Living The Good Life at the Gran Hotel Bolivar in Lima, Peru

We are in Lima, Peru, staying at a fancy hotel built in 1924. Besides us the Rolling Stones and Ernest Heminway also stayed in the same hotel. Unfortunately we have to leave today. I am excited about getting closer to home. We have been busy since the last time I made a blog posting.

We left Cusco, one of my favorite places, to visit Machu Picchu. It was amazing. The day before going up to the ruins we climbed a neighboring mountain peak and had a great view of Machu Picchu. To enjoy the view we had to hike straight up for over 2 hours and also climb 300+ feet ladders. It was scary, but very cool. The day we visited Machu Picchu we spend the whole day climbing around and exlporing. The ruins were awesome.

We then headed back to Cusco for a couple of days before heading to Bolivia. We had to take a couple of buses to get there and then a minivan to the border. Crossing the border was challenging. However, it was well worth it. We headed to Copacabana, Bolivia, which is a very cool place right on Lake Titicaca. We ended up staying in a great hotel with very comfortable pillows for a whole week. We went hiking all over the place. We also took a boat to Isle del Sol(where the first Incan ruler was born). We hiked all across the island. I loved Copacabana.

We headed back across the border to Peru and went to Arequipa. While there we cruised all over the place and saw all the tourist sights. The whole city and all the buildings were made of volcanic rock. It looked very cool. From there we headed to Colca Canyon(even bigger than the Grand Canyon).

We spent three days in the Colca Canyon. We hiked down into the canyon and out in one day. It was tiring, but worth it. We saw a bunch of Andean Condors(the second largest birds on the planet). They were amazing and were flying over our heads while we hiked. From Colca Canyon we headed to the beach.

We headed to the coast and saw the ocean for the first time in over a month. We hit the beach town of Camana which kind of stunk. Also, it was too cold to go swimming. We then continued north to Ica. Ica, unlike the dump of Camana was cool.

In Ica we headed to the nearby desert oasis of Huacachina. It was a small town completely surrounded by huge sand dunes with a lake in the middle. We got to go sand boarding which was sick. It is just like snowboarding but even cooler. We also got to go on a tour of the sand dunes that go on for over 50 miles in a dune buggy. It was awesome. The dune buggy took us to the top of massive sand dunes that we then got to sand board down. After leaving Ica we headed to the capital of Peru, Lima.

We are now in Lima staying at one of the nicest hotels of our trip. We have been eating great food and getting spoiled watching movies on HBO. Lima is very cool. When we leave Lima we will heading up the coast to several Peruvian beach towns and then going into Ecuador. Email me if you get a chance.