Peru

Cuzco

Cuzco, the timeless capital of both the Incas and the Conquistadores this great city was founded in 1100 AD and is now a major commercial and tourist centre.
We found the city to be charming, easy to explore on foot and full of colonial churches, monasteries and convents to visit.
Our choice of accommodations was going to be in the Plaza de Armas,

the centre of town. We have discovered that because we are traveling on motorbikes it is best to stay in the centre of any city. There are always signs indicating where the centre is. Once in the centre we follow the footprints book. Inside the foot prints book for any major centre they always have a great map of the center and the exact location of a hostel (or hotel).

We stayed at Hotel Monarch which was $20 US a night and that included free wifi, tea all day and breakfast in the Am. (we parked across the street for $2 a day). Not our original choice but it had free wifi and we need to upload photos and talk with family.

Cuzco is also a great location to explore the town of Pisac plus many ruins nearby.

This city is also used as the starting point for the Sacred Valley trail to Machu Picchu.

Pisac

Pisac is 30km north of Cuzco and well worth the drive. Along the way there are a few other ruins you can stop and see as well.
We went to Pisac for two reasons.
The market. This is a fair size market and many bargains can be found if you are not in a hurry. Ask many vendors the prices of items (As many of them have the same items) Listen to others bargaining and see what they get the price for. Once you are sure of the lowest price you can get it for go back to the cheapest guy and offer him slightly below what you want to give him. He will counter the offer and then you have your item.
Pisac Ruins. High above the town on the mountain side is a superb Inca Fortress and well worth the time to visit. Please give yourself at least 5 hours to visit. You do need to be fairly fit as the ruins are often built on mountain sides and you need to do a lot of climbing. The entrance fee to Pisac ruins was $26.50 for the two of us and we did not take a guide. NOTE: if you plan on visting a few of the ruin sites such as Ollaytantambo, Sacsayhuaman, Tambo Machay or Moray you may want to purchase a BTG multi-site ticket, I believe it was $76 ish for the two of us.

Ollaytantambo, San Teresa, Agua Callente/ Machu Picchu
First before I get into the beauty of Machu Picchu I would like to talk about getting there. The details you get are sometime not clear, so I would like to attempt to make them clear. We had the impression that you needed to take a tour guide in and hike the Sacred Valley Trail in order to get to Machu Picchu, which of course has a big $$ figure with it and many days attached. NOT SO

You can take a train or the bus.
You can drive it (most of the way, then hike into Agua Calientes, the town next to Machu Picchu)

Taking the train, you can take the train from Cuzco or Ollantaytambo. The train from Ollantaytambo was $88 for two of us and is quite comfortable.
If you take the bus to go from Cuzco to Ollantaytambo and you must take the bus leaving at 1900 in order to make the connecting buses. Get out at Santa Maria and go to Santa Teresa via mini bus, you should arrive in Santa Teresa by the morning. From Santa Teresa you need to walk to Agua Calientes approximately 3 hours. Many people are going this way and it should be easy to do. Approximate cost is $10 one way. For further info on the bus method please refer to foot prints or the Lonely Planet.
For those that are driving you can drive to Santa Teresa and then walk to Agua Calientes. First drive to Ollantaytambo and make sure you gas up there. It is our understanding the road gets rough and it can take many hours to get to Santa Teresa.We had a little trouble finding the road plus we were under a time crunch so we choice to leave via train the same day we arrive. We stored our bikes at the local restaurant less than a block from the train station.

PS the train station will store extra bags if needed and the train station does not allow vehicles to be left there over night. There is a size a weight restriction on your bags so you may need to leave some of it behind.

Machu Picchu: the bus up to Machu Picchu from the town of Agua Calientes is $14.50 for two. I recommend you take the bus up and the walk back down to town if you wish to save $$. We walked up the mountain and the arrived at the gates second in line but sure enough two buses pull up shortly after we arrived, so they only thing we saved was $14.50. We also had to start the hike at 4:00 in order to hike up the mountain for arrival at 6:00am- Straight up! This is all fine but we still need to hike Wayne Picchu; the large piton you see in photos. Wayne Picchu only allow 400 people a day into this area and you need to go straight from the main gates to the Wayne Picchu gates to get a ticket for entry at either 7 am or 10:30 am. Wayne Picchu is the one that gives you an over all view of Machu Picchu plus there are ruins up there and caves. It is straight up for about 1 and ½ hours, a hard climb. If you wish you can do the full loop which is also a hard hike. SO SAVE YOUR STRENTGH AND BRING LOTS OF WATER!)
Entrance to Machu Picchu is $64 for two and can be bought in Agua Calientes or at the gates of Machu Picchu. It is recommended you get them in town so you can enter Machu Picchu right away when the gates open.

Finally the area has not only the most beautiful mountain ranges in the back ground but it is astonishing to believe that an entire civilization actually built this city so high up in the mountains. I believe it is about 4500 meters or about 14,800 feet in the middle of the forest.
Some of the rocks that were used are actually so massive it is still undetermined how they were placed with such precision plus they had a very sophisticated use of water and irrigation system.
This are is one of the most majestic scenes I have ever scene!!
Recommendation:
Bring rain gear, good hiking shoes, and lots of water and food for the day.
The only place to buy food and drink is at the gate entrance. We did not bring water and we hiked from 4 am until 10:30 am straight with no water. So to say the least we need water BAD!! (I know dumb, not to bring any.)
We bought 2 Gatorades, 2 waters, 1 ice cram and 1 hot chocolate Total $26 US dollars. The normal cost of this would be about $6. Can we say rip off!!
Stay all day. The sun comes out in the later part of the day, just as all the tour buses are leaving. If you are still around t about 4pm then the groups are basically gone and you can get pristine pictures.
We stayed on the main strip for just $10 dollars a night. Do not let them bully you into paying more. Also there are many cheap places to eat, you just need to shop around and ask what is included such as drinks, etc..


Nazca Lines

Explore the mysterious Nazca Lines. The lines are 22 km out side the town of Nazca. The lines are not only parallels and geometrical figures, but designs such as a dog, condor, humming bird, monkey, spider, astronaut and a tree. These designs are enormous; one of the wing spans covers over 100meters and are really best seen by air. One of the most interesting things about the lines is not only the gigantic sizes etched into the sands of Pampa Colorada but that they were completed by three different sets of people. The three sets of people are the Paracas people 900-200 BC, the Nazcas 200 BC, and the Huari empire in conjunction with the Tiachuanaco culture 600-1000 AD. One of the reasons that the lines have survived over all these years is due to the fact it is located in on of the driest deserts in the world, and these lines are etched at least one foot down into the earth. It is my understanding that the lines do not fill with sand, as in the Am the wind blows a little sand into the crevasses and by night fall the wind changes direction and it is all blown out.
There are many theories as to why the lines are here but the most popular are DR Maria Reiche who studied the lines for 40 years, she believed they were some sort of vast astronomical pre Inca Calendar. Dr Maria Reiche even built a platform where she could view two of the formations; the tree and the spider of which she paid for herself.

The flights were $50 a piece and only last about ½ hour

Paracas Peninsula

The peninsula is a large area of the coast to the south of the Ballestas Islands and is a National Reserve. This is one of the best marine reserves, with one of the highest concentrations of marine birds in the world. Here it is easy to view and take photos of sea bird, sea lion and Penguin colonies. You need to take a water tour for $10 a person but make sure you have a large lens as you never get off the boat. Also this is where the pre-Colombian candelabra symbol is located-cool!

Lima

A massive modern city with a population of around 8.2 million people.

You would think that being only 12 degrees south of the equator it would be hot. Not necessarily so. May to November there is a mist that hangs over the city giving it a grey look and shuts out the sun making the area slightly cooler.

We did not spend that much time exploring the city as we needed to check our flight to Mexico to spend Christmas with Ron and his family (Brent’s big bro).
Brent also needed to change out his back tire and try and find new brake pads etc.. for my bike so we were busy during our stay.
Once again we used the system of going straight to the centre of town and this time we chose Miraflores as it was oceanside, very close to the core of down town and seemed to be big enough and popular enough for good signage. Sure enough it all worked out.
We stayed at our first official hostel (community style) Wayruros Backpackers. They let us park the bikes inside the gates and leave them there while we went to Mexico for Christmas, plus they have storage that we used to hold our camping gear while gone. Cheap $3.30 for 19 days storage. Nice spot, pool table, living room area with many DVDs to watch, free internet, book exchange, communal kitchen and a cheap lunch, 6 dollars for two big lunches (soup, rice and chicken, veggies, dessert and a fresh juice). $13.50 for a private room, shared bath.