Tuesday 29 November 2016

Chile: Rain and Writing on Chiloe

Onwards with my attempt to bring the blog back up to date!

Following my five days of laziness in Santiago and a somewhat soggy arrival in Ancud, here's how my first week on the beautiful island of Chiloe went.

A fellow WriMo!

My first full day in Ancud began like the previous day. Rain. Just a little bit soggy... Fortunately, it brightened up around lunchtime, so I took a stroll into the town and had a poke around the craft market where I was amazed that no one tried to get me to buy anything. I was even more impressed that I didn't buy anything, although that was largely due to practical reasons - there were some really beautiful ponchos and cardigans, but I just don't have enough room in my bag. Ugh.

On my way back to the hostel I stopped in at the little regional museum. To my utter glee, it was free. Seems that Chile is a bit bigger on the free museums than anywhere else I've been so far.

The museum is only small but has a really good selection from the history of settlement on Chiloe, plus this ship, which is the schooner Ancud.



It carried Chilotes down to Patagonia to establish the first settlements down there. That's pretty cool. The museum also has this blue whale skeleton, because skeletons...



Everything is in Spanish only, but I impressed myself by getting the gist of most of it. I've also cheated and downloaded the Spanish dictionary into my Google Translate, so when I got stuck that was super helpful.

After a nice lunch and some more writing at the hostel, I set off again, this time with Lizzie and Heather, a couple of girls from the hostel. First stop, the little harbour.



Then a short walk up the hill to Fuerte San Antonio. To be fair, it's not much of a fort - more of a gun emplacement. There didn't seem to be any info boards, so I can't tell you much about it. There's a low wall and some cannon, hence why it strikes me as a gun emplacement only.



There's some gorgeous views out over the bay though, especially since the weather had cleared up a lot since the morning.



From there, we meandered through the streets of Ancud and on up a dirt road to a view point. I'm not sure it's an official view point. There's masts on top. But hey, the view was pretty good.



And then on back to the hostel, where we nearly but not quite avoided the incoming rain. Wine was drunk and Lizzie and I got talking about NaNoWrimo. I thought it was pretty cool to bump into another WriMo like that. Heather was just bemused by the idea of writing 50,000 words in a month...

Bus Trippers Galore!

The following morning, determined to get some fresh air and not spend all day writing like I really wanted to, I headed back up to Fuerte San Antonio. It had been pretty quiet when we went up the previous day and I figured the views would be nice inspiration material.

Of course, it was Sunday and the place was heaving with bus trippers. For some reason, I'd decided to try my hand at sketching the bay and the number of people trying to peer at my notebook was most disconcerting.



I'm not an artist, but I was pretty pleased with my sketch. I've always preferred landscapes and considering I haven't drawn properly since... god knows. Uni, maybe?

Anyways, with my peace and quiet ruined by the noisy, nosy bus trippers, I returned to the hostel and gave in to the urge to write instead. Now there's a creative outlet I'm actually sort of OK with. I suspect I lost my afternoon creating basic language rules for fictional cultures...

LURGIES

On Monday morning, the lurgies I'd been fighting since I landed in Santiago, probably brought on by the recycled air on the plane, struck with full force. Headache, streaming nose, sore throat. Yep. Just what I needed the day before NaNoWriMo kicked off.

I downed a couple of paracetamol to deal with the aches and decided to brave the rain in the hope that the fresh air would make me feel better. It also gave me an excuse to wear my fancy alpaca gloves from Peru.



Unfortunately, while I normally quite like walking in the rain, lurgies combined with torrential downpour and wind conspired to make me feel even worse. I retreated to the hostel, downed a couple of mugs of tea, did a quick run to the supermarket for tissues and extra tea bags and then spent the afternoon getting my brain prepped for NaNoWriMo.

And then 9pm came around.

See, NaNoWriMo kicks off at midnight, November 1st. But I'm going to be switching time zones at least once if not more this month. So instead of confusing my brain I decided to just stick with my usual UK time and start at midnight by that clock. Which meant 9pm Chile time, much to the confusion of a couple of the guys at the hostel who'd insisted on knowing what I was doing typing so many words.

I think I managed 3,000 words before crawling, snuffling, into bed. Not bad considering the mushiness in my head.

WRITE ALL THE WORDS

The contents of my journal for today run as follows:

  • 20k day
  • that is all
  • dead
Which is pretty much true. I'd set myself the challenge of writing 20,000 words on the first day of NaNoWriMo. Just a personal challenge - an attempt to pass my personal best of 15,000 words in a day. In between a fight with my bluetooth keyboard (which changed settings and wouldn't let me use the A key for half an hour), lurgies and far too much tea I achieved that goal.

It killed my brain. To my complete surprise, when I read back through those 20,000+ words, most of it was of a decent standard, not the garbage I'd thought I was writing. Well done, me.

I think it freaked a couple of my hostel-mates out though. Sorry, guys. I type fairly quick and my brain, when it's on a roll, works pretty fast too. Also, I just spent October doing ALL the planning.

Yep. NaNoWriMo ate my soul.

Words, rain, words, bus, words, sleep

After the madness of that 20k day, I'd rather expected to take it easy on the Tuesday. Instead, Chiloe continued with its spate of bad weather, so I didn't feel too guilty about doing some more writing.



I also had to make a run to the bus station first thing in the morning to sort out a bus to my next destination further south on the island. Congratulations to my word-addled brain for conducting the entire transaction in Spanish despite the strange (and persistent) urge to use German when I get stuck.

With nearly a whole day to waste before my bus, I poured out another 8,000 words of mostly coherent novel while outside it rained. And rained. And rained some more. Any thoughts of taking a break and going for a walk were rained off.

And then I got on a bus. It rained. And then it stopped, which was nice because I had to wander up and down a street in Dalcahue for a good ten minutes before I found the sign for my hostel. The very friendly owner spoke no English and my brain was so mushy by that point that I really struggled to grasp everything she told me.

Fortunately, while the common area was heaving, I had the dorm to myself, so I jammed out another 2,000 words, ate some chocolate biscuits and passed out for the night.

It's on stilts...

Determined to take a break from writing and revive my poor, overworked brain, I went for a stroll to the bus office the next morning, intending to head to Castro as soon as possible so I could have a wander around the town and get away from my keyboard.

The ticket lady told me I'd be better off getting one of the public busses - they were 100 pesos more expensive (an entire... 15p?), but they ran every 15 minutes or so instead of the sole daily bus my by then usual bus company ran.

So I toddled back to the hostel, thinking I'd pick up my bag and go. And hit a snag in the form of the keys not working. I didn't understand this. The owner had given me the keys that morning and told me she'd be back at 12. So I tried the keys. Both of them. Neither of them worked. Believe me, I tried them repeatedly.

Nothing in Dalcahue seemed to be open despite it being nearly 11am, so I sat on the step like a ninny waiting for someone to arrive and let me in. Luckily for me, the cleaning lady turned up around 11am and was able to let me in. She seemed rather amused to find me on the step and more so when I tried to explain in minimal Spanish that the key wouldn't work.

I had to wait for the owner to get back anyway, because I hadn't paid, so I managed a bit more writing while I waited. Once paid, I grabbed my bags and wandered off in search of the bus.

Up to this point, I hadn't used any public transport in Chile. Everywhere I went in Santiago had been within walking distance, as had everything in Ancud. Still, the little buses looked to be fairly well maintained and for 800 pesos (about £1), one would take me 20 minutes or so down the road to Castro.

So I piled into the tiny bus, rucksack balanced on my knees. The driver was surprisingly safe, which was lovely, although I did wonder whether the presence of one of Chile's carabineros might have had something to do with it - Chile's police are supposedly the most trustworthy in South America.

I clambered off the bus again in Castro town centre and began the 20 minute trek to my hostel. I was not prepared for the massive hill, although I suppose I should be glad I only had to go down it.

It rained. A lot.

Bag dumped in my room, I set about looking for a new writing space. I found a lovely one in the common area, in the bit of the hostel that sat on stilts over the estuary.



I'd just got everything set up - tablet, keyboard, cuppa, biscuits, y'know, all the important things - when I realised all the plug sockets were on the other side of the narrow room. Ah.

So I rearranged the room a bit... Just a bit. Just... shuffled the table across slightly. Just far enough so that I could run the power cord from my tablet to the socket. I mean, I could hardly have my tablet die in the middle of an important scene, could I?

Yup. NaNoWriMo. Taking over my life again. Which is why I'd written a grand total of 40,000 words by the end of day 3. Have I mentioned that the goal is to write 50,000 words over the month? Oops.

GREEN BAR!

My first week on Chiloe ended much as it had begun. With rain. An awful lot of rain. I wasn't even going to attempt to go out in it - it was coming in sideways past the windows in the hostel.

So I wrote instead.

And then the rain eased off for half an hour, so I went and restocked my groceries. Oh, and I took a photo of Castro's very funky yellow and purple church.



Very funky. Although thinking about it... I think that photo might actually be from another day... y'know, given the blue sky... my bad.

And then the rain returned, so I wrote some more.

And a bit more.

And at 7:30pm, as attested by a rather overexcited post on Facebook, I passed 50,000 words and my tracker on the NaNoWriMo website turned green. Yes, I am a sad, sad person, but I was very pleased that I'd managed to write 50,000 words of my current fantasy novel in 4 days. So there.

This may also have completely fried my brain, so after a cuppa I had an early night, like the old lady I am at heart.



Hopefully, week 3 of my Chilean adventure won't be quite so consumed by NaNoWriMo. A few more days on Chiloe and then I'm heading down to Patagonia and the city of Punta Arenas.

MUST NOT WRITE MORE WORDS

Monday 28 November 2016

Chile: Lazy Days in Santiago

OK, so I've been utterly useless at keeping the blog up to date over the last few weeks. I have a few hours free before I go exploring later, so let's see if I can get it back up to speed, shall we?

I believe I left off with my arrival in Santiago from Peru. OK.

Where did the day go?

After my panicking about missing flights and/or having to run through the airport at Lima, I arrived safely in Santiago, capital of Chile, at a ridiculous time on Saturday morning. Passport stamped, I managed to get a shuttle into the city after another moment of panic when my card wouldn't work - note to self: it helps if I remember to tell my bank where I am.

To my sleepy delight, my bed was available when I checked in to the hostel just before 8am. I crawled under the sheets, figuring I'd snooze for a few hours and then in search of food and things to do.

When I finally woke up, having slept through a whole series of alarms, it was nearly 4pm. Oops. It is a very long time since I've slept a whole day away like that. And I was still knackered. Fortunately for me, it was pasta night at the hostel, so I spent the rest of the evening mooching and chatting with the other folks. I should maybe not have drunk the two glasses of red wine with my pasta, but hey, I was already sleepy so it didn't make that much difference.

Donde esta el museo?

A delightful roommate woke me up at 4am, complete with slamming the door and turning the lights on. Ugh.

On the plus side, Hostal Providencia provides an excellent breakfast, so I stuffed my face with fresh bread and that delicious cereal that turns the milk chocolatey that I haven't had since I was little.

Happily full, I scanned the web for things to see in Santiago and settled on the regional museum. Off I tramped, getting a little bit lost along the way, before ending up in the Plaza de Armas. Right. So where's the museum? Should be facing the Plaza. Can't find it. There's a sign for it, but the gate is shut and locked. How odd.



At the time, I thought maybe I was looking in the wrong place. Afterwards, I discovered there was an enormous strike going on in Chile and I'd clearly just timed it wrong.

Foiled by the closed museum and with no idea what else to go and prod, I returned to the hostel in the hopes of booking a bus to Chiloe for the following week. All went well - I managed to navigate the site in Spanish, select my bus, my seat got as far as the payment page...

Declined. What? At this point, I still hadn't realised I'd forgotten to tell my bank I was in Chile. So I tried my other card. Also declined.

Buggeration. Fine, I thought, I'll just try again tomorrow. I sat down to plan some writing instead, what with NaNoWriMo fast approaching. I can't remember what I wrote, but the note in my journal just says "writing fail". Oops. This is followed by the comment "FAIL DAY :)"

Clearly I was in an odd mood.

Spanish success!

On the Monday morning, I had planned to go on a free walking tour. I slept in instead. It was glorious. Plus, I still woke up in time to partake of the lovely breakfast. Nom.

Having missed the walking tour and with only a couple of days until I needed to get to Chiloe, I decided to take a stroll to the bus terminal in the hope of booking my ticket in person. Armed with Google Translate (just in case), I approached the desk, staffed by two friendly looking ladies.

Me: el autobus para Ancud?
Ticket ladies: *confused*
Me: *realises the C in Ancud is hard - Ankud not Ansud* er... Ancud?
Ticket ladies: *no longer confused, polite nodding*
Me: um... Jueves?

OK, so my Spanish is broken, poorly pronounced (on occasion) and I mostly make do with using the few words I know in new ways. But in this case, it worked. Success! I had a ticket to Ancud and I hadn't used a word of English. Well done, me.

Ticket booked, I figured I might as well have another wander around the city centre in the hopes of finding something to do. Yeah, that didn't happen. I ended up in Starbucks, where I once again had to spell my name for the guy at the counter because Spanish speakers really struggle with Zoe. It's just a name that doesn't work very well with Spanish pronunciation rules.



Back at the hostel, I apparently wrote a lot, going by the journal note that reads "WRITE ALL THE THINGS :)". So far, my time in Santiago was shaping up to be very chilled out and amazingly, the travel bit of my brain wasn't guilt tripping me about not doing much. Maybe I was still recovering from the bug that had screwed up my time in Arequipa...

Oh god, they're everywhere

The following morning, I once again had such a leisurely breakfast that I missed the walking tour. Ah well, I'd found other things to do, beginning with a beautiful stroll in the sunshine through Parque Forestal.



This led me straight up to El Museo del Bellas Artes, which is a great place. Some really interesting pieces, although I will admit that I laughed at the expression on this San Sebastian.



The only drawback was the fact that the museum was crawling with school groups who seemed to appear out of nowehere every time I found a quiet spot. Even the main hall, host to this odd disembodied ship, was not safe.



Having spent a good couple of hours perusing the collections, I made myself comfy on a bench outside in the sun, away from the annoying children and tried to find my inner artist. This largely consisted of drawing different houses for all of the cultures that I've been working on for the upcoming NaNoWriMo. I think I should stick to writing - drawing has never been my forte. Still, it was lovely to sit in the sun for a while.



The NaNoWriMo theme continued when I got back to the hostel, resulting in lots of rambling about plot and character creation. My planning sessions have a habit of getting a bit too in depth. For example, I'm not entirely sure why I really need to know what sort of boats are used across the different regions of my fictional world. But I worked it out anyway...

Free museum? What is this madness?

Still too fond of my bed and the delicious breakfast to get up early enough for the walking tour, I took myself to the Centro Cultural La Moneda on Wednesday morning. There I found an excellent exhibition of artefacts from China's Forbidden City and, because I arrived before midday, it was free!

I've missed free museums. There were some really beautiful pieces in the exhibition, my favourites including this tiny teapot.



And this badly photographed sword, mostly for the fact that it had a jade grip, which isn't something I've seen on swords before.



Taking photos of all the military objects definitely wasn't anything to do with inspiration for writing...

The centre is also home to a shop (and accompanying exhibition) of artesan crafts from the Aymara and Mapuche peoples of Chile. Oddly, I don't think I have any photos from in there, but the range of colours you can get on alpacas is pretty amazing and that's even before the wool is dyed.

My notes for the day then say "probably more NaNoing." I promise, NaNoWriMo isn't taking over my life in any way, shape or form. Definitely not...

I get breakfast?!

My final day in Santiago was something of a write off. I did nothing all morning, strolled to the city centre around lunch time, did a bit of Christmas shopping (woo, organised) and then returned to the hostel to write away the afternoon.

At 7:30pm, I arrived back at the bus terminal, far too early for my bus and proceeded to watch every single bus for Ancud like a hawk, just in case it was mine. When it finally turned up, I was surprised to find it so roomy. I'd booked the cheapest option - just a standard coach. But it had legroom. Decent legroom. And curtains. And a conductor who came around first to ask if I wanted breakfast in the morning and later to give me a blanket and pillow.

Breakfast? Oh my. So I actually slept well, not the broken sleep I've previously experienced on overnight buses.

Where did the sun go?

The following morning, the conductor duly appeared with my breakfast - a ham sandwich and a glass of coffee. I don't like coffee, but like a genius I'd forgotten to fill my water bottle before I left Santiago. With no other options for hydration, I drank it. Through a straw, for some reason...

And found that, actually, it wasn't too bad. It was relatively sweet, which might have had something to do with it.

After a short stop in Puerto Montt, the bus trundled onwards to Chiloe, Chile's largest island. A quick hop on the RO-RO ferry and then on to the town of Ancud in the island's north west. The weather, which had been great in Santiago and, indeed, at Puerto Montt, took a turn for the wet.

Admittedly, when I finally got off the nice comfy bus in Ancud, the rain had stopped, but it was overcast and just a little bit nippy. I spent the rest of the morning sheltering in the hostel before wenturing out in search of groceries.



I also found that the hostel has an awesome room with beautiful views over the bay.



It immediately became my writing room. It was warm, quiet and had good views. What wasn't there to love? Of course, that meant I spent the entire afternoon doing planning for NaNoWriMo yet again. Oops. In my defence, it got a bit yucky in Ancud again later on...


All right, so my first week in Chile was much like my last week in Peru - very laid back and not hugely exciting. But I did see and do things. I'm not sure the same will be said for next week - NaNoWriMo has a habit of taking over my brain.

And will the weather improve on Chiloe?

Friday 21 October 2016

Peru: Mummies, cooking and monasteries

Oh my, what's this? A post going up on time? Shock horror. For this you can probably blame the fact that I've spent a large part of the last week feeling ill, so I've had plenty of time lounging in the hostel to get all the posts back up to date.

Anyway, aside from the illness, here's how the last week has panned out.

Look - camels!

It's a good job I'd had an early night, because my bus from Puno to Arequipa turned up at 5:45am on Saturday morning. Fortunately, my paranoia about being on time for things meant I'd been awake since 5am and had time to down a couple of cups of tea before I had to leave.

As the first to be picked up, I then spent an hour sitting on the bus waiting for other people before we even left Puno. My mood was not great.

We had a very brief stop at Lagunillas. Well, the sign said it was Lagunillas...



That lake at the back is Lagunillas, I think. Supposedly it's good for birdwatching, but since we only stopped for 5 minutes and we were a pretty long way from the lake, I can't be sure. We did see some flamingoes at a smaller lake just down the road, but since the bus didn't stop there my photos are... pathetic, shall we say?

From Lagunillas we passed through some very cool landscapes and quite a few vicunas. More on these in a moment. Still, the bus didn't stop again until we made it to the turn off for Chivay. Here, we stopped for a snack and I must say that the sandwich was huge and delicious and the coca tea much appreciated.

Half the group then piled into a minibus going to Chivay while the few of us going on to Arequipa transferred to another bus. A Spanish family, two American girls and me. Hmm. Although we weren't scheduled to have any more stops, the driver pulled over five minutes down the road so we could take photos.



The volcano to the left is Misti, with another volcanic group to the right. On the flats in front of this is a group of animals. See them? Yeah? Little bit out of focus. The American girls next to me, on seeing said animals both went "oh, wow, camels!"



There are no camels in South America. These guys are vicunas and though they are part of the camel family along with llama, alpaca and guanaco, they are very much not camels. I pointed this out to the Yanks. They look nothing like camels. Even at that distance, I'm not sure how they came to that conclusion...

Anyhoos, vicunas photographed, we set off again for Arequipa, Peru's second largest city. It is by far the most western place I've seen in Peru and after trying to visit local businesses everywhere else, I ended up in Starbucks soon after I arrived. Mostly because I needed a large quantity of tea and the selection at the hostel was somewhat limited.

I may also have had a very nice chocolate muffin. Om nom nom.

And then I slept. A lot.

Do I really have to do something?

Sleep was rudely interrupted by the fact that I am staying in the hottest room ever and the sun decided to turn it into an oven at 7am. I figured I'd have a nice relaxed morning and then go into the city to explore.

It didn't happen. I read. I attempted to get the blog updated (and failed...). I wrote some stuff.

The afternoon came around and I really couldn't be bothered to move. Eventually I forced myself to go to the supermarket solely because otherwise it was dry pasta for tea and then came straight back and made another go at the blog. And failed again because the internet connection was shocking.

I did take some photos of the Plaza de Armas though. The big building is the cathedral and the mountain sticking up on the right is Misti, the volcano.



After four hours of arguing with the WiFi connection, I finally gave up on getting the blog up to date and settled for reading instead. Wasted day? Maybe.

Urgh. Lurgies.

Any thought of making up for the wasted day was somewhat scuppered by the fact that I woke up the next morning feeling absolutely atrocious and spent the morning feeling sorry for myself. I have no idea what triggered it, but it was highly unpleasant.

I did, however, manage to drag myself to the Museo Santuarios Andinos in the afternoon. This is run by one of the universities and is home to the mummy known as Juanita or the ice Maiden, found near the top of Ampata volcano. She is remarkably well preserved for a natural mummy and the museum also houses a whole array of artefacts found with her and the other mummies found on Ampata.

Unfortunately, Peru's weird aversion to photography in museums struck again and so there are no photos of these awesome things. Guh.

Museum fix appeased, I hauled myself back to the hostel, curled up and somehow managed to focus long enough to get one of the outstanding blog posts sorted. Well done, lurgified brain.

Lurgies persisted though and an early night was in order.

Schedule change

A good night's sleep seemed to do the trick and I woke up on Tuesday feeling much better. I was still feeling lazy though and decided I'd take it easy to make sure the lurgies were properly gone.

As a result, I spent the morning booking things for the fast approaching Chilean leg of my trip. Hostel in Santiago? Check. Hostel in San Pedro de Atacama? Nope. Apparently San Pedro books up further in advance than pretty much anywhere else I've been and as a result, I've had to shift my plans slightly. Instead of going from Santiago to the north and then working south, I'm going from Santiago to Chiloe to Puerto Montt (or at least that area) to Punta Arenas and then planning to fly back up to San Pedro towards the end of my stay.

Woo.

I also managed to do some more blog updating. More woo.

And then I cooked potatoes for tea and one of them exploded in the pan... This was how thrilling this day got.

I am the god of hellfire...

Determined to make up for all this non-exploring in Arequipa, I'd booked a cooking experience the previous evening. First stop, a trip to San Carmilo market to see the huge range of fruits, veggies and meats on offer. I took far too many photos. Look, chickens with the heads still on.



Also, so much fruit. We got to try some of it, including a very tiny melon, passionfruit, sweet lemons and tiny orange berries that look like what I know as Chinese gooseberries. Very yummy.



Might have to be going back there... Anyway, with our trip to the market finished, we trooped into the open kitchen to start on the cooking lesson. For this session we were preparing causa and lomo saltado. First up, the causa, which is a layered "pie" made with mashed, spiced potatoes, a veg and chicken mayonnaise mix and avocado. Here is the group, hard at work.



And here is my finished creation, which I was pretty proud of, although I think my presentation needs a bit of work... not quite Masterchef standard.



Yes, it is decorated with ketchup and mayonnaise and yes, it was delicious. Next up, the main course - lomo saltado. Diced beef, onions, garlic, chili, tomatoes, fries... I've never had to peel a tomato that hasn't been in boiling water before. I don't plan on doing it again - faffy stuff.

Anyways, with all the ingredients prepped, it was time to cook. First, a demonstration from Monica so we knew what to do.



Because, yes, this does involve setting fire to the food. And yes, my brain might have been playing Fire by Arthur Brown on a loop when it was my turn to cook. Oh, and did I mention there's pisco in this dish?

Yummy.

Following our cooking and devouring, a few of our group stuck around to learn how to make pisco sours. Fairly straightforward - add lime/lemon juice to egg white. Shake until foamy. Add pisco, syrup and ice. Shake until ice is broken up. Pour into glass. Add bitters.

Drink.



Yup, that was a pretty good way to spend 4 hours - explore, cook, eat, drink. Nom.

Following that, I spent a nice, relaxed evening at the hostel, finally sorting out another blog post. Unfortunately, whatever lurgies have been afflicting me on and off for the past week, decided to make a return just as I wanted to sleep. Urgh.

It has WiFi?!

I woke on Thursday morning still not feeling quite right, but determined to do something with my day. The morning was spent arguing with the hostel's WiFi and trying to get some more stuff sorted out for Chile. So now I have flights and a hostel sorted out for San Pedro de Atacama - I'm giving myself a whole week there because there's a lot to see. Also, if the last week has been anything to go by, I need to give myself time to properly slow down before I get ill again.

Satisfied that there was nothing else urgently in need of booking, I made my way to the Monasterio de Santa Catalina. This is apparently one of Arequipa's top attractions and only a 20 minute walk from the hostel. I figured if I had another attack of the lurgies, I could get back to my nice cosy bed pretty quick.

Also, I've never been in a monastery before. I'm not quite sure what I was expecting, especially as this is a still functioning monastery, not just a tourist attraction.



I definitely wasn't expecting brightly coloured walls. There's blue, orange and an almost-red. And it's beautiful.



I also wasn't expecting there to be WiFi. Which meant I had to do the stupid tourist thing and send a stupid selfie to Facebook proclaiming my surprise at the WiFi and the bright colours.



Yep. I'm so cool. The monastery was founded in 1579 and has survived through a fair few major earthquakes. Today the information says there are 21 nuns. I didn't see any at the monastery, but I have seen one or two around town - can't be sure they belong to Santa Catalina though. Many of the original cells are open, so you can see that the earlier nuns were from rich families. Not quite what you'd expect from an order that has poverty as one of its core values. This is the Profundis Room, where wakes were held.



There's also a great view over the monastery and city out towards the volcanoes that overlook Arequipa.



I spent a good couple of hours wandering round. It's a good job I had a map, because I can imagine that despite the semi-decent signage, it's pretty easy to get lost if you're not paying attention. The place is huge - very much a city within the city.

After that gloriously peaceful afternoon, I spent the evening fighting once again with the WiFi in an effort to get this post mostly finished and then had a bizarre meal of tomatoey mashed potato, cheese and tuna in an effort to use up the random assortment of food I had left. It was surprisingly delicious.

Adios, Peru

With Friday came my farewell to beautiful Peru. A very slow farewell that included more tomatoey mashed potato and a visit to Arequipa's enormous cathedral.

No one wants to hear about my ridiculous mish-mash cooking, so let's have a look at the cathedral instead. The place is huge, stretching along one entire side of the Plaza de Armas. It has been rebuilt a couple of times due to fire and earthquakes.



It's home to this enormous, Belgian-made organ, the biggest in Peru.



And a pulpit made in France which features this excellent carving of a devil being squished by the power of God.



The tour also took me up to the bell tower, where I couldn't help but think of the Hunchback of Notre Dame and was most disappointed to find a distinct lack of gargoyles. The bells, though, are pretty cool.



Also, the view from the roof is awesome, with the Plaza de Armas on one side...



And volcanoes on the other - Chachani, Misti and Pichu Pichu, although Pichu Pichu has got missed off the right side of this shot...



Very pretty. And then a delicious chocolate muffin in Starbucks. I love that the default state for muffins here is to be served warm. Yum.

A few more hours killed in the hostel and then off to the airport with a taxi driver who meandered between lanes, picked fights with buses and generally had me wondering if I was even going to make it to the airport.

Fortunately, I did get there in one piece, only to find that my flight had been delayed by an hour and a half. Given that I only had 4 hours between connections at Lima, I had to try hard not to panic. The lady at the desk was pretty cool - she put me in the second row so I could get off the plane quick and put my luggage through as priority, although I wasn't convinced it would help.

With far more time to waste at the airport than anticipated, I took myself out for tea at a surprisingly well-priced airport restaurant, where I had salchitodo.



Yes, it is a pile of chips with sausage, fried chicken and an egg. Yes, it was delicious. Apparently it's a variant on salchipapas, which is a popular fast food consisting of just the fries and sausage. And, because I needed to relieve the stress building up, I washed it all down with a delicious hot chocolate that was mostly chocolate and not milk.

Oh, and I finally tried Inca Kola. It tastes somewhere in between dandelion & burdock and bubblegum. Bit too sweet.

Somewhat less anxious, I toddled on up to the gates (Arequipa has a grand total of 4, all squished together) to see whether there was any news of my flight. Nope. No ETA, nothing. Anxiety returned.

And then, to my complete disgust, a Peruvian Airlines plane appeared and it wasn't mine. And I'm looking at the people getting on the flight wondering why they couldn't be delayed another few minutes so all us poor buggers who've been waiting ages for our flight could have that plane instead. After all, both flights were going to Lima.

Irrational, yes, I know. At any rate, I ended up on the plane and in the air by 9:30, a full 2 hours after my scheduled departure and worrying about how the fricking hell I was going to make my flight to Santiago.

Despite it clearly not being time for sleep, I was knackered and thought I'd try to catch forty winks. Peruvian Airlines had other plans and came round with a snack and a drink. Appreciated, but maybe not right at that moment. And then I went back to worrying and trying to sleep.

We arrived at Lima just before 11pm. My next flight was due at 1am. And we parked at a remote stand, which meant not only did I have to do the usual waiting to get off the damn plane, I then had to get a bus to the terminal. A nice, crowded bus that played up on other anxieties not related to missing flights.

First positive of the night came when my bag was first off the carousel. Apparently my doubts about the priority tag were misplaced. It was, at this point, 11:20pm.

Fast walk to the check in desks, where to my utter confusion and horror there is an enormous line for Sky Airline and my brain starts going "notgoingtomakeit, whatdoIdo?" on repeat.

Until I realise that pretty much everyone else in the line is waiting for the same flight. OK... does that mean I can stop panicking now?

Apparently, yes. Check in goes smoothly and then it's off to security where something in my bag gets the staff worried and a very friendly security man takes everything out of my bag in search of it. My bag is jammed full. It takes a while. The "threat" turns out to be a whole load of loose foreign coinage which has spilled out of the little box I was keeping it in. I should probably do something about that...

Flew through immigration, where I acquired another passport stamp. The Peruvian ones are pink. I like them. They're happy.



At any rate, I finally made it to the gate an hour ahead of departure. Plenty of time for me to calm down my poor, overworked, overanxious brain. And so, onto the plane.

Where I had to turf an old woman out of my seat, which was great fun because I couldn't work out how to say "that's my seat" in Spanish and had to rely on pointing repeatedly at my seat number and my ticket, which didn't work and then the steward had to get involved because she couldn't get it into her head that she was in the wrong seat. Ugh.

And then the plane was delayed nearly 30 minutes, but by that point I really couldn't give a shit any more because I just wanted to sleep. Which I did. Somehow.


Well, I'm now in Santiago. I have a month planned for Chile, with the first week involving much exploration of the capital and then heading south to Chiloe.

Let's see if my Spanish improves...

Wednesday 19 October 2016

Peru: Ancient cultures and altitude problems

Woo! I'm only... less than a week late with this one. This time I am blaming being super busy with adventurous things. And the fact that WiFi at my hostels hasn't been the best. Also, I'm just generally bad at remembering to post these things, evidently.

My second week in Peru went something like this.

Chocolate tea... chocolate buttons... chocolate pisco?

I decided to spend the day making use of my Cusco Tourist Ticket. I'd bought it to get into the ruins at Ollantaytambo, but it gave me access to a whole host of other sites in Cusco and the surrounding area.

Including, to my delight, some museums. I figured I'd spend the day working my way through the three included Cusco museums. Contrary to the information on the ticket, the contemporary art museum appeared to be closed, so I headed across the plaza to the Museo Historico Regional instead.

It's quite a small museum and the entire upper floor is dedicated to the Colonial era. Interesting, but not as interesting as the pre-Columbian section downstairs. And when I say pre-Columbian... well, this was the first room.



That's a glyptodont fossil. They're basically huge, prehistoric armadillos. Definitely pre-Columbian. In the next few rooms, though, were a whole host of pre-Incan artefacts, including this somewhat rude figurine, probably used as a fertility symbol.



Also, this delightful display of the various potato varieties grown around Cusco. I am reliably informed by multiple guides that Peru has over 3000 varieties of potato. I have tried some of them. They are delicious.



Following on from the regional museum, I decided to check out the ChocoMuseo, which isn't a museum as much as a marketing ploy. It is, however, delicious. And free. I'm not going to turn my nose up at free chocolate. So, our guide first explained to us about Peruvian chocolate and that you can tell where the cacao beans come from by the taste. At which point we all ate a cacao bean.

Cacao beans taste chocolatey, but also bitter and to me at least, quite earthy. Not bad, but not something I want to be munching on a regular basis. Fortunately, after the bean, we got to try a whole host of other chocalatey goodness while our guide explained the process of turning the beans into chocolate.

Soooo... I had cacao tea (better than the chocolate tea I've had before), hot chocolate (YUM), chocolate buttons flavoured with coca, sea salt, various fruits and a really nice white chocolate, chocolate and fruit jams and, possibly my favourite, pisco flavoured with chocolate and fruit. Passionfruit chocolate pisco is delicious. I could happily have worked my way through the entire line of piscos.



Of course, this is all clearly a big con to draw you in and get you to buy something and I'm not ashamed to say that it worked on me. I bought a couple of bars of delicious dark chocolate, one with sea salt and one with mango. Om nom nom. Not the cheapest, but it's so rich that it'll last me ages. Trying to save it for NaNoWriMo - I'm going to need the kick.

Following the chocolate overload, I headed away from the historic centre to see the site of Qorikancha, the Inca sun temple. However, I found the entrance to the museum blocked by an enormous school group and really didn't fancy dealing with the crowd, so I toddled back to the hostel instead.

Where I wrote something like 3,500 words of planning for the aforementioned NaNoWriMo. I'm a little bit obsessive about world building.

Fortunately, my attention was drawn away from doing any more writing by a nice evening of chat with other folks at the hostel. That and another couple of pisco sours. Well, if the hostel bar insists on having them on 2 for S/. 18 during Happy Hour, who am I to argue? After all, that's about £4. Om. Nom. Nom.

Pottery, pottery everywhere

My final day in Cusco I had a gloriously lazy morning (not due to hangover, I might add) during which I wrote ALL THE WORDS of intricate worldbuilding, and then toddled off in search of some way to spend my afternoon. The contemporary art museum was still closed, this time because it was a Sunday, so instead I made my way to the Museo del Arte Precolombino, just up from the Plaza de Armas.

The place wasn't included in my tourist ticket, but it was worth the entrance fee. It approaches pre-Columbian art from an artist's perspective as opposed to history, which was a little bit of a disappointment, but the pieces they have there are beautiful. The native cultures of South America produced some amazing art.

For example, this is a Chimu or Chancay vase. It looks like modern art to me, but dates from around 1200-1400AD, if my memory serves correctly.



This beautiful Moche piece, which is in imitation of a cactus, obviously.



The Moche pieces in particular were fascinating - they often created ceramics in the shape of plants and animals, so that part of the collection also includes this.



It's a potato. Clearly that crop was already important all the way back in the first millenium AD.

Enough of the pottery though. I'm sure most folks aren't quite as fascinated by these things as me and I'll admit that I was taking photos of prett much anything so that I could draw inspiration for various fictional cultures in my writing. Not a geek...

Following the awesome of that museum, I thought I'd make another attempt at getting into the Qorikancha site museum. This time I succeeded. Unfortunately, while there are some really interesting pieces in there, no photography was allowed. And the entire museum, which took me about 20 minutes to go through, all felt rather dated.



In addition, to see the remains of the Qorikancha sun temple, you have to pay an additional fee to the convent that's built on top of it. I figured I'd spent enough money on museums for the day and, knowing that I would be seeing more amazing sites over the next week or so, gave it a miss.

So I ended up back at the hostel where I spent far too long repacking my bags, before writing MOAR WORDS and finally ending my stay with a delicious Philly Cheesesteak, pisco sour and the US Presidential Debate. Interesting combination. The pisco sour was definitely required to deal with the ridiculousness of the debate.

Skull squish museum

On the Monday morning I dragged myself out of bed at stupid o'clock in the morning, had a minor freak out when my pre-booked taxi was 15 minutes late and made very bad small talk in even worse Spanish with the driver.

Fortunately, I still made it to my bus in time. Being really paranoid about getting places on time will do that. Struggling to stay awake, I mumbled a goodbye to a rather soggy looking Cusco as the bus set off higher into the Andes towards the town of Puno.

Now, I could have taken the cheaper option and gone straight from Cusco to Puno. But why would I do that when I could pay a few dollars more (OK, so more than a few. Still cheap) and make some stops along the way? Why on earth would I sit on a bus for 8 hours without seeing the amazing things I was passing?

First stop, the small town of Andahuaylillas, which is as hard to spell as it is to pronounce. Its star attraction is the 16th century church of San Pedro, known as the Sistine Chapel of the Americas.



Unfortunately, I only have exterior shots, because photography isn't allowed inside. I do have a disc which the staff gave out which apparently has interior shots, but given that I have no disc drive... yeah. You'll just have to take my word that it is amazing. For someone more used to English, plain old Anglican churches, it looks a bit tacky - it's all gold and shiny and covered in paintings. Very cool.

We made a second stop in Andahuaylillas at the tiny Museo Ritos Andinos. Courtesy of its large selection of deformed skulls, this has been immortalised in my memory as the skull squish museum. Yup. Look, a skelly with a squished skull.



The entire museum can be done in 10 minutes, absolute max, and that's as much because half the info is in Spanish only and it took me that long to translate enough to understand what it meant.

From Andahuaylillas we headed on south down the road, got stuck for a good half hour because of what looked like a pretty serious crash and finally made it to the little village of Checacupe, home to a suspension bridge.



Capilano, eat your heart art. Supposedly there's been a suspension bridge at this location since Inca times, although the current bridge is a bit of a cheat because it uses cables instead of the rope that would have been used traditionally. Still, there were plenty of people in my group who seemed hesitant to cross it. Be amazed - I was nice and resisted the urge to jump up and down and make it bounce.

The next stop was at Raqchi, also awkward to spell, site of the Incan Temple of Wiracocha, among an impressive array of ruins.



Wiracocha was the creator god of the Incas, and if the various guides I've had are to be believed, the only "god" - all other worshipped entities can be considered spirits of a sort, in line with an animist belief system. The site is also home to a lot of circular structures, thought to be storehouses. The sole reconstructed one proved to be very useful when it started bucketing down with rain.



Onwards down the road, we stopped again at Marangani, this time for lunch. I may have stuffed my face with soup and chicken and rice and sweet potato and pudding. And drunk large quantities of tea. Hey, it was included in the bus ticket, I had to make the most of it.

Climbing higher into the Andes, en route to the Altiplano, we stopped at La Raya, the highest point on the road and the border bewteen the departments of Cusco and Puno. Harold popped out for a minute just to prove he's still around.



And still it rained. From La Raya we had a somewhat boring ride out of the mountains and onto the Altiplano. It rained some more.

We finally stopped at Pukara to visit another little museum. Again, no photography allowed. What is it with this no photography thing? It's very annoying. Especially when there were some very cool pieces in that museum - both Inca and pre-Inca, including what I think were some Tiwanaku artefacts, the Tiwanaku culture being one the biggest powers in the area prior to the rise of the Inca.

There was also a funky looking church.



And then back on the bus for the final stretch to Puno, passing through the somewhat terrifying looking city of Juliaca on the way.



I could have flown from Cusco to Juliaca, but quickly decided against it when I read about all the crime and how dangerous it was. Glad I took the bus.

At last, 10 hours after departing Cusco, I arrived in Puno, successfully found a registered taxi at the bus station and made it to my hostel. Where I promptly nearly passed out on reaching my room because oh my god the altitude and oh my god three flights of stairs.

URGH.

The Return of the Storm

Ah yes, the return of my nemesis. But first, my plans for a lie in were foiled when I woke up at 7am in desperate need of breakfast. Much to my delight, breakfast at my hostel in Puno is the best I've had yet - cheese, ham, scrambled eggs, fresh bread, tomatoes, smoothies, ALL THE TEA.

After I'd had a nice cup of coca tea in an attempt to ward off the incoming altitude issues, I booked myself on a trip to Sillustani for the afternoon and proceeded to have a nice lazy morning to make up for the lack of lie in.

In the afternoon I was picked up for my trip to Sillustani, the only native English speaker on the bus. Fortunately, there were a couple of other people who preferred English over Spanish, so I got a bilingual tour.

On arrival, it started raining. By the time we walked from the car park to the base of the site, it was chucking it down and the wind was driving it sideways. Glad I thought to take my wooly hat with me. That bloody Storm. I thought I'd got rid of it.



Anyway, after 5 minutes, the Storm buggered off. Sillustani is the site of a complex of tower tombs ranging from small, Colla-built tombs that immediately preceded the Incas, to the huge structures built by the Inca themselves. I've noticed that restoration as opposed to preservation is popular in Peru, so here is one of the partially restored Inca tombs.



The tower itself doesn't contain the body - the burial is actually beneath the tower. There are also some even older burials on the site, this time in cists. We have similar burials in the UK. A cist is a hole lined with stone and then covered. Sometimes this is with a capstone, sometimes with a skin or wickerwork. The cists at Sillustani show up as small rings of stones sticking out of the ground.



Speaking of rings of stones, there's also a sun temple there. It's like a miniature Stonehenge, or possibly a very large sundial.



The smaller ring next to it is the moon temple, apparently and it's unfinished. Not much else to say aboout that one. With our trip to Sillustani completed, we piled back onto the bus and I took the opportunity to take a stupid selfie to demonstrate my excellently clashing fashion choices. Orange hat, purple scarf, green jumper. I am a fashion goddess.



Can't beat that hat. My ears were lovely and toasty. My innards got nicely toasty too at our next stop, which I hadn't known was included. Ten minutes down the road from Sillustani, we pulled over at a little house that looked like all the other little houses in the area. Adobe bricks, small buildings positioned around a courtyard.



There, the family showed us some of the local staples, including some delicious potatoes fresh out of the pot, fresh cheese and quinoa bread.



Quinoa is a ridiculously faddy thing in the UK and I've never had it in anything nice. Until I got to Peru, that is. I am not ashamed to say that I had a second helping of the quinoa bread. Om nom nom. Strangely, the selection also included a brown spread which I'm almost certain the guide said was made of earth. Like... mud? Still not entirely sure, but it was pretty good with the taters.

The family also keep guinea pigs, although these guys are definitely not pets. These are for eating. Just a shame they look so much like the one I had as a kid, which rather amused the guide.



And then back to Puno, where I had an email waiting for me to say that my two day trip out on Lake Titicaca was confirmed. Win.

IHMAIWTD

Wednesday started out OK. I sorted out getting some laundry done, did some writing, some booking of stuff.

And then my iPod started making the click of doom. This is generally a sign of the hard drive failing. I went into a bit of a meltdown. It really shouldn't have been a big deal, but I'm very attached to my music library and the iPod is the only place I have access to the whole lot. I need it for the moments when I feel like shit or I can't sleep.

So, yeah. Much freaking out. Much trying very hard not to crawl under the covers and cry. Much making myself feel sick with worry.

I had planned on going to a museum, but I couldn't get my brain to focus. I needed something to take my mind off the horrible clicking the iPod made every time I turned it on or off. So I treated myself to a nice lunch in the main square.



Look, more delicious quinoa-based things. How come we don't have nice quinoa dishes in the UK?

And then I ate some of the fancy chocolate I bought in Cusco. As I mentioned above, I'd wanted to save it for NaNoWriMo, but I needed endorphin-inducing food. It worked. Having stuffed myself with good food, I finally remembered that I have access to a large chunk of my library through Amazon, so that should keep me sane until I can work out what to do about the iPod.

On the downside, I'd stuffed myself with good food and my stomach did not appreciate it. Or possibly it was something else I'd eaten. Whatever the case, I spent the rest of the day and all night feeling rotten, if rather less anxious.

Hablas Espanol?

Fortunately, both anxiety and sickness had dissipated by the following morning. Which was great, because I had to get up early again to head out onto Lake Titicaca. First stop, the port, where I bought some water (for me) and apples (for my host family). I had no idea if apples were a suitable gift, but the guide assured us that fruit would be appreciated. Hmm...

And then our group of 13 piled onto a boat for the short trip out to the Uros Islands. These are the famous floating reed islands of Lake Titicaca, named for the Uru people.



We landed on Suma Willtja, where the president of the island, Joel, gave us a demonstration of how they construct the islands with layers of reeds. The reeds are also eaten and I can confirm that they taste a little bit like apple. Not bad.

After the demonstration, we were invited to see inside the houses, which I found a little bit uncomfortable, but the islands now rely heavily on tourism.

And then, to avoid being guilt-tripped in buying little trinkets I didn't want, I paid the S./10 to take a ride across the lagoon in the island's reed boat. Very relaxing.



A quick stop at the island across the lagoon for coca tea - a necessity at this altitude, methinks - and then we were off again on the three hour slog across the lake to Amantani, the biggest of Titicaca's islands.

There we were met by the ladies who would be hosting us for the night - the mamas, as our guide, Johnny, called them. I was grouped with a father and son from Sydney and soon we set off behind our mama, Epifania.



At the house, we met Epi's husband, Teodosio, who joined us for a lunch of quinoa soup followed by potatoes and cheese with a nice cup of munia tea and a basket of delicious quinoa bread. We soon established that out of the three of us, I spoke the most Spanish (by a small margin) so I ended up as unofficial translator. Somehow, I managed to work out most of what Teodosio was saying, which I was very pleased with.

After lunch, we headed down to the community's small library, where a young lady leads an after school initiative to teach the local kids additional reading, maths and basic English. The company I took the tour with contributes to the communities they house their clients in, which is part of the reason I chose to go with them. On our trip, the company was taking some tables and chairs to furnish the library.

We made our own small contribution to the kids' English learning by teaching them Jingle Bells. They seemed to do pretty well, although I did hear the occasional "Navidad, Navidad" which is how the song goes in Spanish.



Outside the library, the mamas showed us some of the weaving they do and also how they grind quinoa. Then it was time to head up the hill at the back of the community to view the sunset. Half of our group decided not to make the trek, so off went the rest of us and Johnny the guide, tramping up the hill. I was soon wishing I'd drunk more coca tea. Or, y'know, was just a little bit fitter. Johnny led us around a slightly less steep path, so we got a lovely view out across the lake, with just a hint of Bolivia's mountains in the far distance.



And, of course, the obligatory group photo in which I am pulling a weird face.



And still onwards, winding up to Pachatata and the ancient ceremonial centre on the hilltop. I was pleased to see I wasn't the only one struggling with the hill and the altitude, but it was certainly worth it when we got to the top.



While busy with other groups, it wasn't that crowded or noisy that you couldn't appreciate the beautiful view. Here is the sun going down over Peru, from the highest point on Amantani.



So worth it. And once we got back to the house, Epi and Teodosio were ready with dinner. A potato soup for starters, followed by a pasta dish. Just what we needed after trekking up that hill. We managed an almost conversation over the meal, in broken Spanish on our part, and the occasional snippet of English from Teodosio. I did establish that the couple have two sons who live in Puno and that Teodosio wouldn't see us in the morning because he had to leave early to go to Puno to see the kids. See, I must have picked up more Spanish than I thought.

We also handed over our fruit gifts. I am super rubbish with body language, but I think our hosts were pleased.

Dinner was followed by a glorious early night during which I managed to snuggle myself into my sleeping bag, under the blankets and somehow didn't overheat. It was beautifully cosy.

So. Many. Hills

After an amazing night's sleep, first stop was breakfast with Epi, Teodosio having already left for Puno. Breakfast consisted of quinoa pancakes and jam. Most delicious. I made a slip up in my Spanish, because I misheard Epi and my brain did a stupid. What Epi said was "Quiera tiene mas?", which I realised later in the day means "do you want more?" and was clearly in regard to whether we wanted any more pancakes.

What I heard was "Quiera tiene?" and without that mas on the end, my brain just coulldn't work out what she meant. It didn't help that I think she tapped her wrist as she said it, so I came to the completely wrong conclusion that she'd asked for the time. She didn't seem too worried when I told her it was 7am...

Fortunately, I didn't have much time to worry aboout my dodgy Spanish, because we were soon off back down to the little harbour to begin our next adventure. Epi was spinning wool the entire way down the hill. I was most impressed by her multitasking.



And then it was time to say goodbye to the mamas and board the boat. Obligatory group photo time again.



Our only stop on this day was the second largest island in the lake, Taquile. Taquile is much more geared up for tourism than Amantani, but without feeling like kitsch central. First task: climb the hill from the dock to the Plaza de Armas.

For some of our group, this was more than a little difficult, but we all made it in the end. I'm glad to say that after the previous night's trek up to Pachatata, this was relatively easy.



We had some free time in the Plaza, which I made the most of by losing a good 15 minutes in the knitted goods shop. There is a tradition on Taquile of the men knitting. I have no idea who made the amazing gloves and scarf that I bought, but I can be certain they were made on Taquile - everything in the shop was island-made.



I couldn't resist - there's frigging llamas and alpacas on them and the fingers of the gloves are all different colours. Plus, the gloves are made of alpaca wool. I'd been looking out for something of this type the entire time I've been in Peru and once I heard about Taquile's crafts, I knew this was going to be a good place to find something.

As it's going to be spring/summer in a lot of the places I'm visiting from now onwards, I have no idea when I'll get the chance to wear them. But the pretties. And also, supporting local communities.

OK, I'm shutting up about the woollens now.



From there it was just a short, thankfully flat, walk around the island to our lunch stop. Lunch with a view, which I suspect is unavoidable on Taquile - wherever you are on this island, I'm sure you'd see the sea.



Lunch consisted of quinoa soup with quinoa bread and salsa for starters.



Followed by trout from the lake. I'll admit that while the trout was yummy, I really struggled with all the bones. My parents will tell you that I get a bit weird as soon as I find a bone in a fish and it then takes me ages to eat the rest of it, if I eat it at all.



I was pretty impressed that I ate as much of that trout as I did.  Altogether, that meal was pretty good for S./ 20 - that's about £5.

After that, it was a simple case of walking down the other side of the island to another dock and our 3 hour boat ride back to Puno. While Machu Picchu was amazing and the main reason I chose to include Peru on this trip, I think this trip on Lake Titicaca has been my real highlight.

My blissful feeling was somewhat marred on return to the hostel, where I found the place overrun with programmers or developers or something. Not that they were unfriendly, but they were loud and they were taking up all the room in the common area. I wolfed down my tea and disappeared back to my room where I had another early night. I'd need it for my stupidly early bus in the morning...


My final week in Peru is looming. I'm heading to Arequipa next, the country's second largest city. No real plans as yet...

Mostly looking forward to the drop in altitude...