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Exploring La Paz

We have two days in La Paz to take it really easy. After a leisurely start, we walked to San Francisco square. It didn’t take much for us to realise that Bolivia is not as developed as Peru. Footpaths are congested and squares are not manicured. This isn’t a criticism but merely a description. If […]

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Crossing into Bolivia

Above: Our bus follows us on a barge across Lake Titicaca while we cross on a boat. Our hosts kindly offered us an earlier breakfast at 0615; they have a maid so it wasn’t like they had to do it themselves. We taxied to the bus station arriving at 0700 for our 0730 departure. All […]

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Uros floating islands

We had an 0845 pickup Due to a misunderstanding, our breakfast wasn’t ready when we turned up. Anyway, it got prepared and we were ready when the taxi pickup arrived. Kim felt a bit breathless today even though we had been at relatively high altitude at Cusco for a while already. We took it easy […]

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World’s highest navigable lake

Today we head from Cusco to Puno by bus. We had breakfast before 0700 and taxied to the Cruz del Sur station just outside of the old city for our 0800 departure. Once boarded, they videoed everyone (a common practice here and also in Mexico). The journey took us to to Juliaca (5+ hour) where […]

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Day in the countryside on ATV

We had arranged for a tour each for today: Maras & Moray by ATV (quad bike) for Kim and the same sites by van for me. His pickup was 0800 and mine 0845. At breakfast around 0730, his pickup arrived. As he wasn’t ready, they offered to return in 10 mins and Kim would wait […]

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A restful day

We had a much needed lazy day, waking up without an alarm. After breakfast, we returned to bed just to read, write and look through photos. We finally left the room after 1100 to do a walking tour of the old city using our guidebook. As it turned out, we had already seen a large […]

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To the historic capital

Above:  From the rooftop of our accommodation. The balcony of the school is evident from the murals painted thereon. I felt a million dollars after a great night sleep; I’m normally a heavy sleeper but recent nights haven’t been like that perhaps due to altitude. In my moment of weakness yesterday, I had arranged for […]

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Day at Machu Picchu

Despite my tummy condition, I had an uninterrupted night sleep which gave me good confidence for the day at Machu Picchu. We left the hotel around 0515 amidst sound of explosions (they were fireworks we were told). It was a 20 min walk to the railway station where we waited briefly before boarding Peru Rail’s […]

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Getting to Sacred Valley

With an 0840 flight departure to Cusco, we left the hotel around 0600 by taxi summoned from the square. At the airport, we were third in the queue and we’d be far too early. Then the power went off and check-in was limited to two counters which had backup power. Then they started taking people […]

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Back down to a lower altitude for a night

We had a lazy morning cafe-crawling in Chivay after checking out from our accommodation at 1000. First a leisurely coffee while sorting photos and writing my travel journal. Then a walk around town before lunch. We returned to our hotel before 1300 to wait for our pickup which had been scheduled for 1330 to 1400. […]

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