Peru

Check out our pics: Peru

[i]

After much deliberation in Guatemala about where to go next, we finally decided to go straight to Peru. We landed in Lima, and stayed there long enough to appreciate the outdoor cafés in the posh part of the city and try the ceviche and Pisco Sours that Peru is famous for. From there we took the bus to Paracas, the "Porpoise Spit" of Peru (see film Murial’s Wedding), where we stayed at a massively overpriced and unfriendly hotel arranged by a tour operator in Lima, let´s call her Ms. CC (complete cow). Our conversation with the young and breezy Ms. CC (recommended by hotel) went something like this:

Ing and T: Buenos Dias. Habla usted Ingles?

Ms CC: Yes, just a leetle.

IT: Oh good, we’d like two one way tickets to Ica, please. Leaving tomorrow if possible.

Ms CC: I theenk this no problem. How many days you spend in Ica?

IT: Um, one or two I guess. We’d like to do the sand boarding we read about.

Ms CC: No problem, yes very fun. You will love it. I can recommend you very nice hotel. (That my cousin owns, right next to the highway, half an hour from where you want to be, the room he’ll give you has no windows and a shower that doesn’t work, all for 6 times normal price, plus you’ll have to rent a taxi to get to the sand boarding place, or if you’re completely gullible you’ll pay for my cousin’s ‘tour’ which will include the sand boarding, plus transportation at 10 times the actual cost.)

IT: Oh, that’s great. What’s the name of the hotel?

Ms CC: Don’t worry, I write everything down for you. Where you going after Ica?

IT: Em, we’re not sure yet, we’re heading to Cusco, what would you recommend?

Ms CC: (OMG, like you guys are just total idiots, chu-ching! When they leave I take break and buy those orange shoes!) Well, of course Nasca for seeing the Nasca lines by plane. Very interesting.

IT: Have you done the plane ride?

Ms CC: Not yet, but I really, really want to. It so mysterious and I have friends and other people who go and say the plane goes from side to side a lot and they say wow it like crazy experience.

IT: Hmmm.

Ms CC: You also like Paracas. I recommend. I there only one month and a half before. I recommend you stay at Paracas 2 nights. You be crazy to miss.


The first room in the Paracas hotel we were shown had no windows, and since we had already, stupidly, already paid four times the actual price to Ms. CC in Lima, we were stuck at this hotel, and the town, for two nights. We managed to change our room but although the new room had access to natural light, it was like sleeping inside an ashtray in a brothel (I imagine). Fortunately, the tour to the Ballestas Islands was really good. Lots of wild life, pelicans, seal colony etc. From there we headed to Ica, still part of the ‘tour’ we had paid for in Lima. Basically, Ms. CC had bought our bus tickets and hotels and tours in advance, overcharged us and pocketed the extra 80%. We still had to arrange and pay for the connecting taxi rides to and from the hotels and argue for breakfasts that were supposed to be included.

Fortunately, our next stop the Hotel Huacuchina, Ica, was not built on a highway overlooking a garbage dump or a sewage plant like we had feared, but was a fabulous hotel in a real desert oasis. We did a little bit of sand boarding and a buggy ride over the dunes and hung out by the pool. It was Really fun.

From there we went to Arequipa, a lovely old colonial city, where many of the buildings are made from white volcanic rock. We took a tour to the Colca Canyon which was quite spectacular. Saw condors in flight and had a great time in the picturesque little village of Chivay where the locals were very friendly.

 

[t]

Sitting atop the very friendly El Caminante Class inn in Arequipa, Peru, three rooftops over from the Santa Catalina convent and a few blocks away from the Plaza de Armas, I begin another episode of our journey. Ingrid sits in a lounge chair beside me reading the last few pages of her latest novel, weak from several days of serious bathroom issues, coupled with mild altitude sickness from a recent trip to the Colca Canyons at an elevation of 4,900 meters. Arequipa rests at 2,300 meters.

While waiting for my delicate flower to regain her strength, we decided to chill our heels here for a few days to catch up on things like laundry, the blog, and shopping. We had plans to leave early this morning for a small town on the border of Peru and Bolivia, but decided to forfeit our bus tickets and do the sensible thing. It’s a funny thing when Ingrid gets ill. While I will crawl into a fetal position at the slightest hint of an ailment, Ingrid may go on for days hemorrhaging internally without my knowledge. Even if I do know that something is wrong asking her questions like, “How do you feel?”, or “Are you okay?” won’t guarantee a very fruitful response. After 16 years I’ve learned that I must employ precision questioning tactics to get a feel for what is going on. Questions like, “On a scale of 1-10…”, or “Is it a dull pain like you’ve bumped into something made of rubber, or is more like being bitten by a shark?

Anyway, I am really quite happy to be in Arequipa a bit longer. It is so far my favorite Peruvian city and I can’t wait to explore it more over the next several days. The owners of our inn have been so sweet to us too. This morning one of the staff members asked if we wanted a better room, one with an attached bathroom for the same price because they “understood”. We both giggled as I graciously accepted and proceeded to move us into a beautiful room that opens up externally above the street and also internally onto a courtyard where breakfast is served every morning. It comes with a TV, hot water, and above all, is clean, a combination that is tough to find, even in the “good” hotels.

Checking into new hotels and hostels, or asking travel agencies and tour companies questions before making a decision is a tricky thing here in the developing world. One can never assume anything. And the amount of money that you are prepared to shell out doesn’t always correlate with the standard of accommodation, tour, or service you will receive. So, back to that precision questioning tactic, one must really think of ALL the questions beforehand. For example, we really wish we had asked some of the following questions:

- “Does the 7:30 bus leave at 10:30?”
- “Does the toilet in the room have a seat?”
- “What are the extras that we have to pay for in the “All inclusive tour”?
- “Does the lagoon we are going to visit have water in it?”
- “Were the ancient ruins you talk of built in 1989?”
- “Does the museum contain real works of interest or is it a bunch of shit banged up on the wall?”

After Arequipa we headed to Cusco for a couple of days before taking the train to Machu Picchu. The highlights were exploring the ruins and playing with the llamas, climbing tourist free Mount Putukusi across from Machu Picchu, and enjoying a fantastic meal at the French restaurant Indio Felize.

We are now in La Paz, Bolivia for a few days chilling out and figuring out what to do next. Keep the emails coming! We love hearing from you.