We embarked on an adventure from the Atacama desert to the Salar de Uyuni, in Bolivia. First, we took a shuttle to the Chile – Bolivia border, had a very windy and pretty chilly breakfast outside our shuttle bus which gave us a small taste of what was yet to come, transferred into the obligatory […]
Peru Bolivia Chile
Gastronomy Inca-style: Maras, Moray & MIL
In Cusco, MIL was one of the restaurants we had to try. It is run by chef Virgilio Martinez, husband to our Lima favourite Kjolle chef Pia Leon and has been featured prominently in the press as an “audacious culinary, biological and socio-cultural experiment”. On the way, we stopped by the Maras salt mines – […]
Les p’tits gastronomes in… Peru
During our stay in Peru not only we were spoiled with magnificent meals, but we also discovered many new fruits (and veggies!). Turns out that Peru has the amazing advantage of calling 70 of the world’s 120 microclimates their own, and between the 3 key climates – the coast, the Sierra and the Selva (or […]
Il ne fait pas nuit ici, il fait Rapa Nui!
Welcome to probably the most mysterious place we have ever been to – truly in the middle of nowhere. In fact, Easter Island and Pitcairn fight over who is the farthest away from the next landmass. 3,512km from the coast of Chile, we fly in on a 5 hour flight from Santiago. Greeted by Paul, […]
Possibly truly the Earth’s cradle – and the sun’s. Isla del Sol.
I hope you had a chance to read up on the mythology behind this place (if not, check out the Copacabana post). Papa was super excited to visit the island of Isla del Sol (and once he set foot he didn’t want to leave!) On the morning of Sept 27th we took off on the […]
“Her name was Lola, she was a showgirl…” nah – no yellow feathers on this Copacabana (but a mythology crash course instead)
We marvelled at the nice things of Peru, but it was now time to move on to Bolivia. By car, at 4 in the morning, we left the ancient Incan capital city of Cusco (meaning in Quechua, the old Incan language “bellybutton” for it was the bellybutton of the old Incan empire) for the border […]
Stars, here we come!
Stargazing the Southern Hemisphere was one of the activities we just had to try, and so we did some in Cusco for the first time in the planetarium. The shuttle took us there and we all went in the planet room to analyse a projection on the ceiling. Julio, the fun astrophysicist leading our group, […]
Following the tracks of Pachacútec to Machu Picchu
Just getting to Machu Picchu is a nearly 3 day affair. Fredy, our driver from Cabanaconde, in his snazzy Suzuki model from the 70s takes us the “short” route, straight up the mountain passes instead of the paved detour. Thus we have a most amazing scenery, sputtering up the steep passes hitting nearly 5000m altitude […]
Down (and up) the world’s 3rd deepest canyon – Cañon del Colca
Home to the largest flying bird in the world, the Condor, and measuring 3,270m or 4,160 m deep depending on who you ask and how you measure, the Colca Canyon is becoming a more and more popular destination in Southern Peru. We read so many raving reviews about it that we decided to scrap some […]
Arequipa: Peru’s beautiful white city
After almost missing our connection in Lima to Arequipa late on Monday, Sept 9th, we arrive around 10pm in our cute little hotel (Casona de Asia) in the heart of the city. We skip dinner and quickly crawl into bed. At 5:30am we suddenly hear – right in front of our window – a loud, […]