LIFE'S A BEACH: MACHU PICCHU and CUSCO REVISITED

My sister in law Anne and brother in law Leith are currently travelling through South America and the last email received from them was from Cusco (Peru) describing their Machu Picchu experience. In 2005 Allan and I spent over 10 weeks doing the same thing and Anne's emails caused me to reminisce about our trip, the sights, sounds, colours and experiences. See below part of our travel route. We actually commenced the trip in Santiago Chile and made our way up to Lima Peru to pick up with our group and finishing in one of my favourite cities in the world, Rio de Janeiro.

When we returned to Australia I was asked to do a presentation to a few groups and the following was my opening, giving a brief overview of the trip and photos.

Chris & Stan, Allan and I recently returned from a 10 week South American adventure travelling across the continent from the Pacific ocean to the Atlantic ocean. This trip encompassed all forms of terrain and the most of the major sights that were on offer. The counties travelled were Chile, Peru, Bolivia, Paraguay, Brasil and Argentina (for just a day). Our modes of transport included local transport which included bus and taxi, motorized canoe, mini bus, train, boat, barge, 4 wheel drive and on foot. Stan and Chris take the prize for the foot section, they walked the Inca Trail – 3 days of hard slog that Chris will tell you about later on. Our accommodation was varied but mostly consisted of 1 or 2 star hotel, sometime less that 1 star, and on a couple of occasions the accommodation was luxurious compared with most hotels on the trip. We had an unusual experience of staying overnight on Amantani Island, on beautiful Lake Titikaka, which is in Peru. We had a home stay with a local Indian family and even attending a local dance at one of the town halls! An unforgettable experience being dressed in local traditional costume for the event. I will show you on a map the route we took on our tour and the main attractions and major sights along the way. We arrived from Australia in Santiago Chile where we did day trips and local sightseeing before leaving for Lima in Peru to join our 46 day tour. At the end of the tour that finished in Rio de Janiero we spoiled ourselves with 5 days of luxury at a hotel on Copacabana Beach before flying back to Chile for a few days and heading back home to our own wonderful country. Before I start with the slide show I would like to read a few exerts from my journals which hopefully will give a better understanding of the photos and our travels.

South America is a large continent and the countries are some of the poorest in the world, Bolivia and Paraguay being top of the list. A lot of the places have the reputation of being very dangerous, but on most occasions we felt safe and were made to feel welcome and treated with kindness and respect. But I must add that we were also very careful where we went and who we went with.

Trying to master Spanish was something that was a lot of fun and created a lot of confusion, fun and laughter! I shouldn’t say master, it was more stumbling along with a phrase book and “having a go”!

This is Cusco where we stayed for several days - LOVED IT!