From Wontons to Huevos

More of Canada

2005-10-13T23:05:00.000+09:30

This morning, we were delighted to see the sun peek it’s head out. We headed down to the falls and bought tickets for the infamous Maid of The Mist boat trip to the falls. There was only the shortest of waits, and we donned our bright blue rain parkas as the boat chugged off. I had done this trip as a child, and it’s one of my fondest memories, but I had forgotten how wet you get! Marie and I spent half of the boat trip hiding under our parks while Nigel and Lindsay tried their best to snap some photos while trying to keep their cameras dry. Still, it was a lot of fun, and a great view of the falls!

Once off the boat, it didn’t take us long to dry off, and we headed back to the hotel, hopped in the car, and drove to Toronto for the afternoon. It was a rainy drive, but once we got there the sun came out a bit. We had lunch right on the water, then walked around the piers and along the lakefront. Back at the falls, we had some dinner and an early night.

Canucks!!

2005-10-12T22:55:00.000+09:30

We had an early breakfast at the hotel this morning, complete with self-made Belgian waffles, cereal, coffee, juice and fruit. We were going to swing by the university for Nigel to get some lacrosse gear, but couldn’t be bothered, so we set out for the day’s drive. We headed north along Cayuga Lake in the Finger Lakes District. It was absolutely gorgeous. The scenery was endless views of lakes, rivers, autumn trees, vineyards, old barns and country towns. We did stop at a few of the wineries to check out the views, and managed to buy a few bottles at the Thirsty Owl.

We arrived in Niagara Falls late in the afternoon and stopped at the border for hot dogs at a little hot dog stand, then crossed into Canada (Oh, Canada!) and checked into our hotel. While driving around, we were surprised at how gaudy and cheesy Niagara Falls (the town) is, complete with the chain entertainment restaurants, Ripley’s museums and haunted houses, one souvenir shop after another, and lots of garish signage. So instead of exploring this once romantic, honeymoon destination, we hopped in the car and drove the short distance to Niagara-On-The-Lake, Canada. This is MUCH more like it! Streets full of boutique shops, cafes and elegant restaurants, beautiful flowers and trees, and all the buildings in old colonial brick styles. We had a coffee while wandering into some of the shops before they shut, then drove back along the winding roads to the hotel. This is definitely an area I’d love to live in! And Lindsay didn’t think the golf courses looked to bad either!

For dinner, we headed to one of the chain restaurants, Tony Roma’s, as Lindsay had a taste for ribs. It was a great meal (portions way too big of course), and afterwards, we walked down to the falls to view them at night. I had remembered from when I was young that there were coloured lights shining on the water, which changed every few minutes, and we soon discovered that they are still there. We tried to walk along the river across from the American Falls to the Horseshoe Falls, but the mist and wind were getting us absolutely drenched, so we gave up halfway there and went back to the hotel. Marie and Lindsay headed to bed while Nigel and I threw on our bathers (not worn since Acapulco) and soaked in the hot tub.

Fall

2005-10-11T21:23:00.000+09:30

After major hassles picking up our rental car (best not elaborated on for our own sanity), Lindsay and Nigel drove the Ford Taurus back to the hotel where we loaded up our bags and headed out of the city. It was surprisingly easy going and there was hardly any traffic. We drove through the Lincoln Tunnel, crossed through New Jersey and headed north to Ithaca, New York, our next stop for one night. The last half of the drive was beautiful, full of colourful autumn trees and old country homes with pumpkins decorating their porches and yards.

In Ithaca, home to Cornell University, we walked downtown, which reminds me so much of Davis, California, where I went to university. It’s fairly small with lots of cute shops, cafes, and restaurants. We had a coffee before heading to the hotel for the night. We ordered pizza and salad for dinner, but it took so long to arrive that we were barely awake while eating it.

Bulls, Bears and an ode to Chris

2005-10-10T22:40:00.000+09:30

This morning we headed to the Brooklyn Bridge and wandered along the South Street piers. When the fish stench got to be too much, we walked along Wall Street to the Stock Exchange. Parts of the street were blocked off from traffic and turned into street markets. After exploring those, we had coffee and lunch at a deli on Wall Street.

We then took the subway up to Rockefeller Center, where we were pleased to see that the ice skating rink was already in place. We also just happened to catch the end of the Columbus Day Parade, full of Italian-themed floats and decorations since Columbus was Italian. We wandered around some shops, including the NBC studios, and St. Patrick’s Cathedral, then down 5th Avenue past the New York Public Library (closed for the holiday) and back to our hotel. Dinner was at another Tex-Mex/Hawaiian-Mex type place just around the corner from the hotel.

Chinatown fun

2005-10-09T21:39:00.000+09:30

Today was cooler but dry at least. We took the tour bus up to Central Park and spent the morning walking through it. It is such a gorgeous, peaceful place, and the morning mist and fog was beautiful. All of the leaves have started to turn from green to bright yellow, orange and red. We gave Tavern On The Green a miss, as well as the Guggenheim (which we now regret) and Metropolitan Museum of Art, both of which had huge queues. We walked along 55h Avenue for a while, then crossed over to Central Park West and walked along the huge mansions to Columbus Circle, stopping for a bit of window-shopping and a great Tex-Mex lunch at a cute upstairs restaurant.

We then took the subway to Chinatown. During our entire stay in New York, there were threats of terrorist bombs on the city’s subway system. Supposedly all bags were to be searched, and security was to be increased. However, we never once had our bags looked at, nor did we see any security. We did see some guys in HazMat suits outside one station, but it was a false alarm.

In Chinatown, we walked along Canal Street as I was looking for a handbag. . We were able to give Marie and Lindsay a taste of what some of our experiences were like in China. I ended up buying a few bags. I bought one from a guy who offered to take me to the back room for all of his Louis Vuitton stuff, and I had to go to the back to get the designer label stuck on like a sticker. The other bag I got from one of the “take it and run” guys who stop on the street, quickly open up a huge sheet full of his wares, then bundles it all up again for a quick getaway when police are spotted.

We wandered back to the hotel for a coffee and a bit of relaxing before walking down the street to an Irish pub for drinks and a great meal. It was nice to get a bit drunk have a chance to chat to Marie and Lindsay about the two family members we lost while we were gone.

"You're Fired!"

2005-10-08T21:26:00.000+09:30

Today we saw uptown New York and Brooklyn from the top deck of the tour bus. It made for quite a wet experience since it pretty much rained the entire day. Still, we enjoyed seeing all of the old, rich buildings and famous shops. We got off the bus at Central Park South and tried to have a coffee at the Plaza Hotel, but it's closed for renovations. Apparently they're making it residences with only a few floors left as hotel rooms, since it's such a desirable location and so many people just live there anyway. So instead we had a Starbuck's at the Trump Towers, drying off and warming up as we took in all of the hideous golden decor. I definitely remember it from my first trip to NY years ago.

After drying off, we headed back out into the rain for a delicious lunch at a traditional New York deli. The afternoon was spent wandering around shops such as FAO Schwartz, Bloomingdale’s, Saks, Tiffany, and Kate Spade. And of course, we didn’t buy anything.

After a wet and soggy day, we grabbed a coffee at the Dunkin’ Doughnuts across the street from our hotel and took it back to our room to relax. Later in the evening, Nigel and I headed out to the Lower East Side for some more shopping. We enjoyed walking around this neighbourhood as it is full of original and quirky shops, lots of pubs and bars, cheap and expensive restaurants & cafes alike, and streets full of people out and about.

On our way back to the hotel, we grabbed some salads from Wholefoods and took them back to the hotel for a late, light meal and relaxing.

First Day in NYC

2005-10-07T22:25:00.000+09:30

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MARIE!!!

We all had a bit of a sleep-in this morning, but were up in time for our free breakfast of muffins and less-than-average coffee downstairs. From our hotel, we walked up to Time's Square and got on one of those double-decker tour buses to take in the sights. We sat up top, open to the air, and got off at Battery Park. We made the impromtu decision to take the ferry out to the Statue of Liberty, so after a quick pretzel, we got in line and were on the next boat. Despite the rain clouds in the sky, the air was clear and we had some beautiful views. We got off at the statue and walked around it but didn't go up the base (the statue itself is closed because of security-aka terrorist-issues). Finished in 1886, the statue was actually built to promote French republicanism.

It was a long, cold wait for the ferry back, but luckily we were in line under some cover, as it started to rain not long after we got in line. It was windy and cold, so we skipped Ellis Island. From Battery Park, we walked to the site of the World Trade Centre. It was astounding how big of a hole has been left in the ground after the rubble was removed. There is a great display of the history of the twin towers from their conception, through construction, destruction, and what has been planned to replace them. It was sad to remember September 11th, but great to see that most of the surrounding buildings have been renovated, and that pretty much everything is "back to normal" so to speak.

From there, we walked to Tribeca, a quaint neighbourhood full of cobblestone side streets, unique shops, excellent restaurants, and tree-lined streets. We celebrated Marie's birthday with an excellent meal at a great little place, complete with many drinks and dessert. We walked up Broadway, stopping in some shops along the way to Union Square, where we got on the subway back to our hotel.

Dumplings in the Big Apple

2005-10-06T21:39:00.000+09:30

Our taxi picked us up today at the un-Godly hour of 4:45 am. We were sure we'd need a caffeine fix at such an hour, so our kind taxi driver drove us to several 7-elevens until we found one NOT cleaning their coffee machines and had a fresh brew. We were sure to get ourselves to the airport a generous 3.15 hours ahead of our scheduled departure flight, so as not to repeat the scene last time on leaving Mexico City.

We checked in with no worries, and had plenty of time to waste. No shops in the airport were even open at this time, so we just sat there. And sat and sat and sat. After about an hour of people-watching, the boredom was enough to drive us to drink. even though it was just after 6:00 am, we hit the bar, which was, mercifully, open. The rules of international airports dictate that it's always beer o'clock as it's the cocktail hour somewhere in the world...at least, those are our rules. Not that we need any rules to drink alcohol whenever we feel like it. Nigel had a few beers, and I had a few vodka cocktails, and we spent most of our remaining pesos.

The flight from Mexico City to Dallas/Fort Worth was uneventful. Unfortunately, we were on American Airlines, but nothing too bad happened. In Dallas, we got our bags, went through immigration and customs, re-checked them, then took the shuttle bus from the international airport to the domestic section. There were 2 soldiers in uniform on the shuttle, coming home from Iraq on a 2 week furlough. Nigel got his first taste of Texas when a few of the old men on the bus started clapping for them as they got off at their stops. Don't Mess With Texas. At the domestic terminal, we had just enough time to grab some lunch to-go and get on our flight to New York, knowing the American Airlines crew wouldn't feed us.

We arrived in New York around 3:00 pm, got our bags, and took a shuttle bus from La Guardia to Grand Central Terminal. It was so fun seeing New York with Nigel for his first time. I had been before, but I was 12. It was a short trip into the city, and from Grand Central Terminal we could have hopped on a free mini-bus to our hotel, but it was only about 12 blocks, so we put our packs on and walked. It was great to be in a city with huge buildings and long streets again.

We walked up Park Avenue South to our hotel, the Wolcott, on East 31st Street in Midtown, checked in, and checked out our little room. It's a really old hotel, so the rooms are small, but okay. After a shower, we took the subway to Chinatown in Lower Manhattan and walked along Canal Street. Tons of stalls and little shops line the streets, selling all of the knock-offs and copies of name brands, plus pretty much anything else really. It honestly felt just like China. We ended up eating dinner at a little place called Shanghai Cuisine on Bayard Street. The place was packed, so we knew we'd found a good place. We had dumplings and Tsing Tao beer and ate with chopsticks and really felt like we were in Shanghai again, the very beginning of our travels. It was awesome.

After dinner, we decided to walk a little way along Broadway and pop into some shops. We ended up walking from Lower Manhattan, through Downtown to Midtown and our hotel, over 30 blocks. But it was fun, we found some great shops, and we were just loving being in such a huge city with so much going on.

Back at the hotel, we watched some TV then went into the lobby to wait for Nigel's parents to arrive. We read some magazines and the newspaper, and waited and waited. Finally they arrived, and it was so great to see them! It had been nearly 11 months since we'd seen them. They were exhausted as they'd flown from Adelaide to New York in one go, but they did a great job of staying up to share some champagne before we all went to bed just after midnight.

The Very Last Day

2005-10-05T21:30:00.000+09:30

Well, it's sort of a sad day for us. Technically it's not the last day of our trip, but it's our last day in a foreign land, so we feel like it's the last day. So what did we do? Saw an American movie of course.

It happened to be the best day to see a movie, as Wednesdays are half price. I think we paid about US$1.20 each to see 'The Wedding Crashers.' Over the weekend at my sister's in L.A., my Aunt Nancy had been saying how it is now her favourite movie and worth a good laugh. We were glad to have an afternoon of giggles, and a movie in English after Clifford "el perro rojo grande" dubbed in Spanish on the bus.

We walked back to our hotel through Barrio Chino to browse more knock-offs and rip-offs at the stalls packed tightly along the streets, then just enjoyed our last views of the sights of Mexico City and speaking Spanish. We should have gone to bed early with such a long day tomorrow, but we didn't.

Laziness taking over

2005-10-04T20:53:00.000+09:30

Not much was accomplished today. We slept in, took our laundry in, then walked around Barrio Chino to browse the cheap stalls selling whatever. We used the internet, got some dinner, watched some TV. I guess it looks like we're getting pretty lazy in our final days of travel...

The last ride

2005-10-03T20:49:00.000+09:30

Our opinions of Acapulco somewhat restored by the cliff divers and a good dinner last night, we decided not to press our luck and wanted to head back to Mexico City for our last few days in the country. We caught a nice ¨Pluss¨ bus for the 5 hour ride back to the capital, our very last bus ride. Looking back on the last 11 months, I´d be curious to know just how many bus rides we have been on...I´ll have to count them. It was an uneventful trip (though we were treated to Clifford´s Big Movie dubbed in Spanish), we caught the metro from the bus station to our hotel, walked around a bit and went to the chemist, then got rotisserie chicken takeaway for dinner. Glad to be back in Mexico City after Acapulco.

Acapoophole

2005-10-02T23:33:00.000+09:30

Waking up to a new day, we were determined to find the good side of Acapulco. We promptly checked out of our dingy hotel and took one of the many air-brush painted, pimped out buses to the resort hotel area and found a place for US$30, with a swimming pool. A lot of money for us, but a bargain in this town. It is really hot and humid in Acapulco, so after having some lunch (as it was lunchtime by this stage), we went for a swim in the pool, very refreshing. We then showered and were going to watch the famous cliff divers, but they only have one afternoon show, the others being in the evening. So we got on our bathers and went down to the beach.

The beach as Acapulco looks pretty much how we expected. High rises dotting the sand along the pacific. There were lots of people out on the beaches and eating at the many restaurants. We were happy to see that most of them were Mexican vacationers. We walked along the beach for a while, searching for a good place to sit for a while and go for a swim. This idea was quickly shot down when we approached a river of water rushing from the land into the ocean. If the smell didn´t give away what is in the water, then the piles of black and brown gunk floating in it does. It was and endless supply of raw sewage spewing out into the water. We couldn´t really believe it at first, and stood there for a while watching locals try to make the huge leap across so as to avoid stepping in the tainted water. It was so disgusting. The hotel pool was turning out to be an even bigger bargain than we originally thought, as there was no way we were swimming in the ocean now (despite the fact that tons of others didn´t seem to care/know and were happily frolicking in the ocean).

So, we decided to have a drink instead, even though they are not cheap. We settled in under an umbrella at one of the many places on the sand, and decided to splurge on US$10 for 2 drinks. We placed our order, only to be informed that it would be another 35 pesos for the use of the umbrella and chairs! It only took us about 3 seconds to laugh at the man, jump out of our chairs and quickly walk away. We think these restaurants have a lot of nerve to charge for the ¨use¨ of their umbrellas and chairs when they are already asking an arm and a leg for drinks and food anyway. We finally managed to find a guy willing to let us use his umbrella and chairs for free if we bought a drink. So we had 2 beers for 40 pesos (we´ve been paying about 16 pesos for 2 beers) and sat there for a while, just watching the people.

We walked back to our hotel along the street, thus avoiding the disgusting sewage this time, and went back to the hotel for another swim. We relaxed for a bit before heading over to watch the clavadistas, or cliff divers. The cliff divers of Acapulco have been delighting spectators since 1934, jumping from 25 or 35 metres. Where they perform now is a beaufiul spot on the Pacific, and we arrived in time to enjoy the sunset. When the show was about to start, about 6 divers (in speedos) climbed down one side of the cliff, turned on the spotlights, then scaled the opposite wall (they dive into a small inlet between 2 cliffs when the tide is high). They all prayed to the Virgin Mary at one of 2 altars they have up on the top, and then one by one they dove it. It was pretty cool, and they had my heart racing. We were glad there was no cheesy music or anything.

Afterwards, we took a pimped out techno bus back towards our hotel, and lit our mouths on fire with delicious tacos al pastor for dinner, before heading back to the hotel and to bed.

Acapulchole

2005-10-01T22:21:00.000+09:30

Today didn´t really start off great, and only got worse. We went down to one of the bus stations in Taxco around 11:00 am to catch the 12:10 bus to Acapulco. They wouldn´t let us buy tickets until the bus arrived. So we waited and waited, and still the bus did not come. Nigel kept asking one of the ticket ladies, and she said there is a lot of traffic, and the bus will come, just keep waiting. So we waited and waited some more. 1:00 came around, and by 2:00 we were really frustrated. They just kept telling us there is a lot of traffic. Well, the next bus was scheduled to leave at 2:40, and we didn´t want to miss out on this bus either. Finally we talked to someone who said that the 12:10 bus had broken down and was not coming, and the bus at 2:40 was also cancelled. Well, did I give them a piece of my mind! We had been waiting for over 3 hours, only to be told the same thing over and over, NEVER once any information about the services being cancelled. We were pissed, and the guy who works the tourist information booth vouched for us as well. Never take the Estrella Blanca group buses in Mexico. So we stormed out of there and walked about 1km down the road to another bus station, the Estrella de Oro buses. Here is was a sea of calm and quiet. We bought our tickets for the 3:00 ¨Pluss¨ service to Acapulco, one step up than the Primera (1st) class and the same price as the other crappy company. They were friendly and helpful, the bus showed up and we left on time. And it was a pretty luxurious 5 hours to Acapulco.

When we arrived in Acapulco, it took us over 2 hours to find a hotel. Not only were they way overpriced, they were dirty and gross as well. We struck out in the resort hotel area, so went to the supposedly cheaper area and still couldn´t find anything. I sat in the Zòcalo for a while while Nige walked around some more. By 10:00 pm we had to settle on a not so great place for US$22. In desperate need of a beer and some dinner by this stage, we dropped our stuff in the room, and headed out to get some food. This is supposed to be the cheaper area in Acapulco, but we struggled to find a reasonable priced taco place or anything for that matter. We finally found a place tucked in behind some tourist stalls, but the food was so greasy and gross that I barely touched my tacos. Nigel ate his hamburger and sorry excuses for french fries, but didn´t enjoy them. We then headed to Oxxo, Mexico´s version of 7-eleven (though they have these too) and got some 2-minute noodles. When we got to the beer fridge, we read a notice saying that due to elections, no alcoholic beverages may be sold in the city for the next 2 days. What!!??? That was just the last straw for us. So far, Acapulco is not really a place where we´d like to spend any time. We took our noodles and microwaved popcorn back to our hotel, where Nige managed to get the girl to sell us a few beers. They were overpriced but cold. But after the day we had, we didn´t even really enjoy them.

Taxco

2005-09-30T21:12:00.000+09:30

Other than walk around and enjoy the town itself, there isn´t much to do in Taxco. Actually, if you love to shop and have money, it´s a great place to waste a few days. But we hate shopping, and have no money, so we found ourselves just wandering around all day. And that´s about it. I guess we´re getting lazy in our last few days here.

Skipping Cuernavaca

2005-09-29T22:03:00.000+09:30

This morning we took the metro to one of the bus terminals and got a bus south to Cuernavaca. It was only about 1 hour 15 minutes, so a really short jaunt. When we got there, we looked at a few hotel rooms, which were all way overpriced. And we couldn´t really remember why we were in Cuernavaca in the first place, as there doesn´t seem to be much to see. So we just kept on walking across town to the other bus station, where we got on a bus to Taxco, only about 1.5 hours southwest.

Taxco is a unique town in Mexico. It´s an old silver-mining town, and the silver capital of the country. I had done a report on Taxco for a spanish class back in high school, and have wanted to come here ever since. It´s very beautiful, set on steep hillsides with very narrow, twisting cobbled streets, lots of small plazas and colonial buildings. The whole town is an historical monument and well-preserved.

Unfortunately for us, the beauty of the small town is not lost on others, so we struggled to find a place to stay for a reasonable price. We finally found somewhere, not great but all we could afford. It was huge though it had 2 rooms, a kitchen and bathroom. We walked around a bit, but by this time it was late, so we had an overpriced, average dinner overlooking the Plaza Borda and then headed to bed.

Doing nothing

2005-09-28T19:01:00.000+09:30

Well, we had planned to get straight out of Mexico City today, but we slept in until nearly 1:00 (which we really needed). I still wasn´t feeling that great, so we decided to spend the rest of the day in the city to relax a bit before heading out. We really didn´t do too much, and didn´t have much energy anyway. Went to American Airlines in the Zona Rosa to change a flight, and that´s about it. But it was good, and we love the hotel we stay in here, Hotel Washington.

Back in MEX

2005-09-27T22:12:00.000+09:30

We had to say goodbye to everyone today, which sucked, but we were happy to know it will only be about 3 weeks before we´re back again, which makes it easier. I had been sick all night from something I ate at dinner, so I didn´t do anything all morning except cuddle with Hannah and feel sorry for myself. Nigel finished some last laundry and packed up all of our things. My mom and dad came over for lunch before driving us to the airport. No dramas there, and though we were there 3 hours ahead of time, it wasn´t long before we were through the various checkpoints and sitting at the gate.

The plane ended up taking off about 30 minutes late, and it wasn´t a very eventful flight, other than my few trips to the toilet in my illness. We got a taxi from the airport into the city, where we had pre-paid for our room at the hotel Washington. We got in around 1:00 am and quickly fell asleep.

Too much food!!

2005-09-26T22:06:00.000+09:30

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ERINN!!!

Lastnight we slept at my parents´ house with Megan and Colin. It was fun to wake up with them and watch cartoons in the morning. I toasted some bagels, Shannon made some coffee, and when Nana woke up we made doughnuts, something we used to always do when I was a child. It was a lot of fun. After eating, we all had showers etc. then met Erinn and Hannah for lunch, since today is her real birthday. Nigel and I were overwhelmed at the size of the portions of food at the restaurant. We had forgotton after all of the shared meals and little snacks we´ve been eating! After lunch, we took care of a bit of business at our US bank and then spent the remainder of the afternoon hanging out. We had leftovers from the BBQ for dinner & more birthday cake. Erinn, Nigel and I stayed up a little bit to watch some TV, but it wasn´t long before we were in bed.

BBQ Bday

2005-09-25T22:02:00.000+09:30

Today was the BBQ for my sister´s birthday, which was a lot of fun. Lots of her friends and family came, and it was great to catch up with people and hang out. That´s about all we did.

Family

2005-09-24T21:59:00.000+09:30

We didn´t do much today other than visit with the family, which was perfect. It was strange to be around so many people we know and love, since for the last 11 months it has just been Nigel and I (we do know and love each other). The weather was great, so most of the day was spent outside in Erinn and Jeff´s front or back yard. Oddly enought, we had Mexican take away for lunch, and another BBQ for dinner. A great day surrounded by family and friends. Later in the evening a bunch of us went out again. We started at The Elephant Bar, then tried to go to another place but they were closing because there had been a fight, so ended up back at TGI Friday´s, only to be kicked out (very rudely) at closing time. Oh well, still a fun day!

Surprise!

2005-09-23T21:44:00.000+09:30

We were up by 5:30 this morning, packed up and were off to the airport on a little detour. My brother-in-law Jeff, with the help of my sister Shannon and other brother-in-law Ben, to fly us from Mexico City to LA for the weekend to surprise my sister Erinn for her 30th birthday.

We quickly stopped at 7-eleven for a coffee on our way to the metro. We took 4 trains to get to the airport, but it was pretty easy. We arrived around 6:30, and were told we could not get onto our 8:30 flight because it was already closed. After a bit of arguing, they said we needed to be there 3 hours before the flight. Whatever! The supervisor was the devil, and was so rude it made me speechless. We were directed to the ticketing office for Mexicana airlines so they could get us on a later flight, all the way arguing that we need to get on this 8:30 flight. The ticketing people were very nice and tried to get us on the flight, but couldn´t. The next Mexicana flight wasn´t for 3 more hours! I was overwhelmed and started crying a little, so the guy totally helped us out. He went over to Aero Mexico, a totally different airline, got us on their next flight at 9:30, and waived the US$300 fee for changing the tickets. When we had to go back to the Mexicana devil woman, the guy came with us. She informed us that she was going to get a coffee and couldn´t help us, so the guy did everything for us instead.

We rang Shannon´s mobile phone to let her know we´d be arriving an hour later and on a different airline, but only could leave a message since it wasn´t even 6 am in LA. It is 3.5 hours to LA from Mexico City, we flew right through immigration and our bags came out quickly, but Jeff wasn´t there to pick us up. We tried to buy a phone card, but the machines wouldn´t take our US$20 bill, no matter how many times we tried. Eventually I just used my credit card to make a phone call to Shannon´s cell phone, only to find out from Ben that they hadn´t received our message and Jeff had been wandering around LAX for about 1.5 hours looking for us! So, we got his number and rang it, but his phone was turned off. We went down to the terminal where we were supposed to arrive, but he wasn´t there either. We rang him again, finally got him, and 10 minutes later we found him. Yay!

Luckily for us, the Friday afternoon 405 traffic was not the nightmare it usually is, so it wasn´t long before we were in Valencia. Jeff rang them and found out they were all just eating lunch at Erinn´s, including my parents and Aunt Nancy, none of whom knew about the surprise. So Jeff just had us walk in the house through the garage and say ¨Hi¨ casually, which is what we did. Everyone was surprised, and my mom started crying. It was so much fun! After many hugs and lots of chattering, it was so nice to sit down and just visit. Niece Hannah (15 months) whom Nigel has never met, and nephew Colin (3) were napping, but we got lots of cuddles from niece Megan (nearly 5). We spent the rest of the day at Erinn´s, just playing with the kids and visiting the family. It was absolutely wonderful. It has been 15 months since I´ve seen my family, and nearly 2 years since Nigel has seen them. We had a BBQ for dinner and Nigel and I ate HUGE salads, a real treat! Later in the night, we went out for drinks, a bit of a challenge in Santa Clarita. We ended up at TGI Friday´s, and they were actually showing the AFL Grand Final game, which was odd. It was a lot of fun. We had a fantastic shower and fell quickly asleep (after Nige had a giggling fit) in Erinn´s huge, comfy guest bedroom bed.

Museum and Zoo

2005-09-22T21:44:00.000+09:30

After breakfast of yogurt and coffee at 7-eleven, we took the metro to the Bosque de Chapultepec la Secciòn, a huge, beautiful park in the middle of the city. The name means ¨Hill of Grasshoppers¨ in Nàhuatl, the Aztec language. It´s over 4 sq km, and has lots of trees, paths, lakes and museums. We headed past the Monumento a Los Niños Hèroes and walked to the National Museum of Anthropology. This museum is huge, and we spent most of the morning and afternoon there. We saw lots of stuff from the various ruins sites we´ve been to around the country. It was great to see things that were discovered at the sites which we had read about while there. I think the highlights were the famous Aztec sun stone and a tomb from Monté Alban.

After the museum, we walked further through the park to the zoo to spend a few more hours wandering. We were amazed at how good this zoo is, especially considering it´s in Mexico City and it´s free! Of course we had just come to see the big cats and some pandas they have (this is the only place outside of China where pandas have been born in captivity), but they have a lot of animals.

It was after 5:00 by the time we got back to the hotel, and we headed out to get some dinner before relaxing for the evening.

can´t remember what we did today.

2005-09-21T21:43:00.000+09:30

sorry!

Aztec ruins

2005-09-20T22:12:00.000+09:30

This morning we had a slow start. We had planned on getting up early to head out to the ruins of Teotihuacán, but when that alarm went off, it just wasn´t going to happen. So we slept in a bit more, grabbed a yogurt and a coffee at 7-eleven on our way to the metro, and took 3 subway lines out to one of the city´s many bus stations. Oh the joys of being in a big city with an efficient public transportation network! Mexico City´s subway system is the world´s 3rd busiest system, after Moscow and Tokyo. And it is only US$0.20 a ride no matter how far you go! Bargain! It was very easy, quick, and organised. And also packed at that hour, so we had to be very careful not to spill our vanilla lattes on the nicely dressed locals on their way to work.

At the bus station, we bought a ticket out to the ruins and only waited about 5 minutes. It took one hour to get there. Teotihuacán is in a gorgeous setting, surrounded by the mountains of the Valle de México. It´s México´s biggest ancient city, was the capital of the country´s first and biggest ancient empire and civilisation. Between 250AD and 600AD, this Aztec city grew to over 125,000, and may have controlled the southern 2/3 of México in addition to all of Guatemala, Belize and bits of Honduras and El Salvador. Because of its greatness, this civilisation greatly influenced México´s later cultures.

Teotihuacán is most famous for its 2 huge Pirámides del Sol y de la Luna (Pyramids of the Sun and Moon). On first glimpse, we were not really impressed with these ruins. They seemed to be rather bland and boring. But as we walked around for over 3 hours, we discovered why this is such a magnificent site. Our first glimpse of this was at the Templo de Quetzalcóatl (one of their gods). This is a large complex surrounded by what used to be 15 pyramids but all that is left are the bases of the pyramids. The term ´pyramids´is a generic term because these are all actually step pyramids, so not truly pyramids by definition. Archaeologists started excavating the main temple and discovered the facade of an earlier structure from about 250-300AD. Because it had been buried all this time, magnificent carvings, paintings and sculptures remain intact. With this, we were given an idea of how spectacular the buildings once looked.

We followed the Calzada de los Muertos (Avenue of the Dead), which runs straight through the heart of the city, imagining what it may have looked like when all of the buildings, pyramids, hallways and plazas were complete. We were able to go underground some of the structures, seeing how the Aztecs built their chambers, rooms and passageways, then built over them a few times over the years to ´renovate.´ Some excellent paintings and carvings have been preserved due to their location underground. At the Palacio de los Jaguares (Jaguar Palace) and the Templo de los Caracoles Emplumados (Temple of the Plumed Conch Shells), we saw even more preserved paintings, carvings and sculptures. This is really the first place of ruins we were able to see how such cities may have looked in ancient times. We climbed the steep steps of both pyramids for fantastic views over the ruins and surrounding mountains.

It wasn´t too crowded, and had it not been for the many groups of schoolkids, there would hardly have been anyone there. After visiting the ruins, we spent some time in the excellent museum, which houses, among other things, many of the artifacts uncovered here. We just managed to catch a bus back to the city without having to wait, took the metro back to the centre, and grabbed some beer before heading back to the hotel and enjoying the cold beverages on the balcony of our room. Later we grabbed some dinner and walked around a bit before going to bed.

El DF

2005-09-19T22:06:00.000+09:30

Deciding at the last minute to skip a trip into the nearby Sierra Madres mountains for a few days, we checked out of our hotel this morning and caught a bus north to Mexico City. It took about 6 hours, and we arrived in the huge capital around 5:00, just as the evening traffic was getting heavy. We got a cab into the Centro Histórico, dodged a weird art parade and found a hotel. Mexico city is huge at over 18 million people. Despite this, it isn´t the dirty, smog-filled capital I had envisioned. Maybe because it´s a bit breezy and cloudy, but who knows. It´s also at 2200m above sea level, so it´s nice and cool this time of year.

We then spent the rest of the evening wandering around the city. It reminds us of bits from other large cities we´ve been to: a bit of London, a bit of Santiago, a bit of Bangkok, a bit of others too. We love the big cities though, and it was a nice evening wandering around. We walked through the Zócalo, or Plaza de la Constitución, which reminds us a lot of Tianenmen Square. It´s a huge, open space with a massive flagpole and flag in the centre. It is surrounded by the absolutely huge, gothic-looking Catedral Metropolitana, the Palacio Nacional (President´s offices), the Federal Government offices, and a few shops, restaurants and hotels. The flag was at half-mast, and there were people forming a spiraled circle around the flagpole, holding hands, lighting candles and praying. We were not sure what it was all about, but finally figured out that today is the 20th anniversary of the 1985 earthquake in Mexico City, which killed over 10,000 people.

We thought we might have a change for dinner and decided to head into the nearby Barrio Chino (Chinatown). We found it, but we didn´t find any Chinese restaurants, let alone anything even remotely associated with China. Luckily we had passed a Krispy Kreme shop along the way and treated ourselves to a little snack as we walked, otherwise we would have been starving. We walked through the crowded streets with tables and stalls selling anything and everything, and finally shared a tuna sandwich for dinner before heading back to the hotel.

More old stuff

2005-09-18T21:53:00.000+09:30

After having a fantastic, filling Oaxacan breakfast, we took a bus out to the Zapotec ruins of Monte Albán just west and up a mountain from the centre of town. This was the capital of the Zapotec civilisation, first occupied in 500BC and inhabited until about 950AD. At its peak from 300AD to 700AD, there were over 25,000 people living here and in the surrounding hills and Valles Centrales (Central Valleys). Mexico´s first indigenous president, the great Benito Juárez, was a Zapotec.

The ruins sit on top of a huge, levelled hill in the middle of the large valley, now overlooking the city of Oaxaca and its suburbs. Right away we could see the differences between these Zapotec ruins and those of the Mayans and Toltecs that we had previously seen. But there are also many similarities, so it is easy to see how the Zapotecs were influenced by previous civilisations. We wandered around for a few hours and enjoyed the 360 views over the city before heading back down the hill to town. We wandered around town a bit more and then had some fantastic burgers from a street vendor for dinner.

Oaxaca

2005-09-17T21:39:00.000+09:30

We arrived in Oaxaca around 8:00 this morning, after a fairly uneventful ride. The town is a lot like San Cristóbal but larger, with narrow, cobbled streets and plenty of colonial buildings. It´s surrounded some beautiful mountains, with a huge town plaza full of tall, shady trees, lots of nice restaurants and shops, and tons of churches. We got the feeling it is one of the more glamourous cities in Mexico with a huge music and modern art scene (and prices to match).

After some walking around, we found ourselves a hotel and took our time getting organised before heading out for the day. We had a late breakfast and then wandered around town. We browsed some of the many craft shops, walked along the pedestrian malls, and ended up at the Iglesia de Santo Domingo. This is an old Dominican monastery built in 1608 by Mexico´s most talented artisans.

Oaxaca is also known for its fine cuisine, especially spicy moles (sauces) and chocolate. We spent some time searching out possibilities for a cooking class. Although it would have been fun for a day, what we found were totally overpriced and didn´t cook the main things we wanted. So we decided our money would much better be spent on a few good cookbooks rather than a class. As my mother has always said, ¨If you can read, you can cook!¨

Tired because of the overnight bus ride, we went back to the hotel to rest for a while and watch some TV before having a light dinner and heading to bed.

Post-party

2005-09-16T21:33:00.000+09:30

We were a bit lazy this morning after a late night last night. We checked out of our hotel, then wormed our way through the crowds lining the streets of San Cristóbal, all watching a seemingly neverending parade of schoolkids from every school in town and within a 20 mile radius. Seriously, it was the longest parade. Longer even than the Sonoma 4th of July parade. But we managed to get our way though to the coffee shop, where we relaxed over gourmet coffee drinks and Mexican fashion magazines. We then walked around the plaza, just enjoying the holiday atmosphere. It was nice to see so many families out, and people still enjoying the festivities. We sat down for a while to people-watch, and had a fun time watching 2 village girls play with a blow-up ball. They entertained each other for at least an hour, and were still going by the time we moved on.

To waste some time, Nigel went off to use the internet while I had my hair done. We then had some lunch at one of the many food stall still set up before wandering around some more, just killing time until our evening bus ride. We used the internet, got some dinner, gathered our stuff at the hostel and walked down to the bus station while the sun gave us a beautiful show as it set. Our overnight bus left around 8:00 for the 12 hour trip west to Oaxaca.

¡Viva México!

2005-09-15T23:34:00.000+09:30

Today is the celebration of Independence Day, comemorating September 16, 1810, when Miguel Hidalgo delivered his speech El Grito de Dolores and announced the Mexican revolt against Spanish rule, calling on the indians and mestizos to retaliate against the hated native Spaniards who had exploited and oppressed Mexicans for ten generations. This is not to be confused with May 5, or Cinco de Mayo, the Mexican national holiday that celebrates the Mexican victory over the French army in 1862.

We got ourselves a coffee and headed to the plaza to walk around for the afternoon, watching the excitement. The construction of a bandstand in the square was completed, and tons of women were setting up their food stalls in anticipation for the evening crowds. Some were already open, and we had some great food for lunch. School was out, so kids were running around, buying up Mexican flags and hats. All of the buildings around the square are adorned with red, white and green banners and lights of the same colours are strung up from the trees in the plaza and across streets. After wandering around, we went back to our room to relax for a while.

Later in the afternoon, we went back to the plaza, got a few beers and sat outside the cathedral, just watching the crowds go by. We chatted to a few village cute girls wanting to sell us bracelets and belts, and somehow they tricked us into giving them our leftover peanuts and pepitas. We had a great dinner, cooked up freshly in one of the little food stalls. It reminded me a lot of our church´s annual BBQ I went to every year growing up. As it got dark, we got ourselves a few more beers and watched the entertainment on the bandstand: mariachi bands and dancing in full traditional costumes. We then wandered down the pedestrian mall and had a few drinks in a bar while enjoying the live band. Nigel felt it necessary to have some tequila, being in Mexico and all. I, of course, declined and had a piña colada instead. Around 10:30 we wandered back out to the plaza and stood in the thick crowd to wait for the 11:00 fireworks. We were really looking forward to these, seeing as how Mexicans are know for their crazy fireworks displays. And we were not disappointed. On top of the governer´s palace were 4 HUGE wheels strung with different types of pyrotechnics, along with strands along the roof. The fireworks were set off from the top of the building, with the hundreds of people gathered directly below. It was crazy with the fire remnants falling into the crowd. At one point we thought that one or two of the fireworks wheels would spin right off of their axes, fall down into the crowd, and roll on through. It was scary but exciting. When they were over, we slowly wedged our way through the hordes and headed back to the hotel. ¡Viva México!

The sites of San Cristóbal

2005-09-14T21:58:00.000+09:30

Today was a lazy day wandering around the sights of San Cristóbal. We started off with a fresh, organic coffee drink at a coffee museum/cafe, then visited the locals market, an endless maze of stalls selling everything: bright chilies of every colour, juicy tomatoes and limes, glowing white onions, fresh meat and chickens, nuts, flowers, spices, maize dough, piñatas, and anything else you could want. It was a beautifully colourful place, and fun to watch the locals doing their normal shopping. It was packed full of people, probably because everyone was doing their last minute shopping for their Independence Day celebrations tomorrow. We saw the little Señora Jolaba ladies, a cooperative of indigenous weavers making and selling traditional clothing and other garments. Of course we passed many churchs and the cathedral on the plaza, lots of hustle and bustle there to set things up for tomorrow. After using the internet, we had a late lunch and spent some time relaxing at our hotel. For dinner we went to El Gato Gordo (The Fat Cat), lured inside by the live guitar music. We shared some enchiladas, rice and black beans and a huge beer, then stopped in a game hall for a few rounds of air hockey. Nigel schooled me, but it was fun and a great little arm workout.

Trashy canyon

2005-09-13T22:37:00.000+09:30

After a breakfast of ordinary huevos rancheros at our hotel, we set out for a day at Cañon Sumidero. It was a drive of just over an hour from San Cristóbal through breathtaking jungle and mountain scenery, through many indigenous villages. The canyon was created by the Rio Grijalva, which runs along the canyon up to the Chicosaen hydro-electric dam, opened in 1981, one of Mexico's most important sources of electric power. To fully appreciate the size and beauty of the place, we took a 2 hour boat ride up the canyon from the small town of Chiapa de Corzo, 35km downriver from the damn. We were lucky enough to be on a boat with only our group from San Cristóbal, 11 people in total. The sides of the canyon towered over us as we cruised by, rising to over 800 metres at their highest. We passed lots of birds including pelicans, vultures, egrets, and cormorants as well as several waterfalls and a few caves. The most spectacular waterfall is called ¨El arbol de la Navidad¨ or Christmas Tree because the water falling down has shaped the moss-covered rocks to look like the boughs of a pine tree. It really does look like one too. By the time we reached the damn, our necks were sore from staring up. We would have spent some time looking straight ahead through the canyon if it weren´t for the disgusting trash floating on the surface of the water nearly the entire way. Very disappointing, especially considering this is a National Park.

After returning to the town of Chiapas de Corzo, we had about 30 minutes to look around town. We didn´t really need to see this town, so we sat at one of the many hamburger stalls along one of the small streets and shared a gigantic burger while watching the town go by. Much more interesting than browsing the cheesy, over-priced shops. Piling back into the van, our group set out for the drive back to San Cristóbal. Again, the drive was gorgeous, this time rain clouds and fog creeping their way into the valley and on top of the mountains. We were going to stop at an indigenous village, but no one really wanted to (we´d just be bothered by touts anyway) so we went directly back to town.

We spent a while relaxing in our hotel, checking our email and watching MTV before going out for the evening. We walked around town and the craft markets before sharing a delicous meal at La Salsa Verde, selling delicious meals of Mexican stir-frys served with fresh tortillas and of course awesome salsas. We are loving all of the food here, and it´s plenty for us to share meals as well. And of course the cheap, cold beer just makes it all that much better. We spent the remainder of the evening reading and watching some TV before bed.

Rebel territory

2005-09-12T21:22:00.000+09:30

It was a long, windy road from Palenque south to San Cristòbal de las Casas. It took just over 5 hours, and although the scenery was gorgeous, lush mountains and jungle, we were glad when we finally arrived, our stomachs a bit sensitive.

San Cristóbal de las Casas is a cute little town of about 122,000 people. Founded in 1528 by the Spanish military as a point of control for the fractious Maya of Highland Mexico. It still has all of its colonial charm and character with its narrow, cobbled streets and colonial buildings. It reminds us of Cuzco, Perú, especially since it´s in a valley up in the highlands. And it is pleasantly cool compared to where we´ve been lately. San Cristóbal is surrounded by indigenous villages. The town´s name is after the sainted 16th Century Spanish Friar who came to be called ¨The Protector of the Indians¨ for his tireless fight on their behalf. But the indigenous have not been treated fairly. In February 1994, the Ejercito Zapatista de Liberacíon National, or Zapatistas, took over the capital of Chiapas, San Cristóbal de Las Casas, and several nearby towns and held them for 48 hours in an attempt to bring attention to the treatment of indigenous peoples. Today, the Zapatistas in this area are still around, seen in the mini-rebel dolls for sale, t-shirts, and a heavy military presence.

We walked from the bus station around the centre of town and found a hotel, Posada Mexico. A nice place made of bright white adobe and wooden beams...very Mexico! After dropping our gear, we headed back out for a wander around the plaza and along the small streets, full of shops, restaurants, & cafes. The town is definitely preparing for the country´s independence day on the 15th. A bandstand is going up in the plaza and on every corner someone is selling flags, hats, noisemakers and ¡Viva Mexico! paraphernalia.

With so many restaurants to choose from, it wasn´t hard to find a delicious dinner & some fresh, hot churros for dessert before heading back to the hotel.

Colourblind

2005-09-11T20:06:00.000+09:30

After getting some yogurt and granola bars at a shop for breakfast, we were off for the day on a trip south to see some waterfalls. The drive out of Palenque was windy and full of lush jungle views. Our first stop was at the waterfall of Misol-Ha, about 20km south. It´s a massive fall 35m high, the water pounding down into a large, deep pool. It is set in a beautiful jungle, and there is a path that leads right around to the back of the falls so we were able to see it from behind as well. This is where some of the movie Predator was filmed. The water was too cold for a swim, but it was a lovely spot.

Not much further south along the winding road, we stopped at Agua Clara. We are not really sure why we stopped here, as there was nothing spectacular to see. We walked across a suspension bridge over the Rio Shumulhà, fending off kids selling bread and corn. `Agua Clara` means ´Clear Water´ but there was nothing clear about this water. It was a nice spot, but not really worth the stop.

Our last stop for the afternoon was Agua Azul. We arrived around lunchtime at this series of waterfalls cascading along the river in the middle of the jungle. Once again, I think maybe they got the name wrong, as ´Agua Azul´ means `Blue Water´ but it wasn´t really blue, more of a cloudy green jade colour. We walked up and up the path, past more and more small falls, but we were disappointed by all of the signs saying that we were not allowed to swim. The currents are strong and it´s dangerous, but we thought we were going for an afternoon of waterfall swimming. After some lunch at one of the many stands selling the same thing, we took a quick dip in the calm waters at the base of the lowest fall. The water was freezing but very refreshing on such a hot, humid afternoon. We then spent the remainder of our time there just watching the many Mexican families there for a Sunday afternoon of swimming. It was fun to watch all the boys swing over the water from a rope swing, and the parents and grandparents swimming with the kids.

We drove directly back to Palenque, where we grabbed a few beers and relaxed in our hotel room for a while. We then walked around town a bit, snacking on fresh corn bought from a street vendor, slathered with lime, mayonnaise (none for Kel), salt, parmesan cheese, and of course chili. It was delicious. We wandered around the market stalls in the town square again, had some more fantastic pork tacos (tacos al pastor) for dinner and then headed off to bed.

Jungle Ruins

2005-09-10T22:02:00.000+09:30

It was another early start as we tried to get to the ruins of Palenque before the crowds. We took a colectivo minivan, and although it was just about 8:30 by the time we were inside the ruins, there were already tons of people there. Oh well. The ruins of Palenque are massive, covering an area of more than 15 square kilometres. But only a handful of the buildings have been excavated; the remaining buildings are still covered in earth and trees, or completely buried. They are set in a lush, thick jungle along a clear, cool river, an absolutely stunning location. We didn´t find much to interest us in the first buildings and temples we came to. We climbed the steep stairs to several of the temples, wandered around the ruins of the palace and saw several replicas of carvings found at the site (disappointing knowing they are only ´remakes´). But once we crossed the river, the site became much more beautiful. All of the buildings were in their original form. That is, they haven´t been rebuilt with cement and plaster. The jungle has truly taken over here, making us really use our imaginations as to what the place would have looked like. The area in which Palenque sits is the area of highest rainfall in all of Mexico, so both of us had a slip here and there on the mossy, wet stones. Winding down the hill, the buildings lie on either side of the river, and towards the bottom is a series of gorgeous waterfalls and small pools. The Mayans had bricked off some of the water to make the pools. The water was incredibly clear and inviting, a perfect place for a swim or a bath.

After wandering around the site, we spent nearly an hour inside the museum. It is a fantastic display of artefacts found with in the ancient Palenque, including the originals of the replicas we saw, which we were happy about. Seeing all of the totems, carvings, masks, trinket offerings, jewelry, pottery, tools and hieroglyphics found at the site, we had a much better understanding of the life of the Mayans, and the culture became much more colourful and lively to us. Nearly 5 hours after arriving, we headed back to town, ate too much for lunch again, and spent some time relaxing under the fan in our hotel room. We used the internet, drank some beer, had a fruit smoothie for dinner and headed to bed.

TV Land

2005-09-09T21:51:00.000+09:30

Today we didn´t do much more than sit on an air-conditioned bus from 8:30 until nearly 5:30 as we headed from Mérida to Palenque. We had planned to go into Belize and Guatemala but decided that we´d rather spend our remaining 4 weeks of travel in Mexico. Besides, we don´t want to miss the fiestas and fireworks for their independence day on September 15th. Palenque is a pretty small town of about 35,000 set in the middle of the jungle and not much else. We bargained our way into a nicer hotel with a TV, something we haven´t had in ages. We cooled off with a cold shower, had some beers and watched a bit of TV before heading to the Restaurant Las Tinajas. Although we shared a meal, we couldn´t even finish the food, it was so much. An incredibly hot but delicious homemade salsa (Nige had to run out and buy us a yogurt and milk drink to soothe the fires on our tongues), fresh tortílla chips, rice, creamy black beans and chimichangas. So tasty. Feeling too sick to lie down and go to bed yet, we walked to the town park, full of people out enjoying the Friday evening. We caught the end of a band playing, complete with drums, guitars, and a marimba. Back in the hotel room, we did some laundry, watched some TV and fell asleep.

Home shopping

2005-09-08T21:40:00.000+09:30

We really didn´t feel like doing too much today, so it was a lazy start this morning. We walked around Mérida a bit, being approached by about 8 different schoolkids to fill our a tourism questionnaire. We went to the Plaza Grande and inside the Catedral de San Ildefonso. Just near the altar is a statue called Cristo de las Ampollas (Christ of the Blisters). Legend says that the statue was carved from a tree that was hit by lightning and burned all night without charring. It also was the only object to survive the destruction of the church in a town called Ichmul. Unfortunately, this is just a replica as the original was destroyed during the Mexican Revolution, ironically enough. We also had a quick look around Casa de Montejo, the old home of the town´s rich founder, and the old Palacio del Gobierno where artwork portraying the downfall of the Mayans to the Spaniards.

We then headed to a media arts show that was going on and heavily advertised around the hostel and the city. It was a bit disappointing but there were a few interesting things to see. Next we walked along Paseo de Montejo, a huge tree-lined boulevard with lots of colonial mansions from the olden days of the wealthy Spaniards. Along the wide sidewalks are random modern sculptures scattered about, making the stroll even more interesting. By this time we were incredibly hot and tired, and we just happened to be right in front of Wal-Mart. I don´t think I´ve ever shopped at a Wal-Mart before, but Nigel suggested we have a look for something to do, and it was a fantastic idea because it was air-conditioned! We roamed around for a while, not really looking at anything, then bought some groceries to make ourselves a healthy dinner.

It was really hot trudging back to the hostel, especially with our groceries, and we were dripping by the time we arrived. We both had a cold shower, then sat out on the patio and enjoyed the cold beers we bought. After a while, we chopped our veggies and made a great tuna salad for dinner. We had bought some delicious nectarines and kiwis for dessert, but were too stuffed to eat them. Since evening rain didn´t come tonight, it was hotter than usual outside so we spent the rest of the night reading in our hostel room under the ceiling fans.

On the loose in the Yucatán

2005-09-07T21:14:00.000+09:30

We were off by 8:00 this morning in our cherry red Ford Ka rental car, headed south to visit several of the ruins sites around Mérida. First we had to stop at Penmex, the government monopoly that owns all of the country´s petrol stations. Then we missed the turnoff and had to do a few loopty loops around before getting on the right road. No dramas though. It took just over an hour to reach the ruins of Uxmal, driving along a 2-lane road surrounded by hilly jungles and not much else. Sadly, our little car didn´t have a radio so we couldn´t rock out to Mexican hits.

Uxmal was built around 600AD and was a pretty large and important city until around 900AD. Perhaps drought caused the inhabitants to move on. The first building we came to was the Casa del Adivino, the Magician´s House. It is a pyramid like temple 39 metres high and a bit different because it is oval in shape with rounded sides. There were not too many people there so it was pleasant walking around the jungle setting of the ruins and learning more about each building. Many of them are piles of rubble, some completely overgrown, but it´s still an interesting and pretty site.

Back on the road, it didn´t take too long to reach our next stop, the ruins of Kabah. It was the second most important city in the area after Uxmal, inhabited from 750AD to around 950AD. It´s a small complex, and we had the entire place to ourselves for the hour or so we were there. Most of the ruins have partially been swallowed up by the jungle, making us wonder how much of it is probably still under earth. The largest building is El Palacio de los Mascarones (Palace of the Masks), covered in over 300 carvings of Chac-Mool the Rain God. It was pretty impressive, and we could imagine how it would have looked when all of the Chac-Mool elephant-like noses were intact and protruding from the wall. Also at this site is a huge arch. Once a sacbé (cobbled, ceremonial pathway) led from this arch, through the jungle and all the way to Uxmal in one direction and Labná in the other. At one time all of the Yucatán Peninsula was connected by these white roads of limestone.

After Kabah was Labná, even more tangled up by the surrounding jungle. There is another arch here, probably part of the ceremonial road. But we like to think that they were Mayan telephones, and because of their perfect construction, sound was able to carry from one archway, through underground tunnels and all the way to other archways. We can have a bit of fun with these sites anyway.

By this time it was after 2:00. We drove to the small town of Oxkutzcab to get lunch. Unfortunately, the one restaurant we found open didn´t really have any food, so we ended up eating chips and dip from a small market. It was enough though because it was so hot we didn´t have too much of an appetite. Driving back to Mérida we had planned to stop at one or two cenotes. These are sinkholes formed when cracks in the earth fill up with rainwater and the surface layer of earth erodes, creating a system of underground rivers and cenotes. They are all over the Yucatán Peninsula. Some people believe that an asteroid or some other huge collision 65 million years ago struck the Yucatán (on the Gulf of Mexico coast just east of Progresso), forming these cracks and also wiping out the dinosaurs. Anyway, we didn´t have enough time for a swim in caves, so we headed back to the city.

It was still hot by the time we got to Mérida at about 5:00. We returned the rental car, used the internet and had some dinner. We played some cards at the hostel and listened to the guitar señor´s music for a bit, but were too exhuasted to stay up and went to bed.

The crowds of Chichen Itzá

2005-09-06T20:41:00.000+09:30

We got up early again today, bought breakfast at a small shop (yogurt, a giant banana and what we thought were granola bars) and caught a cab to the ruins at Chichen Itzá, arriving just as they opened at 8:00. The first building we came to after walking down a short jungle path was the huge 'pyramid' named El Castillo by the Spanish and called the Pyramid of Kukulcán by the Mayans. It is a step pyramid 25 metres high and is the Mayan calendar formed in stone. The Mayans were big on maths and astronomy, and were actually the first civilization to use the concept of the number zero. El Castillo's 9 levels is divided into two by a huge staircase, making 18 separate terraces, representing the 18 20-day months in their year. The four stairways (one up each side) have 91 steps each, plus the top platform equals 365, the number of days in a year. One each side at the top of the pyramid are 52 flat panels, representing the 52 years in the Calendar Round (or 52 weeks in a year as I say). It's really fascinating to learn how this culture used maths and astronomy in building their cities. During the summer and winter equinoxes, the sun produces an illusion of a serpent ascending or descending the main staircase.

There are many different buildings and areas of these ruins, including many references to jaguars, skulls (most Mayans had some sort of human sacrifices, but the Mayans at Chichen Itzá became obsessed with them), eagles, warfare, and of course Chac-Mool the Rain God. The representation of Chac-Mool looks like a jigsaw puzzle of random geometric shapes meant to look vaguely like a square-headed, 2-dimensional 'person' with a huge 3-dimensional nose sticking out. Our theroy is that it is their version of an elephant, or what their ancestors described as an elephant. Nigel and I think the Mayans came from Asia somewhere at one time, and the images and stories of elephants (holding water in their trunks, swimming etc) were passed on and on and on until the image became mythical (there being no elephants in Mexico and Central America), and thus the idea of the Rain God looks kind of like an elephant. There are also remains of some sort of stadium (called a ball court)used for a game/ritual that archaeologists still don't understand fully.

We spent a surprising 4 hours at the site and were quite hot and sweaty by the end. As we neared the exit, we could hear some buzzing voice sounds. When we came up to the ticket booths, we saw that there were hundreds of people streaming into the site. Our timing could not have been more perfect, enjoying the site with relatively few people and leaving just as the hordes and tour groups arrived.

Back in Pisté, we packed up our gear, had some lunch, and then caught a bus west to Merida. It took longer than it should have, around 2.5 hours, and we were glad we had booked into a hostel. Mérida is a large city of about 700,000 and is the capital of the state of Yucatán. It was once the great Mayan city of T'ho and is now a charming, artsy town full of old Spanish colonial buildings and narrow streets. After getting organized at the Nómadas Hostel, we walked around a tiny bit, organised a rental car for tomorrow, and had some dinner. Back at the hostel we drank some beers out on the patio and listened to the free music they provide. Every night a señor comes to strum his guitar and sing some Mexican tunes. It was a nice, relaxing way to finish off the day.

Praying for rain

2005-09-05T21:20:00.000+09:30

We were up early this morning, excited for a trip to our first Mayan ruins. We made ourselves some pancakes at the hostel (free) and then took a taxi out to the Mayan ruins at Tulum, arriving not long after they opened. The name 'Tulum' means 'wall' in Mayan. That's because this city has walls on 3 sides and the Caribbean Sea on the fourth side. It was inhabited from about 1200AD to 1521AD, abandoned 75 years after the Spanish conquest. The city is set in one of the most stunning locations. It is perched up on some cliffs overlooking the clear turquoise waters of the Caribbean and surrounded by palm trees. The white limestone ruins of the buildings contrast nicely with the green jungle and blue ocean. There were a few nice bas-reliefs, and we began to learn a lot about the Mayans. Here at Tulum, Chac-Mool the Rain God played a huge role in their religion, probably because it is so stinking hot. I think I said a few of my own prayers for rain towards the end of our exploring. There were a lot of people around, and even more iguanas, but it wasn't too bad.

After spending about 3 hours walking around, we headed back to town, had some lunch, grabbed our bags and waited at the bus stop for our 2:30 bus west to Piste, the town nearest the ruins of Chichen Itza. The ride took about 3 hours and was again a great trip in air-conditioned comfort. In Piste, we stopped at a few hotels until one would bargain and give us a cheap rate. Piste is even smaller and less exciting than Tulum. We spent the rest of the evening doing laundry in the shower. There is a sound and light show at the Chichen Itza ruins, free with entry tickets, and we were going to see it just for the cheesiness of it, but it was raining with thunder and lightning and didn't feel like getting wet. So, we before walked around the seemingly abandoned town to find an open place for dinner and relaxed a bit before heading to bed.

Adiós Paradise

2005-09-04T20:12:00.000+09:30

Well we did it. We finally managed to pull ourselves away from Isla Mujeres. After breakfast, we packed up and headed down to the pier where we caught a ferry back to Cancún straight away. We took a taxi to the bus station and caught a bus south to Tulum straight away. The bus ride was luxury for us, a nice new bus with air conditioning that cranked. It was only about 2.5 hours, but we wanted to stay longer. The bus driver dropped us off at what he said was Tulum, but really it was the Tulum ruins (tomorrow's destination) and about 4 km north of the town. Crap. We thought maybe we'd just go see the ruins now since we were already here, but by the time we ate some lunch, the sky looked pretty black and we didn't want to be walking around in the downpour.

So we flagged down a colectívo minivan and got ourselves a hotel room for the night. It was at a place called Rancho Tranquilo, okay, but way overpriced for the basic, rugged accommodations. There was a mosquito net over the bed, but it had so many holes in it that we had to take it down and rig up our own. With nothing else to do, we walked around the one street that is the Tulum Puebla, nothing exciting. I spent about 30 minutes on the phone with American Airlines trying to change some flights (why is everything so hard for them???), we had a beer and then went back to the hostel to read and relax. We shared some rotisserie chicken along with beans and rice for dinner, and even had room for some homemade icecream afterwards. Back at the hostel, we played Yahtzee and cards and went to bed when the mossies became too much.

Okay, one more day

2005-09-03T20:07:00.000+09:30

This morning we had every intention of moving on from Isla Mujeres. We had some breakfast and then decided to take some photos at the beach, since we hadn't done so yet. Well, when we got there, the day was too beautiful and the beach just too gorgeous to leave, so we spent another day. We went back to the hotel room (luckily we hadn't packed up yet) to get into our bathers, hired an umbrella from a hotel shop on the beach, and spent the day swimming in the water and playing frisbee. It was a pretty hot day, and we had to swim over 100 yards out from shore just to get some cool sea water since the water was so warm. Nigel went and got take-away chicken and tortíllas for lunch, which we enjoyed on the beach with a few beers. Later in the evening, we showered and walked back down to the beach for one of the most beautiful sunsets we've ever seen. We had dinner at a small place on Ave Hidalgo (the cute pedestrian-only street full of shops and restaurants) where we've been eating every night, then headed to bed after such an exhausting day in such an ugly place.

Barracuda

2005-09-02T19:20:00.000+09:30

After a smoothie and bagel for breakfast, we headed out on a boat for a day of snorkelling. We cruised down the western side of the island and stopped to snorkel for about 30 minutes. It wasn't the greatest coral, but there were a lot of big fish and some really cool soft corals. We saw a few huge barracudas too. Just near a little lighthouse on a small rocky island, there is a statue of the Virgin Mary submerged under the sea, algae and corals growing on her gown. There were tons of fish just floating around her, like they were praying...very appropriate to find in Mexico.

From there we went to a cheesy hotel place where they have dolphin shows (we 'got' to view the dolphins in their cage pools from the boat) as well as a tiger shark in captivity. Further down the coast a bit, we docked near a restaurant and had about an hour to look around the turtle farm and guests could 'swim' with the 2 nurse sharks they have captive there, donation only. It was really sad because all of these tourists jumped into the water one at a time, the guide swam to the sandy bottom to bring the shark to the surface, then both would lift the shark out of the water to snap a photo (its gills convulsing as it took in air) and then repeat the whole thing with the next person. Some parents even put their small children on the shark as if it was a pony. We didn't stay there long to witness this, and walked along the water to the turtle farm. Here they protect and hatch seaturtles of about 3 species and release they are bigger and have a better chance of survival in the wild. The babies were so tiny and cute.

We headed back to the restaurant for a lunch of grilled fish tacos, then back in the boat and off to another site for more snorkelling. The coral was a bit better here, and we saw a massive 4 foot long barracuda. We were back in town just before the skies opened up and let out some rain, but this didn't deter us from getting a 6 pack of beer and going down to the beach again after using the internet. We stayed to watch the sunset, one of the most beautiful we've ever seen, then had some cheap tacos for dinner before heading off to bed.

Har Har Matey

2005-09-01T20:58:00.000+09:30

I had a pretty bad night last night with all of the sudden stings going on, but they were nearly gone by morning, save for a few random ones here and there. We had free breakfast at our hotel, then packed up our bags and took a taxi to the nearby Puerto Juarez to catch a ferry to Isla Mujeres. Just 11 km off the mainland and only 8 km long, Isla Mujeres is cheaper, quieter, and even more beautiful than Cancún. There are a few stories as to how it got its name (it means ´Island of Women´). Some think that pirates used to keep their lovers on this island while they were busy plundering galleons and pillaging towns. We like this story best (being pirates and all) but more likely the name is more historical. Francisco Hernández de Córdoba came upon Isla Mujeres in 1517, where they found a stone temple containing figurines of Mayan goddesses. Córdoba named the island after these idols.

It was a short boat ride across, and we cruised over clear, bright turquoise waters. Arriving at port, we walked through the narrow streets of the small town and found a great, clean hotel. Only about 12,000 people live here, mostly working for tourism or are fishermen. The buildings and houses lining the small streets are colourfully painted, and the shops and restaurants bring their business out onto the sidewalks and into the streets themselves. We walked around a bit, bought Nigel some flip flops and then ate a fantastic lunch of 1/2 roasted chicken with the same Yucatecan spice rub as the pork last night, complete with rice, beans and plenty of freshly made warm tortillas. Fantastic, and only about US$6, including 2 beers! We´re loving this cheap, delicious food and cheap cold beer, especially after Costa Rica.

Then, despite the dark clouds, we headed to North Beach, on the north of the island and only 2 blocks from our hotel. Along the way we picked up a 6 pack of beer. It´s a perfect beach with soft, white sand and crystal clear water nearly all the way to the mainland. It´s so shallow that the water is as warm as a bath. We swam for quite a while, drank our beer and just enjoyed the paradise. For dinner we stuffed ourselves again with fresh tacos. I think we have just been a bit excited for all of this food, and have vowed to stop eating so much. We walked around the small streets some more before heading off to bed.

Aye Aye Aye, Welcome to Mexico

2005-08-31T22:25:00.000+09:30

Up at 7:00, back to the airport on the 7:30 shuttle, we had time to grab a Starbucks and a delicious bagel for breakfast to enjoy while waiting for our 9:00 flight, which actually didn´t leave until around 10:00. But it did leave, and it was a short flight to Cancun. We hadn´t really thought about staying in Cancún, but decided we´d stay for at least a night to ¨see what all the fuss is about.¨ After being lied to by a shuttle bus/taxi driver about no public buses being available, we paid only US$3 for the public bus into town where we were given a full Cancún Mexican greeting. It came in the form of an attendant at the bus station. After trying to get the bus driver to let us out at or near an intersection close to our first hotel of choice and being denied (he said we were only allowed off at the bus terminal, despite the fact that a woman had just gotten off in the middle of the street), we got off the bus at the terminal, grabbed our bags and started to exit the bus station. One of the attendants held up a little stop sign and tried to explain that we couldn´t get out that way (we were heading towards the back of the bus into the driving area). We asked why, and he said ¨You just can´t. It is not allowed.¨ So we went to the front of the bus and walked along the sidewalk in the same direction we had been heading in. Just towards the exit, the same guy tried to stop us again, and said we had to use the exit. The exit happened to be way at the other end of the terminal, in the opposite direction we were heading, and leads out to the wrong street (the terminal sits on a little island of concrete between 3 roads). But we weren´t having any of this sorry attempt at his pathetic authority...besides, what the heck was he going to do to stop us? Call the police? Whatever. So we just kept walking. Nigel managed to get past him, but he tried to stop me by physically sticking his chest out at me, shoving me right in the chest like 2 blokes pretending to have a go at each other. Well, that was just the last straw for me from this piece of crap kid. I put both of my hands on his chest, shoved him as hard as I could (he stumbled backwards a few feet) and yelled ¨Don´t touch me. Get out of my way, and don´t f***ing touch me.¨ What a little shit. Of course what could he say to that? I walked right past him and we left the bus station. The other attendant was totally laughing at the guy. Welcome to Mexico!

We walked around in the humidity and heat for about 40 minutes before finding an affordable hotel. We went straight the bank to get some pesos, had a cold drink and sat down for a bit in 7-Eleven, then had lunch at one of the many little fondas (like a food stall). We then headed back to the hotel, changed into our bathing suits and caught the bus from downtown to the Hotel Zone. Cancun is actually divided into 2 parts: downtown and the city of Cancún, which is on the mainland, and the Zona Hotelera, or Isla Cancún, a sandy island just off the coast and separated by a huge natural lagoon. The town of Cancún really exists to service the resort industry occupying the entire Isla Cancún. And once we arrived at the beaches of the hotel zone, we realized why so many companies were quick to put up their huge hotels and resorts when the area became popular in the 1970s: the beaches are absolutely gorgeous. The sand is incredibly fine, soft and pure white, the water is clear, warm, and turquoise. And it´s pretty much like this along the northern and eastern sides of the island. The Caribbean here really looks like all of the picture-perfect postcards. We spent the entire afternoon walking along the beach from the middle of the northern bit at Playa Caracol to the middle of the eastern bit.We stopped to swim at a few spots, and to buy our first 6 pack of cheap, cold Mexican beer. We chose Pacifico, one of our favourites, and drank it on the perfect beach.

As it got late (but not dark, as the sun seems to set pretty late here), we headed to catch the bus back to downtown, trying to find Nigel a new pair of flip flops along the way since his just broke while walking on the sand. As we walked away from the beach, I started to feel these sudden stings all over. During the bus ride, they only became more severe and more frequent. But we couldn´t see anything on me. By the time we were walking back to the hotel, I was literally crying from the pain of the stings and freaking out since we couldn´t see anything on me. They felt like jellyfish stings, but we didn´t see any red spots. I jumped straight in the shower to soap up, but it didn´t help. I took some antihistimines and after having a beer at a nearby restaurant (XX Especial this time), we searched on the internet for what the hell could all these stings be. After reading a few things, we´re pretty sure I must have swum through a bunch of tiny baby jellyfish (we had seen one thing on my leg that looked like a little bit of glue, but Nigel just thought it was a booger). The stings can keep ´firing´ for hours, days, sometimes weeks after exposure.

We had an awesome dinner at a local taco place, where we had tacos made with cochinita pibil, which is pork marinated in a regional spice rub. Usually it´s cooked in banana leaves, but here it was roasted on a skewer, like a vertical spit. It rocked, and we were loving all of the chiles, guacamole and limes. We feasted and stuffed ourselves for about US$6. We were exhausted by the time we finished dinner, and I was pretty miserable with my jelly stings, so we headed for a cold shower and bed.

San Jose to Cancun via Miami...and still in Miami, again

2005-08-30T22:10:00.000+09:30

We were up at 4:30 this morning and ready to go just before 5:00, our taxi was supposed to arrive to bring us and about 6 others to the airport. When the taxi finally showed up about 20 minutes late, I knew our day was not up to the best start. After strapping all of our luggage and surf boards on top of the van, we were finally off about 35 minutes late. We had to stop about 5 times en route to secure the surfboards that kept threatening to fall off the roof. In the end we finally just crammed it inside with us. We got to the airport just after 6:00...we had planned on arriving around 5:20 since our flight was scheduled to leave at 7:18. But when we finally arrived, we saw that our flight was delayed until around 1:00...so I guess it wasn´t a problem that we had to wait in the line to check-in that stretched from the counters, across the airport, outside and all the way down the sidewalk. It took us about 3 hours to finally get checked into our flight. Pretty ridiculous.

With nothing left to do until we departed, we took full advantage of the free samples of chocolate-coated coffee beans and Costa Rican coffee liqueur set up in the little shops. And the best bit was that nearly every shop had them, so we went around from place to place, getting our coffee fix and drinking up that free alcohol, since we and were able to get our very very last gallo pinto for breakfast...at Burger King! We had the ´BK Pinto´ which was cheap and good. We spent the rest of the morning wandering the shops, reading magazines in the newsagencies, and chatting with a cute young couple from San Luis Obispo. We then had some lunch before our flight took off. It turns out that our flight was delayed because yesterday the plane couldn´t land in Costa Rica due to weather (fog???) and ended up landing in Panama for the night. We had to wait for it to get clearance into Costa Rica to come get us.

Once in Miami, we were sure we´d miss our (new) connecting flight to Cancun. When we arrived, we immediately checked the TV monitors and saw that our flight had been cancelled all together. We went through immigration, past the luggage collection and straight to the AA counter-ticketing area. Here we were directed to a very slow, long line of people. Unfortunately, it was the right place. We were in line along with people from a delayed flight from Orlando as well as a delayed flight from LA. Why their flights were delayed too, we don´t know. All I know is that it took us about 2 hours to reach the front of that line, where we got vouchers for a hotel and 2 meals. De ja vou. We weren´t at the Sheraton this time but at the equally nice Sofitel. And it was only 8:00. We had every intention of fully enjoying the hotel amenities once again, courtesy of American Airlines. We got to the hotel, checked into our room (no Pantene, but huge comfy bed and big TV again) and headed down to the restaurant to use our dinner voucher. We ordered some burgers at the bar, since that was as far as the $20 voucher would take us (and even then we were going to have to pay a few extra dollars), but the waiter came back and informed us that our voucher clearly stating ¨Attention vendor: American Airlines will pay up to the amount of $20.00¨ etc. was really only worth $16 and some odd cents since the hotel had to account for taxes and gratuity. We were quite mad about this for several reasons. One being that there was no way we´d get a meal for $16, and another reason being that who cares about gratuity when we haven´t eaten in 15 hours? And still another reason being that this voucher issue wasn´t a problem 4 weeks ago when we stayed at the Sheraton. Since we didn´t want to have to pay for dinner, the only other option we had was to head back to the airport for cheaper food (where our voucher was good as well). Unfortunately, we missed the 9:00 pm shuttle by about 30 seconds and had to wait until the 9:30 shuttle, which actually left at about 9:45. We headed to one of the only cheap places open in the airport: Burger King. And of course we wanted to use up all $20 to make American Airlines pay every cent for screwing with us (by only giving us $20, then sending us to a hotel where the cheapest meal is about $20). Needless to say we ate ourselves sick.

It was about 11:00 pm by the time we had eaten and taken the shuttle back to the hotel. So much for enjoying the hotel! Instead of going for a swim that we had planned, we both had a long shower, made phone calls to family (thanks for ringing us back guys!) and watched TV until the wee hours of the morning (really, it couldn´t have been later than 1:00).

Final day in CR

2005-08-29T22:00:00.000+09:30

With a day to waste in San Jose, we weren't too sure what to do. We used the internet, went and had our last gallo pinto for breakfast, bought our Mexico Lonely Planet, walked around some markets briefly then went back to the hostel for a swim. The skies opened up a bit later, and we watched some TV while reading up on Mexico. Later that evening, we headed out to get some dinner, watched a bit more TV then went to bed early, since we have to get up at 4:30 tomorrow.

Jerked around

2005-08-28T21:46:00.000+09:30

Waking up early this morning, Nigel headed down to the beach for a walk, where he saw hundreds of tracks from the turtles from the night before. It was amazing how many there had been last night. I met up with him later on the beach, and together we went off to struggle to find a place open for breakfast. This is a strange little town, with everything being shut during meal times even though there are so many tourists around. We found a bakery, the Pandaria Dorling (the LP calls it Darling) with the cutest owner/baker/cook. She is practically the only good thing about Tortuguero Village with her bright, friendly manner and delicious food. We had peanut cookies and fresh banana bread for breakfast. We then packed up our hear and watched an inguana in a tree near the river while waiting for our boat back to Moin.

More animals along the river route, we arrived in Moin just after 1:00, got a ride to Puerto Limon, and managed to hop right onto the 2:00 bus to San Jose. This bus only took about 3 hours since it didn't stop every 100 yards to pick people up. We had made reservations at the Tranquilo Backpackers (with some difficulty I might add) and went straight there. We signed in and were about to pay when they informed us that our room was actually down the street in the owner's house! We didn't want to stay in someone's house, especially for US$22. We were pissed at them for not letting us know on the phone, and they weren't really nice to us at all. Especially since I tried to reserve a room around 9:00 this morning, but she told me I had to call back around 11:30 when they'd know if they would have rooms. I explained we'd be on a boat and wouldn't be able to call until about 2:00, could they please at least put our names on a waiting list or something, but she wouldn't do it. So when I rang at 2:00 and they said they had a room, I thought we were in luck. They said they were trying to be helpful by putting us up in someone's home, but in fact they should have just been honest and said "No we don't have any rooms, but you can stay at the owner's house down the street" in which case we could have refused at 9:00 this morning and rang a different place. But now it was amost 6:00 and the next best alternate only had dorm beds left. And to make it all worse, as we left Tranquilo's, it started to rain and it got dark. There we were with no hotel and walking around in the pouring rain looking for a place. Thanks a lot assholes at Tranquilo. In the end though, we were glad not to give them more money since they haven't really been helpful our nice the last 2 times we stayed there (we only stayed for the free internet and free pancakes, plus they do have hot showers).

So, to make a long story even longer, we walked around the city and settled on dorm beds at Costa Rica Backpackers. This place is so much better! Not only are the staff friendly, but they don't have that whole "wannabe hippy, up themselves vibe" that they do at Tranquilos. Plus, this place is huge, with a pool and grass area to hang out in, a huge TV room, free internet (twice as many computers as Tranquilo), a restaurant with an even large TV and lots of games, and hot showers. And it's cheaper. So in the end, it all worked out. After checking in and dropping off ALL of our clothes to be washed, we had a swim in the pool in the drizzling rain and a long hot shower. We then had dinner at the restaurant and then watched "Big Fish" on TV. It was great to hang out and watch some TV in the evening for a change!

Tortugas

2005-08-27T22:27:00.000+09:30

Reluctantly, we left Cahuita this morning in a minvan north to Moin, just near Puerto Limon. From here we had a four hour boat ride up the Rio Tortuguero to the small village of Tortuguero inside a national park. On the beaches here, hundreds of sea turtles come to lay their eggs every night. There are several types of turtles who use this beach at different times of the year. August is the busiest season for the huge green turtles.

The ride along the river, which parallels the coastline, was beautiful, with thick jungle surrounding us the entire way. We saw huge iguanas, lots of basilisks, monkeys, a caiman, a gorgeous rosette spoonbill, which looks just like pink cotton candy (fairy floss), and lots of other birds. Oh yeah, and a crocodile too. We arrived in Tortuguero village around 2:00 where we quickly found a hostel for the night, finally managed to find a restaurant open for a late lunch, then headed right down to the beach for a swim. The Caribbean here is much rougher than down south and the sand is a gorgeous dark brown. After cooling off, we sat and watched a local girl's soccer match while enjoying a few beers. The village was in full party mode (and had been for 3 straight days) to celebrate 27 years of the national park. Everyone was out and about, kids running around with cotton candy and churros, people dancing and drinking beer and loud music. We were advised by our turtle guide for the night, Castor, that we'd be departing to see the turtles around 7:30 pm, so we set out to find some dinner beforehand. There is not much option here, and went to a cute place right on the river called the Buddha Cafe. We ordered a pizza and waited for over an hour for it to come. While we waited, we watched some really cool lightning lighting up big fluffly clouds across the river. At about 7:20, the ditzy waitress came and told us we'd have to wait a bit longer. Of course we couldn't and, pissed, we left.

We were a bit disappointed to see that our turtle group was 14 big. Everyone must be accompanied by an official guide to get onto the beach at night, in attempts to protect the turtles and eggs from poachers, animals, and just stupid people. We walked for about 30 minutes through the thick, dark jungle. We were hoping to see a jaguar, but no luck. Our guide had seen them a few times before, but he didn't sound too keen since they're such aggressive cats.

When we got onto the beach, we had to "share" our turtle with about 30 other people from 2 more groups. I found this a bit odd seeing as how there were hundreds of turtles on the beach. The turtles are huge, probably bigger than me if I were to lay curled up in a ball. We got a few brief moments to watch the poor girl lay her eggs and bury them, and also got to watch another girl make her way back down into the water after finishing her laying. We were surprised to see how quickly they move. The green turtles are named so because their fat inside is green in colour. During the laying season, they return to the same beach about 2 or 3 times to lay eggs. It takes about 2.5 hours for the whole process. Only 1-3% of the eggs actually become adult turtles. Apparently they have really poor hearing, but exceptional smell and can feel predators (including humans) walking on the beach. As we waited for our turns, we could see, courtesy of the lightning, tons of other turtles making their way up and down the beach. It was pretty cool.

The national park tries to minimalise the impact of tourists on the turtles, so once a group has seen a turtle laying eggs and one returning to the water, their time is up and must leave the beach (you can't watch them come up onto the beach because if she sees us or senses we are there, she will turn back into the water and not lay). So about one hour after setting out, we returned along the dark jungle trail and got to see a cute little opossom too.

Back in town, we tried to find somewhere to eat dinner, but everything but the expensive place was closed. But because of the huge fiesta going on, there was fried chicken shop set up, so we had a great cheap meal at their counter before we headed back to the room to read and go to bed.

Perezosos

2005-08-26T23:21:00.000+09:30

Today was a great, lazy day. We woke up to a beautifully sunny, clear day. First we spent all morning on the internet, free since we booked a trip to see some turtles with Willie of Willie's tours. We changed into our bathing suits, had an ice cream for lunch (it was pretty hot by this time) and spent the remainder of the afternoon at the beach of the national park in Cahuita. We've pretty much decided that as beaches go, this one is nearly perfect. The jungle comes right up to the sand, and the palm and fruit trees hang over the beach, providing plenty of shade. The sand is incredibly soft. The water is crystal clear and as warm as a bath. The sea is shallow and stays flat pretty far out, perfect for wading and floating around. Towards the end of the afternoon, we had a few beers and watched a group of howler monkeys play around in the trees directly above us. Two of the girls had tiny babies grabbing on to them too. They all get really loud and howl when planes pass overhead. After a shower, we had some dinner and played some cards before heading to bed, tired from our long day of relaxing.

The Sloth Sanctuary

2005-08-25T22:47:00.000+09:30

After a late breakfast this morning, we caught the bus north about 15 km to the Aviarios del Caribe. This is a sloth research and rescue centre we had seen on TV at home a few years ago. A couple had some land on a delta in the Rio Estrella, full of birds and other wildlife. One day they rescued a 5-week old sloth whose mother had been hit by a car. Buttercup, as she is named, began their passion for sloths. Now they rescue, rehabilitate and re-release capable sloths into the wild. They've got some residents who are unable to go into the wild, mostly due to injuries. Sloths fall from trees and break bones, get electrocuted from high tension wires, get hit by cars while trying to cross roads, and are abandoned by injured or dead mothers.

At the centre, we watched a short, really cheesy video then got to meet their sloths. They are incredibly cute in an ugly sort of way, and spend about 18-20 hours a day sleeping. We also got to see the babies. These guys really are cute and quite fuzzy. Some of them are as small as kittens, and the ones that share a box curl up and cuddle together, along with their stuffed teddy bears and stuffed sloths. And of course we got to meet Buttercup herself. She is quite a character, showing off and posing for our camera. She is currently looking for a mate. They may not let her have babies since she was reared by humans and will not be able to teach her babies anything about what to eat/not to eat etc. Slowly she would hold out one of her long, hairy arms, reaching her 3 toes out to us...she took a particular liking to Nigel.

After the sloths we were paddled around through some of their property in a small boat. We saw some lizards, including a few cool basilisks, looking very much like dinosaurs, and Jesus Christ lizards (they walk on water), a caiman, some howler monkeys and a bunch of other birds, including some boat-billed herons. Our tour over, we headed back out to the road and started walking towards Cauhita while waiting to flag down a bus. The surrounding land is mainly all banana plantations. We saw a man pulling along many bunches of bananas suspended from above on a track. It was a mini banana train. After failing to flag down any of the passing buses, a man whom we recognised from the sloth centre kindly stopped and gave us a ride back to town.

After a late casado lunch, went straight to the national park beach and spent the rest of the afternoon swimming. We played "wave golf," competing for the least amount of waves it took us to surf back into shore. When it was getting dark, we went back for a shower and spent some time just drinking beer while sitting on some benches on the road, watching people go by. Cahuita reminds us a bit of Vang Vieng, Laos, with its unpaved roads and traffic being about 90% on foot. We shared some great pasta for dinner before heading to bed.

Returned vision

2005-08-24T22:42:00.000+09:30

HAPPY BIRTHDAY COLIN!!!

Ready to leave Puerto Viejo, but with time to kill until our flight to Mexico on the 30th (still trying to change it), we took the bus back north to Cahuita, dropped our gear off at Cabinas Smith then caught a bus straight away to Puerto Limon. It took about an hour, and our purpose was to pick up my new glasses I had ordered last week. It only took about 20 minutes to walk to the shop and get them, so we wandered through some shops for 40 minutes until the next bus left for Cahuita. Back in town, we hung out, had some dinner, and went to bed.

Surfs Up!

2005-08-23T22:31:00.000+09:30

This morning, after trying in vain to change our flights to Mexico (we're ready to leave Costa Rica), we spent a while on the internet before a quick lunch. We then hired some boogie boards and walked to Playa Cocles, where we spent over 2 hours catching the huge, perfect waves. It was so much fun. Some of them were really strong and we ate it a few times, but no injuries were incurred. The sea water here is the absolute perfect temperature, cool enough to give relief from the heat, but warm enough that you could stay in all day long without getting cold.

After walking back to town, we had a shower and relaxed with some beverages in our room. We then headed to the same restaurant that shows movies. This time I brought my prescription sunnies so I could see. We caught the end of "Harry Potter III" and then stayed to watch "Troy" while snacking on nachos and pizza. As we walked back to our hotel just before 11:00, we realised that this was the latest we've been up in a long tine. It was almost like being on a date.

Cycling, sloths and surf

2005-08-22T23:08:00.000+09:30

Today was a great day. We hired some bikes and headed south (technically it's east down the coast, but whatever) from Puerto Viejo, eventually ending up 13 km away in Manzanillo. We rode our beach cruisers along the road (paved only part of the way), which was surrounded by lush, thick jungle. We could hear tons of birds, bugs, monkeys and at times, waves crashing on the nearby beaches. We stopped about 7 km out of town at Punta Uva, a perfect beach of white sand, clear water and jungle. There were a few people about, but not many, especially considering how huge this beach is. In fact, we have been amazed seeing one perfect beach after another, stretching from Puerto Limon all the way to Manzanillo. And so few people about, NO hotels, and little tourism. It really is a form of paradise.

In Punta Uva, where not one house or building can be seen from the beach (and really there are very few as it is), we spent a few hours in the water, floating about in the gentle waves. We had packed our lunch and set about making a delicious tuna sandwich...this time we were careful not to let the monkeys get our avocado! Nige collected some bamboo and driftwood to try to make a seat, but it collapsed halfway through. After eating, we had another quick dip and got on our bikes to keep riding. We stopped to watch a group of howler monkeys in a tree along the road, and nearly missed seeing the perfectly camoflauged sloth sitting on a branch of the same tree. We also saw a few toucans in a nearby bush, our first close-up experience with these beautiful birds.

We arrived in Manzanillo, a tiny town on the edge of the Refugio Nacional de Vida Silvestre Gandoca Manzanillo, a national park. There are a few restaurants and cabinas in town, perfect beaches (of course!) and lots of fishing boats. We treated ourselves to a Cuba Libre at the one and only pub while we watched the locals pass by under the balcony. We hopped back on our bikes and started biking back to Puerto Viego, stopping to see some more sloths. We stopped at Playa Cocles, yet another huge, gorgeous beach, where we spent a few hours body surfing in the huge waves. We made it back to PV just in time to return our bikes at 6:00.

We had a shower and headed to a place to share a plate of nachos for dinner, where we watched some of the movie "Guess Who." We didn't stay for the whole thing though, since I had no glasses and couldn't see much, despite the fact that it's played on a huge screen. Back at our hotel, we put some DEET on (we have been getting lots of mossie bites at night and there is nowhere to hang our nets) and quickly drifted off to sleep.

Salsa Brava!

2005-08-21T22:45:00.000+09:30

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TONI!!!

Last night we were treated to a huge display of brilliant lightning and thunder. We woke up to a slightly rainy morning, and enjoyed some gallo pinto con natilla at our hotel restaurant. Sitting there, we wondered how long it has been since we ate in a restaurant with 4 walls and a door. It's been a while. We spent some time watching the surfers from the beach right outside our cabina. It is here that the most famous wave in Costa Rica breaks: the Salsa Brava. It's named for the huge helping of 'sauce' it serves up on the shallow reef to which it breaks. Many a surfer has endured scrapes, snapped boards, broken bones, and even death. It doesn't look too crazy this time of year.

We spent all morning using the internet and burning CDs before walking about 2 km west of town to the Finca la Isla Botanical Garden. This is a working tropical farm where the owners grow trees, spices, fruits and plants from all over the world. It is absolutely gorgeous. We were given a map and a small booklet about each area and spent nearly 2 hours wandering around the property. A special treat was to see all of the tiny little poison-dart frogs hopping about. These are gorgeous little creatures, about half the size of my thumb, in brilliant colours, from bright red to light green with black spots (we call them the 'mint & chips'). There were all sorts of trees and plants that we have seen in our recent travels. At the end of our explorations, we were able to try many of the exotic fruits grown there.

We walked back to town along Playa Negra, a black sand beach. The sand is completely black but shimmers and sparkles in the sun. It's gorgeous. Back in town, we got some beers and drank them while swimming in the shallow waters among the reefs, and played with a few local dogs prancing around. We had a shower and a cheap burger for dinner before heading back to the hotel for bed.

Friends in low places

2005-08-20T22:34:00.000+09:30

After a late breakfast, we checked out of our perfect little cabina and caught the noon bus south for the short trip to Puerto Viejo de Talamanca. This is a small (larger than Cahuita), laid back Caribbean town, full of rastas and reggae. And also perfect beaches of course. After some walking around in the humidity, we found a little cabina right on the beach, with perfect views from the door leading out to the water. Not the nicest cabina, but the location made it worth it. We headed directly down to the water for a swim before walking around town, trying to find a cheaper place for a late lunch. We settled on some expensive but delicious tacos at a small soda. Since it was low tide, we walked around the exposed (dead) coral to see what we could find in the many tide pools. We saw lots of crabs, some small fish, lots of muscles and a really cool eel, which was most likely poisonous.

We swam for the rest of the afternoon before heading back to our hotel for a shower. While Nige was under the tap, a little friend crawled out from the drain. It was a crab! He hopped around for the rest of his shower, trying not to get a pinch on the toe. We enjoyed some beer and cocktails on our porch overlooking the ocean and played some cards. We ate a "carnival-style" dinner from a few random huts set up along the road: some freshly fried chicken, a few grilled pork kebabs served with a fresh tortilla, and a hot dog from the German guy's Frankfurter stand. We tried to give the deep-fried bananas served with the chicken to a few of the many dogs wandering around, but even they wouldn't eat them.

Cheeky monkeys

2005-08-19T22:21:00.000+09:30

After breakfast this morning, we bought some lunch, packed up our stuff and headed out to spend the day in the Parque Nacional Cahuita. We walked through thick jungle on a small path along the beach...here, the jungle literally falls right into the sea. For about 7 km we followed this quiet path, hearing many birds and howler monkeys along the way. We saw tons of lizards, butterflies, leaf-cutter ants, and birds. We passed a sleepy sloth high up in a tree, and then, after trudging through foot-deep mud, we stopped to watch a group of capuchin monkeys play in the low brances of a tree on the beach. They were not shy at all (perhaps some annoying tourists have been feeding these guys?) and before I knew it, one had jumped from a log onto my back, hanging onto my backpack and knawing his way through the plastic bag tied to the bag, which contained our lunch (some bread, a can of tuna, and an avocado). I didn't want to slap it off for fear that it would bite me, so I yelled to Nige to get it off, and he kicked it in the head (gently, kind of). After the second kick it released its grip and scampered up a nearby tree...with our avocado! Cheeky little bastard. And it looked like such a good avocado. There was much fighting among the group as everyone tried to get a piece of the fruit. Half of our lunch gone, the monkeys then began mashing an odd looking fruit from the tree, and rubbing the juice and mash into their fur. We think that it's a natural bug repellant. Too bad it smells worse than a garbage dump, or I'd be slapping that stuff on myself!

We continued our walk out to the point of the small peninsula and around to the other side. It was just so beautiful, and where the path came out along the beach, we were treated to endless views of the clear, turquoise waters. What a gorgeous spot of Earth.

We headed back to the perfect, 2km-long beach near the entrance to the park where we had a dull lunch of plain tuna sandwiches. We spent some time swimming in the warm water and just relaxing. Before we knew it, it was after 3:00 and cocktail hour was well on its way. We walked further down the beach to the park entrance, and I headed to a shop to get some drinks. We had cocktails on the beach while swimming and listening to the incredibly loud howler monkeys in the jungle directly behind us. As it got dark, we headed back to the hotel, had a shower, went out for some dinner and then headed to bed.

To the Caribbean and another world

2005-08-18T22:04:00.000+09:30

It took about 15 minutes to get a taxi on the deserted streets (we have the first one to 2 old ladies), and headed to Tranquilo backpackers. Luckily some drunk guy was wandering around inside, looking for beer apparently, so he was able to let us in. We put some bean bags together on the floor of the lounge area and went to bed. We woke up around 6:30, surprisingly refreshed despite the lack of sleep. We paid US$12 to the hostel for the use of their floor for a few hours, too much in my opinion, but took advantage of their free internet, pancake breakfast and hot showers. We then walked to one of San Jose's many bus stations and got a ride to Puerto Limón on the east coast. We walked a few blocks to the town's other bus station to get a ride south to Cahuita. On this short walk, we passed an optomotrist, so within 20 minutes I had ordered myself a new pair of glasses, which will be ready in a week. I guess there are some advantages to being in Little America.

It didn't take too long to reach Cahuita, a tiny town on the Caribbean Sea. We got ourselves a really nice cabina with our own hot water bathroom at Cabinas Smith. The Caribbean side of Costa Rica is incredibly different than the Pacific side. Most people are of Afro-Caribbean heritage, noticable immediately by their rich, black skin, 'Jamaican' accents, and reggae/calypso music being played at every shop and restaurant. It's a much more casual environment than other places in Costa Rica, and the people are much friendlier than on the Pacific side. We headed went to Playa Negra, the town's black sand beach, for a swim, but the tide was up and there was no beach. So we found ourselves at the entrance to the Parque Nacional Cahuita, a gorgeous national park nearly in town. There is a donation payment required to enter, but since it was after 4:00, the guys let us swim at the beach just inside the entrance without paying. The water was clear, warm and beautiful, and we swam and body surfed until it was almost too dark to see. We did some laundry in our immaculate shower, had some beer and played some cards (Nigel had bought a new deck) and then shared some rice and beans for dinner. As we left, the owner gave us some cookies which he assured us we would 'really enjoy, mon.'

On a road to nowhere

2005-08-17T22:03:00.000+09:30

I think the last straw for us in Tamareemdo was losing our deck of cards, so today we decided to head over to the Caribbean coast of the country. We had some breakfast, packed up and caught the 11:20 am bus to Liberia, where we then got the 4:00 bus to San Jose...and nearly 12 hours later, we finally made it to the capital. What should have been a quick 4 hours down the Panamerican Highway turned out to be one long wait on the bus in the middle of the night. There was an accident at some stage. Apparently a mack truck had overturned somewhere up ahead. So the bus turned off the engine, along with all the other cars, trucks and buses we could see, and we sat there waiting. And sat and sat, in the dark of course. At one stage our iPod ran out of batteries, so we sat and did nothing. Over 7 hours later, the bus slowly inched along and we were finally able to pass (this being the only road, and one lane each way). We got to San Jose just before 4:00 am.

Blinded by thievery

2005-08-16T23:39:00.000+09:30

By walking away from the central part of town, we managed to find ourselves a cheap place for breakfast, delicious gallo pollo con natilla (rice and black beans with sour cream). Afterwards we went straight to the beach to swim for a while, had some lunch, then hired some body boards for the afternoon. I think this is when it all started to go downhill. While boogie boarding, we managed to lose the equivalent of about $20 and, worse, Nigel's special nyaminyami necklace from Zimbabwe. After about an hour of riding the boards (all we felt we could afford, but it was fun), we returned them and headed back to the beach with a bottle of Rostov vodka and Fresca soda for more swimming. We took turns watching the little stuff we had and going for a dip, but as the sun went down we both went into the water. When we came back out, we realised that someone had stolen my glasses. Not my $500 Oakley sunglgasses (left safely in our room) but my prescription glasses. And they didn't take our vodka or towels or hats (Nigel had been clever enough to bury what little cash we had, so at least that was still there after losing so much already). Who the hell would steal my glasses, set to my crappy vision? Granted, they were Valentino and worth about $450, but still, they were only of use to me. And besides all that, now I can't see. Bollocks. At least I still have my prescription Oakleys so I'm only blind at night. We went back to our hotel, set on drinking some more and playing cards, only to discover that our deck of Cathay Pacific playing cards, which we have had since our very first flight from Sydney to Shanghai, had gone missing. We searched around but they're lost forever. And they were so loved. Sniff sniff. So we decided to call it a day, finished off the bottle of vodka, ate some nachos as big as our ass then went to bed.

Wonder Bread

2005-08-15T22:04:00.000+09:30

We had an extremely early start this morning as we needed to catch the 6:00 am bus east to Tamarindo, a beach town on the Pacific coast. Our alarm went off at ten past 5, and much to our amazement, we were showered, packed, out the door and at the bus stop by 5:30. We watched the town dogs roaming around the empty streets, and Nige got us some coffee at the pandaría while we waited. Finally around 6:30 our bus took off. We had to get off at a crossroads somewhere, then waited for our connecting bus on the side of the road to get to Liberia to get another bus to Tamarindo.

When we finally arrived in Tamarindo around 1:00, we walked around for quite a while searching for an affordable place to stay. We settled on some cabinas for US$16 with outdoor, cold showers. But that didn't matter as it was hot, humid and sticky in Tamarindo. We got ourselves the cheapest lunch we could find (a shared casado) then headed straight to the beach for a swim. The beach here is long and perfect, but we could actually have been just about anywhere in Southern California, especially San Diego. And nearly everyone is American here anyway. Actually, we may have even preferred to be in San Diego as at least then we'd have a better chance of finding cheap food. I think my sister Shannon put it best when she described Costa Rica as the white bread of Central America.

We got ourselves some beers at the supermarket and drank them on the beach. Earlier while swimming, we saw that some guys were setting up a small area with flowers for what looked to be a wedding. Sure enough, when we returned with our beers, we saw that there was to be a wedding. It turns out that the only people there were the bride and groom, the celebrant, a photographer and a videographer. So we inched our way closer to watch, but not close enough to hear. The couple couldn't have asked for a more perfect sunset ceremony. With the huge rain clouds in the sky, the sun broke through just before the horizon, spraying the sky with bright yellow and orange light. It was gorgeous, and the couple was totally cute. Nige took some photos and I gave our email address to the celebrant in case the couple wanted to have the photos we took (they've since emailed us and we're in the process of sending them).

For dinner, we treated ourselves to "Nachos as big as your ass." That's actually what the restaurant calls them. Granted, they were not nearly as big as my ass, but they were pretty big and absolutely delicious. We even broke down and bought ourselves each a beer at the restaurant. Over the course of the day, it became apparent to us that 'Tamagringo' as some people call it, is actually 'Tamareemdo' as the prices are sky high. Very unnecessarily I might add. As we finished our meal, we watched a huge, spectacular storm come in off the coast. The lightning was so bright that it lit up the whole ocean, and the thunder was loud enough to make us jump. The rain that followed bucketed down. Even though our hotel was only across the street from the restaurant, we were drenched through to the bone by the time we reached our room. Nigel had a shower in the water pouring off of the roof, and I had one in the outdoor stall amid cracking claps of thunder and flashes of lightning. We watched the storm for a while longer before heading to bed.

Burritoitos

2005-08-14T21:55:00.000+09:30

Today we were up reasonably early to go on our canopy walk We caught a mini-bus to a private reserve called Selvatura, but not before spending a small fortune on a delicious breakfast of fresh muesli and yogurt and a vanilla latte. At Selvatura they have zipline tours, walking tours and a few other things. The most popular was the zipline but we wanted to see some animals so we ecided on the walk (plus it is cheaper). It is made up of a series of trails and bridges that are in the upper canopy of the jungle. The jungle, actually a cloud forest, is beautiful from the ground up to the canopy. It is certainly a different perspective from the top.
Walking around we didn't see much wildlife unfortunatly. We saw a few hummingbirds, butterflies, a colourful slug and a squirrel. We wern't sure if it was the noise from the zipline users or the big group of obnoxious and loud frenchies walking in front of us. We should have just done the zipline and had some adventure. Oh well, it really was a beautiful walk though.

After the walk we went into the hummingbird garden where there are about 20 hummingbird feeders set up. There are so many hummingbirds there. They are fantastic, some were tiny and green others had a blue chest and a purple head and the largest was almost all blue. We sat and watched the birds and ate some corn nuts for quite while. The noise that their little wings make, flapping so quickly, was incredibly loud.

As we waited for the bus we had a cup of tea in the restaurant. In the garden out the front of the restaurant we found a small lizard that I picked up and held for a while. It was like a small guana or something. It would jump from one hand to another and then jumped on my arm and crawled up onto my head for a look.

Our bus came and we made our way back to town. We had a small lunch at the coffee shop. It wasn't meant to be small but the burritos must have been the smallest on earth. They were tasty though in a kind of pizza sauce kind of way.

Well it was that time again so we played some speed and had some more Rostov. We enjoyed the same dinner as last night (when you are on a good thing...) and off to bed we went, just as silly as last night.

Jeep - Boat - Jeep

2005-08-13T21:10:00.000+09:30

This morning we had another great breakfast by Adriana and caught our 'Jeep' to start our trip to Monteverde. The driver's wife had actually forgotton to tell her husband we had booked so we were 40 minutes late to the boat, but that didn't matter as the the boat goes regularly anyway. We drove the same route we drove yesterday, up past the volcano covered in cloud and across to Arenal Lake (man made reserviour). We threw our bags on to a small motor boat seating about 20 people and cruised across the the lake to the other side to meet our connecting Jeep. We were not surprised when we were bundled into a mini-van. Kel mentioned to the guy we were supposed to have a jeep and he kind of laughed and said 'yeah supposed to'. I actually predicted the minivan half-way across the lake.

The road to Monteverde is a bumpy dirt road through hills and farmland. The locals don't want to seal the roads as it will give more access to tourists and cars. Right now you need a 4x4 or a thrashed out minivan to travel easily. The main attraction here is the jungle tours. The most popular is the canopy or zipline tours where you take a flying fox through the tree tops. Oddly enough, Monteverde was settled by some Quakers (one of America's stranger religions) in 1951. Four guys were jailed in 1949 for refusing to register for the draft. After their release, they set out with about 40 others from various families, bought some land in Monteverde and began dairy farming and making cheese. They chose Costa Rica due to its peaceful policies and lack of army.

After finding a great place to stay, we took a look around the town we were staying in. It is Santa Elena, a beautiful small town mainly consisting of hostels and hotels. We had a quick lunch of Gallo Pinto, booked a tour for tomorrow and then went to take a nap. Just after we woke up I was looking out the window and heard a squeal as some people had seen a sloth in the tree. We ran out to watch as it made its way down through the trees right in front of us to have a poop. Sloths come down the tree to poop, then change trees so that predators can't follow them. It was pretty cool as they only come down once a week to do their business. This was a Hoffman's two-toed sloth, which are nocturnal so even more special that we saw him.

The cocktail hour was upon us so we decided to buy some cheap Rostov vodka and Squirt to accompany our card games. For dinner we found a great Soda that serves a yummy casado with tortillas. The Rostov made us pretty silly (I think there is metho or something in it) so it didn't take us long to get to sleep.

Volcan Arenal

2005-08-12T22:04:00.000+09:30

We had an awesome breakfast at our hotel this morning, cooked by Adriana herself, and it was only US$2 each. We then wasted the morning using the internet and who knows what else, shared a huge burger for a late lunch, then got back to our hotel at 3:30 in time to catch our tour to the volcano.

The whole purpose in coming to La Fortuna is because of Volcan Arenal. This is Costa Rica's largest active volcano. It has been spewing ash and lava almost daily since its huge eruption in 1968. In fact, molten rocks fly out of this perfectly cone-shaped volcano nearly every 20 minutes, but can only be seen at night due to the amount of light in the sky during the day. Our trip started off great as we wound our way through the lush, green countryside. Our van pulled over next to a few others so we could get out and see a brown-throated three-toed sloth relaxing up in a nearby tree. This is one of 5 species of sloths in the neotropics. He was really cute, almost smiling, but not doing much, so we turned our attention to a huge army of leaf-cutter ants. We had looked for days in the Amazon for these little guys, and here they were in the hundreds (and now it's over a week later and we've seen them everywhere). Back in the van, we kept widing up the hill and stopped to see some coatis. We were the first ones out of the car, and as Nigel knealt down to take a photo of 3 or so in the middle of the road, a whole herd of them came scampering up to him from the hill along the road. These guys are so cute. They are members of the racoon family with long noses which they skim along the ground looking for insects, fruit and small animals to snack on. They've got long tails that kind of curl at the end and seem to have fun personalities.

After watching them for a bit, we continued on towards the volcano and stopped at the entrance of a trail, where we started a 2 hour walk with our guide, Fabrizio. He is extremely knowledeable and appropriately excited about the surrounding plants and wildlife. We were excited when he pointed out some ferns that curl up and wilt when touched. They are totally cool. I know they have them in New Zealand and I looked everywhere for them, but never found them when I was there in 1998. We saw heaps of other plants, flowers, and trees in the lush jungle and heard the sounds of many birds and howler monkeys. We saw hummingbirds, butterflies, & insects. Along the path at one stage, I looked up and there was a howler monkey sitting in the tree. The grunts and howls from these guys can be heard for over 1 km in the jungle. We also saw a large group of white-faced capuchin monkeys. These guys are small and really cute, and cheeky. During the whole walk, the sounds of rocks and lava tumbling down the volcano could be heard above everthing else.

At the top of our walk we had great views of the volcano, but it was mostly covered in clouds. The sunset was spectacular behind us, and we sat and watched the volcano for about an hour to try and spot some lava. And lava we did see! It wasn't much, as we had to wait for breaks in the clouds, but we did see it. Very cool. When it appeared that the show was over for the night as the clouds got too thick, we got into the van and headed down the hill for an evening at the Baldi hot springs. There are tons of hot springs around La Fortuna (due to all of the volcanic activity underground) but sadly they're all resort-like and way overpriced. This was included in our trip, so we decided to have a swim. Inside was like a water park/resort, with at least 8 different pools of varying temperatures, all nicely carved and paved, surrounded by thick flowering bushes and trees. Two of the pools have huge swim-up bars (we've never been to one before and have always wanted to) with over-priced drinks.

After eating our sandwiches we had brought for dinner (luckily, as the restaurant was way out of our league), we changed in the locker rooms and headed to the top pool, which was so hot we couldn't even put our toes in. We thought this was a bit dangerous, as there was nothing to prevent someone (or some child!) from falling in. We then went to one of the pools with a bar and splurged on a few cold beers as we sat and suffered in the incredibly hot water. Still, it was so nice to swim around and soak our skin. For the rest of the evening, we hopped from pool to pool, going to the cooler ones when we got too hot. It was fun. Around 9:30 our group met back up, we were driven back to town, and we headed straight to bed, our fingers and toes like little prunes.

Cerveza Cara

2005-08-11T23:45:00.000+09:30

We couldn't see that there is much to do in San Jose, so after a free pancake breakfast at the hotel (which we cooked to perfection ourselves), we walked a few blocks to one of the many bus stations and got a bus northeast to La Fortuna. It took about 5 hours, but we were happy to pay the incredibly low price to take the local bus rather than the outrageously priced tourismo minivans that go direct. Since we were quickly learning that Costa Rica is not very cheap, we are happy that at least buses are.

In La Fortuna, we walked around in the humidity trying to find an affordable place to stay, and finally settled on Cabinas Adriana, dumping our gear in our room just before the skies opened up and bucketed down. We donned our rain jackets and set out to find some cheap beer...(and it's now 12 days later as I type this and we're still searching). Disappointed, we finally settled on buying some beer at the supermarket and headed back to our hotel where we sat at a table on 2nd storey deck outside our room, where we played cards, drank our beer and watched the rain pour down.

For dinner, we tried to find a cheap place, but unfortunately we didn't. We had an okay casado, a set meal consisting of rice, black beans (my favourite!!!), salad, and the meat of our choice (chicken). Then we went to bed.

To Costa Rica...finally!

2005-08-10T23:31:00.000+09:30

The early morning alarm at about 5:00 am came way too quickly. We were supposed to be at the airport at 5:00 for a proposed 7:00 am departure, but we saw no point in being there 2 hours ahead of time since we were already checked in, our luggage was on the plane, and we already had our boarding passes. So we took our time (and another long shower) and got to the airport around 6:00. One look at the TV monitors told us our flight was now departing at about 9:10 a.m. We were right not to hurry, but were pissed that we could have stayed in the hotel room longer!

So off we went to spend our measly $5 breakfast vouchers. I thought this would be impossible, but we went to our breakfast choice anyway (yep, the same bagel place where we had lunch yesterday) and only had to pay US$0.68 extra. But of course that was without coffee, and of course we couldn't pass up a Starbuck's opportunity, so we shared an iced latte (there are at least 3 Starbuck's in the Miami airport, and Nigel was surprised when I turned down a drink at all 3 of them yesterday when he offered). We waited at the gate...and waited and waited. Finally we saw our new plane arrive. The AA staff announced that the flight crew required more sleep (yeah, so does everyone else!) and we'd be departing around 11:00 after 1 more delay. And the plane did finally take off just before noon (after everyone had boarded and then deboarded at least twice). We hoped they would be really nice and offer free alcohol, but we were wrong to think AA would go that far. And they built up their generostiy by announcing "We've managed to organise with catering to serve food on this flight since we know it has been a long wait for you guys." But in truth they just served snack packs with food packed with fat, preservatives, sodium and sugar. We still enjoyed them, don't get me wrong, but we thought we all deserved a hot lunch at this stage. And leave it to an American airline company to serve the unhealthy crap.

The flight to San Jose from Miami is pretty short (still no movies). It was late afternoon when we arrived. We got our bags, which we were happy to see, checked out of immigration and caught a taxi to a hotel. As we approached, the driver explained that this was not a very good area (it didn't look good either) so we had him drive us to another place I had written down from Kim's book. We got to Tranqilo Backpackers, a place in a cute neighbourhood, paid too much for a room, and then treated ourselves to a hot shower and clean clothes. We set out firstly to find ourselves a guide book and ended up at a pedestrian mall full of shops. We wandered around a bit, bought a Lonely Planet, then ended up wandering through some indoor markets. We had a beer (our first of many overpriced ones) at a soda, a Costa Rican deli type place, then set out to find some locks for our bags since the immigration people at the Miami airport had hacked through ours, leaving a friendly little note saying "In your absence, we had to break into your bag, ruin your locks and rifle through your stuff so we could make sure you're not terrorists." Thanks American Airlines, for letting this happen. We then had the cheapest dinner we could find, and oddly, it was at Taco Bell. Still, this was a pretty good treat for us. We headed back to the hotel in the pouring rain where we used the free internet and headed to bed.

Lima to San Jose via Miami...and still in Miami

2005-08-09T23:51:00.000+09:30

Our taxi picked us up around 5:15 this morning for a short ride to the airport. We checked into our first American Airlines flight, had a coffee and a doughnut at the conveniently located Dunkin' Doughnuts (where I nostalgically thought back on the many weekends spent at my Grandpa's house), browsed the duty free shops (where I made made perfume selection for the day so I could smell nice, something I do at every airport since leaving home--perfume has become a luxury) and waited for our flight. We were excited for the trip to San Jose, Costa Rica, even if we had to fly via Miami. But our excitement was quickly stomped out as soon as we got on the plane and discovered that, although it's an international flight, we had to actually pay for alcoholic beverages! What a disappointment! Leave it to American Airlines to be the one to refuse us our natural rights as international travellers! It didn't help our moods any by the fact that the plane did not have TVs in the backs of each seat (every flight since we left Australia has had them, except for the small domestic flights). Not only that but they only showed one movie on the 5 hour flight, then shut the TV screens off for the rest of the trip. We did get a hot breakfast though, even if it was served by rude American flight attendents.

We reached Miami without any dramas. We headed to the international transfer lounge but were stopped short by some immigration officials. When we showed our passports, one woman handed Nigel an I-94 form, saying he needed to fill it out. This is a form for an electronic visa. Innocently, we questioned why he needed this form if we were just in transit between international flights. The woman was less than friendly and basically said "Just fill it out."
"But why?" Nigel asked.
"You just need it. Ask those people over there," she rudely replied, pointing to other immigration people a few feet away.
It did not escape our attention that she herself should know why travellers need certain forms, being an immigration officer and all. When we finally did get an answer, it was a rude, annoyed and patronizing reply "Because. You are going into a domestic area."

Ahhh, lovely America! What friendliness. Welcome home.

There have been a few countries so far where the immigration people are abrupt and seem not to enjoy their jobs. And the odd country has quite friendly personnel working their borders. But in all my travel experiences, it has been the people at Sydney immigration who are consistently happy, friendly and seem pleased to be of assistance to each person who passes through their gates. Likewise, I think it is the American immgration people who are consistently rude, obnoxious and up on their high horses.

So, on Florida terra firma, we set out to waste our 5 hour layover by exploring the airport. We treated ourselves to bagels for lunch (and anyone who knows me, knows what a treat this was!), and we couldn't get enough of the FREE water from the soda machine, WITH ICE! We just drank cup after cup, and we didn't even have to pay for the cup. What a treat! We then wandered around looking for a Costa Rica Lonely Planet. We had flashbacks of being in Heathrow airport looking for a Brazil book, which we never found. And, we never found a Costa Rica book either. In fact there was not one guidebook of any brand in the whole airport. Weird!!

Around 6:00 pm we headed to our gate, anticipating the 6:30 departure, only to find that it was delayed by about an hour. So, we picked a piece of carpet and sat down to read and do some crossword puzzles. Nigel had a little nap, and I didn't wake him a while later to tell him our flight was delayed even longer to about 8:30. And then they switched the departure gate, so all of the passengers waiting gathered up their gear and trotted across the airport to the new lounge. Now, we had been debating all day long whether or not to buy ourselves a US$7 beer from the Sam Adams kiosk we kept passing, and up until now, we thought we did pretty well to resist. But the gate change was the last straw so we happily gave in and got a pint each. While we sipped these cold, tasty beverages, Nige rang his parents and sister, and I rang a sister and my Mom. Thanks guys for ringing us back so we could chat! It was a real treat to talk to them, as it had been a LONG time. My Mom happened to be in Maine at the time, and we were so excited to be in the same time zone for the first time in well over a year. She was happy we were in the USA, but made the point that we were probably safer in Lima than in Miami. Good point Mom.

As 8:30 came and went, passengers on our flight started getting antsy and people started asking questions and demanding answers. Apparently our plane had a "mechanical problem" which they were fixing and they would update us as soon as they knew any changes. I got chatting to a cute Canadian couple, as I had noticed them reading a CR Lonely Planet, and seeing as how we had no idea where we'd go once we got to San Jose, I asked to borrow it to jot down a few hotels. Kim and Suesh are both PE teachers, and were actually starting their 3 week honeymoon. Not a great start for them, but what can you do? We also chatted with Jamana from SF, and they all made the time pass rather quickly. Nige got bored and went to argue with one of the irate customers who was being a real ass. He wanted to know exactly what was wrong with the plane. The poor counter staff were getting hounded with questions and abuse. Nige asked the guy, 'What does it matter what is wrong with the plane as long as it gets fixed right?. Are you an aircraft mechanic?....'
'No'....'
'So they could tell you anything and you wouldn't know what it was right?....' replies Nige.
'I guess so....' the guy shrugs.
'OK, then they are fixing the flux capacitor.'

Around 10:30, after witnessing several arguments at the counter and one pretty abusive one, the AA staff announced that they couldn't fix the problem on the plane, and we had to wait for a new plane. This would require us to stay over night in Miami and depart in the morning when the plane would arrive from San Francisco. You can imagine the obscenities flying about from a bunch of irate tourists (some of which we really felt bad for, ie those with kids, those who had pre-booked hotels and tours etc--but that's why there're travel insurance!). But Nigel and I were so excited. Staying in a REAL hotel! With hot showers, towels, soap, shampoo, and CONDITIONER! And TV! And 2 free meals!! Woo-bloody-hoo!!!

We queued up with about 300 other passengers (some people just went to their homes in Miami) to receive our hotel, dinner and breakfast vouchers. Nigel and I couldn't contain our excitement as we looked at the hotel voucher and saw we'd be staying at the Sheraton, Miami airport. We left our luggage at the airport or on the plane or wherever it was (as most passengers did) and hopped on the Sheraton shuttle for the quick trip to the hotel. When we walked in, we knew we were in for an even bigger treat than we anticipated. This hotel is pure luxury (to us anyway). The lobby and rooms are all decorated much to our style, not some gaudy carpeting and cheesy artwork. There were exotic flowers, bamboo screens, simple black and white photos decorating the walls, and black and chrome fittings in the bathrooms. And I nearly fell over when I saw that the free shampoo and conditioner was actually Pantene (I have been using nothing but Head & Shoulders for the last 8 months, with no conditioner).

Being 11:00 pm, we weren't too hungry for dinner, but didn't want to pass up on free food, so we met Kim and Suesh in the hotel restaurant for a late meal. I had a Caesar salad (yum!!) and Nige had soup, and a root beer! Back in our room, we both had a shower for about 20 minutes each, WITHOUT flip flops. The bed was huge, full of pillows, and so comfortable. The TV was huge. With so many channels. I didn't want to waste one second of that luxurious bed and fell asleep quickly. And Nigel didn't want to waste one second of that TV, so he stayed up late watching movies (funnily enough, we learned later that Kim went right to sleep while Suesh stayed up watching TV too).

Yeah, American Airlines, you can delay our flights any time...

**Note: as much as we complain, and will continue to do so, about the staff of American Airlines, the staff members at the gate fielding all of the questions and dealing with plenty of irate people were very nice, calm and helpful. I guess ground staff and flight staff go to different schools. The ground staff butters you up and gets you in a good mood, and the flight staff just ruins all their hard work.

Beer at 9

2005-08-08T21:00:00.000+09:30

Waking up early this morning, we packed up our hammocks and gear and waited to reach Iquitos. As we approached the city, longboats full of guys sped up next to our big cargo ship and all the guys jumped on board, Miami Vice style. Apparently they do this so they can have first pick of the produce for sale before the boat even gets to port. Some boats even hovered right next to us and loaded their bananas right off the cargo boat while cruising along. At port around 7:00, it was pure chaos. We waited on the top deck for things to calm down a bit, as people scrambled to get on to buy stuff, people scrambled to get off to sell stuff, and passengers were just trying to get off. Gary told us to take everything out of our pockets as it´s not unusual for foreigners to have stuff nicked while trying to squeeze their way through the hordes.

Finally off the boat, we caught a motocarro into town and were dropped off at The Yellow Rose of Texas restaurant. Gary departed to take a shower. We enjoyed a great, cheap breakfast of pancakes and Colombian coffee before using the free shower Gerald provides for travellers. I think this was one of the best showers we´ve ever had. Not because it was some fantastic feat of the shower engineers of the world (it was just a cold tap) but because we needed a shower SO BAD. I had made the mistake of ´washing´ my clothes in the Amazon a few days ago, and from then on they just smelled so bad. The river water combined with the fact that we were never actually dry became a leathal combination for our noses. We scrubbed up nicely though, and took our laundry to the lavandaría down the street, where the little lady promised it would be ready by 10:30 for us to leave to catch our flight.

After all the effort of eating, showering, and taking care of our soaking wet laundry, we thought we deserved a nice cold beer...or two or three. The great thing about Iquitos is that no one cares if you´re drinking beer at 9:00 in the morning. And Gerald assured us that his fridge was currently at minus 4 degrees C, so our beer was perfectly chilly, and went down smoothly.

Sure enough, at 10:30 our laundry was done, we packed it up, thanked Gerald and his wife profusely for all of their help, and headed to the airport. We dutifully paid our departure tax and waited for our TANS Peru plane to Lima. The Iquitos airport is a bit funny. There is only one runway, used both for takeoffs and landings, and it doesn´t matter which way the planes go. And seeing as how it´s completely surrounded by thick jungle, it´s a wonder the runway is even paved. As we walked out on the tarmac to board the flight, we took a few photos of the broken down, deserted planes strewn along the side of the runway, practically overgrown with foliage. Very funny.

It was a short ride to Pulcallpa, then a quick trip to Lima from there as we chatted to a young 15 year old from Delaware who had just been in Pulcallpa for a month with his missionary group building a church. Back in Lima, we caught a taxi to the Hotel España, headed straight to the post office to get rid or our accumulated gear (we had decided we´d rather pay the high price to ship it home rather than lug it any further), ate some churros, used the internet, played some cards and drank more beer, had a Tear Gas burger for dinner and headed to bed early, excited for our early start tomorrow to a new country.

Back to "civilisation"

2005-08-07T21:10:00.000+09:30

We woke up early this morning as it had been pouring for the last few hours. We decided to skip breakfast so we didn't have to cook in the rain, but it stopped by the time we were ready to pack up our gear. We worked fast and were in the canoe not long after 8 am. It was a quick ride as we were paddling with the current, so it only took about 2 hours to reach base camp. And it didn't rain either. It was a gerat time to be on the water, since all of the birds were coming out after the downpour. We were happy to be greeted very enthusiastically by one of the dogs at camp. We unloaded the boat, ate some breakfast, and had a splash in the river to kill some time. We then hung out around the camp and later Mitchell and Gary made us pollo saltado, a yummy Peruvian dish. But it was the end of Camilla's life...Camilla was the live chicken we had brought with us all the way from Iquitos. She stayed at base camp but her life ended for us to have pollo saltado. I think we gave all of the chicken to the dog behind Gary's back.

After lunch, our driver with the motorized boat arrived and we loaded up the boat. We all got on board just in time for the rain to start pouring down. So most of the 3 hours in the boat were spent huddled under an umbrella. We were desperately trying to keep our feet dry, since we both had just dried them out after 3 days of being soggy and wet. As we got near to the town where we were to catch the big cargo boat back to Iquitos, we stopped the boat for a bit to watch for some freshwater Amazonian dolphins. And much to our pleasure, the rain stopped, the sun sort of came out, and with it, the dolphins! We saw quite a few of the pink dolphins, and they're really really pink! And we also saw heaps of gray ones, which look just like bottlenose dolphins except their bellies are pink. These guys were having a blast, jumping out of the water and doing spins. It was a real treat to watch.

Back in town, we had a cold drink and waited for the cargo boat. When it arrived, it was mad chaos as everyone tried to scurry on to get hammock space (the boat was already nearly full when it reached us) and the locals scurried on to sell their food. We just managed to find place for 3 hammocks on the top deck, although not all together. Nigel and I bought some delicious food (it was like a stuffed potato but was yucca or something else). We had some beers with Gary and chatted about our trip, enjoying talking about all we saw and did. And then we pretty much went to our hammocks to read and try to sleep. We were like ping pong balls in our hammocks, being swayed back and forth by the fat dudes on either side of us. I think we managed to fall asleep at some stage.

Hacking through the jungle

2005-08-06T21:09:00.000+09:30

We thought that it rained really early this morning, but in fact it was just all of the moisture from the trees way up high dropping down onto the jungle floor. We also got to listen to the otters playing for a bit, and all of the fish jumping around all night. We had a quick breakfast of fried egg sandwiches before setting off for a 5 hour trek through the jungle. Before we left, we had to stash our bags in the trees so that passing fishermen wouldn't raid our camp while we were gone. This was probably needless since in over 3 days we only saw 1 other person out there in the jungle.

It was slow going hiking around in our galoshes as every 5th step was preceeded by a few hacks of the machete in order for us to pass through. And it was incredibly hot traipsing around in the humidity. We were only loaded down with some water (which proved not to be enough), our camera and binoculars, and a machete. Oh yeah, and the shotgun too. Just in case. We hoped and hoped to see a jaguar (very rare, but the last guys to come to this area saw one a few days ago), but then again, maybe we didn't want to see one...

After the first 10 minutes, we reached one of many streams to cross. There was no visible way across it, so Gary just chopped down a tree to make a bridge. I wasn't too happy about this, but at least the log stayed in the forest rather than being removed. We saw so many varieties of trees, and tons of vines hanging down to the ground. Halfway through our hike, we stopped for Gary to chop down a palmito tree so he'd be able to make us a hearts of palm salad for lunch. The edible bits are way at the top of the tree inside the trunk, so it's necessary to chop the whole thing down. Again, I wasn't too happy to see this. Although the salad we later ate was absolutely delicious, I'm not sure I'll ever eat palmito again, knowing what is necessary to get it. I'll have to look into it.

We headed back to camp and were absolutely knackered by the time we got there. In all, we were a bit disappointed in the lack of wildlife we saw. But it was nice to see 2 toucans and a few macaws flying around. Also a fresh water stingray and some jungle chickens too, which Gary wanted to catch for dinner. After a much-needed splash off in the river, we all went into our mossie tents for a little nap. Nigel and I then spent the rest of the afternoon fishing. After dinner, we waited for it to get really dark, then set out on a night cruise up the river in the canoe. It was so incredibly dark out, and so silent...except for the thousands of bugs and other animals making their night noises. We used a flashlight to try to spot animals on the banks. But after about an hour, all we saw were some huge spiders. It was tough in the boat because there are so many logs under the water. They are extremely difficult to see in the daytime, and impossible to see in the pitch dark of night. At one stage we got stuck and we were sure we'd be swimming with the piranhas, but we made it through. I was glad we had left some candles burning at the camp or I don't think we would have been able to find it coming back. We watched the glow bugs for a bit then went straight to bed.

Eating fish with teeth

2005-08-05T22:32:00.000+09:30

Last night we were treated to the night sounds of the jungle, mainly frogs and bugs of every imaginable size.

Up with the chickens this morning, we had a great breakfast before we packed up our gear into a tiny dugout canoe for our trip further upriver. Our gear was precariously balanced in the small boat, and strict concentration had to be maintained at all times while getting in, getting out, or moving even an inch in the boat or else we would be piranha feed. A couple of times we got stuck on a submerged log and Gary had to get out into the water and free us.

For the next 3 hours, Nigel and Gary rowed us up the river with their homemade oars (I spent the morning using an old tuna can to bail the water out of the boat). It was so beautiful. Just the three of us and the whole huge quiet jungle. The sounds of birds & monkeys were a constant source of pleasure. We saw tons of different types of birds, including many kingfishers, and some teeny tiny monkeys high up in the trees. Definitely the highlight was seeing 2 endangered Giant Otters. They were playing on a huge log over the water, gave a little bark, splashed into the water, & paddled a bit before disappearing. It was quick, but a real treat anyway. The Giant Otter population once spread from Venezuela to northern Argentina. Today only isolated pockets of otters, estimated 2,000-5,000, are left due to fur hunting and habitat destruction.

After nearly 3 hours and very sore butts, we reached our camp for the next 2 nights. Really it was just a spot in the jungle that happens to have a bit of flat land and is raised up above the water level. We unloaded our gear and set up camp while Gary cooked lunch. It didn't take long to set up camp since all we had to do was hang up the hammocks in some trees. After lunch we went out in the canoe to fish for piranha. These fish are so hard to catch because they take a nibble out of the bait as fast as lightning and then are off. But we did catch quite a few of them, and 2 of the 3 species. Of course there were the 2 or 3 big ones that got away. It was a lot of fun.

We got back to the campsite just as it was getting dark. We had a quick bath in the river...this time we DEFINITELY were not getting in that water, after seeing the piranhas close up. They have so many teeth, which look like little shark teeth. As it got dark, the daytime animals went to bed and the nighttime animals came out, changing the sounds of the jungle. And much to our surprise and delight, our campground was full of fireflies. The small ones are like the ones we've seen before, with their little butts glowing. With the larger ones, it's their eyes that glow. Very cool. They made the campsite look like a fairy wonderland.

Gary fried up the fish for dinner. We expected them to taste muddy, since the Amazon water is brown and full of sediment, but they were quite good. A lot of bones though. After eating up our fill, we pretty much just went into our hammock caves (we had full mossie nets around them) and went to bed. The noises of the jungle were so loud that it was almost deafening. And it was so dark out once we blew out the candles making the millions of stars in the sky stand out so brightly.

Base Camp

2005-08-04T21:28:00.000+09:30

We were not too successful sleeping in our hammocks last night, swaying on the cargo boat. And it was hot. But there were not any mosquitos, so we were happy about that. We got up just as the sun was rising over the river--a beautiful site to see. We packed up our beds and dragged our stuff to the bottom level of the boat to get ready to get off at a town which we can't remember the name of. It was settled by the Swiss back in the day, and the locals still make cheese.

Actually getting off of the boat was an adventure in itself. As some passengers were waiting to get off, a bunch of locals were waiting to get on to quickly sell their piping hot food and cold drinks to those still on board. And there was no civilised way about this. We had to stick our elbows out and struggle just to stay upright and not get knocked over. Of course there was only a skinny plank of wood to cross from the boat to the shore as well. Safely on land, Gary took us to a small restaurant for breakfast before we met up with our boat driver for the morning. We loaded our gear onto his motorised dugout canoe and set out for 3 hours upriver, turning off of the Amazon and down the ever-narrowing tributary of the Rio something-or-other (will look it up later). This put us over 330km upriver from Iquitos, and the further we went, the thicker the jungle and the less people we started to see.

It was quite hot sitting in the boat with the sun beating down, but we hardly took notice as we enjoyed the jungle. Just all of the sounds of birds and animals made the trip worth it up to that stage. We saw TONS of kingfishers and other birds, a turtle, and a few small monkeys. At one stage we pulled up to the side for a toilet break and Gary just happened to pluck a baby anaconda out of the water. It was so beautiful, but still managed to give us the chills despite being a 2 foot long baby. But Nigel put his fears aside and held it. There are 2 types of anacondas in Peru, the yellow (like this one) and the even more dangerous black anaconda.

After about 3 hours, we arrived at our base camp, where we would be staying for the night. We were pleased to be greeted by 3 very excited and friendly dogs, running down to the water to greet us. They followed us from the river into the jungle where we met Mitchell, a buff old Peruvian, and a small family, all staying at this base camp working. There is a huge screened common room built up off the ground, as well as another deck area with a toilet. They have randomly growning gardens like chili plants and jungle fruits. In addition to the 3 dogs, there are 2 resident parrots who wander around with the chickens and never fly away. I guess you could say the camp is semi-permanent. All I know is that the mosquitos definitely live there!

While Gary and Mitchell cooked us up a delicious lunch, Nige wandered around and played with the dogs while I tried (all in vain) to escape the mossies. After lunch we went traipsing through the jungle, accompanied by 2 of the dogs. At first I was worried that the dogs would scare off any wildlife before we had a chance to view it. But after walking for only 10 minutes, I realised that with all the noise the three of us made, we couldn't even sneak up on the dead. We had galoshes on our feet because of the mud, and since the ground is covered by about 3 feet of leaves, we couldn't have been quiet if we tried. We walked for about 2 hours, enjoying the thick, lush jungle. At times Gary had to hack our way through the vines and trees with a machete. We didn't see any animals :( but we enjoyed having the dogs with us.

After our walk, we desperately needed to cool off so we 'bathed' in the river. I refused to get in completely because of the piranhas, so we just splashed ourselves off while sitting in one of the boats. We then made some bait with flour and water to try and catch some fish. We caught a few small ones. Gary cooked us up a great dinner, then we went to bed to escape the mossies.

Boat people

2005-08-03T21:56:00.000+09:30

We got up this morning, had some breakfast at Ari`s Burgers (a huge 50s, Mel´s Diner type place owned by Gerald´s (from the Texas place) brother-in-law, then went back to the hotel to pack up our things and gather our stuff for 5 days in the jungle. Since check-out wasn´t until noon, we spent the rest of the morning in front of the fan in our room watching MTV. I think this is the first English language TV we´ve had since maybe India, so we indulged ourselves. At noon, we reluctantly checked out of the hotel, dropped our bags at the office of our jungle company, and wasted some time on the internet. We grabbed some sandwiches from the Yellow Rose of Texas for our dinner on the boat, then went to our tour office to wait for our ride to the big boat.

I think I'm probably the only person EVER to have started their Amazon trip with 44 mosquito bites already, and I haven't even left town yet! The bites from those tiny black bastard bugs on the top of Machu Picchu are still raging and it´s been 5 days. When we got to the ´port´, we saw that our cargo ship was just docked along the muddy banks of the river, and there were tons of people moving like ants, loading their stuff onto the boat. Most of it comprised bananas, sacks of who the hell knows what, and crates of who the hell knows what. Why were bananas travelling from the city to the jungle?? No idea. But it was exciting to watch.

We pushed our way to the top deck of the tri-level boat (with the help of one of the guys from the tour company office) where our hammocks were already strung up, hanging from pipes along the ceiling. How we found our hammocks must have been a miracle because there were already at least 100 hanging up, their owners lounging around or still on land. And that was only the top deck! At least the sides are open to the air. The middle and bottom decks seem more like compartments on a slave ship. After a while our guide for the next 5 days joined us. Gary (it´s actually Moises Jr. or Moises the 5th or something, but he hates it) is a 20 year old who grew up in the jungle. When he was a baby his parents sent him to live in the jungle with his grandma, and he only moved back to Iquitos when we was about 14 or 15 to finish school. It seemed like we´d be in for a great time. We chatted as the boat slowly filled with more passengers and their cargo.

Almost at 5:00 p.m. exactly, the boat´s horn beeped and we were off. The cargo ship would be taking us about 14 hours upriver (west). We spent the first 30 minutes or so watching the sun set over the water, and retired to our hammocks as soon as it got dark. We played some cards (the cards were precariously balanced on our legs as we swung from side to side in our beds), read, and then went to sleep for lack of anything else to do.

Welcome to the jungle

2005-08-02T22:22:00.000+09:30

We got up this morning, packed up, waited an infinitely long time for our breakfast at the Hotel España, then took a taxi to the airport for our flight to Iquitos. It was strange to be flying domestically, and we didn´t have the hassles of immigration and exchaning money. We still, however, had to pay a departure tax. Despite being a short domestic flight, we were warned that we should be at the airport 2 hours ahead of time to be sure we actually got on the flight. And we did, with no problems.

Although it´s a short trip to Iquitos, we still had one stop-over in Pocallpa where, surprisingly, most of the passengers on the plane got off. The little TANS Peru Boeing 737 was only 1/2 full for the rest of the flight. Throughout the whole flight, we had clear, fantastic views of mountains, desert, and, finally, the dense green jungle, tons of small rivers, and the huge Amazon River. The plane landed in Iquitos (rather a bit too quickly in our experience) and pulled up to a building off the runway. We were happy to see a man with a fluoro vest wheel a staircase up to the plane, which we descended and walked across the tarmac, just like in Adelaide. We were immediately assaulted by the hot, humid weather of the Amazon jungle. The airport is ´inside´ with four walls and a roof, but they don´t connect at all. After getting our bags, we went outside and caught a motocarro into town, a little seat attached to the front of a motorbike, like many we rode in southeast Asia. In fact, just the sight and sounds of the tons of motorbikes on the streets brought us back to our fun days in Phnom Penh.

Iquitos is a large town (nearly half a million) on the banks of the Amazon. Actually, it´s the largest city in the world not with no roads reaching it. The only way to get here is by air or a very long boat trip, and is a tourist jump-off place for treks through the jungle and on the Amazon River. Iquitos saw grew rapidly during the rubber boom, but quickly declinced at the start of WWI. Now most money comes from oil (yes, unfortunately they found this evil black stuff in the jungle) and tourism. Still, we think it´s got a bit of it´s own sort of charm.

We walked around the suffering heat and humidity of Iquitos while trying to find a hotel for the night. Most places seemed to be a total rip-off, but we finally found one for a reasonable price (it was actually the first one we went to--at the time, we thought it was expensive, but once we compared it to other places, it was the best choice). We then set out to find a company to take us into the jungle. After talking to several over the course of a few hours, we finally chose one, with the help of Gerald, the owner of the restaurant The Yellow Rose of Texas. Gerald used to be the Minister of Tourism in Iquitos, and he knows just about everything regarding tours into the jungle. And he is so happy to help travellers out without asking for anything in return. Of course we ate all of our meals at his restaurant because he's got the coldes beer fridge ever. It sits between 0 and -4C. And it totally rules! We easily put down a few with sandwiches for dinner before heading back to our hotel, where we proceeded to glue ourselves to the TV in our room and watch MTV.

Black and Blue shopping

2005-08-01T18:45:00.000+09:30

Another day wasted in Lima, we didn´t do too much. We had more tamales for a late breakfast before getting a taxi to the American Airlines office for yet another flight change. We had planned on this wasting at least an hour but it only took a few minutes (which really we prefer, given the hassles we´ve had with changing flights) so we took another taxi to the Povolos Azules, Lima´s black market (even though ´azules´ means blue in Spanish) of stolen and illegitimate goods for sale. Naturally, the place was huge, full of stalls selling clothing, shoes, pirated CDs and DVDs and any electronic item you could ever hope for. We wandered around a bit, Nigel looked at some camera stuff, and then we left, not having purchased anything. Apparently the law enforcement turns a blind eye to these markets, probably because it´s where they do most of their shopping too.

When we got back, we used the internet a bit more, tried (and failed) to confirm our flights to Iquitos, had dinner and went to bed.

Sunday in Lima

2005-07-31T18:39:00.000+09:30

We didn´t do much in Lima today. Of course, we had a whole list of things to do before realising that it´s Sunday, and not much would be open. We slept in, found a great place down the street for tamales, walked around a bit then went back to our hotel. In reading our Peru book, Nigel realised that the post office would actually be open, so we packed up our stuff to ship home and set out. But by the time we had it all ready to ship, it was going to cost way too much money, so we decided we´d rather lug it around for a few more weeks rather than spend more money. So we brought it all back to the hotel before setting out to Barrio Chino (Chinatown) for lunch. Well, it wasn´t much of a Chinatown, so we wasted some time on the internet before heading out for a few beers. We then had a late dinner down the street at an average restaurant, and went to bed.

Tear Gas Burgers

2005-07-30T20:26:00.000+09:30

Most of today was spent sitting on the bus. Throughout the night, the driver kept stopping for about 5-10 minutes at a time. At one stage we were stopped for quite a while, and we heard 2 guys under the bus, their tools clanking on the road. Great, that´s all we need is a broken down bus. But the bus survived, we survived the string of movies dubbed in Spanish, and we made it to Lima around 4:00. The sick girl looked pretty healthy in the morning, I guess it was the fresh air that did her good. We took a taxi to Hotel España where they rude, abrupt lady at the counter didn´t have our reservation (although I got a confirmation email) but luckily they had rooms. We dropped our gear and headed out for a few beers before getting some dinner. We chose to go back to the same place as last time we were in Lima where we quickly had to change our order to go because of the tear gas bomb released by the riot police. We wandered back to our hotel, read a bit, and went to bed.

Heading back to Lima

2005-07-29T23:45:00.000+09:30

We should have just gone out and joined that big ol´ fiesta last night, because it certainly kept us awake for half of the night. But we´re glad we didn´t because the band was the same as the horrible screeching DVD concerts played in most pubs (which we´ve since learned is called ´reggae-ton), except for it was LIVE and even louder! Every 10th line of each song seemed to be `¡Arriba, Machu Picchu!` and `¡Buenos noches, buenos noches, buenos noches, Machu Picchu, Machu Picchu, Machu Picchu!` intertwined into the song lyrics. This bit is meant to get the crowd to sing along, much like Eminem waving one arm and trying to get his crowd to join in on the singing. Annoyed as we were, it was their independence celebration, and we weren´t going to complain. And I did get a nice big giggle at one of the songs when ´¡Pla-ta-no, pla-ta-no, pla-ta-no!` was one song´s crowd-getter. Plàtano means ´banana´ in Spanish.

We packed up our gear and checked out of our hotel before finding a small local place for breakfast. This was pretty hard to do since Aguas Calientes is 99% touristy, but we did find one and were rewarded with a delicious, cheap breakfast where the staff did not try to rip us off. We then headed down to the railroad tracks and sat in the shade to wait for our train. This train was only 15 minutes late leaving, and although we paid the same price (US$25.58) it wasn`t as nice as the one the other day. Still fine, but not worth the price. Arriving back in Ollantaytambo, it was a circus with everyone getting off the train and trying to find the right bus to get on. We asked every driver there if we were on their bus, but none of them had our names down. We had paid for the bus back to Cusco, but it didn´t seem to be there. And everyone was leaving. We had bus tickets leaving at 6pm from Cusco to Lima and were afraid we´d get stuck in Ollantaytambo and miss our bus. So we hopped on the first bus that offered us a ride for 5 soles (not much, but we had already paid for a ride).

Back in Cusco, we headed straight for the office where we booked our ´package´ ready to demand our money back for the guide we didn´t get at Machu Picchu and the bus ride back to Cusco that we didn´t get. But the office was closed. We sat there for over an hour waiting, left to buy some food for our 25 hour bus ride to Lima, then went back and waited another 45 minutes. We called every number we had for the place. Finally Nigel got through to the guy´s son, who said could we come back tomorrow? The phone then cut out and we didn´t want to waste any more money which we knew we wouldn´t get back, so we just left and went to the bus station. Why the heck to we book these things anyway??? Surely we`ve learned our lesson by now, haven`t we?

We waited about 45 minutes at the bus station before getting on the bus that would take us all the way to Lima. Our seats were supposed to be `semi-cama` (semi-bed) and lay back with a leg rest and plenty of leg room, but they were just normal seats that may have reclined a bit more, but had even less leg room due to the fact that the only ´semi-cama´ seats on the bus were in front of us. I tried to argue with the girls at the desk, but they were not nice and no one wanted to help us out, so I just got on the bus and we left. We did get 3 small meals on the way (1 dinner, 1 breakfast, 1 lunch), and they showed several movies. To start, they showed ´Maid in Manhattan` and `Cheaper By The Dozen`--not the greatest movies but they were in English, so we thought that was a bonus. Maybe it was becuse our seats were crammed but we were roasting during the first few hours of the trip and we had the window open. This apparently wasn´t the case for the 10 rows behind us. Nige got a tap on the shoulder and was asked to close the window and, in his limited Spanish, exclaimed ´No, Mucho Caliente!´ and turned away. Another lady then approached us and I said in Spanish, with finality, ´No! it is too hot in here and I won´t shut the window.` Then another girl approached us from further back and again I again said ´No.` Then she said she was sick and has asthma to which Nige said ´No shit, so do I.` We didn´t seem to have any complaints from westerners. I guess we all know the benefits of a little fresh air. Anyway, we didn´t shut the window and everyone survived. Oh yeah the bus smelled like a toilet and got progressivly worse throughout the journey.

Machu Picchu

2005-07-28T21:44:00.000+09:30

We were at the bus stop for our ride up the mountain to the ruins at Machu Picchu before 6:00. A big effort on our part, I know, but we were excited. We got on a bus and shortly afterwards it left for the 8km trip up the hill. I think we were on the 2nd bus. We reached the ticket gate, which had a huge queue, but we already had our tickets, so we went straight in. We followed a path before immediately turning left and climbing up a steep hill to reach `the spot` for that `classic` view of Machu Picchu. You know, the one that is in every photo and guidebook on the planet. And it was here we got our first view of the ruins. We were not disappointed. Even though the view IS in all of the photos and guidebooks, it is still spectacular. We couldn´t believe we were standing there. It was a similar feeling to the one we had at our first glimpse at the pyramids of Giza.

Although it was light out, the sun still had not risen above the towering mountains, and it was chilly. We just sat there for at least an hour, enjoying the view of the ruins and the views of the surrounding Andes. In fact, throughout the day, it´s possible we enjoyed the mountain views a bit more than the ruins themselves. Machu Picchu was discovered in 1911 by American Hiram Bingham (I kept thinking of Chandler Bing) while he was searching for the legendary lost city of Vilcabamba. Not much is known about Machu Picchu because there are no written records of it, and in fact, the Spanish conquistadors who took over Peru never even knew it exists. It is not even known how old the ruins are, but a good guess is around 500 years old. As a result of this lack of knowledge, archaeologists rely on speculation and educated guesses as to Machu Picchu`s history. This was clearly evident to us as we eavesdropped on many guides throughout the day and heard different ´stories´ and explanations from each (we were supposed to have a guide too, but we didn´t meet up with her earlier as we wanted to get up to M.P. on the first bus and we never found her the rest of the day). Of course Nigel and I assigned our own explanations to things, as we do at all ruins we visit. It makes it much more fun and interesting, and, being educated people, our guess is as good as theirs, right?

After the sun rose and warmed us up, we spent the next few hours wandering around the ruins. It seems that M.P. was a little Incan village of some sort, with temples, tombs, plazas, prisons, farm plots, and residences scattered about on top of this mountain. Some of the buildings are constructed of random stones and others are more carefully put together with perfectly fitting carved stones. Some of these carved stones are bigger than either Nigel or I, making us wonder (like the pyramids), how the heck did they do it? Although the town looks relatively small from `the spot,` we were surprised at how big the village actually is, once we were among it and walking around. The site is also inhabited by a small herd of llamas which are still relatively shy of humans. Really we think they are sick of people interrupting their grazing to pat them and take silly photos of them. Nige stood and watched (and attempted to take countless photos of) some hummingbirds in a tree amongst the ruins. Some were normal hummingbird size and a beautiful shining green but one was tiny, barely bigger than a bumblebee. After some time, we hiked along a jungle path along a cliff to the Inca Bridge. In order to get across a steep part of the cliff, the Incans built up a rock wall and a small drawbridge to continue one of their many mountain paths to who knows where. We then went back to the main ruins and sat for over an hour, eating some snacks and again just enjoying the view. Nearby there was a beautiful eagle of some sort that was taking some crackers from a tourist. We think it was a bit old or sick due to the lump on it´s chest and the fact that it was becoming dependent on humans (being animal experts and all). It was still great to get close to such a beautiful bird. By this time it was after 1:00 and we had been up there for 7 hours. The sun was hot and fierce, and I was covered in tiny bites. I didn't realize I was getting bites of course, until I looked down and had all these tiny spots of blood on my legs. There are these tiny black bastard bugs up there, and you can´t even feel they´re on you, let along biting you. So, reluctantly, we headed back down the mountain.

We have heard from more than a handful of people that Machu Picchu is disappointing. Why this may be the case for some could be attributed to the fact that it is so heavily photographed. Or maybe it´s because the ruins are small and isolated. Or maybe it´s due to the hassle in getting there, especially now with all of the governmental B.S. that is involved. But whatever their reasons, we felt that Machu Picchu is anything but disappointing. Just the setting alone makes the vist worthwhile, and that doesn´t even include the rich Incan history behind it all.

Back in town, we had a late lunch, where again the restaurant tried to rip us off, but we were on to them. When we returned to our hotel, the girl tried to kick us out. She explained (all in Spanish) that when we checked in yesterday, we told her we only wanted to stay 1 night. Now she has a reservation for 5 people in our basement room. I explained that when we checked in (with a different girl), we told her two of us were staying only 1 night (the Aussie and the Frenchie) and 2 of us were staying 2 nights. We would look today for 2 others to fill the beds later in the afternooon. She clearly understood me and all was okay. But the story was changed now, and the girl said we had to go find another hotel. Since it was around the same time as yesterday when we were walking around struggling to find a place, I knew our chances were slim to none. So, I just explained that it isn´t our fault, it is their problem, and we are NOT leaving. After some arguing (the girl who checked us in yesterday was there, and she didn´t argue with my version of things) she decided that they `all of a sudden` have a free double room upstairs, which is normally 50 soles but we can have for 45. But we were only paying 30 for the basement room, which we had booked for 2 nights, and no way were we paying more. We argued back and forth and eventually the girl relented. I think deep down she knew she was screwing us over. In fact, after thinking about it, we think that she KNEW we wanted the beds for 2 nights, and that someone had rung only that morning to make a booking for 5 people, and she could get more money from 5 than from 4, so she decided to kick us out on the street to make an extra 15 soles. Although she was a total bee-atch to us the rest of the evening and the next morning, I´m glad we didn´t let her screw us over like the lady yesterday and held our ground, refusing to leave. By the way, the hotel is called Chaska Hotel and I wouldn´t recommend giving them your patronage.

After that ordeal, we wandered around the maze of markets, each stall selling only a slight variation of the ones next to and across from it. We then went out for some cheap beer and cards before heading to the same hamburger stand for a cheap, delicious dinner. On our way back to our room, we saw that people were setting up some tents and a bandstand for a fiesta. Today is Peru´s Independence, so we asked some girls sitting nearby, and sure enough, there was to be a huge fiesta later. We would have gone back to help them celebrate, but there was a covercharge and we didn´t really feel like paying. Plus, by this time, those oh-so-tiny bites I got up on Machu Picchu had turned red, swollen and SO ITCHY...they may as well have been mosquito bites. I counted exactly 22 on each leg. Weird. Maybe it´s the magic Inca number. Whatever, I was feeling miserable. So we headed to bed.

Gettin` screwed in Machu Picchu

2005-07-27T21:45:00.000+09:30

We were up early this morning, checked out of our hotel, and just had time to grab an egg sandwich for breakfast before being picked up and taken to our bus for the 2 hour ride northwest to Ollantaytambo to catch our train (the only way to get to Aguas Calientes, at the base of Machu Picchu, is to take a train or to hoof it). Supposedly all of the trains from Cusco to Augas Calientes are full, but you can get on the train at Ollantaytambo. Whatever. So we got on a small bus and waited for over half an hour before it took off.

The drive was absolutely breathtaking. The bus wound its way through mountains, small villages and valleys filled with farmland and surrouded by the Andean snow-capped peaks. The elevation dropped from 3326m in Cusco to 2800m. We were dropped off at the chaos that is the tiny Ollantaytambo train station. Buses full of people heading for the train were arriving at the same time as a whole train full of people from Aguas Calientes. Some were coming, some were going, and amid it all were the ladies selling their crafts and food, as well as all of the locals waiting for their train. Foreigners have to take the tourist train and are not allowed on the local train, thus requiring us to pay at least 100x the price.

Our train was about 30 minutes late, but we quickly settled into our seats as soon as it arrived. It is a fairly nice train, the seats similar to a large bus, with 2 facing another 2 across a small table. Nice, but not worth the US$25.58 it costs for one way. The train took under 2 hours and was another ride full of breathtaking scenery. Dropping even further in elevation, it was amazing to see the change in environments, from snow covered mountains to valley farmland and down into lush jungle.

The train pulled up in Aguas Calientes...literally, it pulled up right into the centre of town with shops, restaurants, and hotels lining both sides of the tracks. Aguas Calientes, so named because of the hot springs in town, is home to only about 2000 people. I think all 2000 make their livings from the tourists to Machu Picchu in some way or another. Supposedly it´s not even called Aguas Calientes but is really named Machu Picchu Pueblo. If you ignore the crappy souvenier shops and stalls, rip-off prices at every restaurant, bar and hotel, and the constant hassle from touts, it´s a town set in the most gorgeous place. It´s nestled right on the bottom of a deep valley along the Rio Urubamba and surrounded on all sides by towering Andean mountains.

We put on our packs and set out to find a place to stay. About 20 hotels and a trudge up the hilly alleys later, we still hadn´t found a hotel and things were not looking too good. Well, actually, we DID have a room at one stage. A lady on the street approached us, and we all agreed on a price (35 soles) before she led us to her hotel/home. It looked good, so we said we´d take it. We dropped our packs on the bed and started unloading a few things while the woman went into the ensuite bathroom to turn on the shower to prove there is hot water. A few moments later, we heard her brother/husband/son or whoever he was shout out to her. She left the room and then came back and said `Señora, la habitaciòn cuesta 55 soles.` (Ms., the room costs 55 soles). What!??? Apparently what happened is that the brother/husband/son dude got a better offer on the street, and the lady was either demanding more than their offer or she was kicking us out!! ¡Què terrible! What a bee-atch! (perra)

Back on the prowl, we ran into an Aussie girl, Yvette, who was madly trying to find a bed for the night too. She had arrived last night and spent the night on the streets of Aguas Calientes with at least 30 others because there were no vacancies. Just as Nigel and I started choosing our benches for the night, a very nice lady (who was renting towels and bathing suits--yuck--to people for the hot springs) noticed us chatting and asked if we needed ´una habitacion´. Yes!! So she rang her friend, who said they had a room for 4 people (we had already decided to join forces with Yvette and a French guy she had met yesterday in the hopes that a room for 4 might be more available than 2 rooms for 2). The girl from the hotel even came to find us so we would know where to find the place. She led us to the place and we took a huge room with 4 beds, at only 15 soles each! Bargain!

Happy with the knowledge we wouldn´t be sleeping on a park bench that night, the 3 of us (Frenchie was still up at Machu Picchu) set out to find some lunch, being nearly 3:00 by this time. Too starving to be too picky, we found a place offering a personal pizza (those crazy pizzas are everywhere!), garlic bread and a coke for 10 soles. Maybe more than we´d like to pay, but it seemed like a good deal for Aguas Calientes, since the prices of everything are heavily jacked up here. We ate our pizzas and drank our cokes, and Yvette asked about our garlic bread. The waiter explained, `No, es diez soles para una pizza y una coca-cola O ajo de pan` (No, it´s 10 soles for a pizza and a coke OR garlic bread). Well, the sign that got us eating there in the first place CLEARLY says ´Pizza Y ajo de pan Y coke´ (Pizza AND garlic bread AND a coke). Yvette really wanted the garlic bread, and we really didn´t feel like getting screwed again today, so with the help of Benjamin (the Frenchie who had shown up by this stage), we debated the point with the waiter and finally got our garlic bread too. We weren´t charged for the bread, but we were charged a 3 soles ´service fee.´ It´s arguable whether or not this would have shown up on the bill anyway (apparently some restaurants in Peru charge random taxes and charges, but we´ve been here nearly 3 weeks and haven´t experienced it once), but we paid it and got the hell out of there.

After a quick stop at the police station to pick up Aussie and Frenchie´s packs (they had left them there while they went to Machu Picchu first thing this morning), we went back to the hotel and all of us had a short little nap. We woke up and, low and behold, it was beer o´clock. So we went to a locals place just around the corner for cheap, cold beer, suffered through their blaring music DVDs of screeching Peruvian women in concert, and then found a hamburguesa stand for dinner. For only 3 soles (AU$1.25) we got a huge, fresh burger (breaded chicken, like a schnitzel) with tomato, lettuce and papas fritas (french fries) on the burger, plus a drink. And we had all the mustard, ketchup and ajì (a chili sauce) we wanted. It was a great burger and an even better bargain, especially for Aguas Calientes, gringo capital of Peru (we thought that title belonged to Cusco, but we were wrong). We all headed back to our room and went to bed as we all had to be up before 6 the next day.

Another Parade Day

2005-07-26T20:41:00.000+09:30

Kids Parade day Cusco
Originally uploaded by wapstar.

Still stuck in Cusco while waiting to get to Machu Picchu, we didn't do much again today. We walked around some (there was yet another huge parade on the plaza, tons and tons of school kids marching in their uniforms and carrying their school flags), when to the bus station to buy some tickets, used the internet, had fried rice for lunch, booked some flights to Iquitos, used the internet some more (where they blasted Air Supply and other equally old-school tunes) then went to the pub for cheap beer and to play some cards before heading out for Mexican food for dinner.

I thought God was free!???

2005-07-25T22:38:00.000+09:30

Grand Master, Cusco Peru
Originally uploaded by wapstar.

Not much was accomplished today. First thing in the morning we booked a trip to Machu Picchu. The Peruvian government has changed regulations in regards to seeing this magnificent archaeological site, which is good for the site but bad for tourists. To get there, you have to hike with an organized tour, take a train, or a bus from Aguas Calientes. We debated doing the hike (long since booked out, as there is a daily maximum limit, but many places are advertising spaces) but decided our health is more important. In fact, there are several reasons not to do the hike. 1)it´s WAY overpriced!; 2)the fees you do pay go to the tour operators and not to the locals or to conservation of the trail and site; 3)we hate to encourage the government to continue to rip tourists off; 4)the altitude is pretty harsh on us, and who knows how we would go, and in the worst-case scenario, it´s too high up for a helicopter rescue (my sister and her husband were in a pretty bad state when they hiked the trail a few years ago, a nightmare we all choose to forget). So, we chose to go by bus, because you can leave from Aguas Calientes around 6:00 am and have a decent amount of time at the site before all of the day trip people arrive. But the only way to get to Aguas Calientes is by train. And tourists are not longer allowed to take the local train, they have to take the tourist train at about 1000x the price. And of course they are all nearly booked up. So we managed to find a deal leaving on the 27th. We were happy to find something at least, but not too excited about being stuck in Cusco for the next 2 days.

After arranging our travels, we bought some tamales from a lady on the steps of one of the alleys and ate them on the fountain in the plaza. We then treated ourselves to a 'real' latte at a cafe on the plaza and spent the rest of the afternoon wandering up the alleys away from the plaza. We 'hiked' up to La Iglesia de San Cristobal and sat on a bench enjoying the views from our height over the city. I say 'hiked' because it wasn't a very long walk, but because of the altitude we get winded pretty quickly (as does almost everyone else, we've noticed). We then got the idea to continue walking up to Cristo Blanco, a huge statue of Jesus Cristo sitting on top of the mountain overlooking the city. We were nearly almost there anyway. We walked along the road until we reached a stairway that appeared to lead up to where we wanted to be. But to use this path required that we have a Boleto Touristico, a tourist ticket necessary to enter nearly every church, museum and archaeological site in and around Cusco. Since they are about $35AU and we weren't too keen on seeing most of the things in Cusco, we didn't buy one. So, even though we protested that 'Jesus Cristo es para todos las personas del mundo' we still had to pay to walk up the path. We decided not to. We could have walked around along the road, but this probably would have taken at least an hour or two, and we still didn't know if we'd be stopped at some point without a tourist ticket.

So, back down the hill we went, where we had an afternoon snack of yogurt and granola/muesli and a hot drink before heading to our cheap beer place. We had some cold beer and played some cards, then headed back to the same cheap Mexican restaurant for dinner. This time we were treated to a live 6 person Andean band while we ate. They are so talented and can play more than one instrument simultaneously. It was a great way to end a pretty uneventful day.

Military parade, Peruvian beer, and Mexican food

2005-07-24T22:21:00.000+09:30

Cusco was the capital of the Incan Empire and is South America's oldest inhabited city. It was populated by the Incans until the Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizzaro stormed south from Ecuador through Peru, conquoring the natives and capturing and killing Atahualpa, the Inca Emperor, in 1532. In 1536 the Incans rebelled in battle, but lost, and the Spanish finally had Cusco. But since the Spainairds were seafaring people, they didn't have much use for the mountainous city of Cusco and soon abandoned it.

Today, some of the city's buildings are still supported by stone walls built by the Incans, huge blocks of stone perfectly cut and fitted together like jigsaw pieces. Not too unlike the blocks used to build the Egyptian pyramids. Most of the streets surrounding the central plaza are narrow, cobble-stoned alleys, some of them rising in steep stone stairways through shops, restaurants and neighbourhoods. It takes a lot of energy and effort to see past the millions of tourist shops, western restaurants, touts selling the same crap every 10 feet, and countless tour agencies all selling the same trips. But once we did manage to get past this (it took a while), we found that it's not too bad.

We woke up early for us, and headed down to the plaza to get some breakfast and coffee. And, low and behold, there was another military parade on. This one was much bigger than the one in Arequipa, but pretty much the same. We watched a bit of it, then wound our way through the locals and Peruvian tourists to a cafe on the plaza for coffee, yogurt and muesli. We still had a great view of all that was happening from the cafe. We spent most of the afternoon wandering around town, half-heartedly searching for ways to get to Machu Picchu. But being Sunday, most places were shut (though oddly they all re-opened later in the evening). We had a cheap 'set menu' lunch of soup and pizza (you cannot get away from pizzas in Peru. They are everywhere!), then hiked up one of the hills through alleyways and found a small local restaurant selling cheap, cold beer. We greatly enjoyed a few beverages while playing cards, then went to a Mexican restaurant for dinner, chosen because of the price. The food turned out to be excellent, filling, and cheap (by Cusco standards). And we got free red wine with our meal, so who could argue?

Returning back to our hotel, we didn't even attempt a semi-not even lukewarm shower and went straight to bed.

Losing Marbles

2005-07-23T21:05:00.000+09:30

After a hot shower this morning, we had a quick breakfast, checked out of our hotel, then headed to the bus station to get a ride north to Cusco. It was just after 10:00, and we managed to find a bus with a toilet leaving around noon. While waiting, some local kids (supposed to be working shining shoes) got Nigel to play some sort of marble game with them, then some sort of caps game. Our bus finally turned up just after 12, but we had to wait until the staff and local women passengers got on top of the bus and loaded on about 50 live chickens and probably over 2,000 eggs.

The ride north to Cusco took about 7 hours. Nige began to develop a migraine after only about an hour, so the rest of the ride was pretty miserable. By the time we reached Cusco though, the drugs he took and sleep he managed to get had helped and he was feeling a bit better. Although still high at over 3300m, we were glad to descend the 500m from Puno. We took a taxi to the Plaza de Armas and Nige had a seat on the steps of the cathedral while I wandered around the tiny alleys and streets looking for a hotel with both availability and affordable prices. We knew this would be a problem because it is the highest tourist season plus a national holiday coming up. After not finding much about 10 hotels later, I found Nigel, we donned our packs and set off in a different direction. We tried probably 10 more hotels before finding a cute place not too far from the plaza, and not up a huge steep stairway alley--a huge bonus! Plus it was cheaper than we've been paying, so we felt lucky.

We dropped our gear, then went to find some food. It was already pretty clear Cusco is more expensive and touristy than anywhere else in Peru, so we were on a mission to find somewhere cheap. We found Coco Loco. It was packed with locals, always a good sign, and we had good food too. Dodging the countless touts and people trying to get us into their dodgy nightclubs, we made our way back to our hotel (frozen popsicles by this stage) and went to bed.

Huevos Frescos

2005-07-22T21:16:00.000+09:30

This morning we woke up to the sounds of the family sheep baaaing, and the family donkey braaaying. I felt so much better, it was amazing (still not 100%, but a vast improvement). We played with the younger kids a bit, then had fried egg sandwiches (we had to wait for the chickens to lay the eggs) for breakfast before the girls walked us down the hill to the boat. Once everyone was on board (the 30 from yesterday, plus a few others), we set off to the nearby island called Isla Taquille. This is a much more touristy island than Isla Amantaní. We got off the boat, then walked for about 30 minutes up hill (thanks to feeling better, we were able to actually do this) to the town centre. We walked along a stone path, through farm plots and past homes and children going off to school. The path followed along the water up the hill, and then dropped down into the town.

The town centre looked like a huge asphalt playground. Not very exciting. There were a few boys running around, chasing after a rolling bike tyre and hitting it with half of a plastic water bottle (cut lengthwise) attached to a stick. Here we just sat there wondering why we were here, trying to fend off the kids selling woven bracelets. We bought some fruit and snacks at a stall, and Nige had a snack of a grilled alpaca and salsa sandwich. Our guide Gonzalo then told us that the boat would not be departing until 1 pm. And it was only 10:30. With nothing to do, we headed down the hill to the other side of the island where the boats were docked. And we sat on the boat playing cards until 1:00 when we finally took off. A pretty useless and boring morning.

It took about 3 hours to get back to Puno and the mainland. The lake was rough, and a lot of people were not feeling well at all. Luckily, we had no problems and just enjoyed the boat ride. Back in town, we had a hot shower at our hotel, found a cute hole-in-the-wall place for a delicous tamale snack with a cup of hot tea, then used the internet for a while before having some fantastic Chinese food for dinner. A nice treat for a change. It was pretty early by the time we got to bed, but we were exhausted.

Freezing our Titicacas off

2005-07-21T23:49:00.000+09:30

Today is our second 4-year wedding anniversary (since we had 2 'weddings') and for celebrating, we went to an island, had a candle-lit dinner, and dressed up and went out dancing. So here it is in more detail:

Waking up this morning at Hotel Nesther in Puno, I felt even worse. We checked out of our hotel and left most of our baggage there, then Nige had some breakfast while I tried to nibble on a few tiny pieces of bread. We considered cancelling our 2 day trip on Lake Titicaca, as my symptoms of acute mountain sickness seemed pretty bad, but we decided to go anyway. A minibus picked us up and took us down to the port, where we loaded on to a boat with about 28 others. There were about 10 other similar boats, all equally packed with tourists. We knew it would be like this, and we always hate these group package trips, but this was the easiest and most economical way to do what we wanted. It was a beatiful, crystal clear, sunny day.

Lake Titicaca, at about 3820 metres, is the world's highest navigable lake. About half of it is in Bolivia. It covers about 8300sqkm, with a maximum depth of 280m, making us feel like we were in an ocean. The name origins are uncertain, but most claim it is translated as 'Rock of the Puma' because it's supposed to be shaped like a puma (we can't see it) or 'Crag of Lead' because of its grey colour, although most of what we saw was beatifully clear blue water. Many myths and legends abound about the lake, most notably that there is an ancient city full of treasure and gold in the depths of its waters. Jacques Cousteau visited at one point to try to discover if this was true or not (he didn't find anything). Being winter and dry, the surrounding mountains and hills are yellow and brown. If it was any smaller, it could seriously be any of the ghetto lakes my brother-in-law Jeff water skis at in California or Arizona.

After about 30 minutes of slowly cruising through reed-filled waters, we arrived at one of the Islas Flotantes, islands made out of reeds that literally just float on the lake. They are made with the buoyant totora reeds from the shallows of the lake. Many layers of the reeds are piled on top of each other and are constantly replenished on the top as they rot away on the bottom. In addition to the islands themselves, the people also make their homes and boats out of the reeds. The native Uros people inhabit these islands, and have done so for many centuries. They make their living from fishing and, of course, tourism. Luckily, our boat of 30 tourists was the only one to arrive at this particular island. Everyone was supposed to take a seat (on small 'benches' made out of the reeds) and the guide Alfonso explained about the lives of the Uros people. But Nigel and I only paid half attention as we wandered around and spoke to one of the little boys (about 3 years old, and only spoke Aymara, not Spanish, from what we could tell). He immediately came up to Nigel and gave him a big huge hug. Of course Nigel tried to hide the fact that he was recoiling from the child's green snotty nose and filthy hands and face. The boy took a keen interest in Nigel's gloves (it was freezing but sunny), pulled them off of him, but them on himself, then clapped his hands at the whole adventure. It was very cute.

It was all a bit too cheesy as the island was clearly set up only for tourists, even though about 10 families live on this particular island. It was bizarre walking around on the reeds, which feel bouncy like foam. We were offered to have a ride on one of their traditional reed boats, and although there was a small fee, we said what the hell. It is made from tightly woven dried reeds, and it's amazing how it is all held together by itself. It is powered by the rowing abilities of one many with one oar, and as a result is extremely slow. He let us stop at the school on one of the bigger floating islands, where we were welcomed into one of the 2 classrooms. The children were all dressed in uniforms: skirts, sweaters, hats and braided hair for the girls, and pants, shirts, vests and hats for the boys. Granted not all of them had shoes on, and most were pretty dirty, but they were cute nonetheless. One boy even had a Harry Potter backpack, and one girl had a Barbie backpack. All of the others had woven bags. The kids treated us to songs in about 6 different languages: Spanish, Quechua & Aymara (both native languages), English (a very funny version of 'Twinkle Twinkle Little Star'), French and Japanese. It was very entertaining. While they were singing, I noticed on one of the walls several letters and photos hanging up. They were pen-pal letters from kids, I think mostly in America.

We were then slowly paddled to another one of the Islas Flotantes, but we didn't really pay too much attention here as it was mainly just stands of tourist stalls. It was then a 3 hour boat ride further out into the lake to Isla Amantaní. It wasn't the most pleasant boat ride, feeling the way I did, but at least the water was calm for the first 2.5 hours. This is a fairly large island but only inhabited by about 4000 people, all scattered among the 8 or so different communities. The community we arrived at has about 70 family homes, with probably at least 8 people living in each home. It is small, and each home (made of mud bricks, reeds, and metal roofs) has several farm plots. The 'neighbourhood' is terraced and the homes gradually go up the side of the mountain. There are no roads or vehicles on the island.

We got off the boat and were met by a group of local women, all dressed up in their traditional gear: a brightly coloured, very poofy skirt, a white top with intricate flourescent embroidery, and a black scarf/veil thing also with bright flourescent embroidery. How they couldn't be freezing with their bare legs, I'll never know. The 30 of us on the boat were then distributed among these locals for our overnight homestay. Luckily, Nigel and I went to a family by ourselves. We were introduced to one of the girls of the family, maybe about 17 years old, but we really have no idea. She led us up a steep hill to their home, which was luckily one of the first homes on the hill and closest to the port. I don't think I could have walked much further (sounds pathetic, I know, but anyone who has suffered from altitude illness will empathize with me!).

We were introduced to the family. Reyna (not sure on spelling) and her husband are the heads of the house. They live with their 4 children (ages roughly 8, 5, 2, & 1 month old) and Reyna's 3 sisters (ages roughly 17, 14 and 12) and brother (aged about 15). Their home consits of 3 very small 'buildings' which are really just rooms. One is for Reyna, her husband and the 4 kids, one is for Reyna's 4 siblings, and the third is for the tourists. They are made in the traditional style and have packed dirt for floors. They all face a small little stone courtard and are blocked off from the rest of the property by a low stone wall. They have an outhouse, a few plots of farmland, one sheep, and one donkey.

I sat and chatted to Reyna while she knitted something out of alpaca wool and nursed her teeny tiny baby. Luckily she speaks fluent Spanish, as most of the islanders speak only Quechua. Nigel hung out with the 8 year old Jesús (the only one of the children´s names we understood), his 15 year old cousin, and their 2 month old puppy while the boys made a kite out of a plastic bag and sticks (which actually turned out to fly perfectly). We watched the darling little 5 year old girl finish her chore of washing laundry, completing the task while smiling, laughing, skipping and singing the whole time. It was so interesting speaking to Reyna about her life and the life of the islanders. I was more thankful for my Spanish skills (or lack thereof!) at this time than at any other time in my life, because without them I would not have been able to speak to her at all. She grew up in this house, as well as her parents and grandparents, maybe even further back than that. One month ago she had her 4th child right there on the dirt floor of her home, just like the other 3. No doctor came to visit, but she said there is a medicó available at times. At times she goes to Puno to buy fruit and sometimes knitting wool and she says she enjoys this very much, but does enjoy living on the island.

A while later we were served lunch: a delicous vegetable soup with quinua in it, a Peruvian grain, as well as tarot and potatoes and fresh mint tea (sadly, I couldn't stomach more than a few mouthfulls, but I explained why so hopefully I didn't offend them). Nige was a trooper and ate as much of mine as he could.

Later in the afternoon we were supposed to meet up with our guide to climb the hills in the centre of the island to see the ruins on top and watch the sunset. By this time it was quite windy and very very cold. There was no way we were making it up that huge mountain, so we stayed at the home and actually had a siesta. Waking up around 6:00, we felt much better but were frozen to the bone and just stayed under the 7 wool blankets on the bed. Jesús (the 8 year old) and the 5 year old girl came in with the 2 year old and skipped and jumped around while chatting to us. Jesús brought in some of his schoolbooks and practiced his Spanish alphabet with us. The kids speak Spanish at school and Quechua at home.

Around 7:00 we were served a delicious dinner by candlelight (there being no electricity) of potato soup, rice and a potato/vegetable mix, with fresh mint tea afterwards. Being too cold to do anything, we hopped back into bed with every item of clothing we had, including jackets. Around an hour later, I was yanked out of bed from a deep sleep, stood on the ground and 2 of the older girls started putting all of these clothes on me. It turns out that both Nigel and I were to dress up in traditional clothing to attend the evening´s fiesta. Nigel donned a poncho and woolen hat, and I put on about 3 layers of thick, heavy skirts, an embroidered shirt, an extremely tightly wound waist belt of colourful stripings, cinched into place to rob me of my last breaths, and a black veil/scarf. All of this we put on top of the 5 layers of clothing we already had on, and all of it had a distinct odour which we´ll just call ´Peruvian.´ For once, I felt warm. We followed the girls out into the full moon light and trudged halfway up the mountain to the ´civic centre´ for the fiesta. Inside there was a live Peruvian band, beers and sodas, and lots of dancing. Everyone was dressed up, Peruvians and tourists alike. Cheesy as it was, it was actually a lot of fun, and everyone was a good sport about dancing. The Peruvian girls were crazy though, and would spin us around and whip us around corners so quickly. We asked the older (17) girl if she wanted a drink, and she shyly but enthusiastically asked for a beer! When most of everyone had cleared out, we finally left for the night, again following the girls down the hill by the light of the moon. We fell into bed around 10:30, the latest night we´ve had in probably 2 weeks.

So, we did have an island trip, a candlelit dinner, dress up and dancing for our anniversary, just in the traditional way.

Strikes causing strife

2005-07-20T22:05:00.000+09:30

After breakfast at our hotel this morning we were picked up by a girl from the office where we bought our bus tickets to Puno, and taken to the bus station with her in a taxi. Our bus was meant to leave at 8:30, but by 8:45 the girl assured us that it was just waiting for another bus to depart so it could park in the designated bay. Just before 9:00, she explained that our bus had been cancelled because the road from Juliaca to Puno had been closed and not buses or cars were allowed through (you have to go through Juliaca to get to Puno). Apparently there was some sort of labour strike going on, and protesters had blocked the road and were throwing rocks at all passing buses (maybe related to the protests in Lima, we´re not sure). We had 2 options as she explained it: we could take the smaller bus leaving around 9:30 which would take an alternative route once it got to Juliaca to reach Puno, or we could take our same bus later that evening, as the road would open at night. The girl explained that it is fairly common for these sorts of strikes to occur, to the point that they are now much more of a nuisance than anything and no one pays any attention. So we were quite happy to take the smaller bus, but we wanted the difference in price refunded to us (we had booked ´business class´ tickets on a double decker bus with a toilet, TVs, and reclining seats--not that this is what we preferred, but it seemed fairly cheap at the time). Well, I could go on and on about what happened next, the conversations I had in Spanish with both the girl and the bus company, and the conversations Nigel had in English with the girl from the tourist company, but to make a long story short, after 30 minute of arguing, Nigel and I were beyond pissed off (they wouldn´t refund any money, and we had paid 60 soles for our tickets when the cheaper buses that were actually going only cost 20 soles for both of us). We told the girl that we just wanted a full refund for our tickets as we were getting nowher. She said fine, but they'd take out the cost of the taxi. So we took a taxi back to the tourist office where we had booked our tickets and after some convoluted way of calculating things, she decided we were due 50 soles back. Well, 60 soles minus the 3 soles from the taxi that morning, minus thte 3 soles for the bus terminal departure tax coupon equals 54 soles. But she explained that not only did we have to pay for the taxi that morning (we already paid for the taxi back to the office) but we had to pay for the taxis for the person to go to the bus station and back to pick up our tickets. No way were we paying for this, as this is part of their service and chances are more than likely that they picked up more than just our tickets on the 6 sole taxi ride. We argued back and forth, then finally just agreed to take 51 soles (we made her pay her share of the taxi ride back to town because she would have had to pay 3 soles herself to get back). We could have called her boss to argue with him too, but she wouldn´t let us use the office phone and wouldn´t pay for the call. It was so frustrating because she kept saying it wasn´t her company´s fault (which we had agreed on from the very start, we were never blaming them) but yet she said that we had to cover the costs incurred by them as a result of all of this, even though it wasn´t our fault either. Very unfair. So we gave her 100 soles, and she said she only had 40 soles change. We demanded she go get change and we wanted our 49 change. While she went out, we told any tourists who paused to read their signs not to use this company because they totally suck, so we felt a bit better after that. So whatever you do, don´t use Wasi tours in Arequipa.

Our 51 soles in hand, we went back to the bus station, booked tickets on a 12:00 bus to Puno for 13 soles each and waited until it left nearly an hour late. The bus ride was uneventful until we reached Juliaca. Here they yelled through the bus to close the curtains, so we all tightly shut the curtains as we passed through town. Some passengers had to get off here, so the bus pulled off to the side of the road on some random street (as opposed to the bus stop) and we were out of there very quickly. I guess if any strikers saw that there were passengers on the bus they would get violent and start chucking rocks and stuff. There were rocks strewn all over the roads. Scary but adventurous too.

It was less than an hour from Juliaca to Puno, where we walked around the streets looking for an affordable hotel with availability (most were too expensive or completely booked, being the high season here) and found one on our 4th attempt. Puno is not the most exciting town. It sits at 3830m, right on the banks of Lake Titicaca. We booked a 2-day trip to Lake Titicaca for the next morning and then went out for some soup for dinner. We got back to the hotel in time to get a warmish shower before the hot water shut off at 9:00, and went to bed where Nige stayed up late into the night reading a book he was stuck into, and Kel went to sleep feeling sick and sorry for herself.

Flight of the Condor

2005-07-19T21:28:00.000+09:30

Up at 6 a.m. for a traveller´s breakfast and into the minivan by 6.30. We drove from Chivay along a dirt road following the Colca Canyon. It was a cold, bumpy and dusty ride. We were both feeling the altitude with a bit of a headache and a bit of dizziness, but Kel was feeling f***ing awful. Our first stop was at a small village where there is a church. I didn´t listen to the guide mumble his spiel about the church as I was too busy admiring a beautiful Black Eagle that was on a perch there. And Kel didn´t listen either because she was busy petting a cute border collie type dog. The bird is a pet and is friendly so you could give it a little touch. There were also more friendly (but dusty) dogs which Kel and I seem to take more interest in at most stops. And of course at any tourist stop are the stalls of people selling their wares.

Our next stop was along the side of the road that looks down into the canyon itself. At 3191m, the Cañon del Colca is either the world´s deepest or second deepest canyon, depending on who you ask (the other is nearby Cañon del Cotahuasi). Lining the walls of the canyon are Incan and pre-Incan terraces used for farming. The majority of them are still used today, where locals grow mainly potatoes, garlic, onions, beans, maize, and quinua, a Peruvian grain. Each separate farm plot is set off from its neighbouring plot by low walls made of stacked stones. The Incans used this stone because it reflects the heat of the sun onto the crops throughout the day. The canyon is massive, and the amount of terracing covering the mountain sides is amazing, going on for kilometers up the canyon and reaching all the way from the bottom to about 3/4 of the way to the top. It is quite amazing to see these terraces making their way up really steep valley walls. The scale of the canyon is amazing, when looking down and seeing people in their fields appear as little specks it gives it some proportion. A few more stops along the way to look at the canyon and see some ancient graves perched on a vertical cliff overlooking the valley and we arrived at Cruz del Condor. Our crap guide mumbled something about the condors and then proceeded to talk everyone out of doing the walk along the top of the canyon to the lookout saying it is very cold and windy. When booking the trip we were told we would do at least an hour of hiking each day. We all got out the van and did the 20 min walk to the lookout. The canyon here is extremely steep and deep. The views along the canyon and of the surrounding mountains are incredible. Kel and I found a perch at a lookout and could see a condor sitting on a rock near one of the other lookouts. We could see that he bird was about half the height of a person. When it spread its wings and flew off it was huge. They have a wingspan of up to 10 feet. We had to wait a little while until more birds appeared but in the end there were up to 10 birds flying around the area. Watching them is amazing; they are just so huge but incredibly graceful, rarely having to beat their wings in the rising thermals. At one stage we had a hummingbird humming around in front of us which made it even more surreal. We were watching the world´s largest bird that doesn´t beat its wings and then seeing one of the world´s smallest birds that beats its wings the fastest. We sat and watched the condors for about an hour and a half. The scenery was spectacular and so was the experience of seeing the condors.

Back in the bus we made our way back to Chivay with the standard photo stops that happened to be next to a few stalls of souveniers. Lunch in Chivay was a few cheap sandwiches (Kel had avocado and tomato sandwiches, but picked out all of the avocado and tomatoes as she couldn´t stomach them) in the plaza but unfortunately the kids weren't around to entertain us (but fortunately they were-hopefully-at school). At about 1pm we all piled in the van to make the 6 hour trip back to Arequipa. The trip was pretty quiet and most people had a bit of a nap. Same dusty, bumpy road.

It was nice to get back to the Regis hotel and their hot showers. We bought some bus tickets from a travel agency, tried to exchange some books but didn't want to get ripped off and found a reasonably cheap mexican restaurant for dinner. We had some chicken tacos which were great and got us excited about the food in Mexico. Still feeling the altitude we made our way back to the hotel and into bed.

Into Canyon Country

2005-07-18T21:21:00.000+09:30

It was a fairly early start this morning for a 2-day trip into the Cañon del Colca near Arequipa. Our bus was supposed to pick us up between 8:00 and 8:30, but finally showed up at 9:00. We weren´t off to a great start at this point, especially because our dickhead of a guide, Gonzalo, had a fit that we didn´t want to put our bag up on the roof of the van and he thought it would be in everyone´s way sitting at Nigel´s feet. And since we were the last people to be picked up, we had to sit apart, with Nige just behind the passenger´s seat next to a nice Scottish couple on their honeymoon and Kel in the very back with a Belgian couple (I preferred the back only because I could keep my window slightly open without bothering anyone, the cold fresh air a must given my current state). We then drove about 10 minutes out of town where it was necessary to stop for snacks and drinks after such a long start to the day´s drive. We bought a few packets of Coca Candy to suck on for the trip. Peru cultivates nearly 47,000 hectares of coca per year, enough to make 150,000 kilos of cocaine, but the majority of it is used for chewing, tea-making, and I guess candy. It is supposed to help with the effects of altitude sickness (nausea, headaches, vomiting, fatigue) which I was seriously starting to experience and Nige as well (Nazca, our last place, is about 600m above sea level, and Arequipa is at 2325m, a huge leap for one day).

We passed the Chachani volcano and drove through the Reserva Nacional Salinas y Aguada Blanca which covers 367,000 hectares at an average of 3850m. It is a reserve for the very shy, cute, and endangered Vicuñas, a wild cousin to Alpacas and Llamas. We stopped in a few places to see these guys roaming around the plains. From here the road continued through dry (since it´s winter, but it´s green in the summer) altiplano and up over the highest peak at 4880m where we stopped for gorgeous views of the snow-capped Ampato (6388m, where Juanita the Ice Princess was discovered) and surrounding mountains. The road was dusty and bouncy. Here there were several Peruvian women selling their alpaca wool hats, gloves, scarves and sweaters, as well as other knitted things and cheesy souveniers. There are also hundreds of small rock piles, which were created by Incas as a prayer to the gods. They would first put a coca leaf down, then balance 3-5 or 6 rocks on top of it and say a prayer. The landscape here is nearly all rock and very plain, so these little rock towers make it a bit more interesting.

By 1:00 or so we reached the small town of Chivay (3700m--getting sicker and head threatening to explode), population a whopping 4000, the main town in the Cañon del Colca. We were taken to the guide´s choice for lunch, but of course it was way more than we wanted to spend, so we walked a few blocks (really probably 30m) to the town plaza and found something cheaper. We were then picked up and taken to our hotel for the night (just off the plaza) where we dropped our gear and headed back to the plaza to walk around. We enjoyed seeing all of the school kids coming home for the afternoon (all in uniforms with hats), the ladies selling fruits and veggies at a small market, and locals just milling around. We had some mate de coca (tea made with coca leaves) in the hopes of alleviating part of our headaches then went back to our hotel to tell our crap guide that we wouldn´t be joining everyone for a trip out to the hot springs. We knew they would be full of the hundreds of other tourists, and that we´d pay the 10 soles entrance fee, sit in the hot springs for about 10 minutes, then want to get out and have to wait at least an hour for everyone else.

Instead, we got a few beers and parked ourselves on a bench in the plaza to just watch the town go by. A boy we had seen earlier came up to chat to us. He´s a cute kid of about 12 who drags his baby brown llama around town and charges tourists to take a photo of him with his pet. Eventually we had ourselves a small group of about 5 kids to chat with. My Spanish was coming in good and strong speaking to such youngsters, and Nigel was doing pretty well himself. At one stage we decided to buy them each a bag of popcorn (about 20 cents each for us) and we gave one boy, Loco Jimmy, a 5 sole coin to go get it. He came back and explained that the popcorn lady felt our coin was a fake. We only had large bills besides this coin, and we were not going to give Jimmy one, as trustworthy as he seemed, nor were we going to get up from our cozy spot to buy the popcorn ourselves. So Loco Jimmy an the llama boy (we couldn´t really understand his name) took an inventory of the things we bought in the shop where we obtained the said fake coin and went ran off to the shop to explain the situation to the lady and to get a different coin. But the lady said it was a real coin and wouldn´t change it. So, being bright kids, Jimmy came back to us and asked us if we wanted ´un agua pequeño or un agua grande´ since his idea was to go to a different shop, buy something with the ´fake´ coin, then have change to buy the popcorn. And he knew that water would be one thing we´d definitely buy. So off he went, got us a small bottle of water, and 5 bags of freshly popped corn for all of them. They were all so happy and cute. And llama boy even shared his with his pet.

Frozen by this time, as it was just about dark, we walked back to our hotel (accompanied by Jimmy part of the way), put on our thermals and every other bit of warm clothing we have, then found a pizza place for dinner, chosen because of the roaring fire inside. We drank some mate de coca and played some cards for a while, then had a dinner of soup and alpaca steak for Nige, a tiny pizza for Kel. The alpaca meat was pretty good, and very lean.

We headed back to our hotel hoping for a hot shower (we were promised caliente, caliente agua) but only managed to get ice water, so we just went to bed, I was feeling very ill and sorry for myself.

The Ice Maiden

2005-07-17T20:58:00.000+09:30

We arrived in Arequipa around 7:30 this morning. It is a large city of about 1 million people, on the valley floor under a huge active volcano, El Misti, and the other snow-capped mountains of Chachani and Pichu Pichu. El Misti is a perfectly typical volcano shape and looks almost fake as it looms over the city. We found a hostel, dropped our bags, had an awesomely hot and powerful shower (a real treasure here) and then headed out to walk around. The streets of Arequipa are narrow, cobble-stoned alleys (most one-way, one car only), rising in small hills up from the centre Plaza de Armas. The buildings are colonial style, making it a cute town to walk around. We headed down to the Plaza where we were just in time to watch a parade. It seemed to be a military parade of some sort, with all varieties of the military represented (infantry in fatigues, navy boys in blue, special forces in black etc) all decked out in their gear with full packs and weapons, marching in formation. Maybe it was some sort of veteran´s day? But most of the guys looked fairly young, so we´re not sure. But this was all accompanied by a full military band, and what seemed like half of the town´s people, so it was fun, and great luck that we just happened upon it. We then walked around the plaza, went inside La Catedral (where we stayed for the first 15 minutes of Sunday morning mass, but since it was in Spanish, we convinced ourselves to say our own prayers and leave), then had REAL coffee on the balcony of a cafe overlooking the plaza. Since it was Sunday morning, there were tons of families out enjoying the morning sunshine post-parade, shopping, going to mass, eating and hanging out.

After coffee, we went to the Museo Santuarios Andinos. Juanita the Ice Princess is displayed here. She is a 12-13 year old Inca girl found frozen in the glaciers of the Ampato Volcano (6380m) in 1995. She had been frozen in the glacier for about 550 years. It is thought that she was sacrificed to the mountain gods at Apu Ampato by Inca priests. They say she was ´put to sleep´ before a massive blow to her right eyebrow (cause of death). We got most of the information in the entrance to the museum, so we chose not to pay the rip-off entrance fee to see Juanita herself (there were plenty of photos in the information centre), especially since we´ve seen heaps of mummies in Egypt that look pretty much the same.

I can´t really remember what else we did for the rest of the day, so I guess that´s about it for Arequipa. Oh yeah, we did have Turkish food for dinner.

The Nazca Lines

2005-07-16T23:43:00.000+09:30

We slept in this morning, getting up with a few aches from the taco bed at our hotel. Had another quick shocking shower, then went to get some breakfast. We hopped on a local bus heading north and got off at La Mirador, a tower built in the middle of the desert from where we were able to view 3 of the many Nazca Lines. These are forms strewn about the desert covering 500 sq km and remains one of the world´s greatest archaeological mysteries. There are over 800 straight lines, 300 geometric figures (geoglyphs) and about 70 animal and plant formations (biomorphs). The Lines were made by removing the dark, sun-dried stones from the surface of the desert and piling them up on either side of the Lines, exposing the lighter soil below. How they´re still there we´ll never know, especially since the wind was blowing up a storm while we were out there. They are estimated at about 2000 years old, but no one really knows. Theories abound of course. One is that they were an astronomical calendar, one is that they were to worship gods, and of course the whole alien theory is popular.

We were able to see the lines pretty clearly from the tower, and were surprised at how small they are, although some of the others are larger. The best way to see them is by plane of course, but being the poor backpackers that we are, we had to settle for the constricted view from the tower. They were not very spectacular, but maybe they are from the air.

To get back to town, we flagged down a passing minivan and piled in with about 10 Peruvians. We weren´t sure if we´d actually make it back to town, given the state of the van, but it was nice to be with the locals and they were full of smiles for us. The van was passed up by every other form of vehicle along the way, including semis.

Back in town, we used the internet, played cards and had some beers, went back to Pollo Rico for dinner (same as last night) then went to the bus office to freeze while we waited for our 9:30 pm bus south to Arequipa. It finally showed up an hour late and by 10:45 we were off.

Pooped on by Boobies

2005-07-15T22:19:00.000+09:30

We were up early this morning, had a quick coffee at one of the only nearby cafes open, bought some plain bread from a lady on the street for breakfast then caught our minibus south to Paracas for a tour of Las Islas Ballestas. These are islands just off the coast, often referred to as ´The poor man´s Galapagos.´ We were herded into a speed boat with about 25 others, then quickly jetted out to sea, stopping first at the Candelabra, a giant figure etched into the hillside of a large uninhabited island. It is about 170 metres high and over 50 metres wide. No one knows who made it or why it is there, but there are many theories: they´re linked to the Nazca Lines, it was used for navigational purposes, and of course aliens did it.

We probably smelled the Islas Ballestas before we got too close, as the thousands of resident birds make a lot of guano, cultivated and sold (for a tidy profit) as a natural fertilizer. In places on the guano is up to 50 metres deep! Thats some deep shit. For about an hour we cruised around the rocky island, viewing the thousands of birds (Peruvian booby, Peruvian pelicans, Humboldt penguins, Guanay cormorants, and Inca terns) as well as sea lions, and lots of sea life clinging to the rocks. We even saw some fluffy baby birds among them. The island is literally just covered in birds (and their poop).

Arriving back on the mainland, we took the bus back to Pisco, checked out of our hotel, used the internet for a bit and then went to the bus stop to catch our 1:30 bus south to Nazca. Of course we weren´t surprised when the 1:30 bus showed up just before 3:00, since we were on this same bus from Lima yesterday.

It was a slow trip to Nazca. It was supposed to be 3.5 hours but we arrived in Nazca after 7:00. We found a cheap hotel, bought more bus tickets for the next day, then found a fantastic place for dinner. It is basically just like an Aussie chicken shop, but bigger. All they have are rotisserie chickens, served with chips and salads (the menu did include other choices, but we didn´t actually see any of it). The queue for takeaway was out the door and down the street, and nearly every table inside was packed with locals, out for a Friday night meal. We ordered half of a chicken, which came with chips and salad. It was cheap, delicious, and enough for at least 4 people. It´s so fantastic when we are lucky to find little local restaurants like this one. One of the best things about travelling I think. Besides one other couple, we were the only foreigners in there.

Being WAY past our bedtime by this point (about 9:00 now!) we headed back to our hotel, had a hot shower while trying to avoid the small tingles of electrocutions from the water, and went to bed.

Shocking showers!

2005-07-14T20:58:00.000+09:30

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD!!

We ate the traveller´s breakfast this morning offered by our hostel. It is bread, butter, jam, egg, juice, and coffee. This is pretty much the standard the world over with a few variations.

Our 9:15 bus boarded on time but didn´t leave the station until 10:15. We sat at the entrance of the station collecting more travellers going our direction. The bus was reasonably clean (well, sort of) and comfortable and the trip uneventful except for a few stops. We have been warned of thievery on the buses here and a guy from Belgium had a camera stolen form his bag which was in the overhead compartment. We always put our bags under our feet which has allowed us to prevent theft even if it is uncomfortable at times. Sometimes I wish some of it would dissappear to lighten our overflowing daypack full of crap. And this daypack is now extra dodgy because the main compartment zipper is broken, so it hangs half open, only connected by a cheap carabiner.

In Pisco we walked throught the Plaza de Armas to our hotel (this is becoming a theme here in Peru). The room was nice, maybe a bit dusty but the highlight was the huge poster of Christina Aguilera above the bed. I did sneak a glimpse in another room and they had Pamela Anderson above that bed, but that room was more expensive. The shower was also an adventure. To heat the water the shower head has electrical wires connected to it. The water is heated (not very well) by an element within the shower head. Because I am tall and closer to the water coming out of the head, I did get few little shocks.

We went and booked a boat trip to the Islas Ballestas for the morning and had a great dinner of Chicken Lomo Soltado (chicken pieces, tomatoes, french fries, onion and rice) and Stuffed Avocado then we went to bed again exhausted from doing nothing.

A tearful arrival in Peru

2005-07-13T23:46:00.000+09:30

Up before the sun this morning, we caught an early taxi to the airport, checked ourselves in, went through immigration and headed for our gate. Although we got to the airport over an hour before our flight, it took nearly that long to get through the slow lines, so we didn´t have to wait long before boarding. The flight from Santiago to Lima is just under 4 hours, and was uneventful. But we do enjoy LAN Chile, they´re a great airline.

We arrived in Lima around 11:30 in the morning. We quickly and easily got through immigration and customs, and caught a Urbanito bus from the airport into the city. It took much longer than it should have because there was a huge protest march going on in Central Lima near the Centro Civico (Civic Centre), maybe something about labour relations. We´re not too sure, but there were hundreds of people. We finally got to our hotel, the Hotel Espana, a huge old mansion converted into a hostel. It´s a really cool building with tons of different levels, and countless rooms. Throughout the hostel are statues, paintings, mummified skulls and all sorts of wierd parephenalia. Our room was graced with not one but 4 paintings of the Virgin Mary and Jesus Cristo. So happy to be in a Catholic country!

We wandered around the Plaza de Armas just nearby and passed the San Francisco monastery, which has underground catacombs with 70,000 people buried there! We were going to go in, but didn´t want to hassle with the large numbers of school groups lining up. The buildings around the Plaza are very old and beautiful. Something was going on in the centre of the plaza, as they were setting up scaffolding and there were many armed police officers in riot gear on every corner. We walked through a pedestrian mall towards a bus station to buy some tickets. On the way, we passed what we think were the remnants of a small bomb that had been let off on a hand cart full of smoldering rags and splintered wood. Our suspicions may have been correct as we saw the explosives unit from the police force pass by as we walked away. The station we arrived at was the wrong station so we took a taxi to the right one. It was just near where the marches were earlier, and the crowds had cleared out. We bought tickets to head south tomorrow, then took a taxi back to the hotel where we relaxed a bit, used the internet, and called Nigel´s dad for his birthday.

For dinner we headed back to the Plaza and down the pedestrian mall. Looking for something cheap, we wound up at a local burger place. As we stood waiting for our meal, I began to sneeze. Then Nigel began to sneeze. We looked around and soon everyone was sneezing. Within minutes we were coughing, our throats were burning, and my eyes were stinging and watering. We rushed outside but it was even worse. People were still about, and there was a group forming with lit candles. Not sure what to do, we went back into the restaurant. Our food was shortly ready, we asked for it to go and got out of there. It turns out (we think) that the police had let off some tear gas, maybe to prevent riots or disperse the crowds nearby. We quickly headed back to our hotel, unscathed but a tiny bit alarmed. We ate our meal (which was darn good) and went to bed around 7:30, the social butterflies that we are.

Lax

2005-07-12T22:40:00.000+09:30

Today was a very lazy day. We bought ourselves some oats and yoghurt for breakfast which was great and then we set out to change our flight times. We found Lan Chile and were extremely happy at their service and efficiency. Our task for the day done we returned to the hostel had lunch and watched TV. After watching the 5th Element, I got to watch some Pro Lacrosse on ESPN, it was Boston vs New Jersey. It made me very edgy, especially when Sturt is undefeated back home. Go Devils!! I look forward to the box games when we get back.

We booked an early flight in the morning so again it was early to bed.

Lines and buses

2005-07-11T23:19:00.000+09:30

We got up early this morning (Kel a bit worse for wear), packed up our gear, ate our leftovers for breakfast, then stood out on the side of the road for about 45 minutes, freezing, while we waited to flag down a bus heading for Chillan. We finally got the 8.30 bus around quarter past 9, and spent the entire trip to Chillan defrosting our frozen fingers and toes.

Back in Chillan, we walked through town, stopping to buy some groceries for lunch, then went to a different bus station to get a ride back to Santiago. I waited in line for one company, only to find out their next bus did not leave until 1.15 (it was only 11.30 by this time). So I waited in line for another company, but their next bus was sold out. Back in the first line, I finally got tickets and we hung out at the bus station for a few hours, sharing some popcorn with a cute stray dog.

The bus back to Santiago was uneventful, and we again took the metro back to the same hostel. We dropped our gear, got some cheap empenadas for dinner, and watched a bit of TV before heading to bed.

Skating on the Andes

2005-07-10T22:10:00.000+09:30

We were up early this morning, excited for a full day of skiing in the Andes. We heated up our leftover pasta for breakfast, grabbed our snowboards and headed out to the road to wait for the bus. When we arrived at the bottom of the lifts, we went to see about some snowboarding lessons (we are both semi-decent skiiers, but have never boarded). Nige was all geared up in his bright orange pants and red & white jacket (one of the shop owners, Alejandro went to his house to get it for him to hire! He is actually the coach of the Spanish Olympic Ski Team). And Kel looked stunning in her 80s metallic blue jacket, double-breasted with gold buttons. Sweet. Of course there were no lessons available in English for a few hours, plus they were way too expensive for us. So we just decided to have a go at snowboarding without lessons. Well, I wouldn´t exactly recommend this to anyone. After about 45 minutes, 3 trips down a nearly flat hill, and countless falls, we decided that we are not able to snowboard without lessons. So, we packed it in and hitched a ride down the hill to town, where we traded in our snowboards for skis.

Alejandro and his Italian wife gave us a lift back up on the mountain, we had a quick trip down an easy hill just to make sure we were comfortable (yep, this is definitely more to our liking since we know how to do it!), we headed straight up the mountain for a few fun runs down. All of our energy used up by this time (sadly, most of it used up not by actually skiing but by going in and out of town) we were ready for lunch, which we had halfway up the mountain. We decided that since it was such a gorgeous, sunny day, we should definitely go all the way to the top of the lifts for some great views. And, according to the map, there are plenty of easy routes down. So we took a really long lift up to the top (one of the best parts) and were not disappointed by the views. The only problem was we needed to gt down. We headed down what we thought was an intermediate run, which to us became a black run because of how icy it was. We attempted to take the lift back down to an easier section bu they didn´t let us. So we had to make our way down the icy slopes on our own. Slowly we made our way down, Kel fell a few times and Nige fell once not from the degree of speed but just standing there watching Kel.

Eventually we made it mid-way down the mountain. Kel was a bit sore and bruised from the black runs and we enjoyed the easier although still icy easy runs to the bottom.

We hitched another ride back to our hostel with a local guy from Chillan. He spoke some english and we had a brief conversation about his veggie and eucalyptus farm. We stripped off our ski clothes and lugged everything back to the rental store. W had decided not to keep skiing because the ice didn´t make it much fun. It was Mac and Cheese for dinner which was good and again we made plenty for breakfast. Another early night in the Andes.

Ski Town

2005-07-09T22:41:00.000+09:30

The 8.00 bus to Valle Las Trances was quick and went through beautiful foggy valleys rising up into the mountains. We were dropped off by the side of the road and had to walk about 200 metres down a dirt road to our hostel. The Los Nirres hostel is like a big ski chalet for backpackers. They have a huge dining area, communal kitchen and lounge area with fireplace and wood fires on every floor. In broken spanish we acquired a room and arranged for a delicious hot breakfast. We walked up and down the main road checking ski rental prices and bought some groceries for lunch.

We made tuna sandwiches for lunch, which we enjoyed with a few cold Crystal beers, then had a nap (for lack of anything better to do). We then walked back to the small shop, enjoying the crisp, fresh winter air, and bought some groceries for dinner. We had a few beers by the fire in a pub, then went and hired our snowboarding gear. The people who own the shop were so nice, and they gave us a lift back to the hostel. We made ourselves a delicious pasta dinner, thrilled to be doing our own cooking for the first time in 7 months. And we made sure we had plenty of leftovers for breakfast. After a few beers, we became suddenly exhausted and went to bed in our little cabin room.

Chillin, in Chillan, in Chile

2005-07-08T21:28:00.000+09:30

After finding each other in the hostel this morning we decided to have some breakfast and then head to Chillan, a town about 6 hours south of Santiago. We decided to go there as the word was the skiing would be cheaper. Santiago's metro system is great, like the London underground it is clean and efficient and it dropped us right at the bus station and we were happy to find a bus leaving 20 minutes later. The buses in Chile are excellent, clean, comfortable, fast and with a toilet. We really had only one stop where Kel and I managed to almost get left behind while trying to buy a hot dog. The views frm the bus were great, we followed the snow covered Andes south to Chillan.

We got to Chillan around 5.30 and walked through town looking for a ski information centre that didn't exist. The tourist information office was helpful though, but we would have been screwed if we didn't speak any spanish. We are surprised at how little english is spoken in Chile. We had hamburgers for dinner and went to bed ready for an early start in the morning. Our hostel was called the Canadian Hostel, which was really just someone's spare room, but it was clean, friendly, had heating and the bed was comfortable.

Dos gringos en Santiago

2005-07-07T21:14:00.000+09:30

We woke up this morning to a cold, foggy day in Santiago. What a change from Egypt! We had breakfast at the hostel, then went wandering around the city. We had our first Chilean coffee, enjoyed while standing up at a real coffee bar with hoochie waitresses like a cocktail lounge. We went to the Plaza de Armas and had a 'Hot-Dog italianos completos' for lunch. Chileans are crazy about hot dogs, and you can get one almost anywhere. And they love hamburgers too. Actually, they just love meat full stop. Walking around, we realized how relaxed & happy we were because were weren't being hassled every 30 seconds to buy something, get a taxi, eat something or go to some guy's cousin's perfume shop. We walked up the Cerro Santa Lucia, a hill in the centre of the city that would normally have great views of the city and the Andes in the distance, but it was too foggy. We then went past the Plaza de la Constitucion and the Palacio de la Moneda where the president used to live.

We returned to the hostel to warm up and relax for a bit before heading out for a few Austral beers at a great little pub. Our hostel is in university territory, so this pub was much to our liking. While sitting happily with our beers, we snacked on some freshly roasted peanuts and some Chilean nut things that we bought from a man wandering around the pub. After one day (and 2 beers), we decided we like Chile.

For dinner we went to a hole in the wall place for a Barros Luco (steak and melted cheese sandwich) and a chacarero (like a hamburger). Still jet-lagged, we headed to bed early.

The Terminal

2005-07-06T22:06:00.000+09:30

We were up early this morning to get to the airport. After finally catching a taxi (we had ordered one from the hotel, but they neglected to tell us that the guy's car had broken down), and finally getting through to the absolutely-NO-English-knowledge driver that we wanted to go to the airport (yes, we flew around like kids pretending to be airplanes), we made our way there. Cairo airport is under heaps of construction, and it is very poorly labelled. Our driver had no clue where to go, and we finally figured out that he was to drop us off in the middle of a parking lot where we caught a bus to the terminal. On the short ride to the terminal, we had to endure the constant complaints from 2 whinging Poms about how 'absolutely stupid the Egyptian airport's system is', and how at 'every other airport in the world you are allowed to drive up to departures to drop off passengers' blah blah blah. We thought he'd give himeself a heart attack right then and there. It really wasn't a drama at all. When we checked in, the BA guy asked about our visas for Brazil, i.e. where are they? We told him we would get them on arrival in Rio de Janiero, having no idea if we could or not. But that was good enough for him as he let us on the flight.

It was a 5 hour flight to Heathrow, and we were excited for free food and movies. Since we were celebrating my Aunt Nancy's birthday, we started the day off with a few vodka & oranges with breakfast. Arriving in Heathrow around 11:30 am, we sort of got the notion that maybe we do actually need a visa before we get to Brazil. Nothing like forward thinking right? So we rushed to find a Brazil Lonely Planet in an airport bookshop (there were none, we had to settle on South America on a Shoestring) and all the information we got was that yes we both need visas. But nothing about whether or not we can get them on arrival. Knowing we had all day to waste in Heathrow, we decided to hop into the city to the Brazilian Consulate to get us some visas. We looked it up in the London A-Z book and then went through immigration. But, before we left, we decided to double check because we knew it wouldn't be cheap to take the tube into the city, pay for an immediate visa, eat lunch while waiting, etc. We went to the BA customer service counter, and after some in-depth reading of the rules, the guy concluded that nope, don't need visas before our arrival. Sweet, that saved us some money.

With nothing else to do, we wandered around the ENTIRE length of Heathrow in search of a Brazil Lonely Planet. After going to all 4 terminals (and Heathrow is so big that this required 2 free metro rides and copious amounts of walking), we finally found one. We spent the remainder of our time in the pub with a few beers, again in Aunt Nancy's honour. Our flight finally boarded around 9:00 pm and we were off to Brazil. We were stoked for free hot food, movies, and alcohol. Vodka and coke was our beverage of choice this evening, Nige mixing in a few beers in between.

It was over 14 hours to Sao Paulo, where we sat on the plane for about 45 minutes before leaving for Rio, about a 40 minute flight. We gathered our things, got off the plane and headed for immigration. When we reached the counter, the guy took his time flipping through our passports. This isn't too unusual since we have so many visas and stamps in them. He asked where our Brazilian visas were, and we said we still need to purchase them. He immediately got out of his chair, took our passports and headed to a manager's-looking room. Uh oh. A few minutes later, a woman came out and said
'I'm sorry, you're unable to get visas here. You need them before you arrive. What airline did you fly?'
'British Airways' we say. 'Both in Cairo AND Heathrow they said we didn't need visas before arriving.'
'Well, I'm sorry but you do. You cannot stay here in Brazil. Where is your next destination?'
'Lima, via Santiago.'
'Okay, we need to get you on the next flight to Santiago. Where are your luggage tags?'
And with that she took our passports, tickets, and luggage tags and told us we could go to the upstairs lounge to get a coffee or something while we waited. So we went upstairs, had a cafezhino (very strong, sweet Brazilian espresso) and a burger (luckily the cafeteria took $US), wandered around the few duty free shops, read some magazines, played cards, wandered around the same shops, had another burger and a beer, then went back downstairs for a change of scenery. About 5 hours later, the same woman was on her way out after her shift, saw us sitting there and said 'Did anyone come speak to you?' Uh, that's a big fat NEGATIVE. She managed to get us on the 2:30 flight to Santiago. Our luggage, she assured us, was checked in for us. When Nige asked about our passports, she said 'They will remain in police custody until you board the plane.' Feeling like criminals, we sat there for another few hours until finally a BA guy came with our boarding passes, luggage tags and passports. Knowing we'd be flying over the Andes, we spent at least 40 minutes discussing who we would eat first in the event of a crash.

Considering everything, the Brazilian customs lady was very apologetic and felt bad for us, and the BA guy was nice too. As a result of their 'mistake' BA is fined US$8000 and we miss out on Brazil. Oh well, so how about Chile? After more free food and alcohol, we arrived in Santiago around 8:00 pm, got our bags (amazingly they were there, as we hadn't seen them since Cairo), got some money and a shuttle to town. The first hostel we tried was full, so we ended up at the International Hostel, where we had a shower and went straight to bed. It had been 42 hours since leaving Cairo.