Seeing Machu Picchu (despite the clouds)

It has been noted in the past that I can be somewhat…competitive, and the prospect of competing with two hundred other trekkers to get to Machu Picchu made me determined to beat them all.

So despite a few two many beers the night before, Adrian & I found ourselves getting up at the ungodly hour of three to make sure we made it to the starting point for the final stretch before all the others. Despite our best efforts, when we made it to the gate at around 4.15am, we found that two Americans had beat us to it – but we were soon very glad we’d left as early as we did, as just fifteen minutes later pretty much all the other hikers were lined up behind us in the dark, waiting for the gate to open at 5.30am and start the final hike up to the Sun Gate.

Now bizarrely enough you’re actually at a bit of a disadvantage when it comes to getting to Machu Picchu before everyone else if you do the Inca Trail, as they say it takes about an hour to get from the campsite entrance gate up to the sun gate, and from there another half hour or so to the main site – whereas all the day trippers enter right into the main site from 6am.

With that in mind, we were determined to try and negate as much of that disadvantage as possible, so the moment the gate opened we sped off, almost running the final stretch to get to the sun gate as early as possible, see the sun rise over the mountain and get a clear, empty view of the site itself. All that effort paid off, and at 5.59am Adrian & I were the very first people of the day on site. Only to be greeted by a wall of clouds. Yep, as we came through the sun gate, we couldn’t see a damn thing. Which was especially annoying after having really clear mornings every other day of the trail.

Being first through the Sun Gate. Priceless.

The "view" of Machu Picchu from the Sun Gate

Still, all was not lost – the other reason we’d been determined to make it to the site early was to get a chance to climb Huayna Picchu, which is the tall, steep-sided mountain that you always see in the background of the ‘classic’ photo of Machu Picchu. Again, doing the Inca Trail means you are at a disadvantage of getting to climb Huayna Picchu, as tickets are limited to 400 a day, and are given out to people in the queue for the main gate. So, after rushing to the sun gate, we then had another rush to make it all the way down to the bottom of the site, out of the gate and back into the queue (!) to get the tickets – and we just managed it, they’d already given out 350 of the 400, but at least we made it, especially in the knowledge that we’d be among the very few who get to do both the Inca Trail and the Huayna Picchu climb.

The steep climb to Huayna Picchu

What we hand’t factored in was the difficulty of that climb. It looks ridiculously steep in photos. And that’s because it is. I can honestly say it’s the steepest section of mountain I’d climbed in a month of trekking in Peru, and after four days of Inca Trail we were exhausted when we got to the top, yet again to be confronted with more cloud.

Waiting...

But we had time on our hands, so we sat and waited…and waited…and eventually they cleared, giving us a totally different view of the site to all the usual photos you see. Beautiful, and well worth the hike. The site is absolutely incredible, perched on a steep mountain, surrounded by other stunning mountains, it is rightly one of the most famous tourist attractions in the world, and I can recommend it to anyone.

Machu Picchu from Huayna Picchu

When we made it back down, we had time to wander round the site. But to be honest, after taking in the impressive views, we had no desire to spend ages there. After seeing so many impressive (and empty) ruins along the way, and working so hard to get to the site with hours of walking every day, to be suddenly confronted with thousands of (clean and fresh) daytrippers was a bit of a shock to the system. So we decided to leave…only to find out that in a final infuriating error, our tour company had forgotten to give our guide our bus tickets (and we had no money left on us to buy more). So, absolutely exhausted, we had to walk the hour or so down the steep hill to Aguascalientes, made all the harder by having shiny air-conditioned buses whizzing past us every step of the way. (Note to anyone reading: do not under any circumstances book your Inca Trail with Exotic Adventures of Cusco. Aside from the mistakes I’ve mentioned here, there were countless others too dull to go into. But really, please avoid giving any money to the bastards).

Well worth the wait (and the stern telling off I got afterwards for jumping on an archaeological site. Whoops)

Despite the slightly infuriating ending, a couple of hours later we’d recovered with a refreshing soak in the hot springs that give the town its name, eaten pizza and drunk beer (by now my traditional post-hike celebration), and the problems with the tour company suddenly seemed not to matter so much. The Inca Trail & Machu Picchu are worth every bit of time, money & effort it takes to get there.

You can see all my photos of Machu Picchu here.

The Inca Trail

To think I wasn’t even going to do the Inca Trail orginally. I’d fallen into the trap of listening to too many other backpackers talk about how it’s too touristy, too expensive, and not even as good as the many alternatives such as the Salkantay Trail.

Luckily, a comment from Gillian on this post started to bring me to my senses, and when my friend Adrian decided to fly out to join me for three weeks on holiday that settled it – as Gillian says, it would be a shame to travel all that way and settle for the first runner up option. Because after doing the Inca Trail, I’d have to say anything else would be a disappointment – don’t believe the naysayers, it’s worth every penny.

The start of the trail

We were lucky to make it onto the Trail in the first place though – the company we booked with forgot to give our entnce tickets to our guide, meaning we had an agonising three hour wait at the start for them to be driven down all the way from Cusco – and the guide had already told us that if they didn’t arrive before 12.30 they’d have to start the trail without us in order to make the camp by nightfall – and we wouldn’t have got a second chance, as the tickets are for a specific day only. Luckily, the arrived with minutes to spare, and we were finally on our way.

Walking along the sacred valley

Day one is a relatively gentle start, heading along the sacred valley. I’d heard beforehand that we’d pass some other minor Inca Ruins along the way, but I was expecting themto be pretty small. So when we rounded a corner and found ourselves looking across at the vast ruins of Llaqtapata I was stunned. They’re pretty huge in themselves, and served as a guardhouse at the start of the trail and was also used for agricultural purposes.

Llaqtapata

We reached camp around nightfall, and settled in for an early night to get a good rest as we knew the next day would be the toughest. Day two has the longest day of walking, and includes the trail’s highest point, Dead Woman’s Pass. It’s called that because it allegedly looks like a woman lying down, although to be honest other than a vaguely nipple-like bump on top of a mound, you have to really stretch your imagination to see it.

The climb itself is pretty relentless – we started climbing right at the start of the day, and just kept going and going. While not as steep or as high as several of the passes I’d tackled elsewhere in Peru, in some ways it’s tougher going, as several chunks of the trail are on original Inca stone steps, which are much more punishing on the legs than a standard slope. As we slowly slogged our way up hill, it was amazing to see our porters racing past us carrying huge packs with all our food, tents and spare gear (pack animals aren’t allowed on the trail, so everything is carried by porters). Every day they left camp after us (giving them time to pack up) and every day they had everything erected again by the time we made camp. Quite incredible.

Eventually we made the top…just in time for it to cloud over, after a beautfiful clear day. Typical. But we made the most of it by taking lots of photos of us jumping at the pass.

Happy to have made it to the top

The third day was definitely the most special. After winding our way up to a smaller pass, and past another couple of minor ruins, we found ourselves on a narrow path that basically hangs off the side of a cliff, with sheer drops to the valley below and stunning views across the snow-capped mountains in the distance. The path passes through an Inca Tunnel in the rockface after a while, before finally reaching a ridge with incredible views down onto the Sacred Valley, the town of Aguascalientes, and the back of Machu Pichhu mountain itself. Just below the ridge sits yet another set of ruins, and when we got there we had them all to ourselves – despite the fact that 200 people a day do the trail, everyone sets off at different times and walks at different speeds, meaning it’s still pretty tranquil most of the time – giving us the time to sit down, chill out, and marvel at the views

More ruins on day three

With the toughest bit of the trail out of the way, all that remained to do was make the final descent to our last campsite, by the ruins of Winay Wayna, reward ourselves for all our hard work with a few beers, and get some sleep to prepare ourselves for a stupidly early rise the next day: we were determined to be the first people to reach Machu Picchu itself the following day…

Wiñay Wayna

You can see all of my pictures of the Inca Trail here.

Cusco

In my first few months of traveling, I’ve hardly managed to get away from the gringo trail, so I’m quite used to seeing places that are full of tourists. Nothing could have prepared me for Cusco though – it’s easily the most touristy place I’ve been to so far. The city is absolutely heaving with travellers, and quite a different mix to the usual backpacking crowd.

Plaza de Armas, Cusco

As the jumping off point for the number one tourist attraction in Latin America, Machu Picchu, it attracts travelers of every age from all over the world. Luckily, the city has more than enough charms for that not to matter one bit. I’d been particularly excited about visiting the city ever since reading The Last Days of the Incas (you can see my thoughts on that from an earlier post here). Far from just being a colonial city, Cusco was the capital of the vast Inca empire before the Spaniards arrived.

Narrow streets in the district of San Blas

At first sight, with its beautiful colonial houses and churches, the Inca heritage isn’t immediately obvious, but as you wander around, it son becomes clear that the city the Spaniards found was too impressive to wipe out completely (as they had with Aztec Tenochtitlan). Several of the buildings are built on top of original Inca constructions, which stand out because of their massive stone walls, impressively put together with huge stones, precisely cut and slotted together without mortar. The fact that they were all put together without the use of the wheel is just mind-boggling.

Dancing bears in the Plaza de Armas

Best example of all of this stonework is the huge fortress of Sacsayhuaman, which sits on a hill overlooking the town. From down below it doesn’t look all that impressive, as the side facing Cusco is steep enough to be its own natural defence. Round the back is a different story though. After a steep climb up the hill, we arrived round the back to be faced with a series of absolutely massive, zig-zagging defnesive walls, with some of the individual stones being vast, and the view from the top is spectacular – well worth the climb.

Sacsayhuaman

Looking down on the Plaza de Armas from Sacsayhuaman

With the prospect of seeing so many ruins on the Inca Trail, we decided to skip the other sights in the Sacred Valley and just spend a few days acclimatising to the altitude and just wandering around the city. It may be full of tourists but it’s such a beautiful city it makes a great place to chill out for a few days.

You can see all of my photos of Cusco here

Frog Juice and Fried Guinea Pig

So far on this trip I’ve eaten some strange things (grasshoppers in Oaxaca and ants in San Gil, Colombia), but I have to say the things I saw in Arequipa market have to take the biscuit.

As in all Latin American markets I’ve been to, there are plenty of stalls selling freshly squeezed juices and delicious smoothies. It’s just in Arequipa, the range of smoothies available contained the odd surprise – such as beer, milk & eggs. Which really sounds like one of the most disgusting concoctions imagineable.

Beer, Milk & Egg Smoothie

Or so I thought until I wandered further into the market and came across this little stand.

For those of you who don’t speak Spanish, Jugo de Ranas means Frog Juice. Yes, that’s right, that tank contains lots of little frogs all waiting their turn to be popped into a blender and served up to a local – apparently they are great for helping women get pregnant and for those with memory problems. And sure enough, there seemed to be a steady stream of people coming up to give it a go.

Did I give it a go? Of course not. It looked disgusting, and anyway, I have nothing to prove on the frog front after having polished off a plate of whole deep-fried Mekong river frogs in Laos a couple of years ago.

Strange smoothies aside, Peru has quite a few other unusual culinary specialities to serve up, so the night my friend Adrian arrived from the UK (for a three week visit), we took the advice of our guide book and headed out to ‘the best restaurant in Arequipa’ – one specialising in local cuisine that was apparently so good it was picked out as one of the five highlights for the whole chapter of the book. Located ‘a few blocks east of the centre’ we decided we’d walk.

And walk we did. Further and further out of town. Down deserted, slightly-menacing looking lanes (in a city we’d been warned to be careful about after dark). Past the ring road. Past a sign announcing we’d entered the next municipality. Down a lonely dual carriageway. After an hour of walking we eventually realised there must be two streets in town with the name we were looking for, and decided we’d cross the road to jump in the taxi waiting on the other side of the street.

As it turned out, the reason he was there was because he was sat outside the (signless) restaurant. It looked shut, be he assured us it wasn’t, so we went in – to find the biggest restaurant I’ve been to in Peru. A huge affair with giant tables and a dancefloor. The kind of place you might go to on a bad office party – of which there were two in place when we arrived. After walking that long, we decided to go for it anyway, only to realise just after we’d ordered that the office parties were leaving, the DJ had stopped playing, and we were sat alone in a rather cavernous, empty restaurant (the guidebook had neglected to mention the place is only worth going to at weekends).

Still, we’d heard the food was great, so we’d ordered some of the native wildlife to try. Adrian went for Cuy, and I figured I’d give the Alpaca a go. Turns out I made easily the best choice. Alpaca is fantastic – like a tender, lean beef, it’s great in stir-fries and as a steak. So good was it I ended up having it quite a few more times later on in the trip.

Adrian wasn’t so lucky. Cuy is better known in English as Guinea Pig. It’s native to the Andes, and is quite the delicacy, apparently. I’m not sure I can see why. The traditional way to serve it is cooked between two hot stones. Whole. So what you end up with looks like roadkill, with its legs splayed and head squashed. It’s really not the most appetising sight in the world, and after staring, rather disgusted for a while, he tucked in. Only to find about five mouthfuls of meat. Rather him than me.

Arequipa Cathedral by Night

Other than our culinary adventures, I had a lovely time in Arequipa. Five days of chilling out and enjoying one of the most beautiful cities in Peru. Most of the town’s buildings are made of a nearly-white volcanic rock called Sillar. The Plaza de Armas is particularly fine, with the cathedral taking up the whole of one side, and the other three having terraces full of cafes with views towards the massive Volcan Misti rising up above the city.

Volcan Misti

The Santa Cruz Trek

The Santa Cruz trek is the best known and most popular trek in the Cordillera Blanca, and for good reason. Over the course of four days, it loops around the highest part of the range, mostly staying beautiful alpine valleys, and giving stunning views of the range’s tallest and most beautiful mountains, as well as a series of spectacular lakes.

Cordillera Blanca

After successfully tackling a number of hikes so far on my trip (such as Volcan Santa Maria in Guatemala and the Lost City trek in Colombia), I had been pretty confident the Santa Cruz was well within my abilities.

Having completed the rather grueling Laguna Churup day hike, I suddenly wasn’t so sure. I had planned to do a second acclimatisation hike to Laguna 69 on my third day in Huaraz. Waking up that morning my legs were pretty stiff and my knee was still aching slightly. I decided I’d be better off with a rest day and prayed that everything would be OK for the saturday morning, although I decided to leave nothing to chance and spent an extra $12 hiring some good trekking poles, ideal for taking the weight of the knees on steep descents.

The road to the start

I was relieved to wake up early on the first day with the stiffness in my legs gone, and feeling pretty used to the thin air, both of which had me feeling more confident about the day ahead. Even better was stopping for breakfast on the way to the trailhead, as it gave me a chance to get to know the group a bit better – I’d be hiking with four couples (two fellow Brits, two Swiss, one British-Australian and one German-Peruvian), as well as a solo Brazilian guy. Quite a mix of nationalities and languages, but it soon became clear we all clicked really well and they’d be a great group to walk with.

View from the first pass

The journey to the start of the hike was stunning enough in itself – as the bus climbed up from the village of Yungay (scene of the Western Hemisphere’s worst ever national disaster, the 1970s earthquake that buried the entire town killing all but a handful of the inhabitants) up into the valley, we were soon rewarded with a view of a beautiful turquoise-coloured lake, with Huascaran, the world’s highest tropical mountain towering above us. After that, the road climbed up a series of steep switchbacks towards a high mountain pass to take us over to the eastern side of the range where we’d start the hike.

We’d already been warned the first day was going to be the easiest of the lot, consisting of a pretty short, flat hike along the bottom of the valley. It was a nice gentle introduction to the walk, and all along the way we’d regularly be stopped by sweet local children begging us for our ‘caramelos’ (sweets). It was impossibel not to oblige. The biggest challenge on day one was getting used to the cold once night fell – at this latitude, the mountains are incredibly warm during the daytime (and the sun fiercly intense) – but with clear skies at night the temperature soon plummets and I needed every layer I had just to stay warm.

Day two was the hard one – and after Laguna Churup I worried how I’d cope, given we’d be climbing to 4750m, three hundred metres higher than I’d done a few days before. Luckily, my worst fears weren’t realised. It was pretty hard work, struggling up the steep slope, stopping for breath every few minutes, but I was determined to get there, helped along the way by the knowledge it would be a chance to stop for lunch, and then afterwards it’d be downhill all the way to the end of the trip. In the end, there was nothing as steep or as difficult as the final ascent at Laguna Churup, and I reached the top ahead of the rest of the group, giving my time to enjoy the amazing views all to myself.

View from the Punta Union pass

The pass itself, called Punta Union, is a little notch in a high ridge dividing the two valleys, meaning you can’t see anything at all of what’s on the other side til you reach the final step. The second valley, Santa Cruz itself, is if anything even more beautiful than the valley we’d just left, looking down across yet more snow-covered peaks and towards another couple of bright blue lakes. After a slog like that, you really appreciate having donkeys to do all the hard carrying work (it’s quite an amazing sight watching them wind their way up the steep slopes with far more ease, and speed, than humans), as well as a chef to make nice filling meals on our return to camp – I can see the appeal of doing treks like this yourself, but the last thing I’d want to do is have to cook dinner once I’d finished walking for the day.

Donkeys arriving at the pass

Soon we’d started the descent, this time with my fighting my natural instincts to race ahead, instead descending slowly making full use of my trekking poles to help my knee, which certainly helped – while I had twinges of pain it was nothing like as bad as it’d been on my previous day hike,
which came as quite a relief – I certainly wouldn’t have fancied three days of walking steadily downhill in constant pain.

The second night brought a little disappointment for all of us and quite a bit of discomfort for most. The disappointment was that Alpamayo, called the world’s most beautiful mountain (for its almost perfect pyramid shape) was shrouded in cloud. The discomfort was the fact that most of the group had fallen ill to diarrhea – whether it was brought on by dirty water or dodgy food we don’t know, but I didn’t envy the few who were up all night and then having to hike on the next day with depleted energy reserves. Yet again my iron constitution saw me through though, and I felt fit as a fiddle.

Alpamayo

The disappointment continued the next morning, as Alpamayo sat stubbornly refusing to come out of the clouds properly. We got a brief, partial glimpse, but not enough to see it in its true majesty (although apparently we didn´’t miss all that much – it turns out it’s the world’s best when viewed from the other side anyway – you have to do the longer and tougher Alpamayo circuit to see that face). Still, the rest of the mountains did their bit to make up for it, and with their snow-capped peaks gleaming under the bright blue sky we certainly had nothing to grumble about.

The Santa Cruz valley

The final couple of days follow the Santa Cruz valley back to civilisation, and it really is an awesome sight – the glacial valley has towering, steep-sided walls, with glacial waterfalls cascading down the sides at regular intervals, running into little streams that wind their way across the flat valley floor, and feeding the lakes we’d seen from the pass above.

Eventually we made it back, with tired legs but smiles on our faces, glad to be heading back to showers, beer and pizza. Turns out that my ‘acclimatisation’ hike to Laguna Churup had been more challenging than the Santa Cruz turned out to be, and I was extremely relieved that my knee had just about made it through without too much bother.

The hike gave me the best mountain views I’ve ever seen – it truly deserves the term breathtaking, and I have to say it was the highlight of my trip to date. The only thing that was worrying me was how on earth the Huayhuash circuit could live up to it (oh, was well as hoping that just the one rest day in between would be enough time for my legs to recover).

You can see all of my photos of the Santa Cruz trek here

Trekking to Laguna Churup

Arriving in Huaraz was just what I needed after six weeks in Colombia. I mean, I wouldn´t say I partied non-stop there, but it´d be fair to say it was my most sociable country so far. What I need was a bit of time up in the mountains to get away from it all, and the Cordillera Blanca seemed like the perfect place.

The Cordillera Blanca from the road to Huaraz

With the biggest cluster of 6000m+ peaks outside of the Himalayas, the Cordillera Blanca is the world´s highest tropical mountain range. Besthike.com claims the area offers the best Alpine hiking in the world, and that was enough to make me plan my trip around them – I wanted to make sure I was there at the height of the Andean summer, to make sure I made the best of the weather.

That was certainly the right decision – I stepped off the nightbus from Lima to find myself in a town ringed by some of the most beautiful mountains I´d ever seen, all lit up by bright sunshine and framed by a deep blue, cloudless sky, which was a godsend after the constant grey skies that hang over the capital at this time of year.

I was in Huaraz to do two multi-day hikes, the Santa Cruz trek & the Huayhuash circuit (trip reports on both of those coming soon), but the first step was to get acclimatised. Other than day hikes in Guatemala and Colombia to over 3500m, I´d never spent a significant amount of time at altitude before, so I made sure I built in a conservative amount of time to acclimatise before heading onto higher and more strenuous stuff.

Day one was spent chilling out and adjusting to the thin air of Huaraz, much of it spent enjoying the fantastic coffee at Cafe Andino. As I felt no ill effects, I was up bright and early on my second day to try my first spot of walking, on a day hike to Laguna Churup, which I´d been told was ideal preparation.

Coca tea in the mountains: perfect hiking fuel

After a short collectivo ride to the trailhead, the walk started gently enough, winding its way gradually uphilll through farmland with lovely views of the Cordillera all around. After an hour or so I reached a little farmhouse where I was able to stop for a warming cup of coca tea (also handy for the effects of altitude) before starting on the serious ascent.

And boy was it a serious ascent. It was probably a combination of being unprepared for hiking that high up, plus a certain amount of unfitness, but every step was a bit of a struggle – I was constantly short of breath and going any distance at all was quite an effort, and I suddenly started to worry about what I was letting myself in for, with two multi-day hikes to come.

The final ascent

The worst was yet to come, too. The final hundred metres or so consist of a steep scramble up the side of a waterfall. It was pretty tricky, and very tiring, but it was all worthwhile as I rounded the top and the view of the laguna opened up in front of me.

Too tired to do much exploring, I plonked myself down on a rock to take in the views and enjoy a spot of lunch (made even better by an Israeli hiker who happened to have a little stove and was preparing fresh coffee just as I arrived…if only that always happened) and chilled out for an hour or so.

Laguna Churup - 4450m above sea level

Eventually it started to get a tad chilly, so it was time to head back. If anything, the descent was even tougher, with the scramble down the waterfall being especially tricky.

After that I thought I´d be fine – until the thing I´d dreaded happened: my knee started to hurt. I injured it running about five years ago, and despite physio it´s never been quite the same since, but it´s been OK enough for walking up til now. On this particular day, it started to throb as soon as the downhill section started, and the pain got worse and worse on the way down. By the time I got to the bottom I was hobbling along with avery pronounced limp. Not a good sign at all.

I thought I was going to get a gentle acclimatisation hike – instead I ended up with the toughest day hike I´ve ever done. Worse, with my knee playing up, suddenly my plan to spend three weeks in the mountains, the single thing I´d been looking forward to most in my entire trip, was under threat.

Sunset over the Cordillera Negra

As I sat in my hostel that night, enjoying yet another fine Huaraz sunset, I was praying my knee would get better…

Cartagena

Even though I’d just read Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s ‘Love in the Time of Cholera’, with its vivid description of the heat of Cartagena in the summer months, nothing could prepare me for quite how intense the humidity would be when I got there.

Even just wandering around slowly, taking in all the beautiful colonial buildings, left me almost as sweaty as I’d been hiking uphill through the jungle on the Lost City trek. Which is a shame, as I could easily have spent all day every day just strolling around the streets of the old town – there are very few modern buildings, and it’s easy to get lost just taking in all the picturesque little lanes filled with colourful houses with pretty little wooden balconies.

Cartagena initially grow wealthy as one of the main ports for exporting gold and other precious metals from the colonies in South America back to Spain. Attracted by this wealth, the city was regularly attacked by pirates. Most succesful of these was Sir Francis Drake, who destroyed a huge section of the city, and who was only succesfully disuaded from doing so again by the payment of ransom that would be worth $200m in today’s money. I’d grown up knowing of his exploits in saving England from the Spanish Armada, so it was interesting to visit a place where he’s better known as a ruthless pirate.

After these attacks, the Spanish were determined never to let it happen again, so the city’s defences were boosted with huge walls and an imposing fortress overlooking the city. Even the Cathedral, destroyed in Drake’s raid, was rebuilt in unusually sturdy fashion. So I suppose you could say that the Colombians have a Brit to thank for the city’s current beauty!

If anything, the city is even more beautiful by night (sorry folks, you’ll just have to trust me on that one, as I forgot to take my camera out in the evening), as the walls and all the churches are lit up, highlighting all the beautiful colours, although unfortunately it’s still nearly as hot and humid.

One evening I finally got the chance to meet up with my first ever fellow travel blogger – Liz and her husband Adrian, who are on quite a similar trip to me, and whose blog, Where are Liz and Adrian? I’ve been following since the start. We’ve been to several of the same places already, although never at the same time, so it was great to finally meet, have a chat with Liz about the difficulties of trying to keep a blog up to date when there are a million more fun things to do all the time, and with Adrian about the various things he misses from the UK after living in Canada for so long. They’re now elsewhere in Colombia, but hopefully we’ll get to catch up again somewhere else along the way.

Luckily the city offered a couple of ways to escape the heat – my hostel (the beautiful Media Luna) had a pool which was the perfect way to spend the afternoons after a hot morning traipsing around. Even better was a trip to the nearby mud volcano.

I had no idea what to expect, and to be honest I was only going because I’d been told it was one of the area’s ‘must dos’ rather than out of any urgent desire to see it. There was no way I expected to enjoy it anywhere near as much as I did – it’s a truly bizarre and quite unique experience.

Just along the coast from Cartagena is a region where mud bubbles up from the ground, and in one spot it has formed a little mud volcano (which has actually been shored up by the locals to make it look a bit more impressive). It’s only about 15m high, and you climb up the side on a little wooden staircase before clambering down into the lukewarm mud.

It’s one of the strangest sensations I’ve ever felt. It’s a bit like being dunked in a giant pot of tepid chocolate mousse, and it’s so dense that it’s absolutely impossible to sink – despite not being able to touch the bottom, with no effort at all you can just stand there. In fact you’re so bouyant it’s quite easy to find your legs floating up behind you to the surface, threatening to leave you face down in the mud, so you have to get other people to push you back down. It’s hard to describe why it’s quite as fun as it is, but we spent an hour in there and spent most of it in absolute hysterics, particularly later on as we were almost packed in like sardines. In fact I had so much fun I enjoyed it more than Cartagena.

Which is a lesson I’m increasingly learning on my trip – there are plenty of places that are absolutely beautiful and worthy of their fame as tourist destinations, but more and more it’s the little unusual and quirky places like the Mummy Museum in Guanajuato and the mud volcano in Cartagena that are standing out as my favourites.

You can see all of my photos from Cartagena and the Mud Volcano here.

Hectic final day in Mexico City

One of the first rules of travelling (according to more experienced types) is to never over-plan. You never know when you’ll like somewhere so much you’ll want to extend your stay. And Mexico City definitely fits that description – I wasn’t all that impressed on my first visit in 2007, and now it’s rapidly becoming one of my favourite cities.

Unfortunately circumstances have meant I have no choice – firstly, the nest 10 days or so are Semana Santa (Holy Week), one of the busiest holidays of the year here, when buses and hostels book up very quickly. Secondly, I have to make it back to Guadalajara by April 24th to meet up with my friends on their return from England, and in the meantime I want to make it all the way up north to the Copper Canyon. So I’ve had to plan the next three weeks carefully, and that means tomorrow is the time to leave.

But I’m not going to let a little thing like a premature departure defeat me – so today I was up at 7am to sightsee my arse off.

First stop: the Zocalo

The other day I read that one of the coolest experiences in Mexico City is the daily flag-raising ceremony in the Zocalo, the city’s main square. Every day at 8am, a troop of soldiers march out onto the square, including a marching band, and raise the ginormous Mexican flag that stands in the centre of the square. It’s quite an impressively OTT ceremony just to raise a flag, but the soldiers seem to enjoy it and afterwards they all march back to their barracks singing the rather jaunty national anthem. Well worth the early start, but no time to mess around…

Next stop: Teotihuacan

The Pyramid of the Sun, Teotihuacan

After a quick stop for some breakfast at the bus station, it was time for the hour-long bus ride to Teotihuacan, at the edge of the Valle de Mexico. It’s the site of a pre-Aztec city, and has the third biggest pyramid in the world (the biggest is also in Mexico, at Cholula, but is completely overgrown and has a catholic church sitting on top, so doesn’t even look like a pyramid). On arrival, I made the cardinal traveller sin of comparing to places I’ve already been – and first impressions were that it wasn’t as impressive as the jungle-clad Tikal in Guatemala. How wrong could I be – the main Pyramid, the Pyramid of the sun didn’t look all that from a distance. But up close – jesus it’s huuuuge. Quite how huge I realised when I climbed all 248 steps to the top in searing heat. Great view from the top though. One of the best bits of the experience was that about 90% of the visitors were Mexican school kids, clad in colourfulm tracksuits, running around having fun and trying to engage the foreigners in conversation, with their terrible English being about on par with my terrible Spanish. Still, with the midday sun getting hotter and hotter, and no shade to be had, it was time to move on…

Third stop: the basilica of Guadalupe

The Catholic church certainly used to know a thing or two about PR: struggling to convert the locals back in the early days of colonisation, they managed to rustle up a quick apparition of the Virgin Mary to a startled native. A few miracles later and bob’s yer uncle, the locals are happy to convert. To celebrate this happy occurence, they built a whopping great big basilica to facilitate pilgrimages. I was hoping for an all-out tack-fest like Fatima in Portugal. Instead it was surprisingly classy, and the new basilica (built to replace the old one that is slowly sinking into the soft soil) is actually quite impressive. Religious duties over (hey, even a lapsed catholic can’t resist the odd shrine), it was time to move on.

The Alameda & the Palacio de Bellas Artes

The Torre Lationamericana

A quick bus ride took me down to the Alameda, a lovely little park full of the beautiful purple-flowering Jacaranda trees that you see everywhere in the city, where I cooled off for a while. On the edge of the park is the Palacio de Bellas Artes, with fantastic deco interiors, and a series of murals by Mexico’s most famous muralists (I think the city’s murals deserve a post of their own at some point), finest of all being one by Frida Kahlo’s husband Diego Rivera, showing how much cooler socialism is than capitalism. He had to redo it in Mexico after the original (commissioned by the Rockerfellers in New York) didn’t exactly meet American tastes, funnily enough. Next door to Bellas Artes is the Torre Latinoamericana, which was the tallest in Latin America when first built. It’s not anymore but it’s still my favourite building in the city.

Final stop: time for beer

After cramming about three days of sightseeing in one day, there was of course only one way to end it: with a nice cool Modelo Negra in the shade.

I will be very sad indeed to say goodbye to the city, it’s a fantastic place and not at all like the perception of it being dangerous. I’ll definitely be back.

My own private world heritage site: the Plantin-Moretus museum

Now I’m not stupid enough to think that the list of World Heritage sites is flawless, or that it’s not skewed by national politics. But it is normally a pretty good guide to interesting places to see when visiting somewhere new (and I don’t think you can blame UNESCO for making potentially interesting sitesas dull as ditchwater by ruining them with compulsory snoozesome guided tours).

Book illustration by Rubens

Despite that, I was a little underwhelmed by reading about Antwerp’s main one, the Plantin-Moretus museum. The prospect of visiting a small museum based in and on the subject of an old publishing house hardly generated the excitement I got from the thought of, say, climbing a Mayan temple in a jungle.

But thanks to a personal recommendation, we figured we might as well give it a go. Now I know I said that Antwerp was virtually empty of tourists; what I didn’t expect to find was there to be so few that we had one of the city’s most famous museums entirely to ourselves. And I mean *entirely*. It was like having a private visit. Just like the city as a whole, people are seriously missing out.

Central courtyard at the Plantin Moretus museum

The museum is in a collection of 16th century buildings, surrounding a central courtyard, that housed a publishing house founded by Christophe Plantijn in 1576. The museum today houses all the artifacts of the old printing process, including the oldest surviving printing presses in the world and workshops where the presses were made.

The oldest printing presses in the world

As well as the print works, the building was also the home of the owners, and houses their hugely valuable library, many of which were printed on-site and on display in cabinets, including volumes illustrated by the city’s most famous son, Rubens (elsewhere in the house you can find various portraits of family members by him too), and the world’s first illustration of the potato.

Cabinet & Rubens portraits

The interior of the house is fascinating too, with some of the walls bound with leather decorated with gold leaf, original tapestries, and more portraits. The courtyard itself contains a quiet little garden too.

Tapestry detail

Best of all, for a geography geek like me, was the room full of old globes and maps from what was described as the golden age of Flemish cartography (1540-1590 apparently), including an early edition of a pocket-sized edition of Mercator’s maps. I could have spent hours in there, and would have loved to have had the chance to go through those old atlases in more detail.

16th Century map of Holland

I suppose it’s always good to places with low expectations, but in this case it really paid off. It’s one of the most unusual and fascinating museums I’ve ever been to, and if you’re a book lover, a geography geek or just have any interest in history, I’d heartily recommend it.

Trapped 200 metres underground with only a Salty Pope for company

Krakow is amazing itself, but if you are here you MUST go and see this wonder of the World. I can’t put into words any write up that can convey how awe inspiring this place is. A must see, once (or twice!) event in your life!”

I really should have known when I read this that I’d be in for a disappointment. I’m quite prepared to put my hands up and admit we made a few mistakes along the day – such as ignoring the guidebook’s exhortations to buy tickets in advance in Krakow, and taking a Polish-language tour rather than waiting for the next English one – but even if we hadn’t I still think our impressions wouldn’t have been all that different.

The Wieliczka Salt Mine was first founded in the 13th century and continued as a working mine until 1996, and it’s huuuuge. It’s even apparently impressive enough that it made it onto the very first listing of World Heritage sites (the committee decided it was more of a priority listing than Auschwitz, which had to wait another year). The workings of the mines, and the sheer scale of it I have to admit is impressive, but the bit that it’s most famous for are the various underground chapels carved out of the salt, the biggest of which is the the enormous chapel of St. Kinga.

St Kinga's chapel, Wieliczka Salt Mines

It’s undeniably breathtaking: over 100m underground, 54m long and 12m high, and every single bit – altar, statues (including one of the old pope, obviously), chandeliers – are carved out of salt.

Unfortunately to see the chapel you have to endure a ridiculously overlong tour (about three hours) – after not very long, one salt chamber starts to look very much like another – including a particularly rubbish (and confusing) son et lumiere. So by the time you get to the chapel (about 2 hours in), you’ve started to lose the will to live; afterwards, the knowledge that you’ve seen the best bit and still have an hour to go, with no chance of escape, is pretty crushing. As if to annoy you even further, the tunnels force you to go through about six gift shops (I’m not exaggerating here) and two cafes before you even get to the lift; once there you face a further queue that took us another half hour. I must admit the lift is quite an experience – a tiny, 4-deck lift that has you sandwiched in like sardines – although probably not one I fancy repeating.

Should have gone with my original plan of exploring the model socialist city of Nowa Huta instead. Will have to do that next time instead (and there will definitely be a next time, there’s still lots more to explore both in the city, and in places like Auschwitz and the Tatras mountains nearby).