Why I Hate Trekking by Nicola Jayne Carroll Aged 30

I hate trekking and will be honest about this since no one else is. The reasons are as follows,

- It is hard work, you sweat and feel dizzy and knackered. And it never gets any easier.

- People say it is easy but they lie all the time to make themselves look hardcore. For example the idiot who said Machu Piccu was easy and you could walk it in flip flops, LIAR!!!!!!!

- You have to wear ridiculous boots and horrid clothes ( mine includes an Axel Rose style bandana to keep the sun off me) I should just buy a hat.

- Isrealis love it. Not saying anything other than that.

- You have to stay in very cold places with no electricity or water so no shower after a hard days walk

- It is what you are SUPPOSED to do here in South America, why not just relax? I didn´t take a year off work to hike up hills

- People look at you like you are crazy if you say you don´t like it, even though they probably agree

- You can injure yourself especially on gravelly bits, and you spend the whole time looking down so as not to fall over and can´t appreciate what is around you?!

Below is just one of my examples of ridiculous headwear

Ed trying to stop me from ending it all

Another example of ridiculous headwear, at 5am in the cold. That´s why I look so happy!

But realistically I will probably do it again.

The Colca Canyon and Cruz del Condor

Colca Canyon is a canyon of the Colca River in southern Peru, about 100 miles northwest of Arequipa. It´s more than twice as deep as the Grand Canyon, but the canyon's walls aren´t that vertical, so its not quite as dramatic, I imagine...

The Colca Valley is a really colourful Andean valley. The local people maintain their ancient traditions and continue to cultivate the pre-Inca stepped terraces. The women wear amazing embroidered hats and clothes.

It is so remote in there that the people who live in the villages have to carry any provisions they cannot grow by mule into the valley and back up the hideous climbs each side. We saw a whole family doing things you can see above.

We did a 2 day trek to the bottom and back up. It was safely the toughest thing we've done since we've been away, far harder than the Inca trail. Nic has vowed to hang up her hiking boots.

On the first day we got a bus to Cabanaconde in the morning and then after a typical menu del dia of veg soup and then some alpaca with rice and potato, and a cup of coca tea we set off in the blazing sun down to the bottom of the valley. The scenary and rock formations were incredible.

It took 4 hrs on a treacherous rock and gravel path to get down to San Juan where we stayed at the lovely Pousada Roy in a little mud hut with a thatched roof. The land lady was really sweet

The next day we had a nice little 2 hr walk alongside the Rio Colca through a few remote villages to Sangalle. In San Calle there are a few places with fresh water swimming pools. We did our best to cool off in the heat of the midday sun, had some horrific pasta and then set off on the gruelling 4 hr trek back up the canyon to Cabanaconde. The heat, altitude, and sheer relentless up hill walking on rocky gravel path all combine to drain all energy from you. We were so happy when we made it to the top 3.5hr later.

We spent the night in a little hostel called Pachamama, run by a guy called Ludwig (a typical Peruvian name?) who was really good on the guitar. The pizza chef was called Percy and they had a little 14yr old helper, that looked like a Peruvian Arnold from Different Strokes, called Elvis.

We also met some baby llamas. They make a strange mewing noise, and look at you quite thoughtfully.

The canyon is home to the endangered Andean Condor. The condors can be seen at fairly close range at the 'Cruz del Condor'. The condors are best seen in the early morning and late afternoon when they are hunting. They are huge! - 10ft wingspans. The condors gracefully soar by on the wind and rising thermals. They are remarkably graceful, wheeling around in majestic circles. Primarily they are scavengers, feeding mainly on carcasses of dead animals and often traveling more than 100 miles a day in search of food.

A hawk landed just by us. You can see he´s a bit miffed by the humming birds around him.


Check out the size of these creatures next to the peole watchng them and you will realise what we mean.

Lima. Dont believe the hype

For some reason Lima has a bad reputation with travellers. We have had loads of people say that didnt rate it. If any of you are reading this, you are wrong. Its a great city.

We stayed in a nice little hostel, in the plush suburb of Miraflores, called Nomade Backpackers which wa run by some really great staff. The only downside was that it got infested with hoards of untidy, dirty, ignorant, noisy, immature Israeli backpackers. It also didnt help that Nicky had another little bout of backpacker diarrhoea, and had to deal with it when not feelin 100%. She treated herself with a manicure and pedicure when she was better.

We were lucky enough to meet up with Nico who we had met in Huacachina. He works 3 weeks in the jungle as Mechanical Engineer then has 2 weeks off. Hats off to him. Him and his family and mates showed us around, and gave us plenty of laughs along the way. Nico, you are a legend

Nic, Rodrigo, Patty, me and Nico
Showing the Peruvians how to Salsa, style The Bloomsbury bowl didnt quite live up to its London namesake

Playin camp pool is massive in Lima, but not as popular as hanging out with Diego.

Its a really vibrant and varied city. We didnt do anything very cultured, just wandered about, went out on bikes and ate and drank plenty. I will miss Pisco Sours

Parque de Amor

Parque Baden Powell?!Me and Nico doing a nautical fashion shoot

The debating skills were oviously lacking, given the fella havin a kip.

Reminds me of a few meetings Ive been in

The food was amazing. Loads of brilliant restaurants. We had some amazing seafood, ceviche is now a firm favourite. I finally got some anticuchos too, delicious beef heart kebabs.


Funny mash potato and fish layer thing (sorry, forgot the name), arroz con mariscos and in the back ceviche and culinary cousin tiradito

A rare treat, a decent cup of coffee, even if it did mean going into Starbucks.

Grenadilla, a yellow cricket ball fruit fruit full of tasty citric frog spawn

Nic was particularly happy to get fresh milk for the first time on our trip, and be able to have a proper cuppa and a bowl of cornflakes. The imported chedder cheese (latin american cheese is relentlessly rubbish) was a real treat too. Thank you to Vivanda, the best supermarket in S America, except that amazing best in world effort in Leblon, Rio.

We saw an amazing exhibition of aerial photos, called terra del cielo (the earth from the sky). They were incredible. There were some really nice ones of S America, like Perito Merino Glaciar we walked on Christmas day etc.

http://www.yannarthusbertrand.org/

http://www.amiimages.com/en/yann-arthus-bertrand-poster-earth-from-above-15.htm

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/search-handle-url?%5Fencoding=UTF8&search-type=ss&index=books-uk&field-author=Yann%20Arthus-Bertrand