Rare Adventures

The last adventure was the amazing Rainbow Mountain, or Montane Vinikunka. We had first seen the natural spectacle on an episode of BBC Race Round the World; it is a phenomenon that only became visible as a result of global warming around 2012 with the retreat of the ice layer on top of the mountain. The retreat exposed a multi colour landscape that is one of the wonders of the world, however…

After the drama of Day 3 dinner with the guides and the tip issue the night before, we were in bed very early, with only the very brave (or foolhardy) venturing out into the night for the makeshift toilet. The heavy rain on the tent overnight didn’t lift our spirits for the long trek in the dark. Day 4 started early, the pots were clanking for breakfast at 2.30am and we were all woken up at 3am…

Eventually, we wandered into our second campsite. To find the porters had all been busy again, the tents had been built, the canteen tent was laid out ready for dinner and we had bowls of water sitting outside our tents for washing. Another smashing evening chatting with our companions, good food and it was time to re-engage with my wandering mattress in the tent for another night chasing it…

After the trauma of the altitude issues with Wooksie, we didn’t take the decision to push on with the Inca Trail trek lightly, but we knew this was probably our only chance to do it, but the chances of failure were quite high for Wooksie. We checked into the pre trek meeting in Cusco the night before, looking forward to meeting our fellow adventurers. We gathered in the meeting room to find we…

Next up on our adventure was a day tour of the Sacred Valley of the Incas.  In many ways this was the most amazing tour of the holiday as we saw many of the Inca sites, everyone thinks about Machu Picchu but the Incas were very busy around this region and this tour picked up many of their structures. I’d say I learned more on this trip than the Inca Trail, that is how good it was. One of the…

Our altitude strategy was to prepare for the Inca Trail trek was to spend 4 days at high altitude on Lake Titicaca, at 3800m to adjust, and then travel down to Cusco at 2500m and we should have been ready to go. Unfortunately Wooksie had picked up a tummy bug on the way back from Nazca so wasn’t on top form. We flew from Lima to Juliaco, all the guidebooks said avoid Juliaco unless you want to…

I learned about the Nazca lines when I was in my teens, I read a book about evidence of spacemen landing on earth and apparently the Nazca lines were evidence of their runway. They also drew images of creatures on the desert floor for unknown reasons, many of the creatures live thousands of miles away in the Amazon or out in the Pacific Ocean, not here. The lines date back to civilisations up to…

The trip from Puno to Cusco was largely without incident.  Wooksie was recovering from her hospitalisation, probably the best way to describe her was fragile, having a 10 hour bus ride with her feet up looking at the landscape as the altitude dropped was a good way of spending the day. We stopped off to have a look at a museum and some ancient sites. It started to become clear that the history…

Opinion – in general the trip to Little Galapagos was a nice way to start the day but we didn’t really see much in the way of wildlife but the cliff engravings and the guide talks on the ancient history made it worth while. Our adventures in Paracas ended with a dawn call for the trip out to Little Galapagos. The night before hadn’t gone on too well, the local Paracas chapter of the moped Hells…

Some memorable nights come about after a well laid plan, and others come about spontaneously, and after 4 hours overdosing on adrenaline I was ready for a beer or two and whatever would follow. The scene was set when we settled in the bar overlooking the oasis, with our Scottish chums Dawn and Reg from the dune buggy. The first beer arrived and was gone in a flash, on to the next one and Dawn…

Our first sight of Huacachina came soon after we arrived in Ica, we turned up a back road that wound up the sand dunes, then we came over the hill in the coach and there it was, the most stunning and unbelievable view of a beautiful oasis surrounded by the sand dunes the size of real mountains, it was like an image of heaven in a desolate, hell like landscape. We made our way to our hotel, which…