Arequipa's highlights

Our last day in La Paz was spent catching up with the boys for a 9 boliviano lunch (approx $1.50) of noodle soup and steak, sauce and rice. This was followed up by the biggest ice cream sundae we have ever seen. 

Yet more goodbyes and we were on yet another night bus, this time to Peru! Unfortunately we had to go back through Copacabana but at least we were familiar with the place so could get a quick dinner before jumping back on the bus for another 12 hours.

Immediately after crossing the Peruvian border we could see subtle differences like the types of cars (little 3 wheeled rickshaw type things), the buildings (a lot less brick, and actually all finished) and the people (a lot lighter skinned). Unfortunately the bus ride was a little hairy with the bus swaying like a boat when it went around corners and the driver slamming on the brakes often so I didn't manage to catch a lot of winks. We arrived in Arequipa at 4am and caught a taxi to our hostel, El Patio de Elisa, who very kindly allowed us to check into our room then so we could catch a few more winks.

I was feeling pretty spaced when we got up so it was straight to lunch for us. Yet another successful Tripadvisor recommendation - Pescadores, where we got to sample what we hope is the first of many delicious ceviches here in Peru.

Feeling much more revived we decided to go and visit Arequipa's most famous attraction - Monasterio de Santa Catalina which is described as being a city within a city. They weren't joking though as the place was enormous, taking us a few hours to explore. It was incredibly beautiful and fascinating to see where 100 nuns had once lived in isolation. The most impressive aspect was the amount of kitchens. As Jimmy said, all they must have done all day was worship God and bake. I took the most photos I've taken anywhere on this trip as the colours were just stunning. This is just a small sample of them...

Errr sorry, it seems I have a weakness for brightly coloured walls and wooden doors...

For dinner we tried out a Mexican place, Tacos y Tequilla which was a nice change in flavours from what we had been eating lately. But still not a patch on what we can make or get at home sadly. We are seriously spoilt in NZ when it comes to food choices and quality of produce. 

Other highlights of Arequipa have been, the impressive Plaza de Armas Cathedral. It's one of the biggest we have seen on this trip and takes me straight back to Spain.

Lunch at La Nueva Palomino (twice), which is a traditional picanteria that serves ENORMOUS portions of food, including whole deep fried guinea pig (we gave that a miss), crawfish soup (delicious), steak with a quinoa, cheese kind of mash (also delish) and stuffed capsicum (the stuffing was good..). 

The second time we visited we somehow managed to leave our camera behind and thought it would be gone for sure but amazingly they still had it when we phoned that night so we jumped in a cab to zoom across town and collect it. So lucky, especially because we are off to the Colca Canyon for a 3 day hike tomorrow so it would have been upsetting to not have it, even though my phone does a pretty good job too.

One other highlight was the markets which also took me back to Spain. There is something so spectacular about the way they stack all the beautiful looking fruit to create such an impressive, colourful display.

You need to work on your black corn mum! These were a lot bigger than yours.

Yes, that is a llama fetus. When they build houses they like to give a sacrifice to Pachamama before they begin building, so they bury these fetuses in the ground on the site. What is more horrifying is that when they are building something bigger, like an airport, a bigger sacrifice is required and so a human sacrifice is called for. How do they do that you ask? Well easy, they just get some 100 proof alcohol and find a homeless person who "isn't going to be missed" and then feed them the booze until they pass out, then take them to the site and throw them into the concrete foundations. This is honestly what Fred was told when he did the walking tour in La Paz. Horrific I know.

Onto brighter things, Peru is home of the humble potato and has a huge array of different varieties - a small sample of which you can see below.

Speaking of potatoes, we are off to dinner at Hatunpa where the dishes are on a base of different potatoes, so we will get to sample some of them very soon. Peru, you are going to be bad for me, I can tell already! At least we have 3 days of trekking ahead of us.

Ciao. Cross your fingers for us that we get to see some condors in flight in the canyon.

La Paz, round two

We weren't too thrilled at the idea of being back in La Paz but were excited to do the Death Road finally, as well as catch up with Fred, Khalid and Kelvin who were in town too.

We had booked the Death Road through Vertigo as Brooke had recommended them and they were a bit cheaper than some of the larger operations. Our group consisted of one Aregentinian, one Belgian, two English and of course two Kiwis. Plus our two guides who were both Bolivian. We ended up being the last to kit up as we saw all the other groups set off before us. This proved to be a really good thing as we had the whole road to ourselves (which means less potential crashes). After being decked out in knee pads, elbow pads, jacket, pants and a full face helmet we were off. I think the last time I wore knee and elbow pads was when I was about 8, rollerblading around Waioneke school!

The first section of the ride is on the main road so is tar seal. It's so incredible to fly down this deserted road at about 70km/h. As if the speed isn't enough, the scenery is jaw droppingly beautiful with sheer cliffs rising up around you and a big gully next to you. We chewed through the 28km of tar seal in no time and then it was time for the real thing! The Death road, dun, dun, dunnnnnn.

Weirdly, despite the fact that they drive on the right hand side of the road here, it's the one place in Bolivia that you are to ride on the left. This is because the drivers can stick their heads out the window and see how close to the edge of the road their tyres are. An alternative road has been built in recent years so there isn't a whole lot of traffic on it anymore except a few coca farmers that prefer to use the road due to it being 30 mins faster, and 300x times more dangerous!! This development meant that rather than me being able to ride as far away from the edge as possible was out of the question. Doh! 

Immediately the boys were hooning off but I took it pretty easy as I really didn't want to be a statistic. Gravel can be pretty unforgiving so I figured I would stay well within my comfort zone and ability. I did however find myself blocking out the fact that there were sheer cliffs with certain death only a mere meter away from where I was riding. Instead I tried to distract myself with how stunning the scenery around us was. It was so nice to be back in some lush bush and we could feel it getting warmer with every minute that passed as we descended further into the valley.

After about 1.5 hours of riding the Death Road, we stopped for them to show us the coca farms. Interestingly, our guide Chello told us that they are only allowed small plots of coca and that 60% of the coca grown is used for cocaine production, with the rest being used for coca leaf chewing and coca tea. We were amazed with how small the farms were as our guide said the one in the photo below was a large sized one.

Unfortunately after our whole group having been going great guns without any near misses, that changed with only about 10 mins left of the ride. I was riding in the middle (boys in front, girls behind me) and then the Belgian girl Anna passed me and I thought to myself, hmm she's game to be going faster than me as I was pretty sure she wasn't a frequent rider. Literally about 5 seconds later I watched as she lost control of the bike and then must have put the front brakes on as manged to cartwheel over the front of her handlebars, with her bike following close behind. Thankfully she was ok and hadn't gone off a cliff or anything, just very grazed, a sore neck and no doubt a bruised ego. 

Aside from this unfortunate end to our ride, we were all buzzing from the incredible 70km of downhill we had all just done. Jimmy and I were definitely pleased that we we had made the trip back to La Paz in order to not miss it as where else in the world could you do such a ride?

The trip then finished off with a buffet lunch at a hostel a bit further down the road and also a swim in their pool. It was such a treat to actually feel warm enough to want to go swimming!

After the draining 3 hour drive back to La Paz, we could have quite happily gone straight to bed. The fact that our tummies weren't happy with something we had eaten didn't help things either. Instead we mustered up the last of our energy and went and got some yummy pizza from Mozarella which was across the street from our hostel, then headed up to Adventure Brew for a reunion with the boys. Four hours later, and a fair few beers later, we rolled into bed to catch some much deserved winks.