Get your Incan on!

After finishing up with the kids we decided to spend a couple of nights in Peru's answer to the states, Miraflores. Not a bad place except for the fact that it lacks the charm of south America that we love... but it had some amazing cliffs overlooking the ocean. A capuara group, kinda like fight dancing were also showing their skills off at the park... very cool.

 

 

from lima, we moved onto Cuzco, located in the high country one hours flight south east. Straight away it hit us, altitude sickness. Makes you feel like the morning after one too many beers. And we considered ourselves pretty fit from all the hiking we have done, but in Cuzco, even a flight of stairs was a tough ask.

 

The city itself, is pretty nice... but very touristy, and everyone has one thing on their mind...Maccu Piccu. We found one guy who potentially might not rip us off and found our way in a van for the 6 hour journey... after still feeling like rubbish from the altitude a hike to 5000m was out of the question.

 

After a quick hike we reached, one of the most touristy places on the planet, Aguas Calientes at the base of MP.

We woke up at 4pm with dreams of seeing the most amazing view possible at sunrise with no tourists, instead we were greeted with rain and tourists. The kind of rain that somehow leaks into your soul and freezes to the core, taking with it any energy that you may have got from 5 hours sleep. The kind of crowds of tourists that makes this magical place seem bit, well, used. So after 1hr on the mountain of shivering through the tour we decided to race back down to AC and regroup.

whilst making for low comfort and viewing levels, the clouds did give us some pretty cool photos you won't see in the guidebooks.

After a hearty meal and shower and whilst keeping one eye on the weather, we decided that after hauling ass to the other side of the world we were going to see this thing.



And we were, amazed. Just as we got there, the heavens parted and we got to see the pure scale of the thing and at that point we understood why Maccu Piccu is truly a wonder of the world. Being later in the day also meant that the hordes of tourists had cleared out due to the busses finishing in the mid arvo, leaving only the hard-core people prepared to walk down some stairs back to AC.

 

 

We then moved on to lake Titicaca, which allowed us to take in the sacred valley once more. Some truly amazing scenery

 

 

 

 

Volunteering in Lima:

“Amigo… parque?”

This was possibly the one sentence/question Dave and I heard about 20-30 times a day on the next phase of our journey. After Argentina, we spent 10 days volunteering at ‘the hogar’ – a home for sick and disabled children just outside of Lima. Each day we were begged by the younger kids to take them to the park for the afternoon. Generally we couldn’t say no to their pleas and thus the afternoons would be spent, somewhat terrifyingly, taking 10-15 kids down the street to the park. Hoping none of them flew off the swing or fell off the stupidly high slide, we’d race the wheel-chair bound kids around the paths listening to them laugh hysterically as they sped around. One memorable trip home involved me walking about 15 meters with one boy who usually had a walking frame, leave him stabalised against a fence, going back to where I started to pick up another chica who was having a bit of a hissy fit and refusing to walk home, leave her where I left the first boy, help him walking another 15 meters, stop and repeat! It was definitely an interesting experience!

The home was started by Dr Tony, a Catholic doctor from the States who dedicated his life to helping these Peruvian kids. They look after kids with all sorts of medical conditions, whose family cannot afford to take care of them. Alongside spending the afternoons taking the kids to the park, we also helped out with meal times, ‘baby hour’, and the ever crazy bus trips into Lima for medical appointments. If you’ve never seen buses in the developing world, picture an old beat-up 20 seater van packed with about 50 people, with a conductor who pulls people onto and off the buses without it ever coming to a complete stop. Now picture having to do this while carrying immobile kids… absolutely insane!

While 10 days was only such a short period of time, and absolutely nothing compared to those people who spend their lives dedicated to helping others, the experience really opened our eyes to how much need there is in the world, and how much bigger life is outside the confines of our narrow world view.

These kids didn’t have nearly any of the luxuries we take for granted; no big collection of toys, books or electronics and no privacy, yet they were always so joyful and extremely compassionate. They looked after the new kids, the babies and each other without judgement and it was inspiring to watch.

There are so many stories I could share about the kids who stole our hearts, the people who do so much for them and the heartwarming moments of actually seeing kids health improve, but I’d be writing forever. So instead I’ll leave you with a some photos of these beautiful souls…

 

 

 

 

Gringo Baby Walking.... !

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Segundo and Bresney  - Two kids who absolutely adored dave - or 'davita' as he quickly became known!

 

 

Park fun

The Lakes District: Argentina

Amazingly at half way through our trip, we were yet to experience the pain of a 24 hour bus ride… that all changed when we decided to head back to Patagonia, albeit northern Patagonia this time! All things considered, the bus ride was not nearly as bad as you imagine (picture a business class flight type seating), but it does feel like a bit of a time warp.

 We arrived at Barriloche, part of the Argentines lakes district, with adventure on our minds. We’d eaten far too much and moved far too little in Buenos Aires – and Dave had been itching for a chance to get on a bike again. So it was decided, a 4-day bike ride through the ‘siete lagos’ (seven lakes) route was on order.

 We hired all our riding and camping gear and set off on a 130km ride. Day 1 – the morning started with a relaxing boat cruise across to our starting point. The sun was shining, the lakes were brilliant blue and the snow peaked mountain tops surrounded us…. Truly it couldn’t get much better than this. The good-will lasted until we had to carry our bikes, loaded with all our camping gear, up and down a ridiculous amount of stairs because the ‘proper’ track was closed! With my moral low, and doubts creeping in that I’d never be able to complete this ride (keeping in mind, my riding history includes a couple of 2 hour rides in the past 12 months!), we decided to call it a day and set up camp at serene camping spot number 1.

 

 

 

Day 2: Today we were actually riding on road, which was much nicer than the dirt tracks of yesterday, but dave had to keep convincing me I wasn’t going to die riding next to trucks! Again, blue skies, shining lakes and stunning mountaintops surrounded us as we went. Thoroughly exhausted (well I was anyway) we set up at campsite numero dos – another tranquil lakeside spot, next to all the holidaying Argentineans. This was one thing we’d noticed, this route was not full of gringos, rather we’d found where the locals go on holidays… it was rather refreshing.

 

 

 

 

 Day 3 was tough – this section of road was in the process of being paved, so most of the day was spent coughing up the dust from the road as all the cars and buses passed us. We met up with another group of riders who put my whinging to shame fairly quickly: they had been riing from the southern-most tip of South America and were heading all the way up to Alaska, a full 18 months of riding every day… kudos to them!

Once we passed the dirt, we had a blissful descent to campsite numero tres – you guessed it, another serene lakeside location.

 

We started early on day 4 and were rewarded with having the road to ourselves, spotting a few eagles that were pretty happy to pose for some photos and a stunning 19km descent to the finish line. Definitely an awesome reward for the effort.

 

 

 

Our next stop in the lakes district was El Bolson, a hippy community a couple of hours south. It just so happened that a couple of girls from our hostel were desperately trying to find another couple of people to join them paragliding. The sun was shining, and they were heading to where we wanted to go, so on a whim we signed up and were off. A couple of hours later we were up and away, flying above the Andes and watching the world go by…

 

 

 

In El Bolson town, we managed to find the most inconvenient Laundromat in existence, they refused to wash socks! As we walked away dumbfounded, we found a good-old regular Laundromat and pondered how on earth our original find was still in business!

After stocking up on raspberries and artesian chocolates at the local market, we were off to a secluded lodge about an hour out of town to have a well-deserved rest. No cars, the most beautiful river I’ve ever seen, awesome hot showers, home grown, home cooked food, horse riding to hidden hikers refugios, a drumming circle and a few nice bottles of Argentinean wine made the next few days absolute heaven. A perfect end to possibly our favourite country so far. Argentina, you were good to us!