Travelling Chris

Leaving on a jet plane....

2007-10-29T14:15:00.000Z

Well, it's finally over, time to pack the bag for the last time and get on a plane.

I'll do a last blog post when I get home, but thanks to everyone who has taken the time to read about my holiday. I hope it's been entertaining enough!

Porto Seguro and Arraial d´Ajuda

2007-10-24T13:57:00.000Z

After a day exploring Salvador´s old city and lunching on an excellent Mocequa (a sort of fish stew).

I caught the overnight bus to Porto Seguro. There are some quite nice beaches here and some good views from this town´s historic center.

Good nightlife as well, one of the streets translates as "Alcohol Passage" where you can pick up fruit smoothies with a bit of a kick...

However the plan called for me to only be here for one night and then catch the ferry over to Arraial d´Ajuda. This used to be a playground for the rich and famous - now it´s my playground, not quite rich, and probably more infamous.

I decided to go a bit more upmarket for my last few days and checked into a very hotel with apartments spread over about a square kilometre of grounds and a nice pool.

Here´s the village green.

And this is my morning swim view:

My biggest issue now is: beach or pool. Ah, problems problems...

On the beach - Maceio

2007-10-20T13:36:00.000Z

It´s a hard life...

Left Maceio last night and I'm now in Salvador - you'll all be happy to hear that it's raining... But it looks like it might clear up soon. I'll be here for a couple of days and then head down the coast a bit more.

Have to be in Rio airport on the 28th for the flight home!

Brazil

2007-10-17T20:42:00.000Z

Crossed the border into Brazil a few days ago and flew up to Rio, current plan is to head up to the north of the country and then work my way back here for the flight home in 12 days time. Should get some quality beach time on the trip.

Iguazu

2007-10-14T19:16:00.000Z

From a very cold place I flew up to the north of Argentina right on the edge of the Brazilian border to visit the town of Iguazu and the waterfalls that are close by.

I'd booked a boat ride around the falls so after a short bus ride and walk through the park we were picked up by the tour company and taken to the boats.

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Once on the boat and fitted out with life jackets we were driven around - and under! - the falls until we were completely soaked.

To dry t out I spent the rest of the day walking around the park snapping photos from all the viewpoints.

Taking the odd photo of the wildlife

and finally getting a shot of Toucan!

More photos can be found here.

I'm now over the border in Brazil and have just discovered how hard it is to book flights online here if you don't have an identity card. What a strange place.

Los Glaciares National Park

2007-10-12T11:56:00.000Z

The past couple of days I've been in El Calafate visiting Los Glaciares National Park.

A friend of mine had recommended taking two days here, spending the first day on a boat trip around the lake and taking the second day to visit Perito Moreno glacier. The reason being that if you did Perito Moreno first, the rest of the glaciers would be a disappointment.

So the first day we were picked up at the crazy time of 7:15 (after a night in the town in what the hostel staff described as the only party of the year) and taken to the boats.

They looked pretty sturdy, which was quite nice to see as we hit quite a few rather large lumps of ice on the way to see the glaciers.

We visited 3 glaciers on the trip, I won't post all the photos I took here, you can see them all on flickr, but it was quite spectacular.

Some of the glaciers are quite dangerous and we were only allowed to get within 800 meters of them as the entire front can collapse. This one is about 80 meters high and about 4 kilometers wide.

The distance makes it quite hard to appreciate the scale of the thing. We did get very close to some of the other glaciers and even managed to catch some of them calving (quite hard to capture on film, you're always just too late with the camera).

Stopped for lunch at a nice glacial lake and then returned home.

The following day we did something that I think will be one of my highlights of Patagonia. I was initially a bit reluctant to sign up for this tour, I'm starting to get a bit bored of the whole going on excursions thing, but it was more than worth it.

We were picked up a slightly more reasonable time of 8:30 and taken to the base of Perito Moreno glacier.

You can see some people walking on the glacier in this photo which gives you an idea of the size of the thing.

A quick walk through the forest took us to the start of the ice and it was time to strap on the crampons for our turn.

Walking on the ice was absolutely fantastic and the ice is truly beautiful.

After an hour or so walking on the ice we were treated to some whisky with glacial ice cubes!

We took lunch taking care to stay away from the edge of the lake:

and were then taken to the viewing platforms to watch the glacier calving. The noise here is amazing, sounds like thunder with an almost constant sound of cracking and creaking.

You can see more photos of the glacier here.

All in all, an amazing couple of days. Today I'm catching a plane to Iguazu to see what is billed as the second not to miss thing in Argentina, a massive waterfall.

Walking in a winter wonderland...

2007-10-08T20:43:00.000Z

Today we decided to do a short walk to see Glacier Luis Martial. The day was looking a bit gloomy so we didn't hold out much hope for views.

Started off the walk on what seemed to me to be a cross between a ski slope and a path.

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This soon turned into a proper mountain and the weather started to clear up quite nicely. Bit windy though...

Finally reached the base of the glacier. Of course, you can't see it, it's covered in snow, but it's behind that rock formation...

The view back into town is pretty amazing.

However the weather quickly started to close in and it started to snow quite heavily.

So it was a quick run/slide back down the snow to the refugio for some hot soup and mulled wine.

Felt slightly lazy getting the chairlift the rest if the way down...

Off to El Calefate tomorrow for more glacier excitement.

Laguna Esmeralda

2007-10-07T22:50:00.000Z

A few of us went on a short walk today to visit Laguna Esmeralda, we knew that the lake would be covered in ice and snow so there would not be that much to see of it, what we didn't know was that the path to the lake was pretty much knee deep in mud all the way...

Here's a picture of one of the bogs we had to cross:

But it was all worth it in the end, a nice pleasant place to have lunch and skip stones.

Back down at the bottom of the walk we had time for some interesting coffee and to play with the huskies that are bred there:

Ushuaia - Parque National Tierra Del Fuego

2007-10-05T21:47:00.000Z

Went for a walk in the local national park, beautiful day. Stopped off at the guard post near the Chilean border and they made us a cup of coffee! Excellent bunch of people.

Ushuaia

2007-10-04T22:19:00.000Z

I am now just about as far south as you can go without getting very cold - the town of Ushuaia.

The trip over her from Chile was quite interesting, we drove along the coast of the Straits of Magellan.

We even got to go for a quick boat trip!

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Ushuaia is a surprisingly nice town. We'd got used to these isolated towns in Patagonia being a bit run down and not that nice, but this is very nice place.

There is even a ski-resort down here!

Trekking in Torres Del Paine

2007-10-02T20:04:00.001Z

We went on a three day trek of the "W" circuit of Torres Del Paine national park.

Started off the morning of the first day a bit earlier than we should have as my alarm clock was still set of Argentinian time which is an hour ahead of Chile... Luckily the hostel owners found it quite amusing and didn't mind too much making us breakfast extra early. There then followed a 3 hour bus ride and then a minibus to our refugio at the start of the trek. Around 11 we set off walking towards the Torres.

It was a tough walk up there with maybe an hour of scrambling up some moraine, but the view was definitely worth it.

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It was then a long walk back in the crazy wind to the refugio for a well deserved night's rest to get ready for the next day of walking.

This next day took us past a beautiful lake with a most amazing aquamarine colour.

We stopped at refugio Los Cuernos and sheltered from the wind for the night. After a slightly worrying start the day cleared up nicely and we walked up the center of the W to take a peek at glacier frances.

Quite a few avalanches on the way made this walk quite exciting...

And there was a great view back to the lake.

We then walked onto the next refugio, Pehoe. We got here just in time before the weather closed in and it started to rain.

Fortunately the next day came and the weather held for us so we got to walk for an hour or so up to a mirador to see Glacier Grey.

You can see a few icebergs on the way:

And then you get a pretty good view of the actual glacier:

After a few photos and some chocolate biscuits it was time to head back to the refugio and catch a boat out of the park and a bus back home.

Just in time too, the weather really closed in and it was nice to get back to a nice warm hostel and some decent food...

More photos here.

Tomorrow I'll be catching a bus to Ushuaia, the world's most southernmost city.

I've been robbed!

2007-09-27T13:52:00.000Z

I now truly feel like I've had the full on South American experience, after 11 months on the road, I've finally had some stuff stolen.

On the bus down from Puerto Madryn someone went through the luggage compartment and took anything that looked valuable from our bags, so I'm now minus a mobile phone (though apparently I'm due an upgrade anyway so will get a free new one when I get home), an old broken camera, my pen knife, and for some strange reason, my wash kit - I ask you, who steals a toothbrush??

So anyway, I'm now in Puerto Natales in Chile, quite far down south in Tierra Del Fuego! It's cold, very windy and in the next few days we will be going for a 3 day walk. Time to break out the thermals. After this I'll be heading further down south to Ushaia in Argentina, the worlds southernmost city - from there it is possible to catch boast to the Antartic, but it's a bit early in the year for that so I'll be heading up north to find some nice beaches in Brazil!

Whale watching in Peurto Madry

2007-09-24T22:28:00.000Z

Went on a tour to a place called Peninsula Valdes which is an hour or so drive from where we currently are in Puerto Madryn.

First stop was to visit some elephant seals. It's currently mating season, so there are a few bulls on the beach with their harems

and a few pups.

But the highpoint of the day was going out on a boat to do some whale watching.

You can find some more photos here.

Angostina

2007-09-23T20:45:00.001Z

Left Bariloche to go to Angostina a nice village down the road that has some good trekking.

The first day was pretty easy, we took a walk down to the port to take some photos of the lake which is absolutely stunning.

Woulnd't mind having a boat here.

The next day we set off for what was billed as a short walk up to a mirador and a some waterfalls. Turned out to be a bit of a mammoth trek up snow covered paths.

The paths were actually quite hard to follow, but fortunately a couple of dogs that had followed us from town seemed to know where they were going so we followed them. Eventually we reached the mirador, it was a bit misty so the view was hard to capture on the camera.

Fortunately there was somewhere to sit down and have a bit of a break.

Next stop were the waterfalls, here the path seemed to disappear completely and we were completely in the hands of our guide dogs.

The following day we jumped on a bus to Peurto Madryn, tomorrow we're off to see some whales and other bits of wildlife, I've already seen one whale out of the cafe's window. Should be a good day.

Tornedro Glacier

2007-09-19T21:32:00.000Z

Off on a tour today to see a glacier.

Lots of nice views on the way

a few cautions

and lunch...

Skiing in the Andes

2007-09-18T22:04:00.001Z

I wasn't going to bother going skiing here as I'll probably be going when I get back anyway, but how many times are you going to get to go skiing in the Andes?

It's been a couple of years since I last went skiing and that was the first time I'd ever strapped on a pair of skis. So I decided to do a few practice runs down the nursery slopes to see if I could still remember how to snow plough.

All proceeded well so it was time to head up the mountain to try some of the green runs.

All was proceeding well down the run, I was even starting to think - this is a bit slow, maybe I should try a blue run, when my wish was granted abruptly our nice easy green run disappeared and was replaced by a hard blue. It was carnage, children screaming, women crying, grown men taking their skis off and walking down. Terrible...

Despite this, a splendid day. I am now exhausted.

First day in Bariloche

2007-09-17T18:55:00.000Z

Bus journey was not too bad - though I still can't understand why wehave to woken at 7am to loud rock music and really bad coffee...

This is the view from my hostel room:

Will be here for a couple of days - can't decide if I should go skiing or not. The weather is a bit misty at the top of the mountains.

Mendoza

2007-09-17T18:40:00.000Z

Quite a nice city, It was rebuild after an earthquake wiped it off the map and it has very nice wide streets (so you can avoid the falling rubble when the next big one hits).

Lying in my bunk having a quick rest after I arrived I felt my second earthquake of the trip. After pretty much all the places I visited in Peru were destroyed by the earthquake there I'm starting to be quite glad there's only 6 weeks left!

Anyway, Mendoza is the big wine growing region of the country, so it's off on another wine tour.

Can you tell that it's winter time? It's fricking freezing.

Here we can see some oldie world wine making equipment. The grapes would be put into the cow skin and then some slaves would then jump up on down on them to squeeze out the juice. The big earthenware pots would the be used to ferment the wine. Apparently the taste would approximate a good vinegar.

Here we see some nice wines stored in French oak barrels

Apparently the combination of the completion of the railway link to Buenos Aires and a wave of immigration from France, Italy an Spain led to a massive modernisation of the wine industry and a massive jump in quality.

And the production of lots of lovely wine:

Catching a bus to Bariloche tonight, leave at 8pm and get in at 1:30pm - a nice quick 17 hours or so...

Off to Mendoza tonight

2007-09-14T15:27:00.000Z

Home to many vineyards. I may be out of touch for a while...

Machu Pichu

2007-09-09T23:23:00.000Z

So the day started with a typically early tour start time of 4 am! It was actually quite interesting being in the hostel lobby meeting all the reprobates coming back from their all night drinking sessions in the local bars and clubs. ..

There were six of us in our group heading up to Machu Pichu, a Canadian couple, a German couple and a guy from Holland. To get us up the trail we needed 9 porters, a cook/porter, an assistant cook/porter and our guide (Ramirez, a very hard name to say without a sneer on your face and a dodgy accent).

The night before myself and the dutch guy had been given a duffel bag to stuff with a maximum of 7kg of stuff - we had chosen to be especially lazy and hire half a porter each to carry our stuff, a bargain at only $30 for the entire trip. In the end I only had about 4k including my sleeping bad. So the guy got off lightly...

After a couple of hours on the bus we arrived at a place called Piskacucho where we stopped for a bit of breakfast, shopped for walking sticks and bought some coca leaves for the altitude.

After this quick stop off we were back on the bus to drive to kilometre 82 which is where the trail starts. Here you can get your passport stamped to prove that you are crazy enough to start the trail.

The trail starts at the refreshing low altitude of 2720m (8923ft) by crossing the Vilcanota river.

We left our porters packing away the tents, food, table and chairs (I kid you not) and all the rest of the stuff to support our trip. They were soon finished with this and chasing after us along the path:

These guys were quite amazing, carrying a load of 25kg they pretty much ran down the path. Each day they would pack up everything whilst we set off walking, they'd pass us after about 20 minutes and we'd arrive at the next camp site to a cold drink, dinner almost ready and the tents all set up. Quite incredible.

As we walked along the path, we caught a glimpse of the lazy gits going up there by train.

The first day was pretty easy on fairly flat terrain and we got some great views of the Inca Fortress (‘Huillca Raccay'), the vast and incredible Inca site ‘Llactapata' (officially called ‘Patallacta').

After a pretty easy walk we arrived at our first campsite at around 3000m:

The night was damned cold, my sleeping bad is only rated for a -5 freezing point.

The next day the cook made us pancakes and porridge for breakfast. Fantastic. On this day we would climb to 4200m to cross "Dead Womans Pass" descend back down to 3550m for lunch and then climb again upto 4000m to cross another mountain pass!

Luckily there are some ruins on the insane day of walking to keep you entertained.

We made it to the next camp and pretty much collapsed into bed. This night was also very very cold.

The third day was very easy, not very much walking to do at all - only a climb up to 3680n meters. And some more ruins - Sayacmarca and Phuyuptamaca. Campsite for this night for called ‘Wiñay Wayna’ (‘Forever Young’) at a comfortable 2680m/8792ft.

Near this campsite is another nice Incan ruin.

That night it was too hot.

The fourth day we had all agreed (well, kind of) to get up at 3:40 to be first at the entrance to the path to the sun gate - not entirely sure why this was necessary, but apparently it's good to beat the crowds. So, we got up crazily early and sat in the darkness by the gate waiting for the park wardens to open up. We were the second group to arrive there - not bad really. It frightens me to think what time the first group must have got up...

We had a very brisk walk up to the sun gate, sadly the sun was not cooperating, but we did get some nice photos of the site. Our guide gave us a 2 hour guided tour, and then it was time for a coffee break and a rest while some of the more keen members of the group climbed another mountain (nutters).

It was then time to jump on the train home and get back to the hostel for a bit of well deserved sleep.

I'm now in Buenos Aires, various people from the travels seem to be converging on the town in the next couple of days.

You can find all the Machu Pichu photos here. - there's a lot of them.

Back from Machu Pichu

2007-09-05T15:59:00.000Z

Sorry for the lack of posts. Yes, I'm still alive. Will be getting a bunch of photos from the past few days tonight and will update the blog.

Cusco seems to encourage laziness in people, not much gets done here. Will be booking a flight to Buenas Aries in the next couple of days and getting out of here!

Another one bites the dust...

2007-08-22T02:48:00.000Z

Yet another camera has died on me! Luckily the photos are all still there, will post them soon.

Back in Cusco

2007-08-18T21:26:00.000Z

Made it all the way back to Cusco in record time. Talking to the taxi driver on the way to the hostel it sounds like they felt the earthquake quite strongly here - lots of buildings swaying, but no damage.

Sadly from the sounds of things Huachachina, the oasis just outside of Ica - place of sandboarding and dune buggying, has suffered some quite heavy damage and quite a bit of Ica has been flattened.

Anyway, back to Cusco - I'd forgotten what the altitude was like. I feel terrible, hopefully it will only take a couple of days to get acclimatised.

Back to Peru

2007-08-17T19:54:00.000Z

It's been a mad dash back down from French Guiana into Brazil and back into Peru - including one slightly unscheduled stop where I accidentally got off the plane at the wrong airport....

Back in Peru tonight and then in Cusco again to get ready for trekking Macu Pichu.

Hopefully there is not too much earthquake damage. Though sadly it sounds like a few places like Pisco and Ica have been hit quite badly.

Brazil has been a very nice place, the people have been fantastically friendly and I'm looking forward to coming back and spending a bit of time here. May have to learn some Portuguese though.

Will post photos of the past few days and blog entries another time.

Stuck in French Guiana

2007-08-15T14:37:00.000Z

It's a public holiday. Everything is shut. I'm trapped and I can't get out!

French Guiana

2007-08-13T18:24:00.000Z

What can I say? It's just like being in France.

Picked up my invite to see the rocket being launched and aparrently missed the oportunity to have lunch. Now everything is closed until 4pm. Oh, and it's a Monday, apparently everything is shut on a monday. What a crazy place.

On my wayto French Guiana

2007-08-12T11:53:00.000Z

Currently in Miami airport. Waiting to get my Air France plane that will eventually (after a day landing at various airports in very strange places) take me to Cayenne, French Guiana. It's not all bad though, the kind French people have upgraded me. My schoolboy French must have been pretty good!

Cartagena

2007-08-09T15:23:00.000Z

Arrived in Cartagena yesterday. The hostel that I wanted to stay in was fully booked so I´m staying in a place just down the road. Explored the old city a bit last night in search of food, it does seem to be very nice if a little bit dodgy.

Will be here for a couple of days. On the 11th I fly to Miami and then on to French Guiana.

Tyrona National Park

2007-08-09T15:07:00.000Z

Decided after the stresses and strains of the jungle trek to spend a couple of days relaxing on the beach in Tyrona national park which is just down the road from Taganga.

We set off at around 11ish and got the collectivo back into Santa Marta to pick up the bus into the park. Didn´t realise quite how far the bus stop was from where the collectivo drops you off so we ended up walking half way across town...

Once we reached the park we payed our entrance fee and got picked up by a landrover and taken into the park proper. It was then a 45 minute walk to the first place where you can stay. At this point we foolishly decided to walk another hour or so to a place called Cabal which is the popular place to stay - only to find that it was fully booked so we had to come all the way back!

By this point the sky was starting to turn a slightly ominous colour and the thunder and lightning was definitely getting a bit too close for comfort.

So it was into the hammocks nice and early to avoid the rain and bugs.

The next we walked to Cabal again in the hope that there would be room at the inn, but were once again denied. We had already planned to walk to a place called Pueblocito (which is a smaller cousin of Ciudad Perdida) so we set off along the trail - this trail turned out to be a solid hour of walking uphill, but we eventually reached the ruins which were quite impressive.

Thankfully it was downhill all the way back to the beach for a nice swim and then a quick walk back to the original campsite for some sleep! Lots of bugs in the night. Feels like I have been eaten alive.

Ciudad Perdida

2007-08-07T19:49:00.000Z

Quite a leisurely start to the first day of the jungle trip. We were picked up from the hostel at around 10ish and driven back into Santa Marta to meet the rest of the intrepid adventurers. After a bit of packing and messing around we drove for about an hour over some fairly rough roads and finally reached the jumping off point for the trek.

We met the people who were on their way back and were greeted by a variety of cries along the lines of "turn back", "you´re doomed", "run away!"... All good cheerful encouragement.

We then set off down a dirt track and came to the first river crossing, only a shallow river so no one got wet. We then got our first taste of real walking as we climbed a small hill.

This is us after only 20 minutes. We are half dead.

However, as always the views make it worthwhile:

We finally reached the first camp and got to go for a nice swim and have a rest.

Our guide set up the hammocks and we got a nice meal inside us courtesy of the camp cook. Everyone was in bed by about 9pm - an early night theme that would continue for the rest of the trip.

The following day we were offered a chance to visit a cocaine "factory". Obviously, a chance like this doesn´t come up very often so we all readily handed over our cash and wondered off into the bush.

It was slightly disappointing to find that we weren´t being taken to some underground factory in the jungle but to a trestle table set up with a bunch of buckets in quite a nice location

Our guess is that there probably is a factory somewhere, but a bunch of gringos aren´t going to get an invite. There followed a demonstration of the process of extracting the cocaine paste from coca leaves.

The process as demonstrated goes as follows:

Over a period of three months collect leaves from the trees (so you can get 4 crops a year).

When you have a sufficient quantity chop them up in a big chopping machine to produce a leaf pulp.

This pulp is then mixed with a combination of salt and quicklime and the resulting mixture is kneaded using people wearing wellington boots for about 30 minutes.

You now need a big bucket and lots of gasoline, sulphuric acid and water. Put all this together with the leaf pulp and leave it to stew for a while.

Once you´re happy with the brew filter out the leaves and syphon off from the bottom of the bucket the mixture of sulphuric acid (which should now have the alkaloids dissolved in it), the water and about a quarter of the gasoline.

You now add potassium permanganate which we think is to remove the gasoline, but we´re not entirely sure.

This is then passed through a fairly crude filter.

The final step is to neutralise the acid using bicarbonate of soda. As well all know from our GCSE chemistry, the stuff that is dissolved in the acid will now precipitate out.

Now it´s just a case of filtering out the cocaine base and drying it in the sun.

You can smoke this cocaine base in cigarettes (apparently this is called a bazooka on the street).

The paste is sold onto to more important mafia types who refine is further and then cut it to increase the quantity.

Having seen the amount of horrible stuff that goes into the process it´s hard to understand why anyone would want to stick the result up their nose...

Around 11ish we set off for the second day of walking. Already peoples feet had started to suffer, so it was a bizarre looking troupe of people that left camp.

On the way we passed through a local village, didn´t really feel that I could take their photographs, but I took some of their huts.

After several hours of hard walking we reached the next camp and met some more weary people returning from the lost city.

The third day of the hike involved crossing a fairly deep river 9 times. The first crossing was only 20 minutes into the walk and everyone was well prepared wearing trunks and sandals.

There then followed about 2 hours of walking up and down hills (why not go around?) and lots more getting wet before we finally came to the steps leading up to the city.

At this point the regular rain storm that normally started at about 2 or 3 decided to come early and the heavens opened. I guess it´s lucky that we were already soaked from the river crossings...

There´s only 1200 steps to climb to get up into the city! But eventually we were all settled and our chef got to work

Nice views of the cloud forest from here:

The evenings entertainment consisted of our guide singing using a bucket as accompaniment. After 3 days in the jungle, anything is fun...

The following morning we were up bright and early to see the city.

Definitely worth the walk. Not sure about the insects though...

Pretty soon it was time to start walking back. Crossing the river all those times again. Half way back it started to rain again turning the paths into mud slides so by the time we reached the camp we were all pretty disgustingly dirty. Once again though our chef came through and cooked us up a nice meal and it was early into bed again (after more singing and bucket playing from the guide...). The next two days are just blurs of walking up and down hills before finally making it back to the road and jeep home.

Photos here.

More info here.

Back from the Jungle

2007-08-04T23:59:00.000Z

Just spent the past six days trekking through the jungle in the north of Colombia to Ciudad Perdida (the lost city).

Absolutely knackered and very dirty. Will post photos when I get to a decent internet connection.

Taganga

2007-07-29T22:17:00.000Z

On the Caribbean coast of Colombia. It´s damned hot!

Off on a jungle trek tomorrow to Ciudad Perdido (The Lost City). Six days in the jungle!

Will post some photos when I get back to civilisation...

Mirraflores 250th Anniversary

2007-07-27T16:29:00.000Z

Before leaving Lima for Colombia we got to watch the parade celebrating 250 years since the founding of Miraflores (a district of Lima).

Good fun. Especially the fireworks at the end.

The whole thing was sponsered by WONG supermarkets so the parade had a slightly oriental feel to it.

And a very strange military feel.

This guy is from a float that represented soldiers from cavemen all the way through to the soldier of the future:

The navy also put on a bit of show, they chose to play the song "In the navy..." weird.

We also got to see a few beauty queens.

There were also a bunch of topless dancers representing the peoples of the jungle, sadly no photos, we were all too shocked to do anything.

It was all pretty spectactular and went on for quite a while, once it got dark all the people and floats were lit up with lights. Here´s another sponser of the parade:

Some nice young ladies:

And a fish.

There wer huge crowds and we got a bit stuck in the hostel.

But luckily we were right next to the firework display so it was all good.

The following day we went down to mall built into the cliff face.

Nice place. We got to see the Transformers film. Fantastic!

Bogota, Colombia

2007-07-25T23:47:00.000Z

Flew in this afternoon. Planning to leave tomorrow for Santa Marta which is a bit of a shame as Bogota seems to have a few attractions that would be worth looking at. Bit short of time here though as I want to be in French Guana for the 14th August.

Back in Lima

2007-07-21T21:29:00.000Z

Back in Lima again! Got a flight from here to Bogota on the 25th to Bogota Colombia.

Sand Boarding and dune buggying in Huachina

2007-07-19T18:58:00.000Z

We must be mad.

Booked ourselves onto a dune bugger/sandboarding adventure yesterday afternoon.

The dune buggy driver was insane. And the sandboarding was down some completely nuts dunes.

Still alive!

Huachachina - arrival and wine tour

2007-07-17T22:30:00.000Z

After the Nasca lines flight we grabbed a quick bit to eat (stomach was definitely feeling a bit dodge after it) and jumped on a bus to Ica followed by a quick taxi ride to the oasis Huachachina.

First thing you notice in the taxi ride are the huge sanddunes.

First step of the afternoon was to get a hostel, sadly the recommended was fully booked, but we managed to find an equally nice one:

Haven´t been in the pool yet, but we´ve got plenty of time here. Huachachina is very nice place, about a kilometer out of town and based around an oasis in the desert.

First night in the hostal was a big bbq with all you can drink Pisco Sours. Weirdly we were surrounded by French speaking people again (for the past couple of months it seems that the only people I have been meeting have been from places that speak French).

The following morning (feeling slightly rougher than usual) we signed up for a wine and pico tour (gluttons for punishment I think). For some reason the first stop was at a chocolate shop...

Second stop was at a local vineyard/winery. Here are the vats that the wine is fermented in:

Here´s the pisco making distilling machines:

I´ve never seen so much drink in one place!

After a quick sampling of the produce we jumped back in the car (thankfully the hostal had provided a driver!) and went to another more rustic winery place where we got down to some serious sampling:

For some reason on the way back we decided to jump out of the car 10 minutes early and climb a sanddune back to the hostel. Very nice views of the desert.

Nasca Lines

2007-07-17T22:16:00.000Z

So, as mentioned before, we escaped from Arequipa and caught the night bus to Nasca. Arriving at about 5am we were picked up by a tour guide at the bus station and taken to the airport for a flight over the Nasca lines.

First attempt at getting up over the lines was at about 7am.

Sadly it was far too misty and we came back into land after about 5 minutes.

There then followed an interminable wait as a bunch of people who had prebooked their flights or been unable to fly arrived.

Around 11 we finally got to go up.

The pilots really throw the planes around to give everyone a good look at the lines. Makes for quite an exciting stomach churning flight. The lines themselves are pretty hard to spot, and are actually quite small (from up in the air anyway). But I got a couple of good shots.

Nice views over the desert as well.

There´s a whole lot of photos here. If you spot anything in them let me know...

Escape from Arequipa

2007-07-16T23:30:00.000Z

Wahey, managed to catch a bus out of town to Nascar to fly over the lines and then onto Ica and Huachachina.

Huachachina is an oasis a couple of k´s from Ica and is fantastic. Will post photos when I find a machine that reads my memory card.

Back from Cola Canyon to Arequipa

2007-07-14T17:42:00.000Z

Photos here.

We knew that there had been protests going on (which was why we had had to get up stupid o´clock for our Canyon trek), and our guide had been a bit worried in the morning about whether or not the buses would be running. But we´d managed to find a bus and all had been going well, until the bus stopped and we all had to get out.

We joined a string of people looking very much like the refugees you always see on television and started the long walk back into town.

Initially it was hoped that we would just have to get past the roadblock and then pick up a bus on the other side.

Unfortunately it turns out that they block roads properly in this country. About 10km of the road was covered in rocks, burning tires and roadblocks.

There were a couple of hairy moments at the start, with big mobs of people marching down the road towards police lines, but we managed to walk around any trouble and crossed the police lines to relative tranquility, still lots of roadblocks and burning tires, but less angry protesters.

The people are currently quite upset with the current president and want to force an election (their spelling is worse then mine...).

Most people seemed to be just trying to get home, only methods of transport that the protesters allow through the roadblocks are bicycles and pedestrians. Attempting to go through by car is not a good idea...

We did get one life along the way, but only between two roadblocks - a couple of hundred meters or so.

Finally after about 2 hours walking, luckily almost all downhill, we made to the end of the roadblocks. This got a cheer from the locals who all seemed to be quite impressed that a bunch of gringos had made it all the way through.

Unfortunately when we got to the hostel we were supposed to be staying in, we found that there was no room and that our reservation had been cancelled as no one had been able to leave. Pretty disappointing, especially as they have free pancakes for breakfast...

It now looks like we´ll be in Arequipa until Tuesday when the protests are scheduled to be finished - no idea how long it´s going to take to clear the roads, hopefully they´ll tidy up after themselves.

Monday will apparently be the worst day, the protesters will be coming into the town so apparently we´ll be holed up in the hostel and unable to leave. Today will be spent purchasing supplies.

Colca Canyon

2007-07-14T16:39:00.000Z

Photos here.

Just as I´m writing this, the owner of the Internet cafe has pulled down the shutters... The protesters are marching down this street...

So, as mentioned in the previous post, we had quite an early start to this trip. Got a couple of hours sleep before getting out of bed at 12:30am to be picked up by our guide (who looked more tired than we did...). We then spend 30 minutes or so picking up the rest of the gang before heading to the bus station for our 6 hour journey out to Cabanaconde where we stopped for a bit of breakfast and for our guide to pick up supplies for lunch and dinner.

Hooray, a condor, let´s go home...

It´s very traditional and very isolated up here.

After a quick breakfast we were off and walking to the edge of the canyon.

We passed quite a few locals going about there daily business.

and eventually reached the edge of the canyon:

This gives you an idea of the kind of path we were about to walk down.. Only 1000 meters to descend...

We stopped for plenty of breaks on the way down. Here you can see our guide almost falling asleep. Poor guy has only just returned to Arequipa after taking another group on a tour.

After about 3-4 hours of walking we reached the bottom of the canyon, crossed over the river,

and a brief climb took us to our lodgings for the night.

A late lunch and the afternoon was ours to collapse on the floor and try to recover. Good views of the path we had just walked down made the afternoon complete.

Nice flowers in the garden.

After a bit of negotiation with the guide we agreed to get up the following day at 8 am to walk to a place called La Oasis (the tourist name, not the real name). Everyone went to bed pretty early as it had been a bit of hard day so we were all up bright an early.

Today was a fairly easy walk along the side of the valley to what we were promised would be "thermal" baths.

Along the way we passed the communal irrigation channels which are used to provide water for the terraces.

And after a couple of hours walk

We stopped off at a small village to take a look at a museum of indigenous life which was run by a sweet lady called Victoria.

Here she is showing us some candles made out of llama fat. Life must have been a bit stinky back in the olden days...

After a quick rest it was time to continue walking and to La Oasis, which we go site of pretty quickly:

and a quick descent took us to our pool (room temperature - better than cold!)

and our lodgings for the night.

A nice relaxing afternoon. The next day we were up at 1am to climb back out of the canyon and see the condors. We stirred up the fire and warmed up, had a quick cup of coca tea and bit of bread and were off!

We were all equipped with fantastic headlamps (mine seems to be particularly bright). Our guide carried... a candle. I think he was showing off.

After a 3 or 4 hour climb, the sun was starting to come up over the mountains and we were at the top.

Some lovely colours from the sunrise.

and some well deserved breakfast!

After breakfast, we all jumped on a bus to finally see the condors. They are big birds!

Lots of photos of condors here.

Then it was time to head down to the real hot baths at Chivay. Absolutely awesome, like taking a bath. I got a massage as well. What a great day.

The journey back to Arequipa gets it´s own blog post. It was quite an adventure...

Monasterio Santa Catalina

2007-07-10T21:38:00.000Z

To escape from the craziness we took a tour round Monasterio Santa Catalina. With the sounds of protestors in the background it was like an oasis of calm.

Beautiful combinations of colours in here, will have to break out the paintbox when I get home...

And some views over the city.

As mentioned in the previous post, we´ll be leaving at 1am tomorrow morning to go trekking. Not entirely looking forward to it...

More photos here.

The Peasants Are Revolting!

2007-07-10T21:17:00.000Z

Turns out we reached Arequipa just in time. There´s a big protest going on and all the roads are going to be blockaded. Unfortunately, this means that we´re going to have to leave on the 1:45am bus to go trekking into the canyon...

It´s gridlock!

More photos here

Up the coast of Chile and back into Peru

2007-07-10T16:11:00.001Z

All photos here

The past few days has mostly been spent on buses heading up the coast of northern Chile and back into Peru again.

First stop in Chile was a seaside town called Iquique. Some slightly worrying signs all around town remind you that Chile is subject to regular earthquakes (we felt two slight tremors in Arica - quite unnerving).

Chile is a strange place. There seems to be very little space for anything. Iquique is sandwiched between the mountains and the coast.

All the photos of Iquique include a very nice beach. Didn´t find it... Saw it from the bus as we left town on the way to Arica. Nice sunsets on the way.

Arica´s beach was fairly easy to find:

My travel buddy for Bolivia and Chile knows a family here in Arica so we went to visit for a Sunday lunch barbecue. Huge amounts of food and drink and excellent company. If you´re ever in Arica ask around for "Gringo Philip" a thoroughly top bloke.

To get back into Peru from Arica you take a collective taxi to a place called Tacna which is just over the border.

And then catch the bus to wherever you want to go in Peru. In our case, Arequipa where we are planning to do a few days tour into a nearby canyon where you can see condors.

Arequipa is a nice town with usual plazas and colonial buildings. Very nice food as well. Excellent.

Salar de Uyuni

2007-07-06T18:54:00.000Z

So, from Uyuni in Bolivia, the thing to do is to go on a tour of the salt flats and lakes of Salar de Uyuni.

For fans of my amazing photography, you can have a look at all the photos from this adventure here.

The day started off in Uyuni with the now classic act of being taken by the tour operator that we had booked with to a completely different tour operator. However, this turned out to be completely fine with a fun driver, a land cruiser that wasn´t on it´s last legs, and a fun group of fellow backpackers - quite an international group; French - Richard, Australian - Jeremy, German - Cristina, Swiss - Leli (sp?), and UK - me (taking the photo...).

First stop was the train graveyard just outside of Uyuni, not entirely sure what these trains were used for, but it was probably something to do with minerals and salt.

After a quick stop to pick up the guide´s son (to help with the cooking and general odd jobs) we set off. Stopping at a local village that is heavily involved in the salt processing industry. Here we were able to buy various things made from salt, including a set of dice - enabling us to play a French game called "Yams". Salt is not the best material for dice, but it´s good enough for a couple of games.

Driving a bit further we came to the salt flat. A truly strange place. It really feels like snow underfoot, and the cold gives the impression that it must be a snow field.

A quick taste confirms that it is salt. And very salty it is too.

The piles of salt are drying in the sun and will be collected when they are ready for further processing. All the salt from here is used within Bolivia, none of it is exported. Apparently there is a lot of international interest in exploiting this area because of all the minerals.

After some more driving we are away from the exploited area and on the real salt flats. The weird hexagonal shapes are all natural, probably to do with the way salt crystallizes.

After a few hours driving we stopped off at an "island" in the desert.

This was used as a stopping off point by the Incas when the crossed the flats and they planted many cactus plants to help them find the place.

Some of these cacti date from the 1200s

After some more driving we reached our lodgings for the night, a hotel made entirely from salt!

After a quick explore of the village it was time to head back indoors. Sunset comes pretty quickly here and it´s damned cold at night!

After a reasonably enjoyable meal (my stomach has been giving me hassle for the past few days) we were treating to some local children demanding money with menacing music and dancing.

Into bed early under a pile of blankets and a sleeping bad. The next day we were up a 5am to grab some quick breakfast and head out again. First stop, an active volcano!

Following this was a sequence of five lakes, all different colours depending on the minerals and algae growing in them.

Living out in this desolate wilderness are lots of llama like creatures called pequeñas.

And some great landscapes:

Also, some pink flamingos. Sadly I don´t think any of us are ever going to make it as hunters, the birds took off for the other side of lake as soon as we approached.

so we took some group photos instead.

More lakes, the white stuff is a mixture of minerals and ice. This lake contains borax (I think...)

Next stop, the stone forest. Lots of rocks in funny formations. It was really cold so we made this quite a short stop!

Maybe this is the one with borax in...

Finally some decent shots of flamingos - borrowed someones tripod for this shoot and the pictures are surprisingly good. Investing in a camera with a decent optical zoom was really worth it, just need to buy my own tripod now.

More driving and we are at our evenings accommodations. We are now at about 5000 meters altitude...

Despite the lovely covers, these beds do not have enough blankets for -20 degrees C nighttime temperatures. We managed to rustle up a few more blankets and slept in sleeping bags and thermals this night. It was still cold. The cold actually seemed to seep up through the bed´s mattress!

Another crazily early start (5:30 in the truck!) to visit some geysers. It really was quite remarkably cold here, but interesting nevertheless, very noisy and very steamy - but still fricking freezing!

Finally the high point of the day, after being cold all night and we got to bathe in the hot springs as sun rose. Beautiful.

This is near the border of Chile, Bolivia and Argentina. What a great place.

And here´s the border post. We´d got out exit stamps in Uyuni - for three days we´d been officially nowhere.

A nice warm bus was waiting at the border post and after about 20 minutes on Bolivian tracks we reached the road that joins Argentina and Chile, I think this is the first sealed road that any of us had seen for some weeks!

I´m now in Chile, we spent a day and a bit in San Pedro de Atacama - which is a town in the middle of the worlds driest desert (it still cold!).

Chile has been a real shock to the system in terms of costs. Everything is amazingly expensive compared to the rest of South America.

However, it´s still good fun. Finally got to do some cooking (the cost of eating out is prohibitive for people on a budget) - first meal, the good old student standby of pasta, sweetcorn, tuna and mayonnaise; second meal, my own speciality, chicken in mushroom sauce. Lovely grub!

We also took the opportunity of doing some sand boarding here. Fantastic fun, but my body is still hurting from falling off a bit too much. (Must remember that although I might be travelling with a bunch of 20 year olds, I´ve still got a 35 year old body...)

Got the overnight bus last night to Iquique in search of a bit of warmth and some beach time. Tomorrow we´ll visit the ghost town on Humberstone and then head north to Arica and finally up the coast of Peru.

Uyuni, Bolivia

2007-07-01T16:42:00.001Z

It´s very very cold.

Potosi Mine

2007-06-29T17:10:00.000Z

After a very long bus ride - much longer than we expected - we arrived in Potosi and checked into a very nice hostel called "Koala Den". This is the first place I´ve been to that actually has heating! We immediately signed up for a tour of the Potosi mine which is a must do in this part of the world.

The following day, bright and early, we were at the miners cooperative getting fitted out with helmets, wellington boots (obligatory for any tour), and protective trousers and jackets.

First stop on the tour was to pick up gifts for the miners. These consisted of bottles of coca cola, dynamite, and coca leaves.

Dynamite is readily available throughout Bolivia and it´s completely legal for anyone to buy and blow up. Typically the miners use a package called a "Completo". This consists of: a stick of dynamite (from my limited knowledge this looks and feels like plastic explosives), a 5 minute fuse (enough to get 30-50 meters away safely), a bag of amonium nitrate (fertilizer -gives you more bang for you buck).

All this is available for the princely sum of 17 Bolivianos (about $2) from your local shop...

Before visiting the mines, we visited one of the ore processing plants, this was a good taster of what to expect in the mines. The miners sell the raw ore taken from the mine to these plants to be seperated out and then sold onto the international markets.

Here´s the mountain "Cerro Rico" that the mine is in. The mountain used to stand at about 5,800 meters, but is now down to 4,800 due to instability caused by the mining.

From the mine you get a good view of the city.

And after taking some photos, it was time to go in...

Nothing that anyone had said or anything that I had read had quite prepared me for the hideous conditions within the mine. The dust, the cramped conditions, the lack of ventilation. I doubt that this mine would be allowed to operate in any other place. What made all this worse is that these conditions are not being imposed by some evil multinational mining corporation. The mine is actually run by a collection of mining cooperatives!

Unfortunately, there are over 60 mining cooperatives all working on this one mine. Rather than working together to improve things, they work in competition with each other, occasionally conflicts over rich seams lead to confrontations in the mine where the weapons of choice are sticks of dynamite.

It was quite depressing really. You would hope that having the mine controlled and run by locals would make conditions much better. Instead it seems to have made things much worse. Most labor is still carried out by hand. An electric winch to hoist rocks from 7 levels below the entrance only costs $3500, but only one cooperative has the money to buy one, so only one cooperative has one. A few cooperatives have electric carts. Everything else is done by hand.

As you would expect, life expectancy of a miner is pretty short.

A few hundred meters inside the mine is a small museum, this also houses the mine devils that the miners pray to for good finds, safety etc...

Having climbed through some pretty tight tunnels filled with dust and finding it almost impossible to breath I decided to cut my tour short at the end of the first level of the mine. The thought of going down through level 2 to level 3 really wasn´t that appealing.

Once outside it was time for a bit of light relief, we got to play with some of the dynamite that we´d purchased.

Our guide had kindly brought along a stuffed monkey, the stuffing was quickly removed and replaced with the dynamite.

And here´s me holding a monkey stuffed with dynamite, and yes, the fuse coming out of its mouth is lit!

Here´s the video of the explosions:

Sucre, Dinosaurs!

2007-06-29T15:40:00.000Z

One of the big tourist attractions in Sucre are some dinosaur tracks that can be seen quite close by.

From the town square we caught the dino-bus..

Which took us to the local cement factory (where the tracks were discovered...).

Guess what the dinosaurs are made from...

The tracks are pretty interesting, but sadly you´re not allowed to get as close as you used to be able to as they are trying to preserve them.

More dinosaur models:

Back in town we attempted to visit another major attraction, the cemetry (I kid you not).

Sadly it was closed and having exausted the options in Sucre we headed to the travel agency (aptly names "BS Tours") and booked a bus ticket to Potosi.

Sucre

2007-06-26T19:45:00.000Z

Last night we were supposed to catch the bus to Potosi with the ultimate aim of going on a tour of the salar salt flats.

Sadly the busses were all full, so we´re now down the road in Sucre, so far it´s a bit uninspiring, nice town, but not a lot to do really.

Tomorrow I should be in Potosi.

Video from the death road

2007-06-26T18:52:00.001Z

"The Worlds Most Dangerous Road" AKA "The Road Of Death"

2007-06-23T14:03:00.001Z

Yesterday we went mountain biking down the famous Road of Death :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yungas_Road

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/6136268.stm

And today, we are still alive!

Here are the photos:

We got up around 7:30 and left La Paz for a short drive to the start of the death road. On arrival we got all our gear on and tried out the bikes:

This was probably the first time I´ve ever ridden a bike with breaks that really work properly!

The first part of our ride was on properly surfaced roads to get us used to riding the bikes again (a couple of us had not ridden since we were 12 years old...).ç

The road was pretty steep with some funs turns that you could pretty much take without slowing down.

And a few uphill sections that required a bit of rest afterwards.

After some more riding we reached the death road proper and tried out the first section.

Having successfully completed this without falling off the edge our guide offered us the choice of splitting up into two groups, one fast and one a bit slower, or all of us going a bit faster.

So we all chose to go faster and carried on down the death road.

After about 3 hours of riding (with frequent breaks for water and rest) we reached the bottom.

And had a very welcome beer!

Pampas and Jungle tour

2007-06-20T18:56:00.001Z

Last week we left La Paz to go down to a place called Rurrenabaque which is to the North and is part of the amazon basin.

Booked our flights the day before with Amazonas Airlines and the following day set off at 11 am to the airport to catch our plane. Almost immediately it became pretty obvious that not all was well, with all of the people who were supposed to get flights that morning still hanging around the airport...

But eventually things sorted themselves out and our little plane arrived at 3pm to finally take us down into the lowlands.

And when I say little plane, I mean little plane (though it was a bit bigger than the one I got in the Galapagos Islands):

Take off at 4000m is quite an exciting affair, you don´t really climb very much higher!

So we came fairly close to the mountains that surround La Paz

Before finally coming into land at the dirt strip in the middle of the jungle (don´t know how the pilots actually saw anything through the windscreen...).

This is the airport:

They turn the planes around pretty quickly and head straight back to La Paz with a load of tired and dirty tourists fresh from the jungle.

After a quick bus ride into town we found our hostel (they still seem to be constructing the road to it...) which was very nice with some very comfy hammocks.

A quick wash and brush up followed by a trip to the travel agent to book a tour to the Pampas with our new found friends and it was time for some happy hour and many many cocktails with the fellow survivors of the plane ride.

Next morning bright and early we had the usual confusion of the start of a tour. First step of this process is usually being taken from the agency that you booked through to a completely different agency...

After a bit of milling around and general confusion seven of us were packed aboard a 4x4 and sent on our way (on a 3 hour incredibly dusty road)

to find the boat that would be our main means of transportation for the next 3 days. This brought back many memories of my trip to Mosquitia in Honduras - fortunately there´s only a river to navigate this time!

All aboard and we´re off down the river to find some wildlife and accommodation.

First thing we see is a pretty big caiman!

An hour or so later, and quite a few caiman later,

Some monkeys lazing around in the trees.

Followed by some more little monkeys that were kind enough to pose (in exchange for crackers).

Also seen, pink dolphins! Sadly almost impossible to photograph as they only surface for a quick breath and then dive down again.

That evening we went upstream a little bit to visit the Sunset Bar for a couple of beers followed by a nice evening meal - possibly the best food I´ve had so far in South America.

The following day was anaconda hunting day! First order of business, finding some wellington boots. I must say, the girls look rather fetching in their new apparal.

About 30 minutes upstream, with the usual abundance of caiman and dolphins, we stopped to head into the pampas to find our anacondas.

Our earlier grumblings about the new rubber boots dissapeared quite quickly as we discovered just how deep the mud was round here and spirits were generally good.

Perseverance rewarded, we found an anaconda! Don´t know why this photo has fallen over, I´m sure I fixed it.

Following this, our two crocodile hunter australians found another, sadly in a slightly deeper area, so our wellingtons filled up with water and creepy crawlys.

We also managed to buy 3 bottles of vino tinto, this seemed to please the French girls immensely!

Back at camp everyone was quite keen for a quick swim to wash the mud away. However, our usual swimming spot was occupied:

No more swimming!

The following day was spent attempting to swim with the pink dolphins. We managed to swim with them only in the sense that they were in the same river as us. But it was still fun splashing around with the caiman and the pirahnas (health and safety, what´s that?).

The following morning we went fishing for pirahnas, our guide caught five, between the rest of us, we managed one. They tasted pretty nice, but there´s not a lot of meat on them.

Then it was time to head home back down the river to pick up our ride back to Rurrenabaque. Stopping off to torment some pigs.

We decided to book ourselves onto the jungle tour for the following day, so once again, it was time for a quick shower, cocktails, and another early start the next day. Sadly at this point my camera´s battery finnally went flat, so there´s not photos of our adventures.

This time we went down a different river and left directly from Rurrenabaque. The night before we left it had rained very heavily and it was still ominously overcast when we left. Almost immediately it started to rain and our newly purchased plastic ponchos were put to good use.

Luckily it cleared up once we passed the mountains and the climate turned more humid and jungle like.

Not much to report from the jungle, very different from the pampas, much harder to see any wildlife. We did manage to catch a good look at some howler monkeys, and saw a whole heard of wild pigs (100+) stampeding accross the trail.

Best bit of the trip, cutting up a notepad to make playing cards... Not much to do at night in the jungle!

Been to the jungle and back

2007-06-19T20:58:00.000Z

Just got back from a trip to the jungle, will post photos once I find a machine with USB.

Tiahuanaco

2007-06-11T21:21:00.001Z

About an hours drive from La Paz is a town called Tiwanaku. This town is the site of the ruins of an ancient civilisation called "The Tiwanakun People" according to the guy sitting next to me who has just looked it up.

In keeping with the current theme of the trip this town is about 3,800 meters above sea level...

This is us standing on top of the burried pyramid.

There´s not a great deal to see of the pyramid, but some of the other temples have been uncovered and reconstructed.

Also from the pyramid you get quite a nice view of the modern town with it´s church and main square.

The underground temple contains some interesting walls with a large collection of heads:

The above ground temple seems to be all to do with the solstices - various statues, doors and walls line up with the sun at different times of the year.

Translation of the sign: "Come back soon!"

Back in La Paz again, wondering what to do next...

Back in Copa and on the way to La Paz

2007-06-11T21:12:00.000Z

Back on the mainland we checked into a hostel and went out in search of food and drink with our new found friends - this included a 60 year old guy who had escaped from China during the cultural revolution by trekking for 3 days and then swimming to an island just off Hong Kong! The people you meet travelling...

As this is quite a touristic town we had no problem finding ourselves a nice italian place, and after a bottle of wine, a bar serving cocktails with live music.

Next morning with heads slightly hurting we got up to catch the bus to La Paz.

Half way through the journey we had to disembark and watch our bus (with all our luggage) float off over the lake.

Luckily there were boats to take us as well and we were quickly reunited with the bus and carried on the journey. Finally arrived in La Paz around lunch time and spent the rest of the time searching for banks and money changers.

Isla Del Sol

2007-06-11T20:52:00.000Z

So, we caught the boat after lunch to Isla Del Sol. Uneventful boat trip, nothing exciting to report. Once on the island we found a local guide

who took us on a hour long hike over some mountains to the ruins on the south of the island.

These seem to be run by some local women who collected the usual gringo tax to view the buildings.

Lots of crazy little kids around, all of whom assume that you have chocolate in you backpack.

You have to keep feeding them though, otherwise they get quite grumpy.

Finally, the boat turned up to take those people who were returning to Copacabana off the island.

Luckily we´re staying the night and after a long hike back to the town we settled into our hostel to catch the sunset on the mountains near La Paz.

The next day was a bright and early start, we hiked to the northen end of the island to take a look at some more ruins. On the way we bumped into a particularly unfriendly Llama - this one took great exception to me and decided to spit in my face...

Our route took us along most of the peaks of the island stopping off at the odd ruin here and there.

And another obligatory gringo tax - quite fortunate that we actually found this place as we had lost the train slightly and were going cross country.

After a long walk - about 3 hours or so

we came to the sight of the ruins. This rock apparently looks like a puma from the right angle - one can´t help thinking that perhaps the ancients were chewing one too many coca leaves.

Caught sight of a few eagles (?) near the ruins and managed to capture a couple of shots:

Then it was a quick walk to one of the southern villages, only to find that we´d missed the boat - we´d been told that it left at a variety of times, unfortunately it left at a completely different time.

Luckily we were able to get passage with a local guy on his boat and caught up with the boat back to Copacabana and made it safely back to the mainland.

Bolivia - Copacabana

2007-06-11T20:22:00.000Z

Crossed into Boliva. Slightly crazy border crossing, but nothing too serious, lots of stamps to get and different buildings to go to.

Here´s a handy map of Copacabana if you ever go there.

We´re only staying for a spot of lunch and quick game of pool (nice setting, shame about the pool table´s quality).

Bolivia

2007-06-09T20:57:00.000Z

Crossed into Bolivia a few days ago to the town of Copacabana and then stayed on the Bolivian island Isla Del Sol (Island of the Sun). Now in La Paz - the highest capital city in the world (though strickly speaking it´s not the capital city, that´s somewhere else...).

Will post some pictures in a couple of days time. Off early tomorrow to visit some ruins.

Lake Titicaca - Uros, Amantaní and Taquile

2007-06-06T22:18:00.000Z

So, I've left Cusco (I'll be coming back in September to do the Inca trail - more on travel plans later...) and I'm now in Puno on the Peru side of Lake Titicaca. Just got back from a tour of some Islands starting off on the floating islands of Uros.

Quite and early start, 7 am we set off for the port to find a boat to take us out to the islands.

After a bit of negotiation we got passage on a boat to take us to Uros and then onto another island for the night then back to Puno.

Quite a nice leisurely journey through some reed beds

And we found ourselves on one of the floating island of Uros.

These float in about 15-20 meters of water which was kindly demonstrated by one of the locals who dropped a weight on the end of rope through a hole in ground.

After a quick demonstration on how the islands are constructed we caught a reed boat to another floating island.

Here you can stay the night in some rather fancy huts. They have a bar and restaurant, what more could you ask for?

However, we have to head onto to Amantaní where we are going to stay with a local family. So, after another 3 hours one the boat (which allowed us all to catch up on some sleep and to get immensely bored) we arrived at Amantaní to be met by a bunch of local ladies representing the families of the island who will be putting us up.

We followed our lady for about 15 minutes getting completely lost.

Before reaching our little homestead.

Our house is set just up from the sea and has it's own set of fields and a cow!

After a nice lunch our lady took us on a very long walk to some ruins at the top of the island. The road was pretty good and had all sorts of pictures of local life embedded in it.

After quite a hard walk (we are 3,812 m (12,507 feet) above see level!). We reached the top of the hill and took in the views.

The island has the obligatory football field:

And we were in time for a very nice sunset.

A quick walk down in what was now becoming the dark of night (how our lady finds her way around I have no idea) we were presented with dinner and some costumes to wear for the nights festivities.

I'm not sure how much fun the locals are really having - they do this pretty much every night, so I guess it gets a bit dull. But after a while they warmed up a bit and the dancing got a bit crazy.

I think the band were happy to call it a night.

The following day we were up bright and early again to take the boat to Taquile to climb 450 steps for some.... you guessed it, ruins!

Very keen on arches here.

And they seem to make use of most things that would normally get thrown away:

After a nice lunch of kingfish, it was time to head back to the boat. Not sure how much use this signpost it.

Down to the boat, through some more arches.

And back to Puno past the floating islands. Today seems to be town meeting day, anyone who's anyone is out on his boat.

Tomorrow we'll be heading over to Bolivia to Copacabana for more of the islands on the lake.

Moray Inca Ruins and Salt Factory

2007-06-03T23:05:00.000Z

Took a day trip out of Cusco today with a group of friends to visit some Inca ruins.

First stop was some terraced ruins that were apparently used by the Incas to experiment on crop growth. Each terrace has a different microclime so the Incas were able to test crops to see which ones could be grown in the various regions of there territory. Pretty damned clever those Incans...

After lunch (which seemed to attract an equal number of stray dogs and children) in a local village we took an hour walk down to Riobamba along a dirt track. Fantastic views to be had down into the valleys.

And some more ruins off in the distance.

The salt factory was constructed by the Incans after they noticed that the stream running through this vlley was exremely rich in salt - in fact you can see salt crystals on the edge of the stream. They build these terraces to evaporate off the water and they are still in use today. You may be able to find this salt exported under the brand name of Peruvian Pink Salt.

Here's some dried out salt.

And here's a chap scraping it up. Apparently there's 200+ people working here. The water is distributed to each terrace and contained by a network of channels which are blocked and unblocked to regulate the flow.

A pretty amazing day really. Lovely countryside.

Off to Lake Titikaka tomorrow.

Second day in the jungle

2007-05-31T17:39:00.000Z

Today we did a hike into the jungle/rain forest to see some waterfalls and wildflife.

First step was to cross the river, slightly unstable boat, but we made it over ok.

Lots and lots of ants... didn´t see much else, but heard some monkeys.

Then we rafted down the river back to where we started. All in all a pretty full on day.

Got the bus back at about 9ish, thank God it was dark, don´t think I could have taken another terrifying journey.

Back in Cusco now, it´s pretty chilly.

In the jungle

2007-05-31T17:16:00.001Z

So, who would have thought that the jungle would be cold! Apparently it´s only cold for maybe 3 or 4 days of the year...

First day in the jungle and we head off to a locla hacienda to go horse trekking,

Before getting onto the horses we took some time to explore the farm and the wildlife, all of which is remarkably tame:

The monkey took some coaxing before he´d climb on me, apparently people with hair are much nicer to cuddle.

Here´s a field of pineapple plants:

Along with an abandoned plane - it wasn´t clear if the plane had crashed here or if it had just been left... You have to wonder what it would have been used for, we think smuggling.

After looking at a few more animals, including some edible snails we took the horses up to a local village to visit the people and take photos of the kids.

Then it was back to the hacienda for a nice warm fire.

Getting up to the village had been a nice leasurely walk, coming back we acutally got up to a gallop! I have ot say, despite the complete lack of control and the high likeliehood of falling off, the gallop is a lot more comfortable than anything else the horse does. It´s also pretty exciting, might have to take up horse riding when I get back...

Welcome to the Jungle

2007-05-31T17:01:00.000Z

With Guns and Roses playing in our heads we went into the Jungle on Monday morning. After what can only be described as a perilous bus journey over some quite rough mountains and down some pretty steep roads we stopped off at a small local village for lunch and a browse through the markets - potatoes seem to feature a great deal.

Then it was back on the road for some an even more frightening bus journey we finally reached our destination, a small town in the cultural region of Manu national park. Luckily they´d built a nice new bridge so we didn´t have to cross this one!

I guess not much new stuff makes it out here, lots of pretty old trucks lying around.

Lovely views of the mountains that we´d just come over:

And here´s our intrepid group:

Lots of fresh produce to buy. Pineapples going for just 10 centimes - that´s about 6 pence!

Football in Cusco

2007-05-31T16:57:00.000Z

This Sunday just gone a few of us went to watch the local football team. Getting tickets was an interesting experience:

And the appalling football was more than made up for by the fans.

Cusco

2007-05-24T20:43:00.001Z

Dreadful bus journey. For some reason they started playing pan pipe music at 7am. Good views out of the window though.

Cusco is 3380m above sea level! It´s going to take a bit of time to get acclimatised.

Mexico revisited

2007-05-23T14:59:00.000Z

Met up with Amy from the Mexico trip last night who´s down here visiting family. Going to have to watch those Pisco Sours in the future, they are deadly strong! But my Spanish definitely seemed to improve...

This afternoon jumping on the bus to Cuzco to meet Jeremy, another Mexico amigo.

Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!

2007-05-22T21:47:00.000Z

Went out exploring the town today. First stop Plaza San Martin.

Then onto Plaza Armas, was hoping to catch the changing of the guard. The guide book says 12pm sharp, the hostel says 11:45am, the local policeman says; "It's running late, maybe 12:30". In Latin America, nothing is on time...

Usual obligatory big church - there's a fair few of them here.

But this one was actually quite interesting, big crypts. Sadly no photographs allowed so you'll have to imagine the 4 meter deep containers of thigh bones and skulls.... I think that I have definitely played too many computer games where skeletons suddenly come to life to really enjoy this kind of place.

Photos from Isobella island

2007-05-21T22:24:00.000Z

Text to come...

San Cristobal

2007-05-21T22:15:00.000Z

After a day on Santa Cruz I took the ferry over to San Cristobal to catch up with a friend I met in Quito.

Not sure why, but the incredible hulk goes fishing here.

A long walk into the wilderness we find a slightly more serious statues of the man himself, Charlse Darwin!

And over dinner we´re serenating by the sounds of sealions...

Ended up spending almost a week on San Cristobal. It´s quite nice at the moment as the airport is closed to big planes. The only people here were volunteers, locals and a few people from yachts. All good things come to an end though and it was time to jump on a plane and fly to Isobella.

Photos from Galapagos (Santa Cruz)

2007-05-21T22:05:00.000Z

Here´s the photos from after I got back from the boat trip and spent a day or so back on Santa Cruz.

There´s a very nice beach here, but it is a long 45 minute - 1 hour walk!

Definitely worth it, if you get out here early enough then you have the place pretty much to yourself.

And after a walk along the mile of beach and after bypassing the guards

you come to a beautiful lagoon where you can snorkel and rent kayaks.

Arrvied in Lima

2007-05-21T21:59:00.000Z

Just finished my 26 hour bus journey. Only broke down once!

So far Peru has been a misty desert type place:

Back in Quito again

2007-05-19T14:48:00.001Z

Picked up some horrible stomach bug in the last couple of days, quite unpleasant.

Off to Guayaquil this afternoon and will head to Lima, Peru in the next couple of days (probably tomorrow if I get my act together). Still have lots of photos from the Galapagos to post.

Back on Santa Cruz

2007-05-17T02:06:00.000Z

Fly back to Quito on Friday and then will head into Peru to Cuzco and probably onto Bolivia. Will come back to Peru later on in the trip...

Have lots of photos to post, but will wait until I have a decent internet connection.

Off to Isabella

2007-05-10T21:15:00.000Z

Fly to the island of Isabella tomorrow! Feeling a bit toasted at the moment, have caught a bit too much sun the past couple of days.

Baños puma

2007-05-09T21:16:00.000Z

Here´s the photo of the puma being captured in Baños when I was there.

San Cristobal - The Galapagos Islands

2007-05-09T16:46:00.000Z

It´s pretty quiet here. The airport on the island is closed so there are very few tourists cluttering the place up.

Lots and lots of sealions here. Went for a run this morning (a very short run I have to admit) and then had a swim with the sealions. Someone smells of fish. And I think it might be me, time for a shower...

Photos from the boat trip

2007-05-07T14:57:00.000Z

Not too many as the internet is pretty slow here!

First day of the boat trip was actually a tour of the island that I´m currently on. Main highpoint was the giant tortoses at the Darwin center.

Once on the boat we went to a variety of islands and saw sealions (lots), some penguins, some blue footed boobies (I have a video of the boobie mating dance), some kind of red balloon bird and various other bits of wildlife.

Today I´m planning to head to another island to catch up with a friend - or I might just end up on the beach again. It´s a hard life...

Back from the sea!

2007-05-06T16:28:00.000Z

Saw los of wildlife. Photos to follow...

Off on a boat for the next 4 days

2007-05-03T16:25:00.000Z

I´m off on a boat cruise for the next 4 days! Should get lots of nice pictures.

Galapagos!

2007-05-02T21:17:00.000Z

Have reached Galapagos.

Currently I´m on the island of Santa Cruz and already I´ve seen some wildlife!

Cuenca

2007-04-30T20:41:00.000Z

What can I say about Cuenca... It has a river running through it.

And lots of churches. Quite a nice town, pretty relaxed. You could probably stay here for a while and feel quite comfortable, but I´m off tomorrow!

The Devil´s Nostril

2007-04-30T14:49:00.000Z

Oops, just realized that I uploaded some of these photos without rotating them. Oh well, connection here is a bit slow so we´ll have to live with it for a while.

Our trip down the devil´s nostril ended up quite difficult. All the tickets from Riobamba has sold out so we had to catch a bus to Alausu (sp?) and then hang around until around 1ish to actually get the train.

Alausu is a pleasant place, bit quiet and a bit weird:

The train turned out to be a bus like contraption on tracks. But the views were spectacular.

Halfway through the trip they let us all sit on the roof (apparently this isn´t really allowed anymore as a tourist was decapititated a few months back!).

Riobamba

2007-04-29T00:10:00.000Z

Left Baños and on our way to Cuenca. From there I´ll fly back to Quito and then to the Galapagos!

Here we´re hoping to take a train ride down the "devil´s nostril".

Volcano erruption!

2007-04-27T00:05:00.003Z

Puma!

2007-04-27T00:05:00.001Z

The town was just invaded by a wild Puma!

Hopefully he´s now off to the local zoo, but it´s been an entertaining morning for everyone.

Quad Biking!

2007-04-27T00:05:00.000Z

Went quad biking yesterday. Absolutely fantastic! I´ll add some photos here and a bit more prose later.

Got pretty far up the mountain, no views of the volcano as it was a little cloudy, but good views of the town.

There´s been a few recent erruptions and we came accross a pretty wild mud flow. The noise was incredible.

Still in Baños

2007-04-23T16:48:00.001Z

Wend rafting yesterday. I have to say, it was a lot easier than last time when there was only two of us in the boat paddling. This time there were seven people and we shot down the river in half the time it normally takes.

The sun has also finally come out! We´re still quite high up in the mountains so it´s not crazy hot. But it is nice to finally get back into the shorts!

Baños

2007-04-23T16:48:00.000Z

Adios Quito!

Escaped from Quito and I´m now in a place called Baños. On the way here, we passed a volcano that started errupting. Very exciting!

Here there are hot springs and baths (hence the name...).

Flights to the Galapagos booked. It´s all coming together.

Around Quito old town.

2007-04-22T15:12:00.000Z

Went exploring around Quito old town the other day. They seem to have quite a surplus of churches.

And here´s the residence of El Presidente:

Hopefully a few of us will be heading to a place called Baños this afternoon. This morning I´m trying to book my flight to the Galapagos islands, but it´s a Sunday, so I´m not sure how much success I´m going to have...

Ecuador!

2007-04-20T15:26:00.000Z

Flew in last night to Quito, Ecuador. It´s pretty high up so we were still flying through the clouds when we came in to land. Little bit surreal.

Haven´t quite found my feet yet. Think it´s going to take a few days to get into the swing of things.

Washington DC

2007-04-12T12:33:00.000Z

London was pretty hectic. Wedding anniversaries, catching up with people and stag weekends. I need a holiday after all the excitement.

Now in Washington DC for a few days. Will be heading back down South on the 18th to carry on the adventure.

Last days of Mexico

2007-03-30T17:04:00.000Z

Spent the last couple of days in Mexico on the beach relaxing. Also went snorkellin g in a Cenote. Truly a weird experience.

Last night in Mexico was spent in a rather nice hotel. Now in New York. It's a bit cold here!

Cancun

2007-03-29T01:21:00.000Z

In Cancun for the night - a very short night! Have to get up a 3:30 tomorrow to get to the airport.

Not much sign of the spring breakers here. I´m a bit dissapointed, no girls going wild, no-one throwing up in the corridors. It´s all a bit tame.

Next stop New York!

Back in Tulum again

2007-03-24T19:18:00.000Z

Spent last night on the beach testing out my new hammock.

Not a bad nights sleep, and waking up on the beach was pretty cool!

Chitzin Itza and Valladolid

2007-03-22T15:56:00.000Z

Came to Valladolid via the ruins of Chitzin Itza. This week was the equinox (20/21st March) so there were quite a few people communing with the cosmic powers at the ruins.

Yesterday we went swimming in a cenote close to the town which was spectacular. Sadly no photos from that as the camera (which has been making strange noises for the past week) completely refused to take any photos. I´ve managed to coax it into action again but it´s definitely time for a new one.

Today the plan is to head back to Tulum for some beach time. Only a few days before it´s time for the crazy April of flying.

Celestun

2007-03-20T15:47:00.000Z

Complete change of plan. A bunch of us decided to head to Celestun to get some seafood and visit the pink flamingos.

Quite a late start to the day, we caught the 10am bus and arrived in Celeston in time to meet up for lunch with the advance party who had gone the previous day.

This was possibly the best seafood I have had all trip!

After lunch we jumped in a boat to have a look at the flamingos that live in the lagoon. The lonely planet tells us that this time of year there are thousands of them. Apparently they have the season completely the wrong way round so at the moment there are only a few hundred of them - still pretty impressive!

Sadly my camera cannot really do justice to it as I've only got a digital zoom. But I think I got some fairly nice pictures.

After the flamigos we went through some mangrove tunnels and eventually ended up at a swimming hole. Here we met a few locals who were kind enough to feed us crab ceviche and various drinks.

Came back from the trip and celebrated french Chris's birthday on the beach with a beer and cake!

Then we wathced the sun go down before heading back to Merida for some well deserved rest.

Today we're off to Chichin Itza. It's equinox today/tomorrow so there should be quite a few people there.

Merida - Chili cook off

2007-03-18T23:49:00.000Z

Today we found the local ex-pat Americans of the city having a chili cook off. The food wasn´t particularly hot, but it didn´t taste too bad.

After that we went for an afternoon stroll around the town. There are pigeons here - I think this is the first time I have seen pigeons on my trip, weird.

Lots of nice architectural bits and pieces to see here.

Tomorrow I´m off to Campeche, maybe via Celeston, not sure yet, will see where the Gods of the busses decide to take me.

Uxmal - more ruins!

2007-03-18T23:35:00.000Z

According to our guide the Mayans lived in Uxmal 3 times, each time they ran out of water here they would move onto another city and work their way around 5 different cities. It took them about a generation of people to do this so by the time they came back to Uxmal all the buildings were out of date. So they rebuilt them all. This gives the place the name Uxmal which might mean "built three times" in Mayan.

We started our tour at the back of the main temple and then moved around to the front to see some nice carvings.

Much of the place has been reconstructed from rubble - though I have my suspicions that this might be some ancient Mayan code.

Some fine examples of the rain god here - there weren´t any natural sources of water around so they had to rely on capturing rain water and storing it in huge cisterns.

There is a very nice square in the ruins with some good carvings so we wandered around here for a while. No one is really sure what the purpose of this place is, but it might have been used for some kind of public meetings as it has excellent accoustics.

After dinner night was starting to fall and it was time for the sound and light show. It wasn´t anywhere near as cheesy as I was hoping for, but it wasn´t bad.

Merida

2007-03-16T19:26:00.000Z

It´s damned hot here!

Went on a quick tour of the town this morning starting off at the main plaza with a nice view of the Cathedral. Apparently this is the first cathedral in all of Mexico (though not the first to be built, only the first to recieve official recognition=.

Stopped off in a very nice building that is now owned by a bank. Sadly much of the building is closed off, but you can get into the garden. The building was build using stones from the Mayan town that Merida was built on and you can see some of them in the arches still.

Last stop was the main municipal palace which has a number of murials.

This one symbolises the struggle in Mexican life between good (represented by the eagle) and evil (represented by the snake). This image is also on the back of the 10 peso piece and also on the Mexican flag.

Tomorrow I´m going to visit... some more ruins! But this time I´m going for a sound and light show. I´m hoping for some serious cheesiness.

Off to Merida

2007-03-15T16:15:00.000Z

Time to leave the coast and get a bit of culture.