Chapters VII & VIII - Great encounters make happy travellers & Piccu Macho

San Pedro de Atacama (Ch) - Salar de Uyuni (Bo) - La Paz - Capacabana - Random town between Copacabana and Cusco (Pe) - Cusco - Aguas Calientes - Cusco - Lima - Quito (Ec)

Sunrise at Salar de Uyuni.

The morning of our trip to the biggest salts flats in the world had arrived. This was the part of the trip I had been the most exited about in advance. Because we would be spending the next 3 days with the same four people, we were hoping for a good group. In the bus on the way to the border of Bolivia, we heard that a group of 4 friends had chosen us to be in their group. We were very happy about this because our group couldn't have been better. On the way to the flats we got to see unbelievable landscapes, swimm in a natural hot spring and see a lot of flamingos (one of my childhood dreams since I watched the Lion King). Pictures don't do justice to our experiences, but neither do words, so we'll settle for pictures.

Doing the "Flamingo". Presented in the picture are the ladies of our group.
Great people that we sure hope to meet some day again!

Lama baby: "What an idiot!"

Exhausted Sanni at some lavastone formations.

Salar de Uyuni.

At Salar, Sanni decided to do some acrobatics on the guitar and Anneli's safety ring.

Anneli was just feeling lazy and sat around.

Sanni was pretty much the only one of the whole group
affected by the altitude. Many got tingling fingers and
felt a bit light headed, but she was in pain and at some
point began to feel sick. Luckily the worst was over after
a good sleep and some extra oxygen (though she was
only able to use the bottle once before the damn thing
broke). Apparently 5000 m of height was too much.

From Uyuni we headed to La Paz with a 4WD on a road that was pawed only on a fraction of the way. This bus ride was the most horrible one we've ever been in. I was pretty sure we'll crash and die. After sleeping for maybe an hour combined, we arrived in La Paz safe and sound. We spend in La Paz a couple of days with our friends from the Uyuni trip. Most of the time was spent searching for the perfect alpaca jacket and some yarn for Sanni. I did end up finding it and for everyone who asks, it's definitely real alpaca-lama-mix. Not synthetic. After asking from about twenty different shops, Sanni ended up finding one tienda that sold alpaca yarn, also definitely real stuff. La Paz was a cool city with A LOT of hills to walk up, but it was also the most polluted city I've ever been in. Hard on our altitude-weak lungs.

Mumified lama babies at the witch market of La Paz.
We were told all of these have died of natural causes.

The biggest high altitude lake, Lake Titicaca was our next destination. We were supposed to stay at the lake for some days, seeing the islands and chilling, but sometimes life throws you an offer you can't refuse. At the hostel we heard that these two guys from New Zealand are travelling around South America by car and are going to Cusco the next day. So we ended up hitching a ride from them. Going by bus is easy, but going by car and having the chance to stop everytime you feel like seeing something is way more interesting! The way to Cusco took us twice as long, but time spent with these guys was definitely worth it.

Sanni was a bad-ass and swam in Lake Titicaca. The water was freezing!

When we were in Cusco it was time to start thinking about the different ways we could get to Machu Picchu. The easiest way was taking a tour. Because we were still hanging with the Kiwis we also considered just driving to Aguas Calientes (the nearest city to Machu Picchu). We soon realized that that could be a problem, the city not having any access to it via car. We ended up taking a budget tour by van to the nearest city with a car, Santa Teresa, and hiking the last 12 km. (Just to let somebody who considers driving themselves to Santa Teresa know, it is possible. Whatever everyone will tell you.)

The road to Santa Teresa. Worse than the
Death Road, said our friends who
had been to the Death Road already.

Ready to hike 12 km on the train tracks to get to Aguas Calientes.

We spent one night in a hostel and woke up at 4 to start the climb up to the ruins. The hike from previous day had ruined Sanni's already throbbing feet (note to anybody considering a pedicure: make sure the lady knows what she's doing so you won't end up with nails growing into your toes so badly that they hurt even in your sleep) so she unfortunately had to take a bus up. I walked the 1700 stone steps up arriving at the gate of the ruins in the brink of day. To not make things too easy after the hour hike up the stairs, we had booked a ticket to climb also the Machu Picchu mountain, a 2 hour hike up even more stairs. Even though Sanni's feet were killing her, she dug up some finnish sisu and finished the hike with me. I have never been as proud of her!

There it is then.

The way up to the Machu Picchu mountain
consisted of steps like these.

OMG SO FLUFFY!

With the time running out on us we had decided to fly from Lima to Quito. Now we just had the stress on getting to Lima on time for the flight. This was in theory no problem because we had bought our bus tickets in advance. The only problem was the landslide that had cut the road between Santa Teresa and the rest of the way back to Cusco. After waiting for an hour for the road to get cleaned and cleaned again after three more "waves" of mud, stones, sand and water hit it, we ended up running through the sliding mud between vans trying to get over at the same time. Fortunately everybody survived and we got to Cusco only an hour late. The Kiwi's weren't unfortunately going to Lima, so we had to say goodbye to them and get a 22h bus to Lima.

That's a video showing a small part of the landslide we run across. When we crossed it, there was thankfully not so much stones coming down, more mud and water.

Our hiking boots after the landslide.

You can't go to Peru and not eat the local speciality Cuy (Guinea Pig).
Happy little rodant! We also tried alpaca - you'll find the most delicious
steaks in Nuna Raymi in Cusco. Tastiest meat ever.

We had only one night in Lima, so we didn't have time to see the city so much. The only thing worth telling is that we both swam in the Pacific Ocean for the first time in our lives. It wasn't as cold as we had expected, but because of the heavy waves, we both were lucky to get out alive. Too soon we had to say goodbye to Peru and fly to Quito.

The Pacific Ocean

On the way back to the hostel I stumbled on
a stone step and ripped the top of my toe open.
We went to a near hospital to get a bandage,
but they ended up cleaning it properly and
everything. And because we had no
money with us, they did it for free.

Our flight back to Finland leaves the day after tomorrow, so we will not have time to write about Ecuador and Colombia. That will be done from back home. Now we will enjoy our last two days and do some shopping and relaxing. See you soon home folks!

Pisspot!