An Inca Trail - of a sorts...

At 3,300 metres above sea level, the hardest thing about Cusco was adjusting to the altitude.  We were also both pretty tired having not got too much sleep on the bus from Nazca.  The windy roads and smelly toilet that we were sitting next too (now we know why the seats we purchased were cheaper than the rest!) made sleep a little hard to come by.  So we were both pretty happy to settle for finding a place to stay and to book the train ride to Machu Picchu before turning in for the night.

We got up at 3.30am to watch the All Blacks play France.  We were both quite on edge and very nervous given the closeness of the scores, but obviously very proud kiwis when the 80 minutes were up.  A short nap was required before setting out to explore the city.

Peru - the first 1,500km

Picture of the Sun God (Huaca de la Luna)

 We crossed the border into Peru as the sun set.  The border crossing was straightforward and uneventful and about 3-4 hours later we found ourselves in the city of Piura.  After 13 hours of bus rides that day, we were keen to rest up before pressing on and found ourselves a rather basic place to stay across the road from most of the bus terminals.  

Peru has a much more lively feeling to it than Ecuador.  There is a real hustle and bustle to the cities with many more cars prevalent (albeit largely very small cars like Daihatsu Charade’s).  Everyone is busy honking their horns, either at you (to ask you if you want a ride) or as they approach an intersection to warn other vehicles of their presence.  

Ecuador

Aside from our time in the Galapagos, we have spent a little over a week exploring Ecuador - a very pretty, friendly and inexpensive (Galapagos excluded) country to visit.  Most of our travel was originated from Ecuador’s capital, Quito.  Nestled in the valley between the mountains and volcanoes of the Andes, Quito is more than 2,800m above sea level.  At this altitude it does take a little while to fully acclimatise to the altitude.  Most of the time it is a shortness of breath after a very small climb up a flight of steps which takes you by surprise.  

At 4,100m above sea level!

In the footsteps of Darwin... well... sort of...

At 5.40pm on Thursday, 20 minutes before the travel agent closed for the night, we booked an 8 day cruise through the Galapagos Islands which was to start first thing the next morning.  We’d like to think that, with respect to the fact that neither of us have worked since March, we chose an appropriately budgeted tour.  Actually, and probably surprising to most of you that know us well, we failed.  1 week on a luxury Galapagos yacht, thank you very much.  Enter La Pinta, a luxury yacht run by Metropolitan Tours.  What can we say, but what a week!! we were wined, dined and entertained to the max.  

Baby Frigate Bird