From Anchorage to Ushuaia by Bike

After our unfortunate adventures on the bus, we met Sebastien’s parents in Nazca. It was a big surprise for them since we were supposed to join them two days later. It was an emotional meeting – it had been 14 months since we’d last seen them!
Before leaving, they had gone to a travel agency in France to plan the trip, and the agency made all the arrangements. They’re doing what the locals here call a traditional “gringo tour,” which allows them to gradually adjust to the altitude. Their trip !!include!!s Lima, Pisco and Paracas, Arequipa and the Colca Canyon, Lake Titicaca, Cuzco and Machu Picchu.

The Nazca Lines

The desert is flat and dry, and you wouldn’t expect it to be the location of a archaeological mystery: geoglyphes. Discovered in 1926, the lines describe massive shapes in the ground, sometimes over several kilometres. They are !!include!!d as a UNESCO World Heritage site.

If you fly over them (in little planes with room for 3-12 passengers and a pilot), you can see geometric shapes, a whale, an astronaut, a dog, a m!!onkey!!, a pair of hands, a tree, a condor, a hummingbird, a spider, a hero and a parrot. Those are the most recognizable shapes, and the planes that fly over them zigzag back and forth across the land to make sure that both sides of the plane get the chance to see the figures and take pictures.

We flew in a little prop plane with 6 other tourists. Sébastien sat by himself in the back, and took lots of pictures, since he got to see the figures on both sides of the plane. I watched out the windows and took a few pictures, but after a while, I really only looked out. The plane was not entirely steady and looking out towards the horizon helped me forget about the turbulence!

The day after we flew, we encouraged Liliane and Jean-Pierre to go up too. Liliane wasn’t sure about the idea, and the flight hadn’t been booked by their agency. But after we told them more about it, they thought it sounded like fun and ended up boarding a tiny 3-person place. They had a really good time, despite being a little jostled by the trip.

Arequipa

It’s the second biggest city in Peru, 2330 metres in altitude. The city isn’t very touristy, and us “gringos” can walked around without getting too harassed by the street vendors. Three volcanoes surround the city: Misti (5822m) and still active, Chachani (6075m), and Pichi Pichu (5669). The setting was lovely, especially since we were in Arequipa in the fog and the volcanoes were covered in snow. We saw the “Monasterio de Santa Catalina” which had fabulous architecture, and the “Sanctuarios Andinos” museum where you can meet “Juanita,” a young girl who was sacrificed by the Incas and whose frozen remains were discovered on Ampata (6310m) only a few years ago.

We also met up with Monique and Jean-Pierre, a older French couple who we had first met in the Galapagos Islands, just after they had arrived in Ecuador. Since then, they had been backpacking through Peru and Bolivia. We had been trying to meet each other, but the days had never lined up. This time we were able to grab a drink with them the night before they were leaving to climb up Misti. We learned after that they got stuck in a snowstorm at the first camp at 4700m and were only able to come back down the next day when the storm had abated!

Yura Gorge

This was a nice hike. They had warned us that we needed water-proof shoes, and we thought there might be a few puddles along the way. But no, we actually walked through the river to get to the waterfall at the end of the gorge. It was a lot of fun, and just like “canyoning,” there was much scrambling, sliding, and a few scratches. We got home soaked but very happy.

Colca Canyon

Colca Canyon is 100 km long and 3191 metres deep. It was once considered the deepest canyon in the world, but actually a sister canyon, Cotahuasi, is even deeper (3535m). Its highest point is 4350m above sea level and the river Colca runs through the valley.

We went on a two day expedition into the national reserve “Reserva Nacional Salinas y Aguada Blanca.” We saw 3 out of the 4 mammals of the camelid family in South America: alpacas, llamas, and vicunas. The fourth animal is the guanaco and is very rare to see them in this region. We visited the small, too-traditional villages at the bottom of the Colca valley, where the villagers were all dressed in traditional clothes, attracting those tourists in search of the untouched native life…

The best part of the trip were the condors. The sky cleared and we were able to watch a dozen birds in flight. They are large, lazy birds, between 11 and 15 kg, and they rarely flap their wings, preferring to use the rising hot air currents to stay aloft. It was a spectacular sight.

Puno, Lake Titicaca and its islands

After getting use the altitude in Arequipa, helped by a bus ride over a 4870 m high mountain, we felt ready to travel across the Peruvian plateau, 3800 m in altitude. We were incredibly struck by the immensity of the landscape and by the clarity of the sky. We took a boat across Lake Titicaca to the floating islands of Uros and Taquile. Despite the rather touristy feel of Uros, we were interested to hear the inhabitants describe how the islands came to be (they were shaped by a reed, called “totora”) and their way of life. It seems too bad that this ancient culture survives only through tourism today.

We were surprised when we arrived on Taquile to find the whole island was celebrating! We didn’t have a chance to see the dances since they happened right when we were eating, but we learned much about their traditions. The Taquilian men are quite macho. They hardly ever walk around with their wives, and if they have to, they will walk 15 feet ahead of them. The unmarried men wear hats with two colours, while those that are married have hats with just one colour. The women where a red top and a black skirt if they are married, and if they’re single and available, they wear brightly coloured dresses. The strangest custom of all was that only the men are allowed the knit on the island, the women are forbidden to do it! We saw men knitting with 4 and 5 knitting needles.

Cuzco, the sacred valley and Machu Picchu

After finally getting used to the altitude at Puno, we came back down to Cuzco (3400m) to visit the Inca ruins and the region around Machu Picchu. We’ll tell you all about it soon….!

Sara

This trip was outside the scope of the Association Planète Durable et Solidaire, but we’re using the site to bring all the news of all our adventures.