For some other nice pictures and an up to date comment please visit Alice's blog: http://www.alicesuiza.blogspot.com/






Tomorrow we will do a river rafting tour... as I've never done such a thing, I am very excited. Luckily I brought my undemolishable, super-sexy, bulletproof :-) Swiss army glasses with me. No, to be honest, they don't look that bad... with the sun glasses on top. At least I can't loose them, when I dive into the water.











Village scene in northern Peru (north of Chiclayo)






On the way from Guyaquil to the highlands of Ecuador



In a factory in Cuenca, where the famous Panaman hats are made.






On the bumby "road" from Puyo to Tena

The Oriente

Hi guys.

We are in Puyo, in the oriente (rainforest area) and did a nice jungle tour today. visiting a nice waterfall, seeing lots of plants, canooing, going to a nice view point and visiting an indeginous village.
From the large volcanoes on the way from Cuenca to Riobamba and than to Puyo, we saw nothing, as it was always cloudy. The trip is however even fun without the scenery, as the road is nothing more than a dirt track with left or right it going down pretty far. This is due to heavy rains, as the main road gets washed away every now and then. Nothing to worry about. The only thing that is unnice, is when you enter the bus not at the starting point, that the chance of a seat is quite small... so we ended up standing for some time... or like I did, sitting on floor. For everyone ever been in the swiss army, its nothing uncommon to sit on the back of a truck... it was about the same.

Pictures are as follow:
- On the shaky ride up to beautiful Cuenca.
- View on Cunca from the "Turi" Mirador... Of course the airplane was my main interest, being so low over the city.
- Alice and me in Incapirca... the most important Inca ruins in Ecuador.

Ecuador, leg space and stupid me

Hi Guys

Let me start at the back. At the moment we are in beautiful and tranquille Cuenca in the Ecuadorian high-land. Having had the marvelous idea to put my memory card with my pictures on it, into a card reader, so that the transmition would be faster, I exactly did that... well, at least I thought I did. The card reader was no card reader but an ordanary floppy drive. The result was that the card was stuck. So, the guy at cyber was so nice to switch off the pc and hit once or twice and tata the thing was out... My operation with a mini maglite and Alice's army knive was useless.
Ok, lets go to legspace. The flight from Zurich to Madrid was quite uncomfy for me, as legspace was zero... well at least I thought that then. The collectivos in the Cusco area and the Peruvian Publicbuses were even narrower. In interregional buses the legspace is then better as on the flight to Madrid. So far so good. In Lima it got very tight, so that I was able to sit with the knees 45° in the air. However, yesterday in Guyaquil it was even better. I was only able to sit sideways. No one is as tall as I am on this continent.
Having mentioned once or twice now, that we are in Ecuador, let me resume this a bit. Three days ago we passed the border. We took an international coach from Peru to Ecuador. Well, it went perfect until we passed all boarder patrols. Then our servicio directo started to pick up everyone on the street... as ususal. and as usual we were worrying about our luggage. However everything went ok.
We then came to Guyaquil. Here you HAVE to take a taxi at night, even in the center. Everyone drives fast and even over red lights, in order not to get robbed. Therefore the roads are quite empty at night. Luckily we could stay at Alice's friend, so we were safe. We had some nice insider sight visiting by night with private car.
Ecuador is totally different to Peru. First I thought, that it even looks worse. However, everything seems organized. The cars on the street don't try to over run you all the time. And in contrast to Peru. Not the taxi or the bus finds you, but you have to find it!
Now, after a shaky 4h ride we are in Cuenca. Here everythings is so slow. Not one tout wanting to sell you something. And there are cafes... with wooden seats and no plastic chairs.

Well that's it from now.
Philippe

Mancora

Beach, beach, sun, much more sun and more beach. This is Mancora.
After leaving disgusting Chiclayo yesterday morning. We took the bus through the Desert to Piura. It was quite green for a desert. There we took an a/c servicio directo collectivo to Mancora. More desert, a lot of oil pumps of which few were working and two trucks left on the road after an accident.
Mancora is not the nicest beach resort you can imagine, but its nice. We stay in a nice two storey bungalow, inhabiting the second floor. The night was hot and very dry. I had the large bed with the fan next to it. I thought, wow, there is a nice wind all night, just before figuring out, that it was only the fan. Alice told me in the morning, that she thought it was very hot and dry in the room... oh, thanks my beloved fan!
Ok, this hotel is just next to the ones we looked in first. The first one, had rooms with none or just a tiny winy window to the back, a bed and no leg space around. The second one was a set of uncomfy, dark bungalows... for a sensational 10 Soles per sole. Thats about 2.5 CHF. We both prefer our bungalow. There is even a pool.
Ok, this is the last entry from Peru, as of tomorrow we leave in the morning for Guyaquil in Ecuador.

Until then, I hope there is sun and fun and not much to do, where ever you are!

Chiclayo

Hi again

Another night in Chiclayo. This is not a nice town, therefore no photos. We both don't like it and are happy to continue to a beach resort tomorrow (8h by bus). This will be the last stop over before we leave Peru for Ecuador.

Please see http://www.alicesuiza.blogspot.com/ for the latest pictures.

Cheerio!

Up north

Where shall begin? The landscape north of Lima looks about the same as the one south of it. Desert! In between the sanddunes and the hostile rocks are agriculture fields which are intensively irrigated. Without that not much would grow.
The highlight so far since we departed Lima are the archeological sites around the town called Trujillo. There different sand-brick palaces, cities and temples are accumulated in a rather small area. There is the Cha-chan area from the Chemu people and two huge temple complexes from an even older civilization (before the Inca). There is an excavation site where archeologists have been digging for the last 20 years. There are five temples built on top of each other. Each dynasty had its own temple. However they did not destroy their predecessor's temple but filled it with sand-bricks, which are now being removed to make the nice and colourful paintings visible.
As Alice has written about everything that happend in this time, please read there.

cheerio!

Lima

Hi guys

please see www.alicesuiza.blogspot.com for infos on Lima.
In my opinion downtown Lima is nice. Or as nice as a megacity with car traffic can get.
Please excuse writing mistakes, although they are sometimes funny, they are the result of my unwillingness to read through everything again.
Ok, have to catch the nightbus to Trujillo.

Cheerio

Some Pictures

Alice and me on the Nazca line viewing tower

A Nazca line figure

Some Sealions at Paracas

Me in Paracas

Lima Citycenter

Nazca-Paracas-Lima

Hi Guys

This is our second evening in Lima. We are staying in a really nice hostel in the very western Miraflores disctrict of Lima. Now let me summarize from Cusco to Lima. On Saturday evening we took the overnightbus to Nazca. For the approx 650kms you need over 13h. Reason for that is the catastrophic situation of the curvy mountain roads down to Nazca (there are minimum 2 passes over 3500 or 4000m, while Nazca is on the sea level). Anyway, the trip was quite bumpy. First I thought, it will be just temporary, then it went on shaking for a very long time.
Having arrived in Nazca, we took a overland tour to see some of the famous Nazca lines (research has been conducted by the German Geography (!!!) teacher and Mathematician Maria Reiche from the 1940s until her death in 1998). These are lines and shapes carved in the pampa ground which you can only see from an elevated position. Famous are overflights with a small Cessna plane. However, as Alice is not such a fan of flying as I am and the flight is quite curvy we did abstrain from flying (we also heard that a plane crashed just there last week, so our motivation was even smaller). In the afternoon we continued to a small seatown called Paracas, just outside Pisco (totally devastated from a quake last year). There only the two problems which are always present for a backpacker in Peru. First, watch with an eagle's eyes after your luggage stored in the undercarriage of the bus and second, peruvian time. It gets dark at 6pm sharp and it is not recomended to be outside in many places when there is darkness. In addition to that for getting to Paracas, we had to get of at the Cruze in Pisco, which is basically a huge bus stand on the Panamericana highway. My adrenaline was quite high, because it was about 8pm when we arrived a the Cruze. A guy then helped us with getting a taxi and a hostel (of course he was from the hostel, but the prices were as described in the book, so everything was fine). Then on Monday we took a boatcruise to small island in the Paracas natural reserve. It was there were we saw lots of birds, their excrements, penguins, sea lions and tons of pelicans.
Ok, after this tour we chose to be stuck in town for a while, because the seafront was so nice. For everyone knowing Alice, it must be obvious, as she adores the sea and sea food. So we had some lunch. I chose the fried fish.... she chose the raw fish. Lets say everyone has preferences for oneself.
Then we continued to Lima. Lima is very interesting. You see everything, from the very save and clean Miraflores to the informal settlements clustering like a huge sponge around town. Something very interesting to me is the unexpected cleanness of Peru. Of course there is waste and garbage is being dumped into a landfill and people do work there, but on the streets, everywhere where I have been, it unexpectedly clean.
Tomorow evening/afternoon we want to continue north to Trujillo. Its been now over one week in Peru. Its total fun, however not bein fluent in Spanish is kind of annoying.

Some pictures

I finally could upload some images.

Flight from Lima to Cusco

Alice with Cusco in the rear

Alice and me with Machu Picchu in the rear

Same again

Cusco downtown

Cusco

Hi Guys

Today is our last day in cusco. At the moment i am unable to upload any images, because of error messages.
After the two nights in that rather not so nice hostel we were back in our old hostel in cusco. our old room however was rented out to a bunch of brits.
Yesterday I had my third pisco sour. This, after we had dinner at a Chicken-Grill. All you get is a selected quantity of chicken with some fries and a salad (no sauce). Now this is important, as everyone who knows me knows how much I adore salad. I sacrificed myself and with a pinch on lemon on the salad I tried it. I would have eaten more, if i hadn't been so full. :-)
For everyone who thinks that an S-Bahn can be cramped full. sorry, thats totally wrong. In a collectivo (minibus with a capacity for about 8-10 people), I counted about 22 people. Leg and head space does not exist. The backback is on top of the vehicle... but the 1Soles (ca. 0.3 to 0.4 CHF) gets you an about 40 min ride.
Alice and me are getting along fine. To my luck she speaks excellent spanish. Without that, it would be much more difficult for me.

Until the next time!

Machu Picchu

Hi guys

After meeting positevely with Alice on Tuesday in Cusco, we travelled to Aguas Callientes yesterday... by Bus, Bus, Bus, Collectivo (mini Cab filled with Indios) and Train. As we arrived there at 2220 in the evening, and somehow the pick-up from the hostel we booked via the hostel in Cusco didnt work out, we then followed one of the many guys offering a hostel. I must have been very tired. I realized this morning, how not very clean it was behind the toilets... we'll we survived it.
Today in the morning we stood up very early to take the bus up to machu picchu... i must say, wow!!! magnificant. I have pictures, like the ones you get from the book (internet is too slow for an upload).
Ok, to sumarize my Peru experience so far. It's great! Travelling is easy going. Although everyone wants to sell you something they leave it be, if you say you did not want anything. Insofar its much less hassle than India. Tomorrow it's back to Cusco and the day after that we take the Bus to Nazga, to see the famous Nazga lines. After that its time to go up Lima! Until then.

Cheerio!!!

Flying half around the globe

Hi Guys

Wellcome to Lima! After a long day of travelling, which started with snow in Thurgau at 0515 CET I am finally in my very, very, very, very expensive hotel at Lima airport. It is now 1950 local time. Thats 7 hours behind CET. So you can imagine the length of the trip. The flight to Madrid was only 2h... therefore the smaller leg-space than in an easyjet or ryanair plane was not so bad. the legspace (both Iberia) improved dramastically on the flight to peru. however, Iberia does not have the kind of inflight entertainment like swiss! there are only about 3-5 mini screens way in front of you with no choice of movies... well, i kept to my mp3 player, watching down to the atlantic ocean and the rain forest occationally (when the sun allowed it). Until now, I thought we have mountains in switzerland. Just flying over the Andes makes them seem nothing more than a small foothill in lets say the Netherlands. Well, thats enough for now. With no local money (except US-Dollars), the forex didn't want my swiss francs (can you believe it), i am now off to the hotel bar to enjoy my free Pisco. Just by the way, you are not allowed to import any alcohol product labelled "Pisco"... well so much for other continents, other routines.

cya,
philippe

t-1

So, its sunday afternoon. The final preparations have been taken care of.
I am enjoying the last hours of bollywoodradio (> www.bollywoodradio.de). Tonight I will go to the airport to do the bagage drop and check in. however before that I'll go to a nice Indian place in Winterthur to enjoy some great Indian food. I hope the food in Southamerica suits me...
As I am quite hungry writing these few lines, my imaginations of the best food in the world is very vivid. A nice dal or some chicken tikka massala..... and naan bread served with an ice-cold kingfisher beer followed by a nice chai or a mango lassi....

ok, next entry comes right from Peru!

cya!

Countdown t-3

Today is Friday... packing time. As on monday morning I will leave, I will put together all the stuff I need... hoping that I have everything. If that is not the case, there is still time to get it!
I'm not that nervous. to be honest I am quite confident. comparing to the situtation before the trip to India two years ago, I am meditating.

ok, lets go packing.