Update from Montanita

I came back to Cuzco after 2 days seeing Macchu Piccu and the town of Aguas Calientes. Aguas Calientes is very over priced relatively speaking to the rest of Peru and there´s alot of price fixing going on. They have hot springs here where we went to the 2 days we were here. This was nice enough but there wasn´t a whole lot else in the town to do. The first day it was raining so we didn´t do a whole lot and we also missed out on the climb up Putucusi which is meant to have a great view over Macchu Picchu but with the rain all we would have seen is mist anyway. The second day we headed into Macchu Picchu which is really good but it´s got very expensive. According to the lonely planet it was meant to be $21.50 but now it´s gone up to 144 sole which is the guts of $48. Also for a place that has so much walking about they know how to charge for water it is 10 sole here for a small 300 ml bottle whereas the normal price is 3 sole everywhere else in Peru and 4 sole in Aguas Calientes for a 2.5 litre bottle of water. The site here is very impressive when you look past all the overcharging though. I climbed Huayna Picchu at the back of the site while I was here. The last time I did the Inca trail the other lads climbed this but I got a bit of the vertigo so chickened out. I was lucky to get to climb this at all as I was 399 of 400 allowed to climb it per day. It´s alright the first stretch of it where you´re not looking down at all but the bit at the top is scary as. I nearly chickened out but I said feck it seeing as I´ve climbed it this far. Whatever it was like going up it was terrifying coming down as the steps were small little steps with barely enough room for your feet and steep as. I managed it alright though in my hands and knees.

In Lima before this we stayed in Miraflores, kind of the posh part of Lima. Very nice spot and the views from the Larcomar are very impressive. We headed into the center of Lima for a look around the Plazas which was good. We got a look at the changing of the guard at Palais Nacional. We got a tour guide here who brought us around the various churches.

I arrived into Tumbes late about 2 days ago after our flight from Cusco via Lima and Piura although here we didn´t even get off the plane. Tumbes hadn´t much in it and we didn´t get up to much here bar going for a bit of breakfast in Plaza De Armas.

We headed onto Guayaquil in Ecuador about lunchtime that day which was about 5 hours away. We did the border crossing ok and arrived into Guayaquil that night. We scored with the Sander hotel here which had our own tv for only $12 although almost every channel was in Spanish but a tv none the less. We got a lovely seafood platter kind of thing which was a nice break from the Peruvian cuisine in the Malecon 2000. The food in Peru wasn´t up to much and it hardly varied from place to place. It was like they delivered the same menu to every place in Peru but the Ecuadorian food is alot better. By the way Ecuador is so named because of it´s position on the Equator. The Malecon is a lovely shopping / financial / park area they´ve developed right on the waterfront. Bar the Malecon Guayaquil hadn´t a whole lot to offer but it more than served it´s purpose as a stopping off point. By the way Guayaquil while not being the capital is Ecuadors largest city.

We headed onto Montanita then where we are still which is a surfing spot as well as being a bit of a party town. It didn´t let us down on either front as my head can testify to today. We ended up meeting a guy Sean from Kerry who´s in Ros na Ruin and an Israeli that we ended drinking with last night. It´s a nice little town here with plenty happening and we´ll probably spend 2 more nights here before heading for Puerto Lopez which connects to Isla De Plata which is referred to as the poor mans Galapagos. However almost everything here with any bit of wildlife here is referred to as a poor mans Galapagos. In total we´ll probably spend about a week on the Pacific coast before heading for Banos and Quito.

Here are some photos since the last installment:

Cancun, Huanchaco, Lima, Cusco, Macchu Picchu, Guayaquil