From Puno we went on to Bolivia. “We” because I got to know a German couple (Matthias & Daniela, picture only available if you’re on my Flickr contact list) in Puno with whom I continued my trip. So we went to Copacabana where we stayed for one day (two nights). We chose the really nice and moderately cheap hotel Continental. My room provided a beautiful view over Lake Titicaca and cost 50 Bolivanos a night (80 for matrimonial I think). We rented a pedalo, enjoyed the beautiful weather and the cheap food. The next day we took the bus to La Paz. That bus had some troubles. It came about two hours late and the organisation wasn’t really able to handle the problems. We were already thinking about getting our money back, skipping La Paz and returning to Puno the next day. But in the end we were glad we didn’t do that. In La Paz we went to the hotel Torino which also cost 50 Bolivanos for good quality but not on par with Copacabana’s Continental. We took the tourist tour bus which during about 3.5 hours drove us through La Paz and the nearby Moon Valley. The evening we spent at the restuarant Dumbo where we enjoyed some of the best food and service in our live for ridicilously cheap prices. We each paid about 50 Bolivanos for that meal including a bottle of wine which we shared. I also bought three more Narnia books for 15 Bolivanos each. And we went to see the Narnia movie in the cinema. The next morning we took the bus to Puno. We left at about 8 o’clock and arrived at around 1 pm. I checked out the returning buses to Lima and ended up using Cruz del Sur again. This time I had the standard class Imperial from Puno to Arequipa (the same average service I had from Lima to Cusco two weeks ago) and the luxurious Cruzero (with something to sleep in that almost deservers the word “bed”) from Arequipa to Lima. Unfortunately I had just a few minutes stop in Arequipa because the first bus was late. I arrived the next morning at 10 o’clock in Lima just 50 meters from my office. And because I had slept well in the bus I went straight to the office to check my mail, update my weblog and sync with my blogroll. A few news related to my blogroll might come up shortly. ...

Saturday early morning I arrived in Puno by bus. This allowed me to take some beautiful sunrise pictures. From the bus terminal I then went directly to a two-day tour of the Lake Titicaca. We first went to the Uros floating islands. The Uros build these islands of reeds. One island lasts about ten years. After that, they have to build a new island which takes about two months. After visiting two of these islands we continued to the island Amantani. The trip there took us three hours on the boat. This island is the second-biggest on the lake after Isla de Sol. We were distributed to different families after arriving. We went to the family and ate lunch at their house. We then met our guide again to climb a mountain-top. From there we were able to watch the sunset. This is probably the first day where I have pictures of the sunrise as well as the sunset. In the evening we had a party where I learned a simple local dance. We spent the night at the families houses. In the morning we went to the Taquile island which took us about one hour. We walked around the island, ate some really good fish at a restaurant and left for Puno again. After another three-hour trip we arrived there. We were very lucky with the weather. While it is the rainy season, we had sun for almost the whole two days. So the long boat trips were really cool. Also I can especially recommend the Amantani island. It’s quite untouristic so far and you actually get to sleep at families houses. It’s culture is still very authenthic as tourism only came here five years ago. But how long this will last, I don’t know. There is a map of the Lake Titicaca at Wikipedia. It shows you the position of the two islands Amantani and Taquile. It also shows how little of the lake we have actually navigated during this two days. I am currently still uploading pictures and probably won’t get to upload all of them until returning to Lima next week. See all the current Lake Titicaca pictures. ...

Wow, that took a while. But in order to be able to use the full capacity of my camera for Puno, Lake Titicaca and La Paz I just uploaded all of the pictures to Flickr. 96 new pictures for your pleasure.

Yesterday I went to Machu Pichu. I went with Stephen, whom I had met in a Cusco restaurant on Tuesday. Boy am I glad that I went there. When I first came to Peru I wasn’t sure if I really wanted to do Cusco and Machu Pichu. Machu Pichu is a city of the Incas, built around 1440. It was then “forgotten” (some locals still knew about it) until in 1911 Hiram Bingham rediscovered the city. The Peruvian government then made sure it became a tourist attraction. Wikipedia has much more information about Machu Pichu. It was a rainy day, though it only rained maybe half of the tour. And the weather allowed for some very nice views because of the clouded mountains. Generally, I found Machu Pichu mostly worthwhile for it’s stunning views. It’s embedded in the middle of a few mountains. I’m including here a few of my pictures. There are many more on Flickr. ...

Wednesday in the afternoon we visited the Inca museum in Cusco. I can highly recommend it. Gives good information about the pre-inca and Inca cultures. Even includes some colonial stuff. The entrance fee to the museum was 10 soles. We also took a guide who spoke English and expected a tip. And I would not recommend taking the tour without the guide. You miss too much information without one. ...

Krass, die NZZ bietet doch jetzt tatsächlich RSS Feeds an. Hatte mich vor wenigen Wochen endlich von den NewsIsFree Feeds abgemeldet, weil die Werbung zu umständlich war. Und Swissinfo und tagesschau.sf.tv bieten auch gute News. Mit RSS. Scheint aber so, dass die NZZ endlich im 21. Jahrhundert angekommen ist (sorry, bin ein bisschen gemein). Willkommen.

After a long 20 hour bus trip I arrived in Cusco on the second of January (with the conclusion that next time I’ll take the plane). I then checked into a nice hotel called Incawasi located just at the Plaza de Armas. I then took the opportunity to catch some sleep after a long New Year night. Then yesterday I walked around Cusco a bit without doing any “serious” sight-seeing yet. Went eating in the evenign and met an American called Stephen. Went out for a beer together and called it a night. Today we booked our passage for Machu Pichu. So tomorrow I’ll finally visit that archeological site. I hope it’s as impressive as it sounds. A funny thing happened when we booked the tour, though. There were two offers: one day and three days. The one day tour cost 120 US Dollars while the three day tour cost 119 US Dollars. Seriously! Apparently they are trying to promote the longer tour. But the time just doesn’t suffice for the long tour. So tomorrow early in the morning we’ll leave and I hope I can provide you with some interesting information and pictures abut Machu Pichu on Friday. Friday night I will continue to Puno. At the same agency I booked the bus to Puno with a two day tour for Lake Titicaca including one night at a hotel. All for 39 US Dollars. Sometimes prices sure are cheap here in Peru. But not for Machu Pichu. ...

For the next two weeks I’ll be travelling a bit in the south of Peru. I’m currently planing to do Cusco (and Machu Pichu), Puno, La Paz (Bolivia) and if time permits, Arequipa. As I have been to Arequipa for one month I’m not prioritising that very highly. And everything except the initial trip on that list is quite provisional. It may well be that I pick fewer or different places. So the next two weeks my posting will be very spare if I do any at all. But I guess I’ll have to do some Flickr uploads from Internet cafes as my memory card is a bit limited and I’m not taking my laptop. Oh and I wish you a happy new year. ...

I want to summarize shortly what I did during the past few days here in Peru. Christmas away from home is of course something special. New Year as well. But due to the wonder that’s called Skype I was actually able to communicate almost as well as if I was in Switzerland. So on the 24th of December I called some of my relatives. To say they were surprised would be an understatement. My grandparents are still used to the prohibitive high prices from only a few years ago. For example before leaving for Japan (for six months in 2003 and 2004), my dear coworkers at namics gave me 300 CHF worth of phone cards. I don’t think I phoned for much more than three hours with that budget. I think Skype was just coming up then (I remember faintly that one of the missionaries in Hokkaido was using it), but back then SkypeOut was not yet available. So my family and friends in Switzerland would have had to install the Skype client and purchase and connect quite some audio technology. This is getting easier but still a lot more difficult than just picking up the phone (which is almost always installed by a skilled electrician). So this time I set up my mum on Skype but also knew that I’d be able to make use of SkypeOut for ridiculously cheap prices. So, after that praise (which probably could be applied to other VoIP-companies as well, but I just happen to use Skype) let me finally get back to my topic. The evening of the 24th I spent with a Peruvian/Swiss family in Lima. We ate turkey, had some more Panetone (as if I had not already had enough in December 2005) and watched the firework over Lima. The 25th I invited some friends from church and work to eat a cheese fondue. At the Wong supermarket near my house I found instant Gerber fondue that I just had to heat before eating. From the before-mentioned family I borrowed the Rechaud, the obligatory utensil in every Swiss kitchen around the world. Some people quite liked the fondue, while others didn’t really care for it all that much. I was prepared for that occasion and had brought Spaghetti. But no-one wanted them, so it can’t have been all that bad. :-) A few us then spent some hours talking and the idea popped up to do a Peruvian evening the next night. So it came to be and two of my friends at work cooked a nice dinner. We ate it while watching Shrek 2 and The Pianist. The latter I quite liked while the former is simply pale in comparison to the first Shrek (that’s why I’m so glad that Pixar doesn’t do sequels - or rather only when required to by Disney). The 26th there was a school-end party at the school including a meal for the professors. And two days later, there was the graduation of the 5th year classes. I have made one picture of that available for general viewing at Flickr. All the others are only visible to my Flickr friends due to privacy reasons. Sylvester we spent almost in the same fashion. Watching a film and eating chicken. ...

I wanted to extend my 3-month visa today. So I went to the appropriate office here in Lima (Migraciones at Avenida España) to find out how it works. An extended search on the Internet did not reveal much useful information. When I finally found the right counter, I told the woman about my wish. She had one look at my immigration card and then declined to do anything. Apparently you can only apply for an extension during the first two months of your stay, not later. So now I’ll have to pay 1 US Dollar for every day that I choose to stay beyound my original last day. I’ll have to visit the office again a few days before leaving the country in order to pay my debt. As I’m planing a trip to Puno anyway, I’m now wondering if it might be a good idea to go over the border to Bolivia and visit La Paz for a few days in order to get an extra three months for free. I guess I will have to check if it’s possible to pay the debt I’ll have until then (about ten days’ worth) at the border. That solution would also help extend my visited countries map. ;-) ...