Michelle and I arrived in Cuba on the 16th February and were taken to our “Casa Particulares” or homestay in Old Havana. We passed Revolutionary square and were immediately captured by all the beautiful historic baroque, art deco and Spanish colonial architecture in the city. We had four nights on our own before we started our “Cuban Adventure” tour. After Santiago and Lima Havana was quite a shock with wrought iron bars on every door and window in the old section of town and many dilapidated buildings. Some of the hotels or museums or government offices have been totally restored but many others are in a decrepit state from neglect or lack of funds and many on the Malecon, the wide boulevard all along the coast in Old Havana are in a dangerous state of collapse with some just being shored up in some way. We made a wide berth around those. There appeared to be many squatters in the old buildings. Most doors and windows in Old Havana were covered by iron bars and many doors had several locks.
Electricity supply for all of Cuba is a big problem. In Havana they are mostly notified of when they will have it for the next day but in the country areas it is very hit and miss. We operated in darkness in our room and bathroom in Playa Larga, Venales and in Trinidad and must be so frustrating for the locals.
The internet is also not readily available. Our hosts had reasonable internet when it was activated.
Every day there were queues along streets where poor locals with ration cards lined up for bread, eggs and other scarce consumables. The one department store we entered had more empty spaces that goods.
Eight eight percent of the population live below the poverty line and many old people walking along the streets or through their barred windows asked us for any medicines we could give them. Several small shops sold a few items of clothing as well as a small variety of groceries. The few pharmacies that we saw had very little on their shelves and did not want me to take photos.
La Bodeguida and La Floridita are purported to be the bars where Ernest Hemingway drank although some locals dispute this. Most tourists flock to those bars, us included, to have the famous drinks. People were friendly but we could easily be spotted as tourists and many touts tried their luck with offering us tours especially those involving the many varied and bright coloured Classic Cars of the 50’s. We decided on a bright pink open topped 1950’s chevy for 30euros an hour for 2hours which was great fun touring with many stops first along the Malecon to Revolutionary square, the Havana Forest in the heart of the city with a river and lush vine covered trees, Miramar the affluent residential area of Havana where the wealthy families lived in lovely colonial homes before the revolution. Now they are mostly embassies from all over the world. We ended up at the Beautiful “Hotel Nacional” on the coast with a wonderful view across the water to the Malecon and the lighthouse. We had to have a Mojito there and bathed in the old glory of the hotel with its famous “Hall of Fame” bar littered with photos of world leaders and celebrities.
An attempt to do a tour of the Partagas Cigar factory didn’t eventuate the first day as the tickets could not be bought at the factory and when we got there it was to close soon as the electricity was to be cut off. We eventually found the office in a small mall, however in Cuba our Australian credit cards could not be used only US credit cards or a local top up credit card would be accepted so after some advice we went the next day to the very posh Manzana Kempinski hotel and saw a most obliging girl in their tours office who offered to go to the bank to top up her card. She knew how difficult it could be to obtain the tickets. We gave her the ten Euros each and off she went to convert the money. She returned and was able to issue tickets for us for that day for which we were very grateful. A very strange system indeed!
We didn’t have much time to get to the factory so opted for a “Coco Taxi” a quirky tricycle with a yellow spherical open hard plastic cover attached where we could sit behind the driver. It was only a five minutes away but the price was US15 or Euros15 to get there. They didn’t want the Cuban pesos. Normal taxi were USD20 or 20euros to go anywhere in Havana. Our hosts were able to change 200 Euros for 64,000 Cuban Pesos. We did manage to spend our pesos over the 10days as it was illegal to take them out of the country.
The tour of the premium cigar factory was very interesting with a girl that spoke good English and with only four of us we could ask many questions and with our guides permission we could even take a few photos surreptitiously, normally not allowed. Around 12000 cigars of various sizes and qualities are produced every day with over 200workers. Some cigars last half and hour and some for 2hours according to the smokers wants.
The workers are in a very large open room with a huge TV screen in the corner. They can choose when to start work but have a quota to fill every day. Every morning they are read the newspaper and a portion of a book in the afternoon. Their wages are according to their output. The most famous cigar smoked by Fidel Castro was the Cohiba cigar which was first produced in Seville, Spain. Che Guevara smoked the Montecristo No4. There are scores of different cigars with names such as Romeo y Julieta, Padron and La Gloria Cubana to name a few. It was fascinating to watch the process of wrapping the cigars with 5 different leaves from binders, fillers and wrapper leaves. They are then pressed to a certain thickness and in another room they are collated and put through a piece of wood with a hole where the cigar needs to be threaded through to see if the exact thickness and density is achieved. Any rejects are put aside and the workers can take 5cigars a day home to smoke or sell. We watched one
worker who had been there for 25years making cigars.
Our tour comprised only five of us. Cian from Ireland living in Spain, Bence from Hungary living in Brussels, Jayne from Pennsylvania, Michelle and me.
Yunet our wonderful guide arrived with the others on the 19th to brief us all on the tour and and we all went out to “Donde Lis” an restaurant with excellent food and great staff just around the corner from our “Casa”. A walking tour of the old town was first on the programme the following day. I had unfortunately drunk a mango juice from a local shop the previous day and was out of action for 24hours so missed the walking tour which most of which we had covered in the days beforehand. The following day we set off with our very competent driver Rayko and Yunet for the central north Pinar del Rio province of Cuba stopping first at “Fusterlandia” a suburb in Havana created by Jose Fuster An artist of naive works in mostly mosaics and murals in unusual forms and shapes. He is still working on art forms in the town. I hope the neighbours enjoy his work! We stopped in the countryside for lunch. I passed on that. We then entered the pretty countryside town of Vinales about four hours later to the west where some pretty mostly wooden most houses and some shacks had porches and two rocking chairs in front of the house. The town itself consists of housing and a main street with a supermarket and many restaurants and bars. A small market is set up every day in a side street selling souvenirs many made of wood.
The group was divided and Michelle and I stayed in one house with 2rooms with an ensuites for tourists and the others were in a larger house.
A local guide walked us into the rural area on one side of the town which was surrounded by a low mountain range with outcrops of lush green covered Karsts. We were shown to a small coffee plantation where we were shown the process of producing their coffee and could taste and/or buy the coffee produced. A cute fat tree rat only found in Cuba and neighbouring islands was in a cage outside and we were told that they were were also fattened and eaten. I couldn’t imagine eating the cute rodent. Our guide walked us through the fields to our next stop, a tobacco farm where we were shown the involved process of tobacco cultivation, fermentation where the leaves are sprayed with a mixture off lemon, honey, cinnamon and left to ferment for 8months then dried before the leaves are formed into cigars anything up to 18months later. We had to of course try smoking the cigars after they were dipped into a light honey which sweetens the taste of the tobacco and makes them easier to turn and smoke.
This honey comes from a special bee which have underground beehives.
We then had lunch in town and the food available was usually chicken or fish with black rice and beans with plantains or yams. The other most popular things on menus were croquettes which were not potato but made with flour, broth and bechamel and sometimes filled with meat and most things included cheese of some kind even sweets.
On our way out of Vinales 2days later we stopped at a beautiful viewpoint with lush agricultural lands below surrounded again by the karsts. From there we needed to head back to Havana for fuel. The fuel shortages in Cuba are dire. Tour buses take precedence but even so we were dropped at the Havana Golf Club for basis refreshments and food while Rayko the driver went to wait for fuel at a service station where he with another 15 other tour buses waited the 3 1/2hours for the tanker to arrive to fill the bowsers. We saw long line of locals waiting for fuel which can be also for many hours. Along the highways across the country which need repair the most common form of transport seem to be horses or horses and carts or old Lada cars with many people walking or trying to hitch rides. We saw some buses built on truck chassis.
Our trip from Vinales to Playa Larga via Havana took us most of the day with a stop at a private sanctuary for Bee hummingbirds native to Cuba. We stayed and watched the pretty green and delicate blue hummingbirds dive into their sugar water containers dotted around the back of the property. We drove through the National park of Cienaga de Zapata and then stopped for the night at Playa Larga where we had a top restaurant like 4course meal at our Casa Particulares after a short walk to the lovely beach complete with a beach bar. Playa Larga and Playa Giron are the sites of the Bay of Pigs invasion, the 1961 US backed failed attempt with counter revolutionaries to overthrow the Castro government. The only remaining evidence were many simple white stone monuments along the roads to the hundreds of Cuban revolutionalies killed.
We arrived the following day in Cienfuegos on the south coast of the Caribbean sea named after an Asturian born Captain general of Cuba and billed as a city known for it’s structured urban planning with a few working theatres,museums and art galleries. It was midday and there were very few people on the street or along the Pedestrian boulevard with many shops closed as there was no electricity. There was no espresso coffee to be had. We met up at the statue of Beny More a famous Cuban singer, bandleader and songwriter.
We had a good lunch at Villa Maria restaurant where the meals cost less than AUD10. We walked around the small harbour and stopped on our way out at the Palacio de Valle a Moorish inspired very ornate restaurant.
We continued on to Trinidad de Cuba my favourite old town with grand colonial buildings and colourful houses along mostly cobbled streets. It was a centre from the time of the main sugar industry in the 18th and 19th century. Yunet our outstanding guide showed us around the old town and gave us much information about the city and it’s history. We climbed the tower on the edge of the main square to have a good view of the whole town and to see the sunset.
We opted to go the next day to the beach at Trinidad with it’s couple of large hotel complexes. We spent half a day here enjoying wandering along the clear sand beach and some of us swimming in the clear turquoise water.
There were many houses offering massage so I availed myself of one recommended by Yunet and felt very relaxed after that.
Cian found a great bar/restaurant with excellent wifi “Giroud” where a couple provided lovely music with her singing and he on the saxaphone.
The main music venues didn’t start until 8pm or much later so Cian and I went to the “Casa de la Trova” where many mainly older Cuban musicians played great salsa music. We all went the following night however it rained heavily and the venue was not water tight but we enjoyed it just the same. It was a bit precarious walking back to our homestay with no streetlights.
After two days we drove back through lush countryside to one of the old sugar mill manager’s house and tall tower to observe the sugar can fields where local women were selling all forms of embroidered white linen and clothing.
Santa Clara was known chiefly for it’s revolutionary landmarks and we stopped at the site of the railway line where Che Guevara and his revolutionary forces captured an armoured train belonging to Batista which secured the control of the city in 1958. The train is now a national monument in a memorial park.
We arrived back in Havana on the 26th February and we with Yunet and Rayco for a farewell to them to the rooftop “Sibarita” bar.
We couldn’t have had a better team to give us an 8day tour of Cuba.
Michelle and I spent the last day walking around the old town again and down to the Malecon to an art gallery where we each bought an oil painting. At Havana airport we were stopped and our rolled up paintings examined in case there were drugs concealed and we had to pay 5euros and got an export certificate. A way to make money we supposed. The same happened when we left Lima but there was no fee payable. We just received the certificate.
We sauntered down to catch a small boat across the harbour to the other side but were told that it was broken so instead we visited the large souvenir “Mercado San Jose” where we bought a few souvenir items. We met the group for an excellent last meal at the rooftop Antojos restaurant. On the 27th February we started the long journey home to Lima firstly, then Santiago the Following day and then the last legs on the 1st March to Perth via Auckland and Sydney.
Cuba was very thought provoking with such multi faceted aspects of life and so very foreign to us living in a first world country where goods and services are plentiful and the cities on the whole are well kept and in good condition. The magnificent architecture was in various states from totally restored to crumbling which was very sad to see and the lives of most people are a continuous struggle with very small wages and pensions. shortages of electricity,food,medicine, fuel and more. Most Cubans who could afford it have left the country for a better life. Those going to the USA are covered by a law from 1966 – The Cuban adjustment act whereby they can apply for a green card after a year. Many ex pats also support family in Cuba.
It is sad to see a country with so much potential just existing.

CHILE
Michelle and I landed in Santiago on the 29th January 2025. A five hour flight took us from Perth to Sydney. An overnight at the Ibis near the airport and then a 13hour Qantas flight to Santiago where we were fed it seemed like every hour or so. We got to Santiago in the late morning and went to our hotel the “Novapark” situated in a convenient side of the old town close to the hill of Santa Lucia which when we climbed gave us a sweeping panorama of that part of the city and the coastal range. I had stayed there 5years before covid struck and I had to leave from Punta Arenas in the south of Chile very quickly to Santiago on the 21st March 2020 and then Gay and I took the last Qantas commercial flight out of the country the next morning.
There are supposedly 17 million inhabitants of Santiago but over the last few years it has swelled by 3 million with illegals from other parts of Latin America, Haiti and other south American countries. The result is that all the upmarket and fashion label shops looking for more security have moved to the east in the newer part of the city over the hill of San Cristobal. It has left the old part looking very sad indeed. So many illegals have to scratch a living by offering small trinkets and souvenirs all along the streets. One plus that after 5years most of the graffiti covering every wall in the old part of the city had been removed after the fiery demonstrations against the government and police in 2019/20.
A 3hour free walking tour took us to the expanse of the Plaza de Armas and the main points of interest of the old city surrounded by magnificent baroque buildings and their balconies or mashrabiyas of carved wood. Our guide gave us an objective view of the politics in the country at the time of Allende and Pinochet. There is a statue of Salvador Allende in the Plaza.
We unfortunately could not visit the central market which I had very much enjoyed 5years before as our guide told us that it was just too dangerous for any group or individual and that desperate people would tear the bag from your shoulder. That having said we didn’t feel threatened in any way even walking at night and we sampled a nice restaurants, Chipe Libre in the Lastarria district of Santiago.
We of course had to try the Chilean national drink of Pisco sour which is unlike any other spirit made from grapes but very enjoyable with Lemon juice, sugar syrup and beaten egg white on top.
We had two full days in Santiago so on the second day we ventured by funicular up to the Metropolitan park and hill of San Cristobal which features a large statue of the Virgin Mary and a Catholic church and where we could view the stunning Andes in the distance. Michelle took the cable car over the hill to the eastern part of the city and I walked the winding kilometres down the hill and met her there. I’m not a fan of cable cars. Beautiful and unusual sculptures in the park by the river greeted us. We were a bit tired by then so we ventured to a large mall where after a delicious meal in the foodhall we decamped to the top floor cinema to see a film in English. That what we asked for but got a French film with Spanish subtitles. It was a bit of a black comedy with a twist at the end and quite a simple film so we stayed for the duration.
I found the vegetarian restaurant “El Huerto” that Gay and I had found 5years previously and enjoyed immensely but unfortunately it turned out to be an underwhelming experience this time. We took an Uber back to our hotel and readied ourselves for our flight the next day.

PERU
The 1st of February saw us fly three and a half hours to the spectacular looking Pacific city of Lima, one of the driest capitals on earth which was just as well as it is perched on enormous cliffs of soil. Peru is the third largest country in South America and contains vast contrasts of topography from the south to the north and from the east to the west of the country. I had booked us to take the full “Peru Hop” bus route from Lima to follow a semi circular trip from there via Paracas, Huacachina, Nazca, Arequipa and Puno to the Cusco and the starting point for us to the Unesco site of Macchu Pichu. It would give us an insight into various cities and sites on the way to Cusco.
The Peru Hop service started by 2 Irishmen was an ideal way to see this part of the country and each bus has a guide who can book any tours along the way and who organises pick ups and drop off in each of their stops for each passenger. Some cities or towns cannot accommodate the large well appointed buses so we were transferred to smaller vehicles to take us to our accommodation. It was an excellent service all round.
I had decided on an old hotel “The Boulevard” in Lima where we could be collected by our Peru hop bus two days later.
The day after we arrived we joined a free walking tour, different from all other walking tours I had taken. We first met at a park which turned out to be a home exclusively for cats. Little houses for the cats and food bowls were dotted around the well kept park. Cats were lazing everywhere and were unconcerned with dogs on leashes.
Our group and guide then caught a bus to a plaza which had only been opened up recently for tourists. There was a squad of Police in the park ready for a planned demonstration.
We were shown points of interest around the city streets and came upon a very large parade of colourfully clad people in their costumes from all the provinces of Peru. The parade was to showcase the peoples of the various regions in a continuous procession with numerous bands very loudly showcasing their talents. The main Plaza da Armas (there’s one in every city) was bursting with spectators,a few groups from overseas and many South American tourists.
Our walking tour ended nearby a much poorer shanty looking village on a nearby hill. Our guide had recommended the “Contado” restaurant for lunch. We could not get there as the police had blocked off the entire square.
I asked a special forces policeman how to get there and he said “Follow me”. He tried to ask the various other police to open a barrier but to no avail. They were not going to open them for a minute.
This kindly policeman called Apolo led us all around the square and pushed himself and us through the parade some of which was not blocked by barriers. A very kind act.
We ate a “Causa Langostina” which is a round potato bun filled with lobster in a delicious sauce. This we paired with a Pisco Sour, the national drink also of Peru. By the time we finished,the continuing parade and a religious parade which was also taking place made us wind our way around the plaza and back to our hotel.
By the evening we were too tired to walk any great distance so chose a Japanese/Peruvian restaurant which was heaving with locals and apart from the Sushi which looked appealing the food was inedible so we left it and went back to our hotel.
We were picked up by our “Peru Hop” bus the following morning about 530am.

The highway between Lima and Paracas was in good repair but the landscape was quite fractured with dry hills and pockets of housing, a lot of which didn’t seem complete apart from a few good looking estates on hilltops. We stopped after three and a half hours
in Paracas before continuing our bus trip so we opted for an exhilarating trip by boat to the Ballestas islands covered in guano with colonies of sea lions, penguins and many pelicans,guanay and guanera birds. After the boat trip a sumptuous lunch with Peruvian specialities on a rooftop followed before we headed for our next stop for the night three hours away.

Huacachina is a tiny dessert oasis dwarfed by the largest sand dunes on one side of the city of Ica. Some tourists were scaling the high soft sand dunes but we opted for an extremely exhilarating dune buggy ride up and over the huge sand dunes which cover many kilometres. Michelle tried her hand at sandboarding and then we were taken a couple of kilometres further along the dunes to see the spectacular sunset. A Pisco wine tour the next day in Ica showed us the method they used to produce the spirit followed by a tasting of several piscos infused with different herbs or fruits. We had a delicious Ceviche meal there and departed that afternoon for Nazca.
We stopped at a point along the highway to scale a tower to view a couple of the Nazca lines. To view most of the lines involves a plane trip which we didn’t take.
There is much speculation about the origins and purpose of the unusual geoglyphs made in the soil in southern Peru. They ascribe from religious meanings to extra terrestrial ones.

Arequipa
We continued, spending the night on the bus and arriving in the lovely city of Arequipa at 530am the next morning with a view from the breakfast rooftop area of the Misti volcano in the distance. Arequipa is a charming city with beautiful baroque buildings made from the light volcanic stone and many with balconies.
After a short rest and walk around the Plaza de Armas and surrounds we visited the impressive and very large Santa Catalina cloistered convent, more like a town of 20,000sq metres which still housed about 15nuns and one novice.
In Spanish times it was used by some 200nuns and some rich widows who wanted to shut themselves away from the world with some of their possessions. The Spanish elite sent their daughters there for an education until they were approximately 14 and then returned to their families. The nuns still lead a cloistered life within the convent but baked bread in large pizza like ovens and it is sold in town to maintain life in the convent.
We visited the San Camilo market and sampled some fruit called Pacay that we had never seen before but which were delicious. We saw the most amazing array and quantities of potatoes. Peru is famous for its potatoes and its numerous varieties.
Our food tour to four restaurants with Viator was cancelled the previous day so we treated ourselves to a delicious meal at the “ZigZag” restaurant opposite the Plaza San Francisco in Arequipa’s historical centre. The iron staircase in the restaurant was designed by the French architect Gustave Eiffel.

From Arequipa to Puno we passed through a vast area of grasslands and national parks dotted with alpacas, guanacos and llamas. Stopping at a simple roadside cafe on Lake Saracocha we bought some “Coca” Tea which is apparently good to guard against altitude sickness. We were told that you need a minimum of 20leaves steeped in water to make a difference. The shop and roadside stalls were selling all items made from Alpaca wool. The hotels in Puno and then in Cusco had big baskets of Coca leaves on hand.

Puno and Lake Titicaca
Onward and upward the following morning at 6am for the seven hour bus ride on to the highest point on our trip – Puno,3827meters above sea level situated on the western side of Lake Titicaca.
We made a brief stop at a cafe on the way in Juliaca for some empanadas. A lot of Puno city is nestled against hills which makes the streets very narrow and somewhat claustrophobic. We luckily stayed in the “Hacienda Plaza de Armas” on the main square where we had a view across the plaza. Puno is a folkloric capital with many festivals, one of which took place while we were there but unfortunately the many performers and band members were wet through after torrential rain. Beautiful floral displays were also ruined but nothing seemed to dampen the performers spirits and they continued with the festivities.
The previous day we had booked a three hour tour of Lake Titicaca (the largest navigable lake in the world which is divided by Peru and Bolivia). We were collected from the hotel and taken to the small harbour where a ferry took us 5kms over some of the lake to the Uros floating islands made of water resistant Tortora roots and reeds.It was a somewhat strange sensation stepping onto a spongy platform of reeds which need to be replenished every fortnight.
A few families live on each island and there is even a restaurant and a very basic toilet facility on a separate island. We were taken over to this island by the very novel traditional boat also made from fine pieces of reed. The families live a very basic life and only go to the mainland for supplies. They make a living from transporting tourists from island to island and by selling a few small homemade souvenirs. Close by we found a very good Cevicheria restaurant “Mareas” and we were served up an enormous fried seafood dish which was delicious but as it was just too much food we took the rest and gave to someone on the street who appreciated it.
The altitude had affected a couple of people in our hotel and one lady was hooked up to oxygen in the foyer. I opted for Diamox anti altitude sickness tablets and had been taking the prescribed dosage for a couple of days. It meant no alcohol, coffee or spicy food which was a bit of a shame but I wanted to get to Machu Picchu without any problems. Michelle had heard that garlic also helped so that is what she ate and the Coca tea. I drank “Chicha Morada” a purple coloured bland drink made from the purple corn found in Peru.
Our last night in Peru we decided to try a “Chifa” restaurant which was a chain of Chinese/Peruvian restaurants started by the thousands of Chinese workers who were brought to Peru in the 1920’s. They are now all run by Peruvians now but are definitely Chinese in flavour.
Our last Peru Hop overnight bus trip departed about 2130 and we arrived in Cusco on the 8th February 2025 at 5am the next morning. The Peru Hop bus drivers were very skilled and the night drives were not always easy with rain on our last trip.

Cusco
Cusco in the Peruvian Andes was once the Inca capital until it was taken by the Spanish in the 16th Century. The Spanish colonial architecture dominated the city and the old part of town is beautiful and very easy to navigate. Nearly half of the city was destroyed by an earthquake in 1950 but has been rebuilt and some of the Inca walls were not damaged.
I had been recommended the “Ninos hotel” in the old part of town which was very eclectic with numerous hand painted walls around the hotel and in the rooms. The staff were very friendly and helpful.
We made our way up the hill to the Peru Hop office where they gave us Hopster T-shirts and a discount card for the restaurants in town. We availed ourselves of that at the “Catedral” restaurant.
Our middle aged Peruvian guide had a wealth of information for us about the city and the history of the Incas and the Spanish conquistadors who either obliterated the Inca population who did not want to convert to Catholicism and encouraged the more prominent Incas to marry Spaniards.
A taxi took us up the steep hill to “Saqsaywaman” the old historical capital and the Inca citadel just on the northern outskirts of Cusco where we had a panoramic view of the city and could explore the old Inca ruins where a few Alpacas were grazing. We walked back down to the town where I went to see the Cusco cathedral an iconic monument made up of three interconnected churches.
Michelle and I were still coughing from our bouts of influenza so we met up at the Mercado Central de San Pedro where there were a myriad of juice stalls near the entrance and we picked two who served us up delicious juices with ginger and this we followed with a large chicken soup at the the Chicken Soup section of the market.

Machu Pichu
The following morning we made our way to the well organised office of the Inca Rail leaving our main luggage at the Ninos hotel. It is only allowed to take a maximum of 8kilos on the train. We had booked the inclusive trip to get us to Machu Picchu and have a guide there for 2pm, our starting time. I had booked the Machu Picchu tickets well in advance as the Peruvian government have reduced the numbers visiting the citadel. Our guide told us that Machu Picchu is sinking very slowly with all the traffic over its area. After checking our documentation we were taken by bus about an hour and a half away to Ollantaytambo station to continue on to Aqua Calientes, the starting point for Machu Picchu. It is known as the Bimodal system. During the rainy season the train does not go direct from Cusco. We stopped along the way to view the Sacred Valley from above.
There are a few shops and cafes at Ollantaytambo so we had a coffee before departing on the hour and a half train trip through the lush mountains to Aqua Calientes. On arrival we were met my hotel staff who took our bags up the hill to the Taypikala hotel where we were to stay the night.
We were collected and shown where the Consettur bus would depart to take us the 30minutes up the mountains to Machu Picchu. I was very excited to finally be going to to a site I had heard about in my teens and missed out seeing 5years before.
Our guide met us and we had tickets for Circuit 1 – Panoramic which allowed us to explore the first sector of Machu Picchu around it’s highest point where we could admire the entire site. Our young guide Alexandra was very friendly and very knowledgeable. She told us the history of the discovery of the site in the early 1900’s by Hiram Bingham with the guidance of local indigenous farmers. We were to go back the following morning and wondered if we needed a guide again to explain how the citadel worked. She said that there was no need and gave us a full run down of the structures that we could see from above.
The following morning we had a bit of rain while we waited for the bus with many others to the Citadel but by the time we arrived for 7am to take the Classic route-circuit 2, the rain had stopped and there were few clouds.
It was a surreal feeling entering through the Sun Gate to explore the
ancient Citadel and the various the buildings and architecture of the Inca site.
I had taken walking poles and we wore boots but it was not a difficult site to explore on foot. On ascent the first day of the site the we paused to breathe easier but the altitude was thank goodness not a problem. There is also a much larger Inca site called “Chocquequirao” but it is only accessible by a four day hike through the mountains.
We left Aqua Calientes the following morning for the 3hour trip back to Cusco to where we were returning. The next day, the 12th February we took a 10minute taxi to the airport in Cusco for our hour’s flight to Puerto Maldonado where we were to start our “Rainforest Expeditions” trip booked through “Peru North” to the Tambopata Research Centre or TRC on the Tambopata river,the start of the Amazon basin.
We stayed the night at a basic Eco-lodge with good food and friendly staff which was only 10mins from the town of Puerto Maldonado, the starting point for all the rainforest expeditions in that part of Peru. We even saw a group of Howzatin birds in the trees around their lake.
In the morning I took a taxi into town to have a look around and get a good coffee. I didn’t find one but found a cute T-shirt for Maurice and chatted to a few people. My Spanish had come on. My Italian and my Spanish Duolingo helped a lot. There are about 27companies in P.M all doing rainforest expeditions but we didn’t see many other groups.

The Rainforest
We arrived at the “Rainforest Expeditions” met our guide at noon and with six women from Lima with their guide we set off for our very bumpy bus ride of an hour and a half to the river departure point and then our two and a half hour boat ride into the National Park to the Centre with a stop at the Malinowski check point along the river where we were registered. The owner of the TRC Edoardo Nikander happened to be with us for the trip as he was going to spend a few months there.
He was a wildlife photographer who happened on the Macaw birds that amass most mornings to supplement their diet with the salty mineral licks along the steep river bank. He founded the Macaw project in 1989 and the Research Centre has expanded to further study and focus on conservation and breeding programs of the Macaws. Spider, Howler,Capuchin monkeys,moths and other species are studied as well. For three days we were immersed in the centre with interesting talks by the research groups, walks through the jungle with our guide while staying at the very opulent Eco lodge with excellent open air accommodation and delicious fresh food and novel cocktails. We were taken by boat at 430am to the “Macaw lick” to see the birds coming and going to lick the minerals. Dino managed to capture many birds with his powerful telescope and take pictures with our phone cameras through the telescope. Over the years they have also developed long man made nesting pods which protect the Macaws from their predators, the Olingos.
At the check point we happened on a group of Howler monkeys who were crawling into a large hole to eat the salty minerals found there which aid their health. They were playful and running up and down branches and hanging there with their prehensile tails.
The Tambopata National reserve covers 274,000 hectares. The river is very wide but the channels of water change constantly with other rivers flowing into it so the boatmen have to be very skilled to frequently change course to slightly higher water levels and avoid the flotsam mainly trees and fallen branches in the shallow river.
Our guide, the extremely knowledgeable and personable Dino was on the lookout constantly for wildlife. He spoke French, Spanish and English and his favourite pastime was walking through the jungle and sitting enjoying the solitude.
We spotted the cute looking Capybaras and Orinoco geese along the riverbank on our way. Illegal gold miners along the river are apparently ignored by the police who are very close by. Some of the small boats coming from the national park sometimes contain wild animals caught and sold elsewhere.
On one walk through the jungle we stopped to see the enormous fig trees and Sabre trees which spread over many meters and a Sabre tree which can grow up to 65metres high. We saw a group of spider monkeys on the way to the centres new 30metre high canopy tower where we could see various macaws and other birds coming and going to the tops of the trees. The macaws like to sit at the highest points of the trees. We heard the howler monkeys roaring kilometers away. They sounded like trains more than monkeys with their unique howls. We could see rain coming but could not get back fast enough so the torrential rain soaked Michelle who had not got her rain jacket and even four of us with rain ponchos got thoroughly wet. It rained all night which was lovely to listen to but it was gone by the morning.
The centre caters so well for its’tourists by supplying them with all sizes of gum boots which came very much in handy when we were traipsing through mud. We were only allowed to venture into the jungle with our guide who Michelle and I had to ourselves which was sensible.
One of the nights I joined a research scientist studying moths. A large white sheet was hung with a light to attract the moths. I didn’t realise that there were so many species of various size moths and I was invited to catch some of the moths in a jar which are later examined to see if any new species has been found. If one of the ones you have collected is a new species you get to name it. I was later sent a report of what we collected but no new species was collected by me. We saw more capybaras and caimans in and on the river.Michelle spotted a deer on the river bank and I spotted one outside our elevated room. There were no anacondas or Boa constrictors in the river as they prefer black and deeper water in lakes and no large fish again as the river is too shallow. The Tambopata river was constantly flowing. There are Jaguars, Tapirs and Armadillos and snakes to be found there in the jungle but they were not in evidence when we were there.
We also learnt of the difficult cultivation of Brazil nuts. The large and long lived trees take 12years to fruit and snakes inhabit the trees waiting for the pods to crack to eat the fruit. The pods are heavy, some weighing up to 2kgs with anything from 12-30 nuts.
Our 3day/2nt trip into the jungle seemed a lot longer with so many activities and so much knowledge gained from Dino.
Overall we were very lucky with the weather in Peru. It was pleasant weather in most places even though it was the rainy season and we only got drenched once in the rainforest which was of course more humid.
We thoroughly enjoyed our enormously diverse trip through Peru with its friendly people and amazing destinations in the one country.
Meals were plentiful and very reasonably priced and we could use our Australian credit cards in most restaurants and shops. I would recommend a similar trip to any intrepid travellers who have a sense of adventure and urge to see and experience such a wonderful country.
Photos to follow on a separate post.