Review of Peru

As today is my last full day in Peru I thought it would be a good moment to sum up my time here. I have got to be honest and say that I didn't know too much about the country before I arrived, in fact the only things I knew about Peru were; Machu Picchu, Lake Titicaca and that the deepest, darkest parts are where Paddington Bear calls home. Sadly, I have seen no sign of any wellie-wearing bears (I obviously haven't gone to deep or dark enough places) but I have visited the other two plus I have done other fun things too.

Machu Picchu was incredible and it's amazing to think it was only rediscovered 101 years ago, going on to Lake Titicaca and seeing how the Uros people live was something I'll never forget and I had a great time making my own chocolate in Cusco. I also loved learning that Peruvian rubbish lorries play ice cream van-style music as they go about in the evenings to remind people to put their rubbish out!

Peru is also much bigger than I thought it was so I did not enjoy the long bus journeys over many hours and hundreds of miles, my knees were not happy with me after those. I would recommend Peru to any future travellers out there though, a great country.

Did You Know?: The photo was taken at a massive convent in the city of Arequipa. It is so big that they say it is a city within a city and it even has it's own streets inside! This photo is of a classroom that was used for centuries by the nuns to teach the poor girls of Arequipa how to read, write and count for free.

Haircut

You would think there would be huge potential for something to go horribly wrong when going for a haircut in a Peruvian barbers where nobody spoke English, in fact there is probably a joke somewhere that starts that way. However, I managed to get the first haircut of my trip done by a nice guy called José for only 15 soles (£3.50) and I left still looking like me!

It may be a little shorter than I would normally go for and the speed at which José set about my head with sharp instruments put me a little on edge but considering the language barrier I'm pretty pleased/relieved.

In other news, I am back in Lima for a couple of days before Brazil and that means no more altitude-sickness tablets on this trip. Wooo! I am glad they prevented me getting altitude sickness but I will not miss the side-effect of painful pins and needles in my heels that woke me up and wouldn't go away no matter how much I wandered about.

Grim Day In Cusco

It's a pretty wet and miserable day in Cusco today. I think I will spend it mostly in the dry, planning what to do on Sunday (Also known as Brazil: Day One). Not long now until a new country!

One Direction Watch {Peru}

Following up on my promised side project to see if One Direction really have conquered the world I can report 1D have made themselves known in Peru! To be fair, it was on MTV along with lots of other English language songs but it's better than nothing (Depending on your opinion of One Direction).

The McDonalds Rule!

Earlier in my trip I mentioned my 'McDonalds Rule' and I feel I should explain this rule that I made up myself. It has two parts to it and includes any fast-food place found in the UK like Burger King, KFC, Pizza Hut etc not just McDonalds;

Part One: I am only allowed to have a maximum of one McDonalds/Burger King/Pizza Hut etc meal in any country I visit, no matter how long I am there.

Part Two: I am not allowed to choose anything that can be found on the menu back in the UK so that means no McChicken Sandwiches, Whoppers etc etc.

I think it´s pretty good rule, even if I do say so myself, so feel free to use it yourself next time you´re abroad. It´ll mean you can still have a yummy, treat but also try something new at the same time!

I used it today because we had a really long day travelling from Puno to Arequipa on the bus yesterday and Nads got really ill so, after not eating very much at all yesterday, we just wanted something cheap and cheerful that would fill us up. I decided to have a chicken pieces meal which felt like I'd smuggled a KFC into a McDonalds! I also had a Milky Way McFlurry that was made with an American Milky Way which is basically a Snickers without the nuts. This McDonalds is also the first place I have seen vinegar on my trip and you could pour some into the little cups like you can with ketchup back home, yum!

Lake Titicaca & The Uros People

Today I visited one of the most famous lakes in the world, Lake Titcaca. It is so famous because it is the largest high-elevation lake on the planet (It is 3,812m above sea level) and it is the place where the Inca people believed the world was created.

After about 30mins on a boat we arrived at some of the many floating islands of Los Uros. These islands are incredible and made by the Uros people with just the reeds that grow in the lake. The Uros people used to live on the land but, centuries ago, they lost a war with the Inca and were forced on to the water and have lived there ever since. People get about by boat and there is even an island with a school and another with a hospital! I travelled across to another island on a traditional reed boat that looked very similar to those used by the Ancient Egyptians and it was great fun.

Did You Know?: The islands are about 2m thick, last for 10-15 years and take a couple of months to build from scratch. Most are about the size of half a full-size football pitch and have 3-5 families living on them.

Rubbish

This is a photo of some of the many bits of litter I saw that had been thrown into the jungle on the way back from Machu Picchu. I also saw lots of tiny bits of plastic washed up on a beach that turtles use to lay their eggs on at Mayan ruins in Mexico (It would have broken off the masses of plastic floating in the sea).

The saddest thing is that these bits of plastic will take longer to break down and disappear than the age of the sites that I have visited!

I am going to make sure that I take more care to recycle my plastics when I get back home. If you want to learn more about recycling so that you can keep the planet cleaner ask your school eco-leader (That's Miss Townsend if you go to Weobley Primary).

The Scariest River I Have Ever Seen

I thought I should just post a photo of Rio Urubamba, the river that runs past the town we're staying in. I have never seen such a scary river in my life, it is so loud and rough!

It is one of few times I have looked at something and thought if it came down to 'Human v Mother Nature' then Mother Nature would win, no question. I made sure I got over the footbridge as quickly as I could!

Machu Picchu

Today was a long day! We travelled up to the top of Machu Picchu which is one of the 7 New Wonders Of The World (Including Chichen Itza, I'll have visited five of them by the time I get back) and there was a lot of walking in both sunshine and pouring rain!

Machu Picchu is a famous city that was lived in by Incas hundreds of years ago in The Sacred Valley and it is unusual because it is built on the top of a mountain in The Andes. There are two parts of it; the bit behind me in the photo is where everyone lived and there is also another part that was used for farming crops and is made of lots of flat levels built into the mountainside (They look like giant steps). I also spotted some wild llamas and chinchillas as I wandered around which was cool.

Did You Know?: All of the houses at Machu Picchu were built in a certain direction so that they got the most amount of sunshine each day. By building them into different levels it also meant that one house never cast a shadow on another!

One Direction Watch

I forgot to tell you all I am keeping an eye out to see if One Direction really have conquered the planet like we hear on the news!

In Mexico there were definite signs with magazines about them and T-shirts with their logo on for sale in shops. So far in Peru...nothing (But I did hear Psy´s ´Gangnam Style´in Lima)

1D need to step it up in Peru! 

Cuy

Tonight, I finally found a restaurant selling guinea pig and tried it. I must point out, before I get banned from all the pet shops at home, that guinea pigs are a lot like wild rabbits in the British countryside and are very common in the wild here. They are a local delicacy in Peru which means lots of local people eat them (Like wild rabbit in some parts of the UK).

I bet you are wondering; How did it taste? I have to say that I wasn't that keen, I probably won't have it again. The taste is hard to describe but the texture was just like dark chicken meat. I also had a piece of alpaca on my plate which is the Peruvian equivalent of eating lamb (They use alpacas for their wool and meat too) and that was delicious. It was less stringy and more steak-like than lamb but tasted quite similar.

Did You Know?: The Peruvian word for guinea pig is 'cuy' pronounced "coo-oy".

Chocolate Making!

Today, we went on a chocolate making course at the Chocolate Museum in Cusco and it was so much fun. A lot of you know how much I like chocolate!

This part of the world is very famous for it's chocolate because it is one of the places on the planet where the cocao tree grows (It can grow over 15m tall in the jungle!) and this is where you get the cocao bean from. In the photo you can see me and Nadia working hard to create a paste from the cocao beans we roasted ourselves. It was hard work but the teacher decided I made the best paste in the whole group and I got a prize! I was given a whole bag of cocao bean husks which you put in boiling water to make chocolate tea, it is really nice but unfortunately I can't bring any back because it is part of a plant and you aren't allowed to take things like that into other countries.

I can't wait to try the chocolate I made later.

Did You Know?: The Mayans invented a hot chocolate drink but did not invent chocolate like most people think. Hard, edible chocolate wasn't invented until the cocao beans arrived back in Europe with the Spanish travellers that explored South America.

It's Raining. We're Up High.

Good evening, today we caught our flight to Cusco. We are now staying in a city amongst Peruvian mountains and it is a fair bit colder and wetter! Today, we had the first day of rain on our trip so we got out the pac-a-macs and went exploring (We are told the weather has been getting worse the last few days and February is normally the wettest month in Cusco so I would be surprised if the weather get's better before then!).

We had an amazing burger for lunch, it was absolutely HUGE! We were recommended the restaurant by friends of ours that were here only a few weeks a go and we weren't disappointed. It was hard to get back to our hostel afterwards, which is pretty far up the hillside. This isn't just to do with our full stomachs though, Cusco is over 3000m above sea-level which makes it very high. That means, for people like us who are used to living much lower, the lower amount of oxygen in the air makes it harder for our bodies to cope. We don't have trouble breathing (Unless you get altitude sickness which we are taking pills to avoid) but it does mean that you get tired out really quickly and walking up just 10 steps can leave you out of breath. The thing is the route back from city centre is about 30+ steps!

Our hostel is really nice and the bed is really comfortable. I'm pretty sure that I'll sleep well tonight!

Lima Lunch

Today we decided to make this little lunch out of different Peruvian foods we've bought.

The drink: Inca Kola. Actually made by Coca-Cola this is incredibly sugary! I can't really describe the flavour in any way other than if you asked Coca-Cola to make a flavour for the colour yellow it would taste like this.

The Crisps: Someone has stolen my business idea from when I was 10 years old and rolled it out in Peru! This one packet of crisps has four different types of crisps inside it (Normal crisps, Doritos, Nik-Nak style cheesy crisps and some called Tor-Tees). Awesome.

On The Plate: Papa Rellena. A traditional snack popular in Chile and Peru. Think of a pasty mixed with a potato croquette and you'll be close. It's fried mashed potato around meat, onion, boiled egg and olives.

Maths Question:
Can work out how much this meal cost in pounds? We paid about 12 nuevo soles and there are 4 neuvo soles to £1.

Arrived In Peru

Have arrived safely in Peru (Our rucksacks were the first bags on the luggage carousel too!). The city seems huge. Certainly the biggest place we've visited yet.

There are lots of cool birds flying about. There are some massive, black eagle-like ones hovering and lurking on buildings, some that look like mini pigeons and sound like frogs and also a flock of parakeets will fly overhead squaking every now and again.

Have spotted signs like the one in the photo along roads near the sea (Including just outside our hostel) which I find interesting. As we are near the Pacific Ocean, and so The Pacific Ring Of Fire too, the area is a lot more likely to have an earthquake (Which is the cause of a tsunami) than when we were on the other side of the continent in Mexico so they need evacuation routes like these planned if an alarm goes off.