A Year In Motion

Mendoza, Mendoza, the heart of Argentina’s wine country. Yeah, we were looking forward to this – a degustation in the heart of Argentinian wine country. We’re no strangers to wine country, our previous visits reading like an expensive wine list – Champagne, Bourgogne and Alsace to name a few. Mendoza however was to prove a little more challenging to get to grips with.

Mendoza itself is a quiet provincial town in the foothills of the Andes in the west of Argentina. As cities go, there’s nothing much to impress, other than the long lines of leafy trees along its pleasant boulevards which provide a welcome shade from the hot Andean summer sun. We had arrived in the run-up to the annual Vendimia festival which celebrates the wine harvest, and stages were being built in the plazas and the majority of the Mendoza wine community had come in from the countryside to set up stall in the pedestrian centre for an evening degustation al fresco. It turned out we didn’t have to travel far to get started.

In fact we started in the excellent Vines of Mendoza Tasting Room a short walk away from our hotel in the centre of Mendoza. We had read about this place in other travel blogs prior to arriving and it’s certainly worth a visit. There are different tasting options available with prices varying on whether you want to exclusively taste Malbec, or sample a selection of Mendozan wines of different grades of quality. The staff are very professional and clearly know their stuff on wine. We opted to go straight for a glass of wine and asked the barman/sommelier for a recommendation. What followed was in fact a mini degustation during which we sampled no less than 5 wines ranging from Malbec roses to Malbec reds and ended up with a healthy sized glass of our favourites, before moving into the town centre for dinner. By the time we had finished our first parrilla (grilled meats) dinner in the popular if old-fashioned Florencia restaurant, we were just about up to our limit of wine. So instead of opting for an extensive degustation at the open-air event, we walked through the crowds asking different vineyard representatives for their opening hours so that we could organise a wine-tasting itinerary in the vineyards rather than the streets.

We were in Mendoza on the weekend, and a number of Argentinian traditions are alive and well in Mendoza which can make life difficult for a tourist, specifically lengthy siestas in the afternoon, and almost everything closing on weekends. When we asked in the tourist offices, the car-rental company, hotel, we were invariably told – all vineyards are closed on weekends. It wasn’t looking good. Fortunately, the vineyard representatives at the street degustation were able to provide better information, but even then some of their details were a little vague.

The Basics on Mendoza

The Mendoza wine country is split into three separate terroirs – Maipu which is closest to the city, Valle de Uco, the highest land which is also the furthest from the city, and Lujan de Cuyo which is somewhere in between the two. Based on our preliminary research, we had deduced that Maipu was the most accessible although was generally characterised by high output, medium quality wines, Lujan de Cuyo was the most established and generally had the best-reputed wines, and Valle de Uco was the youngest terroir which was the domain of adventurous, pioneering bodega owners who were producing excellent new wines thanks to the elevation, soil and temperature. In planning our degustation, we considered three options: self-drive, organised tour, or bus and bike. Bus and bike is a very popular option but only extends into Maipu and we felt it was going to be too hot for a lot of cycling. Tours, although they seem professionally organised and visit quality vineyards, are very expensive at over $150 per person including gourmet lunch. When we finally found a car-rental office open (who’ be open on a Saturday after all?!), we opted for the designated driver option which was also likely to save us some money. I lost my driver’s license earlier during the trip which made the independent chauffeur-driven wine tour option even more attractive for me. Another option that I haven’t mentioned is to hire a “remise”, a chauffeur-driven car for the day, but this is also very expensive, and I was in effect doing the same anyway thanks to my wonderful chauffeuse Ninfa.

On The Wine Road

On our consultations with the well-informed wine tourism agencies in Mendoza, we had taken mental note of the prestigious wineries on their itineraries, and followed up by making a reservation independently for a gourmet lunch at the Belasco de Baquedano winery in Lujan de Cuyo. For lunch or degustation, Belasco de Baquedano has to be on your itinerary. A unique and really helpful attraction to the amateur wine enthusiast is the Aromas Room. After a short tour through the workings of the modern winery, we were shown into the Aromas Room. Around the room are 50 clear containers with a wheel lid. We walked around the room turning wheels which wafted the scents to our nose and played a game guessing the correct aroma ranging from grass to lemon to musk to chocolate to pepper. The room is extensive but covers less than half of the aromas that can be found in wines, but it’s more than enough for the amateur and really helped us appreciate, evaluate and describe wines in our degustations thereafter.

Lunch at Belasco de Baquedano used all local Argentinian ingredients heavily influenced by Spanish cuisine which represented the owner’s origins. The food was delicious! and was accompanied by 5 different wines from the Belasco cellars, all Malbecs, the first a rose, the middle three of improving grades of Malbec, and the final wine was their late harvest of sweet red Malbec they call Anthracite. The wines were fantastic, with their headline aged Malbec accompanying our steak absolutely fantastic. All this in a wonderful restaurant setting with full-length windows overlooking the olive trees and vineyards against a backdrop of the snow-peaked Andes in the distance. Lunch cost $65 per person at Belasco including the tour and as much wine as you wanted to drink, as well as a copy of the menu and the wines we sampled.

From their we wandered according to our map, passing by Chandon (subsidiary of Champagne’s Moet & Chandon) which was closed, before making an unannounced stop at Norton, one of Argentina’s largest wine producers. Wine tourism in Mendoza is still in its infancy compared to its European counterparts, and here most vineyards require reservations as they generally include a tour of the vineyard and cellars. Spontaneous visits can be troublesome especially if you don’t speak Spanish, but Ninfa explained that we were there to purchase and not tour, Norton security guard radioed inside and eventually agreed to let us pass. The wines had less character than Belasco and it was quite obvious that the low and middle grades of wines were created for mass production. Tastings are arranged by quality grade, although the staff allowed us to mix and match from various wines of the same grade to create our own bespoke tasting. We appreciated the flexibility and opted for one of the lower priced options and purchased a couple of bottles of bubbly.

It was already 5pm so we continued south to the town of Tunuyán in Valle de Uco. Here, in a small country town seemingly trapped in the past, the tourist services far outperformed those in Mendoza and we received lots of information from the friendly Martin. He even gave us a bottle of the locally produced cider, Cortesia, courtesy of Tunuyan tourist office. Having said that, there is little of interest in Tunuyan other than some old pick-up trucks and shopfronts and its convenient location close to the Valle de Uco bodegas.

The following morning we rang around a few wineries in the area which gave proof to our suspicions that Valle de Uco’s Mondays are its Sundays. Everything was closed. We eventually found one (Andeluna) that was open, and drove out to it. Along the way we stopped at one of numerous small memorials that are a central part of Argentinian rural culture. The locals in Mendoza have great devotion to a legendary figure, Gauchito Gil, who seems to have been something of a Robin Hood figure, and people build little red-painted shelters along the roadside and deck them with their wishes, small figurines and red flags.

Valle de Uco is Mendoza’s youngest terroir and Andeluna’s suitably sleek modern exterior hides a classically decorated interior – an architectural metaphor of old meets new. The tour includes a description of the architecture and its trappings before bringing us into the cellars, the tank rooms and even a quick view of the laboratory – the modern age of wine. The tastings at Andeluna are organised by grade, the lowest grade priced at $11. Although the entry level grade was not spectacular, we wanted to at least buy one bottle of Valle de Uco so took one, and had one of our tour fees waived as a result.

Valle de Uco was closed, so we headed back over the ridge to Lujan de Cuyo. We were a little tight for time to get to Mendoza Champagne heaven at Chandon, but made a quick stop at Pulenta a few kilometres up the road and although unscheduled we had no problem getting in for a tasting. Although this was a rapid visit, for me it was the best. Pulenta has won the prize for best Sauvignon Blanc in Argentina for the past three years running and I enthusiastically endorse that judgement. Their entry level Malbec was very good, and the headline aged Malbec was outstanding, and I guess that’s why it costs $65 a bottle. The tasting at Pulenta cost $11 and includes one of their best wines as well as the entry level award-winning Sauvignon Blanc. It’s excellent value and a very well-reputed winery – include it on your list. We left with a bottle of headline Sauvignon Blanc.

Last stop was the icing on the cake, and as with all the best celebrations, it was champagne time. Well not literally champagne, as only Champagne has the right to that, so vino espumante. The Chandon visitor centre is all vogue and definitely lives up to the brand’s chic and stylish reputation. We had a quick tour of the production, before getting down to the fun bit – the tasting. We tasted the aged wine which is produced prior to the addition of sugar and all the modern method of making champagne, which was an interesting insight into the production process of sparkling wines. We also tasted the excellent Chandon Rose, a demi-sec, and an Extra Brut, which is the most popular of sparkling wines in Argentina. And because we were early, we even got a glass of their best of the best, Baron B, which is their best harvest elaborated by the traditional methode champenoise. Needless to say, we did make a purchase at Chandon, and with a bottle of rose costing only $12, we weren’t the only ones.

And so ended our wine tour in Mendoza. We literally had barrels of fun. Next stop Buenos Aires, but blame it on the booze or whatever you like, we’ll be writing about Uruguay first, as we’ll be visiting Buenos Aires a few times in the coming weeks. From Mendoza, bottoms up!

Travel Tips

Mendoza still upholds the fine tradition of the siesta, so most businesses will be closed between 12pm and 4pm.

Accurate information on vineyard opening times is hard to come by in Mendoza. Vineyards operate on office hours, or sometimes Mendoza office hours (long midday siesta). Try to avoid weekends as a lot of vineyards are closed, but the folllowing general rule applies: Valle de Uco (the furthest from Mendoza) is closed on Mondays, and Lujan de Cuyo is closed on Sundays.

Wine tourism is surprisingly in its infancy in Mendoza. Reserving ahead will make your life a lot easier. Otherwise, speak some Spanish in order to negotiate with security for a spontaneous degustation. Maipu, which we didn’t visit, is probably more flexible given the prevalence of bike tours there, but Lujan de Cuyo and Valle de Uco are better reputed for their wines.

The border crossing between Chile and Argentina is incredibly slow. On our overnight bus trip from Valparaiso to Mendoza, we spent more than 4 hours at the border crossing and this is standard. Immigration and bag checks collectively took around 15 minutes, but seemingly another 3h45min is also necessary. The weather conditions can be below freezing during the night so bring warm clothing even though you’re allowed wait on the bus.

Searching out hotels on foot is difficult in Mendoza as the hotels are quite spread out. Try to do some mapping and price-checking before you go, or be prepared for a few hours lugging around your luggage.

It seems all city-centre car rental offices are located on Avenida Rivadavia just near the Sheraton hotel. Only one was open on a Saturday afternoon (and that sporadically), so best bet on weekends is to go to airport to rent a car. Car rental prices are cheaper on-site than on internet.

For another point of view on Mendoza wine tours, we also recommend checking out this post.

We had thought of hitting Chile’s coast farther North to break the 24 hour bus journey from San Pedro to Santiago in half. In the end we decided against it considering that Chile’s beaches are not exactly paradise material. As well some Chileans we met in San Pedro told us that Valparaiso (Valpo as the locals call it) a seaside city close to Santiago was special and charming, so we saved the decision for later. In the end what sold us was the fact that the most famed Latin American music festival, and which I grew up watching year after year, was taking place exactly that week. It was taking place in Viña del Mar, Valparaiso’s neighboring town, a seaside resort playground of the rich and famous Chilean society.

We took a two hour bus to Concon, the next village after Viña del Mar, where we found a nice seaside resort. The Pacific in South America is far from the beauty of the Pacific near Australasia so we were not interested in bathing, but it was still beautiful to watch the setting. Our hotel was directly on the water, and surrounded by huge rocks. From our room we could see big colonies of birds on the rocks, and we even saw a baby seal struggling as the waves clashed on the rocks. Concon is the gastronomical capital of Chile, but all we got to taste were some empanadas. Chile’s taxis are very expensive so we learned how to use the public buses which go all the way by the coast to Viña and Valparaiso.

What really made up our mind was finding out that Marco Antonio Solis was playing in the Viña del Mar festival, we got really lucky to find tickets to see him. We didn’t find Viña del Mar as beautiful as they claim but we had a good time at the festival. The climax and much awaited moment of the night came when he started: “Te extraño mas que nunca y no se que hacer… (I miss you more than ever and I don’t know what to do”. This tune holds a history for us. When I met Tony I used to hear this song all the time as it is probably my favorite song in Spanish. Marco Antonio is not really contemporary to us, but I enjoy some of his music and so does my father. A few months after I met Tony I left Ireland and went home to Honduras for a while uncertain of my return. Tony called me and I was not home. My father, who had not met Tony yet answered the phone and started chatting to him. Tony hit the jackpot as my father has never liked any guys that get close to me, but he got on my father’s good books instantly. Tony told him : “No hay nada mas dificil que vivir sin Ninfa (There is nothing harder than living without Ninfa)”, which is the chorus of this Marco Antonio song, except with ti (you) and not Ninfa in the phrase. Needless to say, Marco Antonio rocked Viña del Mar and our hearts.

We spent the next two days in Valpo. As we expected, our first impression was not that good, as the city is quite scruffy with all its old buildings and very evident electrical wiring. We had heard plenty of that, but we also heard that it’s a city that grows on you. And it sure did. We really enjoyed our time in Valparaiso and could have easily spent much time there, it’s got a special charm, an appeal to captivate the harshest critic. Valparaiso was the most important port in the Pacific before the Panama Canal was built, therefore big groups of wealthy European immigrants settled there and boomed the trade, giving the city a really interesting culture and architecture. The city is built in many steep small hills (cerros), and the Europeans settled at the top building big mansions. Once the Panama Canal was built, Valparaiso went down. The Europeans went back home and the richness decreased. The big mansions were too costly to maintain so they were abandoned or separated into several houses in one building.

Valparaiso is definitely very artistic. It is the most colorful city we have visited. They are obsessed with artistic graffitti which is displayed in the walls of the houses in the cerros, giving the city a magical touch. Since there are so many hills, there are also very old but historic elevators to go uphill, most still in use. The view from the cerros looking at the Pacific is quite impressive, in this case not because of the ocean, but because of the colorful architecture. Life seems to be very relaxed in Valparaiso. Just as we were arriving we ran into Simone, the fun Italian guy who was in our Bolivia tour. Later we met up with him to share a liter beer (normal size in South America) in one of the city squares and watch the life in the city go by.

One thing we were not lucky in Chile was the local cuisine. I’m sure there are good places to enjoy a quality meal, but that was not our case, even though we always aim to try the best restaurants in every place we go. The Chileans we had met in San Pedro told us not to miss J Cruz, the most famous restaurant in Valpo and probably Chile. We later did research and found it in every guide. The first time we tried to go was around 3 pm, but the queue was more than an hour long, so came back at 5 pm. J Cruz is in an alley off a main street, and the queue goes all the way to it at peak hours. At 5 pm there was still a queue but we went for it. Luckily the hungry and zealous clients in front of us allowed me to go in to check if they accepted credit cards. No luck, and only Chilean Pesos in cash, which we didn’t have much of being our last day in Chile. So Tony went away to find an exchange bureau, which was really hard and took him almost an hour. Everywhere we have been, there is an abundance of exchange offices, but not in Chile. It was our turn to go in so I went in by myself and sat down for a long time worrying something had happened to him. J Cruz serves one dish only, Chorillana, a national Chilean dish which was invented at J Cruz. The only decision to make is if you want a serving for 2 or for 3 people. It’s an interesting dish, although not so delicious to our demanding taste buds. It consists of a pile of soggy fries in an egg and onion sauce topped with very low quality meat bits. We ate it all except the meat, which I saved to later feed to the stray dogs. The place is far from fancy, it’s got a real tacky decor of many porcelain and other small decorations in glass displays. We have seen many places where the theme is for the customers to sign the walls, but this one was signed everywhere: the tables, the chairs, even the tablecloths. But the funniest thing is that people leave their passport sized photos pasted in the wall! We did sign the tablecloth, but we did not leave our photos…

There were a few things I disliked about Chile, apart from the high prices, the arrogant attitude of some of them, which lives up to the reputation they already hold in Latin America. But there was something I really liked about them, and that is their love for dogs. As in most of Latin America and other countries we have visited there are many stray dogs, but in Chile there are enormous amounts of them. Yes, that is very bad, but they treat them well for being street dogs. People feed them and respect them, they are all in good shape and they are taken care of by the authorities. Most of them are registered (they have their Municipal collar and number), vaccinated and hopefully spayed or neutered. To me that means that Chile is a country that has opted not to do the cruel act of killing strays. All of these dogs were very friendly and we fed them what we could. Besides Tony’s discovery of his passion for photography during this year long adventure, he has discovered he loves dogs, especially strays. I have always been a dog lover and defender, but due to Tony’s asthma he has never had much contact with them to prevent allergies. Well it seems he has overcome his allergy. He has made friends with many dogs, and they follow him. I have had to convince him that we can’t take them home unfortunately.

We could not leave Chile without paying a visit to Pablo Neruda’s home in Valpo, La Sebastiana, up in one of the cerros. It’s now a museum which you can tour with an audioguide. Not only is the view impressive, but the house is quite interesting as you would expect from such a genius. It’s a narrow house of levels, which most of it has been preserved as he had it. He was obsessed with the sea and ships so it’s got quite a maritime theme going on. He loved shopping for unusual artifacts and decorating it himself. His taste is quite eccentric, but we both agreed he had made quite a cool pad. He used to nickname the furniture and different parts of the house. For example, there is a door on the last floor that leads to the roof, which he gave it the title: “Door to Potential Landing Strip of UFO’s”. His reclining chair overlooking the Pacific was named “La Nube (The Cloud)” because in it he would travel to imagination and create his works. He was a whiskey drinker, but he loved making cocktails at his own bar for his friends. He created one himself and baptized it: “La Coquetona (The Flirter)”, the recipe was add cognac and cointreau, topped with champagne to make it fizzy and add orange juice as cover up. This visit was a good ending to our Chile journey. Next up, the longest border crossing ever and Wine Country, Argentina!

Check out our Valpo and around pics here.

Santiago, Chile! After an almost 24 hours bus journey (and a day spent in comfort I have to admit), we had arrived. First impressions were more heat – we were in the tail end of the South American summer and it was hot! Our first stop was the hotel and some good news as we had been upgraded to a suite, so we spent most of the day lounging around the room and admiring the views over the whole city of Santiago.

We hadn’t planned a lot for Santiago. Our original intention was to spend a night and then move on to the coast at Valparaiso, before leaving Chile to Mendoza in Argentina. A fancy room and realising we were actually ahead of schedule on our South American leg of our world tour convinced us to prolong our stay to 3 days and 3 nights and take some time to discover what Santiago had to offer.

Our first venture out was to the Calle Pio Nono in the Bellavista district at the base of the Cerro San Cristobal from which a very “bella vista” can be found. The Pio Nono area is known for two parallel streets – one Pio Nono for bars, and the other Calle Constitucion for restaurants. I liked the balance, and we took a stroll down Pio Nono to seek out an aperitif. What we had imagined was quite different from the reality. Instead of trendy bars, most establishments consisted of sidewalk terraces of plastic table and chairs with cheap beer and french fries being the order of the day. I have nothing against cheap beer or fries, and although the crowd was laid back, we had expected a little more character. So we skipped our aperitif and went straight for dinner at a traditional Chilean home-cooking restaurant. I had tried a choclo, a corn mash, while in San Pedro de Atacama and it was one of the best things I’ve ever eaten. Unfortunately the pastel de choclo at Galindo was nowhere near the same standard, and Ninfa wasn’t crazy about her dish either. False start on the Santiago food and drink scene.

Given the disappointment of the previous night’s dinner, we decided to take steps to prevent a repeat occurence for lunch the next day, and retreated to the tried and tested formula of Peruvian cuisine. One of the glaring omissions of our trip to Peru was not once having ate in a restaurant of the empire of Peruvian / German chef coupe Astrid y Gaston. Their Santiago restaurant was quite near our hotel, and while a little pricey, the ceviche was delicious, and the aji de gallina too, and the sommelier was able to give us a lot of information on Chilean wine too. We settled on a bottle of domestic bubbly to celebrate nothing in particular, yet an occasion worth celebrating. Far from the rough of the backpacking lifestyle, we were doing Santiago in the style of a European citybreak.

And there doesn’t seem to be a shortage of places to spend your money in Santiago either. The cost of living to us seemed high. A single journey on the metro will cost aeound $1.50 and there are no reductions like day travelcards. Food in general is expensive, lots of bars are on the flashy side offering classy cocktails, and we were trying to overcome our preconceptions of South America as cheap and poor. But Santiago has its gritty sides too, and while those are the sides we generally steer clear of, we did take an excursion into the centro district to experience something a little grittier.

The main thoroughfare in Santiago is the Avenida del Libertador O’Higgins which commemorates the first President of Chile as an independent nation. Bernardo O’Higgins father was from Co Sligo and was sent to Argentina and Chile to work for the Spanish in developing infrastructure. His son, born out of wedlock, was educated abroad but returned to South America to claim his inheritance. Over the course of many years, O’Higgins became heavily involved in the fighting against the ruling Spanish royalists, and in 1817 fought under the command of Argentinian general Jose de San Martin, second perhaps only to Simon Bolivar in his importance to the achievement of independence and unity in Latin America. Once victorious in Chile, San Martin continued north, while O’Higgins became leader of Chile, overseeing its independence as a republic in 1818. He is widely honoured in Chile with the main avenue in Santiago, and even a national park named in his honour.

We took a metro there and took a stroll by the grand colonial edifices which now house the President’s office and various other public administrations. We stopped off for a break at the Bar Nacional where Ninfa sampled a truly Chilean drink called “Cola de Mono” (the Monkey’s tail), which is a blend of spirits, coffee, milk, sugar, cinnamon and spices – rich and tasty. Our stroll then brought us to the Plaza de Armas, which is seemingly invariably the name of the main square of any former Spanish colonial city in South America. Santiago’s version does not match the grandeur of Lima or Cuzco, and in fact marks a border between uptown and down and out town. We were looking for a bar recommended in the Lonely Planet, and as we walked we were questioning the responsibility of the author for leading us where we were going. It turned out that our faith was rewarded, although first impressions did not confirm such an opinion, when we found the Piojera.

The Piojera literally means something like “The Lice Nest”, and is supposedly taken from a comment made by a Chilean politician upon making a visit to this drinking den. We walked through the doors, having been assured by the security guard that we were safe inside (but not outside), and passed one wino sleeping by the entrance, and another drinking his own booze just inside the entrance. We continued on and entered a large room of young people in a hall whose walls were entirely covered in graffiti, or rather just people’s signatures and slogans. Ninfa took a table, and I went to the bar, and asked the barman what the special was. He told me that everyone there drinks a Terremoto (Earthquake), so I ordered one of those. He told me about another cocktail of cider and young white wine, so I ordered one of those for Ninfa. Both drinks, despite their huge popularity, are horrible! The Terremoto is guaranteed to send tremors through your stomach, and aftershocks through your head. It’s a horrid concoction of half young white wine (cheap stuff, very cheap!) and half young red wine, and then what – a scoop of ice-cream! It was getting dark so after a few minutes savouring the atmosphere and trying to find something in the bar that wasn’t sticky that we could rest against, we decided to take our drinks to go.

On our way back to the hotel, we stopped off at another bar called Liguria, a nice place with a high bar stacked to the ceiling with all types of spirits and a really well-informed barman. We told him that we wanted some real cocktails as we needed to get rid of the taste of our Terremotos. He asked us straight away if we had been to the Piojera. It turns out we had engaged in a Santiago institution. What we then engaged in should become a Santiago instituion as we had some pisco-based cocktails, one with a fresh, alchohol-soaked fleshy peach in the bottom of the glass, the Huesillo Sour.

Another drink we tried in Santiago (you probably get the impression we were constantly inebriated in Santiago – there was one day we weren’t!) was the national drink, the Pisco Sour. Chile and Peru debate as to who owns the rights to say they were the first to make the drink. While uninformed on the details of that debate, we are both of the unanimous opinion that Peru definitely wins on quality. Sorry Chile, add an egg white, not soo sour please, and you’ll leave a sweeter taste in everyone’s memory.

Our last day was completely sober, but began confusingly enough with a visit to a district of Santiago which has given its name to Chile’s largest wine producer, Concha y Toro. The only thing wrong with Concha y Toro is that it’s too small. Little hidden squares with fountains, curving streets of beautiful brick buildings, it’s one of our highlights in Santiago. Nearby, we found the Barrio Brasil which has a reputation for being a trendy area of bars and restaurants, but turned out to have the most hardware shops I’ve ever seen on one street. Further along, we did find the creative, cutting-edge twist of muralled walls and quirky cafes, but most were closed as we had come during the downtime daytime.

We were a little tired so we decided to call it a day and go back to cool off in the comfortable surroundings of our suite, and caught up on the gossip from Chile’s ultimate glamour event, the music festival in Vina del Mar, our next stop. Santiago certainly lends itself to an indulgent citybreak type stay, based around good food and drink, but it’s a big step up in price from Peru and Ecuador, never mind Bolivia. In fact, in some European cities, you might pay less. Still, it was worth a look. Next stop Vina del Mar, and then Valparaiso, which is the real reason we took a 23 hour bus journey to central Chile.

For all our Santiago photos, click here.

From our final night in the freezing cold of the Andes, and a surreal, deserted border crossing at over 4,000m altitude, we descended almost 2,000m in 20 minutes to the oasis town of San Pedro de Atacama in the baking hot Atacama desert. The contrast was striking between the bare-bones facilities on offer in the Andes and a town that is considered a premium holiday destination for only well-off Chileans.

Our first priority was to find some accommodation, luxurious if possible, and here another contrast was evident – price! It was summer, so high season on the domestic Chilean market, and prices were at their highest and double rooms were costing around $100 and absolutely no haggling. I’ve become so used to haggling that I take offense at businesses not offering even the slightest discount on their prices; I have no idea how I’ll ever readjust to buying things in Europe. We finally found something for around $50 on the main square, and busied ourself deciding who was going to have a hot shower first. But no, what was this?! There was a planned power outage in the oasis town which meant no hot water, and not even any internet to pass the time idly waiting for it to return. How we had dreamed of that hot shower since leaving La Paz four days earlier, and we didn’t even have any baby wipes left to continue our Andean self-hygiene method.

In a little bad humour, and perhaps smelling a little bad too, we set out to organise some activities for the afternoon. The main attraction around San Pedro de Atacama is the Moon Valley tour, and you won’t have any difficulty finding offers. We are using the Lonely Planet Guide to South America on a Shoestring, and to be honest at this stage we hardly read it any more (not nearly enough info on too many places), finding Wikitravel and Frommers online better resources. The only thing that is useful about the guide are the maps and some travel agency reviews which help you sort the wheat from the chaff. We settled on an agency operating from a small cafe at the end of the main street and booked a Moon Valley tour for 4pm that afternoon, and headed off to nonchalantly browse the numerous restaurants which offered value set menus (value at $12-15 per person however!).

We had arranged to meet our Uyuni group at 3pm on the main square and we were surprised to find they were all already there about 20 minutes early. So we told them we’d be a few minutes and headed off for our much-anticipated and long-awaited appointment with cleanliness. I let Ninfa go first as I was more excited about finding out the result of the Arsenal – Barcelona Champions League match and was in much better humour when I found out we had won 2-1. When we went outside, Simone had already left and we ordered some drinks and chatted to the Finnish girls for a while and told them about our tour at 4pm. They looked at us a little strange and asked why we were sitting with them as it was already almost 4:30pm. What?! To our great surprise, having crossed a border from East to West, we had actually moved an hour ahead which is completely contrary to the norm. We had asked a Chilean border guard earlier who said there was no time difference, so we were feeling a little redfaced for having turned up an hour late to our appointment with our Uyuni group without the slightest apology, and even more redfaced from racing down the street to try and find our Moon Valley tour, which was already gone of course. Our tour was non-refundable but because the owner believed us and liked the Irish, he agreed to let us go the next day. This also meant staying a day longer in San Pedro de Atacama which we hadn’t planned to do.

San Pedro de Atacama is a beautiful town by anyone’s estimations, and it’s immensely popular as a result. The red dirt streets are crowded with tourists casually strolling around recovering from, or preparing themselves for, their Andean tour, although there is a high percentage of wealthy Chileans also. The town is almost entirely made from adobe, a building material made up of the abundant red desert sand, clay and water. This gives the town a very earthy, red colour although the majority of the buildings have a whitewash finish. The town is easy to navigate as it is planned on a grid, and is small enough to walk the entire area in a day. The pace of life is very laid back – it is the desert after all, and with temperatures of over 35C, it has every reason to be. The central square is a really nice place to relax and let time pass by, with some old trees offering shade, a cafe with a terrace and bordered on one side by a whitewashed adobe church with beautiful wooden interior. San Pedro de Atacama reminded me a lot of the South of France, with its beautiful weather, feeling of exclusivity, well-maintained village, excellent restaurants, and frequently arrogant service with some few excellent exceptions. But in looks, it is the archetypal Wild West town straight out of a spaghetti western, and I wouldn’t have been surprised if a shepherd had walked right past us herding his goats and sheeps … which actually happened every afternoon.

One of the quirks of San Pedro de Atacama, and something that quite possibly retains its charm, is that it is against the local law to serve alcohol without food. I don’t know the origin of this law nor its direct effects, but San Pedro is very civilised, there is no threat of crime, and while you could imagine it to be boring, most locals buy their beer at the supermarket and have their parties off-licence. If you don’t fancy drinking in your hotel room, most bars and cafes serve a low-priced snack particulary aimed at people wanting just a drink, or if you are really intent on drinking, there is one bar along the main street that seems to have an exception. We were lured into this special bar by the cheering of the locals watching Chile’s Colo Colo playing in the Copa Libertadores (South America’s Champions League). It was packed and loads of fun (until Colo Colo conceded two goals just before half-time) and gave us the chance to get to know some Chileans.

The main attraction of San Pedro though is a chance to get out into the desert and in particular, Moon Valley, the Valle de la Luna. We left in a 4×4 minibus at 4pm and went first to visit Death Valley, the Valle de la Muerte. Away in the distance stands the huge volcano which separates Bolivia and Chile, and looks higher from the Chilean side as you look at it from about 2,000m lower, and below us was a completely arid valley of rock formations revealing the pink strata of rock that tell the history of how they were formed. Our next stop was at a cliff nearby with a steep drop of around 100m below us and overlooking a beautiful canyon, and far off in the distance the flat Atacama desert with the oasis town of San Pedro the only green space in sight. The Atacama desert is reputed to be the driest on Earth due to the heat, altitude and the huge reserves of salt which quickly absorb any moisture that exists. We took a walk around an ancient riverbed which is now dry and surrounded by slopes of what look like frosted red rocks, but are actually salt crystals on the surface. On the road to the grand finale, Moon Valley, we passed by huge sand dunes and a giant ridge of rock called the Amphitheatre, shaped like it is in a sort of high-sided bowl. Our van left us at the bottom of the Gran Duna, and we climbed up a path on its side just in time to watch the sun set over Moon Valley. It’s a very popular viewing point so don’t expect to relax in the wilderness and contemplate the meaning of life, but it still makes for a spectacular scene. Imagine the pinks and oranges of the Grand Canyon, the dunes of the desert, and jagged rocks and boulders of, well, the Moon. It was a full moon night, but we had to be back at the van, and on second thoughts we should have thought about this when booking, but we had already seen 4 hours worth of scenery and were still more than satisfied with our visit. In fact the full moon can be a mixed blessing. While it offers the opportunity to take a nighttime tour to Moon Valley, it rules out something we had really wanted to do which is to take a guided astronomy tour. Deserts offer spectacular skyscapes at night, but rarely do you find a qualified astronomer with loads of professional telescopes offering educational tours on the night sky. Sadly, the full moon ruled that option out for us – rotten luck, but overall lady fortune has smiled on us a lot on this trip.

There was just enough time before leaving for Santiago for me to try my hand at sandboarding. Knowing (loosely applied) how to snowboard, I couldn’t leave without boarding down one of the huge dunes in Death Valley, so called because lots of sandboarders die there (joke?). Ninfa decided not to forego the pleasure, so I set out alone with Sebastian the instructor, a group of 12 others, and a Irish Setter. The hardest part of sandboarding is not boarding, it’s getting up the dune. We had once climbed a dune in the Sahara and knew that it was tiring. The key is small steps and let someone else go first so you can walk in their footsteps. I got off to a good start and had a clean descent the first time. The second time I was swerving and turning and having a great time. The third time I went with another crazy guy to the very tip of the dune and made a clean descent, but from then on it was sand in my shoes, shirt, socks, everywhere. I, along with the instructor even, was worn out from the climbing and we had only been there half an hour of our scheduled two hours, and everybody was starting to fall. But we still kept going to the end.

I don’t know if I was more looking forward to a shower after the Andes, or after sandboarding. In any case, I just made it back in time to shower and get changed at the hotel before the bus to Santiago. That’s right, the bus. Santiago is an hour’s flight from nearby Calama, or 23 hours by bus. Last minute booking rarely achieves airfare discounts, so we were stuck with the bus. We did pay for the premium service which provides seats that recline into beds, and it turned out at about US$125 each, about the equivalent of the plane if we had booked a week in advance! But in a way, we were quite looking forward to our longest bus journey ever, and reassured it would be comfortable. It did feel like first class in an airplane, albeit without champagne, food and 22 hours longer. But travelling by bus brings scenery, and we were able to admire an amazing golden sunset over the Atacama desert, with its ramshackle, adobe, mining towns. I got out to have a better look when the bus stopped in the middle of the desert to rescue a man who had got locked inside the toilet upstairs, and while I was standing by the roadside, a tumbleweed bush even blew across the highway – how more wild west can you get? Overall the journey went well, and three corny comedies (I was in heaven!), a bus station dinner, and a really good night’s sleep, we were there – Santiago, Chile. Best bus journey ever!

Travel Tips

Don’t ask border guards the time difference, ask them the time! And then ask someone else.

For excellent food, and service, La Casona gets our vote. The set menu was fantastic and service likewise.

There will be plenty of people promoting restaurants on the main street at lunch and dinner time. Some of the set menus will include a glass of wine. If it doesn’t, mention it to the promoter, and they will generally include it to seal the deal. Other than set menus, restaurants can be very expensive.

For night sky tours, check out this website

For morning Sandboarding tours, the agency on the main square of San Pedro can usually offer them, while other agencies were unable to. Morning is not as hot, and heat is a big factor in San Pedro.

We had completed day 1 of our three day road trip into the Andes, and given our experience in the Himalayas, we knew that it would probably be a case of “no pain, no gain”. We had gained the surreal Salar de Uyuni earlier that day, how much pain was waiting at our overnight stop in the middle of the remote Bolivian Andes.

We arrived just before dark in a small settlement which was home to a few basic shelters for the passing tour groups. Due to Grover’s conservative driving, we were one of the last to arrive and had the last choice of rooms. We had expected the worst but didn’t quite get it, which left us with the mixed feelings of being relatively content (less for Ninfa) at our worst accommodation so far in South America, sharing a room with Simone and a toilet and cold water shower in a separate building with the other 20 or 30 people at the shelter. Dinner was edible, some soup and fries, but mainly memorable only for a bottle of wine we had brought, and the chance to get to know our group better. I had a word with Grover though asking him to make sure we left early the next day as we didn’t want to arrive last at our accommodation the next day in order to have a better choice.

The following morning, we were the last people to leave the shelter. Fortunately, Ninfa and I had stacked up on plenty of cookies, chips and energy bars in a La Paz supermarket, as I think no-one ate any of the included breakfast, in particular because the scrambled eggs were served with only one plate and one fork – for 6 people! Disgusting!

A few hours of driving later, we arrived at a lagoon, our first stop of the day. It was quite cloudy, but there were some flamingos hanging around, the first ones we had seen. We continued on, happily not losing time like one of the other jeeps stuck in the sand as they had driven too close to the lake shore. The driver told us he didn’t need any help though, so on we went. Our next stop was another lagoon. The weather had cleared up beautifully and as we rounded the crest of a hill, a spectacular sight of 5,000m+ mountains and plains extended all around the salty lagoon which lay ahead of us. I suggested we stroll down to the lakeside as we would stop for lunch there. As it turned out, it was more than a stroll as it turned out to be around 2km down – distances can be deceiving at altitude, but I thoroughly enjoyed the crisp, thin air and the wonderful scenery. We had a cold lunch of grilled meat, some salad and pasta (no sauce) before leaving the lagoon and heading off into a mountain desert. This was probably one of my favourite moments of the road trip, driving through the smooth red plains with the snow-peaked mountains far off in the distance. I was a little annoyed however that the jeeps seem to create a new road for every vehicle and I imagine this is little helping the preservation of a unique environment. Bolivian tour drivers are not known for their responsibility.

We stopped at another lagoon (there’s a lot of them, but each one different in many ways) where there were thousands of flamingos feeding in the centre of the lake, albeit far away from shore. But they cast a perfect reflection on the smooth water under the shadow of a snow-peaked volcano. We continued on to more desert, but of a different kind, this time with a spread of large rock formations dotting its surface. The highlight is one rock, the Tree of Stone, which has been eroded over millennia by particles of sand in the wind into a smooth and you could possibly say tree-like shape. Having not received any time guidance from Grover, myself and Simone went off exploring the other rocks for a bit of climbing. When I got back a while later, Grover was growing impatient and I had to run so that he wouldn’t leave without me. Simone wasn’t back though, which was the cue for Grover to lose the plot, and start ranting to us about our lack of punctuality. He revved the engine and skidded off with his hand glued to the horn leaving Simone behind, before turning back and leaving Simone to run through the hailstone shower to climb in. We thought Grover’s flare-up was very out of character and overstepping the limit of his role to be honest, but we all telepathically agreed to put it to one side and enjoy the rest of the journey rather than having tension in the air.

Our final stop of the day was the Laguna Colorado, which is so named due to a mineral which exists in the water which turns the entire lake a shade of orangey red. It looks beautiful in the sunlight (at least in the brochures) but it was raining when we got there, but we appreciated what there was, well at least for the 15 minutes Grover accorded us. There were still 2 or 3 hours of daylight left when we rolled into our accommodation for the night about 10km past the lagoon. Now we were all wondering, what was the big rush to get to our crappy accommodation three hours before sundown? We passed the afternoon playing silly games and having a few beers – at least we had a fun group – before retiring to our dormitory where we had a chilly night’s sleep in a draughty room. It must have been little more than freezing, and I can’t imagine what it must be like to spend a night here during the Bolivian winter. Not to worry as we were getting up for a 4:30am departure the following morning to see sunrise at the geysers before getting our bus connection to San Pedro de Atacama in Chile.

The shelter was abuzz from 4:00am and we were all ready to go as planned at 4:30am, except for one thing – where was Grover? I asked a driver, who cheekily told me he was probably relaxing. I continued my search and found him 15 minutes later chatting with one of the staff in the kitchen. I was feeling that Grover was turning out to be more than a little hypocritical given his time tantrum the previous day and told him to get a move on. While waiting for him to load the bags at 5am, Simone and I noticed that Grover was having a little difficulty getting on the roof of the jeep, in fact walking even, and as it turned out, talking even. He was completely drunk. I confronted him and told him he was drunk, to which he slurred that he had been drunk, but wasn’t drunk anymore. Now, we were in a dilemma. All the cars, bar one, had left, we had a connection to make in Chile, and our driver was in no state to drive. The other driver helped us load the bags, and we discussed options. Simone said that he had driven a 4×4 once, and maybe he could drive. Looking at Grover, we all agreed this was a better option and asked the other driver if we could travel in convoy.

What had started as a disaster ended up being a great part of our adventure as our new driver Simone took us on a scenic tour to the otherworldly setting of the hot steam and bubbling mud of a geyser valley at sunrise, over a pass at almost 5,000m altitude, and along dirt tracks with breathtaking scenery of looming, snowcapped volcanoes under a crystal clear morning Andean sun, to our breakfast stop at a hot springs which sent a low and atmospheric mist over the adjoining lagoon where a few solitary flamingos fed in the morning light. By this stage, Grover had sobered up, and he drove us the last stretch to the Chilean border, past the spectacular Green Lagoon (green because of its arsenic content), and dropped us off at the most remote border crossing I’ve ever seen – a concrete hut and a barrier surrounded on both sides by wide open space, in the middle of nowhere in the Andes. Of all the places to have missed our bus, but what fortune that another was there waiting for another tour group.

And so our Bolivian road trip reached its eventful conclusion. How we had enjoyed it, how we were happy it was over we, and how longed for a shower. As we drove downhill, downhill and further downhill into San Pedro de Atacama, I was feeling sad to be leaving the heights of the Andes. For me, the altitude had been more physically demanding than the Himalayas where we actually went higher, but this served to underline the extremity of where we were and the conditions we encountered. The world is a different place above 3,000m, and despite the hardships, is home to some of the most beautiful places on Earth. It’s not always enjoyable, but nearly always breathtaking. It’s like another world, almost entirely deserted, incredibly peaceful and home to almost unimaginable landscapes of the great wide open. The most extreme landscapes in the world are the ultimate escape destinations, just you and nature, and with the gain well worth the pain, it’s an amazing and hugely rewarding experience.

Next stop, Chile!

Travel Tips:

The Andes tour drives in Bolivia are notorious for getting drunk, and there’s no way to predict. Our driver seemed responsible for two days and then partied until 2am on our last night (a fellow traveller heard the drivers coming home from their party). At that stage, your options are limited.

Our driver also wanted us to pay our Nature Reserve entry fee to him directly, in agreement with one of the park guards who said they had no tickets left. We didn’t, neither should you. Pay only in the offices where you will fill a form and receive a ticket. You can pay at the entrance or the exit of the park, and don’t lose the receipt or you’ll pay again.

Arrive early at your overnight accommodation on night 1 and you may have choice of a room, which could result in a private double room. First come, first served. Night 2 was all dorms. There are no private bathrooms, drainage can be an issue, and showers are paid for. On night 2, hot showers (a dribble of water) were available for a small price.

Ensure you get a ticket in Uyuni for your bus transfer to San Pedro de Atacama. And be aware there is an hour time difference between Chile and Bolivia.

We arrived at La Paz bus station in anxious anticipation of what our bus would be like. After all, we were told that due to the heavy rain flooding the south of the country, our journey could take up to 6 hours more than the usual 12 to 14 hour estimate. Unfortunately, the bus met our expectations – something a few decades past its prime, and sold out also. We were told that there was heating on board, as night-time can get pretty cold on the journey, but there wasn’t, although we did have blankets and didn’t feel the cold much. Where we did get lucky however was on the journey time as we arrived pretty much on schedule at 7am the following morning in Uyuni, after a final bumpy four hours.

Our immediate and urgent priority was to get a tour leaving Uyuni that day to the Salt Flats and on to San Pedro de Atacama in northern Chile. The standard offering is a 3 day, 2 night tour, and there are plenty of agencies around the wide, vacant streets of downbeat Uyuni. Unfortunately, most of those agencies appeared in blacklists that we had collected from reviews on the internet, usually related to vehicles breaking down, accidents and drunk drivers. Most offices didn’t open until around 8:30 and walking around a cold, bleak town after a short night’s sleep on a bus with no shower is great fun of course, but we eventually found an agency called Blue Line (who were on our blacklist) who gave us a tour for 650Bs (ust under $100) per person. We had been insisting on seeing the vehicle, but the lady assured us it was in good condition (which it was), that there would only be 6 people plus the driver (true) and that one of the owners himself would be driving us (our driver found that one highly amusing). And so the deal was sealed. Memories of our off-road trip in the Himalayas were still with us, and despite feeling good about the wonderful scenery we hoped to experience, we were also acutely aware of the rough conditions we were likely to encounter in one of the most extreme environments in the South American continent. With optimism in good supply, we set off with our group, one Italian, Simone, and three Finnish girls with names we never managed to master, and our driver, Grover.

Our first stop was just outside the town of Uyuni at the Train Cemetery. On the outskirts of Uyuni, seemingly on a road to nowhere lie the rusting remains of the trains that once operated the main trade route from Bolivia to the Pacific Coast in Chile. A few trains still operate this route, no doubt carrying the loads of industrial salt from Uyuni to the ports, but the trains tell a story of a former glory no longer in existence. This is the first stop for all the tours from Uyuni (3 day or 1 day), and everybody took the chance to engage in some playground fun climbing aboard old wrecks and posing for photos. True to the childhood stereotype, we quickly bored of our activity and continued on to our second stop, the salt mining town of Colchani on the borders of the salt flat itself.

Driving into Colchani is a wake-up call as to how grim life can be in such remote locations as the southern reaches of the Bolivian Andes. The debatably picturesque town seemed dead other than for the constant wind that inhabited its streets. The train line ran through the centre of town past rundown houses with broken windows. When we parked, myself and Ninfa took a walk away from the crowd of tourists at the stalls selling salt sculptures, and found an old outdoor oven with the rotting remains of some sort of animal, and a local who made rude gestures to Ninfa. The thoughts of living in such inhospitable conditions in such a remote location gave us a desperate and depressing impression of pitiful Colchani. But our trip was about having fun, so we were excited to be heading to our next stop, the top billing of our 3 day trip, the Salt Flats of the Salar de Uyuni.

Because of the heavy rain throughout southern Bolivia, we were obliged to take a reduced excursion as the Salt Flats were entirely flooded. Instead of travelling to the Incahuasi (Isla del Pescado) and other “islands” in the salt, we would have to make do with a short drive to a salt hotel (yes, they make buildings out of salt!) just a few kilometres out into the flats. But this didn’t take away from our enjoyment as the hotel is sufficiently out into the flats to have the sensation of an endless sea of salt around you on all sides. We drove up to the edge of the salt flats and began to drive slowly through the water so as not to splash the underside of the car with the salty water. Our driver was the slowest of all with loads of jeeps overtaking us, and myself and Ninfa joked that we had probably ended up with the most conservative driver in Uyuni, but at least he wasn’t likely to be getting drunk – better off with the safe guy. The Salt Flats are best known for a sea of white as far as the eye can see, but the effect of the flood was to create the largest mirror on Earth. Islands of rock in the distance cast a perfect reflection below them, and far on the horizon, the sky seemed to reach down to the ground with clouds stretching below your feet. It was an amazing sight, and probably the pictures will describe it better. If there’s any place to feel as if you’re walking in the sky, I guess the world’s largest salt flat at 3,700m altitude.

After lunch we made a brief stop in Uyuni, which had transformed into a buzzing and quite pleasant afternoon town, under a bright clear sunshine. It was a short stop though to collect some provisions and buy some beer and water before heading out into the wilds of the Andes. The easy bit was over, now came the “fun” part … read about the hardships of overnighting in the Andes, and how our driver turned from Jekyll to Hyde in our next post this Friday.

Travel Tips

Assuming your overnight bus arrives on time, you will have enough time to find a tour agency last minute for a departure the same day. You will not have a decent night’s sleep, and no showers, until you arrive in San Pedro de Atacama, so if you didn’t sleep on the overnight bus, maybe spend a day in Uyuni to rest up, although there doesn’t seem much else to do in town as all sights are included in the tours.

We chose Blue Line as our agency, although they have received terrible reviews, as have almost every agency in Uyuni. Lots of people will approach you selling tours on the street, looking for people to fill jeeps. You will not save a lot of money by booking in Uyuni instead of La Paz, but you will get a chance to work out the essentials in person which gives you the chance to make sure your agent is telling the truth. We made sure that the driver was also the cook (an extra seat in the jeep), made sure that there were only 6 passengers (a seat each in the jeep) and some guarantees about the condition of the jeep. This is important as we saw many break-downs on the road, broken windows fixed with plastic (cold and great sightseeing), and some cars with 8 passengers, a driver and cook. Not a lot of savings, but more peace of mind from booking in Uyuni.

We spent over an hour under the rain queuing to exit Peru at the Desaguadero border as all the Bolivians who had been to the festival in Puno seemed to be going home at the same time as us. I got fed up and walked across the small bridge to Bolivia anyway, and tried to get through but they wouldn’t let me in unless they could find the Peru exit stamp, so no shortcuts. While we waited, we exchanged some money with ladies in bowler hats on the Peruvian side at good exchange rates. The Bolivian side of the same town was starkly different and pretty depressing – first impressions suggested that Bolivia might live up to its reputation as the poorest country in Latin America.

Once in La Paz, further proof was added. Traffic was hectic as there were many manifestations that day due to rising food prices and lack of food, especially sugar. Additionally, our plans to travel from La Paz to Salar de Uyuni, our next stop, were thwarted due to heavy flooding in the south of the country which meant a lot of bus companies weren´t operating the route and the other option, the train which only runs 2 days a week, was already sold out. And so we spent the most of our rainy first two days in Bolivia in the hotel researching alternative plans with limited luck, and sorting out customs formality in order to receive my replacement Kindle (stolen in Ecuador) which had been at customs for three weeks, which cost much frustration but was ultimately successful.

Things started to brighten up on the third day which dawned a beautiful bright day in La Paz. We had lunch at a nearby restaurant called the Salteña Paceña which is only open for lunch and serves a choice of tasty meat or chicken empanadas for 4 bolivianos (9 bolivianos = 1 euro) each. I enjoyed mine but Ninfa is looking forward to something better in Argentina where the dough is a lot lighter, and I can´t say I´m not looking forward to that too. From here we took a minibus along the Avenida Arce, near our hotel, along El Prado to the Plaza San Francisco. This church has a beautiful baroque façade which faces out onto the busy square, which was under a lot of reconstruction while we were there. It´s a busy square with lots of balaclava wearing shoe shine boys and cholitas in bowler hats selling drinks and phone calls from their stalls. The balaclava seems to be part of the uniform for shoeshine boys in La Paz, even on hot, sunny days.

La Paz isn´t really noted for its long list of attractions, and fortunately its few attractions are located close together as walking up La Paz´s hilly streets is a tiring affair. Our first stop was the Witches Market (Mercado de la Hechiceria) on the Calle de las Brujas (Witches Street). It´s become a bit more oriented to the usual tourist paraphernalia such as t-shirts, tapestries and musical instruments than to the business of witchcraft, but there´s enough of a mix to make it an interesting trip. I found the stallholders (witches) to be very nice and pleasant people, like most of the people in La Paz. Anytime I asked to take photos, they would oblige, just pleased to be asked I think.

We stopped at one stall which sold the witches spells of dried llama foetuses (to be buried in house foundations for good luck), dried pigs foetuses (for general luck if you don´t like llamas), and dried armadillos (which I had seen used as musical instruments at the Puno festival, for luck of course). We bought two lucky charms at one stall, a little bottle of trinkets for Ninfa, and a ceramic llama for me. I asked the stallholder, Vivi, for a photo together and she was shy but agreed, and then asked me if I could give her a print of it. I don´t remember the last time I printed a photo, probably for my passport, so I told her if the llama brought me luck, I´d be back with a printed photo.

Our tour continued to the Plaza Murillo where most of the main government buildings are located such as the Presidential Palace, although the main attraction here is the legions of pigeons which the people buy seed to feed. The pigeons aren´t shy either and sit on people´s heads, hands and anywhere to get closer to the seed. There were a lot of police and presidential guards on the square and I decided I wanted to be in a lot of photos that day and they accepted (sometimes unwillingly) to grant my wish. I didn´t succeed however to get my photo with a cholita wearing my hat while I wore her bowler hat – another day perhaps.

After Plaza Murillo, we took a minibus up the steep slopes to El Alto and the Mirador (Lookout). This is without doubt La Paz´s finest attraction. Here we were standing at 4,000m altitude looking out on a sprawling red brick city and a truly skyscraping downtown surrounded by snow-capped peaks of mountains which even at this altitude towered into the sky. We could trace the perfect shadow of the clouds on the city below. The light at this altitude is so clear in the thin air, and we looked far off into the distance as far as we could see, the only obstacle, a thick cloud around the highest peak of the giant Ilamani mountain. We stayed for a while taking pictures, watching a crew filming a news report, and just appreciating the amazing view of La Paz, one of the most spectacular natural settings for a city anywhere in the world.

We took a minibus back down (a lot quicker going back) and stopped near the colonial street of Calle Jaen. It reminded us a lot of Las Rondas in Quito, and is a small street with several museums, well-maintained colonial buildings and a few cafes. This small street, along with the squares previously mentioned, is more or less the total of La Paz´s colonial heritage. As luck would have it, on our walk back downhill to El Prado, we passed a photoshop, and I was able to develop and print my photo for Vivi in the Witches Market. She had a big smile when I gave her the photo and I´ll be keeping my lucky llama with me for the rest of the trip.

We ended the night with a curry in the Star of India restaurant which claims to serve South America´s most dangerous curry, their version of the Vindaloo. I accepted the challenge, and during a spicy and not always enjoyable 15 minutes, earned myself a free t-shirt for finishing the dish. Hot stuff, but nothing compared to the Szichuan chicken in China which I struggled to eat 6 spoons of.

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Our final full day in La Paz was spent replanning our itinerary and finally deciding that we were going to Salar de Uyuni anyway, and mentally preparing ourselves for an overnight bus and then two nights of very basic, shared and cold accommodation in the high Andes. We decided to change our thoughts to something lighter by attending a famous wrestling phenomenon unique to Bolivia, the flying Cholitas. We went back to El Alto and bought two tourist tickets (front row) for the contest. Ladies in South America have a hard life at the best of time, but in the first bout three guys ganged up on one cholita in a show of anything but chivalry. She gave as good as she got for the most though and earned a rematch next week. The next fight was an all male contest and we had some snacks and moved from the tourist seats at the front to the bench seats at the back for a better view and a more authentic experience. Next up was another battle of the sexes with a “ruda” (baddie) cholita against a masked luchador. She teamed up with the ref and tried every trick in the book, and plenty of flying petticoats and underskirts crashed down on the poor man, before a twist of fate saw him win the bout against all odds. The final bout was between two sisters who had seemingly had an acute case of sibling rivalry. By the end, one of them had all her clothes ripped, but still had her braids intact, which was better than the first cholita we saw in action. It was all very slapstick and quite funny, but a bit drawn out. Nevertheless, it was a lighthearted and uniquely Bolivian way to pass a Sunday afternoon, and the crowd of locals made up of all ages seemed to enjoy it as well.

We were out of the wrestling just in time for sunset, although it was a bit cloudy, but it would take a long time to be tired of that view of La Paz from El Alto.

So that’s the end of our La Paz escapades. For a city which doesn´t offer a lot, there are a lot of tourists, and we ended up really enjoying it. Let’s see how we enjoy our bus and our Salar tour!

Click on these links for all our photos of La Paz, the great views from El Alto, and the Wrestling Cholitas.

Travel Tips

We took the Tour Peru bus from Puno to Desaguadero at around 6:30am. We paid 75 soles (35 for one ticket, 40 for the second). The roads were fine the whole way, and the journey took 6 hours, although border formalities were exceptionally time-consuming due to the recent festival in Puno.

In La Paz, minibuses were a safe means of travel, one person to a seat, and very cheap. Anything along El Prado is 1 boliviano (9 bolivianos = 1 euro). A minibus from the centre to the El Alto Lookout (direction Cejas, ask for Mirador stop) was 2 Bs. Just ask the price, hop on and when everyone starts paying, you pay too. Lots of police on El Prado at night make it safe for walking.

Cholita Wrestling is only on Sundays, and can be bought from a travel agent for 80Bs. Alternatively, take minibuses (3Bs total), and pay 50Bs at the entrance for a tourist ticket. Bench seat would be fine though and are likely to be at least 50% less. The stadium is right beside the Mirador, and right beside the motorway toll-booth.

Having spent my last night in the jungle evacuating the entire contents of my stomach, I was in fragile condition when we reached Cuzco at 3,400m altitude the next morning. The change from almost 100% humidity at 200m above sea level to the exact opposite 3,200m higher was always going to be tough. As it turned out, I was feeling fine when we got to the airport, until it became apparent that our promised hotel pick-up did not materialise. We sat down in the airport lounge for a cup of fresh coca tea (alas we did not realise this was the freshest coca we would see in the Andes, and did not take any with us) and booked a new hotel which might promise better standards and somewhere comfortable to acclimatise.

As it turned out, we made a good decision. Hotels in Cuzco are expensive for what you get, obviously charging a premium to be in one of the best bases to explore the ancient mountain kingdom of the Incas. Ours was warm and quite comfortable and I spent the majority of our first 24 hours of our stay in Cuzco with a sore head and unable to keep my eyes open. Ninfa, on the other hand, was adjusting very well. In our first full day in Cuzco, our only excursion out was a very slow walk to a nearby launderette and then on to Carlo´s Pizza for dinner. Carlo´s became our restaurant of choice for delicious pizzas with spicy chilis and good comfort food. On our first night there, I told the chef about my headaches and he pulled out some fresh leaves (of “ruda” I think) and told me to sniff them while breathing in deeply and then rubbed them over my face and forehead according to some local cure. I slept with the leaves under my pillow, but all in all, I think the pizza did a better job than the leaves.

The next day, we walked around the lower parts of town buying a replacement bag for me to carry my camera and other daily bits and pieces, and organising our transport from Cuzco to Puno for after our visit to Machu Picchu. I was beginning to feel better and by the afternoon I was finally acclimatising thanks to another pizza and copious cups of coca tea. Our search for bus tickets to Puno and entrance tickets to Machu Picchu brought us off the beaten track in Cuzco into some nice colonial squares and foundations of old Inca buildings. Cuzco is a beautiful city and the squares are adorned with very nice buildings, none more so than the expansive Plaza de Armas, surrounded on one side by the huge cathedral, another by the university and the Jesuit church, and on the other sides by converted colonial, balconied residences with a huge green in the centre. The downside is that you can´t sit on a bench and take it all in without a procession of touts taking their turn to sell you jewelry, tours or knitwear.

Because I hadn´t been feeling well, we hadn´t visited many of the sights in Cuzco, but the evening before we left for the Sacred Valley, I visited the cathedral while Ninfa relaxed back at the hotel. Archaeology is not Ninfa´s greatest passion and she was saving her reserve of interest in history until Machu Picchu. The church itself is very impressive with beautiful wooden carved altars and naves, and massive, time-worn, gold-plated gates which the church staff were closing as I walked around. Of note also is a painting of the Last Supper from a local artist which depicts the final meal as a vizcacho (similar to a guinea pig). The main item of note though is the statue of Jesus Christ of the Earthquakes, the patron protector of Cuzco, and to whom many of the locals show great devotion, notable for the fact that the Jesus is black, allegedly having become so after an earthquake in the 1800´s.

Perhaps prompted by the painting in the church, we went for our last supper before leaving for the Sacred Valley in a nearby restaurant, the Inka Grill, for some cuy (guinea pig). Alas the food was disappointing, and instead of getting a whole guinea pig served with an apple in its mouth, the cuy was already carved. What´s it like? Very gamey flavour, a bit smelly, not very tender, and the last time I´ll be eating rodents I hope.

The next day we travelled in a shared taxi to Ollantaytambo at the foot of the Sacred Valley. On our way out of town, we passed through side-streets and along the crowded Calle de Tres Cruces which had a bustling, colourful Andean market in full swing – flowers, food, bright blankets, traditional hats and bicycle carts. It was a beautiful drive as we climbed into the highlands above Cuzco to well over 4,000m, and then down by Urubamba town, and on to Ollantaytanbo. When we got there, we realised we would not need the whole day to explore the ruins or the village, but we couldn´t change our 7:30pm train tickets as all prior trains were full. As it turned out though, Ollantaytambo has a few nice places for a drink and food, and I visited the ruins which climb up the hillside. Some of the stonework is classic Imperial Inca with smooth stones, slanted doorways, and some huge pieces of stone. The mountain opposite is alleged to be sacred and my guide pointed out the outline of a face, an Inca man, an Inca woman, and a sleeping Inca. He was seeing lots of things, and I left him to see more and went with Ninfa to catch the train.

The seats on the Expedition train with Peru Rail are a little cramped, and the journey is very bumpy. They promise you a snack on the Expedition train, but it´s two crackers or something, and there was no hot water for coca tea. We got to Aguas Calientes around 10pm, into a torrent of rain. We found a hotel near the station and bedded down for the night next to a heater with our clothes on it.

The next morning dawned, if dawned is the right word, in a mist of heavy rain, and we made our way to the ticket office for 7:30am. There was only one ticket agent, and by 8am, we were still in line and the line was at least 100 deep. We got our tickets, then queued for bus tickets and then queued for the bus. Just before we got on, we were told there was a landslide and the road was blocked – you can imagine what the weather was like. We took a bus to the landslide, then walked past the clearing up operation, and connected to a bus on the other side. Once there, we organised a tour for 10soles each as part of a group of 12 or 14. There was no chance, and no point, of us climbing Huayna Picchu in this weather, and by the time our tour started, it was 10am – what a long morning!

Our tour guide guided us around the main sites in Machu Picchu, and explained some of the history and importance of the site. We spent around 2 hours of a 2.5 hour tour with him before quitting because we were wet through to the skin, and too cold to concentrate on what he was saying. It was a miserable morning, and had been raining straight for over 4 hours now. During our 3 hours at the site, we saw Huayna Picchu emerge from the clouds for a combined total of around 15 minutes in all. Although it was disappointing, it was still a great experience to visit such a well-preserved Inca town, gape down at the 500m sheer drops to the Urubamba river below, and suddenly see huge mountains emerge from the mists on all sides. It is obviously a magical place. We were down by around 1pm, paid for a cold shower at our hotel from the previous nights (check-out time was 9am), and went for lunch at the Indio Feliz restaurant in Aguas Calientes. A hot fire, delicious food, and ample portions soon put a bit of cheer back into us. Although, when we left for the train station at 3pm, all the rain had gone, and you might even have seen a ray of sunshine or two. So it turns out that in rainy season, you can probably ignore your guidebook and visit Machu Picchu in the afternoon, not the morning.

Now that we were acclimatised, we spent our last night in Cuzco exploring the upper reaches of the town around the San Blas area. Here we saw the remains of some Imperial Incas walls which have been incorporated into modern buildings. They were amazing – smooth, no cement or mortar, imposing in size and still firmly in place to this day. The sidestreets around San Blas are narrow and full of character, and quite steep. We stopped for a few drinks on our tour around, and our last evening in Cuzco really left us wanting more.

So, our final thoughts on the Sacred Valley;

Positives: amazing Andean scenery, Cuzco is a beautiful town, Carlo´s Pizza, Ollantaytambo is a peaceful village and worth an overnight stay if you don´t mind visiting Machu Picchu in the afternoon.

Negatives: too many touts in Cuzco, hotel prices everywhere in Sacred Valley, and although it is amazing everything about Machu Picchu is too expensive – train is minimum $65 return (for Peru!), entrance is $40+, and the bus from Aguas Calientes is $16 return. That´s a lot when you consider your own car with driver from Cuzco to Ollantaytambo is only $14.

We still enjoyed our time in the Sacred Valley, and as I said, Cuzco left us wanting more. Next stop, fiesta time on the shores of Lake Titicaca in Puno!

Click on the links for more photos of the Sacred Valley and Ollantaytambo, Machu Picchu, and Cuzco.

We had planned a visit to the Amazon Jungle since Day 1, but we had not decided where in the Amazon we would go. We had thought that Brazil was the obvious choice, but after much research we realized that Peru was the best option due to its easier accessibility, less exploitation and industrialization of its jungle. Then we had two choices in Peru: Iquitos in the North, or Puerto Maldonado further South. Iquitos is the largest city in the world (.5 million) that is not connected by road. As well, it is directly on the Amazon River. It is said to have a special and unique Amazonian culture and a very curious market. All these factors attracted us, although seeing monkey brains and turtle soup for sale on a market was not an appealing factor to me. On the other hand, Puerto Maldonado, not on the Amazon River, but on one of its tributaries, is a less industrialized city, providing more opportunity to see fauna without traveling as far as you would on Iquitos, and as well it is known to be the region with the most biodiversity in the Amazonia. It was also convenient because it was a short flight away from our next destination Cuzco. And something very important: its lodges were a bit more upscale than the ones in Iquitos. Yes we are traveling for a year on a budget, but there are times when comfort makes a huge difference. This was that time, to enjoy the jungle in the wet and humid than usual season, we needed a bit of luxury.

As usual, we had researched all the options, and as usual we decided to leave the booking for last minute. Once in Puerto Maldonado we would haggle down an offer, taking into account low season and last minute. Our strategy did pay off, big time! We had our mind set on the second lodge in price and quality. When we arrived at the airport, we noticed that the representative from Inkaterra (the number one and most expensive lodge) was there picking up customers. Tony told me to go talk to her in Spanish, I said “What for? It’s sooooo expensive, I’ve researched them”. He said “Go anyway”. I did, and an hour later after visiting their very “Welcoming Center” and Butterfly House we were on their bus to the port. It was our lucky day! I don’t know how, my charm, my local looks, my luck….but we got a price which was a quarter of their normal price. Wow, what a bargain for that kind of luxury! We were prepared to suffer in the jungle, Tony had even told me that we should drop it off our list, but I insisted that the Amazonia had to be done. We stayed at Inkaterra’s Reserva Amazonica for four days but we could have stayed a month.

Inkaterra’s Reserva Amazonica is located on the Southern Peruvian Amazon, close to the Bolivia and Brazil border. The ecolodge is on the Madre de Dios River, and very close to the Tambopata National Reserve. The bus dropped us on the port from where we took 45 minute ride downriver on a longboat to the lodge. We were welcomed with a fresh and cold passionfruit juice, which I still remember and miss fondly. Everyday we were given a different menu of fusion Peruvian cuisine to choose from for our lunch and dinner. After Lima we were already in love with Peruvian food, and here the standards were raised even higher. We had our own beautiful cabin designed in a traditional Amazonian design, with open roofs and walls, and made out of wood and palm. It is an ecolodge, but fortunately they do have power at certain hours to run the very necessary fan.

We were given a menu of activities to choose from for our time there. Then we were assigned a guide, whom we shared with Gaby and Filip, a very nice Austrian mother and son duo. While understandably other people did only a few tours, the four of us took the most out of our days there, filling our day with jungle treks, and ending up completely tired and having a wonderful sleep. Due to the heat and animal behavior our activities had to start really early. The sunrises and sunsets over the river were unforgettable, with amazing shades of blue, pink, and orange. We were extremely lucky with the weather, it is rainy season and this year it has hit hard, but we didn’t get any of it. During our stay it only rained for a couple of hours, and that was when we had a scheduled rest between treks. There was a lot of heat and humidity, as well as a cloud of mosquitoes groupies on each of us, but to be honest we did not mind any of that. We were mentally prepared so well for the jungle, that nothing was a bother to us. The treks were not easy, sometimes I would be in mud or black water, as well as sweat up to my knees but having the privilege of being present in the lungs of our planet, in a primary and sometimes virgin rainforest with so much unique fauna and flora was a unique privilege.

Once upon a time I used to think that in my trip to the Amazon (forever in my bucket list) I would be escaping in the dark from anacondas, serpents (to which I had and think I have beaten an unreasonable phobia), panthers, caimans, piranhas, etc and that I would encounter remote half naked tribes. Fortunately before our trip to Puerto Maldonado I did plenty of research and realized that was far from reality, although I learned that I am not the only fantasist person whose visions of the jungle are those. I was a bit disappointed, but more educated before we embarked on the adventure. Although we did hear stories from the guides about very close unexpected encounters with caymans and panthers, they are extremely rare. So rare, that the guide who is a native of the area said that in his lifetime he has only seen the big fat anaconda about seven times. The fact is that all these animals do exist, but everyday less due to the greatest predator of all, the human. These animals are very hard to spot because they hide from us, they know that we have hunted and killed their species, so undoubtedly they do not want to hang out with us. And as far as my desire to meet an original tribe, the few remaining in the world also want nothing to do with us. They are classified as “non contacted” for a reason. The guide told me that if I wanted to see a tribe I wold have to go about 20 days by foot and canoe to find them and that then they would probably capture or kill me. They know that another civilization exists but they want no contact with it. Press helicopters have flown over them and they have shot arrows at them. The people around the visited areas are intermixed, speak Spanish and they dress with “normal” clothes like we do.

In spite of that, we were really pleased with all the sightings we did in our treks and even in the lodge. After minutes of arriving we were lucky to see a group of tiny miniature cute monkeys (Tamarins) passing through the Inkaterra property. We also met the resident animal (rat squirrel to me) of the property, the Aguti, and then we realized he had a big family living with him as well. Our first trek was an introductory walk in which we discovered many types of ants and spiders at work, as well as gigantic trees. The sky was crystal clear but inside the jungle you lose all sense of direction as the sun does not get through due to the height of the trees. We took a night boat tour in which we saw a serpent hanging from a tree, and the the eyes of a baby caiman. One of the guides was extremely good at spotting animals, in that complete darkness I wouldn’t be able to spot another human. The stars put on quite a spectacle as well.

Next day was full of activity. Up at 5 am to start our long trek to Lake Sandoval, after a boat ride. It was a difficult trek, as it was very slippery and muddy, but a wonderful experience. We saw the Spider Monkey, the biggest of the Amazon and very hard to see. Our guide said it was the first time he saw it in this region, his species have been hunted and killed so few remain and do not go through areas where humans dwell. We also saw the red squirrel running through trees. One of the animals I was longing to see was the sloth, one of the most interesting and slow animals on earth. I was delighted to have seen one, even though he was up high in a tree. Once we got to the lake we were rewarded with a canoe ride around beautiful palm tree enclosed Lake Sandoval, where we saw turtles, jumping piranhas and more monkeys. This time it was the howler monkey, who makes an incredible sound, you would think a plane is passing through.

We did more treks to botanical gardens, black waters (where anacondas dwell), creeks, botanical gardens, etc. One of the impressive things we witnessed was the change in color of water when two different bodies of water merge. I can’t even start to describe the variety of colorful birds we saw. Tambopata does hold the world record for biggest number of bird sightings in a day, and our guide was a trained and certified Bird Watcher. In this world trip Tony has discovered that he loves photography and on the Amazon he discovered his newest passion: photographing birds. Inkaterra has an amazing and fun 32 meter high and .5 kilometer long canopy walk connecting trees by seven bridges for spotting birds. We also saw other varieties of monkeys, squirrels, caimans going in the water, etc, but birds were the stars of the show. That is until we met the Master of the Amazonia.

On our second night we took a night walk, which encompassed all of my fears. We were all a bit bored with the guide showing us bugs, no tarantulas that night (a few the night before), when suddenly just before returning to our cabins, the guide slowly and nervously took a few steps back and after a few seconds whispers to tell us how we are going to proceed from there in case of attack as we have just crossed the “Bushmaster’s” path. We had seen it dead in a bottle at the Inkaterra Research Center, but it seems the guide was not counting on personally running into him that night, as for the first time he was not carrying his first aid kit or knife even! The bushmaster is the most venomous and also the longest snake in the Amazonia. It was sleeping, but we woke it up and it was not a pretty sight to see it hissing at us. It was rolled up, but the guide said it was about 2 meters long. He also mentioned that fortunately it was not hatching time because if it was hatching eggs (one of the few snakes that hatch eggs) it would have attacked us for sure. It was the first time the guide had seen it in the property. Everyone at the lodge, guides and cooks included, were talking about our sighting. From our photos, some young girls said that they had seen it the night before under their cabin, but didn’t realize it was so dangerous. Afterward I did some research and learned that its common behavior is to coil in the ground for long periods of time, next to ground trails to wait patiently for prey… My Amazonian fantasy almost became true…

Endless sightings and adventures, too many to count, our Amazonian adventure was spectacular and I personally wish to visit more deeply the Amazonian or Mosquitia jungle soon. Check our photos here. Now on to a completely different adventure: Machu Picchu!

Next on our South America itinerary after Ecuador was Peru, and our first stop there was the capital, Lima. Our plan was to spend a few short days in the capital before making our way to Peru’s more famous sights of the Amazon Basin and the Andes, and to be honest we weren’t expecting that much from the city as it did not feature prominently in any of our guides, especially compared to Quito. What we did not account for however, were two important factors. One, we were staying with a host, Pedro, in Lima, and two, Peruvian cuisine is among the best in South America with a rising international reputation.

We were met at the airport in Lima on a balmy summer’s evening by Pedro, a native Limeno who is a good friend of Ninfa’s brother from when he used to live in Honduras. Pedro had offered to be our host in Lima when he heard our trip would take us his way, and this really made a difference into how we were able to discover the city. it was already dark when we arrived in the city, but Pedro took us on a leisurely drive along the waterfront of the chic Miraflores district which was full of locals sitting in the numerous parks enjoying the cool sea breeze, before we headed back to his apartment for a late dinner. Ninfa’s brother Salva had told us that we would be very fortunate if we had a chance to sample some of Pedro’s fine cooking, and he wasn’t lying.

During our stay in Peru, we tried many of the better-known Peruvian staples, but Ninfa in particular spent a lot of the next two weeks trying to find another serving of the delicious huancaina sauce that Pedro served that first night. The flavours are not immediately mouth-watering, but put them together and you have a delicious meal. Peru is home to hundreds maybe over a thousand varieties of potatoes, and we had boiled potatoes served with hard-boiled egg and smothered in a huancaina sauce made of among other things cheese, crackers and aji chii peppers. Next was a creamy chicken casserole, Aji de Gallina, served again with boiled potatoes and black olives. There were lots of strong flavours, but they all worked really well together and with a couple of the Pisco Sours, Peru’s national drink, to wash it down, we were looking forward to discovering more.

The next day, Pedro kindly offered to be our guide around Lima Centro, which is home to Lima’s sizeable colonial legacy. On the way into town from Miraflores, we passed several impressive squares, lined with grand edifices of Spanish and French influence, the most impressive of which was the dazzling, entirely white Plaza San Martin. Pedro works in the Peruvian Foreign Ministry who conveniently have a staff carpark right in the centre of Lima, and on our way out, Pedro took the opportunity to show us around some of the historic buildings which now form part of the ministry. As if having a resident tour guide wasn’t enough, here we were visiting a beautiful colonial courtyard which would have been entirely off limits were it not for our host. The pink facade with the intricately carved wooden balcony protruding streetwards encased a rich yellow courtyard complete with former stables, and still alive with the memories of its colonial inhabitants. We walked through some of the rooms admiring the furniture and paintings, one of which depicted the Epiphany when the Three Kings visit the Infant Jesus, on which date over 1500 years later Francisco Pizarro named the city of Lima, the City of Kings for Spain.

From here we proceeded on a walking tour around the centre of Lima commencing first with the grandeur on an enormous scale of the Plaza de Armas. Each side of the square seems more magnificent than the other. On one end is the ornately decorated Cathedral of Lima alongside a bishopry which faces across to the grand balcony of the Municipal Palace, which sits alongside the Governor’s Palace which proudly bears a large Peruvian crest on either side featuring the cornucopia of gold, the vicuna (like a small llama) and the national cinconcha tree. The square itself would make a fitting centrepiece to many a great nation, but with the Peruvian flag flying high above the Municipal Palace, there’s no doubt as to who it belongs to. Our walk continued along the side streets of Lima Centro, by wooden-balconied colonial residences now converted into resturants, past stalls selling Inca Kola and past doorways leading into centuries old taverns. We made a stop at the National Library which holds an exhibit dedicated to the recent Nobel Laureate for Literature, Peruvian Mario Vargas Llosa, at some ruins of the original city walls which look out to the cross on the Cerro San Cristobal which towers beside Lima, and a final stop at the magical Iglesia San Francisco. While not what the architect may have had in mind, the numerous nooks and ledges in the baroque facade attract legions of faithful avians, and with a little patience the observer below can witness a sudden burst of frenzy as hundreds of pigeons take flight all at once and cast a manic cloud over the entire square. Our next stop was frenzy of a different kind around the Mercado Central with shoeshiners set up on street corners, barrow-boys wheeling crates of Inka Cola at high speed along crowded streets and official money changers the only people who seemed to be standing still in the small and lively Chinatown, before we concluded our walking tour with a visit to the tranquil and beautiful Compania de Jesus church next to the Foreign Ministry. And it didn’t stop there, as we passed historic pre-Columbian era pyramids, sitting out of place among high-rise apartments on our drive back to Miraflores. Lima Centro has a wealth of colonial legacy, a diversity of old and modern and is compact enough to cover by foot in one day, and is well worth a stop on any South American tour.

That night we went to the Barranco distric for dinner overlooking the bay, and tried another of Peru’s culinary specialities, anticuchos. Although almost all of South America speaks Spanish, there are plenty of differences in how each region speaks it and local names abound. Anticuchos are kebabs, and the speciality in Peru are beef-heart kebabs, and many a lover of beef will fall in love with these succulent, juicy kebabs. Beef figures prominently on Peruvian menus, and we had tried one of the most common beef dishes at lunchtime in the excellent understated eatery of San Juan in Lima Centro, just off the Plaza de Armas. Lomo Saltado is almost like a beef wok dish of greens, rice and beef flash fried and served on a bed of chunky french fries – very tasty! This had followed a savoury starter of causa which is a type of yellow potato pie found in many varieties but this one combining hard-boiled eggs, cauliflower and black olives – believe it or not, very tasty too! All this watched down with a jug of sweet chicha morada, which is a juice made from the purple corn found in the Andes.

Our second and last day in Lima was a beautiful, bright sunny day, and I got up early to take a Sunday morning jog along the waterfront in Pedro’s home neighbourhood of Miraflores. The seafront in Lima is backed by a 40 metre high cliff where most of the city is found, and the parks of Miraflores are right on the edge of the cliff, and provide fantastic views of the surfers below. The beach in Lima is stony, so every time the waves slide out, they rattle the stones together, a noise which is amplified by the cliffy surrounds and provides a constant soundtrack for the throngs of Limenos who flock everyday to their beloved open spaces. We took an early lunch around midday to avoid having to queue for the famous Puerto Azul restaurant in the middle of Miraflores. Puerto Azul is only open at lunchtime and is one of the most popular restaurants in Lima for Peru’s signature dish, ceviche! Peru claims to have invented ceviche, and with ceviche this good, there’s no arguing. Ceviche is a dish of raw fish, marinaded in some seasoned lemon juice whose acid actually cooks the fish, and in Peru is topped with thinly sliced red onion. Where in Honduras, ceviche is served in small chunks, here the ceviche in Puerto Azul comes in sushi sized slices, and thanks to its freshness is marinaded for less than an hour resulting in a mouth-watering, tender, and delicious fish dish. It’s one of Ninfa’s favourite dishes, but Puerto Azul deserves the queues as it was outstanding. I opted for the chicharron de pescado which was a jumbo-sized portion of deep-fried shellfish and fish in a light batter which was delicious, but enough for my lunches for a week!

We ended the afternoon sipping coffees on the clifftop of Miraflores and strolling along the paths admiring the views and enjoying the sunset at the Gaudi-esque Parque de Amor, before returning to Pedro’s for more potatoes in huancaina sauce. Although there aren’t many attractions in Miraflores other than its cosy cafes, great restaurants, countless parks and scenic clifftop walks, it’s a place where time seems to fly by, and its easy to see how it’s the residential district of choice for well-to-do Limenos.

And so it is, the end of our weekend away in Lima. Our gracious thanks to Pedro who made such a difference to how we were able to experience the city, and underlined the fact that seeing a cith through the eys of an informed local is infinitely more rewarding than simply from an out-of-towners perspective. Next stop, a complete change of scenery – the Peruvian Amazon Basin in Puerto Maldonado. Until then, all the best from Tarzan and Jane!