Arequipa

- Monestary Courtyard
- Frankie found some delicious desserts
- Anton holding a hawk
- Three Peruvian ladies selling dolls
- The restaurant provides ponchos because it gets cold so quickly
- Night shot of the Arequipa town center

Arequipa

Tuesday November 8

Another gorgious shorts and tshirts day. Lots of sunscreen. The sun is up so early, we couldn't sleep past 5 am. The sun is directly overhead most of the day, it is funny to see our shadows directly beneath us. And funny to have the sun coming in all 4 sides of the car at once. It gets dark at 5:30 pm, and cool in the evenings (sweater cool).

This morning our new guide Miguel picked us up at 8:30 am for a tour of the city. We have a nice 13 seater van, and a driver named Angelo. We'll be in this one for the next few days, yippee!

We started at Santa Catalina Monastery which was built in 1579 and is still functioning today, although now there are only 24 nuns living there. The oldest is 100 and the youngest is 33. At its heyday, it was considered a privelege to send your daughter there, and there was a $20,000 dowry to enter. The eldest child was reserved for marriage, and the second child was expected to go into the priesthood or nunnery. They were not allowed to smile, look in a mirror, or talk (vow of silence) once they were inside the monastery. The monastery was huge, and was built like a miniature city, with several courtyards and labelled streets.
Miguel took us to 2 other churches which were not as interesting, and to a lookout with a view of the nearby mountains, which are 6400 meters (21,000 feet) high, and a dormant volcano, Misti. This volcano is only 2 km from city center, and a lot of squatters have built shacks at the base. It's all part of the Ring of Fire. Apparently the city has an average of 15 tremors a day. We didn't feel one, very disappointing. Maybe we just didn't notice with all the noise and movement of people around us.

Miguel dropped us off at the city center for the afternoon. There is a large central square, and a huge crowd of squatters was having a loud demonstration because they want the government to bring electricity and water out to the shacks they have put up on land that doesn't belong to them.

We found a cute alleyway where we had lunch, and we spent the afternoon going from one shop to another, it was quite a bit of fun. Frankie got all her Christmas shopping done for her family. We bought a doll for our mantel from 3 weathered ladies sitting on the sidewalk. Down the street was another weathered lady with a hawk (?), and for a few dollars we could put the hawk on our shoulders and take pictures. We bought alpaca sweaters for ourselves, they are surprisingly warm for their light thickness. We have no room for any of this stuff in our suitcases.

We had made reservations at a restaurant where they have a balcony about 7 stories high, and overlooks the church and city square. Everything was lit up so pretty at night. They gave us ponchos to wear while we ate our meal. We had a lot to choose from on the menu, and Frankie ordered alpaca, which tasted a lot like veal.

Arequipa is the third largest city in Peru but we are told the 2nd most important because of all the trade that happens here. We are only 300 km from Bolivia. Arequipa itself is quite high in elevation, about 2400 meters. The next week and a half will be with high elevations until we get back to Lima.
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Nazca Lines and Drive to Arequipa

- Our plane for the flight
- `The Hummingbird'
- Excavated tomb with pre-Incan mummy
- Roadside shrine.
- Standing at the edge of an earthquake fault line.
- Beautiful coastal drive to get us to Arequipa

Nazca Lines and Drive to Arequipa

Monday November 7

There are no quiet hotels in Peru. We've given up. This morning it was roosters and some guy on a megaphone at some ridiculous hour. Bright and bushy-tailed we got up at 6 am for our flight over the Nazca Lines. For those of you not familiar, they are large ancient geoglyphic pictures drawn on the desert floor, very ancient, done by the Nazca civilization, and the pictures are only visible from the air. Did they have airplanes back then? Were they done by aliens? Nobody knows. There are hundreds of them, some of the shapes we saw included a spider, a hummingbird, a dog, an astronaut, a baby condor, a whale, and a monkey, among others. The two of us were put in our own plane, a little cessna 4 seater. The pilot flew quite low and banked the plane 45 degrees to one side so we had a good view, then turned and did the same for the other side. At one point the pilot released the controls, turned around and grabbed our camera, and took pictures of us. The lines were fascinating to see, but by the end of the flight our sunburned faces had turned green, and one of us actually had to use the barf bag, and was the better for it. We won't say which one, but the other one had to lay with his head in his wife's lap for part of the long drive today.

We set out for Arequipa for a long 12 hour drive, with a few stops along the way. Great stops! First we went to a pre-Inca graveyard, from before the time of Christ. There were about a dozen pits with mummies and bones in them. The mummies looked short and squat because they were wrapped in fetal positions with the heads sticking out. Lots of them still had their hair. They were all placed facing east.

Another stop was along the Nazca Fault Line, which we drove parrellel to for awhile, and then crossed over. There are 2 tectonic plates pushing against each other, which has caused a great chasm in the earth, and lots of earthquakes in Peru. It is part of the Ring of Fire.

We took a 2 km detour off the main road for a lunch stop in Puerto Inca, a wonderful resort on the coast, in the middle of nowhere. Lunch is the main meal here, which we often don't eat until 3:00, and then there is no supper. So we snack a lot.

Most of our drive today was along the coast and we had wonderful views of the ocean and the waves crashing into the rocks. Absolutely beautiful. Well worth the long drive.

The desert went on for hundreds of miles. Sometimes there were sand fences that kept sand off the roads, and sometimes they irrigated the sand to keep it from drifting.

Along the road people have built little shrines that look like doghouses, indicating the spots where people have died. There are tons of them. Especially when we were driving through the mountains and there were hairpin turns. We started gaging how dangerous the turn was by how many shrines were there. Some turns had dozens. We did lots of passing today. At one point Pabel passed a truck as it was passing a truck. On a hairpin curve. We decided we would decorate our shrines with little Canadian flags flying from them. Yesterday we saw a funeral procession, with a flowered decked out hearse leading the way. Then throngs of people following the hearse and carrying the casket in the air.

We were stopped 4 times by "random" police checks today. Pabel had to show papers and explain what we were doing there. That can't be too great for tourism. We saw a bunch of large tour buses, not really private vehicles like what we have. An 8 seater van.

Arequipa is a huge city, I think the 3rd largest in Peru. We are no longer in the
desert or along the coast. We marvel at the intersections where people are coming from 10 different directions and there are no stop lights or stop signs. In Peru only some of the drivers have drivers licences. To get your licence, you need to pass 3 tests. A written test, a road test, and a psychological test. Too bad they don't have those back home!

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Paracas

- Boat ride to Bellastas Islands
- Sea lion on one of the islands
- Island full of pelicans
- Paragliding on the coast
- Us at the coast
- Vast expanse of desert
- Church damaged by earthquake in Ica

Paracas

Sunday November 6

This morning we took a boat tour to the Bellastas Islands. Bellastas means arch. On one island there was a huge candelabra drawn on the side; no one knows how long it has been there, but it may be linked to the Nazca lines. It never rains here, so it lasts forever, hundreds or thousands of years. Then there were islands full of birds: pelicans, terns, cormorants, etc. Thousands of them. And humboldt penguins. And sea lions frolicking or fighting, or just laying sunning themselves. There were starfish clinging to the rock at the water line.
Workers live on these islands for months at a time collecting guavo (bird poop) for fertilizer. They use pick axes to scrape it off the rocks, put it in bags, and zipline it down to the boats.

After our boat tour, Pabel and our new tour-guide-of-the-day Jorge took us to the Paracas National Reserve. It is one big desert along the coast. Desolate and beautiful and vast. The road we took was made of salt. We had warm and cold currents fighting each other. There were fossils, and a beach where paragliders were catching the currents and gliding back and forth. One really cool thing was driving through the caldera of a volcano long filled in with sand, but we could see a giant rim around us. We stopped at one beach for the view, and a fast moving rogue wave got our socks and shoes and shorts all soaked. Glad we brought an extra pair of shoes while these dry out!

We were all quite pink and red from the sun and wind of the desert, which made us all sleepy. Until Pavel decided to take us for a joyride over a sanddune. We were glad there was no one coming up the other side. At 3:00 we finally went for lunch along the pier, rather boardwalk style, complete with serenaders. We accidentally learned that you are not supposed to tip them until you want them to leave. Oops. Our cutlery for the meal came very fancy, each piece wrapped in a sheet of toilet paper, which handily served as your napkin later on.

Then a very long drive to the town of Nazca. We stopped in Ica along the way. Ica was destroyed by a huge earthquake in 2007, and just had another earthquake last week. We walked through the town square and Pavel treated us to some very delicious candies that we wish we could remember the name of.

Once we got to Nazca and our hotel, we had to be weighed for our flight tomorrow. We really couldn't figure out why they needed to know our ages too. At 8 pm we found a busy restaurant where the rest of the gang ordered dinner and we just had a piece of dessert. An early morning tomorrow.
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Lima Peru

- Find Frankie!
- Hotel's inner courtyard
- Historic city center
- Governor's palace
- St Francis of Assisi Church
- Group shot at the ruins of Pachacamac

Lima Peru

Saturday November 5.

Our flight from Toronto to Lima was uneventful, just squeezed in 3 movies and a little nap. We were picked up at the airport and taken through crazy busy roads to our hotel, arriving at 11 pm. Our hotel was very quaint with lots of character and a nice sunny courtyard in the middle. We climbed up a winding staircase to the top floor. Apparently Gap Adventure tours uses this hotel a lot, and the breakfast room was full of tourists the next morning. Unfortunately, we did not sleep well because of noise, we think a late night nearby club.

There are 6 of us on this tour: our friend Heather, her kids Julia (12) and Keegan (10), her friend Pete (our age), and the 2 of us.

In the morning we met up with Paul, a local friend of Heather's, and we all decided to take some taxis to the beach. It was very rocky and very wavy. Keegan took some surfboarding lessons. It was a very pleasant 20 C day, and it was nice to walk around in shorts and tshirts.

At noon our guide Guillermo took us for lunch, very similar to Swiss Chalet. Then he and our driver Pabel took us on a city tour of Lima. Lima is the 2nd largest city in the world built on a desert. They receive 2 cm of rain a year, and it comes down in more of a mist. Lima has a population of 9 million (Peru has 29 million), there are lots of uncontrolled intersections. Cars have several types of horns, depending on what the driver feels like at that particular moment. But we've experienced this before so it didn't faze us. We stopped at a Metro for some water as the water here is not safe for tourists to drink. From there we walked through the colonial old part of the city with centuries old wooden balconies. There is a main square next to the armed and gated governor's palace. We toured through St Francis of Assissi which used to be a monastery, complete with vultures perched on the exterior. They had a library complete out of Harry Potter, with a gigantic choir book. The choir room had 150 seats, and someone had to manually turn the pages so everyone could see. We walked through the catacombs with the bones of 25000 people in deep pits.

After that we went to the ruins of Pachacamac, a city of several cultures and 2000 years old. The Spanish didn't get a chance to destroy this place because it was covered in sand and only discovered in the early 1900s. We drove from site to site and climbed up the Temple of the Sun (complete with an armed guard at the top).

We left our guide Guillermo there, and Pabel drove us to our next stop, Paracas. A quaint roadside hotel where nobody speaks English and lots of traffic (horns) driving by.
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Mt Pilatus

- Boat ride on the lake
- Top of the mountain
- Top of the mountain
- Cable car ride down
- Chocolate fondue in Switzerland!

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Mt Pilatus

Another awesome day!  We did an excursion called the "Golden Round Trip".  First, a one and a half hour boat ride down the river.  Then a 30 minute cogwheel train (45 degree slopes) up to the top of Mt Pilatus Kulm.  Apparently it's named after Pontius Pilate because it was rumoured that his body was banished there after death.  For hundreds of years it was forbidden to climb this mountain because of evil spirits.  Finally, some monks climbed it, threw some rocks down into the river, and dispelled the evil spirits.  Now it's a big resort.  We took a trail that took us to the highest point, 7000 ft.  Lunch on a terrace overlooking the mountains.  Then Frankie insisted on going down the switchback trail down the mountain a ways, to visit the cows with cowbells.  There is something indescribable about hiking in the mountains while serenaded by cowbells. It is now Frankie's favourite sound in the world.  After that we went through a rock tunnel, and visited some panoramic spots that took lots of climbing.  Stair climbers must not sell well in Switzerland.  When we were done on top of the mountain, we took a gondola down through the clouds to the first station and got off.  There we went on a 1.4 km toboggan run down the mountain.  Once we hit the bottom, they towed us up backwards.  Then we took the cable car 25 minutes the rest of the way down the mountain and caught the bus back to Lucerne.  We headed over to some famous lion monument with lots of Japanese tourists, and the nearby Glacier Park with leftover potholes from the Ice Age, showing that Lucerne had once been covered by a glacier.  After the garden we stopped and bought a teeny cowbell for Max and a bigger one for Samson, we're sure they'll be thrilled!  We found a fabulous out of the way restaurant and used the absolute last of our swiss francs on dinner:  raclette (tiny boiled potatoes with melted cheese, yum) and a chocolate fondue, double triple yum.  They brought a pot of melted chocolate over a flame, and a bowl of fruit to dip into it.  Then when the fruit was done, spoons to finish off the chocolate!  One of the best meals we've had.  Another good dish they have in Switzerland is rosti, a potato cheese dish.  Mixed with meat or vegetables.  Generally meals have been the most frustrating part of our holiday because they are SOOO expensive, usually about $50 each.  And in Interlaken and Lucerne they charge $7.50 for plain tap water, that drives us crazy, especially when there are fountains spewing fresh mountain water everywhere.  So every morning we fill up from our hotel room and bring our own water.  Stupid.  And because the meals are so expensive, we have usually been sharing a plate.  Oh well.  We do have to compliment them on their transportation systems, though.  Extensive rail everywhere, designed to arrive just in time for connections.  Extremely punctual.  The city bus stops have electronic signs indicating how many minutes until each bus, and inside the bus is an electronic screen showing your route and the time until your stop.  So efficient.  And of course, we can't complain about the scenery.  By far the most beautiful country we've ever seen.  We'll miss the mountains and valleys and lakes.

This is the last blog, tomorrow we take a 2 hour train ride to Zurich and catch our flight home.  See you all in Canada!

Interlaken to Lucerne

- Getting ready to fly
- In the air
- On the way to Lucerne
- Walking through Lucerne

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Interlaken to Lucerne

This morning we went to the top of a mountain and we jumped off.  Literally.  We decided on a whim to go parasailing, and it was fabulous.  Just a little scary on takeoff.  But it really felt like flying.  Everyone should try it.  In the afternoon we took the "Scenic Golden Pass" train (2 hours) to Lucerne, which is much larger than the other places we have been so far.  We walked along the city wall built in the 1300's, and had a nice stroll along the river.  We visited a gorgeous monastary while the organist was playing.  It echoed through the whole church.  After dinner we stopped at the obligatory chocolate shop for a bite of dessert.  Yummy!

Interlaken

- Cowbells on the mountain
- The top of First Mountain
- Stroll along the river in Interlaken

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Interlaken

This morning we took the train from Zermatt to Interlaken Ost, about two and a half hours. This is a city built between two large lakes. Another upgraded room. In the afternoon we took a train to the resort town of Grindelwald and took a cable car to the top of First Mountain. A t the top we hiked around and enjoyed the panoramic views while being serenaded by numerous cow bells on cows. The trails here were much easier, many even paved. When we arrived back in Interlaken, we went for a stroll and accidentally found a funicular (train pulled up a 64% grade hill by a cable) and took it to the top of Mount Harder where we had a panoramic view of both lakes. Afterwards we enjoyed a nice stroll along the river and a walk through town.
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Zermatt

- Climbing Gornergrat
- Lunch at the top of the world
- Brrr...
- Inside the ice palace
- Gondola

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Zermatt

Morning: we took a train up the Gornergrat Mountain, and got off at the Riffelberg Station, altitude 8471 ft. We intended to hike up to the next station, Gornergrat, passing Lake Riffelsee, where the reflection of the Matterhorn is reflected. We got turned somewhere along the way and our easy one and a half hour hike turned into 4 hours, a gorgious path overlooking a glacier, and then a gruelling climb straight up a mountain. Anton figures a good 60 degree slope. We finally reached the top and were rewarded with a nice ridge hike and a restaurant where we ate on the terrace overlooking the glacier and the mountains. It was so stunning it almost didn't look real. That point was 10,210 feet high, so we climbed almost 2000 feet today. Then we took the rail back down to our next destination.

Afternoon: we took a cable-car ride up to the Matterhorn Glacier Paradise (12,739 ft). We were a bit surprised to see skiers and snowboarders going up the mountain, but when we got up there, there was tons of snow and it was SOOO cold! Zero degrees C and a wind of 43 km/hr. We were at the top of the glacier that we had seen earlier on our hike. There was an ice palace at the top with ice sculptures and a fun little ice slide. We wished we had dressed warmer, but when we got back down to the town of Zermatt, it was sunny and 17C. We watched an alpenhorn demonstration and had to move for some girls leading their goats down the street.

Pictures will follow later when internet becomes available.
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Glacier Express

- First class seats
- View from the train
- View of the Matterhorn from our hotel room
- Eidelweiss

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Glacier Express

Today we took a 7 and a half hour train ride across the alps on the 'slowest express train in the world'.  When we booked, they only had 2nd class available, but 2 Australian girls got kicked out of 1st class because their Rail Passes were only 2nd class, so the conductor himself moved us to 1st class.  We had a nice little table and 2 seats across from each other, and huge picture windows.  There were alot of little Swiss villages in valleys between mountains.  We figure the only difference between the Glacier Express and a regular train through Switzerland was the fact that there were no transfers, you could get a hot lunch, and there were headphones with running commentary.  Our final destination was the tourist resort of Zermatt, high up in the alps where cars are not allowed.  We walked through it this evening, and it seemed alot like Whistler, only Swiss.  Lots of tourist shops (we picked up some tees and good hiking shoes for tomorrow, the runners didn't quite do the job).  We walked through a cemetary where every tombstone told which mountain the person had died climbing or descending.  Our hotel is very fancy, and we got upgraded to a suite because the hotel is full.  We have 2 full rooms, a sitting area in between, and 2 balconies, one of which looks right out onto the Matterhorn.  Too bad we're only spending 2 nights here!

Swiss National Day

The Swiss really know how to celebrate!  Around 9 pm we heard what sounded like a parade outside.  We looked out our hotel window, and there was a police car with loud music leading all the townsfolk down to the lake.  Like the Pied Piper.  So we decided to head down and see what was up.  What an experience.  Lanterns lit around the lake.  Dueling church bells for 15 minutes.  Real bells.  People everywhere lighting off their own fireworks around the lake.  Giant teepees being burnt across the lake.  At least a dozen bonfires on the mountain.  Very Lord of the Rings.  And then real fireworks.  Everywhere.  You never knew where to look.  Going off all around the lake, off building roofs, everywhere.  The mountains being lit up like lightning.  The fireworks echoing through the valley.  Wonderful.  Sorry, took the wrong camera for pictures!

Swiss National Day in Swiss National Park

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Swiss National Park

I can't believe we climbed another mountain!  We swore off them after Mt Fuji, but when in the Swiss Alps......  Today we made our way via train and bus to the Swiss National Park (the only national park in Switzerland) and took a 4 hour hike around Mt Margunet.  The base was at an altitude of 6161 ft, and the top was 7638 ft.  That's where we were huffing and puffing while all the nationals flew by us.  At the bottom we followed another nice little trail along a ravine, and made it back to our hotel in time to share a plate for supper.  We've discovered that we're not keen on spending $75 for a meal anymore, so we're going to share plates.  Switzerland is very beautiful and very expensive!

Arrival in Switzerland

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Arrival in Switzerland

Greetings from Switzerland!  We spent the full day yesterday on the plane from Toronto to London, and stopped overnight.  This morning we caught our one hour flight to Zurich, and then we travelled by train for 4 hours through the mountains until we reached the resort town of St Moritz.  We've decided that our Switzerland blog will be mostly a picture blog.  We may not be able to post every day because internet access is limited, but we'll do our best.  Hope you enjoy!