Dustbath

I’m going to try and describe the journey up to the northernmost point of Australia through the yet-unwritten orchestral piece I’ve been imagining that describes it. (You’re going to find that my composing style is a little literalist.)

The journey has been characterised by long stretches of bright red dusty road, lined with unbelievably green trees (the variety over the 1000 or so ks from Cairns has been incredible). The middle of the orchestra – wind instrument, second violins and the violas – will have the dusty road theme. There’ll be variations of that theme for the bone-rattling corrugation (xylophone’s time to shine!) and going down a tone because we’re use an off-road track to avoid the worst of the road. The outside orchestral instruments – brass, French horns, first violins, cellos, double basses – will have the soaring green trees theme.

Then there’ll be a motif for the obligatory passing-another-car hand wave – maybe a solo second violin and the oboe play it at each other – and suddenly the orchestra blasts white noise as the car becomes enveloped in the passing vehicle’s dust cloud. Slowly, slowly, from the back of the orchestra to the front, the instruments start picking up the themes again as you make it through the dust cloud and start to be able to see again.

They are my starting ideas. I’ll play with daydreams – the road dust is sometimes so exquisitely salmon-pink that I find myself lapsing into thoughts of overwater fish scenes – and other ideas. That is, if I ever end up writing this piece at all.

We left Kite Surfari last Thursday and headed through dry, scenic Lakefield National Park, through the side-track to Coen, and then up into Iron Ranges for two nights at Chilli Beach. Heading further north, we bypassed the southern Old Telegraph Track to make a bee-line for the stunning Fruit Bat, Eliot and Twin Falls, where we soaked all afternoon and the next morning. From there, we braved a section of the Old Telegraph Track with some hairy river crossings. When we got to the Northern Peninsula Area, we made camp up near the tip at Punsand Bay.

Sunrise on the morning we left the Kite Surfari
Zeusa and Dan taking a bath
Chilli Beach from above
Chilli Beach
Fruit Bat Falls ft. Viva pretending to be a crocodile
Eliot Falls
Eliot Falls
One of the Old Telegraph Track crossings

We’ve seen so much incredible scenery that I can’t begin to describe the variety. Somehow the rainforest and bush has remained almightily green through this dry, hot area. It’s often up to 35/37 degrees during the day, so we try to minimise leaving the car during the middle of the day (unless we’re at a shady beach with breezes, or a swimming hole). Shops are scarce, fuel is outrageously expensive. It feels, at least to me, incredibly remote. But so beautiful. There’s also an amazing culture of striking up conversation with every traveller you cross paths with. Maybe because there’s no reception, so no hiding behind phones?

This morning, we woke early to spend time at the tip for sunrise (which was a gentle affair, given the cloud cover). It’s a surprisingly rugged walk over the exposed rocky headland to the iconic sign. The water around here is a rare, bright shade of turquoise. It’s cruelly invitingly.

Big thanks to my beautiful husband for long stints at the wheel, tetrissing all our camp gear in the canopy, being delightful company during extended travel, making opportunities and space for me to grow and be challenged, and for a surprising but still amazing first year of marriage.

From tomorrow, we’re southbound!

VREPS

[Punsand Bay]

Freshwater to saltwater

I’ll be honest, I thought I’d enjoy North Queensland for the adventure more than the place. But this trip is challenging my expectations. I’m getting into this rich red soil, green rainforest, scrub-for miles, windy, creek-filled blessing of a region in ways that remind me of the kind of connection to Australia I discovered when I came back from a stint in Europe.

Over the last week, time has started stretching like a killer python lolly. Hours and days are passing at a lazy pace I’ve never really discovered, and I’m not taking it for granted for a moment. I’m rediscovering a lust for reading, I’m slowly reversing the coat of rust that built up on my spanish vocab, and I’m recommitting to yoga and exercise in a way that evaded me while I was working.

The path that has unfolded for us over the past week has been, broadly, a few nights in rainy Port Douglas featuring an afternoon at Mossman Gorge, following the Bloomfield Track up through the Daintree, and tracking through Cooktown and Hope Vale to stay at Elim Beach and the Kite Safari just north of it, from where I am writing.

Cape Tribulation camping
Home Rule campsite – right on Wallaby Creek
Beachside at Elim Beach campground

There have been so many beautiful moments that you’d probably find yourself tuning out if I tried to describe them all, so I’ll just touch on the highlights.

An unexpected highlight was the view of a bend of river near Wujal Wujal at the end of the Bloomfield track. The river takes a wild u-turn near the township. I think I find it so enchanting because it evokes the same awe I had at seeing a similar u-bend in the river winding through Bern, Switzerland – however this sight was so incredibly, uniquely Australian (including the scorching sun we were in while enjoying the view).

The Daintree as a whole is a highlight. It’s an expanse of thick, rugged rainforest, punctuated by slightly-too-frequent tourist attractions. Dan got a taste for green ants while listening into the tail end of a tour. We had some absolutely stunning creek and waterhole swims in the Daintree and just north, still in the rainforest region – Emmagen Creek, Wallaby Creek and Home Rule Falls were outstandingly refreshing. While I’ve grown up around salt water, I’m getting a taste for fresh water.

Home Rule Falls deserves its own paragraphs. If you told me that it was designed by the ancient Greeks to honour their gods, I’d believe you. The falls flow in sections in different directions, with some waterfall rock walls decorated as if as a vertical garden. I wasn’t expecting one of the prettiest waterfalls I’ve ever seen, but that is what we got.

The most beautiful man in the world with the most beautiful waterfall

We’re now on the pristine sands of the beach south of Cape Flattery, buffeted by relentless winds that make kite surfers run to pump up their kites – and that make the rest of us want to lie low. Dan’s been out for hours yesterday and today, carving it up with the other guests at the Kite Safari. The wind is so strong that we can’t even put up our tent – we’ve put up our small hiking tent and loaded all our gear into it, and we’re sleeping in the back of the canopy.

The drive from Elim Beach to the kite safari

Don’t know quite what’s in store, but I know it will be filled with delicious food because our car is stocked to the brim with half a pantry of goodies.

VRPS

[Kite Safari]

Elias territory

(Pronunciation tip: it sounds like El-eye-as)

We’ve been blessed with the most amazing hosts for our nine days in and around Cairns. Our good friend from swing dancing, Simone, grew up in Cairns and took the week off to fly north and show us around her old stomping ground. We have been so fortunate to be based in the garden suite at her parents’ place during our stay. More on that soon.

We left Townsville last Sunday, expecting the four hour journey to Cairns to take us maybe five hours. Instead it took nine, as we got distracted by the ‘tip of the iceberg’ of special spots to explore between Townsville and Cairns. We snuck in stops at the Hinchinbrook lookout, Josephine Falls, and the enchanting Babinda Boulders. So much more left to see on our return stretch!

Hinchinbrook lookout
Josephine Falls
The creek running through the maze created by the Babinda Boulders

That evening, we arrived to the serenity of the Elias’. Their beautiful family home overlooks Cairns’ surrounding mountains, and their beautifully curated gardens attract all manner of birds and birdsong. It’s a little slice of paradise.

In the first half of the week, around bouts of light and heavy rain, we accomplished a hike up Glacier Rock, a number of trips to Cairns’ premier coffee establishment, Blackbird, we dined on some exquisite Elias feasts provided from the bounty of their vege and herb garden, and regularly indulged in some Cambio (card game) and chai. I particularly enjoyed making a vege lasagne made almost exclusively from veges from the garden. Dan’s fallen in love with Sue’s homemade pickled cucumber and tomato chutney. Turns out pickles go on absolutely everything …

Glacier Rock conquerors

On Thursday, we took off to explore the Tablelands, heading to Davies Creek campground for two nights before a night at Lake Tinaroo. At Davies Creek, we had a beautiful spot near the wide flowing creek. We rock hopped up the creek, star gazed, did a steep climb up Turtle Rock, and lazed by Davies Falls. (And ate delicious camping food – covered in pickles.)

We had a ball getting to Tinaroo, stopping at Mareeba’s Coffee Works for brunch, the Mount Uncle gin distillery, and stunning Lake Eacham. I don’t have a photo within easy reach, but imagine a circular lake surrounded by rainforest, a deep shimmery blue with circles of green and sand colour around the edges proving just how clear the water is.

At Tinaroo, we celebrated Simone’s brother’s birthday with their family and his friends. Highlights included (for Dan) wake boarding sessions, watching Simone and her family gravitate towards the guitar and singing, and a feast of fresh fish and adobo (Philippine dish) and homemade baklava and citrus poppyseed cake (thank you Sue and Hannah).

Dan shredding

On the way home, we were treated by a potent rainbow – so vivid that the main rainbow consisted of the spectrum repeated three times, over which was a second separate rainbow.

A couple of quieter, patchy-rainy days later, and Simone is now home and we’re ready to take off. The canopy is brimming with Bonsoy, the car is now fitted with a snorkel (ready for the Great Barrier Reef) and we’re ready for adventure … after a couple of days bunkered down at Port Douglas until the rain passes. As much as Cairns has impressed with its natural beauty, I think the real beauty for us has been finding a rich sense of family. Thank you, Eliases.

Zeusa, pre-snorkel, and her adoring owners

VRPS

[Cairns]

Queensland is our oyster

My writing-voice is hoarse and rusty, so please bear with me while I try to find it again.

I last wrote from Melbourne, what feels like years ago. The last four and a half months have flown by in what now feels like a bit of a blur. We flew back to Brisbane and after some quality family time, went to stay with Dan’s brother and partner on the Gold Coast for half a week – which turned into ten weeks. We bought bicycles, bought a (stunning) car, and bought some luxury camping equipment for some Aussie travel.

Zeusa, our kitted-out Triton, on Fraser Island

I took up a three month – which turned into four month – opportunity with work which has been a pretty hit-the-spot mix of rewarding and challenging and extending my skills. I built up close, trusted professional relationships with colleagues outside Queensland, who I’ve still never met in person.

And while I was investing time one one of my favourite hobbies – the law – Dan was adding a new one to his (monstrous) collection: paragliding. He’s now licensed, experienced, and ready to jump off the nearest mountain at the drop of a hat. I’ll be hiking down alone until I learn.

Mt Beerwah
Toomulla

During this time, we had a bloody awesome time staying at Benny and Mel’s beachside apartment at the coast. We’d generally wake up to watch dawn, jump in the sea most days, and we’d cook the most delicious dinners. I’m so enormously grateful for that extended stay. I think I would have been in a pretty intense period of holiday-mourning if I wasn’t so distracted by the beach and the bike paths.

I’m also enormously grateful to everyone else who let us crash in their spare bedrooms for weekends and weeks up in Brisbane during that time. We were made to feel so at home that we kind of forgot we didn’t have a home of our own.

Six weeks ago, we packed the car (to the brim) and hit the road headed north. We had a super fun week with Nat and Josh in the town of Seventeen Seventy, followed by an incredible six days of hiking Hinchinbrook Island with Oli and Duncan. That island is chocker block with beauty. It was so relaxing to tackle the thirty-something kilometre hike over six days – it made for super heavy bags at the beginning, but heaps of time for side adventures and lazy afternoons.

Deepwater National Park, where we spent a night before Seventeen Seventy
Seventeen Seventy headland
Dawn at Zoey Falls on Hinchinbrook Island
Mulligan’s Falls on Hinchinbrook Island
Dehydrated dinner for six days in a row, and stunning views of the island’s mountains

We’ve just finished our fourth full week in sunny Townsville, whose winter days feel hot and summery. We’ve filled weekends with camping trips, boat trips, hikes and bike rides. Despite accomplishing so much, we’ve still got a huge list of things we want to do around here. And just like Brisbane, we’ve accrued a huge debt of service to all the loving family who have housed us and shared their meat and mead.

Magnetic Island’s reef
Magnetic Island’s SS Adelaide taking on a second life as a pot for plants
Dawn from the top of Castle Hill
Riding around Paluma Dam
A rewarding dip at Alligator Falls after an intense climb

From here? A few months ago we were hoping to do a half-loop of Australia – Cape, centre, Adelaide and back around the coast. But now it looks like Queensland will be our playground. We’re off to Cairns tomorrow to spend a week or so with Simone. We’ll then we’ll slowly make our way up and back from the Cape, slowly boomeranging our way back to Townsville where we get to tackle our “to do” list.

I don’t know what this blog will look and feel like going forward. I feel like it was so easy when I was overseas and had so many cultural experiences to process by expressing and explaining them. Maybe Dan and his stunning drone photography will take over and this will become a picture book. Who knows. I just know I’m excited – this isn’t the 2020 adventure we thought we’d be having, but it’s the 2020 adventure I’m still going to relish.

VRPS

[Townsville]

The long journey home

Funny to think I used to write so frequently. It feels like it’s been forever. It like we’ve been in an oarless boat on a very slow-moving river, knowing we have to get to the destination eventually, but being powerless to get there faster. We have just had to be patient and let time pass. And enjoy the ride as much as we can.

The journey from Lima to Melbourne – door to door – took 33 hours. We got picked up from our Airbnb (hours later than we were told the bus would come) and taken to the Lima military airport, where we were sat on plastic chairs under a makeshift tent as our “boarding passes” were scribbled out by hand.

Our first flight was to Iquitos- north of Lima – to pick up those in the isolated jungle city which cannot be reached by road. We sat on the tarmac for a painful three hours, waiting for those people to board.

We had a two hour stop-over in Santiago, where our plane of Peruvians joined up with another from Cusco, and other Australians in Chile. We flew through a very, very long night, touching down at 3 am (Melbourne time). We were fortunate to be seated four rows from the front of the start of economy. Even being the early ones off the plane, it still took three hours to go through health checks and various stations dedicated to different parts of our mandatory quarantine. An hour of that was spent on the bus outside the hotel, waiting to be allowed in.

We finally got to Room 914 – a corner room with two big floor-to-ceiling “windows” (is it a window if you can’t open it to get fresh air?) at 6 am, and in this room we have stayed for fifteen days. Our only reprieve has been a couple of ten-minute walks in the few hundred metres outside the hotel. The guards for our fresh air break outnumbered us.

What’s quarantine life like? I fast developed a finely-tuned ear for the gentle rustle of paper outside our door, indicating that someone was placing our next paper bag meal there. A minute later, we’d get a knock telling us it was ready to collect.

We weren’t charged for food and board, so I won’t complain as if I was a paying guest. However, if the government was taking a look at whether our hotel was delivering what the government was paying for, I think they’d find discrepancies. Wifi hardly worked, generally breakfasts were sugary and many other meals didn’t even seem to try to hide the fact that the caterer was pocketing huge profits.

But we were cared for by the hotel well enough – except for a few middle-of-the-night nurse check-in calls that wrecked our sleep (“No, we don’t have symptoms, why are you calling us at 3 am to ask?”). And family went above and beyond, and then even further beyond that, to care for us. I can’t find rich enough words for my gratitude. Your check ins and things you delivered us made the world of difference to our experience.

What was our experience? If it was a montage, it would be little clips of the following:

  • Rearranging the furniture to make exercise space
  • Laying out the sarong on the floor and then setting out dinner as a picnic
  • Yoga in the morning
  • Puzzles
  • Making milky chai teas five times a day
  • Regularly ordering more milk for aforementioned teas
  • Spicing up plain leafy salads with goats cheese
  • Dan playing chess while Viva studies
  • Viva getting weirdly obsessed with solitaire, especially when she realises she can play while listening to lectures
  • Dan using his suitcase as a workout weight
  • Yoga in the morning – but this time with a yoga mat!
  • Video and phone chats
  • Someone retreating to the bathroom as a separate sound space when we’re on different calls
  • Watching lots of Vivir Sin Permiso (Spanish TV show)
  • Watercolouring the colouring in book
  • Viva getting excited hearing the paper bag rustle
  • Dan practising the uke (and nailing it)
  • Dancing to beautiful Cuban salsa music – which also makes us a bit sad as we’d love to I be listening to it live
  • Daily rounds of Yaniv (card game), with Dan exercising whenever it was Viva’s turn to shuffle and deal
  • The muffled sound of the Southern Cross Station announcements from across the road
  • Taking turns reading books on the Kindle
  • The one time we got Uber Eats just to get delicious, Aussie coffees (and some bagels, while we were at it)
  • Getting through four boxes of kiwi fruits (long story)
Dan has also proved that he can set this up blindfolded.

These five-and-a-half lockdown weeks have been hard. I am just so impressed that for someone so outdoorsy, Dan has endured this challenging quarantine period so admirably. He’s the best company and I’m so grateful we’re in this together.

Sometime after midday today, we get processed and transported to the airport. We’ll be home in Brissie tonight, in the fresh air, mask-less, and in the (appropriately distant) company of family. We’ll be back in the land of sun, incredible coffee, and permission to exercise outdoors. We’ll see what happens next.

VRPS

[Melbourne]

The Last Hoorah

It’s day 23 of Peruvian lockdown. We are leaving tomorrow on a flight to Melbourne. We’re so grateful to be coming home, but also feeling a million other emotions as this draws to a close this chapter of our travels.

I’ll reflect a little on strategies we’ve used to keep our heads above water through lockdown, in case there’s anything that resonates with you and you want to explore:

  • Yoga – our daily Yoga with Adriene (YouTube channel) sessions have been a blessing. More than anything, I feel like Adriene’s taught me patience and how to enjoy the journey, not just the destination.
  • Meditation and breathing exercises – a big help to manage anxiety. I recommend Sam Harris’ “Waking Up” app, which is currently free, and stepping through the introduction course.
  • Creativity and learning new skills – Dan has been playing up a storm on the ukulele, and I’ve found working on Australia, Where Are You: The Musical (AWAY) very therapeutic. I think having projects really helps you make the most of time, in circumstances where you can’t spend it in the way you thought you would.
  • Exercise – we can’t go outside for exercise here, so it’s been so much fun to build up a sweat in the lounge room with resistance bands, or Joe Wicks’ (YouTube channel) HIIT workouts.
  • Games – our repertoire is 500 and Yaniv, both of which can be played by two or more people. We also took up Monopoly when we found a Peru version in our latest Airbnb.
  • Disconnecting – we find ourselves endlessly scrolling social media and the news (especially when we were desperate for any update about options to get home). We found it helpful to put in place reasonable barriers so limit the frequency at which we could scroll these updates, giving us a disconnection break in between.
  • Intellectual stimulation – I’ve enjoyed keeping up my Spanish study, then reinforcing by watching all TV with Spanish subtitles (even when audio is Spanish!). I’ve also discovered the EDX app which lets you register for a whole lot of short-form uni courses on a range of subjects. I’m looking forward to getting my teeth stuck into “Data Science Ethics”.
The start of our super budget puppetry production of the highlights of AWAY. Let me know if you’re interested in seeing a taster.
Watching the streets get disinfected overnight during curfew (6pm to 5am).
Dan and I are currently 1-1.

And, of course, we’re enormously grateful to the family and friends who have supported us with messages and calls. And also to Jack and Heather whose amazing company made the first two weeks sail by.

I’m amazed that despite the strictness of the lockdown here, the case numbers haven’t stagnated or dropped as expected. So the President keeps announcing new measures – who can go out in a particular day is allocated by gender, and no one can go out on Sunday. This week, everything will be closed on Thursday and Friday too, for Easter. The line to get into the supermarket (at least on ladies days) stretches for hundreds and hundreds of metres (snaking around the entire block and then lapping itself), and can take an hour to wait through. I’m glad to be leaving this behind. I absolutely appreciate that I’m not going back to the same Australia we left, but I’d just be so grateful to go outside for a proper walk.

But first, we’ll need to get through the 14 days of mandatory quarantine in a Melbourne hotel room, and then we can make our way to Brisbane somehow. I wonder how long Dan will keep his glorious quarantine moustache going for…

VRPS

[Lima]

Head above water

As if mandatory, strict, no-exceptions-for-exercise, 15-days-extended-to-28-days quarantine isn’t enough, it’s tough being stuck indoors all day with nothing more than what’s in our backpacks, and wasting time desperately hoping for a promising embassy update which never comes. Whatever is happening behind the scenes in our public service to make their Peruvian repatriation efforts so embarrassingly mediocre must be nightmarish.

For the record, because even our Prime Minister has made noises to the contrary, Australia’s “do not travel” advice came days AFTER the sudden Peruvian lockdown took effect. That lockdown was announced out of the blue, when Peru had few covid cases and there were no countries in the whole continent that were taking any substantive steps in response to the pandemic. We were diligently keeping abreast of travel advice and global news, but there were no signs that travellers in the region should be abandoning their trips and heading home, which is why so many travellers became stranded in Peru. Many other nations have repatriated their citizens from Peru, often at no or low costs.

Meanwhile, you can enjoy the wet lettuce leaf communications on the embassy’s Twitter and Facebook pages; it’s so regrettable that we scroll social media a million times a day in hope for more, but this is all we get. The only option to get back to Australia that has been offered is a AUD$5,160-per-seat private flight by Chimu Adventures, which was only offered to those in Cusco and Lima, and which soon sold out. There are hundreds of Australians who are not on that flight. For them – for us – there are still no options to get home. It’s soul-crushing to maintain hope that the government is working on helping us. Unbelievably, 13 days into lockdown, there are still no options.

Still, we’re grateful for what we have: nice accommodation, a day or two longer with our lovely friends before they fly out, a fridge full of delicious cheeses, access to books and other entertainment, and regular catch ups with friends and family. We appreciate this is such a challenging time for so, so many people in myriad ways – so please don’t let my monologue above make it seem like we think we should be the centre of the world. We know we’re not, nor should we be. We’re enormously privileged. I just have day-13-itis and feel extremely powerless, and feel hamstrung by my expectations of consular support. Forgive me.

VRPS

[Lima]

This city is a stranger

We’re saved.

Season 6 of Brooklyn Nine-Nine has been released on Netflix.

Don’t worry, Aussie Government, we’re now sufficiently distracted for the next few days from publicly shaming you for your useless responses to our situation. You can now continue “working around the clock”, which I suspect is code for “not doing much at all really”, in peace.

(“Working around the clock” is part of our #StuckInPeru drinking game. Other triggers for drinking include “working with Peruvian authorities”, pointing us in the direction of an exorbitant private charter, and the cancellation of aforementioned charters. Lucky we’re not actually playing the game because we’d be rollickingly drunk.)

Isolation continues to be … isolating. We only book Airbnbs for three nights at a time to give us something to do every fourth day. The latest one is a super breezy 15th floor apartment. With Netflix. But no coffee machine (don’t worry, we have a workaround).

We continue to spend time on big cooking adventures (Jack is doing a lasagne tonight!), morning Yoga with Adriene sessions, post-lunch card games, and endlessly scrolling in hope of actual news from our embassies.

Heather made a really interesting point last night, which I hadn’t previously grappled with. She noted that our quarantine experience is different because we’re not stuck in a home with all our possessions – we just have what’s in our backpacks and no more. We do our yoga on towels and camping mattresses. We have a few notebooks and pens that we bought over here. We don’t have much else. I haven’t felt lacking over the past week, but this idea made me realise how different quarantine in my own home would be.

“Australia: Where Are You?”: The Musical is coming along a treat. Act One ends with the announcement of the lockdown and all the travellers singing “#StuckInPeru” and Act Two opens in a similar place. It continues to write itself, with the other day’s second announcement of the airport closure going to be a reprise of “We’re Totally Closing The Borders”.

Changing Airbnbs a second time. It’s now expected that you have to wear a mask anytime you’re in public.

VRPS

[Lima]

#StuckInPeru

In a wild day full of adrenaline and desperation (mostly others’), on Monday we made it to Lima before all flights stopped at midnight. We’re now set up in a lovely (albeit a bit small in the communal area) apartment with Jack and Heather where we’ve spent the last few days. We all move to a new apartment tomorrow.

Lockdown Peru-style is pretty strict. Can we walk to the beach? No. Can more than one of us leave the apartment at a time? No. Where can the designated one of us go? Shops, banks and pharmacies. Curfew? Yes, from 8 pm. Can you get imprisoned for breaching these rules? Apparently, yes.

Here’s our daily montages of how we pass the time:

Day 1
Day 2

Not pictured is making the most of our one-person walk to the shops, hours of scrolling through news updates, rounds of card games, and standing on the balcony if anything remotely interesting happens outside. Oh, and also delicious home-cooked meals and joining in the nightly 8 pm cheering for the front-line workers.

We’re bitterly disappointed that while other governments are making arrangements to get reasonably priced flights authorised to get citizens home, the most UK or Australia have done is point us in the direction of a single absolutely extortionate commercial option of around $5,000-$6,000 per person. It would be nice to get home, but not at that cost. Oh, to be French, Israeli or German right now.

VRPS

[Lima]

Sacred Sunday

It’s incredible how much can change in a day. We woke up this morning to rain, so we assumed our idea of a motorbike trip through the Sacred Valley was out the window and settled down to the idea of another slow, gentle day around town.

Start of a slow day: enormous amounts of vege and ginger juice.

After a slow morning, we found the weather had cleared so we set out on a ‘half day’ eight hour incredible trip. This evening, mid-round of Yaniv with Jack and Heather, we found out that Peru has basically declared a lockdown. No flights – so our one to Lima tomorrow morning has been cancelled – no buses, no leaving ‘home’ for anything other than groceries and the pharmacy. We’re still processing. This obviously presents issues for travellers, whose hostel doesn’t even have a kitchen, and who are anticipating the shops to be wiped when we look for lunch.

We’ll see how this all pans out. This was completely unexpected for a country with 71 cases, 56 of which are in one city (Lima). Who knew they’d give absolutely no notice so we could get somewhere we want to be for 15 days of isolation?

Anyway, I thought I’d be able to keep this blog covid-free and I’ve failed. Let’s dwell on happier things, like the beauty of the Sacred Valley in all its greenery, all its splendour – and the photos my talented husband has taken to capture all that. We had such a lovely ride.

We stopped via a number of different Incan ruins sights on the way to Pisaq, where we enjoyed the Sunday markets and had a delicious homemade lunch of creamy cheesy pasta, potatoes, chicken, and ‘Roco’ – stuffed capsicums fried on one side in a cheesy batter. Just delish!

For the afternoon, we cruised through Urubamba to the dirt roads behind it, but weren’t able to find a route through to Moray so we backtracked and took the long way.

Moray is a splendid site. It looks like stadium-style seating but apparently it was used for agriculture. A number of the terraces are still in stellar condition.

We rode home surrounded by glowing afternoon light that illuminated the patchwork farm field, and a beautiful view of mountains with a storm rolling in (which we weren’t caught in, fortunately).

After all this beauty, which was already a surprise twist in a day I thought was devoted to Spanish study and sewing, we now find ourselves feeling very lost, even though we know exactly where we are and where we’ll be for the next 15 days. We’re also nursing a bit of a broken heart as you know how keen I was to get to the coast and leave behind altitude.

There might be not much fun stuff to share for the next little while, so I’ll wait until there is before writing again.

VRPS

[Cusco]