memyaccountantsandi.com

Friday afternoon I left the boys in Mancora (it was tearful…haha) and got the bus to start my marathon journey to get to Colombia. First was a bus to the border with Ecuador, where we were shuffled along by our attentive bus attendent from one office to the next. Luckily an English girl and three Aussies were also on board. From there Helen and I were given new bus tickets in the border town on the Ecuadorian side which took us to Quito (Ecuador´s capital city).  We arrived in around 8am where I had to change bus terminals to meet the girls.

All went well, and I met them there around 11am (it was tearful..haha!) where we got our next bus to the border town of Tulcan. From there we got a taxi to the border, a hassle free stop at immigration and then another taxi to the bus terminal on the other side in Ipiales. After an hours break for food we got on our FINAL bus to Bogota with Fronteras. Time passed quickly enough and we arrived (50 hours later) in Bogota. Phew! Not a journey to be repeated again soon.

After the trek, Sally left us in Huaraz to head back to Lima to start her next tour and myself, Kieran and Ciaran got a bus to Trujillo, about half way up the coast. There we stayed in Huanchaco, a small beach town, just outside Trujillo. The morning was spent at the beach and then we got one of the local combi buses into town. In Peru, they have an interesting bus system where everyone just hops on and off as they like and someone shouts from the bus to say where it is going. Other than leg room being a bit of a problem for us, it was a useful way for us to get around.

Trujillo has a population of about 800,000, with a nice main square and main cathedral. After strolling around we went for dinner (Demarco Cafe) – we tried cabrito, or baby goat as it is a speciality here – very tasty!

The next morning we had breakfast at the beach, then went to see the Huaca del Sol y Luna archealogical site. Even if archeology is not really your thing, this is worth going to see. They are currently still excavating this site of the ancient Moche people (about 600AD) and you can actually see the work being done and how they are trying to perserve it.

As our nightbus wasnt til twelve, we decided to head to the cinema to see “The Indispensibles” – English with Spanish subtitles´, the film was rubbish but it was nice to go to the cinema again!

The next morning, we arrived in Mancora, at the very northern coast of Peru. The girls had headed here straight from Lima and had been enjoying the beach life for the last few days We stayed in The Point, a very relaxed hostel right at the end of the beach. Mancora is on the trail for most back packers – a good place to sunbathe, surf, kite-surf and go out.

From Lima, we caught the bus to Huaraz with Movil, and checked into La Casa de Zerela, more of a guest house than a hostel, quite nice. Huaraz is a smaller city, about 8 hours from Lima. Here we organised to go on the Santa Cruz trek (4 days, 3 nights) with Huascaran agency. The following day Sally (Kieran´s  friend from Devon, a tour leader for the last 3 years in South America) arrived from Lima and we walked around town and got our supplies!

Thursday morning we got up early and met our two guides ( Epi and Janina) at six at the office. After four hours driving up the mountains we met our two mules and the mule man Alberto and we were ready to go! The mules carried all our tents, food, big bags and we just had to carry our day packs.

The first day the walk was pretty easy and we got to our campsite around four. As with the Inca trail the food was really good – for dinner that night, we had soup, trout and chips and a hot cinnamon jelly type desert that tasted much better than it looked! There were two tents for the four of us, plus one for cooking, one for eating and an extra one for the guide to sleep in. We also had our ¨toilet¨tent, which surrounded the freshly dug hole in the ground – surprisingly less smelly than those ¨proper¨ toilets at the inca trail campsites!

The next morning we were woken at 5.20am with a cup of coca tea. After breakfast (pancakes and tea) we started the hardest day. Most of the morning was literally going up the side of a mountain, really tough with the thin air due to altitude, and quite scary with the drop below, but the scenery was spectacular. We reached over 4,700m at the highest point (Punta Union Pass) , eye to eye with the bottom of a glacier.

For the rest of the trek the walking was pretty easy so we could just take in the scenery. We had all types of weather over the 4 days – rain, sun and snow. The nights were pretty chilly but we did have two sleeping bags each! We arrived back to Huaraz around 3pm on the last day and went for some pisco sours to celebrate!

It was nice to spend a day in Lima, although I wouldn´t go out of my way to see it. After breakfast we got the bus into Lima Centro and walked around for the morning – saw the Bishop´s palace, Congress, the Cathedral and China Town. Then we headed down to the coast to have lunch and watch the surfers. Water looked quite cold so I wasn´t tempted! 

For dinner, we headed to Barranco, a popular nightlife spot, everything was quiet though because of the drinking ban before the election. For three days there was a ban on alchohol before their local elections! Dinner was really good though – I had Ceviche (the fish isn´t actually cooked but it cooks in the acid of lime juice, very tasty!) and my first Pisco Sour (interesting drink, includes beaten egg white).