It’s suddenly come to my attention that in 4 weeks time visa requirements mean I’ll have to leave the surf and party mecca that is Montanita.
I’ve been here for just over 2 months, which leaves less than a month now to enjoy the waves, sink more mojitos than is healthy and generally cause a whole heap of chaos!
I’ll be sad to leave this place – but moving on means new and exciting travel plans, and the next stop on my RTW 2012 adventure is somewhere I’m pretty excited for…PERU!
What’s the Plan?
Peru has been steadily working it’s way up my list of places to go for a while now, and when my boss at STA Travel, Exeter headed that way late last year I was even more stoked for it. The pictures he took showed the diversity of culture and amazing experience it contains, it got me pretty amped for it so when I decided to head to South America I made sure I open jawed my flight ticket to accommodate it.
As with all my plans though I’m not 100% sure what I’ll be getting up too!
At the moment these are my plans;
- April 2nd leave Montanita, overnight bus via Guayaquil
- A few days surfing the epic left that is Mancora
- A couple days courtesy of the guys at Roomarama in Lima
- Check out the Nasca lines
- Sandboarding (I forget where this is!)
- Lake Titicaca, hopefully doing a home stay
- Catching up with a Montanita buddy in Cusco
- Hiking the Inca Trail 18th April – 24th April with G Adventures
- Flying home April 28th for a buddies wedding
View Peru Plans in a larger map
There’s a basic structure there, but the finer details – like time scales, dates, transportation etc – are still fully up in the air. The worse thing is that the surf here at the moment is proving a major distraction from getting things down on paper too!
At least I have 3 key points to aim for – a start date, a date to aim for in Cusco and my finish date, surely it’ll be easy enough to pad it out around these!?
Sorry guys it seems I’m planning aloud via my blog post again!hahaha!
Suggestions?!
I’m relying quite a bit on travellers passing through the Cabanas to fill me in on what to get up to and where in the lovely land of Peru, and if you guys have any suggestions they’d be much appreciated. Whether it’s an epic hostel to check out, or some tips on what bus companies to take or even avoid!
For the time being though it’s the Inca Trail that I’m most stoked about. The surf lifestyle has put me in some of the best shape that I’ve been in for years so I’m hoping that it won’t be too much of a struggle – even so the thought of walking 26 miles up hundreds of steps for 6-9 hours per day for 4 days is pretty daunting!
I know it’ll be fully worth it though to get another item off the Bucket List and to get some amazing pictures on the blog to inspire your guys and girls.
So yeah – let the Peru countdown begin!
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Great plan! I’ll be there in September and have almost the same itinerary. I’m going to have to check out Arequipa and Colca Canyon too though. I’ve also decided to try out an alternative Inca Trail so I can be more flexible with the rest of my trip. FYI, the sand boarding is in Huacachina/Ica, between Lima and Nazca. As a surfer I’m sure you’ll have an awesome time. I expect to spend most of it on my backside…
I wish I had time to check out Arequipa and Colca Canyon – but unfortunately the pumping surf in Mancora ate into my itinerary a lot! Try and do the Lares Trek – its meant to be a great alternative to the traditional and it’s heaps easier to book onto it. That’s the only issue with the trek I think – the fact you need to book it in, thats why I did it as my last stop in Peru.
I loved sand boarding (check out the post here https://www.backpackerbanter.com/blog/sandboarding-in-huacachina) make sure you try it!