Bolivia: LaPaz - Copacabana / Perou:Puno - Arequipa - Lima - Trujillo / Equador: Cuenca - Banos

 

LaPaz

LaPaz is the administrative capital of Bolivia, it is the world' highest city (from 3,000 to 4,100m).

I stayed there for one week and enjoyed diverse activities such as:

• the famous “gravity biking” to drive down the famous “Road of death”, christened as such by the Inter-American Development Bank. It is a 61km mountain road leading from LaPaz to Coroico. One estimate that 200 to 300 travellers were killed yearly along the road.

• Or Motor biking in La Valle de la Luna:, where I could have a nice 2 hours off road drive
  
  

Copacabana_Isla del Sol

After LaPaz I went to Copacabana at Lake Titikaka. The lake Titicaca is a lake located on the border of Peru and Bolivia, which sits 3.812m above sea level, the largest lake in South America by volume of water. We took the boat to the “Isla del Sol” and spent the night there. “La isla del sol” is one of the lake's largest islands, with many interesting ruins from the Inca period.

 

Puno

Afterwhat we left for Puno, laying at the lake Titikaka too, but on thePeruvian side. We went on a boat trip to the floating Islands which are the home of the Uros tribe, which predate the Inca civilization. These Islands are made and remade all the time from the Totora reeds (a kind of aquatic plant) which provide home, sustenance and transportation.

 

Arequipa

I left then for Arequipa, the second most populous peruvian city after Lima.I should have and would have like very much to go to the ruins of Machupicchu, the main touristic attraction in Peru, but because of the heavy rain it has been prematury closed (some thousands of tourists bloqued in the ruins and villages must have been evacuated like 3 weeks ago).

Arequipa lies in the Andes mountain at an altitude of 2,380m and has many colonial-era Spanish buildings

I visited the very beautiful Monastery of Santa Catalina, build in 1580 and characterised by vividly painted walls.

I went finally for a 2 day trek in the Colca canyon, more than twice as deep as the Grand Canyon in the USA (However the Canyon' s wall are not as vertical as those of the Grand Canyon) The Colca Valley is a colourful Andean valley with towns founded in Spanish colonial time. The local people still maintain ancestral traditions and continue tp cultivate the pre-Inca stepped terraces. In The first day we went in a village and I had the chance to participate to a traditional dance because of carnaval time

 

Lima

I finally left for the capital of Perou, Lima, spent one night there, enjoy carnaval the next day and headed further north in the evening for Trujillo.

Trujillo

I spent actually only one day there: I arrived in the morning at 7am and left with an other bus at 9pm. I visited there the archaelogical site of Chan Chan, which use to be the largest Pre-Columbian sity in South America, constructed by the “Chimor”. I went as well to surf in the afternoon, the beaches near Trujillo being ones of the hottest surf spot of the pacific coast.

Cuenca

I went 3 days ago in Ecuador in Cuenca. Cuenca is located in the highlands at about 2.500m; a very nice city to visit, with beautiful colonial buildings.

I finally arrived yesterday in Bano for the carnaval this weekend...

 

Related albums to the article:

Note: I had to delete some previous albums to publish the new ones...
LaPaz_Lake Titikaka_Puno_Arequipa_Lima_Trujillo:

http://latinamericaltobelli.over-blog.com/album-1569982.html