AJ Adventures - Peru 2003

New Years’ Eve 2003 was almost spent stuck in a freezing cold bus while a landslide blocked the road to Quillabamba, Felix’s home town down in the jungle. Read the story New years eve in Peru – to find out if we were united with his family for the magical midnight hour.

In February I visited Morocco and then caught up with Bo & Matt Broadbent in Spain.

I had contracted four months work at the Tree Top Walk so the following months were spent saving furiously and planning for the next big step – to live in a foreign, third world country. Mum and I packed up the house and rented it out (unfurnished), so we really had gone for a year.

And then we headed off with two gigantic suitcases containing everything that we might need to start a new life. I was reunited with Felix, and moved in with him in an old house in the historical centre of Cusco in San Pedro. The Lonely Planet had San Pedro down as the most dangerous part of town, but thankfully, we never had any problems.

Judy and I had promised ourselves, in addition to living in Peruvian conditions, that we would do things that challenged us, and do the type of things that as “normal” tourists we never had time for.

The first one was probably the biggest – we crossed the Vilcabamba ranges on foot. The idea had come when we were visiting the ruins of Vitcos the previous year. A gnarled campesino farmer had told us if we followed a rocky path into the mountains we would arrive at the Inca city of Choquequirao.

So we did all 17 days of it – we hiked to Choquequirao, then onto Vitcos and finally to Espirtu Pampa down in the jungle. It was awesome, we were beginning to get an inkling that we might like hiking.

For a while in December we volunteered in the jungle returning to Cusco for a most memorable Christmas. (not necessarily in a good way!)

Group Emails from Peru 2003

Crossing the Vilcabamba ranges

Christmas came early for us

Stories of Snow

Arie, Judy and a llama - hiking around the massif of Ausangate near Cusco. June 2004.

Judy - just after crossing the Victoria Pass
on our way to Yanama.

Our favourite plant from the jungle.

Santa Catalina Convent in Arequipa, my favourite religious building in Peru.

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