A girl from Bogotá

This is the story of a journey through a small side of the Cordillera de los Andes. My friend Natalia and I started this trip on october 24th; the idea was to get to Lima by land, going through a part of our wonderful country Colombia and Ecuador. In Lima, we had already paid an agency to make all the arrangements for us, because we dind’t want to spend our trip dealing with travel operators; besides, we knew very well what we wanted to visit, because our time was short and we wanted to use it very well.
So, we left Bogota the night of october 24th and the idea was to be in Lima on the 30th to start with the agency the 31st.
We arrived at San Agustin (Huila, Colombia) the next morning, after a 10 hour journey, the bus cost 40.000 pesos; there we wanted to visit an archeological site of more the 3.000 years old. We stayed at a big Hacienda called Anacaona, the night costs 25.000 pesos each person (1 US dollar = 2.250 colombian pesos); is nice, thought the attention was not very good, the manager had drinking problems and there was no hot water, what is awful ’cause San Agustin is very cold. Overall, is a nice place, but I guess one can do better. Although that day was rainy, we put on our raincoats and left for the park; it was great, we got to see lots of small and big moliths, all of them symbolizing something different. One can only marvel at the level of knowledge this ancient culture had. The next day we took a jeep tour that took us to another archeological site and to the Estrecho del Magdalena; the Magdalena is a very wide river that runs south-north of Colombia, and in this point we can find a strait of no more than 1.80 mts, what’s surprising, ’cause the river has, more or less, 256.622 km2 in total…..
The third day we left for Ipiales, where we wanted to visit the church of Las Lajas, an amazing construction made of laja stone (a kind of plain, thin and fragil stone) that is almost carved into the mountain. Supposedly, The Virgin appeared on the mountain and that was the origin for the church. So, we left very early for Ipiales but the bus transportation in very small cities like this is very unorganized, that’s why we had to wait like 4 hrs to catch a bus to Popayan, the way to Ipiales. We arrived at Popayan at 6.30 pm, and left for Ipiales at 8.30 arriving at 4 am; it was hard ’cause we didn’t make it to the hotel we had reserved and we had to stay in a lousy pension in the Lajas neighbourhood, that cost 7.000 pesos each one of us; I dont recommend doing that, is better to stay in a nice hotel and pay the cab to the church. We got up early and went to the church that was a few blocks away, it was totally worth it; we found a beautiful landscape and a very beautiful church; we stayed all morning walking around, because the church is in the middel of the mountain, and taking pictures and we left at noon for the border with Ecuador. The cab to Rumichaca (the name of the border) charged 12.000 pesos; we went to the controls for leaving Colombia, we were asked for our passport and Pasado Judicial (the colombian document that says that we dont have any kind of legal issues in Colombia). We had lunch there for 3.500 pesos and walked the bridge to get to the Ecuador controls; it didn’t take long and we got a cab to Tulcan, the first town in Ecuador, where we would take the bus for Quito. The cab charged 3.50 dollars (Ecuador’s currency is US dollars), the trip lasted 20 min. At Tulcan, we hadn’t gotten out the cab when two guys at the entrance of the station, yelling !A Quito¡ !A Quito¡ (To Quito) grabbed our backpacks and put them in a bus and we followed them; in the blinking of an eye we found ourselves leaving for Quito, a 5 hr journey from Tulcan, in the stinkiest, oldest, ugliest and most uncomfortable bus; we just didn’t even had the time to say NO to the guys and getting inot the station, but well…. now we know better. The ride cost $4.80. Those 5 hrs were the worst so far; we took the bus at 2-2.30pm and arrived at 8pm, when we got out we were so tired that we wanted to catch an airplane back to Bogota. In Quito, we were welcomed by some distant relatives of my friend; they were very nice and made us feel a lot better. That night, thinking about the delays and the discomfort, we decided to fly to Lima the next day, ’cause Quito-Lima is a 32 hr journey and we didn’t want to spend this time in a bus that’s falling apart.
The next day (that means the 29th) we went early to an agency to buy the ticket but we had a lot of problems like the price that increased every hour, and the imposibility to buy it ’cause the computer system of the agency shuted down at noon, and the absence of a selling office at the airport so on and so on….. The last option we had, was to take a bus to the border and fly from there, but ’cause it was election day in Peru, we didn’t find a fligth from Tumbes (the border) but from Piura (5 hrs away); we chose that option, ’cause it saved us half the time and half the money. We spent the afternoon doing a very fast city tour of Quito, guided by our hosts; we found Quito to be a very nice, small capital, the historic center is beautiful and walking around is definitively a must. At 10 pm we took the bus; the Panamericana company charged us $10 dollars each from Quito-Huaquillas (the Ecuador side of the border) and it took us 14 hrs to get there; the bus was comfortable and it was a nice trip. In the bus we met 2 girls from Lima and with them we crossed the border. The border between Ecuador and Peru is not very nice; is something like a market that is 3 blocks long, very crowed and an easy place to get robbed. We changed some dollars for soles, the peruvian currency ( 1 USdollar= 3.3 soles) and the 4 of us rented some kind of cart pushed by a guy, where we put our luggage and we crossed the border like that; it cost us 3 dollars . When we got to the peruvian side of the border, Tumbes, we grabbed a cab that took us through inmigration to the town for 10 soles; the two girls took us to the bus company they were using to get to Lima so we could buy a ticket to Piura. The company was Oltursa, and we paid 25 soles to get to Piura; we went to have lunch in a restaurant called “LAs terrazas” and had cebiche and jalea, it was delicious and, despite all the comments we had heard, it didn’t make us sick or anything, it was very nice and with the 2 big plates the 4 of us ate ’til we were full. The two dishes plus the soda (inka kola, off course) it was 33 soles.
We grabbed our bus at 2pm and we found a very very comfortable bus, with 2 floors, wide chairs, dinner included and very good service. If we had known that, we would have taken the bus ’til Lima, but we had already paid $120 dollars, with Lan Peru, to get from Piura to Lima. We arrived at Piura at 6.15pm and catched our plane at 8pm; due to a stop in Chiclayo we reached Lima at 11.45 pm, so we got to the place we were staying at 12.30am. The sister of my mom’s best friend welcomed us in Lima, we slept there; the next day Clara and her husband took us around Lima, a nice city if you go to the nice neighbourhoods ;), Miraflores and Barranco are very nice, in front of the beach and with a lot of places to hang out.
On monday 1st, we started the real trip, the one organized by the agency; they only made the arrangements (like reservations, bus tickets, etc.) but we continued traveling alones. We left Lima heading Pisco at 3.30 am, from Pisco to Paracas ( a ten minutes ride) at 7.30; we stayed at El mirador hotel, that charges 130 soles double-room, but is worth it ’cause is very nice, clean and breakfast is included; we took the boat to Ballestas island at 10 am and it was a great 1 hr ride, then we went to the Paracas reservation, a big dessert with beautiful landscapes. We ate lunch at one of the restaurants of the park, we had cebiche (nice, but not as good as the one in Tumbes) for 25 soles. The next day we left for Ica, a very very boring place, except for the wine makers and the oasis of Huacachina where you can practice dessert sports, but we arrived at noon and we couldn’t practice sandboard or ride the buggie car ’cause you can only do it in the morning or afternoon, ’cause otherwise the sand is very hot. The same day we went to Nasca and stayed at the “Maison Suisse” a very nice hotel rigth across Aeroica, the airplane company that takes turist over the lines; the next morning we took the flight, a good advice is not to have breakfast or probably you’ll see it back during the flight, it is also good to take a pill for not throwing up (don’t know the name in english but in spanish you can ask for any “antihemético”); flying over the lines of Nasca was a great experience, the girl in the other seat got a little sick, but for us it was wonderful!!. That night we took the bus to Arequipa, we took the company Ormeño, not so nice by the way, dinner was included but it wasn’t very nice, there was no air-conditioning in the 1st floor and the audio of the movie didn’t work.
We arrived at Arequipa at 4am and slept in the Hotel Las Torres de Ugarte, a very nice place, 40 soles double room, breakfast included, one of the best hotels we stayed at. In the afternoon, we took a city tour and we found Arequipa to be a very beautiful city; a lot of volcanoes, alpahacas (cousin of Llamas) and quinua (the inca rice). All the city is made form sillar stone, a white volcanic rock that makes Arequipa “the white city”; we went to the different churches, that was a little disappointing ’cause all of them were destroyed in earthquakes and rebuilt not so long ago, but anyway….. We also went to the house of the ‘founder’ of Arequipa, a very nice hacienda; then we for a horseback riding, a lot of fun. Finally that day we went to the monastery of Santa Catalina, so big is almost a small town. The next day we left very early for the Valle del Colca, we went in a tour with 8 more turists; on our way, we stop at ‘el mirador de los andes’ where you can see a lot of volcanoes and snow peaks from the Cordillera de los Andes, the ‘mirador’ is 4.910 mts high, so it makes your head feel funny; you can drink ‘mate de coca’ or take pills for altitude sickness, but I don’t think that’s necessary, ’cause you only feel a little dizzy.
We arrived at Chivay to spend the night; in the afternoon, they went to thermal baths, but we decided to stay and do some shopping. At night we had dinner all together in a local restaurant, where they had a show of local dances. It was fun, we ate alpahaca steak, not bad at all, a little tasteless but very healthy. The next morning, we got up very early to go to the ‘mirador del cóndor’, but we weren’t lucky and we didn’t see any condors, but still, the landscape was very nice. The same day we returned to arequipa, we shopped a little, and grabbed our bus to Cusco at 6pm; we took Cruz del sur, excellent bus company. We arrived at Cusco at six and we had until 2pm to adjust to the altitude (3300 mts aprox) and we started our city tour with a group of people from Spain (not very nice by the way…) we were walking the koricancha and one of the ladies fainted, we had to leave her with the nurse and continue our tour. We went to the cathedral, vey nice, to sacsaywaman, wonderful, to puca pucara, great, these last two are inca ruins. That night we went to the ‘crossed keys bar’ and had a pisco sour, great way to end our day. The next day, we left for the sacred valley of the incas, we visited Pisaq and their market, huge, cheap but an hour and a half is not enough….. Then, to Ollantaytambo, great inca city, very interesting. We had lunch in Urubamba, a little expensive and not so great; finally, we went to Chincheros and visited the church and the small market. The city tour and sacred valley you do it witha single ticket. By the way, in Cusco we stayed at the Hotel Casablanca, lousy hotel, the hot water came and went, the food was expensive and not nice, the internet was 3 times the price it was crossing the street, it wasn’t so close to the center, the rooms had a funny smell and the cable sucked; overall, bad place to stay.
On the 9th we left for the inca trail (4d-3n) vey early; our group was small: our guide, a canadian, a peruvian and the 2 of us. We started walking at noon and arrived for the nigth at 6 pm. That night, maybe because of the food or the water, I was really really sick, throwing up all nigth; the next day I was totally dehydrated and I couldn’t go on; we decided to go back to Cusco, ’cause I couldn’t walk like that. I was very sad, but also felt so sick that I just wanted to sleep; the way back was horrible, long and I almost didn’t make it. We slept that night in Cusco and made all the arrangements to take the train to Aguas calientes from Ollantaytambo the next night, so we met with our group in Machu Pichu the morning of the 12th. Machu Pichu was great, great, marvelous, totally worth it by foot or train. That night we hit the clubs with our new peruvian friend (the guy from the trail) and had a blast.
The next day, we grabbed the inka express to Puno, a bus that takes you through a serie of turistic stops in the way, like the temple of wyracocha, a famous church (dont remember the name) and others. We left at 7 am and arrived at Puno at 5 pm, we stayed ant the Puno Terra, great great, and again, great hotel. The next day we went to the Titicaca lake, Uros island, and Taquile island, great tour, great landscapes but not too much to tell. The next day we left for Cusco again, did some shopping, and the 16th we grabbed our plane back to Bogota. WONDERFUL EXPERIENCE.

Useful tips:
Always buy your souvenirs from the local people at small markets, the big stores will charge you double or triple and the person who made the souvenir will get the same price.
If you’re plannig to buy sweaters or scarfs of alpahaca, you have to check that the fabric is soft on both sides, not furry on one and hard on the other; everyone says everything is alpahaca. For alpahaca is best to buy at Alpahacatex, in Arequipa, very good quality and not so expensive.
For Pisco (typical drink), buy it at Ica; the best taste and price is at Vistalegre, a wine maker. For cebiche, you shouldn’t eat it away from the beach, ’cause you dont know how they transport the fish; try at Tumbes, Paracas or Lima. For Alpahaca shop in Arequipa, try to leave Cusco free from shopping, ’cause is very expensive and you dont find anythign new.
Always bargain with the locals, they will give you a higher price in case you say yes, but you can always get 25% less.
In Cusco, Puno and all high places, try to spend a few hours to adjust to the altitude. Remember this, specially, if you come form a low city. Drink a lot of mate de coca, for everythig, altitude, energy, stomach aches, etc.
And ENJOY ENJOY ENJOY.