I did like Salento. And quite a lot of Colombians like it too, it’s #2 or something on their most popular places to visit. We stayed at a nice hostel that our friends Isidor and Michelle recommended. Great spot, run by a Canadian couple who I suspect are quite shrewd in their investments. Tourism (or was it GDP?) is growing at 15%/year, so it’s a good time to get in.

We visited a coffee farm. Apparently Colombia is the third largest producer of coffee in the world. We certainly learned a bit about how the process works, the different varieties they use, blight, shade (they like it), how many times you can use a plant/tree (3 – chopping it back each time)

We also went to Los Nevados. It’s a large national park, but we just went to one small part, mainly to see the hummingbirds. Nice walk though.

Finally, I must mention “Brunch”, a wonderful wonderful wonderful diner in Salento. Probably the best thickshake I’ve had in a very long time, possibly even since Eddie Rockets in Dublin, and just phenomenal peanut brownie with homemade ice-cream. If you’re in the area go!

Well, very pleasantly surprised by Bogata. Colombia seems to have changed in the last few years, at least, every traveller we have met has spoken very highly of it. There are still robberies (snatching iPhones seems to be a favourite), but on the whole it’s not a nest of thieves waiting around every corner.

Anyway, flew in at night, took a taxi to the hostel… our guidebook was quite specific about only taking yellow taxi’s from the registered stand. My driver didn’t know where the hostel was.. but Open Street Maps to the rescue again. Worked out.

We went on a couple of free* walking tours. Free as they always ask for a donation at the end. Fair enough too as they were both great.

First up was a “generic” walking tour. We certainly got a flavour of the place, learning some of the unfortunate history. People getting assassinated etc. Plan Colombia seemed especially nasty, and, according to our guide there’s a “Plan Mexico” going on at the moment. To quote:

The plan awarded monetary compensation for the dead bodies of guerrilla members and therefor incentivized the murders of hundreds of people, including innocent civilians.

Anyway good tour, including the trip to the gallery of Fernando Botero. Quite fun.

The second tour we did was a graffiti tour. Some of these buildings are worth quite a bit now. E.G. the gate with the fish on it is worth 10-20K! I did like the Ronzo pieces especially, will have to keep an eye out for those. He goes around and puts up little signs to blend in with the surroundings. Very neat.

Finally we took the tramway up to Monserrate for the view. We would have walked but there has been so little rain lately that erosion is a serious worry. I’m not sure it was worth the money to go up, but as a walk it’d be a fine option.

We flew from Cuzco to Lima. It’s a 25 hour bus ride, or just an hour in a plane. The price difference wasn’t that much – internal flights are pretty good here, definitely check out Skyscanner for good* deals (except in Colombia, there use – or at least check out – Viva Colombia. We didn’t know about that one, and it would have saved us 600USD!

Anyway, Lima Lima Lima. Not as nice as Cuzco. We used AirBnB to find a place. It was pretty cheap, fairly central, had a nice little local restaurant down the road which served big portions and yumbly Ceviche. We went for a nice walk around Miraflores, ate some churros in chocolate sauce. Humid days.

Probably the highlight was the Larco museum which was great. They brought you through the history of the major civilisations of South America. Like most places, the latest civilisation built on top of the last one and extended. When people think of South America (or at least when I do) the “Incas” is what springs to mind, but they were only around from 13th Century to the mid 16th, not that long. “Civilisation” goes back to 8,000BC (probably more). Larco traces these civilisations through their ceramics and textiles mainly, and some metalwork.

It was quite cool that they left the museums storerooms open too, so you can see all the other articles they have in the collection.

Finally in the museum, there was a pretty extensive erotica section of pottery. Those Gods did enjoy fertilising the planet.

Also, while we were in Lima, we heard about the Earthquake in Ecuador. Poor people. We know what destructive earthquakes are like, since we were in the Christchurch quake.. It didn’t take much discussion to decide to fly from Lima to Colombia skipping Ecuador entirely. I feel very very sorry for what Ecuador must be going through. Christchurch 5 years after our quakes is still mostly roadworks and empty building sites where buildings have been demolished. It will take Ecuador years and years to get over this. And remember, while the story will go out of the news, the people there will be experiencing daily earthquakes for months and months, if not years. It is not just a “quake”, there will be thousands.

There was a misunderstanding over how much to take off. Hey ho, it’ll grow back. Teach me to have only basic Spanish ;)

One of the main excursions from Cuzco is to visit Machu Picchu. Machu Picchu was hidden for many moons, and then “rediscovered” by an American historian (Hiram Bingham) in 1911 who asked some locals did they know where Incan ruins were..

Anyway, we opted not to do the Inca trail. It’s quite expensive at $600 USD pp (you have to do it guided), though I’m sure it’s an awesome trip. So we took the bus from Cuzco to Hydroelectrica (you’ll never guess what’s there). That bus trip was, apart from the descent on the Pampa Linda track, the scariest thing I’ve done on this trip! It’s a seriously narrow road in places, with some rather large drop-offs into nothingness.

From Hydroelectrica we walked to Aguas Caliente. There is a train which runs, but it’s a pretty nice 2 hour fast walk through the jungle. I quite liked Aguas Caliente I must say, despite the many tourists. Our hostel was clean, being in lowish season there was lots of competition for dinner, so we settled for the happy hour & cheap pizza option (nyom).

The next day we were up early (5am) to walk up to Machu Picchu. There are busses, but we like the exercise ;) It’s a good climb and took us about an hour I think. The weather was a little wet and overcast, however, it meant that there weren’t too many tourists in the photos.

I did like the “Inca bridge” – looks like quite an effective defence.

So, Machu Picchu… I did wish I had longer to enjoy it (though the 5 hours we had was just about enough), but, I dunno, it seemed to me that most of the buildings there were restorations rather than originals. There were only a few places where you could see the original impressive stonework, well, unless they were using mortar at Machu Micchu. I’d love to know how original it all was. Maybe it’s very accurate, I’ll have to read the Wikipedia entry again ;) . It seemed to me that you saw more original buildings / artifacts at Sachsuaman in Cuzco. Indeed, Machu Picchu may join a list of “UNESCO sites in danger of losing their status” ..

The sun did come out later on in the morning (hurrah!), so it was a pleasant walk back to Hydroelectrica. We saw 3 road traffic accidents on the way back to Cuzco, one looked quite serious. The drivers really are quite mental here. I was definitely pleased to be back to the hostel in one piece. You’re advised (and we generally do) travel during daylight hours, unfortunately the trip back from Machu Picchu pretty much has to happen during night hours, at least at this time of year.