Some highlights from Peru
Our next adventure was Peru and the land of the Incas. We hoped to get some nice experiences from Machu Picchu and the Amazonas… and we were not let down! What an incredibly interesting, beautiful and exciting trip we had!!! 🙂
Some facts about Peru. Peru has over 32 million residents and the official languages are Spanish and Aymara. The Capital Lima is like any other big cities in the world and has near 10 million residents. There are lots of interesting “must see’s and do’s”. We were amazed to find such nice areas and buildings (art, history and parks) and loved the food!!! And for those who wonders… “moni zodabwitsa Peru” means “greetings wonderful Peru”.
After getting around with dollars (Australia, New Zealand and USA) for some time, we were introduced to the Peruvian Soles. We arrived Lima in the night, after spending some hours in the plane – first from Los Angeles to Houston (Texas) – then from Houston to Lima. After some hours rest in a hostel we continued by plane to Cusco with its 450 000 residents. As we had planned to meet Emeric and his friend Snorre there, we got a very nice welcome. The first night we all went eating dinner together. 🙂 This city in the Urumbamba valley of the Andes mountains really impressed us by being the nicest, most picturesque, historic and beautiful city located at 3 400 meters above sea level. We had been warned to relax for a few days before heading to Machu Picchu – and we had no trouble understanding why. We all could feel the heaviness of the thin air and only walking gave us some indication that this was all we should be doing for some days… 🙂 And what nicer place to spend some days in, than this old Inka Capital?
After some days of relaxation we all (Ole, Luna, Emeric, Snorre and I) headed off to one of our two main goals of our stay in Peru, Machu Picchu. Early one morning (at 5:30 am) we were on our feet off to this old Inka marvel. A minibus took us on a ride for about 6 hours and then we had to walk 15 kilometeres from Hidroelectrica to Aguas Calientes before resting that evening. Early the next morning we went to visit the old Inca city of our dreams… We walked for nearly 1,5 hours uphill the old stairs that seemed nearly endless but when we arrived we were stunned by the natural beauty that surrounded us… All of us were sooo happy to finally have reached this wonder of nature and we stayed for many hours walking around, looking, relaxing, taking photos and videos and eating before returning down and walking the distance back to Hidroelectrica where we got picked up by the minibus to go back to Cusco. We were tired and happy – all of us agreeing this had been one of our greatest moments ever in our lives…
After such an adventure it took some time to digest our impressions – and recover physically… Ha, ha! 🙂 Luckily we had some more days in Cusco with Emeric and Snorre – and we had some very nice days and evenings there before returning to Lima by plane. On the airport in Cusco we met this devastated Austrian girl, Sara, who had lost her phone the very same night in her hostel. To make a long story short, she ended up sleeping over in the apartment we rented as we were to continue our different journeys the next day all of us. Emeric and Snorre went to their hostel and stayed another day in Lima before returning to the US. Sara went to her next destination and we went off to Iquitos to explore the Amazonas… 🙂
Iquitos is a large jungle town with over 400 000 residents is the biggest town in the world that is inaccessible by road. You have to go there by plane or by a one week trip on the Amazon river. We enjoyed this colorful city on the banks of the Amazon river before entering the Amazon jungle.
On our trip in the Amazonas we experienced different things as eating white, big, juicy caterpillars!!, visiting an indian tribe, passing by small Amazonian villages, fishing and eating piranhas in the Amazonas river, watching big and old trees, pink dolphins, birds, a prehistoric turtle, sloths, parakeets, apes, parrots, and meeting a Boa Constrictor (Anaconda).
Back in Lima we visited the areas Miraflores (park and city life), Barranco (art), San Isidro (pedestrian zone, city center and historical sites) We also tried to get into the famous Parque de la Reserva but due to the recent floods in Lima it was still closed.
We had the most wonderful stay in Peru and hope to be back some day… 🙂
(As we have some problems uploading pictures and videos in South America, we will update Chile, Argentina and Brazil as soon as we have better bandwidth… )
Worldwide Family Tour 