Adios Peru

Some stray things to note:
1. On average the food is a lot better in Peru than Bolivia but there are some excellent places to eat in Bolivia if you look.
2. You end up eating a lot of startch foods - corn, potatoes and rice are common with meals (together)
3. Lomo Soltado is a restaurant favorite - stir fry beef with rice & chips.
4. Pizza isn't Peruvian per-se but cheese, ham, and bread are so common place that pizza feels Peruvian.
5. The pizza tends to be heavy on cheese and light in tomato sauce.
6. Cusquena beers are pretty good.
7. Toilets are of the "don't flush toilet paper, put it in this little bin" kind.
8. Light switches are often horizontal.
9. On average more of a door handle rather than door knob style country
10. Great fruit available.
11. Some great seafood available.
12. Although your average tourist restaurant is usually fine, it is worth finding better restaurants to get some really great food.
13. Don't fly with Avianca.
14. All the quick trips we booked had exceptionally good tour guides.
15. Crossing the road is not impossible.
16. Lots of ham but not much bacon.
17. Quinoa is best in soup.
18. I never had a bad bowl of soup in Peru.
19. Long distance coaches in Peru seem to be good but long distance coaches in Bolivia are a bit rough.
20. Mountains.

Baranco - Lima

Our last full day in Peru and we decided to catch a Taxi to the suburb of Baranco just south of Miraflores where we were staying.

Baranco gas nice cafes and coffee shops but is famous for a break in the cliffs above the ocean. This gulley provides a way down to the sea. Consequently Baranco is a kind of beach suburb. The gulley is adorned with terraced gardens and cafes and leads down to an overpass above the coastal highway.

From there you can reach a somewhat dismal beach but one well used by the people of Lima.

After Baranco we went a short way to the Museum of Contemporary Art and then back to the hotel for our last night in Lima.

Puno surrounds: Silustsani Burial Towers

We had an extra day in Puno to kill so that we could coordinate flights back to Lima with the accommodation we'd booked.

We decided to book a trip to the Silustani Burial Towers which are about a 40 minute drive north west of Puno.

The towers were built by a sucession of different cultures that had settled in the region over a period of over a thousand years. The tallest and most sophisticated in terms of stonework were built by the Incas in the 15th century.

They sit on a low moor-like hill above a small lake that itself overlooks Lake Titicaca.

The weather was wet and windy but our guide did his very best to speak above the wind and the flapping noise of rain ponchos.

Technically the dry season should have started already but the unseasonal rain poured on like we were visiting the Pennines rather than Peru. :)

Back in Lima

From La Paz back to Puno then a couple of nights in Puno then another early start to catch an hour long taxi ride to Juliaca airport then issues with the tickets at Juliaca (never fly Avianca Air) then safely back in Lima.

Some photos to come :)

Off to the Wrestling

While La Paz sits in a valley, its urban sprawl continues at high altitude. El Alto is the sprawliest part of greater La Paz, sitting on the edge of Altiplano plateau. El Alto is expanding in the way cities in developing nations do, rural people moving to the city. Consequently it has a very high proportion of indigenous Bolivians.

The indigenous Bolivians women are famous for their bowler hats, big skirts and colourful clothes. In the past they have been subject to some scorn by other Bolivians and the term "Chollita" was used as a derogatory term for them. Often poor and living in impoverished areas they often took the brunt of the hard end of Bolivian life.

Enter wrestling! Chollita wrestling is part of the Latin American "luchadore" style of comic/theatrical professional wrestling. The unique difference is that the overweight masked men play second fiddle to the Chollita - women dressed in traditional Andean garb, with pigtails and big personalities.

Popular with El Alto locals and tourists, each Sunday there are flights/performances. We were taken by bus up to El Alto to a community sports Hall. Just prior to getting on the bus we bumped into the manager of the restaurant we had eaten at the night before. He arranged with the lady taking us to include Celia in one of the bouts.

We were given front row seats as we arrived. Two male wrestlers were already fighting in a battle of good v evil with the referee taking the side of evil. The choreographed battle continued with the bad guy victorious.

The other fights continued in the same way with different combinations of fighters (luchadores or Chollita or both) and dodgy referees throwing each other and faking kicks and punches. The crowd got rowdier throwing pop corn at the bad guys - who in turn threw things back including beer cans.

The star of the show's bout then came on, a big last with cold teeth and a huge smile. She was to fight a guy dressed sort of live Elvis with Damien 666 on his shirt. Naturally she could easily defeat him but the referee was taking his side. So she enlisted the aid of a young male tourist and with the odds evened the referee promised to be more impartial. The tourist left the stage...

But soon the battle became once again one Chollita versus two men! Together the men managed to trap the star in a sack and as the ref went off to find something to hit the sack with, things looked grim for everybody's favorite wrestler.

At which point Celia stood up wearing a wrestler's mask and pointing an accusing finger at the lone make wrestler. She then rescued then star from the bag and together defeated the bad guy, forcing him into the sack. Quickly they then hid under the ring before the referee returned.

The referee came back and promptly began hitting the sack (in which he supposed was the Chollita but which actually held Damien666). Eventually the trick was revealed and Celia and her wrestling partner returned to the ring to finish off the two baddies. Good triumphed and to applause Celia returned to her seat.

More bouts followed, but the last bout departed from the normal sequence of good-wrestler v bad-wrestler + corrupt referee with the sound of ominous organ music. A shambling bear like monster appeared. The monster defeated the bad Chollita, the cross-dressing referee and began to menace the heroine. At this point a man dressed as a skeleton came to help the good Chollita. However neither could defeat the monster but both were quick enough to escape it's clutches. Frustrated the monster rampaged into the crowd, scattering spectators and frightening small children. Finally the monster picked up a stagehand and departed...and the show was over.

A truly amazing evening!

Mi Teleferico

The cheapest and most spectacular activity in La Paz is to take a ride on its newish mass public transport system. Opened in 2014 La Paz has a system of cable cars that carry people from the growing high altitude suburbs to the city centre in the valley.

For a few Bolivianos we hopped onto a cable car on the Yellow Route from Sopocachi to the plateau above. A little scary to ride so high above the city but a better view than the "London Eye" and much cheaper!

La Paz

We booked tickets on a "tourist bus" from Copacabana. The bus was a basic coach but it had the advantage of dropping off passengers in the historic centre of La Paz rather than the scary (and scary sounding) cemetery district.

Copacabana sits on an isthmus that juts out into Lake Titicaca. The neck of the isthmus is cut by the Peruvian border. Consequently for the bus to stay in Bolivia on its trip to La Paz, it has to cross a narrow section of the lake that joins the larger (and mainly Peruvian) North section of the lake with a smaller Southern section.

So after a windy route through the hills around Copacabana, we reached a small town and disembarked. The bus passengers were to travel by little boats over to the other side while the bus would go over by barge. That nobody trusted the two to go together didn't inspire confidence!

For a few Bolivianos (1Boliviano =  20 cents) we caught a swift but small and rickety boat across with locals and other passengers. Our journey was quicker than the bus's, so we had a toilet break, a snack and watched the stray dogs tussle in the town square.

Back on the bus we saw more of Bolivia's half-built nature. The route to La Paz will be a big broad highway but that was still under construction. So the bus would weave off semi-finished sections and unto dirt roads running along side.

The immediate landscape was flat, breaking into stony hills with snow capped mountains in the distance. As we travelled on more half complete buildings appeared at the side of the road. These grew in density as we entered the outer sprawl of El Alto, the expanding second city of La Paz.

Through El Alto the roads would return to dirt tracks amid occupied but incomplete buildings. Eventually this shifted to proper roads and more established buildings. Then proper highway which swept round in an arc to reveal the steep valley over which La Paz sprawls across the slopes.

After navigating narrow streets the bus dropped us a short walk to our hotel