Capital of former Incan empire, Cuzco is wonderful. We liked it a lot. There are hints of Incan architecture and also colonial. It is quite touristy, I haven't seen so many touts at one place before, but there has to be some price you pay for famous place.
We spent morning exploring centre of city and we will go afternoon to nearby places (it will be a separate post). We were not in a hurry, those a few places we wanted to see can be handled in half a day. The worse "problem" is Peruvian approach to tickets. You cannot buy any individual ticket, there are only for 10 days and the cheaper is I think for 3 days with limited number of attractions. It might not be bad deal if you stayed in Cuzco longer, but we were bound to leave soon.
We spend whole day 15th of February in bus from Puno to Cuzco. It was very nice scenic road and that was also reason we decided to travel during day, compared to alternative night trip. That would save us some time and also money, but we would not see anything.
Copacabana, Bolivia
Added: June 24, 2010
It's 12th of February and we are finally heading to Lake Titicaca! A pick up bus again arrives 30 minutes ahead of scheduled range, this time a driver is not willing to wait 5 minutes until I finish packing. We have to go to Vicuña Tours near main bus terminal to catch our bus. Fortunately receptionist is very helpful - he shows us the place on a map and catches a taxi for us.
The bus is packed, no wonder due to strike there are more travellers keen to get to Copacabana. It is really cloudy, clouds are quite low, because in El Alto they form fog.
It was the 35th day of our travelling, Monday 1st of February 2010. Our flight landed at El Alto. We walked about 100m to passport control and it was sufficient to get light headed and heavy breathing. No wonder, El Alto is at about 4100m above sea level and we flew there from Santiago de Chile at 520m. With such high elevation any strange feelings in head cannot be ignored.
I cannot help myself, I have to show many photos here. No wonder, we've spent more days in La Paz than at any other place we travelled through. We wanted to acclimatize to this altitude well before heading to "wilderness" and spent there 4 days. And then later 3 unplanned days. During that time I found I like La Paz a lot. It's atmosphere, people, colours, mountains, even weather was amazing. Our stay was enhanced by very good hostel Cruz de los Andes we stayed at. Staff did not speak English much, only one lady was able to help in all cases, but for simpler needs we managed well also with others. We liked especially old lady in kitchen who served breakfast. While staying in La Paz to get acclimatized to altitude you don't need to be bored. You can make many small trips in surroundings. We went to Tiwanaku and Valle de la Luna (those are easy) and later we made a hike to Chacaltaya (~5300m). You can go further away, like for example visiting Copacabana at Lake Titicaca.
We woke up to see terrible storm on 3rd of January. Great, it was wonderful weather yesterday and it is terrible today. We got completely soaked just after running to the other side of road and packing our luggage into car. That did not help with our mood.
And we had two attractions asking for fair weather planned today! We planned to go into Lake Tekapo and to have helicopter trip to Mt Cook. We can move that to next day or to next week when we get to Wanaka or Franz Josef. But we will not be able to move visit of St John observatory to any other day, so let's hope sun starts to shine.Norway Day 3 - beautiful fjords and mountains
Added: September 07, 2008
Sunday 20th of July starts as cloudy with ocassional blue patches in the sky. One of main highlights of our trip in Norway should happen today - cruise in Geiranger fjord.
I appologise for tons of photos here. I just could not edit them tighter.
Norway Day 2 - waterfalls, mountains and summer skiing
Added: September 06, 2008
Saturday 19th of July we woke up to weather as was forecasted even I refused to believe it will be cloudy previous day. Well, it was. End of blue sky and good photos...
Some waterfalls are planned for this day, 2 national parks, old wooden churches, we will go through interesting tunnels and there are some alternatives. It depends on time, but we have no illusions that this time we could progress faster :-) And of course - cherries has been added unexpectedly to our daily menu yesterday.
We need to get to Bøverdalen in the evening.
Iceland Day 9 - Back to Keflavik
Added: September 03, 2008
Saturday 22st of June is our last full day in the Iceland. Our flight is scheduled on Monday at about 7am, hence I do not count it.
I wish we had such weather whole time as it is these days. But at least we have seen all possibilities.
The biggest (and the tallest) attraction today is hike to waterfall Glymur. Otherwise we just need to drive to south with occasional diversion and stop.
Iceland Day 8 - Northwest Iceland
Added: August 19, 2008
We plan to spend Saturday 21st of June in Northwest Iceland. Beautiful weather started later yesterday and it is the same today.
We need to travel a lot today again, there is no chance we could reach our destination Reykir soon. But there should be plenty of light as we have learned from previous days. Not to mention it is Summer solstice today.
RSS feed