Viva el Mexico (the last late blog update)

Last stop: Mexico! And as a CISV fan and participant, I knew Carlos there from our seminar camp in 2008. He lives in Mexico City with his lovely family, and together I stayed with them for almost two weeks.

Carlos with his mother, father and grandmother!

 

dsf

Roadtrippin´ from Cuzco to Lima

After a week in Cuzco it was time to continue moving west. Cuzco was an amazing city and I also met some amazing people there, so the thought of moving on on my own was a little sad. I also had to say goodbye to my good friend Friedrich  from Germany who I had been traveling together with for 1-2 weeks. Anyway, traveling alone and meeting new people also means that your roads are going to seperate at one time, even if it´s after a few days, weeks or months in some cases. It´s all a part of the experience I guess.

Janne (Norway), Paul (U.S.A.), Friedrich (Germany), Rachel (Switzerland) and some other guy I have to admit I don´t remember the name of. That also happens meeting new people all the time. Specially if you´re not 100% consentrated while everybody introduce themselves.

The street up to Loki Hostel, where I stayed during my week in Cuzco. Because of the altitude, it was quite an exercise walking up those stairs every day.

Friedrich - crazy travelpartner. But we had a blast together!

After Cuzco, I followed the known "gringo-trail" and traveled to Arequipa, or as it´s also called: The white city.

This policeman was a little too occupied with talking to his beautiful partner, than to keep an eye on the traffic.

Hostel Santa Catalina where I stayed

We also had a beautiful roof-terrace looking over parts of the city, all though not a very good view.

From Arequipa it is also very easy to travel to the Colca Canyon, which is only a few hours away by buss. It is more than twice as deep as the Grand Canyon, all though the walls here as not as vertical as those of the Grand Canyon. However, it is a big tourist-atraction in the area, and it seems like all the travel-agencies in Arequipa are well aware of this.

Heading for the Colca Canyon

Because I didn´t have many days in Arequipa, I traveled this road together with a group to make it a little easier. I have to say I was definately the youngest one in the group. But the people I met incredible, and we had alot of nice conversations during our small trip together. It´s nice to see that people of all ages are traveling! The oldest one here was a man from Brazil, 75 years.

Looking for condors

The condor view-point

After Arequipa and the Colca Canyon, I traveled to Paracas. I was told that this area was an excellent nature and biodiversity destination, and I went there to see the Islas Ballestas. This is a group of small islands, and it´s possible to see alot of animals there like penguins, fur seals and sea lions and a huge variety of birds.

On our way to the island, you could also see the Paracas Candelabra, also called the Candelabra of the Andes. It is a huge figure in the desert-hill of the Paracas peninsula, about 50 m long and carved up to 40 cm deep. How and why it was made is unknown, but the most popular theory is that a well-developed culture, long time before the inca sivilization, made it.

Islas Ballestas

Sadly I was placed on a boat with around 25 other people, all eager to take pictures of the animals. And with the guide being a little too loud and screaming, klapping his hands together to wake up the animals, this thip didn´t give me the peace and quite I was hoping for.

After talking to a couple of travelers going in the opposite direction than me, they all recomended me to stop by Huacachina. You can´t really explain what this place is, but it I´m giving it a try. Basically it is a village located in the Ica province, southwest in Peru, and it is built around a lagoon. When you look around, you´re surounded by desert, and it´s hard to believe that Ica town is only a few km away by car.
         Originally, this place was built for the higher class of Peru. However, today all people come here mainly for dune buggying and sandboarding,

My simple hostel-room, but this time I got a single room! It was very nice after beeing sleeping in dorms most of the time.

Bob Marley was proudly painted on the wall

As a great surprise, Stefano (Italy) and Kim (Australia) caught up with me here in Huacachina. I first met them in Cuzco, one day before I left. This is a funny common thing that happens when your following the "gringo-trail". You meet people in one city, keep moving by yourself or with somebody else, and then you meet up with the same people again. And specially since Huacachina is such a small place with only about 100 people living there, it was impossible not to run into eachother! We ended up staying at the same hostel, having great fun together.

Nice weather, swimmingpool - this was a perfect place for relaxing with a good book or playing ball by the pool.

In this small village, I also ran into Hanna from Germany who I first met in Santa Cruz in Bolivia! An amazing girl who have been volunteering in Cochamamba, Bolivia, for 6 months. Here we are having dinner at our standard restaurant Bamboo.

Getting ready for sand buggying and sandboarding! What else can you do? You´re in the middle of the desert!

We all found theese masks in one of the markets in Cuzco and thought it was to awesome not to buy it.

Crazy car with a crazy driver! It felt like a rollercoaster!

After a few days together, Italia, Australia and Norway desided to make the way together to Lima. For me, this is my last destination in South-America before I fly to Mexico the 9th of december.