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LakeTiticaca (Peru)
by Essexgirl2006 Lake Titicaca is situated on the border of Peru and Bolivia. It is approximately 190km long and 80km wide, and is situated at an altitude of 3800m. I visited the Peruvian side during my visit. The main Peruvian town on the lake is Puno, which is a busy industrial and commercial town, very busy and not particularly attractive. This was ... our access point to the lake. For our first day we were going out to Amantani Island for a home-stay. The journey on the lake was about four hours and was very relaxing if a bit dull - bring books. Upon arrival we were welcomed by some of the villagers and taken to one of the chief's homes. Here our party was divided up amongst the other families in the village. Different villages take it in turns to house tourists. Our host was a young lady called Maria, and she took the three of us single females back to her house. Although the village had its own dock and was close to the lake, Maria's house was a smallholding a little bit further up a hill and it a bit of a scramble across fields. It was quite hard to orientate yourself, but Maria had a goat in her garden and that helped us identify where we were heading as the land was terraced and properties hidden behind walls and trees. We were only here for an overnight visit so there wasn't much need to unpack. We had been concerned what to buy our hosts as a gift, but our guide said that cash would be appreciated so that they can purchase what they need. We also had some chocolate and biscuits that we gave to her; I don't think she shared these with her family! The host families are given grants to develop their homes to welcome visitors, so we had a fully equipped bathroom - although the water was only turned on for a few hours. Our bedrooms were basically furnished with a beds and blankets, and a dresser, with thin curtains at the window, there is no electricity in this room, although the village shares a generator which is used for a few hours a day. We went in August, so although it was sunny with clear skies, it was also quite chilly. At night it dropped below freezing so be sure to wrap up warm. After we had put our bags down on our beds we walked back to the main house so we could join the other members of our party for a sunset walk to the top of one of the two mountain peaks on the island. The whole island seemed to be a mountain but at an altitude of 3800m I am not much of a mountain climber (nor am I normally, but the altitude was a good excuse!) Some of us decided to stop and rest by the local school and basketball court and wait for the others. Although I adjusted quite well to the altitude without any sickness, I tended to find that walking upstairs or uphill required the use of an oxygen tank. Back at the main house we had a simple local meal of vegetable soup, followed by fish, rice and potatoes. As a veggie I just had the latter. There were beers and soft drinks available to buy. The meal had been cooked collectively by the local women whilst we were on our walk, and after they cleared it away and washed up. Then Maria came to find us and took us back to her house. I was quite convinced I wouldn't be able to sleep due to the cold - I had thermal leggings and a long sleeved vest under my pyjamas, thick socks and even my woolly hat. The hat fell off in the night, but I slept beautifully, my body heat trapped under the covers meant I was comfortably toasty. Maria woke us by leaving a basin of hot water outside our door for us to wash in. We then joined her and her mother for breakfast (although they had actually eaten many hours before) in their simple kitchen. The floors and walls were stone and bare, apart from a a few newspapers on the wall. The furniture was a small wooden table covered in a clean, colourful cloth and a bench seat with a wooden backing. They cooked on an open fire. This was the first real chance we got the chat properly to Maria, she lived with her elderly parents and her younger brother. Her older siblings had all moved to Puno and I get the feeling she would have liked to have joined them but they needed her to help out on the farm. She was only in her early twenties, but looked at least ten years older. The native language around here is Quechua, which has no bearing on any other language you many have heard. Maria was taught some Spanish at school and fortunately one of the girls I was sharing with spoke Spanish so we managed a little conversation, otherwise it would have been difficult. They grew mainly vegetables on the farm but they did keep guinea pigs, known as cuy, which were a regional delicacy for special occasions. Our breakfast was Koca tea (helps with altitude sickness), flatbread, hard-boiled egg and pancakes. This seemed quite standard and what they have been told will suit a Western visitor. Don't expect any milk in your tea though. We then had some time to explore the island, you could help build a potato oven outside the main house if you wanted, although I chose to relax down by the beach in a little suntrap I found, out of the wind. We had lunch here, before leaving, it was similar to the previous evening but this time they dressed us up in traditional costumes so we could pose for photos and play some music. After our visit to Amantani Island, we took our boat to the Uros Islands. The Uros Islands are floating man-made reed islands. The Uros residents have dwindled of late, but they receive grants if they decide to remain on the islands which fund solar panels - the homes we saw had TV and satellite equipment. The first island we visited was owned by one family and had two homes - for the parents and the son and his wife, plus a cooking hut. They worked as fishermen and the women made reed crafts and jewellery to sell to the tourists. The father and his son demonstrated how the islands were made and our guide translated. Each island is one to two metres thick, but the older bottom reeds rot, so new layers need to be added fairly regularly with an island being completely replaced every ten years or so. You can also eat parts of the reed (not the tastiest thing I have ever eaten - a bit bland for me, and a very weird texture) and other parts are used as a natural medicine. Walking on the reeds felt quite odd, a bit spongey, particularly when you first step on the island as you could feel it move. There was also a watchtower made of reed you could climb for views but I wasn't brave enough! After this island, we were taken to the main island of the group on a reed boat - this holds a primary school and a type of community centre and medical centre, and what seemed to be an impromptu gift shop! Like on Amantani, the younger children are educated on the island, but older children would then go to Puno. There is also a separate toilet island - we didn't visit! Although the islanders trade their fish and reeds, these days the main income is from tourism. There have been some reports of islanders going back to the mainland at night, after the tourists left, but we were there late afternoon and didn't see anything like that. Certainly the family we visited were living in there - we saw their clothes hanging up on the walls and their TV equipment. It's a basic living, but it seems to suit them. After this we returned to Puno as darkness fell. I was pleased to see the simple lifestyles of the people who lived in this area, and the beautiful lake. I was pleasantly surprised by the way of life of the Uros people, and that it was less touristy than I expected in spite of the tourist souveniers for sale. I was glad to leave the cold behind however! Read the complete review |
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Colca Canyon (Peru)
by Essexgirl2006 Colca Canyon in Southern Peru is one of the deepest canyons on earth, in fact at one time was considered the deepest, but a nearby, less accessible canyon now takes that honour. The canyon reaches a depth of 4160m in places which is twice as deep as the Grand Canyon. We visited as part of a tour group. We have over-nighted near the hot ... springs town of Chivay and had an early start the next morning to Colca Canyon, whose main attraction, other than the scenery and natural wildlife, is the Andean Condors who use the rising thermals to glide around the canyon on their early morning hunts. This is an area of high altitude (well over 4000m in parts) so strenuous walks are only for those who have acclimatised and have a reasonable to good level of fitness, you can do 2-3 days walks if you so wish and want to really explore the canyon and its indigenous peoples (the canyon is inhabited and farmed). Unfortunately this is the only chance you will get to see 'real' locals in action in this particular area, the rest sit by the side of the road in traditional dress selling mass produced crafts and trying to persuade you to have your photo taken with a baby llama. The part of the canyon that you need to see the condors is known as Cruz del Condor. We did a short walk totalling about 30 minutes but broken up into different condor viewing spots, mainly on the same level, but some steps and uneven paths were involved. As it was early morning, although sunny, it was quite chilly at this altitude so I recommend wrapping up warm as well as wearing walking boots/trainers, plus you will need sunscreen and water. As far as the condors were concerned we were very lucky. I don't know if we just timed it right (morning is supposed to be the best time, and it was fairly busy in places) or if they are always around this much every morning. It is always a risk when travelling specifically to view a form of wildlife that they may just take it upon themselves not to turn up. Not so the condors on this day. I'm not sure how many different ones we saw, possibly only 6 or 8 in different parts, but they all put on a show. Quite frankly I don't think I could have got better photographs if they had been trained! They flew quite close to us, sometimes right over us (I like to think it amused them when we all almost toppled backwards trying to get a photo), and glided gracefully over the warm air currents showing their three metre wingspans off to us grateful tourists. Not all the condors we saw were full grown adults, there were some juveniles whose feather are brown, rather then the black of the grown-ups. All have a white feather 'collar' around the neck; some older ones also get white feathers across the backs of their wings, but at a distance they look all black in this part. Condors are scavengers so usually pick up dead prey; they have sharp, hooked beaks and beady eyes in order to spot their prey far below them. We did see some swoop down towards potential prey, but the steepness of the canyon walls in this part, meant we could not see where he went - and I suspect our eyesight would have been comparitively lacking anyway. One grown-up perched, for a good fifteen minutes, on a ledge right above us in order for us to take his photo. If you have a good guide with you he will point out other birdlife, but I have to say I'm not much of a twitcher, and can barely identify more than half a dozen British birds, let alone South American ones! However, bird lover or not, the condors are magnificent and you can't fail to be impressed, especially if they were as obliging as when we visited. If you can, bring binoculars and a digital camera with a good zoom. I would also recommend familiarising yourself with the multi-shot function on your camera (the one that takes many shots back to back) as they fly quite quick and you don't really have time to focus before they are out of shot again. This way you have a chance of getting a few good shots every time they fly past. There is an admission charge for tourists to come into the canyon, I am not sure of the price as it was included in my holiday. If you are travelling independently you can get tours from Chivay or Arequipa. Arequipa is quite a bit further away, so you may need to book an overnight tour to ensure you get to see them at the best time. Read the complete review |
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Equatorial Monument / Mitad del Mundo (Quito, Ecuador)
by zoe_page_1 While it may sound a bit of a trek, getting to the centre of the Earth is not all that difficult, at least not when Quito is you starting point. The Ecuadorian capital is pretty near the equator line, and as such, a visit is high on many people's lists when they're in town. We went on my second day in the country - a reward ... for my hard work the day before, helping my mother teach German and English classes. Though organised tours run regularly, it's cheap and easy to get there yourself: take the Metrobus right to the end, to Ofelia, then transfer to a 'Mitad del Mundo' bus. The first trip costs 25c, and the second incurs a transfer fee of 15c. It'll take you about 1 ½ hours, but the second bus will drop your right at the door. Didn't think the Equator had a door? Well it does - two in fact... Here's an interesting fact about the Equator - no one can quite agree where it is. That's why you can visit it in two different places in this part of Ecuador, both claiming to be the Real Deal. The story goes that the French marked it out in 1736, but some say they got it slightly wrong - a few hundred meters to the left of where it really is. Years later, this was figured out and rectified, but they'd already built a monument in the first place, so they kept it. So then there were two. Except, it then transpired that the REAL real line passed through somewhere different again, but since it was through some sacred indigenous ground, they could hardly slap up a visitors' centre there, so they made do with the one, sorry, two they already had. Many people only go to the place the bus drops you off, but if you want the full misleading experience, a better bet is first to head to the right, down a dusty path, as you disembark. Walk a few hundred meters and you'll come across the Museo de Sitio Intinan, with Equator line #1. This is an adorable little museum, mainly outdoors. It costs $3 to enter, but this includes a guided tour in your choice of English and Spanish. We approached about 9.30am and although I wasn't sure it was open, I changed my mind when I saw a woman with a bum bag wandering around. It was open and we weren't even the first visitors of the day...except we were, because she wasn't the American tourist I'd purported her to be, she was one of the staff. Oh well. We went to the loos (it had been a long, bumpy bus ride after all) and when we came out another couple had arrived, so we joined with them on what proved to be a very interesting tour in remarkably good English. From a distance, the museum looks a little like a model village, and this theme continues inside as you see an 'authentic' Andean house from 1875, plus there are various displays including tribal masks, naked statues, shrunken heads - the usual (at least, the usual for Ecuador). In one corner they even had a pen of live guinea pigs roaming around - the critters are a bit of a delicacy in this country, but they weren't for eating, just for show. Or so they told us. Once you've done the 'history', it's time for some 'science'. You can watch in amazement as they show how water swirls down a plug hole in different directions depending on which side of the line (and therefore which hemisphere) you are. Look on in wonder as you lose all power to resist an arm wrestle as you stand bang on the equator, gravity being so different in that one spot. Trying to balance an egg on a pin, and attempting to walk in a straight line with your eyes closed complete the demonstrations, though the walking bit wasn't too difficult for someone with years of experience prancing along beams and, more recently, steadying herself at the top of cheerleading pyramids, much to the guide's aggrievment. Maybe I just have super balance, and the mind control to ignore the pull of the Equator's magical forces.... These 'tests' are more for fun that anything else, and some of it is clearly smoke and mirrors, hence the inverted commas I placed around the word science earlier in this paragraph, but that's not the point and if you're going to make the effort to visit, you have to get into the spirit of things and play along. How do you know where the exact Equator line is, for these dubious experiments? Just look down - it is, after all, helpfully painted on the floor for you. This means you can also snap the essential shots of you straddling the line, and frame one next to another of you doing the same thing in Greenwich, assuming you've been. And of course I have - my hoodie doesn't have "We Straddle For Manchester" on the back of it for nothing. This museum is beautifully landscaped, and the backdrop of towering mountains is stunning. While you wouldn't want to spend hours there, it's a lovely place to visit, and does have benches and a café if you want to linger a little. There's also a shop, where you can get your passport stamped to show you've been to the Equator. A bit of a strange one since it's just a line, not a country, but they use the same page as your entry visa to the country, and the authorities clearly don't seem to mind. From this museum, if you wander back over the little bridge, and along the road to the bus stop, you can then enter La Ciudad del Mitad del Mundo, the other (unconnected) visitors' site. This is much larger (it is a 'city' after all) but also costs just $3 to enter. Our first stop was the café located directly behind the ticket office, and, once replenished with coffee, diet coke and ice creams, we set off to explore. This is a sprawling site with various things to see and do, but the most obvious is to go up the massive monument in the centre. This costs an additional $2, but is worth it for the views from the top. You go up in a lift and enter onto a viewing platform that goes all the way round. The points of the compass are helpfully set into massive stone slabs on the ground so you know which way you're looking, and of course the Equator line is painted on the ground as well. It runs off into the distance in both directions - for all you can tell, it maybe runs all the way round the globe - but loses its prowess somehow if it's the second location that day you've seen it. To come down the tower, you take the winding stairs which stop on each floor where various exhibits are on offer. They have an eclectic mix of historical, cultural and geographical displays, and while it's not riveting, you can spend 10 minutes or so having a nosy at the dioramas, statues, photographs and so on. Then it's outside to straddle the (second) line and have some more photos taken. This way you're covering all bases - whichever is the 'real' one according to whoever you're talking to, you can say you've been to it. Also in the grounds are a handful of pavilions, bizarrely named after different countries (Spain, France and so on). These house different things, the most interesting of which are some miniature replicas of the cities of Quito and Guayaquil. However this pavilion is only open at certain times each hour - you can tell it's not time when the door is open but the inside is in darkness, and the guard's chair is empty. We never did figure this one out - you could go in whenever, but you wouldn't be able to see anything - but my best guesses were that they were trying to save electricity or staff fees, since the guard seemed to be working two adjacent pavilions the day we were there. The rest of the site includes an observatory we didn't visit, a couple of children's playgrounds, a rather sweet church, a large bandstand area (only usually occupied at weekends) and a number of places to spend your dollars. The place doesn't run to maps, so make sure you take your time to explore everywhere as there seemed to be new things to see (and photograph) around every corner. We had lunch in one of the many restaurants on site, enjoying their 'vegetarian plate' which like all things Ecuadorian included different types of corn and banana, plus a few salads and so on. At $5 it was reasonably priced for that sort of place - even if you left the complex, there's nowhere else you could go to eat - and we got loads to eat. Menus tended to be posted outside, in both English and Spanish, so you could choose the best place for you depending on what you fancied. The restaurants all seemed to be independently operated, so there is a bit of variation in what they serve. You could also bring a picnic - there weren't any signs restricting this, but you'd have to be prepared as you couldn't buy much to eat or drink in the shops on site, except ice creams (I had two). There are lots of shops, but these mainly sell different handicrafts, some with the name of the site on, some generically Ecuadorian. And, as seems to be the case all over the country, although they're independently operated they all sell exactly the same things, at more or less the same prices. However, head into the post card shop near the central plaza and you can get your passport stamped, again, to show you've been to the Equator. Again. You can also post postcards from here with special stamps on, just a slight step up the cool ranks from sending one from the top of Blackpool tower. They take a while to arrive, but the one my mum sent me months before my visit did get here, in about the same time anything from Quito does. We caught a bus back easily, this time paying the full 40c each up front, prior to transferring onto the Metrobus back at Ofelia. They seemed to run pretty regularly throughout the day - there was one pulling up as we left the complex, and they turn round there so you can't get on one going in the wrong direction. Though they make a few stops on the way, all you really need to remember is to get off at the final one each time. We spent a good day there, leaving about 2.30pm to come back to teach another class. The weather was beautiful and you could stay longer, though it would be more to sit in the sun than anything else since the attractions themselves can be done quite quickly. Whether or not it's the real site of the Equator, a visit to this place is pretty much a must do if you're in the area. Ecuador doesn't do tourism all that well (Galapagos aside) but the set up here is really not all that bad, with all the essentials (shops, toilets, cafes) and you can't beat it for novelty factor. NB: Prices quoted are for foreign adults, and correct as of Feb 2010. Locals pay a lower rate here and in many attractions, but even with the 'tourist tax' it's still a cheap day out at under $10 per person for the 3 entrance tickets and return transport from the capital. Read the complete review |
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1 review Sightseeing International / |
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Sightseeing International / The Bellavista Reserve is composed of pre-montane cloud forest. The elevation ranges between 1400 and 2600 meters above sea level, with an average mean temperature of 14-22 degrees celsius. Bellavista's forest contains a high level of epiphyte (plants that grow on other plants) diversity, ... |
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2 reviews Sightseeing International / |
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Sightseeing International / |
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Sightseeing International / On a fertile ravine 89 miles south of Guerrero Negro you'll find the beautiful town of San Ignacio. The access road, about two kilometers (1.3 miles) from the transpeninsular highway, allows you to enter into a fantasy landscape, a magnificent contrast to the mysterious sierras and the dro... |
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Sightseeing International / River. |
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1 review Sightseeing International / Iguazu Falls (Portuguese: Cataratas do Iguaçu IPA [kata'ɾatɐs du igwa'su]; Spanish: Cataratas del Iguazú IPA [kata'ɾatas del iɣwa'su]) are waterfalls of the Iguazu River located on the border of the Brazilian state of Paraná (in the Southern Region) and the Argentine pr... |
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1 review Sightseeing International / It extends from the coast into the Anden. The high plateau lies approxinately 2200 meters over the sea level, thereby extreme upward gradients. - It extends from the coast into the Anden. The high plateau lies approxinately 2200 meters over the sea level, thereby extreme upward gradients... |
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Avenida Th Cursino 6338 / Sightseeing International / Sao Paulo / Tel: +55 11 6946 6249. |
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