Map, Journey and Costs

Note: prices are for 2 adults with baggage

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From	To	Mode	Duration	Cost
🇪🇨 San Cristobal	🇪🇨 José Joaquín de Olmedo Airport	Plane	01:34	£394.59
🇪🇨 José Joaquín de Olmedo Airport	🇵🇪 Lima Airport	Plane	01:42	£394.59
🇵🇪 Lima Airport	🇵🇪 Homestay, Miraflores	Taxi	00:52	£14.34
🇵🇪 Homestay, Miraflores	🇵🇪 Hotel Residencial Los Frayles	Coach	06:40	£58.95
🇵🇪 Hotel Residencial Los Frayles	🇵🇪 Carola Lodge	Coach	01:12	£58.95
🇵🇪 Carola Lodge	🇵🇪 Cleofe, Arequipa	Coach	19:00	£58.95
🇵🇪 Cleofe, Arequipa	🇵🇪 Terminal Terrestre de Arequipa	Taxi	00:17	£2.88
🇵🇪 Terminal Terrestre de Arequipa	🇵🇪 Cabanaconde	Coach	06:50	£12.74
🇵🇪 Cabanaconde	🇵🇪 Terminal Terrestre de Arequipa	Coach	06:50	£10.80
🇵🇪 Terminal Terrestre de Arequipa	🇵🇪 Cleofe, Arequipa	Taxi	00:27	£4.32

Welcome back!

We returned to Peru fresh from a snorkel adventure in the Galápagos islands. It took us a month to wind our way down the country by coach.

The cheapest way to travel around South America is, by far, to book lots of stints on public coaches. But they aren’t always the most enjoyable option. Random sellers will board and try to pedal their wares.

We once sat through an hour long sales pitch of a man selling a white powder. He claimed it would cure whatever ails you. This was innocuous until he offered passengers free snorts of it. Many commuters jumped at the chance. The plumes of mystery dust spiraled around an under-ventilated vehicle. And it didn’t cure my tinnitus.
Another time a lady boarded at 3am and bellowed “PAPAYA!” for ten minutes. We wanted to buy some to secure more slumber but had no change.

It’s clear why we went for a super-touristy option instead. By parting with a bit more dough you can get a flexible ticket between key locations in Peru. You can change your booking for each leg up to 12 hours before departure, and they pick you up from your hostel. Lovely jubbly.

As it’s super touristy, they have lots of organised fun along the way to beef up their Tripadvisor reviews. Now we’re talking.

Our first leg on the Tourist Tanker was a super-early trip to Paracas. There was a stop for breakfast, and the organised fun began. A man with a trombone serenaded us whilst we ate some sorry looking scrambled eggs. Then onto a traditional dance performed by a hombre on a horse called “Treasure”:

But the main event was Guinea Pig Tombola. A man released a scared and disoriented guinea pig from a cage. It ran for dear life into a tunnel. (Guinea pig is a traditional Peruvian dish and we were playing at a restaurant. We didn’t try it).

A Gringo (tourist) was stood by each tunnel, and the chosen one would win a prize:

🥳 Laura won!!! 🥳

She got to choose between a sketchy looking zip-line ride over the car park, or a ride on Treasure (the dancing horse). She went for a trot on Treasure:

Our short stay in Paracas began with yet more organised fun. A free Pisco Sour making class courtesy of the coach company. Pisco is the national drink of Peru, and the Pisco Sour cocktail is the most common way to guzzle it.

We were reasonably successful at making them:

And learnt that they contain raw egg-white. A customary few drops of Angostura bitters is all that stops it whiffing.

We didn’t manage to see any flamingoes in the Galápagos. Paracas gave us another chance. We hired a couple of bikes, and proceeding on an extremely sweaty cycle into a nature reserve:

Success! We got close for a few snaps, but they are very easily spooked:

Another journey on the Gringo Mobile took us to Huacachina. It has a big lake surrounded by sand dunes. A trip to go Sand Boarding down the dunes, with a maniac driving you there in a dune buggy is the main event. The dune buggy was terrifying. Here’s an attempt to capture the speed and standard of driving on offer:

Alas, it doesn’t do it justice as I didn’t want to bash or lose my phone.

Laura wasn’t a massive fan of the dune buggying. We did both enjoy sand boarding. It started off pretty mild:

But ended with us hurtling down a huge dune. The driver was very clear that we needed to use our legs to slow ourselves down on the final hill:

It was incredible up on the dunes:

Laura was still traumatised by the buggy ride. She had a quick look at the travel advice for Peru on the UK government website:

Oops. Further Googling suggests it was a woman who was not on a tour. She hired a board, didn’t stop herself and crashed into a building. But we vowed, yet again, to actually check UK travel advice from then on.

The next trip on the Holiday Hauler took us to Arequiepa. It’s a stunning city:

But our prime objective was to catch a local bus to a nearby town, Cabanaconde. There we started a three day/two night hike down and then up Colca Canyon.

The first day had a flat pootle along to the canyon, followed by a ~1000m descent over 5 kilometers. At the bottom a stunning hostel, nap, and hot meal was much welcomed:

Day two was a fairly flat traverse along the bottom of the canyon. It ended at what locals dubbed “The Oasis”. A small village in the canyon with accommodation and natural springs. I dipped my toe in the spring and left Laura to it 🥶.

The final day was a brutal ascent up the canyon. 1000m over 5 kilometers 😱. We set off super early the avoid the heat. We reached the top, but were out of cash, hungry, and moany. Luckily we eventually found the true oasis: a café that accepted credit cards.

That takes us a couple of weeks into our journey down Peru.

Next up, we complete a four day trek along the Salkantay Trail to visit Machu Picchu.