Cusco Streets

I am surprised at how safe I feel. The street vendors do not make a hard sell. I think they want to talk, but unfortunately I can’t speak Spanish. I have learned a lot in the last 3 weeks and we have had no problems with communication.

It’s winter and the vendors are selling hats, gloves, sweaters and all other manner of winter wear made with alpaca. The young boys are selling paintings, postcards or shoe shines and the very young girls come dressed in their colorful costumes carrying a farm animal in a sling. Mostly it is a lamb they are packing and sometimes you see the lamb following just like a dog. If you want a picture they say you can pay what you want.

We had walked past this impressive wall several times and it wasn’t until a young man started talking to us that we realized we had been walking past the famous Incan 12 sided stone. He told us the background and we gave him some money. He said that around the corner there was some more interesting stones in the wall. Later, we went around the corner and a young girl brought out 2 post cards showing 2 figures in the stones. We would never have seen them without her pointing them out so we bought the postcards and gave her a bit more money for the information.

Cusco is our base and we like it! From here we go to Machu Picchu.

Peru bootcamp

We are staying at Casa del Campo in the San Blas area of Cusco. The area is up on the side hill above the city centre. I thought it would be quieter and more scenic there and it is, but it comes with a price. Stairs! Dave counted 116 stone stairs from the lobby not including the 6 or so inclined ramps. With very thin air and the narrow steep stairs we are getting a workout.

Last day in San Pedro de Atacama

Our flight left in the evening and we needed something to do so we booked a day tour to look at some rocks.We were told we would be the only ones on the tour and we were surprised when 9 college aged Chilean girls got on the bus with us. Turned out to be a whole lot of fun even if the sand storm was still raging. We drove an hour or so into the desert to see an amazing collection of petroglyphs. We scrambled over rocks (again more climbing) taking picture after picture. We then drove to a caldera (the collapse of land after the eruption of a volcano) called Rainbow Valley. Our pictures don't do it justice. The red green, blue, mauve and yellow colours were absolutely amazing and the terrain sectacular. We then drove to the secluded village of Rio Grande. 92 members of the same family live in this picturesque spot. We had lunch there. We were supposed to have it outside, but with the sand storm the plan was changed and we moved into a families home to have our queso sandwiches and tea.So now we have been on top of a volcano in the middle of a valcano and on the side of a volcano. Time to move on to our next adventure called Peru.

Climbing a sand dune in a sandstorm

We went on a tour of the Valley of the Moon. This valley was renamed in 1969 after the moon landing. Our tour yesterday happened to be on the 40th anniversary of the moon landing or non landing depending on your belief.Not a good day to climb around and on sand dunes because of the sand storm. Sand storms hurt! The storms continued through the night and into the next day and the temperature dropped.

Geysers

4:30am is too early, but that's the time the tour company picked us up so we could get to Tatio Geysers to watch the sun rise. El Tatio is at 4200 metres, has over 80 active geysers, is the largest geyser field in the southern hemisphere and the third largest in the world. The best time to see them is at sunrise when each geyser is surmounted by a column of steam that condenses in the bitterly cold morning air. We saw ice on the ground near the geysers."El Tatio" roughly translates to "the grandfather"."

The trip up to the geysers was brutal. The washboard road was so bad that our bus driver went off road onto the sands at a speed we could not believe. It took 1 1/2hrs to get to the site.

We had breakfast at the geysers. The tour group drivers put water, chocolate milk, regular milk and eggs in one of the hot pools so we can have coffee etc. On the way down we saw vicuna, vizcacha, llamas, coots and blue billed ducks.

Desert birds and animals

Our list of sighted animals include:
flamingo- This one was dancing in the water to bring krill to the surface to eat.
vicuna-They are a wild camelid species that is protected by law.
vizcacha-They look kind of like a rabbit and are in the chinchilla family. We saw them on our cactus walk and on our geyser tour.
llama-These are domesticated, unlike the vicuna that are wild. We saw an untended small herd in the mountains.
I think we need help naming the birds we were able to take pictures of. Maybe Anne????
coot with longer legs than the birds we have here and some bird with a blue bill.
Click on the photo to enlarge.

Salt flat and a leisurely volcano climb

Laguna de Chaxa is a small section of the Atacama Salt Lake and is protected by the National Reserve Los Flamencos. It's at an altitude of 2300 meters or about 7550ft. Altitude is important, so pay attention to the figures. You will see why later. I'll post a picture of a flamingo on my animal only section.

The next part of the tour had been cancelled the day before because of snow, but the tour company decided it was go for us. We drove quite a distance up into the mountains. We stopped when the driver could go no furthur because of snow, so we started walking. We slogged up a slippery snowy road for 4km. We gained about 275metres or 900 feet in that distance. That is a lot particulary when the driver dropped us off at 12900ft. Ever heard of altitude sickness or as they call it here puno. It is real. Lack of oxygen required us to stop 3 times on the way up. The picture of me looking pained and pointing down was near the top and I was pointing to our starting point. We did make it and to the altiplano lagoon and we took some amazing photos.




Stopped for dinner on the way down and the bus broke down, so I made a new friend. She's standing still for the picture, but she didn't stop moving while we played hide and go seek, run and jump and run and hug. The sun set on our way home, we stopped in town for an empanada and tea.

Lithium, cactus and hotsprings

Our guide told us that the streets of San Pedro are covered with lithium and lithium is an antidepressent, so that is why everyone is so happy here!

We took it easy on the first full day and booked a leisurely cactus walk that took us 4 wheeling and rock climbing. We caught sight of our first desert animal, but I will save that picture to post with the rest on my dedicated animal post. We followed a rare desert spring to the point where it became a river. We climbed on and over rocks for about one hour and then moved on to the Puritama natural hotsprings where we floated in 33 degree water for 2 hours. Awwww, that felt good! Our guide floated cookies to us on a floating dish.

San Pedro de Atacama

An oasis in the middle of the driest desert in the world. Boy is it dry around here. This is a funky little place with adobe everywhere and surrounded by volcanoes. Just completed our first day here. We arrived at the Calama airport at 725am and it was -2. The day warmed up and the sun just set, so it's going to get cold and again we have no heat. We are in family run Hostal Solar set just a bit out of town. There are hostals and tour companies everywhere here. We booked our first tour for tomorrow 8a to swim in thermal pools and look at cactus. We will be on a tour everyday or we will have to shop. There are many different restaurants here and we plan to try a new one every time we eat. The place looks like a ghost town until you look closely. Every turn brings a new surprise.

Pan American highway back to Santiago

We headed our rental car back south armed with cash to pay all the tolls we learned about on our way north. I asked about tolls when we rented and was told there were only 2 toll spots. Ha! More like 6!! 900k driving cost 25,000 chilean pesos total $50. Good experience though. Glad we did it. We stopped half way to overnight at Los Vilos. What a gem!!! Super hostal on the beach with wonderful hosts who tried to learn English while teaching us Spanish. Excellent overnight spot we never would have found if we had been on the bus or flying. They welcomed us with a couple glasses of wine and I drank red, yes, this is another first for me. Quesos (cheese) and crackers accompanied the wine then they called a restaurant to tell them to stay open for us. Great prices, view of the surf, excellent food and we were the only ones in the restaurant. They laid a path of newspapers to help us find the way. Another cat was available for me to pay attention to and the street dogs were starved for affection.
Every street dog we have encountered has been well mannered. They sleep if they are fed well and go away if you tell them to. Of course, I never tell them to go away. I always have some food. They took my dried dog and cat food away at the airport because they are very anal about food products, so I have to save food from our meals.
We decided to pay the extra cost to stay at the Santiago airport tonight. We booked our flights while in La Serena. We went to the LAN Chile office and bought the following flights. It cost us less for the whole package than buying online for one flight to Cuzco, so we have gone back to our original plan of going to San Pedro de Atacama.
16 july Santiago 0515 (yikes! reason for the airport hotel)
Calama 0725 (bus to San Pedro de Atacama. very excited!)
5 nights there. I'm still working on the hostal there. I sent an email to Hotel Solor and am waiting for a response.
21 july Calama 2245 to Santiago 0050
overnight IN the airport
22 July Santiago 0655 to Lima 0940
22 July Lima 1205 Cuzco 1325
Waiting for an email response from Casa de Campo to stay for 4 nights. We plan to book an excursion to the Amazon while in Cuzco and of course we will take an excursion to Machu Pichu etc while in Cuzco.
3 Aug Cuzco 1105 to Lima 1230
And then thanks to points we will be staying at the Sheraton in Lima for 2 nights
Hope to update soon, but we may not have internet access.
Having a great time, wish you were all here with us.

Finger report

Dave says he has a little more flexibility, still tender on the tips and he can hold a glass of wine just fine.

Serenity in La Serena

La Serena is one of Chile's oldest coast towns. We made Hostal D' Gregoria our base. Our room overlooked the garden and came equipped with Michael the cat. The room had no heat and we stayed warm under a pile of wool blankets. We tried 2 nights to take a night tour to the observatory,but the tour was cancelled due to clouds. We also tried to take a tour out to see penguins, but that tour was also cancelled.
We did take an Elqui Valley tour. Dressed in our fleecys we shed clothes as we moved up the warm valley. This is touted as the earth's magnetic core and it's greatest point of energy. We stopped along the road and treked through underbrush to the convergence of the Turbio and Claro rivers. You will see in the picture that one river is greenish due to the sulphur content and the other river is clear. Where they come together, it is said, the heavy sulphur rich water mixes with the clear water to form a strong magnetism.
We made a stop at Vicuna, famous for the poetess Gabriela Mistral, a famous poetess and Nobel Peace prize winner. Boy, do they love her! We saw where she was born, where she lived and where she was buried.
Pisco Elqui is an eclectic mix of new agers, retired people, artists, and farm workers.
I think the highlight of the tour was lunch at Villaseca's Solar Restaurant. The van left the small main road and we followed a bumpy road that twisted and turned leading us uphill past the small village of Villaseca. This village of 300 residents is the only place in Chile where virtually all residents cook with solar power with over 310 days of sunchine a year.
A group of women created a cooperative and run a solar restaurant. The place looks like a school science project with the orange boxes sitting outside the restaurant. Mmmmmmmm, good food. We started with bread and I had the chicken stew while Dave had his first taste of goat. The meal also included locally grown salad and a tasty dessert.

Valparaiso y Vina del Mar

We booked a tour to the coast but it turned out that we booked a personal driver and a tour guide because it is off season and there are not many tourists here. Tourists should come here at this slower time of year with the weather 15-20C and clear skies.
Valparaiso is the "jewel of Chile" our tour guide Renaldo told us. The country's main port city, declared a world heritage site, is the seat of the Chilean Congress. Interesting, but Vina del Mar is where the money and beaches are. We watched "sea wolves" climb up the steep rocks above Vina del Mar's crashing waves. No swimming here. Want to see an Easter Island Maoi? Just go to Vina del Mar to find one of three statues situated off of Easter Island yet still in Chile. We're getting brave now and have reserved a car to drive ourselves north to La Serena tomorrow. We are thinking of staying 5 days. We may or may not have internet, so will post when possible.