First days in a new country can often be long and tedious affairs and our first day in Peru was no exception. Firstly, our timing for the border crossing wasn’t great as it was just before the Easter weekend which meant a high volume of people transiting between Chile & Peru in both directions and because the border took “one-stop” to a new level (no matter your direction, everyone used the same counters & officials), it took us a solid 2,5 hours to cross.
Once free of the border the first priorities were obtaining vehicle insurance, hunting down an ATM and obtaining a local SIM card so we headed for the closest town of Tacna, roughly 60km away. It had quite a pretty town square and after circling it a few times in a futile attempt to find a parking spot we navigated the narrow streets leading off it and parked a couple of blocks away. In towns we are always wary of leaving Mr Jones unattended on the street, so Tania stayed in him while Stuart went off hunting. A few hours later we had money, data on our phone and were on our way back out of town heading towards the coast and hopefully somewhere to pass away the time over Easter. We had decided that we didn’t want to be on the roads over the Easter weekend when perhaps there would be even more crazy drivers than normal on the roads.
Arena Blanca just south of the town of ILO had exactly what we were looking for, a large beach on which you could park for free and a couple of restaurants behind the beach where for a “Nuevo Peru Sole” or two you could use the bathroom and take a shower. During the day the beach was busy and one or two families did camp for a night or two but incredibly not once did we get subjected to what is usually the norm at such locations in South America: competing boom boxes coming from cars late into the night. Curiosity did get the better of one or two Peruvians over the course of the weekend and they would come over for a chat with us and Mr Jones but in general our first impressions were that they are much more reserved than Argentinians (who are more reserved than Uruguayan’s and of course nobody can be as outgoing as Brazilians).
After 3 nights on the beach we decided to move a little further north to the town of Mollendo, in anticipation of Easter coming to an end, and another free beach camp where you just paid for the use of ablutions but first we stopped in ILO for lunch and our first taste of ceviche. Ceviche is fresh raw white fish which is pickled in lime juice and spiced with chilli, it is served with lots of onion and cilantro. It has very fresh taste and was quite delicious.
In the meantime, we had learned that Easter does not extend to Monday in Peru and so after a night on the beach in Mollendo we turned Mr Jones nose east and headed inland to the historical town of Arequipa. Arequipa sits at a relatively high altitude of 2400m and so the road from the coast through the desert is naturally a twisty-turny, slow affair and it was along this that we got to have our first experience of the largely kamikaze nature of Peruvian drivers – they may be reticent when face to face but they certainly aren’t when behind the wheel of a motorised contraption.
Arequipa is an ancient colonial city dating back to the 16th century and the name is derived from the indigenous Quechua language to mean “Let’s stop here”. Little did we know how much that would apply to us.
As we had yet to do a proper grocery shop since arriving in Peru our first port of call was a very modern and sophisticated mall with secure parking for Mr Jones but before we got to start the hunt for groceries we got distracted by a “sunglass hut”. Living the lifestyle we do, good quality sunglasses are essential but they also take quite a beating and ours where definitely needing to be retired so we popped in to see what the pricing was like. As luck would have it they had a special running, provided you bought two pairs of glasses (which we intended to do), so shortly thereafter we emerged with some nice new glasses.
The supermarket was massive and of course it takes ages to figure out the layout, plus convert pricing, and so it took us a couple of hours to get through. On the positive side the variety of fruit and veg was huge and reasonably priced but sadly any savings there are going to be more than offset by the cost of wine and red meat. You know you are in trouble if the red meat has a security tag on it! By the time we had scoured all the aisles it was approaching 2pm and we were both a little hungry so Stuart suggested grabbing a bite to eat in the cafeteria style food area inside the supermarket, it was busy with people and appeared well priced so seemed like a good choice.
Unfortunately that decision was to backfire on us in a big way a few hours later as we both got a severe case of food poisoning and spent the next two days being close friends with the toilet. Luck was however on our side, as for the first time in 10 days we were camped in a formal campsite with easy access to ablutions. It would have been a nightmare if we had been camped “wild”, as we had been doing prior to our arrival in Arequipa.
After our 3rd night we finally started to feel vaguely normal again and so headed out for an afternoon exploring the Plaza de Armas (said to be one of South Americas grandest) and the Monasterio de Santa Catalina, a convent which housed approximately 90 secluded nuns and 200 servants from the late 16th century until it opened its doors to the public in 1970. It has a huge complex of living areas (some of the flats even had private courtyards), areas for worship and prayer plus all the other aspects required in a closed off town, like bathing and cooking facilities. Novice nuns would enter the convent at the age of 12 (families paying up the equivalent of USD50k for them) and spend the first two years in practical isolation before becoming a nun and being able to mix and socialise with the other nuns. The only contact the nuns had with the outside world and their families was by speaking to them through a lattice type grill in the speaking rooms. These grills made it impossible for each party to see the other and all conversations were monitored by an independent nun to ensure they were appropriate. A very harsh existence in some ways but as we took the guided tour and afterwards wandered the narrow streets ourselves, we could also appreciate how tranquil and spiritual a life it must have been for the nuns.
After a couple more nights, we eventually felt it was safe enough to leave the safety of a campsite and its convenient ablutions, our intention was to slowly wander through the mountains all the while working our way towards Cusco. After a long climb out of Arequipa in which Mr Jones reached a new altitude record of nearly 4900m asl and then a slightly lesser descent we found ourselves above Colca canyon. This canyon is reputed to be one of the deepest in the world and at the point we camped was over 1200m deep! It was truly a spectacular sight which was enhanced even further by the many pretty alpine flowers all around the campsite.
Leaving Colca canyon we opted to take the back roads in the direction of Cusco which meant a day of high altitude driving as we spent most of the day above 4300m as we worked our way up and down valleys to finally arrive at the spectacular Tres Canones (a point where 3 canyons come together). Along the way we theoretically crossed over one of the most distant source rivers (Rio Hornillos) for the Amazon, which if true will be really cool as in roughly 6 months time we hope to be catching a vehicle barge down the Amazon when we visit the northern part of Brazil and so will “meet” this water again.
The driving through this part of Peru with all the valleys is spectacular but slow going and so with an average speed of only 30km/h we inched our way slowly to Cusco over the course of a few days.
Stuart had been to Cusco in the early 2000’s and remembered it as a rather attractive old Spanish colonial influenced town, so it was a bit of a shock to the system when we were initially faced with a large sprawling urban and industrial zone. Of course, back then he flew in and would have basically only seen the airport followed by a brief commute to the touristy historical area which he did have a very distinct memory of being full of touts trying to lure you into their restaurant.
That memory also included a bout of food poisoning just as we had had a week prior in Arequipa – in South America Peru is known for its variety of food and flavours but amongst travelers it is also known for sometimes the less than desirable after effects.
Perched high above the historical part of town in Cusco is a well-known overlanders campsite called Quinta Lala. Perhaps knowing that Stuart’s recollections of Cusco were its large colonial square, the GPS opted to take us right into the square and then via some very narrow, cobblestone alleys in order to get there. It was definitely not the easiest route and we were most grateful that Mr Jones is not any bigger than he is.
In the campsite was a wide range of overlanders from Chile, Germany, France and the USA and for the first time we started to meet people who were going in the general opposite direction to us, i.e. they were coming down from the North American continent. Many hours were spent chatting and exchanging information and experiences. In between we explored Cusco’s historical area, helped out a fellow landy owner with replacing his clutch slave cylinder and purchased tickets for Machu Pichu.
There are three possible ways to visit Machu Picchu: the first and definitely most common (plus most expensive) is to take a package from Cusco which will most likely include a night in the little town of Agua Calientes below the citadel. The second and definitely cheapest way is to park your vehicle at a small village called Hidroelectica which is roughly 10km downstream of Agua Calientes and to then walk along the train tracks to Agua Calientes. You can then either catch the shuttle bus up the mountain to Machu Picchu or if you are really wanting to do the experience as cheap as possible, you can hike up to the top. While this is an appealing option as it will save you well over USD250 per person, it was not an option we considered as the tendon issues in Tania feet prevent lengthy hikes/walks.
The third option and the one we opted for, is to drive roughly 2 hours from Cusco over into the Sacred Valley to the village of Ollaytantambo where you can then catch the train to Agua Calientes and as we discovered on our arrival, Ollaytantambo is a very pretty little village with its own set of quite spectacular Inca ruins.
As a bonus, we could “camp” in a secure parking area with nice clean toilet and shower which was just a few minutes’ walk from the station. This was was something we really appreciated when we hopped off the train at 6pm and others still had a 2hour bus ride back to Cusco. The risk of “iconic” tourist destinations is that they don’t live up to the hype, thankfully Machu Picchu did not disappoint and we had a great day out: The train ride there offered constantly changing views, the bus ride up the mountain was as steep as Stuart remembered and the citadel itself was spectacular.
By the end of the day we were quite tired and feeling our age, when it looked like the carriage we would be in for the train ride back to Ollytantambo was going to be filled with many noisy late-teen backpackers so were pleasantly surprised and most grateful when the conductor offered us an upgrade to the “vista” carriage. Along with slightly more spacious seating, it come with a free drink and some live entertainment which consisted of a “scary” ghoul and a fashion show by the staff of some very nice-looking alpaca garments. If the conductor had thought when giving us the upgrade we looked like a couple that would purchase a garment or two, he had misjudged our “look” as sadly apart from being impractical for travel we just don’t have space in Mr Jones for a cardigan you would wear in the city or to work.
After Machu Pichu we had decided it was time to head back towards the coast and hopefully some surfing but in order to do that we had to cross a few mountain ranges and in this part of the world that means a lot of ascending and descending. Over the course of two & half days and 600km, our ascending and descending statistics were as follows: ascend to 3600m – descend to 2000m; ascend to 4000m – descend to 1800m; ascend to 4500m – descend to 2800m; ascend to 3800m and finally descend to 600m above sea level. Naturally all of this means there were hardly any straight sections of road which is tiring for the driver but for a passenger that doesn’t like sheer drop-offs along the road it was even more tiring, not to mention nerve wracking! What is incredible to consider is that we had read that the Inca Postal runners used to deliver fresh fish, over these very some mountains, from the Pacific Ocean to their emperors who were based inland at places like Cusco and Machu Picchu.
The final descent from the altiplano delivers you once again back into the desert and in our case into the town and region of Nazca. This region is famous for its wide variety of stone geoglyphs covering the desert floor, many of which can only be viewed by taking a private airplane flight above them. Fortunately though, there are some on hillsides which are easily viewed and a couple of others can be viewed from a high-rise platform just next to the main road. Exactly how the intricate shapes were made (considering for most you need to be many hundreds of metres above them, to actually see the shape) and their meaning is cause for much speculation.
The lack of vegetation and dryness of the desert has been great for preserving archaeological treasures such as the Nazca lines for more than 2000 years but what it is also sadly very good at doing is exposing a scourge of modern society. In all our years of travel we have always come to observe how often dry and barren landscapes appear to have more litter and have concluded that part of the reason for this is that it “stands out” so much more in such a landscape but our experience in Peru is the worse we have ever seen. From our observations this is not just because the litter has nowhere to “hide” but because apart from regularly seeing items thrown from moving cars, whole bags of rubbish and waste are dumped on the side of the road in these desert areas. Peru can be proud of its ancient heritage and the efforts they make to preserve that but certainly not of its modern “litter culture”.
Heading north from Nazca, the PanAm drops the last few hundred metres down to the coast near the town of Pisco and never wanders too far from it for the next 250km on the way into Lima. Along the way we made a couple of stops at the surf spots of Cerro Azul and Punta Rocas. At Cerro Azul Stuart quickly discovered how easy it was too lose fitness over a 2,5month period and so when faced with a very long paddle and fairly large waves at Punta Rocas he chose to be an observer rather than a participant.
Below are links to the other pages that complement this travel diary post:
Gallery: Peru – South and central region (the pictures not included in the above travel diary)
Captain(s) Log: April 2023 (an insight into the daily highs and lows)
Practical Information: Peru (Simple insights into obtaining a SIM card, getting insurance, etc)
Overnight Locations (rough overview of our route for the month)
Maintenance Log (everything it takes to keep Mr Jones purring)
