Category: South America

Lima was our last stop of the South Peru trip: we started the last day by traveling on Metropolitano from Miraflores to Lima Historic Center, walked around the plaza and old streets, visited excellent San Francisco Monastery and catacombs, Cathedral and maybe another church and had lunch at Embarcadero 41, another sole ceviche and grilled octopus. In late afternoon,  we went back to Miraflores (by Metropolitano) and walked along Malecon watching paragliders and surfers, then to Kennedy Park with all the cats and it was time to go to the airport for our late night flight back home. Originally Joanna planned to go to Larco museum and Huaca Pucllana, but glad we spent the day the way we did, seeing more of the city.

In Nazca, the plan was to take taxi from bus stop to the airport and choose a morning flight there. We were not sure, if we would stay overnight in Nazca or move on to Huacachina or Paracas. We were so overwhelmed with tourist touts who surrounded people from the bus that we just walked away and to Nazca Travel One hostel, which was excellent: nice, large and very clean room. Very nice owners who worked for one of the flight companies and arranged other tours.  We took AeroNasca 6 seater plane that takes only 5 tourists. It was quite foggy, but Nazca Lines were visible much better than we imagined and the flight was very smooth, turning from side to side so everybody could see everything. The co-pilot/guide was great at pointing figures and spoke perfect English. We loved it and I’m so glad we did it as we hesitated, if we should go to Nazca at all.

But Nazca has much more than just the lines. The town is rather ugly, but there are many remains of the 2000 year old fascinating Nazca culture.  We went on our own to Cantalloc Aqueducts. A series of huge spiral holes going down to Nazca underground aqueducts, still working and providing water. We walked towards the site, which is not far from town, and then got taxi somewhere on the way. Near the river we saw local women doing laundry in one of the aqueduct holes. There are many Nazca aqueducts, a whole network, Cantalloc is just one of them, the most scenic.

We walked back towards town and got another taxi  to return on time for our next tour: private visit to Chauchilla Cemetery. This place is amazing, at least as interesting as the famous Nazca lines! And very creepy. Countless mummies sit in open graves in the desert, wrapped in cloth, many with hair, all facing east, loose bones scattered around the entire site. The graves were robbed, so there are no offerings left to display, but many mummies are intact. On the way back, we stopped at pottery workshop – they use Nazca techniques and designs.

In the evening, we went to small but good Antonini Museum. We ate ceviche and excellent fish stew. Next morning, we went to Cahuachi Pyramid from the Nazca culture times. It’s interesting, but not fully excavated and it’s not possible to walk inside, only on the perimeter.

Than we took Oltursa bus to Paracas, we had seats in the first row on the upper level. Excellent views and nobody in front is leaning on you, really a lot of leg room. We stayed in hostel El Obelisco, we had very good fish and seafood soup at a beach-front restaurant, and great pisco sour at another.

The next day, we went on boat tour of Ballestas Islands. The tour was good, many birds, some penguins, few sea lions, nice rock formations and the candelabra drawing. Then we went with another tour to Paracas Reserve. After museum visit, short walk to the shore there, visiting beautiful overlook of the Ocean and stop at Playa Roja we headed for lunch in Lagunillas. Really delicious, sole ceviche was outstanding, all fresh catch straight from the sea. We also observed local fish trade as fishermen returned to the harbor and sorted fish and seafood, and buyers loading refrigerated trucks.

We went to Lima on another Oltursa bus in late afternoon. We stayed in Miraflores in Casa Hualpa, very nice and friendly hostel with excellent and helpful staff.

From Cusco we went to Chivay on 4M tourist bus, with stops, but not too interesting. We did not go to Lake Titicaca as we saw it 12 years earlier from Bolivia. The good thing is that the bus was on time and we could take another bus to Cabanaconde in about an hour. Very crowded and hot local bus, with very colorful local people.

In Cabanaconde, we stayed at Hotel Arum Qurpawasi, excellent, new, inexpensive, with bright and spacious rooms, very clean, hot water, very friendly. We ate at Pachamama – everybody else was watching Peru soccer game and didn’t have time to cook and serve. It was good and friendly, we confirmed information about the trek down to Colca Canyon.

Next day we hiked on our own to Llahuar. We saw many condors from view point (Mirador de Achachihua )  at the start of our trek, most quite far but a few passed close to us. They were flying up between 9 and 10 am, we were there waiting much earlier, but it was worth it. Views were great there as well. The hike was nice, but not as spectacular as we expected, quite steep. The bottom of the canyon was a little disappointing, quite dusty and not that impressive, no good views, dirty Colca river. I guess we were spoiled by magnificent Ausangate trek. Probably it’s better in wet season when it’s more green. We crossed another, much cleaner river (Rio Huaruro) to  Llahuar Lodge which was great. We stayed in round bamboo hut  with rock foundation. We spent couple of hours at their hot springs by the river (Rio Colca). Good vegetarian food.

Colca Canyon, Llahuar

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Next morning we went to a village (Paclla) on the way to Sangalle, we didn’t see anybody there although radios were playing music. We wanted to wait for bus to Cabanaconde which passes around 11-12 to avoid steep hike up, but there was a car passing that took us there earlier. We didn’t go to Cruz del Condor as we already saw many condors at the view point in Cabanacode. After short break we continued to Arequipa on  regular afternoon bus.

We stayed in hostel Bubamara in Arequipa: very nice, big, beautiful room, great huge bathroom, good breakfast on a terrace. We visited Santa Catalina Monastery, which we loved, and Santuario Andinos museum with frozen Juanita, interesting, but we expected the museum to have more artifacts, not only from a few sacrificial sites found in the mountains. We liked Arequipa and could stay there longer. We left on overnight Cruz del Sur bus to Nazca.