We had been looking forward to Friday 15th November for a number of weeks, as on this day two great friends Robin and Claire arrived from The Republic of Cork to Lima in Peru to travel with us for 24 days. After a joyous meeting in the airport, dinner and pisco sours to really welcome them it was time for the Peru Adventures to begin. Claire and Robin had hired a lovely 4×4 camper from
www.rvperu.com and after stocking both larders and wine cellars we left but a trail of dust behind us.
We headed towards Cusco, and spotted a farm fair by the side of the road. This could be anywhere in Ireland on a summers weekend.
The Tambopata National Reserve did not disappoint. It has more than 10,000 species of plants, 600 species of birds, 200 species of mammals, more than 1,000 butterfly species, thousands of insects, and over 100 species of amphibians and reptiles. Here our highlight was the Macaw clay lick. In order to see the whole spectacular show of the Macaws from waking , to feeding to flying away we had to start our day at 5.am. This consisted first of about a one hour boat trip before arriving at dawn at the clay lick. Here we witnessed the arrival of flock after flock of blue and yellow, red and green, and scarlet macaws, plus yellow-crowned and blue-headed parrots.
The birdlife was pretty special.
We had a little wander around the treetops while we were at it.
Then it was off to Machu Picchu. We decided to walk there on the Inca trail. It's more expensive than going directly there, but the hike is just fantastic. We took a few days to get there, and loved every minute of it.
Some of the trail is pretty tough going.
The evenings we spent in tents that the amazing porters put up, eating dinner then playing cards.
We had a fair amount of rain on the way there, luckily mainly at night.
We saw loads of different buildings along the route, one more amazing than the last, We really had to wonder how they did it.
This is the view that greeted us as we arrived on site. Hardly what we expected. It took an hour or two for the sun to burn through.
The cloud started to clear, and we could see where we were.
Once the sun was out, it was superb.
Time wise, we were now up to just before Christmas 2013. While Our friends were still with us, we had an early Christmas dinner in the truck as they had brought out a Christmas pudding! First one in 2 years. Yummy!
Roast Alpacca (No turkeys handy)