Adventures on the Caribbean Coast

We spent a couple of days relaxing in Lima and taking on much needed supplies (2 new surfboards). Lima is a huge city, home to something like 8 million people in the city and its surrounds. We stayed in Miraflores which is a apparently the ritziest suburb in Lima and where most travelers stayed. The city itself is quite plain and covered in alot of dust but it's a good place to visit for a couple of days. We watched the changing of the guard at the local palace and managed to avoid getting tangled up in a big teachers strike which brought the city centre to a grinding halt for a couple of hours.


From Lima we caught a flight up to San Jose, Costa Rica. After getting stung $US115 by TACA airlines to carry my surfboards we were stoked to find they had been taken off the plane in Caracas and had not made it to our destination. They did however turn up 4 days later much to my relief. San Jose welcomed us with some hot steamy weather and a tropical downpour which was only the 3rd time we had seen rain since leaving NZ.We spent a night in San Jose then caught a bus out to Puerto Viejo on the Carribean coast.

Puerto Viejo is a small beachside town with a bit of a reputation as a party town, so there were lots of backpackers around. The Caribbean had a really cool vibe, the people are mostly of Afro Caribbean descent and are so laid back. They were brought in as slaves to work on the banana and coffee plantations years ago and once slavery was abolished many stayed on making the Caribbean coast their home. They speak a Caribbean Creole language which is derived from English but we couldn't understand a word of it. Luckily most people around here spoke English and Spanish too so it was pretty easy to communicate. We found some good places to eat, the slow cooked Caribbean stews were really tasty and we found a coffee shop that had the most amazing iced coconut coffee. The coffee here is so good. The beaches around here were nice but a little under-whelming, especially due to the fact that most were quite polluted. Definitely a nice relaxing place to visit though.

There were heaps of these crabs running round


From Puerto Viejo we caught a bus down through endless banana plantations to the Costa Rica-Panama border and crossed over a very relaxed border crossing. We turned up at 11:30am to find the Panama office closed for lunch so had to wait a while before we could enter. The crossing is pretty funny, you have to walk across this dodgy bridge which is really slippery and has lots of good holes for you to fall through. No OSH laws round here. The locals seem to cross at will from side to side. There were kids on our bus who hopped off and walked across the bridge with us to go to school in Panama.

Our destination was the Bocos Del Toro islands, a small group of islands in the Caribbean just over the border. Although we were in a different country, the vibe was just the same, very laid back. The islands are really green, surrounded by blue water and urchin infested coral reefs. We stayed at this great hostel run by a German Lady, it's called called Hostel Hansi if you ever venture to these parts. Definitely the nicest place we have stayed on this trip.

Anna had been really eager to learn to dive and it was really cheap here, only $US210 for a 3 day course and 2 free dives once you're done. So Anna went diving leaving me free to surf for 3 days. Pity the swell was tiny but it was good to finally get back in the water again. The water was so warm 28 degrees°C and I found a nice little beach break with some small waves which I spent a couple of days at. Anna really enjoyed her dive course and saw a few stingrays, a sea horse and lots of brightly coloured fish.

We had a really enjoyable few days relaxing here then headed back to San Jose. Our boat trip back to the mainland took us up these old jungle lined canals used for years to carry bananas out to waiting ships. They are not really in use much anymore, but we still saw the odd local with a boatload of banana's making his way through the canals.



We arrived safely back in San Jose to more warm pouring rain. We had a brief look around the city which is right in the middle of a festival celebrating cows. There are these decorated cow statues everywhere ranging from cow strippers to cow clowns.







This cow wasn't scared to show her udders off!!


This anatomically correct Mannequin also didn't mind showing hers


Tomorrow we are heading off to the Pacific coast, swell forecast looks good so should get some waves.

Welcome to the jungle

Not wanting to waste any time after the Inca trail, we left for the Amazon the next morning. It was a bit of an early start; 5am we hopped on the bus and headed to Manu a national reserve in the Amazon. Our first stop after our 8hr bus ride was at the cloud forest where we were to spend the night. The forest here was really dense and dark green in colour and has amazing orchids. We managed to spot Peru´s national bird the cock of the rock. A red bird, that doesn´t really look like it has a beak.

The next day we reached the river we would spend many days on during the following week. We did get some exercise in with some rafting down the river. The rafting was kept pretty simple our only command was paddle, there weren´t huge rapids but it was great to get a different perspective of the forest. Floating down the river was quite relaxing, we had been assured earlier that their were no piranhas or caiman in this part of the river!!! With that news, we all jumped in for a swim. No one got bitten by anything which was a relief.

We had great accomodation at a lodge in the bush. We had been envisaging camping in the jungle, instead we had great little cabins. Some of the lodges we went to were just lit by candle light, others had generators but it was very cool being in the great outdoors.

The next day we started the day by getting a different perspective of the forest with a canopy tour. It was alot of of fun zooming along the ziplines. The longest line we went along was 110 metres, so we got a taste of what it might feel like to be a monkey up in the canopy. Afterwards we headed further upriver, doing some wildlife spotting along the way. We managed to spot black and white caiman, lots of turtles, parrots, maccaws and the biggest rodent in the world the capybara.

We started early the next morning as dawn is the best time to see the animals as we headed down the river to the Manu reserve. There was heaps of bird life, not just the bright coloured birds that you imagine but herons, wood peckers, humming birds, falcons, eagles etc. On our night walks it was a bit harder to spot the wildlife but we did come across the bullet ant whose bite apparently ensures that you will be in agony for 24 hours. The bamboo rat that barks like a dog and the leaf ants that actually farm fungus to eat.

The wildlife in the Manu reserve was definitely more abundent. We managed to see the giant otter which lives in the Salvador lake in the reserve. They about the size of a small seal and catch approximately 5kg of fish a day each to survive. We had fun watching them catch their breakfast before the caiman came looking for a snack.

We also visited a local village where Phil tried his hand with a bow and arrow. He had some good shots but the accuracy wasn´t quite there for a William Tell shot. That day we visited some of the mature forest where the trees were just massive, almost wall like. As we walked through the jungle we were surround by monkeys in the trees above. We were lucky enought to see squirral monkeys, capaucin monkeys, wooley monkeys and the howler monkeys. It was so cool seeing them swing about in the trees, they weren´t nearly as graceful as I imagined they would be.

On our trip back from the reserve we all had our eyes peeled to see the elusive Jaguer. We had spotted a few prints along the way but sadly that was the closest we would come. We did have a very near citing though. We spotted capybara and were all very focused on the large rodent which as it turned out, so to was the Jaguer across the river. By the time we realised the Jaguar was gone and it was just it footprints that remained. Our boat driver saw it but none of the tourists did. The locals are amazing at spotting animals.

The last day we spent in Manu, we visited a clay lick where the parrots go to eat clay to neutralise the acid from the food they eat from the jungle. It was really amazing to see as they don´t go onto the clay one at a time they wait till there is a large group of them before they go to the claylick. It was really cool seeing all the brightly coloured parrots on their way to the claylick.

It was then time for us to take the long journey back to Cusco. The journey takes a bit longer up river as the river level is quite low so at times we had to push the boat. Or I should say Phil and the other boys would get out and push the boat. As our guide would only let the boys push the boat, proving there are some good types of discrimination!!!

Superhikers

Cusco was our base for the next few days before we left to go on the Inca trail. We arrived during Inti Raymi, the second biggest festival in South America. Cusco was crazy, packed with people, locals and tourists alike. Each day they had elaborate parades through town dressed in brightly coloured clothes which made for quite a sight when contrasted against the stone streets and buildings. The festival goes back hundreds of years and is celebrated each June, reaching it´s peak on the 24th when they sacrifice a Llama and march up to an old inca site called Saqsaywaman (pronounced sexywaman!!) for more festivities.

We also visited some impressive Inca ruins in a little town just out of Cusco called Pisac. We were there on a Sunday so got to see the local markets in full swing and found a little place that sold the most amazing cheesecake. We ate way too much and then headed out to see the ruins which were an hour´s hike up a steep hill in blazing sunshine. We soon regretted stuffing ourselves with cheesecake, should have done that after the walk. The ruins were very impressive and built in an amazing spot with spectacular views down the valley.





Our Inca trail started with a 4am pickup from our hostel and a bus ride out to the start of the trail. Definitely not how the Inca´s started their pilgrimage from Cusco but we weren´t complaining!! We had a great group of people on our tour, 10 Americans and us 2 Kiwi´s. To carry our equiptment we had 18 porters. These guys were amazing, they are pretty small in stature but incredibly fit and strong. Made us feel pretty pathetic when they breezed past us laden down with over 20kg of weight on their backs. Our guide, Casiano was great, very patient and knowledgeable. He called our group the ¨Superhikers¨ which was a bit of a contradiction but we were happy to keep the name. It became out group greeting whenever we would see another member of our tour along the trail.

The first days hiking was pretty easy which was a bit of a relief as Phil had been struck down with food poisioning the day before. Pretty crazy that we had gone 2 months with no problems then the day before I get sick. We camped out in a lovely spot with views over the valley to a glacier topped mountain. After happy hour which consisted of lots of Milo and mountains of popcorn, we were served up the most amazing dinner. The food on the Llama Path tour blows your mind, enough food to feed an army and it all tasted so good. Guess thats why we needed 18 porters! Breakfast the next morning consisted of pancakes, porridge, toast and more Milo. We hadn´t seen Milo in South America yet so it was a bit of a novelty having Milo with powdered NZ milk to warm us up in the Andes.

Day 2 started off steep and stayed that way for half the day. We ascended up to an altitude of 4200m to dead womans pass. No women died here though, apparently it looks like a woman lying down from a distance but we hadn´t chewed enough Coca leaves to see the resemblence. Once you reach the pass, you descend down some steep Inca built steps for about 700m where we met up with our porters who had packed up our overnight campsite, passed us on the trail and cooked us a 3 course lunch. They must think we are pretty hopeless. After lunch you go uphill again passing a very scenic inca ruin along the way. We started getting into the cloud forrest here, making for a quite dramatic change in both surroundings and temperature. The forrest was really beautiful, home to some pretty amazing looking orchids and lush greenery which was nice to see after weeks spent in some rather barren landscapes. We visited another even more impressive Inca fortress late on day 2. This place was built into the side of a cliff and had a really impressvie aquaduct system. The views from here were amazing when the clouds cleared. We arrived at camp pretty exhausted after what was definitely the hardest days hiking.




Day 3 started off early once again. The weather had cleared up overnight and we were greeted with the most spectacular views down the valley. The walking this day was pretty easy and passed through another amazing feat of Incan engineering, tunnels through solid rock. We arrived at our camp just after lunch and visited another Incan site. This place had the most amazing terraces which the Inca´s used to experiment with growing different types of vegetables. The stone baths here still had a working plumbing system with running water. After another huge meal we put on a show for our porters which consisted of 4 different acts from animal puppetry to the americans singing their University fight songs to imitating pan flutes using beer bottles then the girls did the rocky horror time walk which the porters joined in on. Yet again I think the porters thought there was something wrong with us, altitude sickness maybe??



We woke up at 3am to start our walk up to the sun gate where we would enter Machu Picchu. We were the first group there and were greetd with a beautiful view of thick cloud so no fairytale view of Macchu Picchu which was a little disappointing. The cloud did clear slowly though so by the time we reached Machu Picchu we got to take in the specatacular sights. Phil climbed up Wayna Picchu, which gave a spectacular views of the ruins and surrounding area. Machu Picchu is built in a very dramatic site surrounded by steep mountains and a rugged river. There is so much said about Machu Picchu that it would be easy to think the place is overrated but its not. The scale and quality of the buildings is incredible. The Incas were a truly amazing society and the structures they left behind have survived multiple earthquakes but sadly alot have been damaged by treasure seeking humans and irresponsilbe tourists climbing on them. The trail was an amazing way to see Machu Picchu and other ruins which are just as impressive. Our tour company Llama Path was great and we were lucky enough to have a like minded group of easy going people to share the experience with.