla del Sol on the Bolivian side. This trip was to be slightly different as we were part of an organised tour, but rather than staying in a hostel, we would be staying with a local family in one of the communities on the island of Amantani. 

Our first stop was the floating islands of Uros. These incredible islands are made from totora reed beds which the native Indian communities stitch together with wooden staves and rope and then build houses on top of. The islanders have lived like this for generations after the pre-Inca Uros tribe fled from the Spanish conquistadores when their former lands around the lake were invaded. Around 2000 islanders still live like this, making their living from fishing, handicrafts, and increasingly, tourism.

Uros floating islands

The island 'president' shows us how the islands are made

We didn't spend very long on the islands, but we did get a chance to buy a few of the handicrafts the islanders were selling and to go for a ride on one of their reed boats with the island's 'president' doing the steering.

Making a purchase from one of the islanders

Ready to set sail on one of the islanders reed boats

After leaving Uros, we headed for Amantani, the first of two natural islands we would be visiting on this trip. At the dock we were each met by a member of the family we would be staying with, with Chris and I being introduced to Evaristo, the head of the family we would be staying with that night. Evaristo walked us up to his small house which had stunning views of the lake and introduced us to his wife, his daughter (Norma) and his granddaughter (Erica), before showing us to a suprisingly spacious room with two beds that Chris and I would be sharing. The family didn't speak any English so my Spanish language skills came in handy and enabled me to have few basic conversations with the family and tell them a little about Chris and I and learn a little about them.

The view from our homestay

Erica - Evaristo's granddaughter

Lunch at the homestay 

Following a hearty lunch of soup, vegetables and cheese (the Amantani islanders are all vegetarian), we met up with the rest of our group to take a walk around the island and visit two temples, one dedicated to Pachamama (Mother Earth) and the other to Pachatata (Father Earth). The islanders here still wear traditional clothes and follow ancient local customs and religions (only a very small percentage have converted to Catholicism) so it was really interesting to spend some time exploring and seeing the local people go about their business. We did stumble across an inter-community volleyball competition however so it wasn't all traditional clothing and rural life!

Village elders in traditional dress

The view from the top of Amantani across Lake Titicaca

That night, we were invited to join some of the islanders for an evening of local music and dancing. Chris and I were both pretty tired from our exertions on the Inca Trail so nearly decided not to go, but when we saw Erica dressed up in traditional dress and ready to go, we couldn't really say no! The family dressed us up in a traditional Peruvian hat and poncho and walked us to the dance, which was taking place in a local community hall. With the hall only lit by a single lightbulb and lots of slightly nervous tourists stood around in the local dress (the women had all been dressed up in local skirts, blouses and shawls), it made for a slightly strange night, but we did our best to join in with the dancing to the music being played by a rather out of time band of young men.

With Erica and Norma at the dance

Dancing with Norma at the dance

The next morning we said our goodbyes to Evaristo and his family and headed back to the port to catch a boat to the next island on our tour - Taquile. This island was similar to Amantani in many ways, and so felt like a bit of an unneccessary add-on to the tour, but it was interesting to see some of the contrasts between the two islands, the main one being that on Taquile the men do all of the knitting!

Saying goodbye to Evaristo and his family

Taquile

The knitting men of Taquile

After returning to Puno, we caught another bus to take us on to Arequipa, with Edgar again excelling himself by driving us to the bus station in a torrential downpour and waiting with us until our bus left! We arrived in Arequipa shortly after midnight and caught a taxi to our hostel, where we would be staying in an ensuite twin room, quite a step-up after the previous few nights in a combination of homestays, night buses, and tents. Our tight schedule meant we only had one day in Arequipa before we had another overnight bus to catch, but we spent a pleasant day wandering around the city and exploring the Santa Catalina monastery, a huge complex in the centre of the city where nuns have lived for centuries.

Arequipa Cathedral with the Misti volcano behind

Chris tries a local beer, Arequipena

That night we caught a bus further north to the small town of Nazca, home of the famous Nazca Lines. Before seeing the lines, however, we took a trip to the top of the world's largest sand dune, Cerro Blanco, for a spot of sandboarding. This involved a steep three hour walk uphill in the hot afternoon sun, while the huge sand dune loomed over us and seemed to be getting further away the more we walked. The views of the surrounding mountains were increasingly spectacular however, and eventually we reached the top.

Cerro Blanco

After a quick lesson in sandboarding techniques from our guide, we gave it go. Although I did some sandboarding previously in Namibia, that had just involved lying flat on a board and pointing it down a hill, whereas this was more like snowboarding as our feet were strapped to the board and we were expected to stand up and glide effortlessly down the slope ahead. As you can see from the pictures below I just about managed to stand up!

sandy, but happy after sandboarding

The next morning it was time to take a closer look at the enigmatic Nazca Lines. The lines were created by the Nazca civilisation who lived in the area between 100BC and 800AD. As well as producing an impressive set of underground aqueducts to irrigate the dry desert lands they called home, the Nazcas also produced an incredible array of huge geoglyphs. a series of geometric shapes, lines and representations of animal figures, which were constructed over centuries. Incredibly, these shapes lay undiscovered until the late 1920s when the first flights began passing over the area, and pilots began noticing the strange lines below. To this day, a number of theories exist as to why they were produced, which include suggestions that they were made for religious, astronomical, or ceremonial purposes, or even that they were put there by aliens! The lines were created by clearing away the brush and hard stones of the plain to reveal the fine dust below and are spread across a 500 square kilometre area of desert , with some up to 200m in length, meaning that the best way to see them is from an aeroplane.

Chris is more of a nervous flier than me so he decided to take the safer option of viewing a few of the lines from a watch tower a few kilometres out of town, while I braved a small cessna plane for a thirty minute flight over the lines. Having flown in a few small planes on my trip so far (including jumping out of one!) I wasn't particularly nervous as the plane took off and we were quickly up to the 500m altitude we would be flying at and getting some fantastic views of the lines below. However, as the plane did increasingly tight turns over each of the main symbols below us, my stomach began to turn and nervousness was the least of my worries! Fortunately I'd had the foresight not to have any breakfast that morning in anticipation of this so although I felt sick for the entire second half of the flight, the complimentary sick bag wasn't required!

Below are a few of the pictures I took from the plane, which admittedly don't quite do some of them justice, but there are some better images here

Spaceman

Monkey - click here for a better image

Hummingbird

Glad to be back on land again!

Our final stop on our race around Peru was Huacachina, a small village on the outskirts of Ica, which attracts tourists due to its oasis location in the desert nestled among huge sand dunes. Rather than stay in one of the more raucous hostels and go for a dune buggy ride, we decided to go for a more chilled out experience after our busy week racing around Peru and so checked in to a slightly posher hotel with its own swimming pool. The hotel also had a table tennis table so we whiled away a few hours by me beating Chris repeatedly at table tennis (sorry Chris!).


The hotel pool in Huacachina 

Huacachina

I should apologise for the rather long blog, but we did pack a hell of a lot in to this week, so well done to anyone who made it to the end! Our final stop of Chris's visit was Lima, the capital of Peru, which I'll cover in the next blog.