The Inkas: Cusco and Machu Picchu

1. Saqsaywaman

2. Saqsaywaman with sexy woman 

3. Cusco from above

4. Fountain of youth

5.Ollantaytambo

6.Ollantaytambo 2

7.Ollantaytambo 3

8. 12angle stone in Cusco

9. Inka Wall of Fame I

10. Inka Wall of Fame II

11. Inka Wall of Fame III 

12. View of Cusco from our hostel

13. Machu Picchu Train

14. Machu Picchu

15. We at Machu Picchu

16.Jana and friends

17. Crazy chewing

18. Climbing Wayna Picchu

19.Just your ordinary view

20. Machu Picchu from above

21.We did it

22. Martenitza

23. Wildlife

24.Bye bye

25. Rio

26. Que bicho

27. Fashion show on the way back

 

After an eight hour bus ride we arrived in Cusco, the cultural centre of South America. It s funny how often you meet other travellers that you met before. On the first day we met Christiano, the crazy italian/scotish guy inside a bar. On another day we met the english couple  whom we did the Salar de Uyuni trip with. We went partying with them on our last night, where we met Sylvia, the girl who did the Colca Canyon tour with us. It was a big night out, due to the fact that we had to catch a flight on the next day at 7 o clock in the morning. But first things first.

The Inkas know how to run and invent things. They were the first to perform head surgery, invented anaesthetics, crowns for teeth and a lot of other things. We first saw a lot of ruins around Cusco, then went to the Sacred Valley (Ollantaytambo, try to pronounce that) and finally to Machu Picchu. Here is another example for the Inka s outstanding skills: Cusco was constructed to have the shape of a Puma. I can t even use a hammer, but these people built a city, which now has more than a million inhabitants with the shape of a Puma.

But above all stands Machu Picchu. You really ask yourself how they could built that city at 2600 meters height. It s amazing. To get there from Cusco is also amazing. In order to save money you have to take a bus from Cusco to Ollantaytambo (2 hours), where you get on the Machu Picchu train. This train is owned by an chilean company and boy they know how to use their monopoly to make some money. Then after 1.5 hours, which cost 35 Us Dollar each one way we arrived in Aguas Calientes, where we spent the night. We got up at 5 o clock in the moring in order to be the first entering Machu Picchu, got in and enjoyed the spectacular city. Machu Picchu is also called the lost city of the Inkas, because the spanish did not find it, it was so well hidden in the foggy forests that it was not found until the beginning of the 20st century. We climbed Wayna Picchu, a hill behind Machu Picchu, which is 360 meters higher. Thanks to our hiking experience we made it in a bit. The view was spectacular and only the first 400 people were allowed to climb it…

Arequipa and the Colca Canyon

                         

Trekking Allstars, Check out our new Alpaca Hats, Another one, Condor, Lazy girls, Beer in the Oasis, After a day of hard work, Colca River, The way up, Que lindo, Trekking Team, Trekking route, Flying condor, Colca Canyon, Hostal Dog, Drinking with piggy hands, Plaza de Armas, Guinea Pig on volcanic stone, Lunch, Arequipa-Plaza de Armas,

I know, I know we have been lazy. We are already in Brazil and here I am finally sitting writing the reports for Peru.

Well what you see above is Arequipa and the Colca Canyon. We spent 5 days there  checking out the city and doing a 3 day Hiking/Trecking tour in the Colca Canyon. We stayed in a very nice hostel called Home Sweet Home made friends with there puppet dog and went to a Restaurant where we had Guinea Pig. Tastes like a mixture between chicken and pork and looks like a rat. It came with its full body spread out on a volcanic stone. As you say you eat with your eyes as well. The owner of the restaurant was the friendliest owner we met so far, after explaining the whole tradition of Inka cooking he gave us some food for free and then allowed us to climb the roof of his restaurant to take some pictures of the city. Arequipa is located among some active volcanoes. The city s old part is made of volcanic stones, which have a light, almost white colour.

From Arequipa we went on the already mentioned 3 day trip to the Colca Canyon. The Colca Canyon claims to be the deepest Canyon in the world, so as you can imagine it was pretty hard work climbing from 2000 meters up to 3000 or vice versa all the time. But the views and our group totally made up for it. Our group consisted of Matthias (Trecking master, a german guy from Frankfurt), Sylvia ( an australian who has been living in London for ten years), Lorenzo ( a french who lived and worked in Costa Rica for the last three years), our guide Marco, Jana and me. The whole trip was so much fun thanks to these guys. On the first day we only walked down and after 4 hours of walking we arrived at our hostel for the night right at the Colca River. Next to the river were some hot thermal natural bath tubs, which we all used thankfully. On the following day we had to get up at 7 o clock to begin hiking. This day we mainly walked up, had our first Condor sighting and arrived exhausted in the “Oasis“, where we finally could have some cold beers and a bath in the pool. The last day was the hardest one. We had to climb from 2000 meters up to more than 3000 meters. Therefore we got up at 3 o clock during the night to avoid climbing with the sun trying to kill us. The girls decided to make their hike more difficult by using Mules as their means of transport, which allowed them to sleep one hour more than us because their Mules were thought to be faster than us. Let me tell you this: They were not! Boooyaaa. We climbed that little hill within two hours, it was peanuts. In the end we had to wait for the girls nearly 20 minutes, had breakfast together and went by bus to the Cruz de Condor, a Condor sighting point. We saw almost ten Condors, got on the bus to Arequipa and fell into a long and peaceful sleep.

Coroico, Lake Titicaca (Bolivia)

             

After doing the world s most dangerous road we decided to take 2 days off in Coroico. We stayed in an Eco-Lodge called Hostal Sol y Luna recommended by an australian traveller. The hostel was located directly in the subtropical forest above the city offering some spectacular views. The surrounding nature is called Las Yungas, famous in Bolivia for its coca cultivation. After days of freezing it was a relief to stay in this subtropical area, especially for my ass who suffered a lot during the biking. But the whole thing had a big disadvantage: Sand flies. Above you can see my feet covered by their bites. They did not seem to itch that much in the beginning, but boy did we have fun after two weeks. Suddenly the bites came to live and were itching like crazy. We reckon to have raised the sells of relief creme in Bolivia by 100% for the last 2 weeks.

From Coroico we took a local bus back to La Paz from where we had a connection to lake Titicaca. In the bus we made friends with an Uruguayan guy. We spend two days together in Copacabana (lake Titicaca) trying to understand his fast, accent-swollen spanish. On the third day we went by boat to the Isla del Sol, where according to the myth the first Inka was born. We did a 10 km trekking from the north to the south of the island, at a height of 3800 meters under the burning sun. The spectacular views totally made up for the pain. Copacabana was our last stop in Bolivia. On the next day we took a bus to Arequipa, Peru, pics and stories follow….

World s most dangerous road

Monkey Jungle Restaurant Bird Love Spectacular view jungle road roadview Bike crowd World s most dangerous road Kamikaze Bjoern Exhausted View from the bike Offroad section Almost at the dirtroad Road Road to Hell Bike Explanations CrazyBjoern SuperBjoern

Welcome to the world s most dangerous road. It starts from La Paz and ends in Coroico. First we, the lucky 13, got on a bus in La Paz to get from 3300 meters to more than 4000 meters. Then the guide explained us the bikes, which were really good, mine was called Zorro. Then we biked for approximately 1 hour on concrete road to get used to the bike. It was only downhill, we reached a velocity of about 50 – 60 km/h. After 1 hour the world s most dangerous road began. It is dirtroad which falls off to one side for more than 100 meters, the other side is rock. The gravel makes it really slippy and the ground is sometimes wet, because small waterfalls rain down on it. In the past cars drove up the same road, but luckily the bolivians built a new road recently so it is actually not that dangerous any more. We came down from cold air, which contained little oxygen to a subtropical baisin with sandflies biting on every piece of skin they could find.The whole trip lasted 5 hours and Zorro really liked to whip my ass, i nearly could not sit afterwards. We got a nice dinner in a subtropical resort, which was home to formerly mistreated animals which seemed to enjoy their newly gained freedom a lot. They tried to steal our food ( and suceeded in some cases), it was a nice change after the somehow cold weather in La Paz.