Machu Picchu

Located about 100 km northwest of Cusco is the famous world heritage site Machu Picchu, a 500 year old Inka city. Even though pictures of Machu Picchu are well known, we of course would like to share our own.

 

 

 

 

 

We climbed the famous mountain Waynapicchu, which is part of the beauty of Machu Picchu and were rewarded with a beautiful and different view of the ruins:

 

Cuzco

Cusco is quite a nice city, but also very touristic. You're being offered a meal, a massage or a trekking tour at every corner. Since the city is located at around 3500 m, the sun feels like you're too close to a campfire. Thus, during the day, it gets very hot but temperature falls to freezing point or below during the night.

 

Inka heritage site Saqsaywaman on one of the hills around Cuzco:

 

Galapagos: Santa Cruz

One of Darwin's finches? Came very close begging for food.

 

 

Giant tortoises while eating... 
 

... bathing...

 

 

... and corpulating. This can take several hours, since the female always tries to get away.

 

Salt mining:

 

We spent our last evening drinking delicious cocktails at a waterfront restaurant and enjoyed once more the amazing sea life in the Galapagos islands.

 

Galapagos: Isabella Island

Even though there is a lot to see on Isabella Island, we show some more pictures of another snorkeling trip to Tuneles, a fascinating volcanic formation in the ocean with lots of wildlife. Bird breeding rock along the way:

 

 The Tuneles are inhabitated by a wide range of wildlife, such as Penguins...

 

 

... sea lions...

 

 

... and blue footed boobies. Lets stay with them for a few pictures:

 

 

 

 

 

And finally we get underwater.

 

  

 

Even though we didn't manage to get pictures, one of the highlights of this trip was checking out white tipped reef sharks as they slept in dark underwater caves. We were basically shoved into the cave by our guides and could see them up close, either sleeping on the ground or swimming around in the cave. 

Galapagos: Floreana Island

A good part of the unique Galapagos wildlife happens underwater. Here we go: Snorkeling on Floreana Island. 

The bay was full of turtles, swimming around, eating algea and surfacing for air every few minutes, even though they can reduce their heartbeat to about 4 bpm and stay underwater for hours. 

 

Playing with the waves...

 

... can make you really tired, time for a nap.

 

Conversation/discussion amongst locals in the highlands. 

 

And back towards the shore. These Iguanas can dive in the water for a few minutes, before they get too cold and need to warm up on the rocks close to the water.

 

 

Cuba

La Habana Vieja

 

La Habana Vieja Pub

Very skinny old guy playing on a guitar with such old strings that nearly no tune was audible. But he had a great voice and kept holding a cigar between his fingers while playing.

 

Viñales

On our first weekend we joined a tour to Viñales, located a 3 hours drive west of La Habana. The landscape was defined by these awesome green little mountains. We wished that we could have stayed longer for some close up exploration.

 

Playa del Este, Mar Azul

Great beach east of La Habana, were we also got our first sunburn. Still, the sand was fine and white, the water turqoise and pleasantly warm. It is not in the picture, but Cubans were usually standing in the water holding a bottle of rum, a can of coke and a plastic cup for mixing. 

 

La Habana Vibora

This is the neighborhood were our school was located and the picture shows the view from the roof.

 

Great spot to watch the sunset.