Erin & Regan's South American Adventure

Hola,

The day of our flight finally rolled round so it was off to the airport we go.  Just before leaving we gave some of our food away, to lighten our load.

At the airport we discovered the check in desks, and an enormous queue which didn't seem to be moving very fast.  Nonetheless we joined at the end only to discover just in front of us an english boy (Benjamin Wilson) we met in Platypus hostel, Bogota, Colombia.  Turns out he was heading home having run out of money.  He spent his entire trip in Bogota, not bothering to travel anywhere else... this was not his inital plan of course but he liked Bogota so much... well, there you go.

As we queued we overheard a woman from Brittish Airways telling someone else that there was a mechanical problem with the plane, which was still in Sao Paulo (Brazil) and rooms had been booked for us at a hotel in the event we could not fly today.

Eventually, after several hours queuing we reached the front of the queue, checked our bags and were given vouchers for lunch.  We headed off to lunch and while we waited for service Ben joined us.  Another BA staff member approached our table at lunch and informed us we would need to queue again at 1pm to find out what was going on.

We queued again... this time they made an announcement that we wouldn't fly today and they would be handing out vouchers for a hotel and transport.  This caused a mad rush where everyone ignored the orderly queue they had been in and swamped the ticket desks.

Eventually we made it to the front of the queue again (9 hours queuing so far) and received our vouchers, we were told to collect our bags and head to the transport.  I went to collect our bags only to discover one missing, I asked about it and they took down the details and radioed to another area where it was found and brought to us.  We then headed to the transport and got a private car for just the 3 of us.

Apparently just after we left the queue another airline took over the desks BA was using (because their time slot had expired) and everyone was in a panic until another desk could be obtained.  Some unlucky passengers were queueing for another 5 hours!

We arrived at the hotel and checked in.  As we were doing so a bus load of passengers who had left earlier than us arrived and were quite surprised to see us there.

Our room was grand...

but they suckered me in with a bottle of water which read something like "Our tap water is safe to drink but we would like you to enjoy this bottle of mineral water" only to have a price marked on the bottom of 19 pesos!  Ben fell for this evil trap too.

At 9:30pm they served a buffet dinner which was fabulous.  After that we headed to bed.  Our wake up time was 3:45am the next morning, *sigh*

Back at the airport we queued, again.  After a while they decided to forgo the whole queuing idea and read a list of names, sending us to another airlines check in desks.  We had approximately 45 minutes to check our bags and get on the plane!  Erin and I had tax to claim back from our purchases of suits and so on for work in the UK so I rushed to the counter and explained the hurry and everything was processed nice and quickly.

Finally on a flight we all rejoiced... but it was far too soon for that.  We arrived in Sao Paulo only to be told we had a 3-5 hour wait, but at least they provided lunch vouchers... however Erin cannot eat wheat and all they had was a bakery style deli, which although they had potato chips would not allow us to have those on our vouchers.  Erin found a BA employee and asked if any other food could be found, they said yes and told her to come back in an hour.

We returned in an hour to find.. well nothing, the employee had vanished.  We tried the deli again and eventually someone there realised we were the people for whom a special box had been delivered.  Finally Erin had something to eat.

In the meantime we also did a bit of Duty Free shopping for essentials like perfume and make up, also underwear to replace the stuff we had worn out in 6 months backpacking.

Then it was back into a queue for our boarding passes for the next flight to London.  This process seemed to take an incredibly long time and no reason was given.  It appeared to me that someone or something had stuffed up and lost some boarding passes which then had to be re-issued.  Initially they were processing the queue and searching for the passes but finally someone decided to read the names out loud and that was a little faster.  Unfortunately I was one of the people who pass was missing and a new one had to be issued.  We were some of the last onto the plane.

The flight was excellent, the food was good, and they even had Erin's wheat free meal!  I watched 4 movies and Erin slept a bit but I couldn't, as usual.

Once we arrived we had to wait for a free spot to disembark, then the air bridge was broken and we had to wait for stairs... all this took around 30 minutes.  And I thought we were past all the problems, no such luck.

Finally we made it off the plane and down to the baggage lounge where we collected 2 of our 3 bags... we waited, and waited, worried about Kirsty sitting somewhere and waiting for us, not to mention the parking costs!  Every so often an announcement would be made, apologising for the delay and saying they had found another baggage cart of bags but all to no avail.  Eventually we gave us, filed a missing baggage report (leaving Erin's notebook behind!) and left.  Parking was £10!

Some days later my bag arrived, it was delivered by courier.  Sadly Erin's notebook has not.  So, there ends the disaster that was our flight to the UK.  At least the plane didn't crash I suppose.

And now, the job hunt begins.

Hola,

Back in BA and we had just 3 days (or so we thought, more on that later...) before our flight to London.  Erin was getting itchy feet and so decided we were going sight seeing.

First stop was a great big silver tulip, constructed for some reason which now escapes me.  It would have been cool to see this at night as there were big red lights inside.

Next door was this impressive looking building.

From there we headed to the cemetary.  On the way we spotted this... we suspect the local restaurants do deliveries.

At the cemetary and boy is this place it's own walled city.Inhabitants include, dead people and cats, cats, cats galore.

From the cemetary it was a short walk to the movies where we watched "Mas extrana que la fiction" (Stranger than fiction) which was an excellent film.

Hola,

The next day we headed back to the falls only this time it was the Argentine side.  The entrance fee here also includes transport costs, this time a train which runs the length of the park.

Most people headed straight to the train, however the first leg can be done on foot (it's less than 1km) and so we did.  Those that took the train missed out on some of the wildlife.

From the first train stop it was a modest walk past some small falls to the boats which head into the falls and also across to the small island you can see here.

Erin managed to loose her hat overboard and had to fish it out again, she blames having to wear the "stupid" life vests for her trouble.

On the island most people headed right so we decided to be a little different and head left.  We were rewarded when we stumbled on this guy sunning himself on the path!

From then on I was on the lookout for more lizards but could only manage to spot this little guy.

The island gave us a close up view of these falls.

We headed back on the boat and headed to the next set of falls.

Of course the butterflies were out in force again.

There was another walk along the topside of the falls with some spectacular views.

Then it was on the train to the Devils Throat, at this point were some birds which didn't seem to mind us getting quite close.

The Devils throat itself is a huge circular set of falls which head back down the river to the island (on the left) and the Brazilian side of the falls (on the right).

While waiting for the return train trip I spied a largish green snake meandering through the train station and around.

Hola,

We arrived in Puerto Iguazu only to realise (after having a closer look) that our reservation was for the hostel outside of town, not the one in the middle of town, despite having asked specifically for the one inside town.

We went to the one in town anyway and talked about it, they wouldn't accept the reservation credit of 25 pesos but did have a free room.  We would have to talk to the hostel back in Buenos Aires about a refund or something.  We decided to stay and after a quick lunch in a local restaurant we jumped on the bus to the Brazilian side of the Iguazu Falls.

We went through Argentinean customs getting an exit stamp but didn't have to go through Brazilian customs and get an entry stamp, and we were really looking forward to one of those too!  The bus dropped us on the main road and we had to catch a 2nd bus to get to the falls themselves.

The park entrance included unlimited transport in the form of a bus we could catch at any point on the park road.  We took this bus to the main 1.2km walking track along the falls. 

At the start of the walk we saw signs warning us of these little guys, apparently they can become violent when food is involved.

At the start of the walk you can literally look across the border to the Argentine side.  You can also see all the jet boats taking people as close to the falls as they dare.

There were simply millions of butterflies everywhere!

Not to mention lizards.

Plus waterfalls, waterfalls and more waterfalls. 

You get pretty close to the falls on this side, and we had heard you got even closer on the Argentine so we couldn't wait.  After the walk we took the bus back to the park entrance and again caught 2 busses to return to Puerto Iguazu.  We again passed through only Argentinean customs, not Brazilian.

Hola,

We arrived in Buenos Aires and caught a taxi to our hostel in the "San Telmo" area of Buenos Aires. We had to wait a little bit for the previous couple to vacate our room but finally dumped our gear and had showers and so on. Our room was nice, big enough with a large window onto the street. The only problem, as we found out later that night, was that people would stay up late in the common/dining area, playing loud music, right outside our door!

That afternoon we walked around San Telmo looking at the various stalls in the famous Sunday markets. Erin was very tempted by these leather boxes, but settled for a skirt instead. 

We found interesting empanadas.

We met Zorro.

A dressed up dog.

And some interesting storefronts.

The next day we started shopping for clothes (both for work and casual) in the UK. We took the subway to a big mall and spent all day and a bunch of money on suits and socks and so on. We also decided to see a movie "Musica y Letra" the latest Hugh Grant plays the same old soppy character movie.

The next morning we checked out, putting the majority of our things in storage at the hostel.  We then made reservations at the hostel in Iguazu, bought bus tickets and went out again, this time to get haircuts.

That evening it was off to Iguazu.

Hola,

From Iruya we caught a series of busses including one overnight bus to Cordoba. After an hour of searching we then found a hostel.

This one wasn't too bad, all the double rooms were over the street in a seperate building with seperate facilities. This meant that we, and the other couples were spared the smoking, drinking, singles and their late nights of partying (man we're getting old).

We spent a couple of nights here, going to the movies, catching up on email, the blog and working on our CV's in preparation for the UK. Then, we booked our next hostel and bought bus tickets and off we went to Buenos Aires.

Hola,

From Cafeyate we headed north, spent a night in Salta (which was singularly unimpressive) then headed further north to Humahuaca (also unimpressive and expensive to boot) where we stayed another night.  Finally, the next day we reached our intended destination of Iruya, a town of around 1400 people or so.

We were met at the bus station / large open part of the town by a woman with a hostel (sound familiar) we decided what the heck. It turned out to be an excellent place to stay, the people were nice, the bed comfy, it was quiet and we basically had the run of the place.  Not to mention the fact that the price was cheaper for both of us, with a private room than for one of us in the dorms in Humahuaca.

That afternoon we decided to walk to San Isidro which is an even smaller town of only 75 people.  The walk begins by skirting the side of the hill next to Iruya.

Then it follows the river down the valley, at this point we were a little lost.  We didn´t want to cross the river a million times and we couldn´t see any other trail.  It was just now that a local man, who lived in San Isidro started climbing a nearly invisible trail up the side of the valley, we decided to follow his lead.  The trail skipped past the river and dropped back down to the valley floor.

After several of these trails we reached a part where the valley narrows and the river continues, here there was a sign indicating the path up to San Isidro.  We climbed up a bit then looked back along the river.

There isn´t anything to do in San Isidro except climb to the graveyard and look back down on the town, so that´s what we did.

Then we headed back.  It´s gotta be boring for the dogs here, at least during the day, in the hot sun.  Nothing better to do than sleep I guess.

I decided to snap a few shots of the trail back as it was kinda impressive.

We passed a donkey, molting or something.  My guess is they do this at a certain age because the younger ones were much furrier than the older ones.

The river, and Erin´s smiling face.  She liked this walk much better than in Tafí once the old guy showed us where to go of course.

The next morning we had just enough time to do a short walk, before our bus left.  We climbed to the cross and then a bit higher to get a good view of the town and valleys.

Our hostel, and our pink travel towels.

Some more shots of the town.

And the graveyard.

While on the hill an eagle of some sort shot over my head, at first I wondered if it was going to try and eat me then I decided to take a photo.

Erin trying to decide if she can climb any further.

The sheer sides of the valley.

The highest point.

Erin decided to try climbing round the ridge, in her flip-flops, what a nutter!

Waiting for our bus.

Erin trying to get a reflection in my glasses.

The road from Iruya, switchbacks as far as the eye can see.

This cool shot is the result of the camera behind my sunglasses, behind the window of the bus shooting the sun behind the clouds, gnarly.

Hola,

After Quilmes we decided to do a walk.  Making this a very long day.

This walk is just what we had wanted to do in Tafí del Valle, but couldn´t find.  The woman at the hostel mentioned a guide was possible but said we could do it "solo" so that´s what we did. 

Without a guide you have to walk 6km to the start of the trek, and then 6km back again.  That part was a bit of a bore but otherwise it was an amazing walk/climb.

The walk begins at the end of a local road, near a school.  From here you start to follow the river up a valley/ravine, crossing several times and passing a few small waterfalls and at least two maybe three decent sized ones.

At about halfway along we met two other walkers who had also left it as late as we did (most people were walking back out, in the opposite direction about now).  They were sitting rather dejectedly on a rock due to the other walkers telling them it was too late to go.  We scoffed at this and convinced them to join us.

It was half a walk and half a climb over big rocks, trees and the river itself.  Luckily no-one fell in.  It was, in fact, great fun.  This has prompted Erin to say that we need to take up rock climbing, it seems we´d both enjoy it.  My mother is going to love that!

Finally we reached the largest waterfall where our friends took a photo of us.

Back at the base of the trek the sunset looked grand.

We started on our 6km return trip along the dusty road.

Hola,

For our 2nd day in Cafayate we decided to get up rediculously early and catch a bus (back the way we came) to Quilmes where there are ruins of an indigenous society.  These guys actually resisted the Inca, and the Spanish until finally moving to Buenos Aires to make beer.  Or so the official story goes...

The bus was an hour late leaving, which basically cut an hour off our time in the ruins (we had to catch a certain bus back in the afternoon) so we were a little pissed about that, but, it made good time and we were soon walking the last 5km to the ruins.  Despite trying to hitch a ride several cars just drove on past, which was ok because I spent most of the walk trying to get a decent photo of the little hampster like critters here.

We eventually arrived at the ruins and Erin needed a little break ;o)

Inside the museum we found a map which included walking times which all seemed quite long, more time than we had.  So, we hurried (due to our lack of time) up the hill and as it turned out the walk which was to take 2 and a half hours took us 30 minutes.  From the top you could see the restored city walls.

And the non-restored area, you´d barely know it was there.  Makes you wonder how much is restoration and how much is just plain guessing.

The walls are just plain cool though.

Here I am being artsy again.

Molineros, places for grinding stuff.

Some more wildlife, a bird, a lizard and this crazy beetle that runs around (seemingly randomly) with it´s front legs in the air like it´s hair is on fire or something.

Then, the 5km back to the main road.  This time a nice guy (and his wife) gave us a lift as far as the main road, on the back of their ute.  They were heading in the wrong direction for us otherwise they might have taken us further.

As we were waiting for the bus back a local stopped to chat.  Turns out he is descended from the Quilmes people and that not all of them went to make beer.  In fact there is some dispute over this with the government concerning the traditional lands and whether they still belong to the Quilmes people or not.

Us, back in Cafeyate sampling the Quilmes beer.  Had to be done.  Gave Erin a sore stomach, not doing that again!

Hola,

When we arrived in Cafeyate we were literally swamped by people pimpìng their hostel to us.  It appears we arrived at a time where there were more hostels than tourists, yay for us.  We eventually chose El Balcon (The Balcony) and yes, it had one, as well as a rooftop bar/party area and really good tourist information.

They also did tours and we decided to do the recommended tour of Quebrada de Las Conchas (literally "broken of the shells") which is an area of land which was once (millions of years ago) under the sea and is now interesting shapes, colours and contains fossils.

There were several stops along the way (we´ve forgotten the names of them but Erin wrote them down so we might update this later), the first included a brief description of the tour (like mine above) and a short walk to the highest point, which wasn´t very high.

A self-photo from the top, and the view back to the van/bus.

This little cactus looked kinda cute, I think it will make a cool wallpaper for my computer once we hit the UK.

The second, a longer walk which involved crossing a muddy river.  At which the guide tried to entice the girls into having mud packs on their faces, not many accepted.

The third, optional walking to the rocks you can see on the right hand side of the panorama.  Other than that there was a great big tower like rock and a man selling ash trays and mortar & pestle´s made from alabaster.  Erin bought one, of course, more rocks to carry around!

The fourth, this time we get a history lesson on the Inca.  The spanish once ransomed the life of the Inca (the king of the Inca people) for a huge amount of gold.  The Inca were transporting the gold over a nearby hill when they heard the Spanish had killed the Inca, so they hid the gold on the hill, somewhere, no-one knows exactly where.

The fifth, here we have "Loro´s" (Lorakeets?) which inhabit the rock face and nearby river and trees.

The sixth, the amphitheatre, a short walk into the hillside which opens into a natural space where sound echoes really well.  There was a mad, his son, their dog and their friend playing music as we arrived.  Our guide even got on the guitar and proved that he had a very good voice.

I built myself a pile of stones.  The locals build these and believe they house spirits, or simething like that.

The seventh, the Garganta del Diablo (Throat of the Devil).  Another path into the hillside which ends in a wall at approximately 45 degrees.  Of course we had to climb it.

The sunset as we left for home.

Hola,

From Mendoza we headed north again, this time to a small place called Tafí del Valle.  It´s south of Salta, north of Tucuman, on a windy road into the hills.

We came here hoping to find some good walking but ended up a bit dissappointed, at one point Erin even said she wanted to go home.  It all started when we asked the woman at the hostel about where we could go, she told us of several walks but all the good ones "required" a guide, so, in the end we decided to combine two short, guide-free walks into one longer day walk.

The walk started just up the hill from our hostel and the first stop was a nearby cross, on the cumbre (crest) of the hill.

Up here we decided a panorama would look cool.

As we sat down for some water and to figure out where we were supposed to go next I startled a very small lizard.  That´s the toe of my boot you can see there!

The walk supposedly (remember we got directions in Spanish) didn´t crest all the hills along the ridgeline, but, went around the sides of them.  However, we couldn´t see a path so we just decided to crest them all, for a better view.  Aside from the first climb the whole walk looked to be over this boring farmland.  Erin was not impressed.

We eventually came to a ravine (is that what you call this?) which ran down towards the river, and past a graveyard.  Our directions mentioned a graveyard but said we were to continue on.  As the way forward was more boring farmland we decided to head down the valley to the river.

The valley contained all these big piles of white stuff, no idea what it was.

It was here we finally got a shot of the giant grasshoppers, that´s Erin´s walking pole you can see in the background.  They are really bad fliers and their wings are a bright blue.

At the bottom of the valley, just before the river we arrived at the graveyard.  It was well decorated, another panorama was called for.

Back at the hostel for lunch and showers and to spend the afternoon reading and generally laying about.  The hostel had a couple of dogs, one mongrel of some sort and one chiahuahua crossed with something, maybe a doberman.

The next morning as we were leaving for Cafeyate we got this shot of the clouds, they´re really low, lower than the hills.  Cool.

Hola,

I finally found a nice small program for stitching my panaorama photos together and this is the first result.

Hola,

We decided to be lazy and booked a tour of Puente del Inca and various other destinations.  The non-lazy option was to take a bus there and then a different (later) bus back but it required we figure out when the buses ran and so on, plus the bus wouldn´t stop along the way.

The tour left at 8am (supposed to be 7:30 but hey this is South America) and our first stop was a man made lake with a dam at the far (right hand) end.  The lake water is a nice green but the river water running into it is a murky brown, strange.

There were several other stops along the way including a morning tea stop at a restaurant owned by some friends of our guide (of course). 

We also saw many interesting rock formations along the road none of which were really all that impressive (thus no photos).

We stopped at a popular ski location where on some days (this being the off season) the ski lifts are operating and you can ride to the top for a nice view.  Today was not our lucky day.

We stopped 40km from the base of Aconcagua, the highest peak in South America and the 17th highest peak in the world (the other 16 being in the Himalayas of course).  Erin plans to climb this beast at some stage.  I won`t be going!  Fortunately there wasn`t enough time to acclimatise on this trip, oh well.

The farthest point we reached on this trip was just over the western border with Chile where Erin bought some more rocks in the shape of bowls for making Pastel de Choclo.  Luckily for me she is carrying all her "rocks" in her day bag ;o)

On the way back we stopped for lunch at Puente del Inca (the star of the trip) a bridge formed initially by ice and the river water (which was warm due to the hot springs) carving the channel below.  Then over time the sulphurous minerals from the hot springs leeched into it creating a solid yellow bridge.

The rest of the ride back was just that, our guide who had been quite exhuberant on the way out was now dozing in the front of the bus, as were the rest of us.  We arrived back in Mendoza at around 7pm.

Hola,

We took an overnight bus from Bariloche to Mendoza, Regan having previously bought the tickets while I was flouncing round the countryside (Regan´s words). 

We went with the more expensive seats in the hope that Regan could sleep.  They were black leather and wider than normal.  This was a service included trip so we got dinner..... at about 11pm!  Mashed spuds and breaded chicken.  Great.

We arrived in Mendoza bright eyed and bushy tailed.  Okay, that´s a lie.  For once, Regan managed to sleep (a bit) while I tossed and turned, if you can say that about sleeping in what is essentially a reclining chair.

It was a good thing we had booked our accommodation as we heard that pretty much all the other hostels were full.  We were in a 4 bed dorm with Ash (Aussie we met in Bariloche) and Vivian (a lovely Canadian girl).

Mendoza is quite a hot place.  The streets are all tree-lined though which makes walking the 5000 blocks to the park a bit more pleasant.  The park is half the size of the city - absolutely massive!

These photos are of a much smaller plaza near our hostel. 

A tiled mosaic depicting something or other.....

The plaza itself was tiled too.

The cool water looked inviting.  The fountain on the right hand side must have had performance anxiety issues.

Hola,

The day after the seven lakes, two tyre escapade all of us, bar Regan, were feeling antsy and couldn´t sit round doing nothing (Regan could) so we decided to go and do a walk.

We ended up walking up Cerro Llao-Llao and then to Valle Tracul (a "beach" on one of the lakes).

It wasn´t a hard or long walk - just what we needed.

As you can see from the photos below it was picturesque.

Hola,

One of the things we had planned to do here was rent a car and drive the "Siete Lagos" (7 lakes).  We had heard it was best to get a group of four people together in order to split the costs.  We had mentioned it at Refugio Frey and Ewan and Katrin had both expressed interest.  We also had a note up in La Bolsa which I wrote when I booked the room before the trek.

Upon our return from the trek we found two names on the note, but Ewan and Katrin were both still keen to go with us.  Luckily the guys on the note had found three others and were going to go as a group of five.  So, no worries there.

We visited a few car rental places and found the prices all pretty similar.  We took the option that allowed all four of us to be registered as drivers for free (one place wanted to charge) and we confirmed there was a spare tire and tools to change it, you never know what can happen...

We picked the car up the next morning, after buying snacks for lunch (unsurprisingly much the same as lunch on the trek) and headed on our way.  Katrin was the first driver due to being the only person used to driving on the right hand side of the road.

The road was at first sealed, then there were road works, then gravel but nothing too bad so far.  Certainly nothing to be worried about.  Ewan took over driving at the road works as Katrin hadn´t had much experience on it.  We arrived at the first lake which was unimpressive.

We had been told by an Israeli we met at Refugio Frey that we shouldn´t miss one lake which was a short drive off the main road.  When we arrived we found a camping ground sort of place and pulled up for lunch only to discover they wanted us to pay for the priviledge.  I asked "why" ("Por Que") he replied "what do you meant why" ("Como Por Que").  Needless to say we drive the 20 meters or so down the road to a wide patch and pulled up close to the shoulder instead.

I just happened to notice something odd floating in the waves lapping at the shore and pulled it out with a stick.  It turned out to be a yaby (as Ewan reminded us, I had forgotten the name) and it was still alive and oddly not really keen to get back into the lake.

We visited a bunch more lakes, none of which rated too highly on the cool-factor.  I mean, a lake is a lake, once you´ve seen one...  Everything was fine until Ewan stopped the car, opened the door, looked at the front right tire and said "Bugger" (or something to that effect) "We´ve got a flat".

We jumped out and Ewan showed his practicl experience changing tires for his 28+ year old mates who hadn´t a clue.  I was happy enough to play tire changing assistant.  In record time we were back on the road, perhaps we should form a pit crew?

Eventually we came to a lake of some note due to it being fed by a waterfall, it was a bit cooler than your average lake.

Erin took over the driving and we took another short trip off the main road to Lago Hermoso (Beautiful Lake) which was only really a little better than average to be honest.

From there we arrived in San Martin a nice town on the shore of... you guessed it, a lake.  It was a cute place with fake wooden huts etc.  There was even a boat or two on the lake though not as many as you´d expect.  It was something that had been puzzling us, in NZ there would have been boats everywhere.

From San Martin it was time to head back to Bariloche by an alternate route through "Valle Hermoso" (Beautiful Valley) along another gravel road.  The countryside here was funky.

It was then that disaster struck for the 2nd time.  As Erin and I were changing places (for me to drive) I heard a strange hissing noise... as I bent to inspect the left rear tire Ewan guessed what was going on and I could hear muffled swearing from inside the car and phrases like "you´ve got to be joking" (you´ll have to imagine the Aussie accent).

As it was a slow leak and we thought we had only 30kms to go to the small town of Confluencia we quickly jumped back in and took off.  After perhaps 5km it was feeling pretty flat so I stopped on a straight stretch to check it and sure enough it was almost flat.  There was no way we were going any further.  At least the scenery was nice.

Lacking a 2nd spare we went over our options.  There was no cell phone coverege, but there was plenty of other tourists behind us so we figured we could get a lift to Confluencia.  There was also a small place a few ks behind us, there were no telephone lines but maybe they had a radio.

In the end Ewan and Katrin hitched a ride to Confluencia with two kind Israeli guys (a father and son, one of which was a photographer who had planned to take a bunch of photos on this stretch of road, sorry guys!) taking along one of the flat tires in case there was a place to get it repaired and also the phone number of the rental agency.

They left behind Erin and I, plus all the food and water.  One of the Israeli guys gave us another half bottle of water to keep us going.  We waited, flagging down each passing car and checking if they had a spare tire the correct size.  No such luck, they were either too large or had the holes in the wrong places.

Four hours later at approximately 11pm Ewan returned in the Automobile Club rescue truck with a new tire.  The guy quickly put the new tire on and then we were off.  It turned out there was a lot of road left, more than we had thought and the road was very windy, add to that the dark and our excessive care in case we got a 3rd flat and it was a very slow trip.

It was now that Ewan informed us that the countryside we weren´t seeing ("Valle Hermoso") was the most spectacular of the entire trip, great, just our luck.  This was the salt in the wounds of an otherwise average day.

We picked Katrin up at the service station in Confluencia where she had waited with the attendant (who also lived there) until she had finally convinced him he could leave her to wait alone.  The road from here was beautifully paved and we made good time eventually arriving back at La Bolsa at 1:30am in the morning.

As Ewan had checked out of his hostal he asked for a room only to discover the computer had him booked into a room since he left for the trek four days earlier and that he had in fact been the reason he missed out on a bed the day before.  We all had a good laugh at this before heading to bed for a well deserved rest.

Hola,

The next morning Erin had a sore leg so we decided to put off our walk till tomorrow.  We basically did nothing all day but wander the town, Erin wrote (a story she has been working on) and I went to "La Bolsa" a hostal we wanted to stay in (due to it having a wicked kitchen).  I made a reservation for the day we would get back from our 3 day trek and watched a football match with an Israeli guy who went crazy when Manchester United (his team) scored in the 90th minute.

The next day we got everything ready then caught the bus to the start of the trail, a ski lodge type area without any snow at this time of year.  The trail was at first a stroll round the base of a hill, alongside a lake and through a forest of scrubby trees some of which looked to be dead for some reason and some obviously burnt.

At one point we decided to stop for lunch, the bees in the area decided to join us much to our frustration.  We were having rice crackers (Erin can find food here!) tomatoes and cheese.

The trail climbed and descended the side of the hill a lot, sometimes we had to scramble over fallen trees or rock slides.  At this point a bridge was needed.

At the 3 hour mark the trail climbed into more dense forest.

Then proceeded to climb quite steeply for 45-60 minutes to Refugio Frey.

The refugio cost 25 pesos (NZ$12.50) each for the night (a bunk with matress) and included the use of the kitchen. We had brought rice, tuna, cheese and veges to fry up.  The local mountaneering club runs the refugio and you could also order meals here, though they were expensive (due to the cost of bringing the food in probably).

Our biggest surprise was the number of people staying here.  The area is full of great rock climbing spots and there were heaps of climbers either staying in the refugio or camping in tents nearby.  We met Ewan (Australia), an Irish couple, and an Argentinian girl travelling with an Israeli guy all with the same plan as us, to head to Jacob tomorrow.  We also met Katrin (Switzerland) who was heading back down to Bariloche tomorrow.

The next morning the weather didn´t look good.  There was fog/cloud around the peaks and it was a little cold.  We were told it was normal and usually cleared and so we decided to set out for the next stop Refugio Jacob (also called Refugio San Martin).

We walked past the lake and up the ridge to another smaller lake.

Then climbed (literally, the trail required us to clamber up steep rocks and round boulders etc) to a second ridge.  Ewan had left just before us and we eventually caught him here, waiting just below the second ridgeline hoping the weather would clear.  He joined us for the rest of the trip right back to Bariloche.  It turned out he was staying in La Bolsa too.

The view from the 2nd ridge was great.  This is the valley we have to walk down to the 3rd ridge.

We slid down the other side (Literally, there was a lot of fine sandlike stuff with larger rocks mixed in. Much like coming down from El Misti in Peru) and then walked down a stream bed (presumably where the snow melt flows) where a rock promptly gave way under me and I fell.  The rock then landed on me.  Luckily nothing more serious than a scrape or two and bruises you couldn´t even see.  Ewan gave me a hand up and I took it a little slower.  Meanwhile Erin with her walking poles was outdistancing the both of us, what a machine!

At the bottom we skirted the valley (it was a bog) to the 3rd ridge, at the base we decided to have lunch (same stuff as day one) without the bees this time, but with a spattering of rain instead.  After lunch it was up, up, up.

At the top we had a great view into the next valley where the refugio is located.

The refugio was run by a woman and her two daughters.  She is not here all year round but only for some months during the year.  The price was the same as the first and there was a kitchen and meals as before.  We had the same dinner and then at around 10pm three Israelis turned up, drenched and covered in mud.  They had come from Frey also but it had taken them twice as long to get here, apparently they had been lost and in the dark hadn´t seen the river crossing so had to wade up to their thighs.  Oh dear.

The next morning the weather was nicer and it was nowhere near as cold as yesterday.  We had a closer look at the lake then headed of for the longest day of the three (25km), but all downhill.

The last 7km is along gravel roads to the main road where we had a cold drink and I tried to get myself run over.  Then, it was back to Bariloche by bus and a nice hot shower.  Katrin had managed to get a room in La Bolsa but Ewan missed out (he forgot to book) so had to go across the road.  We all went to a local Parilla for huge steaks and huge plates of fries, mashed spuds and salad.

Hola,

We arrived in Bariloche quite late at night and proceeded to walk half the town looking for a place to stay, everywhere we found was either full or some exorbitant price.  We eventually found a place which was ok, cheap even for what it was, but it had no kitchen we could use.

The next morning it was up, and into town to check out the hiking club for information about treks and so on.  They had a booklet in Spanish describing the various treks, we grabbed that and then wandered around town a bit.  They have St Bernard rescue dogs in the main plaza for tourists to have their picture taken.  I wonder if they actually rescue people or if they´re just for show.  Perhaps they work the plaza on their days off?  There were puppies too, they were probably only a month or two old but still huge.

That afternoon we headed out for a half day walk to a place called Llao Llao (the double-L is pronounced "sh" here in Argentina).  Our booklet described the walk... unfortunately it wasn´t a very good description and we had to ask for some directions.  Unfortunately they gave us directions to a different walk, which while it was still good was not as good as the one we had planed to take (as Erin would discover when she did it later on).

The walk we ended up doing was a gentle stroll first through some largish trees, then through a long almost tunnel of bamboo like stuff.  It ran around the lake shore to a smaller lake where we stopped for some photos.

There was also a small bridge in the area, see if you can spot Erin.

On the way back we photographed the main lake.  The reflection of the hills on the lake surface is kinda cool.

Then it was back into town for dinner, bed and to plan our 3 day 2 night hike.

Hola,

We were met at the bus stop in Puerto Montt by a woman with a hostal, she seemed nice and our last experience had worked out well, plus the price was good and she had a kitchen we could use (we´ve decided that in these more expensive countries cooking for ourselves is definately worth the effort).

That said, we went to dinner this first night at a restaurant she recommended, just up the road.  It was a little more than we would normally pay but the food was excellent.  It appears that here in Chile if you order steak, fish or whatever thats exactly what you get, with nothing else, no salad, chips, anything.  Instead you have to order the chips, salad or even "a lo pobre" (chips, fried egg, and fried onion) as well.  A kind of build your own plate sort of meal.

That said, you can still order "Lomo a lo pobre" so thats what I did.  Erin had the Salmon, with a side order of papas fritas (french fries).  Both meals were excellent.

After dinner we walked down the shore of the bay and explored the town then headed back for a hot drink and bed.

The next morning it was off to Chiloé an island just off the coast.  To get there you hop in a bus which rides on a ferry (like in Bolivia, but more modern).

In Castro, the main city on Chiloé we had a hostal in mind, we just had to find it.  The guide book had no map for this place, it being quite small.  Luckily the guy who recommended the hostal, also drew us a map and so after a couple of questions we were on our way there.  On the way we were intercepted by a guy, with a hostal, which was on the way to the one we were heading to.  We decided to check it out and after a bit of bargaining it seemed a good deal and so we stayed.

That night we did a bit of exploring along the sea shore and town.

We also had to visit the Cathedral which is famous for being built entirely of wood (as are all the churches in this area), including the wooden pegs used for nails.  These days the outside of the building appears to be covered by metal similar to corrugated iron, presumably to protect it from the elements.  It´s still pretty impressive.

The next morning it was really cold, and raining.  Apparently they get 200 days of rain a year here, yikes!  We decided that we didn´t really want to spend our time down here in cold, wet, Chile and so we jumped on a bus back to Puerto Montt where we caught the next bus to Bariloche, Argentina.

Hola,

On one night in Valparaiso we were eating dinner at a local diner when a local, or perhaps a tourist from another South American country asked us if we wanted our photo taken, not sure why, perhaps he was testing his new camera.

In any case, he took my email address and has emailed the photo to us.  We never even knew his name.

Hola,

We landed in Santiago, changed our money and hopped on a bus to the city centre.  Just before leaving we met a taxi driver who recommended a hostal and even called ahead and reserved beds for us.

At the hostal we discovered the only rooms they had left were dorm rooms and they cost 7,700 pesos ($NZ22) each!  Lacking the will to hunt for a better offer (when we were unlikely to find one) we locked our bags away and went hunting for some food. 

A nearby diner style restaurant had "Lomo a lo pobre" AKA "poor mans steak" which is essentially steak, french fries, fried egg and cooked onions.  Erin got a healthier looking lunch of steak with some avocado, tomato and stuff.

Next stop was the mall down the road.  We tried to take the local buses but they required a card (which we didn´t have!).  We walked it; it was only 7-8 blocks or so, not too bad.  Along the way we found a store with MP3 players.  Since the theft of ours in Bolivia we have really been missing music.  We checked a few out but didn´t buy one, yet...

At the mall we found the post office and checked how much it would cost to send another package home, then we decided to see a movie and bought tickets for later that night.  Leaving the mall we decided to find a card for the buses.  Apparently it was a new system and you could only buy cards in the morning.  Luckily a local woman very kindly decided to lend us hers, provided we put some money on it, which we did.

We had a bit of time so we checked our email, and prices of MP3 players at home.  By now it was almost time for our movie, we had just enough time to get a coffee and some snacks for the movie.  Cappuccinos here all come with cream and a little glass of sparkling water.

After the movie we tried to use the card to catch a bus but there seemed to be no buses at this time of the night, or they didn´t stop outside the mall... crap.  We walked it... again... *sigh*

When we got back we found the other two occupants of our room already asleep, but one of them had decided to change beds which meant there was only one un-used bed.  We grabbed a fresh set of sheets and changed the other bed, waking them up (whose fault was that!).  Finally we could sleep.

The next morning we took our things to the post office, on the bus! (finally).  We posted the things, went back down the road and bought an MP3 player then headed back to the restaurant (on the bus!) for lunch.  We found a nearby internet place and killed some time before packing our bags, catching a bus back to the mall, giving the lady her card back and walking to the inter-city bus station out of here.

We arrived in Valparaiso that afternoon and were met at the station by a woman trawling for travellers to stay at her hostal.  We don´t normally accept these sorts of offers but the price was good - 8,000 pesos for both of us - and we didn´t really have another hostal in mind.

The hostal was a house run by her mother (71 years old) and her crazy cat (which tried to catch and eat our bags).  It was a fairly simple place but they were friendly and it had a kitchen, plus we could wash our laundry and it had a nice view of town and the harbour. It was also only a short walk downhill to town.

We walked in to town to find dinner.  I had Bife a lo Pobre this time - a thin beef steak, chips, eggs and onions.  Erin couldn´t decide on anything so we bought some fruit from the supermarket, plus veges to cook up tomorrow.  We did a bit more internet then headed to bed.

The next morning we headed back into town, to the information centre for a map and some ideas of things to do and see (Erin already had a few from the guide book).

The city is a lot like Wellington but it has really nice sunny weather.  It is full of acensores, they´re cable cars that take people up and down the hills of the city.  We decided to start by riding one of these to the top of a hill, walk around a bit and ride another one down.

The first ascensor:

At the top we saw this ingenious use of an old lightbulb.

Looking back down, and around the city from the top.

Walking around we stumbled across a local artist.  He showed us his pictures (all original works) and also pulled out an old National Geograpic (2003) which contained an article about Valparaiso, including a picture of him and his art.  We decided to buy a small one, small enough to fit in a book so it wouldn´t be ruined.

Along the way we spotted this.  It´s funny because "Mono" is both the opposite of stereo and the Spanish word for monkey.

At the second acensor there was a bunch of nice older buildings and trees.

Plus a view of a church and another acensor.

The inner workings include large wheels with thick cables.

The ride down...

Next stop a museum called Museo al Cielo Abierto.  It is a collection of 20 murals on the outside of buildings.  There is a map to follow, showing where the murals are.

This one is not an official mural but Erin quite liked it, probably because of the bees!

More murals, and a window with clothes drying (Erin liked this for some reason... apparently she has always liked clothes drying... weird!).

Most of South America is full of dogs, Valparaiso has a large number of cats too.  Now, I don´t want to let the cat out of the bag, but...

We headed up the hill to one of Pablo Neruda´s houses.  Erin visited.  I sat outside and read my book. 

The house was fascinating but you weren´t allowed to take photos inside (and for once I didn´t join everyone else and break the stupid rule that had no point - they didn´t even sell postcards with photos!).  Erin over.

That was enough walking for one day, it was back home for nachos and guacamole followed by roast veges, yum.  For anyone who hasn´t tried it you should add tomatoes to your roast veges.  And then melt cheese over the whole lot.  Yummy!

The next morning we decided to catch a bus to the nearby Viña del Mar where they have some beaches (not as nice as NZ, but still pretty good).  This looks like torture.

Not exactly dressed for the beach, but I don´t really like swimming and there were signs saying you couldn´t swim here anyway, dumb.

We (Regan) had some lunch (Burger King!) then we headed back to Valparaiso where Erin had a much healthier salad for lunch.  Later on Regan needed to swap his book so we went to a place we had found in our wanderings, a restaurant owned by a Canadian guy, and his Chilean wife, both of whom used to work on cruise ships.  He had a huge selection of books and allowed us to exchange one for one.  We also decided to have lunch here. 

Erin discovered her favourite dish, a sheppard´s pie made with choclo (sweet corn) instead of potato (which she hates, with a few minor exceptions and depending on her mood).  It´s called "Pastel de Choclo" which we thought odd because in Peru and Bolivia Pastel de Choclo is a cake made from choclo. 

We figured we might see a movie so headed into town to the cinema, bought some tickets and then... Erin decided she was hungry and didn´t really want anything in the restaurants, so we cashed in the ticket and headed home for dinner (very yummy roast veges and cheese) and bed.

The next morning we headed to the bus station to buy tickets for our next destination, Temuco (the start of the Lakes District down south).  On the trolley bus on the way there we saw this woman travelling with her pet dog.  It had "chopped off legs" we discovered when the woman got off shortly after taking this photo.

We also wanted to ride an acensor which starts by going horizontally through solid rock before rising vertically to the top of the hill.  Sadly this one was closed (had been for 5 months).  We decided to walk to the top to see the view anyway.  We signed the petition calling for it to be reopened too.

On the way back we bought some fruit from the market (including a watermelon) and we also had a coffee at Erin´s favourite little cafe.

We decided to go to the movies again, and this time we made it (with our watermelon in tow). 

These show the view from the hostal where we were staying.  The old lady invited us back to stay if we are ever over that way again!

Our bus arrived in Temuco at about 7am.  Regan was too tired to keep going as he couldn´t sleep on the bus (again!) so we got the taxi driver to take us to the cheapest hostal he knew of.  There were no good options in Temuco.  It cost us 9,000 each but we got a fat guy snoring next door for free.  It was a worse night´s sleep than in the dormitory in Santiago!

Erin did manage to find a nice cafe while Regan slept.  The late afternoon sun was glorious.

We only stayed in Temuco, which has about zero to do, long enough for Regan to sleep.  Then we went south to Puerto Montt.

Hola,

We arrived in Piura at around 3pm, found some Peruvian money, some Peruvian food and some Peruvian bus tickets to Chiclayo.  The trip was only a quick 3 hours.  Once there we found a hostal... for 40 soles!  Almost twice what we paid in Cusco all those months ago!

The next morning we decided to visit the museum "El Museo de las Tumbas Real" in the nearby town of Lambayeque.  It was huge, shaped like the pyramid tombs it describes.  We were prohibited from taking photos, so you´ll just have to imagine it.

That night we took an overnight bus to Lima (11 hours or so), I got to watch "Una Noche en el Museo" with overdubbed Spanish.  Ben Stiller and Robin Williams just don´t sound right when they do that.

In Lima we discovered that all the hostals are twice the price of Cusco and also terrible quality.  At least they had a kitchen we could use and there was a supermarket nearby... where Erin had a fascination for the local breads.

We spent two days here, doing some touristy shopping and we also had dinner with an American diplomat we met in Quito and his wife (they live in Lima with their kids).  We spied this on the way home.  It takes watering the garden to a whole new level.

Our flight was 7am, which meant we had to get up at 3:50am in order to get there 2 and a half hours beforehand.  Goodbye Peru, for the second and last time.

Hola,

The train dropped us off in Alausi (it does a loop and returns there) and from here we caught a bus to Cuenca where we stayed for a number of days due to Erin feeling sick again.  We didn´t actually take any photos in Cuenca until we were leaving.  They sell 3 litre bottles of fizzy drink here!

From Cuenca we headed to Loja and then changed buses and headed to Vilcabamba.

We stayed at a really expensive place 2km out of town.  It had a pool we didn´t use, but the restaurant was excellent. 

The view from the hostal.

The next morning we decided to go for a walk... up another hill... what else would Erin want to do?

We were warned not to take any valuables because a few days earlier some tourists were robbed.  So, taking as little as possible we set off.  We were joined by Norbert, a German tourist who hadn´t heard the warning and has promised to send us some photos (fingers crossed).

In the meantime here is a view of the hill we climbed.  It had a ridgeline walk which was, in places, less than 1/2 a meter wide.

From here it was back to Loja to catch a bus across the border to Piura, Peru. 

Hola,

Our next destination was Riobamba, famous for the Devils Nose train journey.  We arrived, checked into a hostal (Tren Dorado - Golden TRain) right next to the train station and went for a wander.  We had a little lunch and then went back to the hostal for an afternoon nap, well Erin did, I had to go and line up to buy train tickets for the next morning.

The hostal had early morning buffet breakfasts for $3 per person so we signed up for 2 of those (figuring nowhere else in town would be open).  I spent the rest of the night watching football on TV (There is *always* a game on one of the channels!) while Erin wrote in her diary.

The next morning it was up early, breakfast and straight to the train station to get a good position in line (which we did).  Unfortunately the concept of a line went straight out the window when the trains (if you can call them that) arrived.

The people with luggage (like us) had to wait as someone loaded them into the train, consequently the people without luggage pushed past and climbed up onto the train to get the best seats.  As a result we ended up with possibly the worst seats (if you can call them seats).

As you might be able to see from this picture the trains are not really trains but more like busses with train wheels.  Sadly the original trains have long since retired.

It was also bitterly cold that morning and to top it off it was carnival season so the locals were throwing water at each other and tourists on the roof of a train are just too choice a target to pass up.  The older English lady got a water bomb right in the face, which was lucky for me because had it missed her it would have got me.

The scenery was much like the rest of Ecuador and we´ve seen so much of it we´re almost over it..

It was sunny, but still cold on the roof of the train.

Our artistic shot of the day.

More scenery, the legs off the side of the train looked kinda cool too.

We passed through some interesting places.  The track is famous for its feats of engineering.

We stopped at this point because the view was quite good.  You can see the other train(bus) below us.

Scenery, scenery, scenery...

At the bottom of the valley we stopped and those of us on the top had to switch with the passengers inside (some of whom had hopped on in Alausi).

Where´s wally?

There he is.

Hola,

To fully aclimatise for a climb you should spend 2-4 weeks at altitude, but, we had very little time before our flight from Lima, Peru to Santiago, Chile so we had to cut it short, to one night!  At first we weren´t even going to spend that long but some common sense prevailed and we organised to spend a night on the base of Cotopaxi at 3,800m.  The view of Cotopaxi from here.

The drive there was only an hour and so we had the afternoon to kill.  We decided to do a bit of walking to see how we were feeling.  First stop was a gentle walk to a lagoon.

On the way back from the lagoon we passed the start of a walk to another nearby volcano, I forget the name.  We decided to start this walk, go for a while to see what there was to see then to return the same way.  The nearby volcano.

The start of the walk.

The next day, around lunchtime the guide picked us up and we drove up Cotopaxi to the refuge, or rather to the parking lot below the refuge.  We had to climb 300m from here to the refuge with all our gear.  At the refuge we saw some wildlife, a wolf (lobo) probably scavenging off the leavings of climbers.

We had a quick bite to eat, then a rest, and then we headed a little way up the volcano to the snow line to have a practice with crampons and ice axes.

We were fairly quick to catch on, and the climb wasn´t going to be technically difficult so after a short practice we headed back to the refuge for a sleep.  We were to wake up at 12 midnight to begin our climb at 1am.  The reason for the early start is that during the day the ice melts somewhat and it becomes more dangerous.

The climb was only 5 hours (not 8 like El Misti) but it was much steeper.  Erin really likes climbing in crampons because she usually falls over and crampons give her much more stability.

Sadly I was unable to reach the top.  I tried, but about 100m from the top I just couldn´t go any higher.  I suspect the altitude and perhaps my recent illness affected my fitness as Erin had no trouble whatsoever.  I was also a little worried about the descent, which is the more dangerous part, and decided to wait while Erin and our guide (a man of infinite patience) climbed to the top and back down to me.

Photos from the top!

The view from where I stopped.

Us, at the (almost) top.

Views on the way down.  It was light and there was much more to see!

This cliff face of ice was a whole heap more impressive in the daylight.

More views.

Our guide.  He´s done this so many times it must be boring.

Us, dead tired, in the car park saying goodbye to Cotopaxi.

Hola,

Once in Latacunga we hopped off the bus and wandered to a nearby hostal where we took a room for the night, it was surprisingly cheap at US$6 each.  We should have known...

At approximately 2am a woman arrived in the hostal, the doorbell woke us with it`s fire alarm intensity.  Then her heels made a loud clacking noise as she walked up and down and up and down and up and down repeatedly past our door.. oh and the hallway light shone brightly through the hole above the door, the window no longer in evidence.

To top it off she left and then returned an hour or so later, repeating her performance.  It was at this point that I got up, turned the hall light off and slamed our door.  I think she got the message.

The next morning we had quick showers and packed some day bags for a trip to the crater lake of Quilatoa.  To get there we hopped on a local bus to Zumbahua, and from there rode on the back of a 4x4 to the village at the rim of the crater.

The view of the lake is spectacular; the water is vibrant green.

From here (after buying more souveneirs!) we ate a quick brunch of scrambled eggs and coffee then headed off for a 5 hour walk to a place called Chugchilan. 

The weather was at first fine, then dreadful, the clouds blocking almost all view of the countryside.  To add to this the trail was no longer marked due to locals destroying the signage in order to drum up business as guides (of which we met none..)

Along the way we encountered two Americans, almost as lost as ourselves.  Oh, and the local variety of toi-toi.

Eventually, about lunchtime, we reached a small village and quickly (because the village was really small) discovered there was no food to be had, so we had to rely on what we had brought with us.

After a false start due to the path not being marked (see above), we decided to enlist the aid of some local guides, two small boys whose parents owned and operated the only hostal in town.  A captive but limited market.

Along the way we encountered a donkey and it´s young foal(?).  I held my hand out to it and eventually it crept close enough to touch, almost.  We carried on and it followed us for a way.

For their service we paid our guides US$1 and also gave them a NZ coin, not sure if they were pleased by this or not, I was getting sick of carrying them around.  They directed us down the middle of three paths and went on home.  The path went down into what can only be described as a crevice (30-40cm wide) between two walls of rock.  The trail then passed over an Indiana Jones style bridge.

At this point we became involved (not by our choice) in the Sunday afternoon antics of the local children who, at this time, being close to carnival, were soaking each other with water.

After scaling the side of a cliff which was slipping into the river below we climbed the ridge to Chugchilan where more locals were soaking each other with water.  Once again we joined the festivities, well Erin did. ;o)

There are 3 or 4 nice places to stay here, we just took the first we came to.  It was a lovely new place which included dinner and breakfast. 

We chatted with several other tourists (including the Americans we had met on the trail and an older English couple). 

The next morning at approximately 3:30am we heard the bus honking it´s horn as it came through the village.  We jumped out of bed, handed over our key and got on.  The reason the bus leaves so early is because the locals travel to the markets in Latacunga, they need to arrive at 7am.

Once we arrived back in Latacunga we had a nice view of Cotopaxi, our next destination!

Hola,

When we had finally recovered enough to feel like doing something we decided to take a quick trip to a place just outside of Quito called Mitad del Mundo  (or, the middle of the world AKA the ecuator).  That´s right, the Ecuator runs right through the middle of Ecuador, who´d have thought.

To get there we jumped on a bus, which dropped us off at another bus station where we caught a 2nd bus to Mitad del Mundo.  There is an official site here complete with a monument and other displays and things you can visit.  Unfortunately the monument is 200m meters from the "real" ecuator as measured by GPS.

We hadn´t meant to go into the official one but we couldn´t see the other un-official site until after we paid (US$2 each) and entered the it, then over the wall we saw the other one.  In the official site you have to pay again to visit each part so we took a quick photo of the monument then high-tailed it to the other site.

The unofficial site, called Intiñan (meaning path of the sun) actually costs more to enter (US$3 each) but includes a tour with a guide who lets you try out all the experiments like pouring water down a sink, balancing an egg on the head of a nail and so on.

In addition you get a tour of some native style houses and a brief history of their culture and lifestyle.

They even have a real shrunken head and some details on the process of how to go about shrinking a head.

They used to have a giant tortoise but it recently died.  They had many jungle insects, snakes and snake skins on display.  Plus a native blowgun, sadly the dart was missing so I didn´t get a turn.

This particular native tribe uses a piece of string to hold their genitalia, that does not look comfortable to me!

Some nets for fishing.

There were some native people living right here on the site, they perform weaving and sell their designs to visitors.  Apparently as a child they have to learn a number of weavings off by heart and as they age they learn even more.

The obligatory "I´m standing on the Ecuator" shot.

A native sun clock.  The natives divided the day into only 3 parts, morning, mid-day and evening.  The clock is double sided because for 6 months of the year the sun only shines on one side.

There were a number of native cactus here, Erin liked this one (sorry I forgot to rotate this photo!)

We returned to Quito by catching the first bus that rolled past the official Mitad del Mundo.  It dropped us somewhere strange and eventually we caught a taxi to the local mall hoping to see a movie.  Sadly the mall had no theater so we asked for directions to another one and walked there.  It had movies but none in English so we decided to leave it for another day.  I had Burger King for dinner and we caught a bus back to our hostal.

The next morning we got up and headed into the old city for a quick peek.  The old city is full of big old buildings.

There were many strange people wandering through the city, including a group of monks... with a nice new backpack.  I guess monks need good bags too.  On the way back to the bus we stopped in at a shop selling glasses and they fixed my sunglasses (which had broken the day before) for free!

Sick of Quito we returned to our hostal, grabbed our bags and hopped a taxi to the terminal catching a bus to Latacunga.

Hola,

Near to Ipiales is a church famous for it´s gothic design and the fact that it literally spans a valley including the river at the bottom.

To get there we walked and took a colectivo (a car this time, usually it´s a bus).  It dropped us off at the top of the valley where we could just make out the church.

We walked down into the valley to he church.  My still weak body was not going to like walking back out of here!  The church itself had some interesting windows.

The waterfall was kinda cool too.

The bridgelike part which spans the valley is nifty.

The church is too.

Looking back across the valley.  Notice the valley wall is covered in plaques, more on these later.

The interior of the church, the altar is itself carved into the valley wall.

The plaques.  We figure they are prayers or blessings of some sort.

We took the same colectivo back to Ipiales, returned to our hostal and then had to ask around for the colectivo to the border.  Once there we got our exit stamps in customs then walked to Ecuador.  In Ecuador we changed our money (Ecuador uses US currency!) and got our entry stamps.  From here it was a short colectivo ride to a small town with busses south.

We jumped on a buss to Ibarra but the bus didn´t stop to let us off and before we knew it we were on the other side and heading for Quito.  We figured what the hell, paid for the longer trip and went all the way to Quito.

In Quito we took a taxi to the cheap hostal in the book.  Unfortunately it seemed to have closed down, luckily (or so we thought) there was one right next door. 

We checked in and discovered the sheets hadn´t been changed since the previous ocupants.  Erin was in no mood to sleep in dirty sheets so I went and requested new ones.  There was some grumbling but eventually they complied.

The next morning we got up at 8 and had showers, unfortunately the shower flooded the entire room!  Looking at the walls it was obvious this had happened before.  We packed up, paid the bill and hurried out the door.

We went straight to a slightly more expensive place "El Cafecito" which had been recommended by Ian.  It is a cafe, bar, restraunt, and hostal.  We checked into a lovely little room and then went downstairs for breakfast, pancakes and juice!

Erin, for some reason, loved the downstairs bathroom.  Something about the large double windows, who knows, she´s a bit crazy after all.

The next day we spent in bed, Erin came down with a flu and I was still recovering from my fever and associated stomach (and other) problems..  We did little more than eat and sleep all day, except perhaps a little internet.

The only problem with "El Cafecito" is that the bar is open until midnight and sleeping before then is difficult.

Hola,

No photos in this post, we were too busy clinging on for dear life!

The road in question runs from Popayan to the southern Colombian border, a town called Ipiales.

Imagine, if you will, the Manawatu Gorge but make it 10x deeper and 10x longer. Take one small bus, a 20 seater. Find one driver, select him from a mental institution for his obsessive compulsive desire to go as fast as possible and pass everything that gets in his way, even on blind corners.

At one point an old woman and her 4 year old(?) grand daughter were literally thrown from their seats. At that stage mother handed granny the 1 year old(?) and took the 4 year old... We spent the rest of the trip worried granny´d go for another tumble and this time with the 1 year old!

The reason for this manic behaviour, I think, is the fact that this road can only be driven by day, by night there is too much chance of an encounter with guerillas. As it stands the bus driver nearly killed us all, never mind the guerillas.

Well, we finally arrived in Ipiales in one piece, however it seems that I had come down with a fever and upset stomach (probably not related to the bus driving) so we decided to find a place for the night. I hibernated the rest of the afternoon and night, the next morning I was feeling weak but no longer feverish.

Hola,

On our next day in San Agustin we planned to visit a few of the other sites in the immediate area.  Our guide gave us a price of 120,000 pesos (NZ$87) for 4 sites (divided amongst Erin, Ian and I) but before agreeing we did a little bit of research and then some bargaining and got him down to 100,000 pesos (NZ$73).

The first stop was a waterfall, the viewing platform was a rickety structure suspended over the edge of the cliff.  Erin and I weren´t too keen for all 3 of us to be out there at the same time but Ian seemed oblivious.

The waterfall was quite cool.

Destination number 2 was another burial site with statues and carvings.  A typical burial site.

Each site was typically topped by a large flat carving, anthropomorphic in design.

Another of the large flat carvings.

Two tombs side by side with closeups of the guardians.

We´re not sure exactly what this is, perhaps another coffin like structure.

A good side on view of a typical burial chamber.

A more intricate coffin like structure.

The burial tombs are usually pretty deep in the ground.  This view is from the rear of the tomb, not you can see the back of the guardian.

Third stop, another waterfall, first the view down the valley.  At first the entire place was clouded in.  The guide started whistling at the clouds and saying that it would help them clear.  Strangely they cleared in fairly short order... hmm.

Then the waterfall itself.  We had to walk down the side of a valley to see this one.

On the way I saw a spider web and decided to get "arty".

This seemed the perfect spot to pose for a photo.

The valley sides were quite steep.

Fourth stop, another site of tombs and carvings.  I snapped this one of Erin when she wasn´t ready.

I thought this statue looked kind of granny like, except it´s also pregnant.

After taking that photo of Erin she wouldn´t let me get away without taking one of me.

From there it was back to a small town (I forget the name) to have lunch and await the bus.  While we waited we had a look around and saw a man selling hats.

A lady making toffee.

Several interestingly loaded local busses (Chiva´s).

Our bus finally arrived at 2:30pm and we had to run to catch it, because it wasn´t stopping where we were told it would.  The trip was exciting, not only was it the bumpiest I have ever been on but we also had a flat tire at one point.

We stopped for a toilet and snack break and I managed to climb the dirt bank beside the road to get this photo of the nearby range.  I just missed out on the perfect photo, when the entire range was lit by the setting sun, oh well.

After a 6 hour ride we finally ended up back in Popayan, went to bed fairly early to catch a bus the next morning for the real ´worlds most dangerous road´ (more on that next post)

Hola,

We were up early the next morning for our ride to San Agustin.  It was much quicker in the jeep with the tour guide than it would have been in a bus, plus he took us to a good place for breakfast and then to a decent hostal in San Agustin (run by someone he knew, of course).

That afternoon we took a tour of the main site, near town (with a guide he recommended, of course).  Our guide was excellent, so full of information it is difficult to recall even a small part of it.  All the sites in the area contain burial tombs, like Tierradentra, but this time they are combined with stone statues and other stone carvings.  Each successive culture built on what was left behind by the previous one.

A typical sort of stone statue, note the belt-like clothing, this identifies the statue as female (on male statues the genitalia is visible).  Note also the asiatic eyes but the wide almost african nose.  There are several details like these which appear to link these statues to many of the ancient cultures on the planet which suggests the carvers knew of these distant places somehow.

The entrance to a tomb.  These three statues are guardians of the  tomb.  Notice that the figures to either side have both a human figure and a snake-like one.  The lower figure is a carving of a person and the upper figure is what they want to be re-incarnated as.

The figure is anthropomorphic, meaning part man part animal.  In this case the triangular head is that or a big cat, like a puma perhaps.

There is a river nearby and at this river was found the following "mating frogs" statue, they point the way to carvings in the river itself.

The river carvings show faces, animals, and people (and some anthropomorphic figures also)

At the top of a hill were found more statues and tombs.  Note again the statues which contain two figures, the person and the creature they wanted to be reincarnated as.

This large flat carving covered the entrace to a tomb, it is anthropomorphic showing a human head on an animals body (crocodile, I think).

This one resembles the head of a monkey.

This one shows a bird eating a snake.  The guide suggested this was linked to Quetzalcoatl the god of the Aztec/Toltec peoples.

This stone coffin is just that, the guide suggested a person was placed inside it before burial for mourners to visit and pay their respects.

This somewhat greusome looking statue actually depicts the birth of a child.  It shows a mother and the midwife with the child.

There is then a lovely walk through the forest to see many more such statues, here is Erin being terribly disrespectful to this statue which appears to have sticks up it`s nose.

A selection of statues.

This one continues the mating animal theme which we saw throughout, this time it`s monkeys.

This culture was also fixated on penises, these are apparently represent penises, one with foreskin, one without.

In addition to statues it appears these people had rather detailed knowledge of a person internal organs.  One statue had the inner structure of a human heart carved on it.  Another the internal reproductive organs of a woman.  The guide suggested that they could perform surgery on these organs, I think it´s more likely that they just cut up dead people.

One stautue had been defaced by someone carving their own name into it... that wasn´t really very clever now was it.  Needless to say they were caught.

There was also evidence that these people practiced the elongation of the head technique which we first saw in Peru.  They would break the skull and bind it into an elongated shape.  They believe this would give a person more intelligence, it´s not known whether it worked but it is known that the person did not live long after such an operation.

Hola,

South of Popayan is a small place called San Andres de Pisimbala though most tourists just call it Tierradentro because it is the location of burial tombs by that name.

To get there we took a bus from Popayan that leaves every morning at 10:15am (the guide book said 5am and someone at the bus station said 6am but they were both lying).  The road was a windy dirt/gravel road through the mountains with a steep drop off to the side.

On the bus we met an american called Ian who planned to visit the same things as we did and so we ended up travelling with him.

The village of San Andres de Pisimbala has a lower and upper section.  We decided to stay in the lower section because that was where the museums and trail heads are located.  We stayed in a hostal called "Hostal Lucerna" run by a lovely old couple and their friendly dog called "Condor".

By the time we were all set up in the hostal it was 3pm.  As the museums close each day at 4pm and the trail we wanted to walk takes a full day we decided to see the first museum then call it a night.

The museum contains a number of artifacts from the burial tombs, including burial urns like this one:

There was a lot of additional information about the tombs and the various cultures that inhabitied the area over time.  The oldest tombs are from 2000 BC (at least) and are a simple vertical shaft to a small cave-like area.  The newer tombs have complex spiral stairways to larger chambers containing pillars and sometimes painted walls and ceilings.

The next morning we started on our walk to visit the 5 sites in the area.  At all of the sites except El Aguacate the tombs have been developed for tourism with a protective building over them, concrete covered stairways and a locked gate over the entrance.

The trail starts behind the museum, crosses a river:

and heads up the hill to a site called "Segovia".  These are the most impressive tombs, with the most complex stairways and painted walls:

Note the concrete coated stairway:

The tombs are lit and flash photography is forbidden (to protect the painted walls) so many of our photos are quite dark:

Some tombs still contained the burial urns and other pottery:

Another impressive stairwell:

In addition to being painted some of the walls are carved:

Me, backlit by the tomb.  Note the fence, this is as far into the tomb as we are allowed:

At the first site we met a tour operator from San Agustin (our next destination) taking a group on a tour of some of the same sites as we were visiting.  We got to talking and found out he was heading home the next day which was perfect for our schedule and so we organised a ride with him for about the same cost as the bus, what luck!

From the first site it was a short hike (further up the hill) to the 2nd site "El Duende" where they have more burial tombs.  On the way we saw a local pig.  The poles tied to it´s neck are to prevent it going through the fence.

The tombs in the 2nd site were less impressive, but still worth a visit.

At each site was a caretaker who would unlock each tomb for us to visit.  This one was also kind enough to pose for a photo.

From the 2nd site it was another short hike, this time downhill along a dirt/gravel road, to the 3rd site "El Tablòn".  Along the way we saw a lot of bamboo.

"El Tablòn" contains stone sculptures, they are not as old as the tombs and come from a different culture that inhabited the same area at a later stage.

From the 3rd site it is a short hike to the upper part of the village of San Andres de Pisimbala where they have a nice white church:

We sat in a local restraunt and had lunch, while we ate we saw a local "Chiva" (normally for passengers) being used to cart wood:

Then it was off to the 4th site "El Alto San Andrés".  To get here we walked down into a valley, across a river

then back up the other side of the valley to the site itself, along the way we saw a colourful tree.

At the site itself we saw an unexpected visitor, this guy was at least 20cm long.

From the 4th site it was a much longer hike around a ridge, through a valley then up to the top of the higher ridge and along that to the 5th site "El Aguacate" (which means "The Avocado").

Along the way some local children offered us some "mandarinas", they looked great so we agreed.  Sadly they were the sourest I have ever tasted, in fact I think I have had lemons which were less sour.  After choking part of one down we thanked them, it was then they told us we had to pay for them, we gave back the ones we hadn´t eaten and paid them a small amount.

The views from the top of the ridge were spectacular.

The site "El Aguacate" has 30-40 tombs, not developed for tourism but left "au natural" or rather how they were left by tomb robbers and such.

Some of these tombs also have painted walls.

From here it was a half hour all downhill walk back to the museum and a well deserved juice and night`s sleep.

Hola,

From Bogota we headed into the coffee region. We had two options, one expensive, one cheap. The expensive option was an all inclusive coffee farm/ranch with horse riding, a swimming pool and food included (70,000 pesos, per person, per night NZ$46). The cheap option was to head to Salento, stay in a hostal (15,000 pesos, per person, per night) and visit two nearby coffee farms (7,000 pesos) and do a day walk through the cloud forest.

In the end we chose the cheap option, not because it was cheap but because it allowed us to see the cloud forest and the wax palms (Colombia`s national tree).

Getting to Salento was not as easy as we`d first imagined, we spent too long in Bogota and caught a later bus which was then delayed by bad traffic arriving in Armenia at 11:30pm. The last bus to Salento was at 8pm. As a result we stayed the night in a cheap (pay by the hour?) hostal in central Armenia (which had only cold water for showers) and took an early bus the next morning to Salento.

Salento is a lovely little town. The hostal most travellers stay in is called The Plantation House (because it was once a coffee farm itself). It is run by an Englishman and his Colombian wife. They have 3 children, 3 dogs, 2 cats and goldfish. The hostal itself is very relaxed (no formal checkout time) and the owner is full of useful information and maps for the various sites in the area.

The afternoon we arrived we decided to tour the two coffee farms. They were both within easy walking distance and the countryside and walk along the way was interesting.

The first farm was a small farm still run in the traditional manner which is to grow coffee but also have other means of income and sustenance like livestock i.e. chickens, a pig, etc. At this farm a young boy gave us the tour showing us the different trees they use. Colombian (taller, shorter lived, with yellow beans).

and Arabic (smaller, longer lived, with red beans).

Although the skins of the fruit are different colours they both contain a small white bean covered in a gelatinous membrane.

They also grow banana trees in amongst the coffee plantation to provide shade for the coffee trees from the direct sun. In addition he showed us another denizen on the plantation which they are pleased to have... a small spider shaped a little like a coffee bean which preys on the insects which destroy the bean crops.

As well as coffee this area has a type of bamboo which grows really large and fast. They use it for constructing houses and fences and so on.

The small farm has a small hand-powered machine for removing the yellow and red skins from the white bean.

We were told that both types of bean (Colombian and Arabic) produce the same flavour coffee, however the Arabic, in general, grows larger and therefore higher quality beans.

From that farm it was a short walk to the larger farm, run in a more businesslike style. It turns out the owner actually studied in Hamilton, New Zealand!

Along the way we passed a small farm where they had an interesting collection of animals.

The larger farm had many more coffee trees and therefore required a much larger machine for shelling the beans.

They produce a much larger amount of coffee. These farms shell and dry the beans but do not carry out the roasting, grinding or packaging.

The farm homestead itself was a beautiful building surrounded by many flowering plants. After our tour they treated us to a coffee and we purchased some ground coffee (but not instant Mum!).

From here we followed a path down to the river and walked along the river to a small village where we flagged down a bus back to Salento.

The hostal had recently obtained 2 kittens, one was particularly small and probably shouldn`t have been without its mother. That night Erin took a liking to it and would have packed it away in our bags if I hadn´t been keeping a close eye on her.

The next morning we were up early to catch the jeep to the start of the day walk through the cloud forest. It was then Erin discovered the kitten dead in the corner of the kitchen, perhaps from a broken neck. It seems likely one of the dogs got it during the night.

Due to the upsetting event of finding the kitten we only just made it in time to catch the jeep. Jeeps here function like buses, picking up and dropping off passengers. I ended up standing on the back and holding on but Erin got a seat. The jeep dropped us off just down the road from the start of the trail into the cloud forest. The trail itself began as a small dirt road/track through farm land.

It also contained a number of bridges over the stream which we followed up into the hills. This was the first.

The view from the valley floor up into the hills was impressive, the wax palms (the worlds 2nd tallest tree?) give the hills a "hairy" appearance.

The 2nd bridge.

The 3rd bridge, this one was a little in need of repair!

The 4th bridge.

The 5th bridge.

The 6th bridge, also in need of repair.

The 7th bridge.

We reached the end of the valley and a place called Acaime where a local couple run a hostal and cafe in addition to collecting the park entrace fee. They have a number of hummingbird feeders allowing us to get a few good shots of the birds themselves. Apparently there are 6 distinct types in this area. One type of hummingbird, about the size of a bumblebee, is the world´s smallest bird. We also learnt that they have hummingbirds in France!

From Acaime we walked back and up the valley side to a lookout point called simply "El Mirador". The view was good but not amazing (despite Erin being in the photo) as we were not at the high point.

From here we dropped back into the valley retracing our steps a little back across one of the bridges and then climbed another ridge to a place called "La Montaña", another hostal/cafe establishment.

The view from here was much more impressive.

At this point you enter the cloud forest where the wax palms (seen earlier as a hairy hillside) grow.

From here we descended back down to the start of the walk and waited for a lift back to Salento, also by jeep. We arrived back just in time to avoid the rain!

That was all we had time for in Salento. Our next destination was south to Popayan and from there to Tierradentro (ancient burial tombs) and San Agustin (ancient stone sculptures/statues).

Hola,

The next day we decided to hire bikes and visit a couple of the local attractions. Actually it was Stepan´s idea to hire the bikes and he organised it too, getting us a small discount, way to go Stepan.

The first stop was El Fosil.  An aquatic dinosaur that they haven´t quite managed to classify as yet.

In addition there are a number of other fossils displayed here.  Our favourites are shown here.

A shellfish.

No-one knows what these 2 are.

Another shellfish.

A fern.

A pine cone.

Destination number 2, El Infiernito.  Yet another location where the indigenous people have a fixation with penises.

Some small.

Some large.

A field of penises.

The scenery is stunning.

This is thought to be a calendar.

On the way back to Villa de Leiva we spotted this monstrosity which Erin loves.

Now, on to the pottery.  We caught a colectivo (which was late by half an hour and then delayed by road works) to Raquirá, a nearby village, the home of the local pottery (rumoured to be some of the best in Colombia).  We had just enough time to arrive, buy some pottery and then catch the same bus back.

The central plaza has some interesting sculptures.  If Erin ever goes back she vows to take 2 empty suitcases.  We´re carrying the pottery around with us - fingers crossed it makes it to the UK intact.

Back in Villa de Leiva, the central plaza is the biggest in South America (we believe)... though it´s empty of all but a tiny fountain. Weird.

Erin would have stayed here much longer but we´re fast running out of time, we have to be in Lima, Peru by the 20th of Feb for our flight to Santiago, Chile and we still have all of Ecuador to go!

So, back to Bogota we go!

Hola,

On the colectivo to Villa de Leiva we met a Czech traveller called Stepan.  We ended up seeing the sights of Villa de Leiva with him.

Our purpose in visiting Villa de Leiva was initially to walk up (another) hill to a lake and see the 3 stages of vegetation on the way.  We had been told it was beautiful.  However, Erin also discovered the local pottery.. more on that later.

Our day started at 6:30, we had managed to convince a local lady to get up extra early and make us breakfast.  We caught the colectivo at 7am and arrived at the start of our walk at around 7:35. 

The first part of the walk was 3km up a gravel road to the ranger station where we met the nice ranger, signed in, paid the fee and tried out his bike.

Actually, he has a new one now. 

These photos show the 3 different stages of vegetation.

When we arrived at the lake there was a mighty fog, we couldn´t see the lake and in fact didn´t realise it was less than 3m away.

It was also rather cold (but still sunny, yes, sunny).

The fog eventually cleared, note the crazy woman is still in shorts.

We retraced our steps only to discover that the transport home was a few hours away.  We tried to hitch a ride but the only vehicle going our way didn´t even blink at us.  Finally we lucked out (of a sort) and got a lift on the back of a truck carrying freshly cut eucalyptus poles.  It was .. interesting.  (Erin says fun!).

Back at the hostal we discovered the pet duck playing in the fountain.

Hola,

From Bogota we decided to make a day trip to a place called "Zipaquirá" where an old salt mine has been converted into a cathedral.  The best part for us was the atmosphere, it was cool but not freezing and the size of the place was staggering.  The religious significance of the 14 stations of the cross was lost on us but the carving was interesting.

From Zipaquirá we continued on to a little place called "Villa de Leiva".

Hola,

From Cartagena we headed to Medellin.  I was sort of looking forward to Medellin because we planned to stay at a hostal called "The Black Sheep", owned and operated by a kiwi.

So, taking an overnight "Buscama" (bus with a bed) from Cartagena we left for Medellin.

When we arrived we took a taxi straight to the hostal, that is to say once we found our way out of the bus station, a 4 level giant of a place.  The taxis left from the 3rd floor, go figure.

We were in for a bit of a surprise, the area where the black sheep was situated was so developed it could have been a suburb of Auckland.  The hostal itself was an un-assuming place with only a small black sheep painted on the fence, and no sign announcing its presence.  At first we thought we were in the wrong place.

The hostal was perfect.  It had a kitchen with actual hot water coming from a tap in the sink.  It had good showers and a decent sized bed.  Kelvin (the owner) was full of useful information and probably the best part of all was the comfy sofas to lounge around on.

Medellin has a metro system (something Auckland seriously needs to consider, actually I have another idea for Auckland but more on that later).  The metro is great, you pay 1 price and you can travel as far as you like, there is one main line and 3 to 4 smaller ones crossing it.

The next morning we took the metro into town to look for the sculptures by Botero (you may remember him from Cartagena).  There is a plaza here containing maybe 30 huge sculptures and a museum with some of his paintings. Here are a few of our favourite sculptures:

The next day we again took the metro (I loved that thing) to the bus station and hopped on a bus to a big rock called "El Peňol".  There is a staircase built into the side and great views from the top of the surrounding area, filled with lakes themselves filled with trout.  Unfortunately we picked the same day to visit as a million other people (almost all Colombians) and it took forever to climb up, due in part to the narrow places where the people going up had to wait for those coming down. 

From the rock we walked 30-40 mins to the nearby town of "Guatapé" (oddly there is a town not so nearby called "El Peňol", go figure) where we had lunch, Erin had the trout and I tried a local dish called "Mondongo".. bad move, it was essentially a soup with bits of unidentifiable meat throughout.

The town was nice, we quite like this shot of the church.

It was nearing dusk and the weather was cloudy and not at all warm, plus our transport home was to be this "chiva", an open sided bus.

So, we decided to purchase a blanket to keep us warm (I had also forgotten my jacket!).  We ended up with a "Spiderman" blanket which Erin keeps confusing with Superman (what is it with women and superheroes?). 

I think a blanket has to be on the top 10 things to have travelling in South America.  We have used it a couple of times in hostals and on overnight buses in Colombia where they crank up the air conditioning to full for the whole trip, because, get this "we´ve paid for it").  You don´t however need to bring one with you because you can just buy one once you get here.

We didn´t do much else in Medellin, from here we shot back to Bogota.

Hola,

We had a few last things to do before leaving Cartagena for good.

1. Buy a really big Avocado (Aguacate) and make Guacamole.

2. Have a fresh juice, made from the leftover fruit we bought at the market.

3. Buy lollies!  They have all sorts of strange and unusual things.

4. Visit a sculpture by Botero (a Colombian artist), more of these at a later date.

I literally had to drag Erin away from Cartagena, she is threatening to live there one day.

or at least we hope so! We´re hoping it´s not an expensive piece of glass.

The long story is that after visiting la Palacio de la Inquisición, we went to the emerald store and arranged for them to make a white gold ring with an emerald we picked out.

The next day we returned and found the ring was too big and that we no longer liked the emerald. Part of the problem was that an emerald needs more protection than a diamond (being weaker) so the setting we chose was not possible. As a result a thicker setting was used and we didn´t like it as much.

With true salesmanship they persuaded us to buy a larger, higher quality (we hope) emerald for the cost of the ring. Our bargaining skills were honed to perfection, as we dithered they slowly lowered the price. Hopefully that´s not a bad sign.

And now, the moment you have all been waiting for... The emerald itself!

Hola,

The next day we set out to climb La Popa, a nearby hill upon which sits a monastery.  It is named La Popa because it´s profile resembles the poop of a ship.  On the way we met a local who decided to guide us there and back, for his time and trouble we ended up paying him 5,000 plus 2,000 for a taxi.  Not bad for a few hours work.

The monastery itself has been restored and is rather beautiful.

The church in the monastery is small but also beautiful.

Outside the gates to the monastery a man was selling photos with his pet sloth (the spanish word for sloth is perizoso, which also means lazy).

Once we had paid off our guide we headed back to Castillo de San Felipe because we realised we had forgotted to visit the old boots (botas viejas).  A monument to something we have forgotten or never knew.

That evening we decided to do a circuit of the walls themselves, they protect these cool old buildings.

These ladies make fresh fruit salad, Erin loves them.

Just me, chillin.

Wide enough to drive a bus down.

There were several soccer fields right outside the walls.

The colours of the buildings and churches is quite vivid.

You can buy all manner of things on the walls, like a good coffee.

Lush vegetation plus old buildings makes for a neat photo.

I lined up the bus and...

From the walls you can see Castillo de San Filipe.

The streets themselves are also colourful.

And so ended our last night in Cartagena, but first...

Hola,

That afternoon we headed into the centre of the old city, to look at the cool old buildings.  To get there you pass through this clock tower which is part of the wall which surrounds the old city.

There is some interesting art work in the plazas inside the walled city.

We decided to visit the Palacio de la Inquisición which has been converted into a museum.  We even splashed out and paid for a guide (15,000 pesos, or approx NZ$10).  The guide was good, very funny, and knew all sorts of things you didn´t see written on the walls and exhibits themselves. 

He even put me on the rack, and got Erin to crank it up!

The museum contained a number of nasty looking torture devices including...

A skull crusher, they crank it until your brain comes out your eye sockets, eew.

This bad boy is placed around your neck.  The spikes on the inside puncture your throat and the others your shoulders and chin etc.

A thumb crusher... it crushes thumbs.

After the Palacio de la Inquisición our guide took us to one of the many emerald and associated jewellery stores  (probably his sisters/aunties/nieces store, or he gets a commission).  More on that later ;o)

Later, outside the Palacio de la Inquisición we saw some buskers with a difference.  They dance so fast the camera cannot catch them.

Night fell and a church nearby was lit with interesting colours.

Hola,

We arrived in Cartagena at night time and took a taxi to the popular hostal "Vienna" (in Getsemani, an area within the old walled part of the city), where they have everything a backpacker needs.

Unfortunately for us they were lacking the one thing we really needed, beds for the night.  Luckily they were really helpful, they even called a nearby hostal (Hotel Familiar) for us and arranged a room.

The next day we walked to the nearby Castillo de San Felipe, a massive fortress which is the largest Spanish fortress built in the Americas. 

It has extensive sloping tunnels within, including one which could have been used to escape a siege.

The flag atop the fortress is simply huge.

One of the guard posts on the corner of the fortress.

Erin surfing on a canon.

A view of the city from the fortress.

The walls are quite impressive.

A nice "shot" at the high rise apartments and CBD.

Erin just had to buy this enormous red necklace made from... you´ll never guess... a vegetable, called Tagua AKA vegetable ivory.

The grass area surrounding the fortress looked kinda cool with its palms and canons.

We finally got to go to Ciudad Perdida.

A four wheel drive drove us to a small village in the jungle.  While walking out of the village to the beginning of the track we saw this odd looking chicken.

These are some of the people in our group after maybe 2 hours of walking.  We were already soaked through with sweat - it literally dripped off us.

The scenery was pretty stunning.

A farmer decided that this tree was dangerous and could fall on some one.  So he took the safest option and decided to burn it.

This was our first camp site (also the location of a coke factory!).

A spider on one of the rocks in the river.  They can walk on water - very cool.

Our hammocks on the first night.

The next morning we visited the coke factory.  It is pretty much just for foreign tourists.  The Colombians in our group didn´t come with us - either they knew it all as they had seen it all before or they weren´t interested.

After the coke factory we began the trekking.  We came across a village which looked like it was abandoned until we met some of the indigenous inhabitants.

A toad we spotted along the way.

Some scenery and the river we swam in on our second day.

Our hammocks in the camp we stayed at on the 2nd and 4th nights.

On the third day we had to cross the river many times.  This was the first and most comfortable river crossing - we didn´t have to get our feet wet!

Us and some indigenous children who were happy to have their photo taken with us but steadfastly refused to speak to us.  The flies buzzing around them were a sight to behold.  The indigenous people only change their clothes once a month in sync with the moon.

There were many beautiful waterfalls (cascadas in Spanish).  Here is just one of them.

The beginning of the 1200 odd steps which lead up to Ciudad Perdida.

The bottom levels of the lost city.

This view gives some idea of why the city lay hidden for so long.  It was not discovered until the 70s.

The bottom of the main platform.

Me on the main platform.  Taken by a kind tourist while Regan was still in bed. 

The lower echelons.  These houses are not inhabited but are just to show what they would have looked like.  The men and women live in different houses (even after marriage).  The womens` house has one entrance and the mens` has two.

Our accommodation on the 3rd night in Ciudad Perdida.  Hammocks again.

A self-portrait shot of the main plaza.

Scenery.

A map of the city.

Stairs in Ciudad Perdida.

The king`s throne.

A piggie we met on the trail home.

Hola,

From Bogota we took a bus to Santa Marta (on the coast in the north of Colombia), the oldest city in Colombia.  As we boarded the bus we realised we had left our boots at the hostal.  As the bus tickets were so expensive (NZ$146) we decided to stay on the bus and sort it out via phone.  A lady on the bus very kindly lent us her cell phone and then refused to accept any payment for it.  The hostal located the boots and secured them for the night.  18 hours later we arrived in Santa Marta.

The beginning of the "boots saga"...

We called the next day and arranged to have the boots sent to us at Casa Familiar in Santa Marta.  2 days later the package arrived however instead of our boots we received a cheap nd nasty knife set... not so useful for a 6 day trek!  The hostal owner was kind enough to accompany us to the ServiEntrega office to inform them of the problem.  They very quickly decided it must have been a mixup and that they would sort it out and our boots would arrive in 5 days due to the holiday period over New Years.

As we couldn´t do the Ciudad Perdida (lost city) trek without them we decided to go to the beach - New Year´s at the beach, what a change!

The beach at Tayrona national is very popular with the locals.  There were not many gringos.  You have to walk for 45 mins to get to the beach - it is not possible to go by car, although you can hire horses. 

We slept in hammocks but somehow forgot to take a photo.... ooops.

The water is clear and quite warm (not a surprise being on the Caribbean coast).  There are some reefs which create safe places for swimming.  Otherwise the beaches are a bit like Piha but no one here is silly enough to try and swim there.  There are no life guards anywhere.

We met a father and son on holiday from Bogota (Bogota is cold as it is at altitude so every single person from Bogota goes to the beach over the holiday period).  They accompanied us on a walk to Pueblito - an indigenous village built at the same time as Ciudad Perdida.  Some indigenous people still live there.

A postcard shot of the coast as we descended.

After 2 nights we walked out and while waiting for the truck back to the road a nice couple (from Bogota - where else?) offered us a lift to the road.  Then as they were going back to Santa Marta they dropped us off at the bus station.  The air conditioning was heaven.

Our boots didn´t arrive - as we expected.  We went back to the office with Fabio (the very nice man from the hostal) and they said they would check for them again and would know the next day.

The next day arrived.  No boots.  We decided to buy new boots for Ciudad Perdida and sorted out some documentation to request reimbursement for the lost boots.  We left this with Fabio and went to Ciudad Perdida.  (It would appear that none of the women in Santa Marta do any kind of trekking as there were no boots, anywhere, for women so Erin got to wear shoes).

Hola,

From La Paz, Bolovia we took a flight to Bogota, Colombia. However it turned out that our flight was not as direct as we thought it was. First it landed in Cochabamba, then on to Santa Cruz (both in Bolivia). Then! it flew up to Caracas, Venezuela and finally back down to Bogota.

Our next surprise was how expensive everything was in Colombia. The currency is pesos with NZ$1 being worth around 1,518 pesos. Our taxi from the airport to our hostal cost 18,000 pesos or NZ$12. Bear in mind we have been paying NZ$2 on average up until this point. The hostal was 36,000 pesos a night! (or more than NZ$20, again we had been paying NZ$12 or less in Peru and Bolivia).

The hostal, "Platypus", was great.  It is Colombian owned but called Platypus because it is an uncommon name in Colombia and unlikely to already have been used.  If the name you want to register is already in use you have to try again - paying for the privilege each time.  Where is the Companies Office when you need it!!!  (the lawyer in me struggles free). 

The Platypus is apparently the party hostal in Bogota, though we didn´t know this at the time. As it was xmas they put on a free xmas dinner consisting of local Colombian food (tamales) and of course beers which you could buy.

The next day we hiked up a large hill (called Montserrat) for a view of the city.  It is also part of a pilgrimage the local people make at Chrismas and Easter.  There is a church at the top.  Needless to say there were lots of people who obviously never walk anywhere!

They use motorbikes for everything here!

Erin visited the gold museum while I played some football (Soccer, but I say football because I need to attempt to become more English in preparation).

You will have guessed that everything in the gold museum was made from gold.  It has a collection of gold artefacts showing the progression in design and technique of the various cultures throughout Colombia.  These are some of what I saw.

These monkey earrings were probably my favourite thing in the whole museum.  They are designed to show movement.

These disks are used by the shamans to put them into a trance.  They remind me of things we used to make as kids.

Death masks placed over the face.

Various gold rings.

Urns for ashes.  It´s a bit macabre but they were beautiful and very well made.

A seat used by the chief.

Random things.

A statue which comes from the south of Colombia.  We are going to see more of them later.

Spindles for spinning wool.

Various other things including bats, birds and toads which have special significance.

The museum was very good and I´m tempted to go back when we return to Bogota.

Hola,

We had some time to kill before our flight to Colombia.  Our options were a 2 1/2 day trek to Coroico or to ride down the worlds most dangerous road.  As you can tell from the title of this post, we chose the latter.  Yay no more walking!

The tour company we took was called "Downhill Madness" and they do an all inclusive package for US$50 per person.  This includes a CD of photos and a video of your adventure.  The CD also included photos of some other group and some photos of the countryside on a nicer day than the one we got.

We started at 4640m in a place called "La Cumbre".

It was miserably cold for the first hour, we had rain and sleet.  Luckily this stretch of road is well sealed.  Our hands were going numb and it was becoming harder to hold on.  We took frequent breaks to thaw out.

The scenery, maybe on our day but maybe on a better one (not sure exactly).

Us enjoying lunch at Hotel Esmeralda.  This is included in the tour also. 

We decided to stay here for another 2 days with the intention of doing some walks in the area.  However, I got a cold and it turns out that it rains every morning and does not clear till around lunch time.

Instead we enjoyed the pool table, the swimming pool, the TV room and the restaurant.

Tonight we catch a flight to Bogota, Colombia.  So this is goodbye to Bolivia.

Hola,

A shot of Rurre before we left.  A shot of the boat as we were leaving.

The scenery on our 3 hour boat trip up river to the base camp.

To understand the jungle you need to take one sauna, add dense forest and every biting insect on the planet, put on long pants and a long top (to prevent bites from bugs), load yourself up with 10-15 kilos, and walk for 3-4 hours.  Lets just say, you will never be dry again.

We forgot to take photos of base camp.  Suffice to say it was rustic.  Two huts on stilts with plastic and netting for walls.

On that first day we went for a walk for a few hours into the jungle surrounding the camp.  The guides found this tree particularly amusing.  It´s roots dig down into the earth in search of water.

There are ants EVERYWHERE!  These guys were industriously carrying pieces of leaves.  Apparently they will strip an entire tree bare given enough time.

There are some big trees here.

And plenty of mushrooms.

Some odd plants too.

One plant has branches which can be made into useful things.  Much like flax (tho this one is some sort of palm).

An interesting flower.

Tarantula!

On the next day we left for our 2nd camp on the bank of another river.  On the way we stopped to play Tarzan and Jane.

The jungle does not lack for colour.

Our guide Alex decided it would be fun to paint the gringos with traditional dye made by crushing dark green leaves and adding water.

More funghi.

Our camp.

That night we went for a 3 hour walk in search of animals.  We saw an armadillo, a rat, some nocturnal monkeys but no pumas :(

The next morning we awoke to the sound of... bees!  They were everywhere, apparently they like to collect the salt from your sweat.  Neither our guide nor cook appeared to be particularly bothered by them.  The secret is to have a bath in the river and wear new clothes without sweat.  The problem is that for us it was too hot and we started to sweat even when mostly naked.

There were an assortment of other bugs too.

We left camp to do some fishing and on the way spotted some pigs.  The fishing was unsuccessful, again.  We´re just not fishermen.

There are some really big trees here, so big you can make a small shelter between the roots!

We cannot recall exactly which tree this is, it could be the "Curare" tree, it has a very toxic sap.  So toxic if you ingest it you die, if you get it on your skin or in your eyes it burns.

Un Arbol de Leche (milk tree).  It tasted a bit woody.

Our campfire, dinner time!  They weren´t too fussed about letting the bees have a bit of dinner too.

That night Alex started to prepare a bow and 2 arrows for me.  They use these to hunt fish, monkeys, etc.  Sometimes with Curare tipped arrows.  If you use Curare the secret is to drain all the blood and wash the meat before you eat it.

Erin got artistic again.

That night it rained, and rained, and rained.  We didn´t go for another night walk, we had an early night.  This pleased me immensely.

The next morning we packed up our camp.

More funghi.

Erin the explorer.

More funghi.

This tree has spines to prevent vines from strangling it to death.

A great big city of spiders.

A jungle snail.

El arbol de agua.  This is actually a vine which can grow quite far underground in search of water.  The water tastes really good.  It is filtered through many small holes in the wood.  This plant is being investigated for its cancer curing properties.

A flower.

Yet more funghi.

We left a note, on a mushroom for the next group of explorers.

The intrepid explorers.

Back at base camp.  Trying to dry out.

We spent a few hours making jewellery.  Alex made us both a necklance and Erin got an earing and a bracelet as well.  I made some rings, perhaps 8 in total.  One ring broke so I tried it out as a nose ring.

The next morning we slogged through thigh high mud, crossed a river and climbed a small hill in search of parrots.  Sadly a previous group seemed to have scared them all away.  We got a few shots of the view.

We found it amusing to be in jandals in the jungle.

Once again, for the benefit of 2 other tourists with us, I got my face painted and the guides played silly buggers.

The trip back was much faster (down stream).  Here is a single shot of the view.

That night we went out with our guides and some of their friends to sing karaoke and dance.  Well, Erin danced anyway.  (Erin writing now) They are all incredibly good dancers and would put almost anyone at home to shame.  I gave it my best shot but I´m afraid I was pretty terrible.  Maybe I´ll have to come back and learn!

On the way home at approximately 2:30am we took a photo of one of the enormous cockroach like bugs lying in the road - probably hit by one of the many motorbikes in Rurre.

The place we stayed in Rurre.  It was funny every time we walked out the gate because you could hear the frogs - they make a sound similar to what you´d hear in a computer game.

The streets of Rurre on our way to the airport.

This was the controller guy who waved in the plane as it arrived.  Note the sunglasses and jeans.  He was also wearing sneakers which aren´t quite visible.

We made it to La Paz safely where we are now freezing.  I miss Rurre! (Erin)  Regan doesn´t miss the sweating.

Hola,

We took a 17 seater plane from La Paz to Rurrenabaque, after waiting an extra day for the weather to clear.  The plane lands on a grass runway and can only land when it´s dry.

Some shots of the jungle from the plane, and a shot of our plane at the "airport" in Rurre.

The day before we left we happened to bump into some people we met earlier in Cusco, Peru.  They recommended a company in Rurre, it also happened to be the cheapest so we were quite happy to go straight there and book a 3 day tour of the Pampas.

The morning we left it rained... and rained... and rained.  The first part of the trip is a 3 hour drive in a 4x4 on the terrible roads in the area, mostly dirt (now mud) and a few stones.  We stopped for lunch in Santa Rosa an even smaller town near the pampas.

Then... our driver who had been almost falling asleep at the wheel for most of the trip drove into the ditch.  We think he was preparing to avoid another oncoming 4x4 which had just freed itself from doing the same thing (when avoiding a 3rd 4x4 going the same way as us).

We arrived at the river into the Pampas and someone bailed out a boat for us.  It was still raining so we donned our 2 boliviano ponchos for the boat ride to our camp.

Along the way we saw a few birds.

And some howler monkeys and a smaller type also.

Some nice landscapes.

And the cutest little monkeys you ever saw, right down by the riverside and quite keen to investigate the tourists in the boats.  Perhaps hoping for some snacks.

More birds.

Our camp.

Some scenery as it aproached night.

This little guy was sitting right by the river bank that night.

The next morning we were introduced to "Mosley" the resident alligator. He enjoys pasta and long walks on the beach... and maybe a tourist or two.

More scenery, and a toucan.  These guys never let the boat get that close.

The guide from another group came for a walk with us to hunt for Anacondas.  He managed to collect this critter.  The bright colours indicate it´s quite toxic, he was keen to get rid of it.

This is what we were walking through.  In some places the water was thigh deep.  They loaned us gumboots (a photo of them later).

These wetlands are full of wildlife.

Eventually we found a snake, not the large type of Anaconda but a smaller variety.  The guides referred to it as a Cobra.  (We later learned another name but have forgotten it.  We also learned that it wasn´t in fact poisonous as we were led to believe at this stage).

From there we visited a local house, they had some cute little creatures called "Tejon".  These guys were only 25 days old, their parents were killed by dogs.  These creatures live at the tops of trees and can survive a fall from incredible heights.  They make a really odd high pitched squeaking noise.

We were fortunate to spot a sloth.

Another type of howler monkey.

And then we went swimming with the pink (that´s right, they´re really pink) dolphins.  However (as Robert said) it was like swimming in Coca-cola so you couldn´t even see them when they were one meter away.  The water was really warm in places.

Scenery.

Us.

Another bird.

The sunset on the 2nd day.

Erin was feeling a little artistic and playing with the various functions of the camera.  She quite likes this shot.

The next morning we were up early to catch the sunrise.

We returned to camp for breakfast and saw a group of howler monkeys in the trees around our camp.

Our lodgings, such as they were.

After breakfast we went piranha fishing.  Sadly they were not biting there.

Some birds we saw on the way.

After the dismal fishing attempt we returned to see "Mosley" having his breakfast of pasta.

Erin took a few shots of the toilet and shower, and another "artistic" shot of the gumboots.

We then hopped back in the boat to return to Rurre.  Here is a shot of the rest of the group in the boat and a turtle, one of many, we saw on the way back.

We had another go at piranha fishing in a small lagoon by the roadside.  This time they were biting.  The little buggers would steal the bait right off the hook within seconds of it landing in the water.  You had to be quick and give the line a tug at just the right moment.  We never quite mastered it, we´re definitely not fishermen.

Upon our return we received a free t-shirt from the company and also booked a 5 day tour of the jungle.

Hola,

We had an early start to day 4 because we wanted to catch the sunrise over the salar.  We set off without breakfast.  Note how the salt forms geometric patterns, weird!

The salar itself is massive, you really feel quite small standing in the middle of this vast field of white salt.

Sometimes the camera would focus on the strangest things.  No matter how many times I tried to take this shot the damn thing was fixated on the cap.  Oh well, it´s not a bad photo if you´re into arty ones.

We stopped for breakfast at an island in the middle of the salar.  The island is home to many cacti and some birds.

This cactus is 1203 years old and gets 10mm taller each year.

This cactus resembles a teddy bear.

This is an example of the types of birds they have here.  This type comes in 2 colours, bright yellow and dark green.

Morgan, doing what he does best.  Recording the sound of his boots crunching the salt beneath them.

Morgan took this photo for us, we think it´s kinda cool.

Some more examples of the geometric patterns and another arty shot of some tyre tracks.

I´m in the palm of her hand... literally.

The real salt hotel.  Everything except the roof is made of salt.  It smells a little like fish.

We stopped for lunch in another small town on the edge of the salar.  This town was a mining town, they mine the salt for people in Bolivia and export (we think).

A pet llama, not dead - just resting.

The people working with the mined salt.

Last stop, the end of the tour was the cemetery of trains outside Uyuni.

Our guide and his wife (our cook) a bit before they left us to return home to Tupiza where they have 4 children, 15, 12, 9 and 7.  The elder kids look after the rest while their parents are working.

And that, as they say was that.  We had hoped to catch the train from Uyuni to Oruro that night, however as it took a while to find a tour we missed it, it left the previous night.  So, we took another night bus all the way back to La Paz.

Hola,

Day 3 began with a short drive to Laguna Colorado, the red lake.  The red colour is caused by millions of tiny plankton like creatures upon which 3 varieties of flamingo feed.

From there we drove to the Arbol de Piedra (rock tree).  It´s surrounded by other rocks but none have it´s unique shape.  Included a photo of a nearby volcano.

From there to another laguna, one of 4.  We stopped here for lunch and it was here that we got the best shot of a flamingo yet.  They did not seem as prone to flee at the sight of tourists here.

After lunch we saw more of the countryside and the volcanoes in the area as we headed to the smaller "salt hotel", this one is situated on the edge of the Salar de Uyuni itself.

Our accomodation, the floors and beds are made of salt.

The accomodation is situated in a small town.  As usual they have a church.  What we found interesting is that they use power saving bulbs to light the streets! (and the houses of course, when they´re not using fire and candles).

Sunset on day 3.

Hola,

On day 2 we got the front seats, much nicer.  Our first stop of the day was unexpected.  Our guide swerved to miss something on the trail then got out and ran back to herd a bunch of baby birds off the road.

First scheduled stop was an abandoned village.  It was abandoned 15 years ago because it is too cold here.  The people moved to where we stayed the night before.

These funny creatures inhabit this area.  They look a bit like a cross between a rabbit and a squirrel.  They are the size of a large cat or a small dog.

The first of many lagoons.

Some scenes along the way.

Llamas grazing in a river bed, this terrain is quite odd with its river banks and green river bed.

More scenery.

We stopped for lunch and a dip in the hot pool which smelt vaguely of sulphur.  Love my white arms!

More scenery... are you sick of this yet?

Laguna Verde (Green Lake - they´re inventive these Bolivians!)

Action shots, note the smiles that´s cos we´re in the good seats!

One more shot of the scenery.  Hey, there isn´t a lot to do while sitting in a 4x4 and bumping across the terrain.

Geysers.  We didn´t stay here long as Erin almost blew away!

At our lodging for the second night there was a cat.  Guess who wasn´t interested in the cat.  Guess who the cat decided to visit.  Despite being dissuaded several times.

Sunset on day 2.

Hola,

We weren´t too sore from our horse riding the next day and as luck would have it 2 new people had signed up, but, one person had left.  So that left 4 of us.  Luckily for us they agreed to let us go for US$100 each.  I suspect they realised we were just going to hang around until one of the 3 main tour companies would take us for that price and so just relented.

We all piled into the 4x4, us and 2 people from France.  Morgan, a photographer and musician.  He makes music using recorded sounds which he mixes, filters, etc.  The other Michaela (excuse the spelling) a woman who has been travelling most of her life, 58 countries and counting.

We got stuck with the back seats on the first day, and the 4x4 had some petrol leak problem around the petrol cap (I think they must have overfilled it?).  The smell was not pleasant.

We didn´t see a heck of a lot on the first day, it was mostly driving.  First stop Valley of the Moon.

I took a close up of a cactus, it´s a spiny bugger.

We stopped for lunch in a field of llamas.  Apparently the locals each have 10 llamas, including the children.  They all bring them to this fertile plain.

Some shots of the scenery.

We arrived at a small town where we were to stay the night.  The local children invited us to a game of basketball and then football.  It was a little difficult at altitude (4000m plus I think).

Sunset on day 1.

Hola,

We arrived in Tupiza at 3:30am and paid 8 bolivianos for a taxi ride to take us a whole 2 blocks... we had no map so weren´t to know.

We were pleasantly surprised by the nice older gentleman at the hostal who wasn´t the least bit upset to see us at that time of morning.  Our room was ok but it only had net curtains.  The rest of the hostal was very nice.

This is Tupiza (by day).  It looks like a western movie set.

We tried to book a tour of the Salar de Uyuni but couldn´t find a company with enough other people going which would then lower the price into an acceptable range.  The price for 6 people was typically US$100 per person and that was all we wanted to pay.

So, to keep ourselves amused while we waited for more people to sign up we decided to go for a tour of the countryside, wild wild west style... on horseback.  Seasoned pros, as you can see.

This is what we saw in the 5 hour tour.

We came upon a "massive" waterfall...

I took the challenge and scaled this monster...

To the top.

This part of the hillside is known to have a certain phallic resemblance.

A few more pictures.

A well deserved meal for my horse... which tried to eat every piece of greenery we passed, including the ones with spikes (mad bugger).

Oh, and one other thing.  The guide gave me (Regan) the crazy horse.  Any time another horse started to gallop mine had to win the race.  At one point another tourist (Morgan, we´d later join him on the Salar Tour) took off at a furious pace and it was all I could do to hold on to the damn thing.  When the guide (and Erin) caught up he looked relieved to see me alive and still ahorse, but all Erin could do was piss herself laughing.

Erin reckons her horse was bigger but mine was faster!  I always won, whether I really wanted to or not, mad bugger.

(Erin) I didn´t try to win because I thought Regan might fall off if I over took him!

Hola,

We rode a bus through the rain to Potosi.  We arrived in the cold grey afternoon (4:30pm ish).  Potosi is the highest city of its size (112,000 people) in the world at 4070m. 

From the bus station (such as it was) we took a taxi to a hostal called "Koala Den" which turned out to be too expensive for us at 30 bolivianos each for a dorm room.  So, we walked around the corner to Residencia Felcar which was much cheaper... but was as it turned out a bad choice (more on that later).

First, some shots of Potosi itself.  The third shot shows the hill which contains the mines.

The next morning we were up early for a mine tour (with Koala Tours for 80 bolivianos each).  The hot water at our hostal was not on yet, so we didnt have showers.  We checked out and left our bags in the safe keeping of our hostal.

Koala Tours supplied all the gear, dont we look fine!

Our first stop was the miners market where we all purchased a bag containing one stick of dynamite, one fuse, one detonator and some accelerant (white stuff, I forget the name).  Also a bottle of fizzy drink and a bag of coca leaves.  All to be given to the miners who work for 12 plus hours without eating (as that causes stomach problems).  Total cost 27 bolivianos or NZ 5.40.

Next stop a processing plant where they take the combined minerals plus waste and crush it down and extract the minerals from the waste.  There is approximately 70 percent waste.  Bolivia export the minerals in powder form for further separation.  This is what the rock looks like before crushing.

This is the machinery used to crush and extract the minerals.

Next stop a mine itself, this one called "Candeleria" one of the largest mines with 200 workers.  There are over 300 mines in this hillside "Cerro Rico".  The entrance.

Miners in the mine.

Erin.

The lowest level of the mine is where they are still blasting (they start at 5pm, after we leave).  This is a shot of them preparing the charges.

At the end there was the option to blow stuff up, our guide was showing his machismo by placing a lit charge in his pants.

He then took it out and ran down the hill. This was the result

(no miners were harmed in the making of this blog)

Upon returning to our hostal we discovered that despite paying for a night, and their sign stipulating we were entitled to a shower, we were not allowed to shower without paying (5 bolivianos each).  Further, they would not supply us with towels.  After a brief discussion we took our bags and left.

We would NOT recommend RESIDENCIA FELCAR to anyone.  Try the one down the road.

Footnote: we found out later that a Czech tourist was killed in the mines, on a tour, a few days earlier.  Also, an Italian woman was injured in a separate incident.  Apparently accidents happen all the time, which is why they get you to sign a waiver (which Erin reckons you could drive a bus thru)

Potosi wasnt our favourite place, we left that night for Tupiza.

Hola,

It was time to leave Sucre for Potosi so on our last day we visited the markets one last time for a juice and to say goodbye to the fruit lady.

Then, as we had time to kill, we visited the Supreme Court of Bolivia.  We had to relinquish our passports on entry but they did supply us with a guide free of charge.

Finally we returned to our appartment and packed our bags.  This first photo is of the landlords place.

Our appartment, more of a sleep out really (they had 3 of them)

The front gate and the view down the road and over the city.

Our bus left for Potosi at 1pm, arrived at 4:30ish. We found a cheap hostel, got some food and batteries and organised a tour of the mines for the morning.

Hola,

On our last day in Sucre we decided to finally visit the "Huellas de los dinosaurios" or dinosaur footprints.  We paid 10 bolivianos for the truck ride there and back, this was the truck we left in:

The park itself is only 3 months old.  They have many life sized replica dinosaurs, these were the coolest ones:

Did you spot the one related to the NZ Tuatara?  The guide even mentions it on the tour!

These are the footprints themselves, you can view them through binoculars.  The biggest prints are from the biggest kind of dinosaur.  There are prints from smaller ones but you can only see them through the binoculars.

Apparently all of Sucre used to be a lake with a volcano nearby.  One day the volcano erupted and the ash fossilised the prints.  Later there was an earthquake which raised the once flat bed of the lake into a cliff face.

In 1994 the prints were uncovered by miners collecting materials for concrete.  They stopped mining only because they found too high a concentration of magnesium in the soil, which doesn´t make for good concrete.  The prints are now part of a national park.

The truck changed for our ride home:

On the way home we spotted one of the colourful local buses.

We splashed out and spent 66 bolivianos on lunch (approx NZ$13).  This was the view from the restaurant.

Hola,

Today I (Erin) went to the Textile Museum while Regan played computer games.  The Textile Musuem relates to what we saw when we went to Tarabuco (see a previous post).

These four photos are some of the weavings on display.  If you zoom in you can see all the detail and the figures of people and animals.  It is extremely fine weaving.   The second photo is of a chuspa (a bag) that they use for holding coca leaves.

A spindle used for spinning (Mum I couldn´t help putting this one in).

A different style of weaving from a different area.

The weaving style and materials adopted in the 1950s-1960s.

A weaving dating from the 1890s. We hope that the one we bought is this old but I suspect it dates from the 50s or 60s.

Three weavers from different areas (note their different styles of clothing) plying their craft at the museum.  It takes about 2 months to make one of these weavings.

They call these "four cornered caps".  Due to their small size it is thought they were worn by people with elongated skulls (which were created by wrapping strips of cloth round the head tightly when a person was young).

This is a tunic made from very fine vicuña hair using interlocking woven tapestry. Close up it was amazing despite the disrepair, which can be forgiven because it is 1,600 years old!  (The photo is not very good because it was taken through glass).

This is the church across the street from the museum which dates back to 1665.

The kind lady from the reception desk at the museum saw me waiting in the street for Regan and warned me that the area was not safe for tourists and under no circumstances should I go down the alleyway next to the church.  Regan and I have been walking up this street and the ones near it pretty much daily for the last two weeks.  Maybe she thought I was travelling on my own????

Regan played Max Payne II....  it was cool (Regan´s words).

On to the salt flats on Monday, all going well.

Hola,

We´re free!  No more spanish lessons.  They were good but quite hard.  We thought we´d post a few more photos of Sucre...

The cityscape from the street where we had our lessons, note the air plants on the power/phone lines.

Residencia Bolivia, the hostel we stayed in for the first 5 or so days here (before moving to an apartment... We must get some photos of that too)

The Plazoleta San Francisco, down the road from Residencia Bolivia

Some food Erin could actually eat.  On the left is Masaco platano con queso - banana with cheese!  A little odd at first but very tasty. On the right an huminta (silent h) de horno - corn and cheese wrapped in the corn husk and cooked.

All the people in the cafe thought I (Erin) was some weird and crazy gringo when I took that photo.

Hola,

The next day we emailed our travel agent to ask what to do about our insurance claim.  She gave us a toll free (yeah, not in Sucre apparently) number to call for assistance.  We called and they told us that to make a claim we would need to send them original documents etc... we explained that we would like to know if our police report was sufficient before we sent it away just in case we needed more information from the police etc.  They said we could fax it for confirmation, and so the first saga began...

First off we couldn´t get a fax to send, we tried 6 times all up.  Each time it would connect and then fail giving an out of paper at the other end type error.  We called them back, they had paper, we tried some more...

We had no luck that first night and decided to try again the next morning.  We tried and failed once more before being directed to the main telephone office and they sent me over the road to a small place where it was finally sent.

However, the police report was not very dark and the fax wasn´t legible enough at the other end, and so began the second saga...

We hunted around for a photocopy place which could darken the report, however it appeared either that they had no idea what they were doing or the machines were not good enough.  We asked around for the "best" place to go and got directions, it was, however, closed for the weekend.

At an empasse we decided to book a ticket to Tarabuco for some retail therapy.  It is a place 64kms from Sucre known for its weavings.

The locals wear all manner of interesting gear, these clothes are not costumes they actually wear this stuff every day, no joke.

The stalls were all much alike, with hats, bags, weavings, and clothes made from Alpaca etc.

Our purchases, note our new hats.

Upon returning to Sucre we decided to go hunting for a place to learn spanish.  It being our main goal here.  We hunted around and found many schools and a few private teachers.  We settled on Patricia a private tutor with many good books and resources to draw from (apparently, the schools don´t have any books, crazy!).

On monday the saga continued... The photocopy place finally opened for business and they were able to make a copy.  However the fax place was out of order and the main office over the road failed to send!  We gave up on it for an hour or so then returned to the original place (no longer out of order) and finally managed to send the report.

All this effort and we still do not know whether we need more information from the police here... we now have a claim form and then we´ll have to send all the original documents home to make a claim.  Fingers crossed they arrive!

Assuming our claim is accepted we still have the problem of replacing the items.  Items cannot be sent here (the Leatherman is a knife and the PDA a communication device, both these things are prohibited).  It´s also unlikely we can find the same items in Bolivia, perhaps duty-free or in a more developed country, but not here.

We have been taking lessons for a week now, 4 hours a day, 5 days a week.  As part of the lessons we went on a little field trip to the hills outside of town.  With us went another student "Remo" and two past students now working here in Sucre.  It´s fair to say we understood less than 50% of what was said on the trip, and I didn´t say much (partly because I had nothing to say, and partly because I didn´t know how to say it).

The locals use the native trees to dry/store food for their animals in the months where there is less to eat.  It looks rather odd.

This is our spanish teacher next to an oven for baking bread.

This is a local house we visited.  The owner went on for some length about religion among other things, he was most passionate.

His son.

The local home owner and our spanish teacher.

The chicken coop.

On another day we did our own little city/park tour and photographed this local obelisk/monument.  It was paid for with money taken from local bakers who were misrepresenting the weight of their bread.

Well, that´s everything... we´re finally up to date on our blog.  Woohoo!

Hola,

On our last night in Peru we went to the artesenal markets as our guidebook told us it was one of the best places in SA to buy alpaca stuff.  I (Regan) bought a cool hat with ear flaps (see last photo).  Erin bought a green jersey (you can just see it in the first photo below).

We decided to take a ride in a Trici-taxi powered solely by a wheezing peruvian.  Despite the wheezing he did pretty good.  Erin felt a little guilty about making him do all the work so we gave him a tip at the end.  These trici-taxis were everywhere.

Early the next morning we boarded a bus for Copacabana.  Our ticket was originally for one night there and then on to La Paz the following day.  However, once we arrived we decided to carry on to La Paz because the weather was pretty crap.

On the way to Copacabana we crossed the border.  At the border we exchanged our Peruvian soles for Bolivian bolivianos (sometimes called pesos).  It was a fairly easy and painless experience, except we were surprised to find out that we were only allowed into the country for 1 month.

The trip from Puno to Copacabana was a relatively short one.  Once there we met this monkey. It was near the bus stop in Copacabana.  It had a leash attached to it´s tail, but the other end wasn´t attached to anything.  Despite that, it didn´t seem to stray too far.

From Copacabana we travelled for about an hour to a small place we have forgotten the name of.  To continue towards La Paz you have to cross the narrowest stretch of Lake Titicaca by barge or boat, this includes the bus itself!

This last photo is of me (Regan) in San Pedro on the other side.  Notice my gnarly hat.

We arrived in La Paz.  The driver of our bus very kindly dropped us off outside his brother´s hostel (no, we don´t really know that for certain but my guess is he gets some sort of cut from every tourist who goes there from his bus).

Instead, we wandered the streets for at least 2 hours looking for a cheap hostal.  The prices were all much higher than our guidebook lead us to believe and that was for some pretty dingy looking dives.

In the end we decided to leave the next day, and so settled for a cheap and only slightly dingy place.  We had a room with a private bathroom, however it was so small if you turned on the shower it fell in both the handbasin and toilet at the same time (we are not joking!).

The next morning we quickly checked out the markets in La Paz, they are actually quite good, if terribly disorganised.  It seems the prices here for stuff ain´t bad.  We plan to come back and buy us some cool stuff to send home and/or the UK (i.e. blankets for 40 bolivianos... approx NZ$7).  The only real problem is the cost of postage.

After that we headed to the bus station and bought a ticket to Sucre, an overnight trip that only leaves after 6:30 at night.  We stowed our bags with the bus company and wandered around aimlessly (looking for food, internet, etc).

As it turned out our bus left one hour late (inexplicably).  It made it´s first stop in a suburb of La Paz called "El Alto" where many people got on, some were passangers, some were selling food and drinks and one was stealing our bag.  That´s right, he hopped on the bus, asked us to open the window.  While our backs were turned he took my bag from under the footrest, under my feet.  Shortly after that he left the bus and it wasn´t for another 20 minutes that I noticed my bag was missing.  We searched the entire bus (the other passengers were very helpful and seemed genuinely upset).  It was then that we remembered the strange man asking about the window (when it was actually quite a chilly night) and we put 2 and 2 together to make "the bugger stole my car... I mean bag". 

Needless to say the rest of the trip wasn´t much fun because I had lost my PDA (containing my books and music), our IPOD and some of my warm clothing including my lovely new hat, my gloves, and my scarf (from Cusco).  Not to mention that they got my Leatherman too, which will prove to be a real pain to be without.

Upon arriving in Sucre after a loooooong trip (14 hours) we went straight to the police.  Luckily we met an American girl on the bus who has been living near Sucre for the last year and could speak fairly good spanish.  She kindly agreed to help us with the police and we spent the rest of the morning trying to convince them to provide a police report of the incident.  In the end we finally got a report, only to discover that we had to pay 10 bolivianos for it.  Don´t you love Bolivia!

Last but not least the American girl (sorry, forgot her name) took us to a nice and cheap hostel called "Residencia Bolivia" where we decided to stay, at least until we figure out what to do next.

Hola,

Mum (Sue) these photos are for you.

From Puno we booked a two day tour of the lake including Los Uros (the floating islands), Amantani and Taquile. 

The first stop was Los Uros.  These islands are made entirely from reeds which grow in the lake.  The people collect the root base of the reeds and then lay the reeds themselves flat on top of them.  Over time they build a 2m thick island of reeds.  They anchor the islands to the lake bottom using ropes made from (you guessed it) reeds, and rocks.  In a big storm the islands pull free from their moorings and need to be towed back into place by boat.  The islands were originally closer to the Bolivian side of the lake but are now only 40mins from Puno by boat.

Things are pretty basic on the islands and they are very dependent on tourism for income. However they are much more advanced than you might think (note the solar panel).

The native wildlife includes many birds. Their diet consists of (you guessed it) reeds, birds and fish.  They trade these items for fruit and vegetables.

Some more shots of the islands.  Walking on the islands is reasonably stable, except near the edges where if you stand in one place for too long you will get wet feet.

On the way to Amantani we picked up a hitchhiker and gave him a lift most of the way across.

On Amantani we stayed the night with a local couple.  Their five children all live elsewhere i.e. Lima, Arequipa, and Puno.  They must leave the island to study in order to get work for money.  The islands do not really use money, but need it to purchase clothing etc.

Simon and Mariela

The view from the house, our room and the cooking fire in the kitchen.

The church in the main square.

The pre-incan ruins, a square temple dedicated to Pachatata which they pray to for rain.

The view of the lake from Pachatata.

The round temple dedicated to Pachamama which they pray to for good food, good health and good lives (we think).

On the way back down.

That night we had a fiesta, it was a cheesy (only for tourists) thing.  We got to dress up in traditional clothing and a local band played local music.

The next day we went to Taquile, an hour by boat.  On this island they still practice the 3 incan rules.  No lying, no stealing and don´t be lazy.  Everyone has to work, all the time.  So, the women spin wool and the men knit hats and small bags.  There is no such thing as divorce and marriages are conducted only once a year in May.  The clothing they wear signifies marital status.  A man wearing a white belt is unmarried.  A man wearing a colourful belt and a pouch for coca leaves is married.  A woman wearing dark skirts is married and a woman wearing bright skirts is not.

From here we returned to Puno.  A 3 hour boat ride.

Hola,

It just so happened that the weekend we were in Puno it was it´s anniversary of sorts.  They are celebrating the mythical event where the South American "Adam & Eve" emerged from the waters of Lake Titicaca.

In South America they will use any excuse to have a big party and get drunk, so, that´s what they did. Along with a parade where we took these photos.  They love to set off tom thumb fire crackers, it´s deafening.  The bands played all night... loudly... ah well you can´t always have your cake and eat it too I suppose.

This is how the local... poorer people carry their young children.

Hola,

From Arequipa we took a bus to Puno, on the shores of the lake Titicaca (which isn´t a Spanish name, it´s actually Quechua. Titi meaning puma and caca for lake... we think).

From Puno we took a bus and then a colectivo (cab) to Sillustani to see some pre-incan ruins, believed to be funeral towers. It was just our luck that shortly after we arrived it started to rain and blow a gale. Ah well, we have some nice photos anyway.

The biggest and most impressive tower.

It´s insides.

Other towers.

This is how they were constructed - using ramps of stones which were later removed. They´re not sure why they didn´t finish all the towers.

Hola,

We took a day of rest after Colca Canyon, then disaster struck in the form of a bad empanada which kept me (Regan) in bed for a full day.  I won´t go into any details but it wasn´t pleasant.

After recovering sufficiently for another outing we booked a trip to "El Misti".  US$50 per person, and we just knew the food was going to be a problem with Erin unable to eat wheat.

We gave them ample warning so that they could find alternate food; they assured us they had, but it was not to be.

A shot of "El Misti" from our hostel on the morning we left.

After an hour in the 4x4 (cuatro por cuatro) on a very bumpy road/trail we arrived at the base of the volcano. A height of 3500m (apparently the sign is incorrect).

Looking up the beast on our first rest stop.

Our 2nd rest stop.

Some shots of the terrain and native fauna.

After 5 hours of very slow walking (I could practically feel Erin seething) we arrived at our camp site at 4600m.  A total climb on day one of 1100m.

Sunset over Arequipa (yes, it´s a 2 day trek!)

Our tent was a little on the old and partially had it side.  It was also kinda tiny.

Day two began at 2am.  It was very cold and still dark (oddly enough).  Sunrise on day two.

This is a shot down on the landscape around the volcano.  "El Misti" used to be covered in snow however some time ago it all fell off causing these large gouges in the ground. (Erin thinks that´s called a lahar or something).

The climb was much steeper.  We walked just as slowly as on day one.

The lip of the crater was tantalizingly close, at this point we were still 60 minutes from the crater, and then another 40 to the peak.

Me at the lip of the crater, dead... tired.

The view from the top was worth the 14 hours it took to climb (if you ask Erin).  Height 5800m.  You can see a volcano in the distance, it is apparently the most active in Peru.  Another shot shows another less active volcano nearby.

What took 9 hours to climb up on day two, took 40 minutes to slide back down.

From our campsite it took another hour and a bit to walk/slide back down to the 4x4.  Another bumpy ride back, this time with music played at full noise.

p.s. The Peruvian method for climbing hills is to switchback from left to right taking the smallest steps possible.  In this manner even if your legs are absolutely buggered you can keep climbing for several hours more... we know, we´ve done it... three times now (Machu Picchu, Colca Canyon, and El Misti).

Hola,

From Arequipa we took a 2 day trip to the Colca Canyon - the deepest canyon in the world.  We took a 6 hour bus trip to Cabanaconde.  At times the road was closed... for no apparent reason, so we drove offroad styles (lleno de baches).

Cabanaconde was a very friendly place, so friendly that we had 4 people from 4 different hostals trying to get us to stay with them.  We spent an hour looking at them all before picking ... the cheapest one.

Our room was tiny, but that wasn´t the real problem.  The problem was the water pipe coming through the corner of the ceiling from the floor above which sounded like a river running through our room.  In addition as we were late rising there was no hot water left.

The next day we started our trip into the canyon.  This was the view of the path from the top (you have to look closely to see the trail).

At the bottom of the canyon, on the river are some hot springs and geysers (though only small... no real erruptions).

We stayed  in a "lodge" on the river.  It was very tranquil given that it takes 3 hours to walk there and everything is carried in on mules.  The "lodge" had hot springs which were nice.  Our room was made from mud bricks and bamboo.

That night we went fishing in the river.  This is a view of the river from the lodge.

From there we walked along the other side of the canyon (from Cabanaconde) to the oasis.  Here is a shot as we got close.

It was a blistering hot day and we had walked a total of 3 hours so far so we stopped for a couple of hours and swam at the oasis (in a pool).  From there we had to climb back up the canyon to Cabanaconde.

The view on the way back up.

We decided to stay at a new hostal that night.  This one owned by Pablo, who could actually speak a fair bit of English.  We splashed out and had dinner at his resteraunt, it was very nice.

The next day we travelled to the Cruz del Condor to see the condors.  We spent 2 hours sitting, watching, waiting for a condor which was sitting on a rock not too far from us.  At one point another condor flew past but we got no good photos of it.  Finally the first condor (a juvenile) took flight and graced us with 2 flybys.

There were the customary hordes of locals selling all manner of things.  They start them really young, as you can see.

We waited, and waited, and waited for our bus. It was 1 hour late.  After another 6 hour bumpy bus ride we made it back to Arequipa.

Hola,

We arrived in Arequipa from Cusco after another overnight bus ride.  We checked into a hostal called "La Reyna".  Our room was on the top floor.  This was the view:

For something cheap to do we wandered through the streets of Arequipa up to a church.  From there you get a picturesque view of "El Misti" through the arches.

Arequipa, like most places here really comes alive at night.  Who needs that many taxis!

The high rate of illiteracy here means that a person who can read, write and type can make a living typing documents for other people... at 9pm at night.

Our hostel was across the road from the Santa Catalina Monastery.  This is a small part of it.

Another view of the monastery, someone´s rooftop garden full of geraniums.

Hola,

For our last day in Cusco we decided to be a bit more touristy and visit the ruins closest to town. You start by taking a bus to the 4th ruin, Tambo Machay a spring/shrine. Here are the 2 best photos of it.

Next was Puka Pukara a red fort, most likely to be a "tambo" or post-house. The photo of me (Regan) shows the countryside/view from the fort.

On the way to the next ruin we encountered some wild life, these photos are for you Ross. Some burros and chanchas.

Third ruin, Qénqo (or Kenko) was a temple. It is a worn rock hillside/structure with many tunnels/paths beneath it.

Last but most certainly not least Sacsayhuaman (pronounced like "sexy woman") is believed to be a temple to the sun. The ruins are almost as large as Machu Pichu and more is still being uncovered. The massive rocks weigh up to 130 tonnes.

Sacsayhuaman was by far the most impressive of these 4 ruins. From here we went to Arequipa...

Hola,

We decided to have a day of rest and go to the art museum. Some of the art comes from cultures pre dating the Inca by up to 1000 years or more.

A mortar and pestle

A statue

Another statue

A bottle, note the mans head with open mouth

A bottle, covered in faces

A bottle in the shape of a camel (or was it a llama)

A bracelet of seashells

Incan gold earrings, approx 10cm diameter

All in all a rather dull afternoon for me (Regan). Erin seemed to like it though.

Hola,

Just around the corner from our Hostel (called Estrellita) in Cusco we found this beekeeping shop. It had honey for sale (so of course Erin had to buy some) and it had tutorials on beekeeping and all the gear you would need.

Hola,

From Cusco we took a bus to Urubamba. From there we walked to Tarabumba (6km) thru countryside like this

At Tarabamba we turned left and crossed the Rio Urubamba over a ramshackle bridge

to a small ramshackle village at the foot of the hills upon which the Salineras salt pans reside (our first destination).  The river running down the hills shows signs of the salt.

The salt pans themselves.  They still work these to this day, a worker can be seen in a photo below.

From there we walked for an hour and a half to a village called Maras where we met a taxi driver who wanted to charge us a fortune to drive us to Moray (our next destination).  Instead we opted to walk the 5 kms... the longest 5km we have ever walked, we suspect the sign was lying.

Moray is suspected to be an Incan experimental garden, each terrace has its own micro climate for growing different crops. Erin thinks they look a bit like crop circles. When we were there the Peruvians were in the process of restoring them by hand, no power tools in sight.

This is why South America is so good at football (Soccer), they will put a field anywhere, even in the bottom of a 500 year old Incan ruin.

This was the view from Moray, not bad.

After our longer than 5km walk we decided to pay for a taxi back to the main road (where we caught a bus back to Cusco). The taxi driver was a lunatic.. it reminded me of Camerons driving.

In all we walked for 4 hours, maybe 20 kms. We were stuffed.

Hola,

While in Cusco we visited Qorikancha, a museum which is a church built on Incan foundations. The nuns still live in the white buildings you can see in a photo below.

This pool/bath was carved from a single piece of stone

Hola,

We should probably have posted these earlier, but better late than never I suppose. For those that were not there this was the night Morrison Kent celebrated Erins departure.

We went with a company called Llama Path, who focus on sustainable tourism and making sure the porters get a fair deal. Our guides were Jose (head guide) and Alex (assistant guide, in training)

Jose believes the inca trail is a spiritual journey intended for the various peoples the incas conquered. The idea being that on this journey the incas could indoctrinate those people into their religion. He believes Machu Pichu was a university of idolatry or in other words the centre for religious affairs, where the idols of the conquered peoples were taken (sort of as hostage to force them to take the journey).

Each of the major ruins on the trail have a purpose whether it be to control the flow of people using the trail, to feed the travellers, or as a place to teach spiritual things, and cleanse the body and soul (using the various sacred baths located at each site)

Day1 - An easy walk along the Incan flats (or in other words several small ups and downs.. there is no such thing as flat in these mountains)

The team at kilometer 82 the starting point for the inca trail. From left to right: Francine & Mark (UK), Gerry & Sherry (US), Michael (Ireland / US), Peter (Australia), Me & Erin (NZ) and Stephen & Rachel (UK). I apologise if I have spelt (or even got) any of your names wrong, I am terrible with names!

The first major Incan ruin, this is the snake city, notice 3 levels of terracing in a wavy pattern, this represents the snake. An important figure in Incan spiritual belief. Jose believes this was a control station as it is situated at the intersection of 4 major trails and has guard/lookout towers situated around it.

An incan burial site. The incan worshipped the mountains and buried their dead on the moutainside.

Day 2 - The killer. A 5 hour uphill to 4200 metres then 600m desent to camp. Lunch was half way up the 5 hour climb.

Breaking camp on the start of day 2.

As soon as Jose mentioned a possible side trip Erin just had to go. It was an easy walk, a 2 hour round trip that we probably could have completed in 1 hour, had we walked a little faster.

Climbing up hill, in the hot sun, at altitude is hard.. believe me.

At least part of the climb is under some nice bush.

The last part of the climb to Dead Womans Pass

The view down from the top.

We made it, finally, 4200 metres.

And now, back down the other side.. *sigh*

They have toi-toi here!

At least the views are spectacular

Day 3 - The longest day, starts with a bit of a climb, then some down, then some up, then some down, then a long incan flat, then a whole lot of down.

A waypoint for incan runners. The incas has no written language (as far as we know) but used a series of strings and knots to count supplies, people, etc. The Inca (king) used these counts to govern his people.

More spectacular views.

The second large ruin. 3 spiritual baths are present here, also an altar for sacrafice.

After lunch on the second part of the trail we spied a skink

This part of the trail includes a tunnel carved out of the rock.

The third major ruin, 5 spiritual baths and a temple in the shape of a scorpion (similar to the snake in Incan belief).

Oh look, more steps downwards.

We took *another* side trip, this time to the Incan farm land.. remember there is no such thing as flat land here, so, the Incas built some. Each terrace contains a drainage system consisting of a layer of large stones, covered by smaller stones, then sand, then the rich dark soil. These guys were very clever.

The last major ruin before Machu Pichu, this one has 11 baths and a much larger temple. Included are some photos of us instead, due to popular demand (Ross).

4th day - Up at 3:30am, a quick breakfast and then off to the checkpoint. We wanted to be the first there so we could be the first on the trail to make it to the sun gate at sunrise. All the other groups camped here had the same idea but we managed to get the drop on them all.

Unfortunately after 3 days of perfect weather day 4 decided to rain. So, no sunrise and not such a picture perfect postcard view of Machu Pichu.

Depending who you ask, this is either the sun temple, or the tomb of the Inca who built Machu Pichu. Jose believes it is both.

Some of the stone work is quite amazing. They often built with the existing rock, some say because they worshipped the rock and stone, I think maybe it was just easier.

The rain cloud did give some impressive views.

Ok, 3rd side trip. This time we climbed this crazy tall hill for a view of Machu Pichu through the clouds.

After 10am the crowds of people started to pour in .. all wearing thier plastic ponchos, in every concievable colour, available everywhere for around 2 soles.

Last side trip, this time to the Inca bridge. It appears they had to build up the side of the cliff face with square bricks before placing the bridge across the gap, incredible.

And that as they say is that. By the end I was quite sick of ruins, and walking, especially walking. Erin was still ready to take yet another side trip, 2 hours there and 2 hours back but luckily we did not have time.

One final note for all those contemplating the Inca trail, it is hard, harder than you might think, especially due to the altitude and the fact that everything is either up, or down, and neither is actually easy. Up is hard and slow. Down quickly becomes tiresome and painful on your knees.

Two of the group had to be carried by the porters most/all of the way from day 2 onward and all of our group had sore knees by the end. Erin and I had 2 walking poles each which I definately recommend, it allows you to take some of the strain off your knees.

So, if you are thinking of doing it I recommend training for it, it is far better to endure some pain training at home than to have a hard time on the trail iteself. You want the trail to be fun, not torture.

We started our day by going for a wander up to San Cristobal church, on the way there we passed some inca stone work (the ground floor of many buildings in Cusco are inca stonework). We were prohibited from taking photos of the interior of San Cristobal, and its exterior is not all that interesting.

On the way to the church we saw these interesting Inca rock walls, now part of a hostel you can stay in.

At San Cristobal there are twelve niches like this one. This wall supposedly forms the base of one wall of an Incan palace.

The local people lead llama around the place for tourists to have a photo with them, we stole this photo when they were not looking. You can see Cusco in the background.

One of the more expensive hotels in the city (we are not staying here) uses this cool looking doorway as its main entrance.

The famous 12 sided/pointed rock. This rock was the keystone of the original Incan building, it is 2 metres deep. The other stones are only 1 metre at most. 

Some interesting city works. These poles appear to be preventing the collapse of a wall/building.

The plaza near to our hostel has the faces of the mythical founders of Cusco, Manco Capac and Mama Ocllo.

An interesting fountain on one of the main avenues.

A church built on the Incan ruins called Qorikancha. We are going to see this tomorrow.

These photos were taken from a small airplane over the Nazca desert, the lines you can see are the famous Nazca lines. That little trip cost us US$55 each! but also included a night in a hostel in Nazca, and the trip to see pottery works, gold works, and the mummies.

The pottery and gold works were little more than an excuse to extract money from tourist, although the gold man spent most of his time singing his speech and replies to questions, he was at least a happy fellow.

The Astronaut

The Monkey

The Condor

The Spider

The Hummingbird

Cant recall, it has a really long zig zaggy neck you cannot see in the photo

The Hands

The Tree

Both the above, with road and truck to show scale. You can also see the massive geometric shapes in the background.

We found some ruins on the outskirts of Nazca (15mins walk from the hostel). I believe its Incan, there was a guy there who told some other tourists not to climb on the ruins, we stayed on the path like good little gringos.

The sights on the way back from the ruins. Erin - mum boganvillia grows like a weed here! The monkey was a pet in someones back yard. The river is all dried up.. its a desert after all. The second driest in the world, we think.

On our return from the Nazca lines we had a little excitement, the police were forcing cars off the road and took our taxi drivers licenses..  (Regan was freaking out at this point, Erin was much more relaxed) he kindly dropped us back at our hostel via the back roads, including driving across the river as shown in the photo. We found out later there was a race, I hope he got his licenses back.

The view from our hostel in Nazca

A mummy in its tomb. Apparently grave robbers dug these guys up, took all the gold and left them on the surface, so theyre not so well preserved.

These are the shelters over the tombs. They dont need anything else because it never rains.

These next three were ones the archaeologists dug up in 2000 (perhaps) when they opened 50 tombs, these guys get their own display cases.

The mummy of a baby.

Pottery, buried with the mummies.

An adult.

This oven is in a restraunt in Cusco, we had dinner here last night.

It rained a little in Cusco. We joined all the tourists and took a photo of the rainbow over one of the many churches here.

We will update you all after the trek to Macchu Pichu.

Hola,

We successfully bought 2 tickets to Ica, and then caught a taxi to Huacachina (an oasis in the desert). (see photo, taken from the top of a huge dune which took forever to walk up and was hot and dry and sandy! (and Regan complained the whole way))

We stayed in Hostel Rocha a family run hostel with pet cats, and parrots, one which was obsessed with the football and chased small children, odd. The only problem was that they decided to party until all hours, strangely it was Erin who managed to sleep.

That afternoon we went on a dune buggy tour, which is where they try to scare the crap out of you by driving over really steep dunes, unexpectedly, it was great. We also went sand boarding, which was so much fun we took no photos at all, ha ha ha, except to show the amount of sand which was trapped inside Regans pants! He mentioned it so many times we had to take a photo - hope you appreciate how much sand was in his pants (E).

After a sleepless night (for Regan!) it was on to Nasca...

Hola,

From Pisco we booked a tour to Islas Ballestas and the Paracas National Park.

The bus picked us up from the Plaza de Armas in Pisco, dodgy looking thing, the seat in front of me (Regan) was broken and the passenger was basically leaning on me for the whole trip (25 mins).

We finally arrived at the docks, and got into the dodgiest looking speed boat of the lot. The passengers just all piled in and the thing had such a lean I didnt think it would survive the first wave. Luckily they realised this also and re-arranged the passengers.

On the way to the islands we were lucky enough to spot some dolphins, apparently you dont see them every day. We also stopped to see "la Candelabra" a carving in the rock face of a cliff which is more than 160 metres tall, 70 metres wide and 60 centimetres deep. (see photo)

From there we went to the Islas Ballestas, we were accompanied by a long line of birds (kilometres perhaps, see photo) they flew mostly in a straight line but every so often flew in spirals and such to avoid waves.

At the islands we saw many, many, many, many, many birds. So many in fact that every 4-5 years they make a special trip to harvest the guano which is used in french cosmetics. (see photos)

Also present were sea lions, star fish, crabs, rock spiders, and other marine life. (see photos) The rock of the island also forms a number of shapes, the best of which (IMO) is the face (see photo).

After returning to the dock, we waited for an hour or so (probably so we would buy things) and then took another bus (better than the first) to the Paracas National park where we visited a small museum and walked out to see the flamingos (which had all migrated).

Next, on to "la Catedral" a natural rock formation. We walked along the beach (which had lizards on it! see photo) to see the cave inside and then back up and around to view it from a platform (see photos).

Erin decided to ride "on" the bus, Regan (sensibly) stayed inside the bus (while freaking out and really wishing Erin would get back in side the bus but knowing he had no chance in hell of convincing her to do so. BTW it was only about 300m for the mothers that are freaking out about now - Erin). (see photo)

There are 3 shapes present in the rock formation, to the top right is the incan woman with her hat and poncho. To the left is the shape of an elephant, and above and to the right of the elephant is a face (not as good as on ballestas, IMO)

From there, to lunch at Lagunillas the most expensive place ever, possibly because only tourists come here, starved from a long day touring, and they wont let you go for an hour. Anyway, we had the chips (10 soles!) and then went for a walk. The pelicans which are about the right height to take off your nuts, walk freely around the township (which actually consists of 4-5 restaurants and nothing else).. the dogs steer clear of them. (see photo)

At last they took us home. That night we had our Pisco sour (well deserved) at a restaurant we were hustled into (that´s another thing they do here, they have people, usually young girls, out on the streets with menus trying to get you to eat at their place .. however in this case it was a "cool" very persistent guy). That night was the same night Erin got to know "el baño".. not good :(

Tomorrow, to Huacachina!

Hola,

Upon arriving in Pisco we checked into the Hostal Belen (see in photo) they charged a somewhat exhorbitant price of 35 soles per night (around NZ$26). Notice the cool little tuk-tuk taxi thing in the foreground, these are absolutely everywhere.

Here in SA they seem to have replaced indicators with the horn, they also use the horn to signal they are coming, when it looks like youre about to step out in front of them (a good thing) or, it is a signal to ask if you want a ride. When in a taxi, the road rules are not apparent, they change lanes darting in front of traffic (both oncoming and otherwise) and sometimes randomly stop abruptly to allow pedestrians (or other bigger cars) to go.

Two more photos, this time of the old church (the yellowish building) and another cool looking one, we think is a church also, painted with blue and white stripes.

On our first day here we went to the candelabra, ballestas islands and Paracas national park...

After a shaky start were here! The first hurdle was leaving NZ - one cancelled flight due to Wellingtons fantastic weather threw the whole airport into turmoil. Through good luck we were rebooked on an Air NZ flight and made it to Auckland in time for our flight to Santiago. We were fortunate to be able to spend a few extra hours with Regans parents.

The flight to Santiago was pretty uneventful except a wheat free meal for Erin did not eventuate. We waited for 8 hours in Santiago which was especially long for Regan as he couldnt sleep on the plane.

The flight to Lima was much shorter at 3 hours but Erin was still hungry because there was yet again no special meal :-( (Good for the waistline though!)

We got through customs and managed to find our bags after a bit of a trepidatious wait only to search fruitlessly for a sign with our name on it. Tambo Pacaya did not come through for us. So Erin rang to find out what had happened. Regan was glad Erin had spent all those boring hours learning Spanish. Erin found out how much and what type of taxi to get. We asked a security guard to help us which stopped us being hounded by other taxi drivers.

The taxi driver then proceeded to tell us how dangerous the area was as we got further and further away from civilisation. The houses all looked like compounds with razor wire surrounding them and big metal gates. We were both hoping we were actually going to the hostel....

After asking for directions the taxi driver finally dropped us off. The hostel owner was very friendly and helpful (somewhat of a relief). We found our room and then got into bed. We were both so wired that it took a good half hour to go to sleep.

This morning we met two nice Croatian girls at the hostel who are at the end of their trip. They thoroughly recommended Colombia so we are thinking hard about our plans.

This morning we went shopping which will be much easier when we know how much things should cost. They see us and the price magically increases!

We are very keen to learn more Spanish asap.

We are now in Pisco and about to go and get some dinner and a Pisco sour.

More updates and hopefully some photos soon.

My new favourite drink!

I gathered all the recipes mentioned on this site along with directions for "Simple Syrup":

http://perufood.blogspot.com/2006/02/recipe-pisco-sour.html

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Simple Syrup Recipe - Put one cup of water in a small saucepan. - Add two cups of sugar. - Heat to a boil while stirring. - Reduce heat and continue to stir until the sugar dissolves. - Cool to room temperature. - Find a clean container that will hold at least a cup and a half. - Using a funnel, pour liquid into container. - Seal and store in refrigerator indefinitely. - Use whenever a recipe calls for simple sugar or simple syrup.

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Ingredients: - 2 oz Pisco - 1 oz Lemon juice - 1-2 tblsp Sugar - Ice

Instructions: Shake well and serve in a cocktail glass.

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Ingredients: - 3 parts pisco brandy - 1 1/2 parts lemon juice - 1 - 2 tbsp sugar

Instructions: Add all ingredients to a mixer with ice. Shake well (until ice is melted), and serve in a cocktail glass.

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Ingredients: - 3 tablespoons of Pisco - 20ml of lime or lemon juice (half a large lemon) - 1 teaspoon of castor / superfine sugar - Crushed ice - A dash of Bitters

Instructions: Half fill a small glass with crushed ice. Squeeze the lime or lemon juice directly into the glass and drop in the wrung out fruit. Add the sugar and stir until dissolved. Pour in the Pisco and stir. A dash of Bitters can be added if desired.

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Makes: 6 glasses

Ingredients: - 1 egg white - 1 tablespoon sugar - 1 glass of Pisco (Peruvian Brandy) - Juice of 6 limes - Chopped ice - Angostura bitters

Instructions: 1. Beat the egg white and sugar in a blender 2. Add pisco, lime juice, ice and angostura bitters 3. Mix well and pour into shot glasses

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Ingredients: - 2 ounces Pisco - 1 ounce Lime Juice - 1/4 ounce Simple Syrup - 1/2 Egg White - 1 dash Angostura Bitters.

Instructions: Shake hard with ice. Strain into a Champagne Flute Use the bitters as a aromatic garnish to the top of the finished drink.

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Ingredients: - 1 1/2 ounces ABA Pisco brandy - 3/4 ounce fresh lemon juice - 1 ounce simple syrup - 1 small egg white Garnish: Angostura bitters

Instructions Measure all ingredients except the bitters into a mixing glass. Shake well for at least 10 seconds, to emulsify the egg white, and strain into a chilled martini glass. Drop the bitters on the surface of the drink to create a circular pattern. Drag a toothpick through the droplets to swirl.

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Regan

We just applied for our "working holidaymaker" visa's at the british high commision and it was a breeze, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, easier than the HSMP application. They even check your application and promise to call if there is anything missing. The fee was $263 (each) as opposed to the ~$960 for HSMP (which you then need to apply for visa's with, and pay the $263 anyway!), and.. it should be complete tonight or tomorrow, not in 10+ weeks like HSMP.

We should have just done this in the first place. Ah well, you live and learn.

Tonight we pick up our plane tickets and insurance package from the travel agent, and tomorrow night we begin our trip up north to visit everyone before we go.

It's all starting to come together.

R

So, we're selling all our stuff, this includes:
- Erin's motorbike
- The TV
- The Fridge
- The lounge chairs
- My Suede Jacket

We've already got a buyer for the bike! He's shipping it all the way to Auckland (turns out our trademe profile still had Auckland as our address, so when listed our stuff it said we lived in Auckland, doh!)

Hopefully someone will buy our old stuff.

R

It's starting to get exciting, and a little stressful getting our lives in order for a trip of this size. We have most things organised, however, we still have to get on with our Visa applications for the UK, apparently they can be completed in 5-10 working days, but it's probably best to get on it as soon as possible.. must stop procrastinating!

As a test, here are some pictures of us tramping through the Manawatu Gorge track.

R