Ain't No Mountain High, Ain't No Jungle Low, Ain't No Desert Wide...

Another day and another new country as we left behind Brazil and negotiated our way across the border into Peru. Immediately differences made themselves known. For one, goodbye (with some relief) to mangled Portuguese and hello to our old friend Spanish (or Spanglish, depending on your level of ability!) It was also farewell to the Brazilian reals and hola to the Peruvian sole (enter your favourite joke about souls or shoe soles here.) Cusquena beer was an immediate hit with the group, less so Inca Cola despite Emma's attempt to describe it as tasting like “awesome.” Awesome must be an acquired taste...

Crossing the Peruvian border

Passport control

Lovely Cusquena

One thing that hadn't changed was the terrain – we were still within the Amazon basin and the warm, sticky weather had crossed the border with us. Our first destination in Peru was the town of Puerto Maldonado where we spent a night in a hotel run by a lovely Japanese-Peruvian family. It was also time to pack our bags in preparation for an included jungle lodge trip that would begin the following morning.

Our route to the jungle was via river and so we all piled into a little motorised boat and spent an hour or two chugging up the Rio Madre de Dios, passing empty tree lined river banks and conjuring our best jungle explorer attitudes. Our lodge was the lovely EcoAmazonia and they welcomed us warmly with a drink and an enormous buffet lunch which we obligingly consumed. Accommodations here came in the form of comfortable but rustic log cabins, each named after a local animal or bird.

At EcoAmazonas Lodge

Lovely rooms, aside from the mozzie nets they were open to the elements and noises of the forest

The lodge pool - really roughing it!

A very grumpy macaw moves on to Emma & Simon's balcony

Soon we were jungle-ready in provided Wellington boots and ready to begin our scheduled lodge activities which were to keep us very busy during our two day stay. Our time at the lodge included a number of jungle walks as well as canoeing and boat rides. The jungle lodge protects thousands of hectares of virgin rainforest and it was a privilege to see a tiny slice of it with our able guide, Elmer, who pointed out interesting plants, insects and animals for our enlightenment. With great abundance, however, comes a degree of danger and we were advised to keep our hands off the jungle in case of accidental injury or insect attack! As expected however, Odyssey members proved to be excellent jungle explorers, with only one ant attack incident reported and no one lost to jaguars.

Elmer shows us the flora and fauna

Ready for a jungle trek

Caiman

The rainforest is home to billions of weird and wonderful creatures

A frog whose bum looks like a snake's head to ward off predators

Tarantula

Hoatzin

Lucy - a lodge pet who made a noise like a car failing to start

Rainforest rodent

Bats

Trekking in the jungle

Wayne - a walk in the park

750m of boardwalks through the swamps

Not the most inviting tree in the world

Paula under a sabre tree

Dave considers the risk of boarding

John and his rowing team

Deep in the jungle swamps

Caiman infested waters

That blob in the tree is a sloth - honest!

A wet end to a rainforest trek

On our second afternoon we had a trip to the nearby “Monkey Island”, site of impressively oversized foliage and also home to a number of spider and capuchin monkeys. Some of the Odyssey group must have possessed a certain degree of attraction to our monkey friends, or perhaps just looked like a long lost relative, as they got the privilege of wearing a spider monkey on their shoulders or head for a while.

Howler monkeys

Squirrel monkey

Another squirrel monkey

Spider monkey

Beautiful Spider monkey

Giving something back to the community

Chris makes friends

Paul

Dave and the monkey who isn't sure about the "overlander scent"

After two days it was sadly time for us to return our muddy boots and hang up our jungle explorer hats. For some of us this necessitated painful partings as we had to tear ourselves away from new animal friends. Despite her best efforts, Emma was not able to convince Simon that Miguel the monkey should become the 21st passenger on the trip – hey, why else do we have spare seats in the truck? In any case, slightly broken hearted, we eventually boarded our river boat, minus extras, and headed back to Puerto Maldonado ready to hit the road again.

Gen & Miguel

Dave & Miguel

Emma and her new best friend and new truck mascot, Miguel

Moving away from the jungle and onwards into Peru we were soon to arrive at a significant obstacle – the Andes. In our path the South American continent was starting to rise to the breathless heights that it is famous for and we were headed for an immediate change of scenery as we began the steep climb towards the old Inca capital, Cuzco. Farewelling the jungle we began a steady upwards course, shedding humidity and gaining layers of clothing as we went. After a final overnight stop at 666m above sea level (the altitude of the beast?) we began our day of big ascents, rising to a respectable 4700m at our highest point. As a whole, the group coped well with the altitude, with everyone arriving at Cuzco in good spirits. Perhaps Emma's advice about drinking lots of water was taken a little too much to heart, however, as we've never had so many toilet stops in a day!

Enroute over the Andes to Cuzco

A few too many toilet stops

From monkeys to Llamas

Iain shoots the views from Ithaca

Rather high up at 4,700m!

Local children and dogs say hello

First day back at school for Peruvian children

Mums and Dads go too! - Education here isn't taken for granted and a new school year is a good reason for a party, not that South Americans need much of an excuse

Cuzco, while a beautiful city, does present significant challenges for the average overland truck as its narrow windy streets are not very large-vehicle friendly. After extensive previous attempts, Simon and Emma had decided that they had finally found a non heart-attack inducing route into the city and managed to wind Ithaca slowly but surely down to our hotel. We will stop again in Cuzco on the way south but this visit gave the group a day to explore the city, see some of the excellent museums and try on a lot of alpaca clothing of varying quality in the attempt to achieve the often seen “I've been to Cuzco” look. While this group appears disappointingly resistant to the buying of alpaca motif cardigans there is always time on the way back!

Beautiful Cusco

Ancient Inca stonework

Pachacutec, Inca King who expanded the empire to stretch from present day Argentina up to Colombia

Lady in the market

Nose to tail eating

Dave finds the local bar in Cusco

Dave finds... oh yes, there he is!

Being in a basin, the twinkly lights of Cusco are beautiful at night

On leaving Cuzco we headed on north, bound for a high altitude bush camp. Unfortunately, a series of snail paced trucks and a prolonged search for a water source to replenish our tank saw us make very slow progress on the road. By the time we neared our planned overnight stop the skies were black and, much more problematically, a full scale lightning attack was taking place on the surrounding hills. With frequent and sometimes alarmingly near lightning strikes landing close to us, it seemed overly risky to try and make camp in the area. Therefore, on we went, through the darkness and around the many, many bends of the road only to discover that on top of this we were now driving through snow! The remote highlands of Peru are not plentiful sources of accommodation but, to our good luck, we eventually found our way into the small town of Puquio and Emma was able to squeeze everyone into a hotel – a great relief to the group who were by now pretty low on energy and bush camping spirit.

Beautiful scenery leaving Cusco

Lee fixes the Go-Pro onto Ithaca for the mountain drive

A long drive on Ithaca

The following day we moved on to our next stop, Nazca, winding through the hills again (much more inviting in daylight) before dropping down into the desert on the other side. Nazca is a small town, mostly visited by tourists for the sole purpose of viewing the Nazca lines which are a series of glyphs in the desert, made approximately 1500 years ago. No one is completely sure why the Nazca lines were made although theories exist surrounding their use in ancient religion or in conjunction with astrological signs. In any case, the best way to see them is from a small plane which is what most of the group did, in groups of two to four. While the small plane flight left some of the group a little weak legged, it was generally agreed to be a fascinating sight from the air.

The road to Nazca - transitioning from green mountains to yellow desert

John & Paula pre Nazca flight

Nazca hummingbird 1

Nazca lines and shapes beside the Panamerican Highway

John & Paula over the Nazca lines

The monkey (Miguel)

The whale

The spaceman / owl

Weird hand creature

Further North we stopped at a view tower to see the lesser known but much older 'Palpa lines'

Whilst less famous they are alot more silly - this is the 'Royal Family of Paracas' we like to think they actually looked like this

From Nazca we journeyed on further through the dusty desert, bound for the capital, Lima. While Lima is fog bound for a significant part of the year, we fortunately had good weather for our stay and most of the group got out and about, visiting the San Francisco monastery, doing some shopping or heading to the beach for a drink.

LIMA!

The main plaza

Beautiful cathedral

Wayne drops his dirty undies on the cathedral floor - not necessarily appropriate behaviour

The catacombs at the monastery

All the bones are organised into body parts, rather creepily

Lima was also a chance to find the very posh "Gran Bolivar Hotel" for some cocktails

South American Folk Festival, Lima

A worthwhile visit was to Parque de la Reserva where at night there is a Magical Fountain display set to music. The other fountains in the park were also colourfully lit and some were full of people playing in the jets. 

Lima fountain park

Hours of fun for the whole family

Also hours of fun doing funny photos

Emma, Simon & Gen

From Lima we headed out into the desert again, making for Casma where we made a stop to see the nearby Sechin Ruins. These pre-Incan ruins comprise a large temple, covered in carvings that are mostly concerned with the dismemberment or decapitation of people. Emma translated for the group, trying to think of new ways to phrase, “That's a man being stabbed in the eye” and so on. It is not known whether the carvings are describing the aftermath of a battle or are just warning off any would-be attackers. In any case, these carvings are quite a sight and would surely make any potential visitor think twice about popping by...

Heading north out of Lima the desert only got more deserty!

At the Sechin ruins

By law every ruin in Peru must have a pair of hairless dogs, an ancient Peruvian breed, this one's name was 'golden flower' named after a beautiful Incan princess…

A Sechin warrior

If you look carefully you can see severed heads, towers of vertebrae and a man cut in half

Tattoed mummified hands found at the site

Severed hands depicted at the ruins

A Black Vulture watches hoping for some body parts of his own

That night was spent at a lovely desert bushcamp where we made a fire and feasted on sausages, salad and garlic bread.

Simon checking the softness of the sand - as it turns out fairly soft - but we still have an unbroken record of not getting stuck this trip!

What a bushcamp!

Wayne enjoys sunset on a desert hill

Ali gets the fire going for sausages

Sitting around and relaxing - our two favourite bush camp activities

Emma orders some of the minions around

We made our own Nazca lines at the bushcamp - this is 'The Truck' the lack of wind or rain here means it will never wear away and future historians will be perplexed by the compexity of the society that created it

In the morning we headed off again on our northward route, stopping at the little seaside town of Chiclayo where a half dismantled campground saw us decamping to a hotel instead. The camping gods seemed to have abandoned us temporarily but we were treated to a pretty sunset from our hotel windows and in the morning were still able to have breakfast off the truck which was parked in front of the hotel.

Chiclayo Beach - in the waves

Ali

Dave finds a bar

Landing the catch

Louisa enjoys a beer and a beautiful sunset

The aforementioned beautiful sunset

Also possible to enjoy from the comfort of our unexpected hotel room

Gen at sunset on the beach

Breakfast from our hotel rooms - calling up our orders for eggs and bacon... they never materialised

In the morning we made a stop at the excellent Museum of the Tombs of Sipan which was full of treasure and much enjoyed by the group. An eventful lunch complete with our own armed guard followed, then it was off to camp at a lovely beachfront camp in Punta Sal where tents could be set up right on the sand. While this was just a passing visit we look forward to stopping there for longer on our way south.

The tombs of Sipan museum - no photos inside, you'll just have to visit yourself!

Stopping for a roadside lunch we were soon met with policemen who decided that we needed an armed guard incase of banditos

Setting up tents on the beach

Sunset

Camping on the beach with wine - priceless!

By this point it was border crossing time again as we headed into Excellent Ecuador. Unfortunately Ecuador's excellence did not quite extend to its border where an unexpected rule change saw Emma and Simon having to head back into town to arrange some extra paperwork for the truck. Three hours later we were finally through and on our way to our first Ecuadorian destination, the lovely old city of Cuenca. (Only after negotiating some rather landslide prone roads!)

Waiting at the border

Our drive to Cuenca was rather exciting as due to heavy rain rocks kept collapsing on to the road infront of us, luckily the locals seemed very used to it and would jump out of their vehicles to move them as they went

Unesco World Heritage site Cuenca is Ecuador's second most important city and also the home of the incorrectly named Panama hat. Known in Ecuador as the sombrero de paja toquilla, these hats are woven locally but used to be exported by the Spanish via Panama (hence the name). In keeping with the theme of the town, Ithaca spent her time in Cuenca parked at a hat factory and a number of the group did some hat modelling and, in some cases, hat purchasing. Others spent their time exploring the town or rejuvenating themselves at the excellent local spa.

Gen at the Panama hat factory

Intricate work on the hats

Pretty church in colonial Cuenca

Church by night

Our hotel was an old colonial building complete with traditional courtyard

Our next stop in Ecuador was the small city of Riobamba where the main attraction was the bustling Saturday market. We were fortunate enough to be in town on the weekend and most of the group went to have a look at the market and jostle with the lively market goers. Emma did a food shop for the truck and was nearly pushed over into a pile of potatoes but still enjoyed herself, mostly. There was also very good roast pork to be had for lunch, waved at you by extremely enthusiastic pork selling ladies. As the stalls all appeared to be identical most of us chose our lunch based on which pork seller looked the most friendly.

Riobamba market

Piggies

Meat section

Some of the best "food halls" in the world

Yummy roast pork

On the "roof terrace" of our hotel

Continuing ever northward our path led us eventually across the equator and into the Northern Hemisphere for the first time on this trip. In fact we passed back and forward across the equator three times that day but felt that counting down with the sat nav once was sufficient! A stop at an equator monument gave us some interesting background about the equator and the way the time of year affects the path of the sun in this part of the world. We were even told all about how we've been looking at the world the wrong way up all this time. We were quite intrigued but not quite convinced enough to repaint the map on the side of Ithaca!

A joint birthday for Paul and Ali at the Equator

Equator fun

Our final stop in Ecuador on our way north was Otavalo where we based ourselves in a lovely, if slightly eccentric campsite on the edge of town. Amidst the green nooks for tents there was also a traditional sweat lodge, pizza oven, fire pit and a lot of happy animals – plenty to keep us well occupied for our three nights there. Animal interactions were certainly a big part of our stay with constant efforts required to keep the resident exuberant dog out of our food. An Odyssey rescue effort was also mounted to rescue a cat from a tree – chased there by our friend “Meat Head” the dog. Group members could often be found in the nearby field, patting the tame calf and extremely friendly pig who lived there. Another candidate for one of the spare seats in Ithaca, the rescue of the pig was ultimately vetoed by the crew, despite sad visions of Charlotte's Web running through our heads.

"Meat Head" helps to make dinner

Cat rescue

Poncho Paul and Meat Head

Canchito - our piggy neighbour

Next door's puppies play with the baby calf

Emma and Chanchito - our other new truck mascot

The campsite also gave some of the group the opportunity to participate in traditional sweat lodge ceremony which was deemed intense but interesting by those who participated.

Laying petals for the sweat lodge

Otavalo itself was an excellent place to do some more market shopping and try our hand at bargaining in the Plaza dos Ponchos. Hats, blankets, ponchos and hammocks soon made their way back to the truck and had to be found places in Ithaca's rapidly filling bag locker. Bargaining was more successful for some than others with Spanish numbers tripping up a few. Mike's attempt to bargain down from $20 by then offering $50 apparently caused the stall keeper to stare at him in astonishment (fortunately he didn't accept!) There was also a beautiful waterfall near the camp which many people went off to explore.

Llama fur llama toys

Beautiful fabrics

The "I've been to Ecuador" look

Sarah goes shopping

Sarah's purchases

The railway line which we followed to get to town - it was a fairly low risk walk as this was the biggest train we saw

Pretty church in Otavalo

Otavalo graffiti - traditional dress and characters

More Otavalo graffiti

Peguche waterfall near camp

Steve, Louisa & Chris at the waterfall

Our second evening in Otavalo saw us celebrating the joint birthday of Paul and Ali in typically dignified Odyssey style. Bad clown “Dimbo” graced us with his presence and performed some excellent juggling for the group. Unfortunately, determined rain slightly dampened the plans for the rest of the party games but we will no doubt find an opportunity at a later date. Instead we tucked into homemade pizzas and trifle with a generous amount of rum to distract ourselves from the damp.

Dimbo gets ready for the party

Dimbo in action

Dave makes pizzas

Claire rushing the pizzas to the pizza oven

Iain and Meat Head - it's love!

Party time - Simon, Mike (Dimbo), Emma, Gen, Sarah & Paul

And that takes us to the edge of our next country, the once maligned but now much reformed, Colombia. Visions of coffee, cloud forest and the long anticipated Caribbean Coast beckon us onward as we press on towards the top of our South America map. Having had a taste of what Peru and Ecuador have to offer we are all looking forward to our return on the way south but for now it's north and more north. We'll be back but for now, adios.