September 20, 2018 – September 24, 2018
We drove through some beautiful, rugged, rural landscapes towards the border with Bolivia and Lago Titicaca, the highest navigable lake in the world. Lago Titicaca was extremely sacred to the Inca, and today remains sacred waters for many of the indigenous people of South America, as well, it would seem, for foreigners seeking alternatives to Western spirituality.
September 18, 2018 – September 20, 2018
Although we really enjoyed the city of Arequipa, we were happy to be back out in the countryside again. We were driving to the Colca Canyon, which is only a hundred or so metres shy of being the deepest canyon in the world, and more than twice the depth of the Grand Canyon in the United States.
We drove past this erupting volcano on our way to the Colca Canyon
September 11, 2018 – September 18, 2018
Derek made arrangements for new tires for the truck in the Peruvian city of Arequipa, and they didn’t come too soon…we were losing pea sized chunks of rubber and had started to lose air and although we hadn’t had a real flat tire since Colombia, we were anxious to get the new tires installed before we headed into the remote regions we were hoping to visit in Bolivia. We decided it was also a good time for new brake fluid and to replace the brake pads.
September 9, 2018 – September 11, 2018
In the streets of Cusco we had seen advertisements for tours to Rainbow Mountain, or, Winicunca to use the local name, but I couldn’t find anything in our slightly out-of-date guide book about the hike. As it turns out, the multi-hued mountain was covered under a layer of ice until recently. With the changing climate, the ice has now disappeared, revealing striped, rainbow like slopes, and the locals soon figured out that tourists would pay to hike to such a magical place. Interestingly, most of the tourists were Peruvian, possibly captivated by the natural representation of the age old Incan rainbow flag.
September 8, 2018
We debated about whether to visit Machu Picchu or not. Dogs definitely are not allowed, either on the Inca trail or at the site, so that meant we needed to get back to the truck within the day and thus take the train to the site, which would be an expensive ride. They have now also changed the entrance rules: you buy a ticket for either the morning or the afternoon, and you are limited to 4 hours for your visit. We had read that the site would be crowded, and we were worried about getting there and being disappointed. In the end, we decided that we would likely never have a better opportunity to visit Machu Picchu, and that we would regret it if we didn’t go.
September 6, 2018 – September 9, 2018
Further down the Sacred Valley, in the direction of the famous Machu Picchu, lies the town of Ollantaytambo. We were going to use the town as our base for our train and bus journey to Machu Picchu, but the small village itself became one of our (many) favourite places in Peru.
September 4, 2018 – September 6, 2018
High above the market town of Pisac, sits the Inca fortress of the same name. From the townsite you can see bits of the ruin rising above the horizon, and many acres of ancient terraces stepping down the steep mountain sides. We were lucky to find a place to camp in the gated yard of a hostel just outside of town with great views of these terraces.
August 29, 2018 – September 4, 2018
Legend has it that the sun god, Inti, looked down on the world in the 12th century and decided that the people needed a leader. He created the first Inca (king), Manco Capac and his sister-wife Mama Occlo. The pair emerged from Isla del Sol in Lake Titicaca. Inti gave Manco Capac a golden rod and told the pair to settle where Manco Capac was able to plunge the rod completely into the earth. This spot would become the navel of the earth (qosq’o in the Quechua language). And that is how Cusco got it’s name. The city has been inhabited ever since, making it the oldest continuously inhabited city in South America. It was the centre of the vast Inca empire and it was, and still is, the centre of Inca culture.
August 27, 2018 – August 29, 2018
Huacachina is a tiny, oasis resort town surrounded by huge sand dunes. It was once the playground for elite Peruvians, but is now frequented more by tourists who rent snowboards or skis to first climb up, then swoosh their way down the sand dunes. We stopped in town for some lunch and watched boarders climb the enormous sand dunes in the hot midday sun, we didn’t see many coming back down though; maybe they were reluctant to climb back up again. After lunch we decided to move on.
The lagoon in the middle of town.
August 24, 2018 – August 27, 2018
We were headed back to the coast in order to take the longer, but faster, route toward Cusco. We stopped for breakfast in the town of Huaraz, which is an important tourism centre for trekkers making their way to the Cordillera Blanca. Much of Huaraz (90%) was wiped out by the devastating Peruvian earthquake of 1970 and many memorials exist in neighbouring communities to catastrophic avalanches and mudflows known as aluviones which roiled down steep mountain valleys from the glaciers in the cordillera above on other occasions over the last 300 years.
A beautiful church we passed before reaching Huaraz.