Here we are in Northern Chile. Ahhhh… a new country, new attitude and new altitude. After scuttling about Peru in the highlands for weeks, breathing in the paper-thin air, scorching our skin in the thin ozone of the Andes and feeling our hearts beating in our necks far too frequently, we are now at sea […]
Lake Titicaca and Puno, Peru is the highest navigable lake in the world and we navigated it to the floating islands of the Uros people. We arrived at Puno on the lake and immediately felt the altitude. At approximately 12,500 feet, it’s higher than Cusco was…. yet flat, unlike Cusco. The air was still thin […]
Lake Titicaca and the Floating Islands of Puno, Peru along with the Uros people, were one of the highlights of Peru. We like Peru, however the constant commercialization of the country was less in Puno… much less. This made walking down the street, (except for the walking street…still pretty hawkerish) actually enjoyable. We arrived on […]
Pinkuylluna and Ollantaytambo ruins were some wonderful ruins to see. Ollantaytambo is a small village of only around 700-1000 inhabitants in the south of Peru. Its located in the Sacred Valley not too far from Machu Picchu. The draw of this small town is that there is actually a ruin that is free to visit […]
The Sacred Valley and Ollantaytambo were suggested to us by a guy we met in Arequipa. We had never heard of Ollantaytambo (O-yahn-tay-tom-bow) and can barely say it at times. However, after spending some time in Cusco we were ready to get out of the town of tourism, hawkers and inflated prices to a place […]
Cusco, Plaza De Armas, San Blas and the Wild Rover Hostel are the highlights for us in Cusco. Cusco, Peru… an ancient town that was founded in 1100, held the Incan Capital, Gateway to the Sacred Valley and town of incessant sales people bugging you to no end. We arrived and stayed at the Wild […]
Cusco, Peru – Gateway to Machu Picchu and the Sacred Valley and a city in the Peruvian Andes, was once the capital of the Inca Empire and is known for its archaeological remains, Spanish colonial architecture, and touristic megaplex founded in the 11oos. The Plaza de Armas (yes every town in Peru has one) in […]
Arequipa is a city in Southern Peru that doesn’t have the most incredible ruins, or mountains, scenery, or food. It was perfect for us to spend 5 days getting healthy, acclimatizing to altitude, doing some laundry and saving some money. Arequipa is the colonial-era capital of Peru’s Arequipa Region. Framed by 3 volcanoes, it’s filled […]
Sitting at around 7,700 feet above sea level sits the semi-arid city of Arequipa,Peru on the Gringo Trail. The “Gringo Trail” is a well established route around Peru, Bolivia, Colombia, Argentina and Ecuador, Chile and Brazil. It’s no established trail like the Appalachian Trail in the US, it’s more just a route us “gringos” […]
Four to five hours south of Lima is the town of Ica, Peru. We heard that this area has a small village named Huacachina, situated amongst the sand dunes where a natural oasis formed. The legend has it that a woman was a bathing in the lagoon when a hunter startled her and as she […]