Cycling in Cusco

We decided to go on a bike trip while in Cusco. It is incredibly hilly in this area, but we found a bijke company that takes you to the top of the mountain and sends you back downhill to Cusco. My kind of biking!

Hard to believe we fit the four of us, the driver and the guide plus five bikes in this car. The guide made the trip in the trunk with one of the bikes.

A group photo before heading off.

We hadn't gone far before we came across our first Inca ruins. The ruins went on forever.

Campbell stopped high above Cusco for a look down on the city.

Although the skies looked threatening all day, we didn't get any rain. That was a blessing given the steepness of some of the downhills. I'm glad we didn't have to worry about wet road.

The scenery along the way was beautiful.

This is part of the trail we took. The kids and the guide were happy to wait below (those 3 little figures at the bottom left), while Dean and I climbed up the hill for a better view.

The soccer stadium is certainly a focal point of Cusco.

Kelly posed with the sign for another group of ruins. The name of the ruins in pronouced "sexy woman" in English.

Dean passes behind and above the monument that we have spent days looking up at from the city.

Given some of the hills in the city, I'm sure glad we were going downhill.

One last break before cruising into the centre of Cusco.

We ended our trip at the Plaza de Armas. It was a great day of biking with lots to see outside of the city.

Cusco, Peru

We took another bus from Puno to Cusco.

We stopped along the way at a high pass that was 4,300 metres above sea level. It was a beautiful drive.

The kids posed on the wall above Plaza San Blas, which was just down the road from our hostel.

The streets are narrow and winding with LOTS of ups and downs.

We were fortunate to end up in la Plaza de Armas during some kind of military parade. The parade included lots of military along with several marching bands.

There was also a flag-raising ceremony.

There were lots of locals taking advantage of the crowd trying to sell their wares.

This was the street that led back to our hostel.

It wasn't an uncommon site to see llamas in the streets.

No matter where we go, Campbell and Kelly seem to have a knack for finding banana splits. The ones in Cusco were better than most.

Cusco was probably a good place to eat banana splits because there were plenty of stairs and hills to help wear off the extra calories. The high altitude made those long climbs even more difficult.

Puno, Peru

After a very long journey back north by planes and busses, with stops in Arica, Chile and Arequipa, Peru, we finally arrived in Puno. It lies on the shores of Lake Titicaca at an altitude of 3,600 metres. Even with the altitude, the weather was lovely.

We took a tour out to the floating islands on Lake Titicaca. We were fortunate to have a nice day and a great group of people on the tour. It took about 15 minutes by boat to get out to the islands.

Along the way, we saw some interesting art work on one of the islands.

Although the whole day was really touristy, we learned a lot about how the islands are made and why the people live there. The primary reason is that those who live on the islands do not have to pay taxes.

Dean and Kelly admired some of the handicrafts that the men and women make to sell to the touriests.

They even have gardens on the islands and very interesting boats which are also made from reeds.

After learning about how the islands are made and taking a tour of a family's home, we were left to wander for awhile and admire the various handicrafts.

There seemed to be a lot of just milling about. Other than entertaining the tourists, I'm not sure what these people do with their days.

Dean and I thought we better have at least one photo of ourselves to prove that we actually took part in this while adventure.

Back on dry land, we enjoyed the Plaza de Armas and the shops in Puno.

I never did find out what the locals call these motorcycle cabs, but we continue to call them tuk tuks. And believe me, with the altitude and the hills in town, a ride in one of these is a real treat.

Navimag

One of the reasons we went so far south, other than to see the park, was to take the Navimag Ferry back up through the Chilean Archipelago. The ferry journey takes 4 nights and 3 days to sail up through the channels from Puerto Natales to Puerto Montt.
We didn't board the ferry until well after 9:00 pm, but we went down to the harbour in the afternoon to check out the boat.

We finally got to our cabin around 10:00 pm. This is a photo of Puerto Natales from our cabin window at about 10:30 pm.

Although we boarded around 10:00, the ferry didn't leave the harbour until after midnight. So when we woke up the next morning we were already well on our way. Although the weather on day one wasn't great, we could still spend some time outside on the deck admiring the scenery and taking a few photos.

One of the positive points of rainy weather is the tremendous rainbows that are visible. I'm not sure I have ever seen a complete rainbow from one end to the other that looked like we could reach out and touch it.

The ice flowing in the water certainly made it clear that even though this is summer in Patagonia, swimming is not an option!!

When it got too cold or wet to be outside, we spent time in the dining room playing cards or watching movies.

This is a photo of Puerto Eden, a small village we passed along the way. Dean and I couldn't help but feel the similarities between this ferry trip and our ferry trip in Alaska.

The weather on day two was much better and Kelly spent most of her day reading on the top deck.

We passed this small island with a statue on it. The captain announced that it is good luck to through coins to the statue. I should have taken a photo of all the people leaning over the side of the boat throwing money.

The weather cleared up and the views were fabulous. Along the way we saw dolphins, sea lions and some people - not me - even saw a whale.

Everywhere you looked there were snow capped peaks and islands galore.

The sun actually got to be a little too hot and Campbell and Kelly took shelter under a deck to read.

They fed us 3 meals and day and we really couldn't complain about the food. It was good and plentiful. You are allowed to bring on any drinks you would like, so we made sure we had enough wine to go with our meals throughout the journey.

Although there wasn't a lot of other traffic on the water, we did pass the odd ship along the way.

We didn't spend a lot of time in our cabin because it was just too small and too hot. But Kelly did relax up on her bunk with her book.

We arrived in Puerto Montt early in the morning, had breakfast and then went ashore. Again, I think we were very lucky with the weather for this trip. I have no doubt some people spend the whole three days in rain. There was one section of the route that went across open sea and there were quite a few seasick people on our boat, but I can only imagine how bad it could have been had the weather been bad. All in all, it was a great experience that provided some tremendous scenery and gave us all some much needed down time.

Parque National Torres del Paine

We went on a one-day bus tour to Torres del Paine National Park. The hiking in the park is highly recommended, but I think the kids are hiked out and we really didn't have enough time for more than one day in the park anyway. The hiking will have to wait until next time.

Our first stop was at a cave where some animal skin was found from a huge animal dating back around 10,000 years. (How is that for detail!) But before we even got out of the parking lot, we saw these 2 foxes wandering through the grass.

After a short walk, we arrived at the entrance to the cave. And, boy, was it a huge cave.

You get some perspective of the size of the cave when you look at Kelly standing near an information board in the bottom right of the photo.

The view from the inside of the cave looking back out.

Campbell with a statue of the 10,000 year old, big animal!!

This was just one of the many rainbows we saw throughout the day and throughout our travels in Patagonia.

Kelly in front of the snow capped mountains. This was our first photo opportunity of the mountains and we thought it was spectacular. Little did we know that there would be so much more to follow.

This photo gives a little better view of the granite towers for which the park is named. Our guide told us that we were extremely fortunate to be doing our tour in such good weather. She had done the same tour the day before and they hadn't been able to see the mountains at all. Even during the one day we were in the park, the weather changed quite dramatically.

There were plenty of vicunas along the roadside. We also spotted ostriches (although I'm quite certain they were called something else) and we saw 2 condors.

There were so many spectacular views that we couldn't put the cameras away for very long at a time.

At one of our stops we picked wild blueberries. They had a consistency more like a raspberry with small seeds in them, but they were good. However, they sure did a job on teeth!! Everyone had blue teeth for a good portion of the day.

On our one-day tour, we did a complete circle around the granite spires so we were able to take photos from all different angles.

We went on a half hour walk to see a waterfall. Kelly had a hard time staying up as the wind was so strong. Our guide told us that the wind gets up to 140 kms/hr in that area and she has seen small sheep sailing through the wind. It certainly wasn't 140 kms when we were there, but it was still very strong.

The waterfall was beautiful. We spent another half hour exploring the area and then headed back to our bus.

Even when the weather turned and the sun went in, the mountains were still a spectacular sight.

We stopped along the edge of a lake to have our lunch. We brought rolls and cheese and wine with us and had a wonderful picnic.

Campbell couldn't help but feed the wildlife. These little birds certainly weren't shy.

The foxes were a little more shy and just hung around in the background waiting to see what was left.

We had some time to wander around the lakeside before we got back on the bus.

Our last stop was to see a glacier and the icebergs that had calved into the river. They were enormous and a beautiful blue. We weren't able to get right up on the glacier, but we did see it and we did remember our glacier trip at the Columbia Icefields in Canada.

We had a long bus ride back to Puerto Natales, but it was a perfect day and we really enjoyed our time in the park.