The town that we are living in now is called Ollantaytambo (pronounced OH-YUN-TA-TUMBO) It is in the heart of the Sacred Valley of the Incas and is in fact a real living, breathing and authentic Inca town that has survived the Spanish Inquistion and was left pretty much in tact. We are here until August,…
Last week Sunday we went off to the Chinchero Market in the Sacred Valley. Chinchero has a market every Sunday and it is a great place to buy Andean handicrafts and knitted goods like jerseys, beanies, scarves etc. With winter on the way, we decied we would go and see what was for sale. Well…
I am sure that many of you must be thinking that we have dropped off the face of the planet. Well we havent, the thing is this, we have taken up a volunteering opportunity in Ollantaytambo until the second week in August. We are quite excited, we are volunteering at a lodge in Ollantaytambo called…
Remember to CLICK on the images to enlarge them, especially the Panoramics, its worth it… Machu Picchu is possibly the most famous icon of the Inca world. It is located 80 km away from Cusco, which was the political centre of the Inca world and is 2430m above sea level. Much like Antarctica, there are…
Lake Titicaca is a high altitude lake which straddles Peru and Bolivia, 40% is in Bolivia and 60% in Peru. It is a HUGE inland lake that is fed by 27 rivers. The lake itself is 190km long at its longest and 80 km wide at its widest. It has a surface area of 8372…
Arequipa is known as “La Ciudad Blanca” because many of its buildings are made from white volcanic rock found in the area. It is also surrounded by 3, yes 3 volcanoes, the main one being El Misti. El Misti is 5822m in height and dominates the Arequipan skyline, an impressive sight. Arequipa is a very…
One of the biggest architectural and historical sites in Arequipa is the Santa Catalina Monastery or Monasteria de Santa Catalina. It is a cloistered convent which means that the nuns who enter cannot see their family or friends again as they take a vow of seclusion. The monastery itself was built in 1579, less than…
We left Chile about a week ago and are now in Peru. We are in a great city in Peru called Arequipa or “La Ciudad Blanca” – The White City. It is a really beautiful place, lots of original architecture, cobbled streets, a really impressive square with a huge cathedral dominating the one side, I…
Our morning started with a visit into the heart of the Salar de Atacama, or the Atacama salt flat. Salt flat is a bit of a misnomer as the area gets almost no rain in the year and as a result, the salt crystals grow upward and look more like sharp spikes in some places….
Our next expedition took us to the Laguna Ceja and then the salt flats. We took a dip (or rather a float) in the actual salt lagoons. The lagoon has a 40% concentration of salt and so you can float without any effort at all. We floated a bit and then had a mud bath,…
