I´m back from a beautiful, if not slightly wet, three day hike into Cañon del Colca. Myself, Lykke and Andres joined a group and guide, and had a great time getting away into rural Peru. Colca Cañon is the second deepest in the world at 3191m. It´s title as deepest was stolen recently by a neighbouring cañon which is 163m deeper. We started at a town called Cabanaconda and spent the first day hiking to the bottom, where we crossed the Rio Majes.

From there we climbed up a little bit to a small village where we spent the night in a local family´s farm. We all got really wet that day as unfortunately it´s the rainy season in the highlands, hence the dull cloudy look to some of the photos.

The farm where we slept:

There are about 8 villages in the cañon which can only be reached by hiking and mule. That´s over a 1500m high climb to go to the shops and the nearest road! Here´s Lykke and the farmers ONLY mode of transport, :

Colourful maize:

There were lots of guinne pigs running around, the day after I tried some! A bit boney, but a nice gamey flavour!

The next day we were really blessed by the weather which stayed dry all day (unusual at this time of year) and gave us beautiful views:

We hiked along the side of the cañon for a while, then headed back down and crossed the river once more. Then after lunch started the task of climbing back up to the top! Gruling but plenty of opportunity to stop and take a breath and admire the view, We also were lucky to see some Condors soaring above us (not in photo):

The group at the top, we reached it just as night was falling:

The last day was basically spent unwinding in a hot spring. The origional water is boiling, but they cool it down to a scalding 41 degrees C.

We went back to Cabanaconda where I managed to sneak in a few photos of the local women in their traditional dress:

The bus and road back to Arequipa went highter still and for a few minutes we were driving through snow. And only a few days ago I was in the desert!

xxx r

I´ve left Lima behind, but I´m still in the desert! I visited a small town called Paracas from where I took a boat to some islands called Islas Ballestas. They are also sometimes known by backpackers as "The Poor Man´s Galapagos" Well I thought they were great. I´m sweating buckets but I´m looking at penguins! Right alongside the coast of Peru, the water is very cold because of a current from Antartica. Further away from the coast, it gets warm again, but this means the islands are home to lots of sea creatures from the Antartic.

The islands are home to thousands and thousands of sea birds:

Can you see the penguins, in amoung the pelicans, boobies, cormorants, gulls, ganets... I think you can see all in this photo:

Also some very smelly, very very noisy sea lions, with hundreds of one month old pups/cubs (?) :

The photos on the blog don´t do the animals justice, enlarge them if you can/want! Oh and here´s one of me on a cliff (to be mentioned again later):

Then I had to go to the town of Pisco to go to the bank. I had planned to avoid it, but needs must. The town was distroyed by an earthquake last August ´07. The quake was 7.9 and lasted for 3 and 1/2 minutes. Pisco was flattened and when I was there, I don´t think it had changed much. People were living in tents where their houses had been. There were big piles of rubble in the streets. The kind of thing you see on TV. I didn´t feel right taking any photos but here is/was a restaurant in Paracas, which was also effect, but not as much as Pisco.

Some of the cliff I was standing on above slid into the sea during the quake and caused a small tidal wave that flooded the costal towns. I don´t know if it made the news back home, but it was a big one!

Well, on from Pisco, I headed to Nasca where I am now. This morning I took a tiny winy plane to fly over the desert and view the "Nasca Lines" These were created by the pre Inca people (the Nascas) over 2500 years ago. They removed the top dark layer of sand to reveal the lighter sand and created enormous images of animals and very long straight lines. The strange thing is, you can´t make them out from the ground. If you are standing beside one of the images, you wouldn´t know. They can only be seen from the air. But the Nasca people were long long before the Write Brothers!!

(Simon, can you flip this one)

This is a humming bird, I need to crop the photo a bit but I think you can still make it out: (Simon, maybe you could crop it?)

I´ve lots more photos but you get the idea! I also visited a 1000 year old cemerty. Grave robbers stole from the graves and left the mummies exposed to the elements. So today all that is left are the bones and freakily the hair: (flip please)That´s all for now. I´ve met back up with my Danish friends Lykke and Andes and we are leaving the desert tonight, by luxary bus... Woohoo!

xx r

Map updated, Im running out of pin colours!
Just a quicky from Lima:

Pretty framed sunset at Haunchaco:

I travelled along the Pan-American Highway for 11 hours and made it to Lima. SPECTACULAR scenary on the way:

And Lima has turned out to not be the big scary city I thought it to be. Its beautiful, modern, clean. So clean they wash the lamp posts and flower boxes!

View from hostel roof:

Hostel (not hotel... but hostel!):

Cathedral and main square:

Park:

Costal view:

And I hear Cusco is better... woohoo xxx R

Right, so what have I been up to? Well I´m slowly making my way down south to Lima. I´m a bit off the beaten "Gringo" Lonely Planet trail so I have been on my own for about a week now, but it is great to see authentically Peruvian towns, markets, hotels! Inbetween towns, the bus just drives through desert, incredible, endless desert:

Then the Peruvians come along with irrigated water all the way from the Andes and turn it into green land and lots of rice. Seemingly the Incas and the Pre-Incas were using illaborate irrigation too:

The first town after Piura I visited was Chiclayo. I got a nice room with a view. In Peru, you don´t have to pay a tax on your building if it isn´t finished, but this leaves so many towns looking unsightly :

Chiclayo had a great market where you could buy anything, from monkeys to razors to wedding dresses to this strange dried fish (I think!) :

Outside of the town, there are Pre Inca ruins. These guys built huge pyrimids out of abobe bricks, i.e. mud. The whole coast of Peru is effected by the weather system called "el nino" which is caused by the warming and cooling of the surface of the Pacific Ocean. Every 2 to 7 years, it brings really heavy rains which cause flooding. Historians think it´s the el nino which caused the downfall of the Pre Incas. Unfortunitly the adobe mud bricks the Pre Incas used don´t withstand weathering very well and eroded quickly. But interesting to see all the same.

The pyrimids did hold some graves with incredible wealth of gold and pottery:

After Chiclayo, I headed to the coast and to tiny Pacasmayo. Here I felt very white and very blonde, but again after all the touristy places I´d been, I guess it was nice to experience. The town had a hill with a massive statue of Jesus (preparation for Rio!) :

The hill also gave me a great view of the desert meeting the sea:

Dispite it´s small size, the town had a strangly big sculpture park:

Pacasmayo is a fishing town and has the longest pier in Peru. It´s busy with fishermen loading and unloading their tiny boats and cleaning their catch (of octopus) :

Shark Attack??

Then I moved on to Trujillo. More tourists here but from South America and not of the European backpacker type. This ment that all tours were in Spanish and the hotels (no hostels) are a little above my usual standard:

When I was in Ecuador, I saw a dog, that I thought was in a very bad way, with an infection or skin problem. But now I realise that it was a special, very popular and prised breed of dog called a Peruvian Hairless dog. Ugly or unique, make up your own minds:

Trujillo brough me to more Pre Inca ruins, this time a whole city called "Chan Chan". This city once held 60,ooo people and covered 28kmsq. Now there isn´t much left but even so, one gets a really good feeling of the scale of the construction:

Restored courtyard:

Adobe releaf:

What´s left:

Excavation on going. The walls and large pyrimids were covered with sand up until the 60´s. You can see them shovelling it here:

After Trujillo it´s on to Huanchaco on the coast where fishermen still use the traditional reed canoes. I was only here briefly on a day trip from Trujillo but I think I´ll go back tomorrow for another wee look:

That brings me up-to-date. You´ll notice I´m sporting my Panama hat these days. No amount of suncream was protecting my Irish nose!

xxx R

8th country!!!! So I´ve arrived safe and sound in Peru. I took a bus (supposedly 7 hours, but more like 10) from Loja in Ecuador to Piura in Peru. I haven´t done anything too exciting in the last few days so no beautiful photos to post. But I thought I might document one of my long bus journies, and what better than a border crossing. The photos reflect the journey, so if you find them boring, then perhaps travelling in S. A. doesn´t suit you! Please bear in mind that most of the photos were taken on/from a moving bus. So in cronological order...

Above the clouds, leaving the highlands in Ecuador:

Scenery, to compare with for later:

My reflection, well I did have to look at it for 10 hours!! (honey, can you flip it around for me xxx):

Police check point (not border) See my passport?:

The very first rice paddy fields I saw.. EVER:

Exit Ecuador:

Enter Peru:

Passport exit and entry stamps:

Road side restaurant, ( note I did not eat there nor will I ever eat the meat!)

Craig, my border crossing buddy, and little curious girl:

Road side dwellings: Bad dubbed movie entertainment, a free flight to Peru to anyone who can name the actor (easy) and movie! :

Mud road... bump bump bump:

Peruvian dessert, and it´s really hot,´it won´t be long till I´ll be heading back up into my beautiful green highlands, me thinks:

Another police check point (and more desert): This region is famous for it´s limes. We also passed kilometers of mango plantations:

Unfortunitly, Peru isn´t the cleanest of countries. I had heard it from fellow travellers, but it´s horrible to see for yourself. The whole desert seems to be covered in rubbish. And it doesn´t always smell too nice either:

Another bus driver catching a rest in the shade of the luggage hold: So here I am now in Piura and I´m going to revert to the guide book for it´s elegant description.. " After several hours of crossing the vast emptiness of the Sechura Desert, Piura materializes like a mirage on the horizon, enveloped in quivering waves of heat. It´s hard to ignore the sence of physical isolation forced on you by this unforgiving environment." (I wish I conuld write like that)

xxx Roz

Map updated... with Peru !!