Tag: traveling

Chiang Mai

So far, our route planning for South East Asia has been considerably less structured than South America. We sort of have an idea of where we’re going but if somewhere looks interesting along the way then we’ll stop there for a bit (see Ayutthaya and Sukhothai). Having had quite our fill of the trains (we were starting to understand why the locals avoid them), we decided to take the ~6-hour journey north to Chiang Mai on the bus. We took our seats at the back and as the tour company had helpfully decided to remove the seats in front of us for some unknown reason, we were rewarded with ample leg room, something severely lacking in other parts of Thailand. As we neared the city, we twisted through the mountains and the jungle stretched for miles like a lush green carpet, peppered with “Attention: Elephants” signs. All in all, it wasn’t too horrendous and as Dave has previously mentioned, the Thai people seem to be more than capable of driving coaches around corners without causing the passengers onboard to fear for their lives. As with all the others we’ve encountered so far, Chiang Mai bus station is a practical but tired building, offering just enough free WiFi for us to be able to order a Grab (like Uber) and head to our hotel in the Old Town.

 

The Old City is a 1.5km square and was once surrounded by moats and walls to protect it. Some of the old walls still stand (although refurbished) at various entrance points but the majority were destroyed centuries ago. Still, there’s something about Chiang Mai that makes you never want to leave. Having said that, our first night here we weren’t sure we’d made the right decision, walking out to get some dinner we were confronted by what I’m told the kids call “banging tunes” and people trying to get us to come into their club. Pah! Don’t they know Dave and I are at least 65 on the inside?! It must be hard at this time of year to turn a profit, most of the bars we walked past were dead and in our week here we were rarely joined in restaurants by more than one other occupied table. Once we got past the “phat beats”, we were pleasantly surprised to find a street full of bars and restaurants far more suited to our curmudgeonly ways. Things are a lot more chilled out here, the whole city feels like everyone has just got out of a nice long bubble bath. We quickly tuned into the laid-back feel of the place and spent most of Sunday not really doing much at all. In the evening however we went to our first proper night market. All of Ratchadamnoen Road, running through the centre of the Old City, is closed off to vehicles and is chock-a-block with street stalls, musicians, monks, tourists, locals, food vendors, textiles, souvenirs, anything you could possibly imagine. Squeezing our way through the crowd, we were totally overwhelmed by the sights, sounds and smells, spotting everything from edible bugs to cheesy chips to tuk-tuk models made out of old beer cans. We also quickly discovered that one of the perks of being ‘not from round these parts’ is that even in a tight crowd, you can see over the heads of mostly everyone else, making for a much less claustrophobic and enjoyable experience. After wandering for a while, Dave, as is quickly becoming tradition, found another middle-aged woman to chat up and managed to find some shorts in his size, employing his flirtation skills to acquire a discount, and I found a bag. We spent a princely sum of around £12.50 in total – a real splurge.

Chiang Mai mentality thoroughly absorbed, and given that we’d pretty much been going non-stop since Bangkok, we decided to take a much more relaxed approach to the city, enjoying a late breakfast before heading down to Nong Buak Hard park, Kindles in hand, ready for a long hard day of not doing very much at all. It’s really exhausting all this travelling business you know. We also found that all the local museums are closed on a Monday, so we had to find something to pass the time! Located in the South West corner of the Old City, it’s quite a small park, with palm trees, fountains, fishponds and lots of tiny little black flies that get in your face, hover around your legs and make it difficult to read. I think at last count Dave had killed 82 (don’t tell the Buddhists). Tired of swatting, we headed off out of the park, stopping momentarily to buy some fish food and feed the fish (and also maybe the pigeons), before pausing  for a nice cold drink in a café inhabited by various different cats who came and went as they pleased, totally non-plussed by the farangs trying to fuss over them. Once again, we were the only people in said café, which was fine by us, we didn’t come all this way to MEET people for heavens sake.

In general, our time in Chiang Mai was considerably less action packed than our previous excursions into various Thai towns and cities. This boiled down to the fact that most of the things to do are temples and we are desperately attempting to avoid #toomanytemplessyndrome. In light of this, we spent most of the following day trotting around Chiang Mai’s 3 historical museums which are largely overlapping and don’t really have that much cohesion to them – it was just like being back in Cusco! We did learn about ancient Lanna culture though and the museums were good when taken as a whole; besides, aside from the overuse of the word “auspicious”, they had air conditioning, so who are we to complain. They also offered us plenty of opportunities to view our most favourite of cultural displays – textiles! Just when we thought it couldn’t get more exciting than the 9000 displays we saw in South America, we were treated to a rip-roaring adventure into the world of ancient Thai skirts. Our fave.

 

 

Having ascertained that we found the ancient ruins/temples much more interesting than the new ones (especially as they seemed less fussed about offensive shoulders in the older ruins), we decided to pop along to Wat Chedi Luang. Built some time between 1385 and 1402, the peak measured 80 metres from its base but was partially destroyed by an earthquake is 1545, leaving it at around half of its original height. It’s still incredibly impressive and once housed the Emerald Buddha, one of Thailand’s most sacred religious relics. We also happened to turn up half way through Inthakin festival so the place was  buzzing with monks and people coming to pay respects, it also meant that entrance was free – woohoo! There seems to be a festival or holiday every five minutes here in Thailand and we were beginning to understand perhaps why the French had decided this was a part of the world they wanted to get involved with, just think how many days off they could have! Inthakin is a festival unique to Chiang Mai and is a chance for citizens to offer tributes to the guardians of the city, focusing on the City Pillar, previously used in the construction of the ancient city. As we wandered around the ruins, we were totally enthralled with the celebrations, with various donation points dotted around the Wat, offering visitors a chance to donate to their birth year animal (Dave’s the tiger, I’m the chicken, boo.). Animal statues and buddhas were covered in flowers and we also observed people sending water up to the top of the Wat and pouring it onto the ruins. As we sat in the shade and enjoyed the cool breeze, a group of school children walked past and a few of them eagerly said “hello!” and waved at us, before one plucky lad decided he was going to get a high five from the two very white chunky people sitting under the tree. Before we knew it, he’d started a stampede, and Dave and I were inundated with pre-pubescent children eager to slap their hand against ours and offer us a hello. It was absolutely charming. If there’s one thing we’ve noticed here in Thailand it’s that people are a. incredibly eager to practice their English with you and b. always happy to help, even if it means they have to resort to charades.

 

In the afternoon, I had somehow managed to convince Dave that a trip to the cinema to see Godzilla: King of the Monsters, was in order (I still owe him for Mary Poppins Returns), so we headed off to the Central Festival Mall, located a few miles outside of the Old City. The Central Festival Mall is a bit like Lakeside, if Lakeside was 3 times as pleasant, had 1/3 of the people, and had an ice-skating rink in it. It also had a Marks & Spencer so we spent a few minutes mooching around their food hall, delighted to find Percy Pigs, Custard Creams and red onion chutney, before deciding that perhaps we could settle in Thailand after all. Thailand has very strict Lèse-majesté rules, which basically means that any negative comments regarding the monarchy can get you locked up. Tourists have often fallen foul of this law, even for blogs written outside of Thailand, therefore I shall simply say that having to stand for the national anthem and a short video praising the King before the film started was certainly an experience I will never forget and  truly a great honour. Should anyone wish to find out just how stellar a chap the new King is, they need only Google him. Moving swiftly on then…

bty

Apart from a trip to a slightly more disappointing night market where we acquired two fantastic beer coolers which seem to be all the rage here, the rest of our time in Chiang Mai passed relatively uneventfully. We did find some rather lovely kittens next to our hotel and as such I now carry a small supply of cat treats wherever I go but it was nice to have a bit of down time. The city’s relaxing vibe seems to seep from every crevice, and I think we probably could have spent several weeks drinking and reading in bars without noticing how quickly the time was passing. But, we didn’t spend all this time saving to drink ourselves into a stupor (well, at least not every night) so onwards to Laos we headed…

Making the most of it

Bangkok’s Thonburi station is certainly no Paddington, in fact it’s barely a Dorchester South. A sheltered platform runs around 50m alongside the tracks, with some benches dotted about the place which were definitely not made for our Western sized bottoms. There’s a yellow line and signs warning you not to go past it but the rather cavalier attitude to health and safety is both refreshing and unnerving. There seems to be an ongoing mentality across Thailand that if you’re stupid enough to do something that puts your life at risk, then you probably deserve to have something bad happen to you. The Darwin award would do exceptionally well here. In fact, the train before ours was situated on the next set of tracks over, with the only way to access it being to cross said yellow line and walking over the tracks themselves – brilliant. The trains themselves are wonderfully old fashioned, with the engine carriage being added separately just before departure. They’re a step up from steam trains, but if Poirot had suddenly sauntered across the platform, he certainly wouldn’t have been too out of place. Our destination on this wonderful anachronism was Kanchanaburi, a town around 90 miles West of Bangkok and home to THE Bridge over the river Kwai. We took our seats on two blue padded benches (again definitely not designed for Western bottoms, nor Western height) under the cooling breeze of several fans. There is only one class for the Kanchanaburi train and rather than air conditioning, it has huge open windows which can be pulled closed in the event of rain. Our train set off around 2pm and before we knew it we were rushing through luscious green fields, banana farms and small towns. At times it was rather reminiscent of home with the flat green landscapes in the rain, though the train ran on time and we both got a seat so perhaps upon further consideration it wasn’t like trains at home at all. Around 2 hours into our journey, the heavens opened and along with our fellow passengers, we hurried to close the windows. In our carriage were two other Western couples but the majority were Thai, wholly uninterested in the landscape and often bemused by two huge Westerners pointing out things that must be everyday features for them. I like trains. Arriving in a grey haze to Kanchanaburi around 5:30pm, we trudged through the drizzle to our new temporary home: The Nine Guesthouse, a medium sized hotel with various rooms surrounding a garden area in the centre, also home to a lovely white Cockatoo and several very skinny and very skittish cats. We were pleasantly surprised to find an enormous bed with a comfortable mattress, sufficient pillows AND a TV with Fox Sports, meaning we were all set to watch the Formula 1 over the course of the weekend, without having to attend one of the English/Aussie bars around town. Not that there isn’t a time and a place for getting rekt and watching TV surrounded by other Farangs, but we’re not here to eat a Sunday Roast or “get drunk for 10 Baht” (about 25p), as one bar proudly advertised; at least not yet anyway.

Our first stop the following morning was the Kanchanaburi Death Railway Museum and Research Centre to learn a bit more about the history of the place, and to set us up for a trip down to The Bridge a bit later on. The Museum, set over two floors, sits alongside the POW Cemetery and offers visitors a comprehensive, and sometimes rather harrowing, explanation of the Death Railway and the POWs held there during World War Two. Founded by an Aussie chap named Rod Beattie, who curated the majority of the museum’s pieces, exploring much of the abandoned railway himself as well as contacting the families of the POWs. It’s really incredible how much effort has been put into this place, with many original uniforms and medals on display, as well as various items recovered from the POW camps themselves. The majority of the POWs who died during the construction of the Death Railway were British, and throughout the museum people have placed poppies and crosses, commemorating the sacrifice of family members. It’s incredibly moving. As we reached the end of the exhibits, the heavens opened once more and so we sat on the second floor and enjoyed our complementary cup of tea and let everything sink in.

Soon after the rain stopped, we stepped back out into the heat. We both commented on how awful it must have been to have been forced to do heavy labour in this weather. We can barely walk down the street without breaking into a sweat. Having seen on the map that it was about 3k to The Bridge, we decided to make use of the hotel’s offering of free bikes and cycle instead of walk. We soon discovered why the bikes were free however, as mine had a decidedly flat tyre and neither of them had any gears, making what was supposed to be a breezy trundle down to The Bridge, a rather more arduous affair – nevermind. We arrived to a throng of tourists taking pictures and a small amount of street vendors and market stalls, set up to cater for the aforementioned tourists. Often when you read the reviews of historically significant places, people seem to be outraged at the fact that the locals are attempting to capitalise on the presence of large numbers of tourists, and perhaps unsurprisingly, these also tend to be the types of people that complain when there isn’t a coffee shop at The Killing Fields – you can’t please everyone I suppose. So off we went, to cross The Bridge over The River Kwai. Interestingly enough, it’s not actually the River Kwai, its proper name is the Khwae Yai but in true Western fashion, we’ve managed to bastardise the pronunciation. Maybe if we said it louder and slower… As you set out further onto the bridge, the tourists thin out and we were joined by a lovely dog, who happily trotted alongside us for a while. Reaching the other end of the bridge, the train tracks descend into thick jungle and there is a sign informing you that the bridge is the River Kwai bridge – thanks sign! There is also now a bar where the old POW camp used to be, down by the river. We were trying to decide whether it was offensive or incredibly fitting that you can sit and have a beer where so many young men lost their lives. We decided in the end that it was probably a suitable tribute as we could imagine nothing better on a hot sweaty day than a nice cold beer, especially as so many Aussies were there as well. All in all they’ve done a good job of making the place as accessible to tourists as possible, without selling out the soul and significance of The Bridge and Kanchanaburi as a town. The bridge itself is the original, apart from a small middle section which was replaced after it was bombed during the war, you can even see some of the original bomb damage on the concrete pillars. As we headed back towards town, there was a small amount of commotion behind us. We turned to see a train heading over the bridge – eek! Luckily along the bridge are small metal outcrops, designed precisely for this purpose, and once we realised we weren’t about to be flattened, it was really quite exciting to see a train going over THE Bridge over the River Kwai. Trains are one of those things which, alongside dinosaurs, are cool all the time, forever, no matter how old you are or where you are in the world.

Upon returning to the hotel, we decided that the following day we needed to do something a bit lighter and decided upon a visit to Erawan National Park, about 65km up the road from Kanchanburi. As well as the opportunity to spot some more wildlife, Erawan park is home to 7 tiers of waterfalls, offering visitors a chance to swim in its crystal-clear waters, and also enjoy a free foot nibbling from the resident fish. Rather than restrict ourselves to the sweltering confines of public transport, there is of course only one way to see Thailand as it is meant to be seen, and that is of course, by scooter. Our hotel offered 24h rental for 200 Baht (£5) so it was a no brainer really, especially as entry into the park for both of us was going to cost 600 Baht (£15). So the following morning we got up bright and early, and headed off for Erawan National Park, eager to beat the crowds. Whilst I can certainly see the appeal of mopeds/scooters/motorbikes/whatever you want to call them, I wasn’t quite prepared for the fact that after around 15km, you start to get an enormously numb bottom. It’s difficult to shift your weight without upsetting the balance of the bike so you are forced to sit quite still, leading to a somewhat unpleasant journey for both myself and Dave. We stopped about halfway for a brief respite but quickly got underway again when we realised how hot it was once you haven’t got a lovely cool breeze washing over you. Arriving at the park at around 10:30, we decided to stop for a bite to eat before tackling the climb up to the falls. I pause here to mention that Dave has, rather usefully, been teaching himself a bit of Thai in an effort to gain favour from the locals. As I spoke more Spanish when we were in South America, he has taken it upon himself to be our voice for Asia, which is absolutely fine by me. Thai is a tonal language, meaning that you can say exactly the same words but with two different tones and they can mean entirely different things. Having said that, the only thing Dave has managed to do so far is make middle aged Thai women completely besotted with him, once they discover that he can speak more than the rudimentary “please”, “thank you” and “hello”. As we stopped for lunch just outside the park, he once again proceeded to chat up the woman serving us lunch and all was going very well until he produced a 1000 Baht note to pay for our ~150 Baht lunch. It wasn’t our fault, the machines rarely give out anything below 1000 when you’re taking out large quantities, but her face was a picture when he produced it. After a bit of to-ing and fro-ing and Dave’s innate charm (*eye roll*), she eventually decided it was ok and ran off to find change from somewhere.

 

Climbing to the 7th tier of the waterfalls takes around an hour, but it’s all uphill, through the jungle, in the heat, so we decided upon reaching the 5th tier that that was good enough for us. The waterfalls are truly impressive and though we’d seen pictures, the clear blue waters were even more inviting as we reached them sweaty and tired from the climb. As soon as we entered the water, swarms of fish nibbled at our toes and legs. It’s a really bizarre sensation as some of them are quite big and they will not get the hint when you try and brush them off. They seem to enjoy toes the most which, if you are ticklish like I am, is intolerable after more than a few seconds. Still though, we sat and enjoyed the serene surroundings and the cool clear water for a good few hours. A well-deserved break from the heat and the chaos of Bangkok. Originally our plan was then to head to Hellfire Pass but funnily enough, the beautiful cool jungle paradise won over the 1.5 hour numb bum drive further up the road. As the pools became busier and the afternoon ticked by, we decided it was about time to head back to the hotel and were slightly perplexed by the “please don’t feed the monkeys” signs dotted about the place. We hadn’t seen any monkeys so either it’s all a bit of a joke, or the signs have done their job and the monkeys don’t bother coming anymore because no one feeds them. As much as it would have been great to see them in the wild, hopefully they no longer rely on humans for food and are off doing monkey things somewhere else. Following a necessary ice cream stop, we begrudgingly climbed back onto the scooter and numb-bumingly headed back to Kanchanaburi, rather sad to be leaving the cool waters and beautiful surroundings behind.

Suitably relaxed and refreshed by our trip to the Nature Park, we decided that the following day we’d head off back out on the scooter to Wat Ban Tham, a local temple atop a hill that involves climbing through a large dragon. This was only 12km away so not quite enough time for the scooter’s lack of comfort to set in. We arrived around 10am and set about climbing the 701 steps to the top. Once the initial entertainment of climbing up through a dragon’s mouth, followed by a short spiral staircase up through a cave structure, passed, it became hotter and harder to proceed. We had climbed Machu Picchu mountain some 3 months prior so were quite surprised at how difficult the steps proved to be. It just goes to show how much more difficult it is to do anything in this heat and we quickly depleted the 2 litres of water we had brought with us. Luckily about 2/3 of the way up there’s a lovely open-air temple where you can sit and cool down, enjoying the cool breeze as well as the endless view over the lush green fields. The river widens and winds its way into the distance, punctuated sporadically with hills that burst out of the ground like huge anthills, such is their juxtaposition with the paper flat landscape. We reached the top shortly after but as there was no shelter, we quickly descended again, welcoming the ease at which we descended, counting the steps as we went and offering encouragement to those on the ascent. Reaching the bottom, we couldn’t help feeling a sense of accomplishment at having not only climbed one of Thailand’s hills, but having done so dripping with sweat and almost giving up more than once. We stopped briefly at the POW cemetery on our way back and were once again moved by the sacrifice of these poor lads, the vast majority of whom were younger than both Dave and me.  Arriving back at the hotel, we found ourselves to be absolutely exhausted and after a brief foray out for lunch, both collapsed onto the bed and did not much of anything for the rest of the afternoon before enjoying a junk food dinner and a beer with the Monaco GP.

Our time in Kanchanaburi had been a real mixed bag, with harrowing WW2 history, beautiful waterfalls and a big dragon temple on a hill, all of which has been thoroughly enjoyable. As I sit and write this on the terrace of our hotel room, a thunderstorm has rolled in and flashes of lightning flicker across the cloudy grey sky every few minutes, oddly enough, all without any rain. The next stop on our trip is Ayutthaya, the old capital of Siam, but I’ll leave Dave to tell you all about that.

I hate night buses

Ask anyone who knows me and they’ll tell you that if sleeping was an Olympic sport, I would get gold every time. I slept through an earthquake in La Paz for heavens sake. I could probably fall asleep now as I sit at a small Ikea style table overlooking the pool just outside of Huacachina. Anyway, I think you get the idea that if you look up “Katy Boyce” in the dictionary, it would say “main occupation: sleeping”. Night buses in Peru however have proved to be somewhat of my Achilles’ Heel. Perhaps this is revenge for me claiming that I can sleep anywhere, ‘ha ha!’ thought the bus, ‘I’ll soon show you!’. The seats are not made for ample Western bottoms and if you’re anything over about 5’6 then good luck! Also they seem to insist on making the leg rests out of this awful plastic which isn’t ideal when you’re travelling in heat, as you find yourself having to repeatedly unpeel your sweaty legs – YUM!

 

We were picked up in a timely fashion from our hostel in Puno and headed out to the suburbs to meet the larger bus which was to take us to Arequipa. In true South American fashion nobody was telling anybody what was going on and so all the people going to Arequipa and all the people going to Cusco found themselves in front of just one bus, but planning to go in completely separate directions. As it transpires, when we got onto the bus it was then that the guide decided to inform us that the bus would go about 4 hours towards Cusco (away from the road to Arequipa), and then those travelling to Arequipa would change buses and go all the way back down. Fantastic. So now not only would we be able to get no sleep but we would also get to be interrupted half way through our journey! It turns out that reason for this is that those travelling to Arequipa meet the bus that has departed from Cusco and so it means they only have to run 2 buses rather than 3. I’ve had only good things to say about Peru Hop up until now but honestly for the price we paid, it hasn’t been half as good as it has claimed to be. The seats recline just not quite enough for you to get comfortable (not like our lovely El Dorado bus in Bolivia ❤ ) and there aren’t always USB chargers on every bus like they claim. It’s nice to have an English speaking guide on board but I think knowing what we know now, we wouldn’t use them again.

 

Arriving in Arequipa our lovely AirBnb host Rosa-Luz had advised us that checking in at 5am wouldn’t be a problem, for which we will be eternally grateful. Once again however, Peru Hop had other plans. We stepped off the bus, groggy and grumpy and ready for a nice long kip, and were promptly shown to our minibus and taken to our AirBnB. Just kidding, we were made to wait 45 minutes in the dark with no apology and no one telling us what was going on. One of the guides did seem to be getting arsey with someone on the phone but at no point did she stop to communicate with us just what was going on. When a minivan did eventually turn up, the driver and his companion spent a good further 10 minutes chatting away outside the van while we got more and more frustrated. This wasn’t helped by the woman next to me saying “this is just how it is in South America, just calm down”. I’m not sure that ever in the history of someone telling someone to calm down has it ever actually resulted in that person calming down, in fact it often, as in this case, has the opposite effect. The rage was palpable but as I am a calm natured person and rarely lose my temper (*cough*) I chose not to punch her in the face and we were soon underway. We dropped off a few of our fellow travellers and then the driver decided to stop at a random doorway, get out of the van and proceed to have a further 10 minute discussion. Anyway, we finally arrived at the AirBnB at around 6:30am, a good 1h30 minutes after we had arrived in Arequipa. Not great. I fired off an e-mail to PeruHop to complain and to their credit I did receive a response from one of the owners but it was very cut and paste, oh well, enough complaining, time to enjoy Arequipa!

 

As is tradition post-nightbus, Dave went for a well needed nap and I stayed up and tried to get the TV to work. Our AirBnB was located to the North of the city just outside of the main tourist area next to a beautiful green park and with cracking views of two of the city’s Volcanoes: Misti and Chachani. Luckily both are closely monitored in case of eruptions so we felt very safe. Following Dave’s awakening we popped down to the town centre for a mooch around and discovered the beautiful Plaza de Armas, with towering palm trees and the white volcanic buildings, it firmly shoved Sucre out of the way, claiming the top spot for most beautiful city (sorry Sucre, still love you for dinosaurs though.) Groceries acquired and still feeling a little worse for wear we headed back to the flat, settled down with a mountain of nachos and spent the rest of the evening exploring exactly what there was to do in the city.

The answer is, not that much really. The main pull of Arequipa is the nearby Colca Canyon, the second deepest Canyon in the world and one of the best viewing points for spotting the endangered Andean Condors in the wild. We did however manage to find a free walking tour and so normal service resumed. We popped along to the Las Gringas restaurant meeting point and were greeted by our delightful guide whose name has unfortunately escaped us (Dave thinks it was Juan, I said that was racist). He was certainly one of the best guides we’ve had in our time in South America, with exceptional English and a flamboyant style, he took us round the city and explained the history of Arequipa. With almost year round late spring/early summer temperatures, it attracts a lot of Europeans and there seemed to be French people everywhere. The upside of this is that we consumed a lot of tasty crepes during our time there. We also found out that evidence supporting the Big Bang Theory (the space one, not the awful TV show) was uncovered in the Boyden Observatory just outside of the city, so that’s pretty darn cool! We finished our walking tour at a rooftop bar just before sunset and spent a bit of time taking it all in before heading back to Las Gringas for a pizza and a beer. Or at least we would have ordered a beer if it was possible to have anything but craft beer in Arequipa. As an aside, they do have various different ciders which are brewed locally so that was a nice treat, but to be perfectly honest, sometimes you just want a beer. A normal pilsner with no frills and no inflated price tag. Sorry it seems this is turning into the agony aunt blog post, I’m not ungrateful I promise, I fully appreciate just how wonderful an opportunity it is that we have to be travelling like this…….but……beer!

Aside from a beautiful main square and excellent walking tours, another of Arequipa’s main tourist attractions is the fabulous Mundo Alpaca or Alpaca World! I think the use of the word World here is probably slightly hyperbolic as it’s more of a shed with a small field filled with llamas and alpacas. The guide gave us a quick tour in v-e-r-y s-l-o-w and v-e-r-y c-l-e-a-r Spanish and we had a chance to feed the llamas and get up close and personal with the machinery used to process the wool, which was really interesting. We could have taken the opportunity to see yet more traditional weaving patterns but if I never see another one of those, it will be too soon. After visiting Alpaca “World” we one again trotted off into town to see another one of Arequipa’s claims to fame: Juanita. Juanita is a perfectly preserved ice mummy, killed between 1450 and 1480, when she was between 12-15 years old, as a human sacrifice to the Ampato volcano god by the Incas. Her skin, teeth, hair, organs and blood are remarkably well preserved. Sadly for preservation reasons, we didn’t get to see Juanita in the flesh (sorry) but we did get to see another equally impressive mummy – Sarita. She’s not quite as well preserved as Juanita but it was still really interesting. Our tour guide spoke very good English and explained all about the different artefacts that were found surrounding her before we finally stepped into a freezing cold room to see Sarita herself. I think I probably could have stayed there all day staring into those empty sockets but we were soon ushered out by the guide. It’s definitely worth a trip if you’re in Arequipa, especially if you’re there during the high season when you get to see Juanita herself, and there’s a short film at the start all about the discovery and the conditions surrounding it.

 

Feeling suitably peckish after our visit to Sarita, we headed off back to the AirBnB to do a bit more research about Colca Canyon tours. We booked with the Peru Hop recommended company, hoping that their tour group recommendations would be better than their ability to organise minivans and luckily for us we were correct. Paying around £40 for a 2D1N tour, we were picked up just down the road at around 7:30 and began our long drive through the Arequipan landscape, stopping at various points along the way to be sold tourist rubbish but also to see some more volcanoes. The landscape around Arequipa is almost prehistoric, the volcanic nature of the terrain provides for some excellent photo opportunities. Our group consisted of ourselves, a handful of Israelis, a Spanish couple, an older Swedish couple and a young family from New Zealand travelling with their 10 year old daughter. We got quite friendly with Rachel, Stu and Isabelle during those two days and were grateful for their company. Stu set up a pest control business that it turns out sold its products in the garden centre Dave used to work at – small world eh! Continuing on our journey, our guide Flor pointed out the mountain where Juanita was found and also the volcano just next to it which erupts on average around 24 times a day. The air was noticeably hazier and it was clear just how much the ash lingers and why when that volcano erupted in Iceland it proved to be such a big problem. We reached a high point of 4910m that day, not quite the highest we’ve been but close enough that we were starting to feel a little wobbly from the altitude. We quickly headed back down to the town of Chivay at around 3500m and headed to our third hot springs of the trip where we got chatting once again to Rachel and Stu about life, the universe, and everything. They were going to spend ~2 years travelling all around the world before probably heading back to New Zealand. Apparently 10 is the perfect age to do it because children still like their parents at this age, are old enough to appreciate it all, and haven’t turned into horrible teenagers yet, so that gave us some food for thought with regards to future plans.

After the hot springs our guide told us that during dinner we’d be treated to some more examples of local traditional dances and songs. ‘Oh goody’ we thought. It’s not that we’re heathens and can’t appreciate the subtleties of tradition and local culture but dear reader please understand that at this point this was about the 15th time we’d been ‘treated’ to these dances, and often they’re by bored looking teenagers who have obviously been bribed into it by the prospect of tips from the gringos. However, I have to say that on this occasion we were pleasantly mistaken. The couple performing the dances seemed to be genuinely enjoying themselves, or at least doing a very good job of faking it. The food was also really nice, especially as it was evident that this place exists solely for tourists. I even got to hit Stu with a bit of rope so I can’t complain. Isabelle was adamant that we get involved at every single opportunity but unfortunately as we are boring grown ups and would rather have a conversation she was often left to her own devices, twirling around the dance floor and generally having a jolly good time. After this we headed to our hotel which, given that we’d only paid £20 each for the whole thing, was better than expected. There was the usual 1 pillow, twin beds, no TV remote situation and Dave did manage to leave his fantastic flamingo swimming trunks behind (add that to the list of ‘things Dave has left in South America’) but it was clean and warm which is all you want really.

 

Up bright and early the next morning for our 5am departure, we were finally off to see the thing we’d come all this way to see: the condors. There’s a particular point along the Colca Canyon called the Condor Cross which is the best place to see them as they sit lower down in the Canyon waiting for the thermal currents to be warm enough to lift their huge 3m wingspan 15kg bodies up into the air. Before arriving to the cross, we took a short hike to a point slightly lower down to appreciate the full depth of the canyon, we also saw some dead cows which I thought was exceptionally cool but which Isabelle thought was gross. and was much more interested in asking us what our favourite brand of sock was, or what our favourite mythical creature was, or what our favourite colour was, or if we were a dog what breed of dog we would be, (Marks and Spencer, Dragon, Green, German Shepherd, in case you were wondering) before promptly dismissing our response and telling us what hers was. Kids are great. We then finally headed up to the Condor Cross where we only had to wait a short while before the flight of the concords (not the band) began. We saw about 10/12 in total which is really good luck as some people come all that way and don’t see any of them. In fact several groups arrived about an hour after we did and didn’t see a single one. It’s really very impressive to watch these huge great birds fly around and we were completely mesmerised as they flew incredibly close straight over our heads. They didn’t seemed to be fazed by the tourists at all and it’s clear why they attract so many visitors. After about an hour we made our way slowly back to the bus, but not before stopping to introduce Rachel and Isabelle to the wonders of the Granadilla, and managing to convince Isabelle that the seeds inside are in fact frogspawn and that we were eating baby frogs. I’m now starting to understanding why my older siblings and parents (ok, my Dad) spent all that time winding me up when I was younger, it really is quite fun. And so began our long drive back to Arequipa, we stopped in various places to take more pictures and look at more of the same jumpers/scarves/condor keyrings/penis masks that you see everywhere else in Peru but after the Condors, nothing really came close.

Arriving back in Arequipa we said our farewells to our Kiwi friends. We were going to be getting the same bus to Huacachina in a few days time so it wasn’t goodbye forever and Dave and I were particularly looking forward to more opportunities to answer Isabelle’s relentless questions. Our final day in Arequipa was fairly uneventful, apart from some particularly good pasta and a cracking pizza, there isn’t much that stands out as being particularly memorable. There was also a cat that looked remarkably like my brother’s cat Spock so I called him Spocky Dos (Spocky Two)  and also a lovely ginger cat. Yes ladies and gentlemen I did come all the way to South America just to talk about the cats I’ve seen. You should think yourself lucky, I think Dave’s going to strangle me if I stop to pet another dog in the street. Anyway, on to Huacachina…

Jura-sick Sucre

Still feeling the after effects of being vibrated down a mountain a few days before, we had a day to kill before our El Dorado night bus to Bolivia’s ‘official’ capital, Sucre. Rather than sit in a coffee shop and eat cake all day, we booked ourselves onto another Red Cap walking tour, this time of La Paz’s massive cemetery and a trip on the cable car up to El Alto – La Paz’s poorer sister city – to the huge Sunday market.

La Paz’s Cementerio General is a bit different to the graveyards we have back home. Death is seen much more as ‘the next step’ in life rather than the end of the road that it is in Western culture, so cemeteries are a combination of mourning and celebration, giving them a really unique atmosphere. We stopped just past the entrance amongst the towering graves for an explanation of a slightly more gruesome aspect of the strange amalgamation of Catholicism and local shamanic religious culture – the Ñatitas. A Ñatita (meaning – snub nose) is the skull of a deceased person which is kept in an altar in the home and serves as a guardian against bad things happening to you. Daily offerings are made to your Ñatita to keep them happy and to make sure good luck keeps coming your way. Offerings include booze, money, cigarettes, sweets, chocolate….all the good stuff basically. Then, on the 8th November every year, people from La Paz bring their Ñatitas to the cemetery so that others can come and be blessed. The Ñatitas are dressed in hats and clothes, even sunglasses, and placed on altars around the cemetery before being surrounded by flowers and offerings, with people hoping that the Ñatita will make their wish come true or bless their family. Often the skulls are passed down from generation to generation and once a Ñatita is yours, it’s yours for life. If you don’t get along with it, or if it doesn’t get along with you, you are allowed to give it away but selling it is strictly forbidden. Oddly enough if you do want to acquire a Ñatita, paying a larger sum to your local coroner will secure you a Ñatita of higher social standing, a doctor or lawyer Ñatita for example. As you can imagine, the Catholic church doesn’t really approve of not burying these skulls but they tend to turn a blind eye in order to maintain a healthy relationship with the local indigenous communities.

 

The cemetery itself houses thousands of graves. Families purchase their own slot in the wall, with the higher slots being cheaper due to the need to climb a ladder to pay your respects. In general families will pay to keep the slot for around 2 years before allowing the payments to lapse, you get 2 months’ grace period before your family member is removed and cremated. It’s interesting to see the differences in the wealth of the families buying the graves, with fancy marble and glass fronted plots next to those filled in with cement and words crudely drawn into it; serving as a morbid reminder that no matter who we are in life, we all kick the bucket in the end my friend! Walking around the place you can sometimes see small pieces of paper attached to the graves, our guide informed us that these were eviction notices – some things never change. On a slightly more cheery note, the cemetery is also home to some cracking murals. We were told that there is an art contest every year and the winners are permitted to paint a mural in the cemetery. They’ve even started some on the roofs of the graves as well so that when you take the cable car over it, it looks a lot less grey. The contest recently opened up to foreigners so if you’ve always dreamed of having your art on show, surrounded by a whole bunch of skeletons then you know where to go!

 

Having had our fill of the macabre, our next stop was the El Alto market. Our guide warned us that pickpocketing is rife at this market, particularly of gringos. Some of their favourite tricks are to drop something, then when you stop to help them they steal your stuff, or someone will throw a fake baby at you and when you catch it, they take the opportunity to help themselves to anything in your pockets. For the most part, both Peru and Bolivia have been very safe, seemingly due to the fact that tourism now makes up such a large portion of their economy and if they get a reputation for being a bit dodgy then the lovely western currency won’t make its way to that part of the city. Rucksacks secured to our fronts and pockets emptied of anything other than snotty tissues, we took the red cable car up to El Alto. The market itself on a Sunday stretches to around 5 kilometres, making it allegedly the largest in the whole of South America. Selling everything from socks to car parts to cameras stolen from tourists down in La Paz and unfortunately some endangered animals as well. Luckily we didn’t delve too far in so we didn’t see any of the more upsetting things BUT, in a Katy first, I was the victim of a pickpocketing attempt! A chap dropped his hat in front of me and bent down to pick it up, preventing me from going forward, then before I knew it, a large woman in black was fiddling around in my pockets. I hope she enjoyed my snotty tissues. I quickly barged forward to re-join the rest of our tour group and excitedly explained to Dave that I had just been pickpocketed! Not that she managed to get anything. We were largely left alone to explore the market after that but it was definitely an experience. Opportunistic crime like that can largely be forgiven in my opinion, if you’re stupid enough to walk around with expensive gear within easy reach in one of the poorest countries in the world then really, it’s to be expected. Besides, give it a few days and you can pop back to the market to buy your stuff back. Apparently you can get some really good deals on technology stolen from gringos but we didn’t stick around long enough to find out. With the tour largely over, we parted ways with our guide and our group and headed back down to the relative safety of La Paz where we stopped at a little Mexican place for dinner before heading to the bus station to catch the long anticipated night bus.

We’d heard many a horror story regarding Bolivia’s buses but for the most part, our experience overall has been a positive one. The night coaches for El Dorado are double decker and can probably fit around 30 people. We were elated to see that our bus was FULL CAMA. This means that the seat reclines all the way back to 180 degrees with a little foot rest that folds up, giving you about as close to an actual bed as you can get. We’d heard rumours of these mystical full cama buses but were firmly told that they didn’t actually exist and the companies that advertised them were just a way to get a bit more money out of the gringos. We had paid around £20 each for the privilege and let me tell you dear reader it was worth every penny. The only slight downside was just how hot the bus was. We’d been told Bolivian coach drivers like to crank up the AC so had prepared for a chilly night but it was SO warm that by the end of the 12 hour journey we were both feeling very groggy. BUT we had arrived in the beautiful capital of Sucre which could only mean one thing – DINOSAURS.

 

One of the unfortunate downsides of taking night buses is that you end up at your destination incredibly early in the morning and hotels often won’t allow you to check in until after midday. We’ve been incredibly lucky so far (in no small part I imagine due to it being the off season) that the hotels we’ve arrived at have all had our rooms ready when we arrived. El Olivo Viejo was no exception and even had the added bonus of a beautiful pussy cat and a big softy Labrador to welcome us. We were even more pleasantly surprised to find that we had been upgraded to the rooftop suite which included a kitchen and a cracking view over the brilliant white city buildings, as well as the surrounding mountains. After a shower and a nap, we decided to head out to a local ‘gastro-pub’ style restaurant for dinner before researching a walking tour of the city for the following day (as is tradition).

The following morning, bellies full of the hotel’s great breakfast and having bid hasta luego to our feline friend, we headed to Condor Café, a local non-profit co-op offering walking tours, Spanish lessons and a range of veggie dishes. We arrived just after 9am, ready for our 9:30 walking tour. Except there was no 9:30 walking tour. Unbeknownst to us, it had, since the last Trip Advisor review was listed, moved to 10am. Ho hum. We sat outside the café under the blue Sucre sky and Dave took the opportunity to go on a little trip to try and find some replacement sunglasses for the ones he snapped during his little brush with death down Death Road. Much to the frustration of both Dave and his eyes, we seemed to have found the only street in Sucre that didn’t have a little knock off sunglasses stand. He bravely soldiered on as the clock ticked to 10am and our walking tour finally began. A group of around 10 of us were led through the city by Alistair, whose English wasn’t fantastic but we muddled through. He first took us to a local weaving shop (oh goody another one…) featuring products made by the local indigenous communities around La Paz. Unlike Peru, the communities of Bolivia’s Altiplano use far more muted colours, owing I would imagine to the lack of diversity in its flora and therefore a lack of colours to be obtained from various plants in the region. Still, they were very interesting and had we had the room in our suitcases, probably would have brought a few bits home. Our next stop on the tour was the main square – Plaza 25 de Mayo – so named for the Chuquisaca (modern day Sucre) Revolution of 1809 which followed the fall of King Ferdinand VII of Spain, leading local residents to question the legitimacy of its rulers and to posit their independence. It’s often referred to as the first step in the Spanish American wars of independence, so that’s pretty cool! At the time of our stay in Sucre, Bolivia was commemorating (or perhaps commiserating?) its loss of the Pacific Ocean following the Pacific War with Chile in 1883. ‘El Die del Mar’ or The Day of the Sea is marked every year on the 23rd March with parades through the streets with local military operations as well as local schools and marching bands. It’s an interesting story which others online are able to explain much better than myself but one interesting point is that in 2013, Bolivia’s President Evo Morales filed a complaint with the International Court of Justice in the Hague, petitioning them for the return of the ocean. Sadly, or perhaps not, depending on your views on the whole matter, the petition was rejected. The Bolivians are a resilient people though and they are now planning a new legal challenge. Hopefully one day they will once again regain their access to the sea. Unfortunately with all this going on it meant we couldn’t hear a word Alistair was saying so we quickly moved on to a local chocolate shop – Para Ti.

 

Para-Ti is a Sucre run chocolate factory with several shops around the city. The cacao is sourced in the Bolivian jungle and processed to exceptionally high standards before being finished off by European trained chocolatiers – so it’s not bad I guess. We were allowed to sample one chocolate each as part of our tour, I went for coconut, Dave went for pistachio – yum. Vowing to come back at a later date, we moved on towards Parque Bolivar, so named for Simon Bolivar, largely credited with liberating vast swathes of South America. It’s a really pretty park with French influences, including a mini Eiffel tower in the centre, though this one is bright orange and doesn’t really do the original any justice. Each to their own I suppose. Following our jaunt around this pretty park, we were herded onto a bus where we headed up to one of the higher parts of the city where a lovely view, and some booze, awaited us. With our tour guide safely leading the way, we wandered into what at first glance just looked like someone’s back yard but it soon became apparent we were at one of Bolivia’s famous “Chicharias” where we got to sample some very strong Chicha. We took our seats in the corner but not before the local drunks welcomed us to Bolivia and tried and failed to chat up some of the women in our group. Chicha is a fermented corn drink that tastes, oddly enough, like scrumpy. It’s quite potent but we enjoyed our small glass before heading outside to play what we were told was a traditional Bolivian drinking game. The premise of the game is fairly simple. A metal frog around the size of a grapefruit sits atop a metal frame with a shelf on top containing various holes. You’re given a cup full of coins and the aim of the game is to throw the coins at the frog and the holes, with each awarding various points. If you manage to get a coin in the frog’s mouth then you win, otherwise the person with the most amount of points is the winner. I wasn’t very good. Dave was ok. The winner was a tiny blonde woman from the USA who I suspect has a long history of playing beer pong so we weren’t too disheartened. Our tour finished up at a fabulous view over the city, next to a lovely restaurant called Café Mirador which was beckoning us to stop and have a beer, so we did. After enjoying our meal and with the weather similar to a hot Mediterranean summer we decided to head back to the hotel, but not before a chap approached us and, for the 99999999999th time this trip, asked us if we’d like to buy some weed, or some cocaine. He was very polite, apologising for disturbing us in the first place and spoke perfect English but unfortunately neither of these two criteria were sufficient for us to risk a stay in San Pedro prison, so we declined. Heading back to the apartment, we stopped briefly to buy some totally legitimate Rui Foo (I think they’re supposed to be Ray Bans?!) sunglasses for Dave, as well the necessary supplies to make ourselves nachos for dinner. The rest of our evening was spent drinking beer and catching up on Star Trek because that’s what you do when you travel half way around the world, right?

Sunday morning arrived and the beautiful weather continued. Sucre is a particularly radiant city in the sunshine, with the light bouncing off the pearlescent white colonial style buildings, highlighted against the clear blue sky. We headed down to the main square where a bus was waiting to take us to Tarabuco, a market town around 1h15m drive away from Sucre. Tarabuco is home to a large Sunday market where you can buy everything from the normal tourist rubbish to DVDs of Cholitas dancing, to shoes, to cows, and everything in between. We were greeted at what we were told is the only restaurant in town (read, the only gringo friendly restaurant in town) by a radiant woman named Katy (!) who was absolutely delighted to find out that we shared a name. She expressed her love of the English language before explaining everything we could have ever possibly wanted to know about Tarabuco and the market and how to say “no thanks, maybe later” in Quechua (which we have now forgotten). After wandering round the market and picking up a few souvenirs for some lucky people back home, we headed back to the restaurant where Katy greeted us once again and we sat down to enjoy a 3 course lunch for 40 Bobs (around £4.40). The meal was peppered with Katy apologising for the delay every time she brought out a dish, despite the fact that there was no delay. This woman was as mad as a box of frogs but quite possibly the nicest person in the whole of Bolivia, if not the entirety of South America. The restaurant was family run but she explained that she was an engineer, heavens knows what she was doing in this tiny little mountain town. After lunch we were treated to a display of local dances by some young girls from the town. They looked about as enthused as teenagers do when they have to do anything mildly inconvenient, but we gave them a few Bobs for the trouble. We bid farewell to our eccentric host and headed back to Sucre with our bellies full and our minds open and in the evening enjoyed some pasta and a few rounds of gin (that’s the card game not the drink) before bed. And that’s when the fun began…

 

The following 3 days I had the absolute pleasure of being entirely bed bound due to a delightful bought of travellers’ stomach. Fear not dear reader, I do not wish to relive the experience anymore than you want to read about it so I shall simply say that we did not get to see nearly as much of Sucre as we would have liked but that Nurse Dave was on top form as always. I’m sure I’ll get the chance to return the favour when we head to Asia.

It was now Thursday and, despite not feeling 100%, I was determined to go and see these flipping dinosaurs if it killed me. Cretaceous Park is situated next to a working quarry around 5km outside Sucre’s town centre. It is home to some delightfully derpy life size models of the dinosaurs that inhabited the region many many moons ago as well as its star attraction, the world’s largest fossilised remains of dinosaur footprints. Over 5000 individual footprints from at least 8 species can be seen in the 1500m long cliff. It’s really something that needs to be seen to be believed. At 110m high it stands imposing over the rest of the park. With our entrance ticket we also had the opportunity to get up close and personal with these footprints. Sadly a few years ago a large section was lost due to water damage and the park is now seeking funding to cover the entire section with a protective layer of plastic. They’re nearly there so hopefully they can prevent any more of these amazing footprints from being lost. Being a huge dinosaur nerd, a gift to the gift shop was inevitable and I was heartbroken to find that the only t-shirts on offer were child sized (I can’t think why!). So after acquiring a new deck of playing cards, we headed back to Sucre where we finally ventured to the local Para-Ti chocolate shop and acquired some goodies for when my stomach settled down a bit. We then headed back to the hotel for our final night of luxury before our journey to Uyuni and slumming it in the salt flats for 3 days, but that’s another story for another time….