Adventures

Photo’s from late may

2009-06-10T22:18:00.001+01:00

Getting ready to come home

Meeting big bro

….

Alex’s smile

Ah, a sleeping baby

Thomas has now arrived

2009-05-29T14:52:00.000+01:00

Born 27th May, 7pounds 14.5ounces

Tickle toes

2009-05-29T10:58:00.000+01:00

Thought people might like to see Alex tickling Thomas’s toes… ;-)

Christmas 2008

2009-03-09T21:30:00.001Z

More of Spain

2008-11-16T22:12:00.003Z

I want to swim!

How come we're not sinking?

And this is how you charcoal meat Aussie style!

Barcelona

2008-11-16T21:59:00.000Z

meeting 'Uncle' Nick

Making friends with the locals

Peterborough August 08

2008-09-05T21:22:00.002+01:00

Mum's birthday at the zoo - 24/08

2008-09-05T21:20:00.002+01:00

Jo and Greg's wedding - 08/08/08

2008-09-05T21:15:00.002+01:00

I want that camera! - late June 08

2008-07-13T22:02:00.001+01:00

Alex's Christening - 1st June

2008-06-14T13:23:00.003+01:00

7 months +

2008-06-12T22:07:00.003+01:00

Another geek?????

He hasn't quite mastered the art of going forward but is pretty good at reversing...and getting stuck!

Around 6 months

2008-06-12T22:05:00.002+01:00

Finally catching up with ourselves and posting some more. Been very busy trying to sort oursleves out post move (getting there slowly) and we had no internet for nearly a month which didn't help. Anyway, all is well and Alex is more mobile by the minute. He was around 6 months when these pictures were taken.

Driving to Peterborough

Laughing at the pre move chaos

not too sure about this encouraging self feeding idea

Doing some gardening

2008-06-12T21:36:00.000+01:00

Moving house!

2008-04-13T22:37:00.000+01:00

We're moving - again - in a few weeks so the house is full of boxes. More fun for Alex than it is for us!

April 08

2008-04-13T22:33:00.000+01:00

Alex - 4 months

2008-03-28T22:27:00.001Z

9/10 weeks - on an adventure

2008-01-19T19:29:00.000Z

All rugged up and ready to go out on a hike.

Back home and having fun.

Quick update...

2008-01-05T22:05:00.000Z

As you can see we have finally put some more pictures up, there are plenty more around as you can imagine but lots are on other cameras and also don't want to bore you too much! The boy is growing fast - 9 weeks old today! - and all is well.

Happy new year to all
C, A & A
x

Christmas and New Year

2008-01-05T21:57:00.000Z

Smiling at Grandma

When it all got too much!

New Year's Eve!!!

Playtime - aged 3/4 weeks

2008-01-05T21:30:00.000Z

2 weeks old

2007-11-23T11:28:00.000Z

not sure where the last 6+ weeks have gone, more soon x

Admiring the view

In the magic baby sleeping bag

How many crowns???

Meeting Grandma - aged 10 days

2007-11-23T11:26:00.000Z

What's it all about?

2007-11-15T21:04:00.000Z

Pondering his next move

Alex at 1 week on an outing to Liverpool

2007-11-15T21:03:00.000Z

All wrapped up - to travel from the house to the car!

Meeting Suzannah

Going for a walk with Grandad

And relaxing with Grangie

The blog is back in use...

2007-11-11T23:12:00.000Z

I think everyone had pretty much given up looking on here until now as it is so long since we updated, and unfortunately we never quite finished the travel bit. Oh well, I think we gave it a good go (just a few words and photos on there!) and it is great to have such a detailed record of our travels. Who knows we may actually get round to putting some pictures from the last leg of our journey here one day.

But now back to priority number 1 - as you will probably know already life is now rather different due to the arrival of Alexander Vincent Bickerton on Saturday 3rd November. We weren't planning to use the blog for baby stuff, but have decided to put photos up here as it seems to be the easiest way to share them with people. Don't expect many words but we'll try to update as often as caring for a new baby allows!

To start with have a look at the few posts below this one...

Lots of love
Andrew, Cath & Alex

Alex with mum & dad

2007-11-09T23:46:00.000Z

never too young for a bit of sci-fi...

Some photos of Alex

2007-11-09T23:43:00.000Z

Say hello

2007-11-04T23:28:00.000Z

Meet Alexander Vincent Bickerton, born 3rd November 2007

The past few months

2007-06-20T03:06:00.000+01:00

We're now in the middle of sorting out our stuff to return to the UK, so thought I should make some attempt to get this up to date before we leave Melbourne in a few weeks. It's pretty cold here now so we're hoping for some English summer sunshine when we get back! We've not done any major travelling since our Sydney/Brisbane trip but have been busy nonetheless. A quick summary below and photos to follow...

We were straight back into being sociable when we got back to Melbourne from Brisbane. We met up with a friend and her family to see her brother in a show called Scrabble Unscripted, which was part of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival. The general idea is that a couple of people play Scrabble at the side of the stage, and then others use words from the board to inspire their improv. Very funny stuff! The festival itself is (I think) the third largest in the world - it goes on for three weeks and there are more shows than you could possibly ever see. We managed to get to a few, including a night out with some other UK visitors.

The main focus for me in April was work, as I was very involved in organising a large event at Queen Victoria Market on 29th. The general idea was to recreate a Spanish/Latin American market within the market, with food, crafts, music and dancing. It all came together very well on the day which was a relief as we were a bit concerned that the rain would put people off. Fortunately it didn't, which I think is an indication of how popular cultural events are here.

Andrew has also been busy at work, and we have been spending a lot of time with friends here as well fitting in a weekend to Echuca in mid May. This is the town where Andrew grew up, about 3 hour drive away from where we are. He still has relatives from both sides of the family there, and so it was good to catch up with them. We also made the short trip across the New South Wales border to Deniliquin, my friend Kristie's hometown and also where Andrew's dad lived as a child. The town is famous for its Ute Muster (see http://www.deniutemuster.com.au/) which sounded so bizarre to me that I wasn't really sure it existed. But yes, it does!

The highlight of the following weekend was a trip to the MCG to see the Aussie Rules, North Melbourne (aka the Kangaroos, the team Andrew supports) againt Melbourne. I think I more or less got my head round the rules in the end and the Kangaroos won by one point, which is a very close game by AFL standards. I think I've got a long way to go before I'm converted but it was good to see it. Since then we have had a pretty quiet few weekends, the only major event being Andrew's colleague's wedding a few weeks ago.

So that brings us more or less up to date but there is another post to follow very soon, including some photos...

Queensland - 31st March - 7th April

2007-06-03T06:35:00.000+01:00

We left Sydney feeling like we could have easily spent several more days there, despite cramming lots in to the time we had. I had to laugh at the level of Sydney/Melbourne rivalry, which is especially clear in some of the museum exhibitions. And they really are proud of that bridge!

Anyway, our next stop was Brisbane - aka Brisneyland aka Brisvegas according to some of the marketing stuff you read. We have spent time in the area before as Andrew's dad lives nearby, but this time we decided to spend a few days in the city itself before heading out to see the family. There is much talk of Brisbane being a rapidly expanding city and a long way from the country town feel it used to have. This is probably true but coming from Melbourne then Sydney it did still feel very small!

We had a good wander through the city on day one, and found very good food in Chinatown. Unfortunately I wasn't feeling very well the next day so we didn't get to do some of the things we had planned. Of course we know that we'll be back in the area in the future so we weren't too worried. We then headed out to stay with Gary & Co, and has a relaxing few days there as well as spending some time on the Sunshine Coast. This is where Andrew's Grandad (Pa) and his wife Lil live, and it was really good to catch up with them again. Also, as you can see, Andrew and his dad made the most of the surf!

All in all it was a good break and also nice to have the rest of the Easter weekend to enjoy when we got back to Melbourne.

Cath testing out the can crusher

Three generations of Bickertons - Andrew, his Pa Laurie and Dad Gary

It's not called the Sunshine Coast for nothing!

Believe it or not Andrew and Gary are in these waves...

See, told you!

Owls at Gary & Helen's place

Sydney - Aquarium & Manly - 29/30th March

2007-06-03T06:15:00.000+01:00

Not usually high on our list, but we really enjoyed our visit to the Sydney Aquarium, which is housed in the Darling Harbour area. Keeping with the worldwide theme of making the docklands look good, there has clearly been a lot of devlopment in that part of town. We also caught the ferry out to Manly (beach area) where we met up with Tania, the girl from London we have seen at various stages of our travels. I don't think any visit to Sydney would be complete without a trip on a ferry, and it was really good to be heading back into the harbour at sunset. The tour of the Opera House was another must see highlight.

One thing I did notice in Sydney is an amazing number of English accents and not just amongst the hoardes of tourists. Most people I know who have spent time in Australia have based themselves there - just as most Aussies go to London I suppose. We met up with one of of our former London housemates who is now living there, and loving the lifestyle espeically as she is very sporty and appreciates having a beach to run along every morning - a bit of a change from Tooting Bec Common! Our other catch up was with Maz and Chris, Sydneysider friends of Andrew's who were in London but have now headed home, so all in all it was quite a sociable few days.

Sydney - Gardens, Opera House & The Bridge - 28th March

2007-06-03T05:53:00.000+01:00

Another crazily late update...

We finally went further afield again at the end of March, first stop Sydney. I had never been before so was keen to be a tourist. I don't think I would like to live there, but did really enjoy the visit and loved seeing the Opera House which seemed so familiar after seeing so many photos. We walked miles through the gardens, stopping at a few museums and spending time in the harbour area, and early on day two Andrew braved the Bridge Climb whilst I did some wandering around The Rocks area.

Here are some photos from the first few days of our trip...

Spider in the Botanical Gardens

The famous sights

Flying Foxes in the Botanical Gardens

Andrew after his climb to the top of the Sydney Harbour Bridge

Moomba - Birdman rally - 10th March

2007-05-09T14:21:00.001+01:00

Melbourne is very big on major events, and one very long established one is Moomba which takes place every year on Labour Day weekend. In case you were wondering, Moomba is an Aboriginal word meaning "Let's get together and have fun" so that pretty much sums it up. There are various activities, mainly based around the Yarra River which runs through the city, and we wandered along to see the Birdman Rally. This is basically an excuse for people to dress up in silly costumes and jump into the river on the pretence that they are actually trying to fly...

Admittedly some did give the flying idea their best shot, whilst others clearly just felt like jumping in the river! It was fun to watch and was carefully judged from a boat by Lord Mayor John So amongst others. Incidentally, not sure if anyone in the UK will have heard of John So, but he has recently been voted the world's most popular mayor, and certainly got a far louder cheer from the crowd than anyone else that day.

Here are some photos for you:

A very pretty but not especially useful flying machine

At least this one tried - I think his flight of a few metres was enough to make him the winner

Birdman website: http://www.melbourne.vic.gov.au/info.cfm?top=243&pa=3421&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;pg=3431

Moomba site: http://www.melbourne.vic.gov.au/info.cfm?top=243&pg=1832

Werribee Open Range Zoo - 2nd March

2007-05-09T09:00:00.000+01:00

As a wedding present, one of Andrew's friends bought us a ticket for 3 zoos in the area - Melbourne, Healesville Sanctuary and Werribee Open Range Zoo. Here are some pictures from Werribee...

the web address is: http://www.zoo.org.au/vorz/

We're still here!

2007-05-09T08:23:00.000+01:00

I have made several promises in recent weeks to update the blog, so here goes...

As was probably always going to happen, many things have got in the way of trips around Australia in recent months, but we've been enjoying our life here so as time has gone on we've made spending time with friends and family our main priority. Also we've both been working pretty hard recently which inevitably eats into time! I think it's fair to say that we're not in especially stressful work situations for the most part, so even though we're doing more hours now - 3 days and extra bits here and there for me, and pretty much full time for Andrew - we actually enjoy it most of the time. I get on very well with the people I work with and the organisation is doing some great work, so I will take away lots of happy memories and also some great experience when I finish at the end of June.

Yes, that's next month! Unbelievably, we're leaving Melbourne to head back to the UK in about 8 weeks - finalising travel details at the moment. We're very much looking forward to the next step, and to catching up with everyone in England but of course the other side of it is waving goodbye to the Aussie crowd. As you can imagine we have a sociable few weeks ahead (any excuse!) and we also have some more things we want to see before we go. That said, we will of course be back so there'll be plenty of chances in the future to be Aussie tourists again. Who knows, I might even persuade Andrew to do the Neighbours tour with me!

That's all for now, but I'm about to put up a collection of short posts about some of the things we've been up to in the past few months so keep reading...

Great Ocean Road

2007-02-23T01:56:00.000Z

We had managed to fit in a day trip to part of the Great Ocean Road when my parents & Katherine were here in December, but we were still keen to see more of it and so last weekend we decided that it was time for a road trip. Our little car is doing us proud, and all I can say is thank goodness for air conditioning! Temperatures when we left Melbourne on Friday were already in the 30s, and stayed that way for much of the weekend.

Although the Great Ocean Road drive is described as an easy trip from Melbourne, it is only really close by Australian standards! It took us about 4.5 hours to drive to Warrnambool along the most direct road - it's more along the winding Ocean Road - whilst on the map it all looks very close together. We stayed the night at a nice motel, had some great seafood for dinner (well, at least I did) and started on our way back along the ocean route on Saturday morning.

After passing through Peterborough (a bit different from your version J&V!), we stopped at a series of lookout points all with gorgeous views. The most famous is the 12 apostles which we reached early afternoon. Although you can't see 12 of them any more as some of them are obscured and the sea is constantly eroding the rock, it is a very beautiful sight. What's left of London Bridge (see 1st photo below) is also really impressive; it used to join the mainland until part of the "bridge" collapsed in 1990, leaving 2 unfortunate tousists temporarily stranded on the newly formed island! We also passed through a lot of forest throughout the day, beautiful in its own right but it is definitely not an ocean road in many parts.

We went for a dip in the ocean when we reached our stop for the night, Apollo Bay, which was a much needed opportunity to cool down. We stayed the night at the Eco Lodge YHA, an interesting new hostel designed to be as environmentally friendly as possible. After heading out for some fish & chips (had to be done) we watched a film on the hostel's huge plasma TV - not sure on the energy consumption angle there... Hostels here seem to be pretty posh, and a double room can cost as much as an en suite motel room! We will have to be a bit creative on our accommodation choices as we travel in Australia, as we were definitely more than a little bit spoilt with South American prices.

The winding drive from Apollo Bay to Lorne on Sunday morning was one of the prettiest sections of the route. I tried to take photos from the car with limited success, but the one below should give you an idea. It was still blue skies all the way and as we reached the beaches closer to Melbourne (including the famous Bells Beach) it was clear that the surfers were out in force. When we stopped at Lorne beach just before Christmas it was pretty much deserted, but this time you couldn't even find a parking space!

We returned to the city mid afternoon and having got the travel bug back immediately started planning our next trips. We have just booked to go to Sydney then Brisbane late March/early April, and aiming to fit in some shorter trips in the meantime...

Summer in Melbourne

2007-02-18T04:12:00.000Z

It seems quite odd to be blogging now that we're not rushing from one place to the next every few days, but then on the other hand I know that people are still keeping up with us via this site so thought it was time for an update. Also, although we now have our very own landline and a cheap call package, the 11 hour time difference means that I am not chatting to people in the UK almost as much as I did when we were in London. I hope to catch up with more people properly soon!

OK, where to start in summarising the past month+? The first thing I have to say is that unlike the UK we most definitely have not seen any snow in recent weeks - it's certainly the warmest February I have ever experienced! The weather in Melbourne is in many ways unpredictable - for example today it has been 38 but is now raining. That has its advantages, especially when much needed rain falls, but from a personal point of view can also be a complete pain when you get caught in a thunderstorm in your flip-flops (or thongs as I've been told I must call them!) Someone said to me recently that without having the weather to talk about Melburnians would be lost, so at least that makes me feel not too far away from home...

I'm really enjoying my work here which is proving to be really varied, and of course it's a great chance for me to improve my Spanish. Andrew is also happy where he is, and it's good not to be back full time at this stage. We definitely want to focus on the holiday side of things while we have the chance, and we are currently in the process of pencilling in dates for trips within Australia. We're very aware of how much we want to do and how quickly time is flying by. We are just back from our first Aussie mini adventure - a weekend on the Great Ocean Road (post to follow) - and so we now have the lovely feeling of coming back to our own home after a few nights away.

We now feel well and truly settled in flat (we even have internet!) and have already had several friends round for dinner. The chef is also back in action - in fact we've both been cooking a lot - and don't you just love the apron?!...

We also had a party for Andrew's birthday here. We were supposed to have a few drinks here then head out to our local pub, but that pretty much went out of the window after a second trip to the bottle shop (otherwise known as off licence - they have drive-thru ones here!) As the photos show a good time was had by all, and you won't be surprised to see that we still can't dance...

On the day of his actual birthday we decided to take the day off to be tourists, including taking a wander around the Melbourne museum which has diverse exhibits to say the least. Ryan, this one's for you - see if you can work out whose kitchen this is from the original Neighbours set, now housed in the museum:

In the evening we had dinner with Andrew's mum and sister, so it can safely be said that the day was well and truly celebrated!

Other things to report...

Australia Day (26th January) conveniently fell on a Friday this year so everyone made the most of the long weekend. We started by reintegrating ourselves with the world of hostelling - not though staying in one but going on a pub crawl with Tania who we know from London. Remember the story about the girl we bumped into in a La Paz hostel? Well she is now here! It was a really good night albeit slightly strange to be part of a group of about 30 backpackers again!

Whilst recovering on Friday we saw this little air show from our balcony, especially put on for us obviously:

..and the rest of the weekend was spent at various BBQs, so yes there is some truth in the stereotype on that one! I also went to see Charlie (a friend who some of you will know/may have met at our wedding) performing as Mole in a really lovely production of Wind in the Willows at the Botanic Gardens here. I went with some friends and their 8 year old son, so didn't feel too silly pretending to be a rabbit!

Another interesting evening out was watching the ‘soccer’ semi final between Melbourne Victory and Adelaide United at the Telstra Dome. I have to admit that the prospect of going to watch a game of football that everyone insisted on calling soccer was a little bit worrying; I was even less pleased to discover that I had to support the blue team against the red one! The first half was pretty disappointing and an early goal from Adelaide didn’t help. The game was however livened up by the interesting shouts from the crowd, my favourite being “go home you Adelaide bogan” closely followed by “ it’s soccer not football” as yet another slightly far from accurate shot went flying miles over the bar…

A Melbourne equaliser early in the second half sent the crowd a bit mad, but as time ticked away it looked like Adelaide were going to win on their away goal. Just when we thought that all was lost, supersub Robinson came on for "the Victory" and saved the day in the 93rd minute. When he was interviewed afterwards his Scouse accent filled the stadium - as if we needed any confirmation of where the real home of football is! In case you were wondering, Melbourne have since won the final - against Adelaide, don't ask! - by a pretty impressive 6-0...

Celebrating the Victory's victory

And finally, here are a few photos from December that we never got round to posting:

My parents with Andrew's Dad and sister Jo at the Melbourne Wedding party

Andrew and Andrew (aka Loud)

Mum, Kath & Cath in the sea at Lorne

Settling in Melbourne

2007-01-17T06:06:00.000Z

Big news item number one is that we now have our own place. You may remember that we were having some difficulties finding somewhere close to Andrew's work, as there was a lot of competition in the area. As a result of this it was proving pretty much impossible to get a 6 month lease as the landlords were understandably taking the people who could commit to 12. The low point of the process was finding out by accident that an application we had submitted had been rejected when we saw it down as let in the property listings!

At this point we decided to change our tactics ie broaden our search area and look at classified ads rather than go through agents. It paid off straight away as we found the place we're now in via the gumtree website. We have taken over someone else's lease as she was relocating. It's less that a year old and so very modern, and in a great area (Richmond for those who know Melbourne) close to the city, bars, restaurants, shops etc. The added bonus is that we have great views from our balcony/communal roof terrace across the MCG to the city as these night shots show...

Unlike the UK, furnished lets pretty much don't exist here, so the next challenge was finding furniture. Fortunately between Andrew's stuff from his old place and loans from his mum, sister and friends (thanks everyone) the only major things we needed to buy were a table and a compuer desk. And with Ikea a short drive away, problem solved! Several trips the storage unit later, all we needed to worry about was making sure that the drinks cupboard was well stocked :-) We're loving having our own place, and being able to cook in our our kitchen and put clothes in a wardrobe rather than a backpack is very exciting after so many months of wandering!

The other news is that we both have jobs! Andrew is back at the company he helped to set up/has been involved with for years, and I am working in fundraising for a Spanish/Latin American welfare centre. Andrew is full time at the moment, and I'm working a very civilised 2 day week and trying my best to be a domestic goddess the rest of the time! We're planning to do some travelling soon but in the meantime enjoying city life and looking forward to Australia Day (26th Jan) and Andrew's birthday celebrations in early Feb.

Happy New Year!

2007-01-01T10:22:00.000Z

Happy 2007 everyone! Keeping with the Aussie tradition, we had a BBQ with a few friends to see in the new year. Hope you all had a great time wherever you are.

We probably won't be posting much now that we're in one place for a while, but I know people are still reading so will keep you up to date with where we're up to and put a few photos up soon.

Bye for now!

Our first few weeks in Melbourne

2006-12-30T04:56:00.000Z

As I already mentioned we have been doing a mixture of practical and sociable since we arrived here, and it has certainly been a full few weeks. It was great that we had our own car within a few days of being here as Andrew's mum lives in the Eastern suburbs, his friends are mainly central(ish) and my parents were staying for part of the time in an apartment on the edge of the city centre. I am pleased to be able to report that I have just about got over the indicators and windscreen wipers being the 'wrong' way round!

Our wedding party on 16th went really well - the only hiccup was that the marquee was initially delivered to Andrew's mum's instead of 35km away to the park where the party was being held...luckily all went well otherwise! We had great weather and it was lovely that we were able to gather together approx 60 family and friends despite it being Christmas party season. As well as catching up with/meeting the rest of the Aussie contingent (including the newly arrived from England Jess & Co!) it was great that my mum & dad were able to be there as well as my friend Katherine who was in Melbourne on her way to spend Christmas with family in New Zealand.

Of course having first time visitors in town gave us an excuse to be tourists, and we all enjoyed exploring the city and heading out to the Great Ocean Road amomgst other things. On Katherine's last night here mum & I went with her to see the hilarious Dame Edna show - 'she' is a local after all, a good way for me to perfect my Aussie accent I thought! As for dad, it goes without saying that the highlight of his trip was going to the test match with Andrew on 27th, despite the result of course. Meanwhile Andrew's mum, sister and auntie took mum & I up into the beautiful Dandenong mountains, so we were well out of earshot of the Barmy Army!

Christmas Day itself was also quite a remarkable effort on the part of Andrew's mum and auntie, as there were around 20 of the family here for Chrstmas dinner. We all had a good day despite the rain and distinct lack of tropical sunshine!

Mum & dad left on 28th which of course was hard for me, but I'm starting to settle here despite feeling a very long way from home at the moment. Our main focus now is to get our own place sorted out, which is taking a bit longer than anticipated so far. We hope that this is just because of the time of year, but it seems that the area we're looing in is a popular one and we're only after a 6 month lease so it's just a case of being patient I suppose. In the meantime as all the estate agents are closed for the weekend/New Year we're just being distinctly lazy!

PS Problems uplodading photos at the moment so will put some online soon...

New Zealand part 3 (in a nutshell!) - and all the photos

2006-12-30T04:34:00.000Z

It seems crazy to think that it is only 3 weeks since we were in Nelson, a really pretty town on the northern coast of New Zealand's South Island. We were staying with Andrew's friend Eva, who I had heard lots about but never met as she left London shortly before I met Andrew. It was lovely to get to know her a bit, and hopefully she will take us up on our offer to visit Melbourne at some point in the next few months.

On Saturday morning we had a great time wandering round Nelson's lovely market - despite being frustrated that we couldn't carry more of the delicious food into Australia with us! - before heading out to the countryside. We stopped at a few wineries and then on to the beautiful coast. We then spent a really good evening with some of Eva's friends, and when we got up on Sunday it was time to go again. Much like our trip to see Em & Rod it felt like was time to leave almost as soon as we had arrived, but it was great to be there. We took the short flight across to Wellington on Sunday and spent a very lazy rest of day there before flying north to Hamilton on Monday.

This is where Mark, a friend from home who used to work with my brother, now lives. Again it was great to catch up and he seems really happy with his new life in NZ. He's only been there since August but I think the wide availabilty of adventure sports has helped him to settle there! Luckily for me Mark was working so he didn't have the chance to make us do anything scary; instead we had dinner in an excellent restaurant, and were made to feel really welcome by his housemates who loaned us their airbed for the night. Then it was a bright and early start on Tuesday for the bargain ($11 for us both!) 2 hour bus trip back to Auckland so that we could catch our afternoon flight to Melbourne.

Falling out of the Sky Tower in Auckland

Bubbling mud in Rotorua

One of the many Art Deco buildings in Napier

Early Christmas with Em & Rod

Feeding Miss Daisy

A stressful afternoon at the wineries with Eva

Gorgeous beaches near Nelson

Great views from the flight across the Cook Strait

Catching up with Mark in Hamilton

So they aren't the same country then?!

Updates!

2006-12-30T04:29:00.000Z

Finally the time has come to get our blog up to date - life has well and truly got in the way of the internet over the past few weeks! We're now having a quiet few days to catch up with ourselves a bit, so at last here are some updates for you...

We haven't forgotten...

2006-12-21T05:41:00.000Z

This has to be the longest we have gone without posting so thought we should at least say hello...

We're now in Melbourne so really busy catching up with everyone, being tourists with my mum & dad, finding somewhere to live etc etc. A friend of Andrew's sorted out a car for us before we arrived which has been great. Armed with our shiny new copy of Melways (equivalent of A to Z) I'm starting to have a vague clue of where I am, despite getting used to driving with trams being quite a challenge at times!

More updates and loads of photos (including NZ and our wedding party) to follow very soon. In the meantime we really must start Christmas shopping...

Leaving New Zealand

2006-12-12T02:19:00.000Z

Part 3 of our week in NZ and some photos to follow soon, but in the meantime a quick hello from Auckland airport where I'm using up the last few dollar coins for internet instead of burning holes in the credit card in Duty Free!

We're due to board our flight to Melbourne in less than half an hour, and it is very odd to think that we're now going to be staying in one city for several months. It's sad that this stage of our trip is over, but we really can't wait to unload the backpacks. More importantly we're really excited about catching up with everyone and looking forward to our Melbourne wedding party on Saturday. It's going to be a busy few days!

NZ in a week part 2

2006-12-11T02:34:00.000Z

The historical significance of Napier is pretty straightforward - in 1931 there was a huge earthquake which all but flattened the city, and it was completely rebuilt. Therefore pretty much everything was built in Art Deco style, so much so that there are 90 buildings of interest in a 90 minute walk! As I mentioned earlier the hostel there was another a highlight of our stay, not only well equipped and friendly but also in a really interesting building. We definitely needed to take note of the tour office guide's instructions to look up as we wandered round the town (or maybe city? - everything seems very small here!) and we really enjoyed it all.

Napier's location on the coast adds to its appeal, and although I couldn't imagine being there for ages it is definitely worth a visit, especially as there is also a good selection of cafes and shops. We therefore made further attempts to get used to the fact it is definitely now nearly Christmas as there seemed to be tinsel everywhere! My parents will be joining us for Christmas in Melbourne, and it was very odd to speak to them in Napier and realise that we'd all be together again in under a week.

Anyway, we still had a few miles (or should I now say kms?) to cover before then! After a brief stroll round Napier's museum, on Thursday afternoon we headed another hour or so south to Waipukurau where my friend Emily is now living. For those of you who don't know Em, she used to work for the company I was at when I first moved to London and quit work to start her round the world trip nearly a year ago. Her original plan was to be back in the UK in time for Christmas, but then she met a Canadian guy in Japan and currently lives with him on a sheep farm in New Zealand...never let it be said that life is predictable!

It was great to catch up with her and to meet Rod (thanks to you both again for looking after us so well) and I have to admit that I can see the appeal of life on the farm. As you will see when we manage to upload some photos, Daisy the 8 week old lamb who they are hand rearing is a very lovely addition. Also, the lamb Rod cooked us for dinner was excellent - on second thoughts perhaps I wouldn't be too good at farm life after all...

Unfortunately we were only able to be with them for one evening before we moved on, but we had a great night complete with Christmas crackers and too much wine. The next day's early morning wake up call from Daisy was not quite so good (I think it was 5am) but Em & Rod are clearly far more used to early starts than we are as breakfast was on the table at 7am. Em then took us into town for our 9am bus, and we were off on our way to Wellington.

Friday was a dreaded travel day! After a delayed 4 hour bus trip, we headed out to the airport to catch the short (25 minute) flight to Picton in the South Island where we had then planned to catch another bus to Nelson where Andrew's friend Eva lives. Unfortunately we missed the bus due to a delayed flight, so Eva had to come to pick us up from Picton, about a 4 hour round trip which finally got us to her place at about 11.30pm. Thanks again Eva! Despite the hassle of travelling we saw some lovely countryside along the way to Wellington, and were really pleased to be able to have the chance to see a little bit of the much talked about South Island.

How to do New Zealand in a week - part 1

2006-12-10T06:29:00.000Z

We knew this was going to be a challenge, as most people we have spoken to are spending at least a month here!

Going back a week, we spent a day in Auckland which is a much nicer city than we expected it to be. Lots of people had said that there wasn't much to it, so we arrived there with no real expectations. We picked up lots of leaflets from our hostel - it's great that there is so much info available as we don't have a guidebook - and strolled into town. We quickly found that it is a really easy place to wander round, helped by the sunshine, and we headed up through the city centre and through a really pretty park to the Auckland Museum. This promised to give us an overview of all things Kiwi, and as we didn't know much about the country we thought it would be a good place to start.

There was lots of interesting stuff on display, but we weren't too impressed with the layout as it wasn't very easy to follow especially when trying to get our heads round the historical aspects. Nevertheless we came away knowing much more than we started with. It was also very odd to be listening to flutes playing Christmas carols in the foyer area (many a happy memory of my flute playing youth!) as up until that point I really hadn't realised that Christmas was only 3 weeks away...

Anyway, we then moved on the Sky Tower to get some good views of the city. I won't bore you with the details, but it is very tall and suffice to say I felt very brave standing on the glass floor even though it was 38mm thick! Some comedy photos to follow...And that was pretty much all we had time for in Auckland! I should also add that one of the things that struck us was how quiet the city is - it was hard to believe that it is home to a million people. However everyone we did meet was very friendly, something that has continued all week. Not only is tourism a big industry, but also there does seem to be a genuine friendliness which is really good.

Our next stop was Rotorua, about 4 hours away. When we were sorting out our trip we came across a company called Nakedbus, the Kiwi equivalent of Megabus in the UK with fares starting from just $1. We therefore weren't too sure what we were going to get for our very small amount of money, but it was all fine. Unfortunately the hostel in Rotorua was a little more shabby, but then really we only had ourselves to blame for booking into somewhere with a TexMex theme and as we were only there for one night we could live with it!

The town itself was pretty ordinary, but the big draw is the thermal springs in the area. There is a massive amount of geothermal activity in the region, and just wandering through a park in the town you can see lots of steaming pools and bubbling mud. As recommended by Nina who we met in Chile (thank you if you're reading this!) we decided to head the Polynesian Spa on Tuesday and spend some time relaxing in the rock pools. It was a really lovely way to spend a few hours, and I also had a massage to help soothe my very backpack weary shoulders. Sadly it was then time to return to the backpacks and another bus, this time to Napier.

As you know, we have travelled on a few buses in the past few months (I think we were up to about 140 hours at the last count) but this trip has won the prize for funniest bus driver... He started sharing local knowledge which was really interesting, but promptly ran out of things to say but just kept talking - for three and a half hours! We arrived in Napier totally exhausted, but it was another bizarre and entertaining experience to add to the list. We checked into our hostel which couldn't have been more different from the last one - Art Deco style which is what Napier is famous for and a former luxury hotel so much better than average - and felt quite happy that we were going to be staying in the same place for a whole 2 nights!

Arriving in New Zealand

2006-12-03T21:42:00.000Z

Thought we should let you know that we are safely in New Zealand. That meant a spectacular 16 hour time change, so our body clocks are confused to say the least. We left at 11pm on Friday and landed at the highly unsociable hour of 3.30am Sunday. The flight itself was fine despite a passenger panic as we took off because there were particularly strong chemical/burning smells in the cabin. The cabin crew assured everyone it was normal, but then of course there had to be someone who said he flew this route every other week and this had never happened before - which started everyone off again! It wasn't the most comfortable flight but true to form I managed to sleep for about half of it and the pretty rubbish film selection helped Andrew to doze off too.

Getting through Auckland airport was not as tricky as we thought it might be; we thought it may take a while as New Zealand is one of the tightest when it comes to protecting its borders from foreign bugs etc. Our boots and shoes had to be disinfected as we had been on farmland recently, but it wasn't a huge delay so perhaps there was some advantage in landing at such a silly time. We caught the very efficient shuttle bus straight to our hostel, where we had requested a very early check in. Unfortunately this was dependent on availabilty, unless we wanted to pay for Saturday night too. Fair enough really but we were still more than a little upset to be told at 6am that all double rooms were full until 10.30 check out. Fortunately we were able to get a twin instead and got some much needed sleep before heading out to explore Auckland.

More about that soon, and Rotorua where we now (Monday early evening) are.

Santiago de Chile

2006-11-30T00:04:00.000Z

We have really enjoyed our three days in Santiago, and have to disagree with the bad press that the city gets from fellow travellers. Admittedly it does not have as many sights as some other places, but it is an attractive place and doesn't feel overwhelmingly busy for a capital city. Or maybe that's just because we lived in London for too long?!

We have been staying in an area called Bellavista, which is known as one of the best areas for eating out etc as well as having quite an arty feel. It is also close to the centre so I think we picked well. We have had some good food here and quite by accident have ended up eating at some of the Lonely Planet recommended places. There is quite a range of food on offer, so as well as local specialities like Pastel de Choclo (more about food to follow - we haven't forgotten!) we have also had Thai and Middle Eastern. The hostel is a good relaxed place to be and we have met some nice people there, so have spent time with them doing the usual backpacker sort the world out over a few drinks thing!

In terms of sightseeing we have been to the Precolumbian History Museum, and also the National History one. I have to admit that the first one freaked me out slightly as it is jam packed with figurines that I find a bit spooky, not helped by the whole place being very dark. It still had some interesting bits, and Andrew thought it was all great. The National Museum was much more interesting for me, looking at the way in which Chilean society and culture has changed over time. Unfortunately the 20th century section is closed for refurbishment - it would have been interesting to see how recent history here is depicted.

We have also wandered around the city centre and have just come from the cathedral which is an especially ornate one. We are now online mainly to sort out practial things for our New Zealand trip as we will be heading to the airport in just a few hours. It still doesn't feel quite real that we're going! As I said in the last post, we would love to have more time here and also with it being at the end of the trip we haven't got quite the enthusiasm for buses we may have once had. As a result we didn't make it to Valparaíso, which we had thought we may do as a day trip from here. Oh well, something else to add to the list for our next visit...

So, now it's on to the NZ adventure, and unlike South America we have already booked absolutely everything ahead. As we only have just over a week there and are planning to visit numerous places as well as catching up with 3 friends, we didn't want to waste time at bus stations etc when we get there. The internet is a wonderful thing! Our flight arrives in Auckland early hours of Sunday (yes, we lose a whole Saturday) so we'll stay there one night. Then we head to Rotorua for a night, Napier for 2, reach Emily & Rod in Waipukurau on Thursday, fly from Wellington to the South Island to meet up with Eva in Nelson on Friday, back on the ferry to Wellington on Sunday, fly to Hamilton to meet Mark on Monday then bus back to Auckland for our Tuesday afternoon flight to Melbourne.

I'm exhausted just thinking about it! We'll try to update the blog as often as we can but if you don't hear much from us in the next week or so you know why...

Plaza de Armas

La Moneda

Chillán

2006-11-29T23:58:00.000Z

We arrived in Chillán on Sunday afternoon, and were met at the bus station by Margarita´s sister Maria. We knew that the family there were involved in tourism, but didn't realise until we reached ReyMar that they ran a really large complex with several pools, big open spaces, BBQ areas, a bar etc etc. We instantly felt very relaxed again! It was a lovely sunny day so we sat outside, enjoyed a few drinks and went for a bit of a wander around the complex. Rosa and Maria were very busy as there were lots of people around, but they still made time to chat to us. Later when we reached their house we also spent a bit of time chatting to Rosa's husband Ricardo. We felt bad landing on them when they were all clearly very busy, but they made us feel at home which was great.

On Monday it was another really sunny day as you can see from the picture below. In the morning we went for a wander around the town, which is a really pleasant place with some pretty plazas and an interesting cathedral and market area. We then caught a bus back to Rey Mar and that was us for the rest of the day. We had a swim, played a bit of pool and enjoyed yet more hospitality from the family who made sure that we were fed and watered whilst turning down pretty much all our offers of help!

We had decided to head straight to Santiago on Tuesday, mainly because time was ticking away quickly and we couldn't really face any more travelling. Our time in Chillán was rounded off by a delicious lunchtime BBQ and then we were off. It was really good to be able to spend a little time there and just as when we were in Buenos Aires we were overwhelmed by the hospitality. It is a real shame that we didn't get the chance to go to more places in this area of Chile, and in particular we had hoped to go to Amon's town and meet some more of their family. We will be back! In fact perhaps more than anywhere else Chile is where we would like to spend more time, it has a different feel from the other countries we've been to in a way I can't quite pinpoint. Whatever it is we could happily spend several more weeks here - as it is we're counting down the days!

.

Valdivia and Adela y Helmut - photos

2006-11-29T23:47:00.000Z

A view of Valdivia

The view from our cabin at Adela y Helmut

Relaxing!

Could have been in England, except for the gum trees in the background!

Valdivia & (near) Cunco

2006-11-29T17:00:00.000Z

Playing catch up here, as we haven't really been online much over the past week. There probably isn't also quite as much to say - as we have headed north it has become warmer and warmer (so much so that even I have the beginnings of almost a tan...) so inevitably the pace has slowed and the amount of time sitting around and enjoying the weather increased. I think we have also been more tired than we think, as we have been on the move a lot again in recent weeks.

Anyway, going back to this time last week, we left Púcon and took a bus to Valdivia just a couple of hours away. This was described as "perhaps the most attractive city in Chile" by the Lonely Planet - although our first impression was perhaps not. Our view was clouded slightly by the fact that Andrew was feeling unwell (nasty cold) and we were also turned down by a couple of hostels before we found a place to stay. All in all information as to where to go seemed reasonably difficult to come by. However,we got ourselves sorted in the end and had a very quiet rest of day.

We had planned to get a boat out to see the nearby Spanish fortresses on Thursday, but as Andrew still didn't feel great we decided to stick to the town instead. I should also add that we were probably being very dim in that we didn't manage to spot any sea lions in the river as apparently they are always there - I suspect we just didn't know where to look! Anyway we headed to the very interesting museum, and learnt some more about not only the local Mapuche culture but also the German influence in the area, as there was a large amount of German colonisation here. We didn't really know about this before we came to Chile, although it is obvious in many places we have visited, so it was interesting to find out more. Despite feeling a little disappointed with the city (although the local beer was pretty decent!) as Andrew was feeling much better we did consider sticking around another day to head out on the boat trip we had originally planned. However, we were very aware of how little time we had left in Chile, and so opted against it in the end. Maybe we should just give up on boats?!

After a little deliberation, we decided that we really needed to branch off the beaten track and headed out to the country instead. We had seen a few adverts for Adela y Helmut, a small hostería run by a Chilean/German couple in lovely countryside pretty much in the middle of nowhere. We had to get a local bus from the nearest town, then it was another 5km bumpy ride in Helmut's jeep. We had decided that a quiet weekend with no self imposed pressure to be tourists/sociable would be ideal, and it was! Adela's food was great, with far and away the best breakfast we have had anywhere (including delicious cake!)and really good dinners too. We were briefly tempted to go and explore another nearby national park, but instead stayed put and enjoyed a few lazy days. The whole area very much reminded me of the English countryside - as you´ll see when we get some photos up it was incredibly green, as it is everywhere in this very beautiful part of Chile. Andrew also felt at home as there were many eucalyptus trees in the vicinity!

Despite feeling like we could have happily stayed there a few days longer if we'd had time, we left on Sunday to catch a bus to Chillán. More on that - and some photos - soon...

Now in Chillán

2006-11-27T12:05:00.000Z

Just a quick update, more details to follow... We are unable to upload photos at the moment and also are only online briefly to do practical things like reconfirm flights. We also want to get back outside to enjoy the sunshine!

After a few days in Valdivia, we spent the weekend relaxing in the countryside, at Adela y Helmut, a lovely hospedaje in a beautiful area near the small town of Cunco. It was great to do nothing for a few days and not worry about when we were getting on the next bus! We then came to Chillán yesterday, our friend Margarita's home town. Two of her sisters are here so we are staying with them for a couple of nights, and they have made us feel very welcome. They run a tourist complex with swimming pools etc so we are heading out there this afternoon after wandering a little more around the town itself.

Back with another update - and some photos - soon!

Púcon and Parque Nacional Huerquehue

2006-11-21T23:06:00.000Z

Today we went to the beautiful Parque Nacional Huerquehue (which I am still unable to pronounce), where went on an all day hike to see the three lakes and more stunning views. We were really lucky to have clear blue skies yet it wasn't too hot so perfect walking weather, and I think Cath agrees with me in saying that this hike has to be one of our favourites. The scenery was not as starkly stunning as Torres del Paine for example, but very beautiful in its own way...

On the steep hike up we got to see (in order) 2 waterfalls (Cath loved the mist from the crashing water), stunning views of the local active volcano (apparently on a good night you can see the red glow on the peak), some friendly wildlife and views of 3 lagos, with our favourite being the first and smallest one 'Lago Chico'. (Note from Cath - the Chileans were clearly using Aussie place naming logic here - it translates as Small Lake!)

The only down side to the day was that Cath tripped over on slippery mud and hurt her hand. Nothing too serious, just another special bruise, but apparently a good reason not to do anything like washing up for a while... After succesfully negotiating the rest of the hike back down we had half an hour to relax before our bus back to Púcon, so enjoyed some delicious 'french pressed' coffee (some of you may be surprised to hear that Cath is now a coffee drinker again by the way!) at Refugio Tinquilco. It was such a peaceful and beautiful setting that we really didn't want to leave.. :-)

Bariloche & San Martín de los Andes

2006-11-18T19:29:00.000Z

After much deliberation, we decided to leave Chile on Thursday morning to head to Bariloche in Argentina. As Andrew mentioned we had considered the bus-bost trip but went for the direct bus instead - although if you looked at our route on the map it wouldn't seem to be very direct at all. Between the many lakes (it isn't called the Lake District for nothing!) and the Andes, roads in this part of the Argentina-Chile border area can be winding to say the least, although this of course makes the journey much more interesting and very beautiful.

We had reservations about going to Bariloche simply because pretty much everyone we have met has been there or is heading there, and we therefore expected it to be overcrowded. However, when we arrived there, we were very glad that we had followed the hoardes as it deserves to be as popular as it is. Its location is one of the most stunning we have seen, totally surrounded by snowcapped mountains and bordering the beautiful Nahuel Haupi lake. There is a touristy feel, but as it is not absolute peak season it wasn't overwhelming (despite a full hostel) and the many chocolate shops are a definite positive consequence of its popularity!

After a quiet night (and more steak!) on Thursday, we were ready for something a bit more adventurous on Friday so we booked for a group tour to do some hiking and kayaking. Thanks to the very unhelpful guy on reception we didn't realise that our day trip also included a drive round the area, taking in most of the viewing points of the route known as the circuito chico. This was a very welcome surprise as it is a gorgeous area.

Here are some of the photos from the day:

First we went on a chair lift up one of the local mountains, a view from the top & a view on the way back down.

During our short ramble by the lake shore, a photo showing how clear and beautiful the water is.

Next was the kayaking adventure, a shot of the 'geezas' coming back to shore, and us relaxing by one of the kayaks...

Finally after all that exercise, us chilling out by the lake shore with some cervezas

As you can see it was another hard day for us! The kayaking was in fact a little bit taxing but also loads of fun, depsite some let's say "slightly enthusiastic" English guys trying their hardest to cause as much water damage to everyone else as possible. We were all very upset that they didn't manage to fall out! We did however meet some more really nice people, and also caught up with one of the guys from the boat again. This has happened a few times, predictable I guess as there are many of us heading in the same general direction.

After all that activity we had a relaxed day on Saturday, sorting out a lot of our NZ trip amongst other things, and met up with 2 of the ferry crowd for dinner on Saturday night. We had a really good evening - probably too good in Andrew's case as getting up for our 9am bus on Sunday was a little bit of a struggle! We were moving on to San Martín de los Andes, another beautiful town a few hours further north. Just to prove that we are all stalking each other, at the next town another couple from from boat also got on our bus! We were all heading to the same hostel and spent a lovely relaxed day wandering round, admiring the views and later cooking dinner together.

The only down side was that one of the reasons we had gone to San Martín in the first place was because we had planned to do another bus/ferry combo from there to get back into Chile. It was clearly not destined to happen as we found out that the only day we could do the trip was Sunday and we'd missed the departure by about an hour! Maybe we should take the hint and give up on boats? Unfortunately this was another example of the Lonely Planet´s information being out of date - the new edition is due very soon so we really should have checked ahead. Anyway, this left us with no choice but to get back on a bus. This seemed to be a common theme as we left the other guys in San Martín also debating which incredibly long bus journey to take!

We opted to head back across the border to Púcon, which by all accounts was in another lovely area, but cursed perhaps not too quietly when we found out that would mean getting a 6am bus on Monday for another 6 hour trip. But, yes, we did it anyway! The journey from San Martin to Púcon is luckily spectacular, especially as the crossing is inside a national park - well it's technically 2 parks that seem to overlap. We especially liked the views of Lanín Volcano which seems to be almost next to the Argentina boarder. This was a good thing as we ended up waiting at that point for nearly 2 hours (never did find out why). We then had all bags scanned by Chilean customs before we were finally back in Chile, where we'll now be until we fly out of Santiago in just 10 days time...

Puerto Varas & Back into Argentina

2006-11-18T18:46:00.000Z

After leaving the Navimag boat instead of staying in Puerto Montt, we decided to head to Puerto Varas on a short 20min trip north (I think it was the shortest bus journey we've made so far), as the views across the lake are supposed to be very spectacular.

Unfortunately for us the weather was very grim for our 2 days there and we didn't get to see anything except clouds and rain, though luckily during one of the rare clear patches I did get a photo of the local cathedral. Weather aside, this was definitely a very nice chilled place to stay in, the hostel (Compass del Sur) had a great homely atmosphere and one of the best stocked kitchens we've seen so far (including free herbs and seasoning!)

As the weather had not been brilliant we decided on not going with the highly recommended $170USD bus-boat-bus-boat tour to Bariloche, instead going with the $10,000CLP (about $18USD) bus journey, which took us through some amazing scenery all of its own!

Even though it is nearly summer here in the southern hemisphere, global warming seems to be playing tricks with both Argentina and Victoria getting dumps of fresh snow, enough for skiiers to continue their sport (a month and a half after the official end of the season)...

Navimag & fjords of Chile

2006-11-15T16:08:00.000Z

Ok, so now it's time to tell you a bit about our Navimag voyage...

We boarded on Thursday night, although we didn't set sail until the early hours of Friday morning. We were really lucky in that we'd paid for a shared cabin but ended up having a 4 bed one to ourselves because the boat wasn't full. Good thing really as sharing a very small space with 2 strangers could have been a bit of a challenge!

After our initial safety briefing we saw the film Motorcycle Diaries, which follows Che Guevara's travels through South America as a young man. It was a really good film, and especially interesting for us as we had visited some of the places it included. I have to say that it did make us long to head back to Peru, amongst other things. It also hit home just how far we had travelled, and all in all was a great way to spend a slightly odd evening in port.

At our briefing, we had been told by the very helpful guides that they would let us know what was going on and when was a good time to head to the outside decks - and they weren't making it up! At shortly before 7am on Friday morning we had the first of the soon to be infamous "Señor Pasajeros/ Dear Passengers" announcements to let us know that we were passing through the narrowest part of the journey. We dutifully got up, wrapped up warm and headed out onto the deck. It was an attractive area, but after a few minutes we were glad to retreat back to the warmth of our cabin!

The first full day established the pattern of 8am breakfast, 12.30 lunch and 7.30 dinner - the food was definitely more than enough fuel for our much less than normal activity levels, although not great variety wise. Unfortunately the weather wasn't brilliant either - and remained as such throughout - so we spent a large amount of time indoors. That said, as you can see in the pictures, some of the scenery was pretty spectacular and it wasn't all grey skies. Even when it was bad, we could see lots of snow tipped mountains rising up from the dark waters.

One particular highlight, on day 2, was the Amalia glacier. As this single photo shows (I hope) the view made facing the cold and wind worth it!

We were also lucky to meet a great bunch of fellow travellers on board, and we spent a great deal of time sorting the world out, and generally just relaxing...need I mention the wine?! The photo below shows some of the generally very far from stressed group in a pretty typical "relaxing in the bar" formation!

However, as I have already mentioned, the sad turn of events on Sunday evening really impacted on the trip as our ship headed back to help out in the rescue. I should add that the scheduled bingo took place shortly after our abrupt reverse of direction - at best surreal. It was also bizarre to say the least to be out at sea late at night surrounded by several other vessels all searching for survivors, as flares were thrown out to illuminate the sea.

Although the word fjords creates an impression of calm waters, we did spend time in open sea and the storms were quite intense, so it wasn't too surprising to us that a smaller boat just couldn't cope with it. Some of those helping out in the rescue attempts really shouldn't have been out there in a thunderstorm either! It was an odd situation in which to find ourselves, and needless to say the sight of of the wreck floating alongside us as we had breakfast on Monday morning was upsetting. On the positive side, the crew of our ship handled the situation really well and we didn't feel unsafe ourselves despite some of our fellow passengers suffering heavy doses of seasickness.

To conclude I'd say that the whole experience was another memorable one, but not always for the best reasons and it certainly wasn't as we had expected it to be (no wildlife - maybe we've already seen too much?). Much of the problem was the weather but despite this, the extent of the many islands dotted along Chile's coastline was definitely worth seeing. As for the ferry experience? One of our fellow travellers did comment that they now understand what it must be like to be stuck in the Big Brother house, which just about sums it up!

And finally, a few words of advice from Andrew for anyone who may want to do the trip:
For those who may be reading this to figure out, are you going to do this boat trip through the fjords I have this advice. The trip was enjoyable, we did see some beautiful things, but for the price I would recommend investigating other means.. If however price isn't your driving force and you do want to go for this trip, bring along plenty of entertainment (books, cards & travel stories), just in case the weather is bad (which happens more often in summer).

Back on dry land

2006-11-14T18:53:00.000Z

Just a very quick post to let you know that we're now in Puerto Varas, near where we finally got off our boat this morning (Puerto Montt) - 24 hours late. The delay was due to our boat being heavily involved in the search for survivors from a capsized vessel on Sunday night/Monday morning. There only seems to be one survivor from 10 crew so all very sad.

Despite the grim bits we did meet some lovely people on board, and passed through some beautiful areas. We'll post some more soon when we've got some photos uploaded, but thought we'd just say a quick hello in the meantime.

Back soon!

How to travel the Fjords of Chile?

2006-11-09T20:56:00.000Z

This has been a question that I started asking myself around about Bolivia, then luckily while in the hostel in Buenos Aires I spotted a pamphlet for Navimag who happen to offer what looks like a fanstastic journey from Puerto Natales (where we currently are) to Puerto Montt (where we want to get to).

For those that don't know, the photo to the left (which hopefully comes out ok to everyone) shows the amazing amount of small islands and fjords dotting the southern parts of Chile... So much so that the only ways to travel it is to:

Travel in Argentina

Boat

Swim

We're happy with going with the second choice.

And so this is where we are now at, we are about to be boarding the ferry in a couple of hours, then it is 4 days of sailing past glaciers, icebergs and hopefully some amazing marine life! (keep your fingers crossed for us)

See you all in 4 or so days with the next update of our adventures.

Andrew (& Cath)

Torres del Paine

2006-11-09T19:49:00.000Z

We have just arrived back from a 2 day hike in Torres del Paine, well I use the term 'hike' very loosely.. After our horse riding adventure the day before, we were quite tired and a tad on the sore side, as such we spent the morning travelling to Torres del Paine and the Refugio of Paine Grande (that one you can see in the photo to your left) and then promptly fell asleep on our very comfy £20 per night mattresses (after unrolling our sleeping bags that is).

For that price though, the following picture is an example of what we got to see out our window...

Later that evening (after waking from our snooze), we bumped into Laura & Paul, who we had met in Puerto Natales just before they started the "W" trek. It was good to see them again, still looking very lively after their 2 days trekking. Hi guys if you're reading this, hope the rest of the trek went well!

The following day we started out on a 'short' eight hour hike to see some more of the spectacular views in this national park; unfortunately because of our timing (only allowing for 1 day of hiking) and some less than helpful advice from the tour operator at our hostel the day before; we realised that we would not actually see the famed Torres del Paine, however we would be getting out into nature, working off some more of that Argentinian steak and hopefully seeing some amazing views.

Quickly into the first leg of the hike we found ourselves struggling slightly along the 'easy' bit, unused muscles complaining of being used again (hadn't they done enough in Peru!) and general aches and pains setting in.. This was not helped by the scarily strong wind on some of the spots, which literally blew me over at one point, so Cath didn't stand a chance! So the start was not going well.. The views however were definitely up to standard!

After a short rest at Camp Italiano we were feeling a lot better, there was a lot less wind, and even though the ground was rougher (lots of rocks to scramble over) we seemed to be having an easier time of it, definitely helped by our muscles no longer complaining at being used and abused.. Up this particular valley we got to see the 'baby' glacier of the park, Glacier Frances (you can see a tiny bit of it at the base of the mountain in the photo on the left).

It was about this time that upon looking at our watches we found that the guardaria telling us 8 hours to get to viewing spot, take some photos and back to the Refugio was over-estimating our fitness levels, as such we decided to find a nice viewing spot and have some lunch then turn back (we needed to be back by 6pm to catch the last catamaran and bus back to Puerto Natales).

Luckily for us we did turn back at that point as the weather started to turn even more blustery, with rain and then hail coming down. We were glad we got out here and did a 'small' 18km hike and got to see what we did, but were very glad to get back to the campsite and enjoy a nice hot cup of tea (with some of the chocolate I'd been hiding from Cath).. After being here, I think we will take away beautiful mountain images (it is very spectacular, though not the most spectacular we have seen on this trip), but most of all the changing weather, and that wind!!

We were also relieved to hear that the towers themsleves were pretty much hidden by a blanket of cloud for the time we were there so people who had headed out that way hadn't been able to see that much. So it seemed that despite it all we had been "lucky" with the weather in the places we had been...

The journey to Chile, Puerto Natales and more horses...

2006-11-07T00:09:00.000Z

We were relieved to wake up on Sunday not aching too much from the horse riding, as we were catching an early bus to Puerto Natales in Chile. This was a relatively short journey - about 4-5 hours, which incidentally in the UK I would have thought was a lifetime - and we realised soon enough why they didn't put a definite time on it. When we reached the Argentina-Chile border, we had a long wait to get our exit stamps before another short drive followed by a similar wait to get our Chilean entry stamps. It was interesting to note that Chile has Australia style restrictions on bringing certain foods etc into the country although their checks are nowhere near as thorough. It is of course completely understandable that they want to protect their country's wildlife, but hard to grasp how a country with such an extensive border could possibly be able to achieve this. Fair play to them for trying though.

Anyway, we didn't have any problems getting through, it just all took a bit of time and we finally reached Puerto Natales at around 2.30pm. It was incredibly cold and windy as we walked to our hostel, and we soon got the impression that this was pretty normal here. That said the day before had been windy even by Puerto Natales standards, so much so that the phone cables had all been knocked out! We wandered into town, and unlike many places we have been which seem to have very extensive opening hours, the town was dead on Sunday, which to be honest made quite a nice change. We tucked ourselves away in a small cafe for a late lunch and ended up staying there for ages as it was so grim outside. We got chatting to another English couple about many things including their plans to trek the "W" ie the most popular 4+ day circuit of the nearby Torres del Paine national park.

We had already decided not to do all of this, but still wanted to do more than a one day tour of the park. When we headed back to our hostel we spoke to the travel agent conveniently located next door, who suggested a trip involving a bus out to the park, a hop across the lake on the catamaran and an overnight stay at a refugio. This would mean heading out early on Tuesday, doing a full day trek on Wednesday and then getting back late on Wednesday night ready for our our 4 day trip from Puerto Natales to Puerto Montt.

This left us a full day free on Tuesday and after a few glasses of red - yes, it's very good and cheap in Chile too - together with another English couple (hi Pete & Jo if you're reading, we'll check your blog to see how you get on up north!) we decided to do some more horse riding. This time the horses were a little less tranquilo, but still no great problem. We got into jeeps then went across to the peninsula opposite the main port on a barge, drove a bit futher into the estancia and off we went. The views were even better than those in Calafate as you can see from the photos - it really is a beautiful setting, with snow capped mountains all around. We even got to ride the horses through the lake itself, which was fun for us but probably not so great for them...

The only issue was that the horses often wanted to go faster than we did, so we did get thrown around a bit more and have the bruises to prove it...didn't help that the side of the saddle was digging into my leg for 2.5 hours as well. It was definitely worth it though, and quite funny that after years of not going near a horse we had managed to go riding twice in 3 days!

El Calafate horse riding

2006-11-07T00:06:00.000Z

After our failed attempt to go horse riding in Bolivia, we finally got the chance in Argentina on Saturday. We were reassured that it was going to be OK for (at best) very out of practice riders - I hadn't been on a horse for nearly 7 years, and Andrew more like 15! Also, after my concerns about not having a helmet for riding in Bolivia, I was a little worried that there weren't any here either. The difference was, however, that the company running it seemed to have lots of experience and know exactly what they were doing so we decided to go for it.

The ride took place about 20km outside El Calafate so we were picked up from our hostel and driven out along the bumpy roads in a jeep (exactly a month after our last jeep trip, brought back some memories!). The ride took place in what seemed like a huge estancia (ranch), although we later found out that it was one of the smaller ones in the area; there is a massive amount of open space here. At the starting point we already had great views of the Lago Argentino and surrounding mountains, so were looking forward to seeing some more of the area. We were introduced to our guide and our horses, given a few pointers, then together with a couple from Madrid off we went.

I was initially concerned that the horse I had was much bigger than those I had ridden before - when I was a teengaer I used to go pony trekking in Wales, so quite a different matter! However, we were both fine and enjoyed a really relaxing few hours admiring the beautiful views. The guide and the other couple with us were lovely, and fortunately the horses were muy tranquilo ie very chilled out. We were also joined by the resident dog Colin who is quite possibly the luckiest - and healthiest - dog alive as he spends all days running through open countryside...

Afterwards we helped to set the horses free, as they are able to roam around until they are brought back to work the next day. The only was that the Spanish woman set one free which was meant to be kept back to help round up the others the next day, much to the horror of the guys who would probably would have had an earlier than usual start on Sunday! We then had a great dinner (asado, of course) in the beautifully located dining room, and admired the multi-coloured sky as the sun set. All in all, not a bad way to spend and afternoon/evening...

Me looking slightly relieved after getting off the horse in one piece!

Woodpecker

2006-11-07T00:04:00.000Z

While we were sitting down to munch on our lunch at the Moreno Glacier we had the surprising visit of 2 woodpeckers, unfortunately moving too fast for me to get out the camera and take a photo..

The head of the woodpecker was an amazingly bright red colour, we both always thought that the cartoons kind of exagerated that feature, but having now seen one in the wild, maybe not...

But for your pleasure (and as proof of this experience) to the left you should see a photo of the damage a woodpecker made to one of the tall trees. I assume it was hunting for grubs/bugs, though I always wondered, how does it know where to peck?

Andrew (& Cath)

Perito Moreno Glacier

2006-11-07T00:00:00.000Z

I thought we should start with a photo - don't you just love the way I've managed to find a jacket to tone with my gorgeous hat? As you can see we were pretty close to the huge glacier at this point so it was a bit cold!

Right, back to the start...

After our relaxing day on Thursday, we were for a change quite happy to get up early on Friday morning despite having a reasonably late night on Wednesday. We went out for dinner and drinks with an English girl we had met on the whale tour, and her Aussie room mate - I may have mentioned before that red wine is very cheap here! Anyway, we got on the half full bus (it is the very start of the season here) and headed out of town along a slightly rough road which is generally not used as a new one has been built. It felt good to be the only bus on the road despite heading to a major tourist destination.

We had been promised that we would see some wildflife along the way and within a short time we stopped to look at an eagle sitting on a fence right by us. We managed to get this photo just as he took off. It also gives you the chance to see the beautiful area we were passing through. it really is one of those places that photos can't sum up, but of course we took lots anyway.

We then paused for coffee at a small lodge, and were treated to some more incredible views as well as meeting the locals...

We continued through consistently stunning area until we entered the Glacier Park itself. After a drive through the increasingly beautiful park, we finally got our first glimpse of the famous glacier. Although we were still about 6km away, it was an incredibly impressive sight, and we were lucky that our tour then took us right up close to it.

We walked for about an hour and half, down onto the shore of the turquoise lake, and every now and again could see - and definitely hear - large chunks of the glacier breaking off and falling into the lake. We were also looking at it from reasonably high up and therefore getting the full impression of its size. What is even more amazing is that it is not even close to being the biggest in the area; it is just very well known because it is easy to access.

After our lunch break (we brought our own, having to economise a fair bit here as Patagonia is far from cheap) we had some time on the viewing platforms and it was only then that we became part of the larger scale tourist crowd. It didn't feel too crowded fortunately, and we were able to spend some more time admiring the activity of the glacier.

Last and in some ways least, we had a boat trip up to the face - it was fun but not as breathtaking as some of the other views as we only got to see the wal of it. Andrew did however force down a whisky on the boat - but only because it was perfectly chilled by a tiny chunk of glacier!

All in all it was a very memorable trip, another great highlight in what was turning into a fantastic week. To bring things back vague normality, we headed back to the town, bought bus tickets for Sunday and then spent a frustrating few hours trying to get more cash - cashpoints were down and the exchanges closed! We were beginning to think that we would have to spend the following day doing not very much as everything seems to cost money and there is limited use of credit cards here. However, we got it all sorted on Saturday morning, which fortunately meant that we were able to head on to the next adventure - horse riding!

Punta Tombo & Gaiman - and the road south

2006-11-02T18:13:00.000Z

Still on a high from our day on Monday, despite being exhausted we decided to go for another long day trip early on Tuesday. Tours are the way to go in this area as public transport isn't always available This time we were heading to the penguin colony at Punta Tombo, and then on to the biggest Welsh town on the area, Gaiman.

Oh, and we also got to see some dolphins along the way! We had another hour on a boat and were able to see them (a type locally called tonino) jumping around us. Although this didn't have the same wow factor as the whales, probably because they move much quicker so you don't get the same feeling of closeness to them, it was still an amazing sight. As a bonus we also saw some seals swimming past us. We ended up with lots of photos of splashes, but also some pretty decent ones as you can see.

We then headed further south to see the Magellenic penguins, which are about half a metre tall. Punta Tombo is a breeding ground for half a million of them, and the largest colony outside Antartica. Again we were able to get very close to them, and in some cases able to get a glimpse of their eggs which they were carefully guarding. The males and females take it in turns to look after the eggs (usually 2 but only 1 will hatch) whilst the other goes out to sea for food. We therefore saw some especially fat penguins waddling back! They are fascinating little things, and I could have watched them playing around in the ocean and on the beach all day. It is incredible to see so many of them in one place, and the setting itself is also stunning. I´m very tempted to go back in a few weeks to see their newly hatched chicks...

After another rough ride in the minibus (roads were pretty rocky) we reached Gaiman, which was a totally strange experience. We left behind the acres of scrubland typical of the area, and suddenly found ourselves in a lush green valley! The Welsh settlers introduced new plants and crops to the area, and the town remains very different because of this. Interesting combinations of Welsh and Spanish names appear all over the place, and we also saw the original school building which has a motto in Welsh and Spanish above the door. Apparently this continues to confuse people no end as they don't realise that Welsh and English are just slightly different languages!

Unfortunatey we only had an hour or so in Gaiman, but luckily that was plenty of time to have tea in a very quaint "Welsh" teashop with some other English girls from our tour. We did try to explain to our guide Mauriccio (same guy as day before) that we don't generally have afternoon tea back in the UK, but he still seemed convinced that this was still typical of the south of England! Anyway, while in mini Wales it just had to be done and lots of delicious tea and cake later we jumped back on the bus ready to be dropped in the nearby city of Trelew to pick up our long distance bus to Rio Gallegos.

We weren't looking forward to another overnight trip, but it was seemingly the only way to get to where we wanted to be. Also it should be our last overnight bus as we are getting a ferry up through Chile next week (more about that later) and concentrating on a couple of places in Patagonia in the next week or so. We have decided aganst going to Ushuaia, the southernmost city in the world, not only because it is really hard to pronounce (?!) but also because it would involve many more hours on buses. It is also a key departure point for Antartica, so we´ll see the very south when we go there at some unknown point in the future, ie when we win the lottery! We always knew that we wouldn't be able to do everything in the time we have, and wanted to leave ourselves enough time to see some of Chile. It is difficult to appreciate the distances involved until you get here, but there is a danger of travelling everywhere yet seeing nowhere.

Back in Trelew, we weren't pleased to hear that the bus was delayed by over 2 hours, mainly because this would mean that we'd be restricted on connections from Rio Gallegos (by all accounts not worth a stopover) to our ultimate destination El Calafate the following afternoon. Despite our concerns and several stops by the police to check passport details (no idea why!) we eventually arrived at Rio Gallegos at 3.30pm on Wednesday. We were therefore able to get a connection at 6pm arriving in El Calafate at 10pm. In other words we had a 24 hour journey, but as we finally got away from the seemingly endless miles of this:

into stunning countryside we knew that it was worth it.

Here in El Calafate we are staying in one of the nicest hostels so far and enjoying a quiet day strolling round the town, a nice little place which reminds us of a ski resort. It is also pretty cold and windy, so the fleeces etc are being well used again. Luckily it's not raining as yet so fingers crossed on that - anything can happen weather wise here! The biggest draw of the area is the Perito Moreno glacier, 80km away, which is where we're heading tomorrow. We're doing a very highly recommended alternative day trip which involves a hike away from where the usual tourist crowds congregate, viewing of the glacier from the land and then a boat ride to get up close to it. We're also hoping to do some horse riding before we head to Puerto Natales (Chile) and the Torres del Paine area on Sunday. It´s been an amazing week so far and lots more to come...

Puerto Madryn & Península Valdés

2006-11-02T17:47:00.000Z

After a surprisingly comfortable 17 hours on the bus, we arrived in Puerto Madryn at lunchtime on Sunday and checked into the hostel we had pre booked. Although it is right at the start of the season, we had been advised to reserve in advance in Patagonia as reasonably priced double rooms in particular are hard to come by. For that reason we spent te first night in a dorm room. There is a great deal of tourism in the region - you'll see why in a minute - not just from foreign visitors but also from people from other parts of Argentina.

The hostel we stayed at was run by a lovely woman called Gladys. Yes, you have read that correctly. For those of you who don't know, there is a big connection with Wales in this part of the world as Welsh settlers came to here in mid 19th century because (in the words of a local guide) they had "a few problems" with the English. They were very successful, and the Welsh language and culture therefore remain very strong in the area, so much so that the recent Eisteddfod brought at least 200 people over from Wales. In Puerto Madryn itself this is not very obvious, but there are some signs; I'm sure John & Beryl will be pleased to hear that there is a Welsh tea shop there called Beryl! I opted to for some excellent seafood in favour of cream cakes - it would have been rude not to as we were only a block away from the mighty ocean.

On Monday we had an early start for our day trip out to the nearby Península Valdés wildflife sanctuary. Well, nearby by Argentina´s standards, ie 400km in a day! It was however, worth every minute in the minibus, and we were really lucky to have a great guide, Mauriccio, who really knew his stuff and kept us informed all the way. After a brief stop in the museum at the peninsula's entrance, we went on to see elephant seals, sealions, a few penguins, the local type of llama called Guanacos - and last and best of all whales.

It was an absolutely amazing day, especially seeing the whales get right up to our boat, as neither of us had seen them up close before. At one point there were five of them swimming around as well as under the boat. Suffice to say, it was one of the big highlights of the trip so far - I'll let the photos say the rest...

Argentinean BBQ (Asado)

2006-11-02T17:10:00.000Z

Just a couple of quick photos to describe the wonderful Argentinean institution of Asado (more commonly known to us english speakers as a BBQ!), first though you should see to your left a lovely photo of myself doing some posing with a Tango dancer in La Boca (as promised in an earlier post).. :-)

Before I go to far into this post I should warn you that some of the photos below are of a serious amount of raw cow (just for you Ryan).. So if you don't like that you might want to just move on and read about our time in Puerto Madryn...

A huge thanks to the wonderful Nancy and Pancho for inviting us to their family Asado where we got to try some wonderful slow cooked (an hour to cook that real big hunk of cow) meat, was delicious! I do have to say that we have only had one bad bit of steak here in Argentina, which is great for the taste-buds but not so great for the waistline...

Oh and I do have to add that I have now found the type of BBQ that we are going to build into our backyard (well, when we eventually get one), love the fact its also on a winch so you can easily control the heat being applied. :-)

Anyways without to much more random stuff, here's the photos, enjoy!

Clases de Español

2006-10-30T22:25:00.000Z

Well after completing 10 hours of spanish lessons (paid for a class, ended up I was the only one in it! Bargain at 300ish pesos), I can now say that I am not fluent in spanish. However I can say that my understanding of spoken & written spanish has improved a hell of a lot (me speaking spanish still leaves a lot to be desired though). The best part is that I'm more comfortable in picking up new words, particularly as I've got a basic understanding of sentence structure and link words (I still stuff it up when I try and put a sentence together, but I mostly understand when I hear it)

One of the best things about having done these lessons, is that when a native speaker finds out that I don't speak spanish but am trying to learn, I now get more out of their improptu lessons :-) Though that said I have noticed an interesting aspect of learning another language, I'm not sure if its just me, but I don't think so..

In essence it is that when people have long conversations or there is a reasonably long bit of text (say in a museum or newspaper article) that I actually have the most understanding, when a short sentence is used (in conversation or on a display) I need to know 1 specific key word being used to understand the whole sentence... Whereas in a long conversation there is usually a running theme where the topic is usually repeated multiple times, but in different ways. Meaning that I, with my limited spanish vocabulary am more likely to understand 1 of those 3 ways that you used, I can then put into context the other words and hopefully recognise them the next time they are used.

It's just something I've noticed in trying to learn more spanish, that I want people to do the opposite of what you (and I include myself in this) do when you meet someone who doesn't speak your language, you use shorter sentences, this only helps when the person knows that specific key word. If you use a longer sentence I seem to have a better chance...

Of course this only helps when I understand at least one or two of the words in that longer sentence, if I don't know any of them I'm still stuffed. For that I've got my lonely planet phrase book (which I'm studying during these long bus journeys!) and of course the fluent Cath (who I keep bugging with "¿Como se dice ...?", "¿Qué significa ...?")

Ok, I didn't really know what to say about learning Spanish, but I guess there was something... Hopefully it made sense, if not I'll try and use fewer words :-)

Where are we?

Just a quick follow on, we're currently in Puerto Madryn (about 17hrs South of Buenos Aires) have been out to see the whales and off to see the half a million penguins tomorrow. Should have some spectacular pictures to upload in a couple of days!

Take care,
Andrew (& Cath)

Buenos Aires photos part 1

2006-10-29T21:44:00.000Z

Some of the many Plaza San Martin hearts :-)

Evitas´ tomb & the ornate cemetery

At the fútbol :-D

Casa Rosada

Madres de la Plaza de Mayo

La Boca - el caminito

Cath with Nancy and Pancho 's brilliantly named dog - Lennon!

Us with the family (and delicious ice cream!)

Final Buenos Aires

2006-10-29T19:19:00.000Z

On Thursday afternoon we finally managed to meet up with Nancy and Pancho, who very kindly came to pick us up from the hostel. We then headed to the main square, Plaza de Mayo, to see the weekly Madres de Plaza de Mayo march. In a nutshell the mothers of some of the many people (estimated up to 30,000) who disappeared in Argentina during the military dictactorship (from 1976) began to march in the city centre in the 1970s and continue to do so every week. It was originally just to fight for justice for the disappeared, but has become a human rights organisation with further reaching aims. We were really pleased to have the opportunity to see it for ourselves.

From here, Nancy and Pancho took us to La Boca area of town, home to the famous brightly coloured building (Caminito) as well as the football stadium and lots of tango. We resisted the temptation to have our photo taken with a Maradona lookalike, but Andrew found the tango dancer a little more difficult to resist. Will post a photo soon... We then headed to Nancy & Pancho's house and enjoyed some far too delicious pastries (called facturas) and the incredibly popular local drink mate which is similar to herbal tea, only quite bitter - definitely an acquired taste! We also got to meet their lovely dog Lennon, so called because Pancho is a Beatles fanatic. I did try speaking to the dog in scouse but he didn't seem too impressed! All in all it was really good to spend time with the family, who made us feel extremely welcome. They also asked us over to join their family for a traditional asado (BBQ/grill) on Friday night, an invite we were very happy to accept.

I spent some more time wandering through some of the leafier suburbs of town on Friday morning, before meeting up with Andrew post class. Pausing only to go to the supermarket so Andrew could learn some more Spanish shopping vocab, we had a typically good and cheap lunch before going to the Museo Nacional de las Bellas Artes - aka National Art Museum. There is a pretty impressive collection there, the most famous piece being Rodin's statue 'The Kiss' and also a good selection of other international stuff (including some impressionist paintings which I always particularly like) as well as national collections.

Early evening we headed back over to Nancy & Pancho's to sample some real local cooking; again we will post some more photos next time we are in an internet place where we can upload. Andrew and Pancho overcame their language barrier whilst cooking on the huge outdoor grill - Nancy and I decided that BBQ style cooking is a universal male language in itself! We had a great time, and headed back to the hostel well and truly stuffed with food and really happy that we had been able to get to know them a little.

Saturday was our last day in Buenos Aires, and we managed to fit in some more sightseeing round the central area, revisiting some of the things we had seen only briefly. We also had another bargain lunch - eat as much as you want including lots of salads, good chinese food, a grill and various desserts amongst other things - for under 2 pounds each. We were trying to work out what you could get in central London for that price and gave up pretty quickly.

My last stop in the city was the outdoor shop - I bought a really tasteful (honestly) orange wind and waterproof jacket to see me through the next few weeks. My old one wasn't in the greatest state, and the general message about Patagonia is that it is windy and can be very wet, so really thought I should go prepared. We finally waved the big city goodbye early evening, as we boarded our overnight bus for the 17 hour journey to our first Patagonian desitnation - Puerto Madryn.

More Buenos Aires

2006-10-28T20:37:00.000+01:00

By Monday the heat had really kicked in; it was about 30 degrees but felt hotter not least because we were in the middle of the city. In search of at least some breeze we headed to the recently redeveloped port area, Puerto Madero, which as would seem typical of such areas across the world is full of higher end restaurants and bars. Quite interesting to see but nothing too special. We also wandered onto a tall ship which had been turned into a museum - it was good to see photos of some of the expeditions it had survived especially as some of the places were down south of the country ie where we are headed next.

We then walked through to the main square - Plaza de Mayo - home of the famous Casa Rosada (Pink House) ie the main government building where Evita made her famous speeches to the people. This area is also where all the other government offices are concentrated, as well as the cathedral. After walking for a few hours I was starting to feel the effects of the heat (Andrew's theory is that my body is confused because it should be nearly winter!?) and so we headed back to the hostel to crash for a while.

I soon felt better and we decided to head out to a highly recommended steak house (Parilla) called Desnivel, which was so good that even I almost got excited about eating steak. Also, before we went out I had called Margarita's sister Nancy to try to arrange meeting up. I found the conversation really difficult as the place I was calling from was very noisy, and I'm really not very good at speaking Spanish on the phone at the best of times. We got there in the end and I arranged to call her mobile the next day to arrange meeting up on Tuesday evening.

Tuesday morning was the first of Andrew's classes so he went to school and I went shopping! There is an incredible amount of leather on sale here and at a fraction of the price you'd pay at home. I resisted the shoes (Em aka fabshoes - you would love it here!) and came away with just a new purse - pretty controlled, I thought. I suppose it helps that I don't like shopping that much in the first place, especially when people are trying to push you to go into their shops. Nevertheless the range is very good and if I didn't already have nearly full backpack I might have been more tempted.

After Andrew finished class (he'll post more details later re what he's been learning) we headed to the vast Retiro bus station to arrange our trip out of Buenos Aires. It was also a good way to get into the air conditioning to escape the 35 degree heat! As Andrew's classes were 2 hours a day for 5 days, we opted to get an bus to Puerto Madryn overnight Saturday - a 17 hour trip, yes Argentina is big! Once we had sorted that out I managed to speak to mum (and dad again) which was great although I have to admit made me want to go home! I'm fine again now but I suppose it would be odd if we both didn't have our moments as life on the road is far from normal (whatever that may be...)

Anyway, after looking at some more bus options and puzzling over how on earth we're going to get to all the places we want to see in the time we have, we headed off to the really fascinating Evita museum. I already knew a fair bit about her life, but what I didn't realise was the extent to which she was hated by many. For example, I wasn't aware or at least didn't remember reading that after her death her body was kidnapped then remained missing for years. Her influence here was clearly immense, but love for the Perons certainly wasn't universal.

Meanwhile, throughout Tuesday we had tried to get hold of Nancy but with no success, so we ended up having a quiet dinner near the hostel - where bizarrely Andrew's chicken was served with a fried banana! When I finally spoke to Nancy again on Wednesday it turned out that she hadn't received my messages and had been trying to contact us at a different hotel with a similar name. Unfortunately this meant that we had missed the meal to which we had been invited on Tuesday, but we did makes plans for later on the week.

Wednesday meanwhile was good in so much as the heat had subsided, and I was therefore much happier to be doing some more walking round. Andrew went to class, whilst I wandered round the attractive and affluent area of town where his school was (Palermo). As it happened the place where I had worked five years ago was nearby, so we had lunch at the cafe from which I had eaten takeaway twice a day for about 2 weeks! It was odd that they area didn't seem too familiar to me but then it was a long time ago. We spent the afternoon in the MALBA modern art museum, which I would summarise as generally interesting but not necessarily our most highly recommended!

Buenos Aires - last weekend

2006-10-28T15:38:00.000+01:00

Sorry we're a bit behind on this, I actually wrote this on Wednesday but blogger has been refusing to publish any posts! Will update more very soon...

It's now Wedensday evening and as we've been here for five days I thought it was about time to add an update or 2 before I start to forget things - photos to follow, sorry non readers! It doesn't feel like we've done a huge amount, but then when I start to think about it I suppose we have been reasonably busy. We just don't feel the need to rush around as for a change we have plenty of time. Also it has been unusually hot for mid Spring; although Andrew can handle striding around in the sunshine after years of practice, I've been struggling a little more and as a result the pace has generally been reduced to a slow stroll!

Saturday was our first full day here, and we decided to be true tourists and head to the Recoleta cemetery where Evita is buried. As we walked the half hour or so to get there we came across a large display of giant model hearts in Plaza San Martin, each one decorated in a different way. We were told that the exhibition was commissioned to celebrate a local heart surgeon winning the Nobel prize. It was one of those unusual things that it's always good to a stumble across, and is indicative of the variety of things going on in Buenos Aires, particulalry arty stuff.

The weekend crafts fair in the park next to the cemetery was another indication of this. Granted there are some tacky things on sale there and tourists are the main buyers, but generally speaking the many stalls contained very different things than we had seen elsewhere. There was plenty I decided would look lovely in the house we don't yet own (a common theme) but as most items were either breakable (gorgeous glass) or wooden (and therefore difficult to get into Australia) our stash of pesos lived to see another day. Good job really as relative to other places we have been it is quite expensive here - although still very cheap by UK standards - and we are certainly spending more in day to day expenses.

We finally made it to the cemetery itself, and found it rather odd to be a sold a complete map of where the deceased elite of Argentina are now at rest. Many people come here just to see Evita's tomb, but the whole place is a spectacle in itself as the tombs are so ornate - in fact some might say over the top, you can make up your own mind when you see the photos! It is a big area surrounded by high walls, but as it is in the middle of the city the surrounding area is quite built up. Many people must therefore look out of their office windows and see tourists wandering round a cemetery, strange when you think about it but seemingly very normal here.

Pausing only for a quick beer, we wandered back towards 'home' through some of the smarter areas of town. As it was Saturday evening we did think of going out to some bars etc but in the end we didn't really feel like it so opted for a quiet evening instead. The bar in the hostel is really chilled out - and has some very comfy sofas - so we were quite happy to hang around here. The clubbing scene is apparently really big in Buenos Aires (in fact we have met one couple who have done several 20 hour bus journeys just to get back here for the weekend!) but seeing as we don't really go clubbing at home we're not really that bothered about it here. It was also a case of trying to kick our body clocks back into something vaguely resembling normality, and making sure that we were awake to do some more things on Sunday.

We were therefore up at a reasonable time on Sunday morning and headed down to the San Telmo area of town. This is where a lot of the tango culture is concentrated, and is also home to a huge antiques market on a Sunday. The number of stalls and shops was impressive, and it was good to just soak up the atmosphere. Unfortunately we weren't able to spend too much time people watching, but we didn't mind too much as we were off to the futbol...

Bearing in mind I had just heard the depressing news of the Liverpool defeat at Old Trafford I wasn't really in the mood for football, but whilst in Argentina it just had to be done! Unfortunately there wasn't a Boca Juniors game this weekend, but we did get tickets for the next best thing ie the almost as famous River Plate v Rosario Central (mid table). On the advice of several people we had gone as part of a tour - tickets, transfer and a guide included - as it is not really considered safe to head to the ground alone, but to be honest it didn't feel at all threatening. I suppose that may be because I have been to a fair few football matches and so wouldn't really expect it to be the most polite of environments, but of course there is also a fair bit of profit to be made by exploiting tourists' fear of the unknown.

After an early afternoon pick up from the hostel we did several loops of the city centre to pick up other tourists, and eventually we made it to the stadium. We had been told that we would be heading to the club shop (Rivermania) first, which made sense, but it did seem a bit odd that we had to duck under the partially closed shutters to get in. We got the distinct impression that they were expecting a riot and we were being sheltered from it! To be fair, security was tighter than perhaps is usual as there has been some civil unrest in the area over the past week - the Boca game in another area was cancelled because security could't be guaranteed - but I don't think tourists would really be a target and there were no obvious signs of problems in the vicinity.

The match itself was an easy win for River Plate, putting them one point ahead of their arch rivals Boca at the top of the table at least until the games played even out. It wasn't the greatest game of football I've ever seen but the atmosphere was fantastic, two particular highlights being the drenching of the main home and away stands at half time to cool down the packed terraces, and the reaction after the final whistle. We have that on video so will post it up here soon. After the match, we ventured out to a local Chinese restaurant where we had a pretty decent meal. It's definitely one of the advantages of being in a big city to be able to get all types of cuisine again, it's amazing what food you miss simply because you can't get it!

The road to - and day 1 in - Buenos Aires

2006-10-21T04:25:00.000+01:00

Fortunately our bus for our 9 hour trip from Cordoba to Buenos Aires left dead on time at 11.15pm on Thursday night, but unfortunately we didn't manage to get anywhere near a full night of sleep despite paying extra for the fully reclining 'coche cama' (bus bed) seats. Even I - aka the Queen of Sleeping - struggled! I think it may have been because we weren't exhausted enough when our trip started, and also there seemed to be a few problems with the air con so we kept on waking up either boiling hot or freezing cold. We weren't too worried as we had already booked a hostel and so headed straight there feeling rather smug about our pre planning, and looking forward to a shower and a few more hours of sleep.

The best laid plans and all that! We were a little concerned that our taxi seemed to be heading a fair distance away from the central bus station, but decided that we were in a large city with a decent tube system (called Subte here) so it didn't really matter if we weren't staying right in the centre of town. We arrived at the hostel which seemed decent from outside, and the communal areas also seemed fine. However, when we saw the small and at best rough around the edges despite efforts to make it look arty room, the dirty pillows, the 2 far from great showers between approx 20 people and worst of all something that looked suspiciously like a dead bug on the lumpy bed we decided not to stick around! Unfortunately it ended up that we had to pay for the first night - reasonable enough I suppose, as our booking was for 6 nights and as far as I was concerned it was not a lot of money well spent to get out of there.

We left our stuff and headed out for breakfast then to a nearby internet cafe to check out a few more options in the city. Armed with our list we went off to check them out with the help of the very easy to use Subte, and although not brilliant found a couple of decent places which we would have gone with. However, bearing in mind we are planning to stay for a week we were prepared to keep looking despite it obviously all taking a bit of time. In the end we had everything sorted by about 2pm - including a return trip by Subte to the original hostel - and we were really glad that we hadn't given up our search earlier. We have ended up in a really lovely freshly decorated double room in a very recently converted, extremely central, reasonably priced hostel which actually feels somewhere between an apartment and a hotel. Have look at the link and you'll see what I mean: Hostel Suites Obelisco

The only real drawback is that is is pretty quiet in terms of meeting people (we've only met one other person so far) but then this is also advantage in some ways as we have our own - much needed at this stage in the trip - space. Also it is Friday night so most people are probably out (yes, I know we should be too, having a few drinks in the hostel bar where we are now and it is well past midnight if that counts?) and I'm sure we'll have plenty of opportunity to be sociable over the next week.

Andrew is also taking 10 hours of Spanish classes here, starting on Tuesday, as he has been increasingly keen to learn some more of the language as the weeks have gone by. He's picked up a fair amount already and I have been teaching him some of the basics e.g. numbers (something else to do on long bus journeys, especially when there's on-bus bingo!) but he's really looking forward to building on that with some proper teaching. He was able to arrange his classes easily through the hostel. I'm pretty sure that with his undoubted talent for learning computer languages he should do pretty well with the basically very logical Spanish language - not sure how he'll go with the irregular verbs though, should be interesting!

There is also so much to do and see here that we're looking forward to starting exploring properly tomorrow - so far we have just wandered around our immediate area which is pretty much the equivalent of London's West End. As some of your know I was out here for a few weeks 5 years ago doing some work for the company I used to work for, but I only had one day off so very much looking forward to seeing some of the things I frustratingly almost saw then. Also, Margarita & Amon (hi if you're reading this!), our Chilean friends from home who many of you will have met over our wedding weekend, have family here (Margarita's sister & family) so we will be contacting them over the next few days and hopefully we will have the chance to meet up.

All in all, we're really looking forward to spending time in Buenos Aires and the icing on the cake (and, by the way, there is a massive amount of very delicious looking cake on sale here)...no buses for a whole week!

PS It was really good to speak to Andrew's Mum, both our Dads and Helen on Thursday/Friday. Mum - very sorry I missed you, hope you enjoyed your evening on Thursday and I will give you a call over the next few days. Lots of love to all and see you all very soon xxx

Tucumán y Cordoba

2006-10-20T01:11:00.000+01:00

Spelling update: having keyboard issues (every one I use seems to be different) so the accents have gone again for the time being I'm afraid...

It's been a challenging few days since we last posted, as we have been travelling a lot and it has all started to catch up with us. Well, me in particular, although I'm feeling much better again now that we're going to be in Buenos Aires (more about that on the next post) for a week or so. That's not to say that we haven't enjoyed the cities we've visited in the past few days but I suppose it's just a case of having done lots in 6 weeks and covered a fair distance in the past week alone. In fact, as one of our many methods to kill time whilst travelling we added up how many hours we had spent on buses and trains since we arrived in Lima - yes, we were very bored... The current count is approx. 89 hours, which doesn't include the (infamous) jeep trip or day tours etc. Quite scary!

Anyway, going back to where we left off, on Tuesday afternoon we wandered round Tucuman feeling increasingly tired, but enjoying the relaxed small city atmosphere of the place. It was very clear that this is not a city used to many English speaking tourists passing through, and lots of people turned to look at us when they heard us talking - quite a novelty compared with a most of the places we have been to so far. A few people actually stopped to ask us where we were from, and seemed really pleased that we had chosen to visit their city; it certainly seemed like a friendly place and had some attractive architecture as you can see.

We were however, more than ready to leave when the time for our bus came closer, mainly because we were exhausted and looking forward to getting some sleep. We were due to board at around 1am (by which time we had been up 20 hours) but unfortunately the coach didn't make an appearance until 2.40am. To say that we were a bit grumpy would be an understatement!

However, when we finally left we managed to get a reasonable amount of sleep and so on arrival in Cordoba at around 10am on Wednesday we felt just about lively (and brave) enough to book our next overnight bus to Buenos Aires for Thursday night. Perhaps needless to say we opted to use a different company, easily done as there is a long list to choose from on many routes. We then checked into a decent enough hostel in Cordoba for the night, and I crashed out for a few hours, leaving Andrew to wander for a while. Later on we both had a walk through the city, but it was certainly not the most active of days and we spent the evening relaxing in the hostel.

The next day we felt much more with it, and we were able to take in some of the interesting sights of the city. Cordoba has a very strong university tradition and is therefore known as 'La Docta' - as a result of its historical importance the city is designated a UNESCO world heritage site and I suppose it could be described as the Oxbridge equivalent in Argentina. It is home to the oldest university in the country, founded by Jesuits in the early 17th century. We had a really interesting tour of the the old university building - with an excellent guide who was struggling with a load of largely disinterested teenagers!

We also were taken round the adjacent Compañia de Jesus church dating back to mid 17th century. It was once one of the most important churches in central South America, and is therefore ornate inside despite a relatively plain exterior. It has a particulalry interesting and unusual ceiling, shaped like the hull of a ship. I also found it really interesting that there was a connection with Lourdes (where I went a few times as a teenager as part of Liverpool Youth Service to help look after sick pilgrims) in that one of the Italians who was involved in the construction of a side chapel in the late 19th century had apparently promised a relative that they would include a chapel dedicated to Our Lady of Lourdes. It was quite a surprise to find this so far away from the South of France, but the varied rather than strictly colonial European influence is feeling stronger the further we get into Argentina; there has been a lot of immigration here over the years. In fact generally speaking Cordoba had a very European feel and it was nice to sit out in the cafes enjoying the the sunshine and sampling the local (cold - see photo!) beer.

I was also relieved that I was once more able to understand most of what was being said. I have been getting increasingaly frustrated in the past week or so as the accents in Northern Argentina are very difficult for me to follow. I didn't have too too many problems in Peru or Bolivia despite the clear variation from the accent in Spain, but in Argentina I had found that they speak incredibly quickly and not very clearly, don't like pronouncing the letter s, and the 'll' sounds is a strong 'j' amongst other things. The guide on our Cafayate trip actually apologised for the fact that his region's accent is one of the most difficult to follow, so that reassured me slightly, but as we have headed further south it has been getting easier again. Let's hope it stays that way...

Tucumán town hall lit up at dusk..

Some photos from wandering around Cordoba, first the Jesuit church (which looks like an upside down ship's hull inside)

A tram on display (though they don't seem to have them any more)

A view in the central courtyard of the original Jesuit university college of Cordoba

The Cathedral which is a very odd mix of styles

A photo of the interesting purple trees that we've been noticing recently (there were lots in Tucumán), which Cath wants to plant in our garden (when we eventually get one) We're a bit botanically challenged - anyone know what the tree is????

And finally just an odd photo (to signify the nice relaxing day we had in Cordoba), where when I poured my very cold beer into my very cold glass a small reaction occurred that turned almost half the beer into ice.. Still tasted good though :-)

Cafayate - photos

2006-10-17T20:59:00.000+01:00

View through the main plaza

Some of the mountains north of the town (it was a bit windy so Cath nearly lost her hat!)

The wine and cheese tour :-)

Salta, Cafayate & Tucumán

2006-10-17T20:42:00.000+01:00

Before I start, in case anyone had noticed - and I know there are some Spanish speakers amongst you - I have only just worked out (well, I asked Andrew) how to get accents on letters. Will try to get it right from now on...

We are now in a city called Tucumán, and 5 hours into the 13 hour gap between arriving here from Cafayate and getting on our overnight bus to Córdoba. We leave at the highly uncivilised hour of 1.30am, but decided to keep moving rather than spend more time here as it not an especially inspiring city and is also stuffily hot. However, it has been worth stopping here as I have just had the excitement of wandering round the biggest supermarket we've seen in South America so far. I love supermarkets in other countries, which stems I think from going to massive French hypermarkets whilst on holiday as a child. Even more exciting is that I have just bought a Spanish version of a book from the Redwall series by Brian Jacques. When I was 7 I performed in a play called Redwall which was later turned into a bestselling children's book, and a series of other books followed. They have been massively successful worldwide, but it was still slightly odd to stumble across one on Argentina and of course I just had to buy it!

Anyway, enough of me acting like a small child, back a few days for an update on what we've been up to. To be honest we didn't really do much in Salta, but we did really enjoy our relaxing time there. It is an attractive city to be in despite being very busy and we enjoyed some good food and wine, including Andrew's first steak of what will no doubt be very many (Ryan - we will see what we can do re your typically random request for steak photos!) On a more negative note, the hostel we were staying in was not great, especially as I ended up with flea bites from the resident dog. As per usual I reacted badly to them and although much better now, it was more than a little annoying.

This was an example of a hostel raved about in our Lonely Planet guide being not very good, and we are finding that if at all possible getting tips from other travellers is the way forward; the book is a good few years out of date and so things can change quite significantly. Reviews are also inevitably subjective, and some of the places highlighted as must see are not always great in our view. Of course the people you are with can also make a huge difference, and fortunately we have generally been very lucky in that, especially over the past few weeks. And in case anyone was wondering we're still quite happy spending time together too!

As you have probably realised, we are taking a bit more time working our way through Argentina, so we're stopping off at some of the smaller places along the way rather than just hitting one city after another. After a bit of research we decided to make an early start on Sunday to head 4 hours South to the town of Cafayate, which is in the middle of a big wine region. It is famous for Torrontés white but there are also some more than decent reds. We thought that a combination of wine tours and exploring some of the nearby apparently stunning rock formations would be a reasonable combination. We weren't disappointed, especially as this time we were in a really good hostel where a tour of a couple of local wineries was included in the 3 pounds each per night B&B cost!

We were also able to get on a 5 hour tour of the Quebrada de Cafayate on Sunday afternoon, which we really enjoyed. As you'll see from the photos the area is impressive, and also it was good to do a bit more active (albeit gentle active) stuff again. No, we're not going all sporty on you - far from it - but there is a danger of wine and delicious food taking us over so we are tryng to keep a balance, honest. We definitely tipped in favour of the wine yesterday though, after our wine and cheese tasting tour starting at the rather dangerous hour of 10.30am - not a bad way to spend a Monday morning!

It was really interesting to find out more about how the wine is produced, and even more interesting to find that you could buy an extremely good quality Merlot for about 3 pounds. We had a really good day and met some really interesting people sitting out on the sunny terrace in the hostel, but needless to say getting up for a 6am bus this morning was not much fun. We're glad we did haul ourselves out of bed though, as we're looking forward to seeing a few more places over the next few days before reaching Buenos Aires in time for the weekend.

Some of the beautiful mountains around Tilcara

2006-10-16T20:49:00.000+01:00

Views from the walk around Purmamarca

Us by the ruins (El Pucara) near Tilcara

Our first few days in Argentina

2006-10-13T17:50:00.000+01:00

Before I go any further, for those of you who are just looking at the pictures (and I know there are a few of you out there!) we will be posting some more within the next day or so. In the meantime just wanted to add an update about our journey from Bolivia into Northern Argentina, and our first impressions of this huge country.

We left Tupiza in Bolivia on Tuesday afternoon, and travelled the couple of hours to the border on a very shaky bus. The road was pretty rough and it really did feel like the windows were going to fall out as we rattled along. We got to the border town of Villazon and the border crossing itself was very straightforward. We were travelling with an Aussie/Kiwi couple, Teneille & Rob, and the four of us jumped into a cab on the Argentina side (in the town of La Quiaca) for the short trip to the bus station.

Our destination was Tilcara, a small village about 3 hours south of the border. After being hassled by various bus companies (we're used to that now) we got tickets for a bus we thought would be leaving in around an hour and a half. However, we didn't realise that Argentina time is one hour ahead of Bolivian - we're now just 4 hours behind the UK - so we didn't have a long wait at all. The bus ride was fine, and the roads very much better than the Bolivian ones. In fact the higher standard of living in Argentina was immediately obvious despite the fact that we were in the country's poorest province. It wasn't just the roads, but the buses, range of food available, better cars and most striking of all the sudden appearance of street lights in even the smallest towns, which we realised we hadn't seen for quite some time.

We were lucky in that our bus wasn't searched en route from La Quiaca. Smuggling across the border is a big problem so searches are common - we got away with just a quick passport check. We reached Tilcara at about 10.30pm and, as instructed, headed to catch a cab to the hostel we had booked. Considering we were in a small town of approx 3000 people this was easier said that done. After a few minutes of hanging round like, er, confused tourists we decide to follow a sign to a nearby hospedaje (guest house) and were really glad we did. Tilcara is somewhat off the usual gringo trail, but is well known as an artists area due to the stunning backdrop of multicoloured mountains. The accommodatation we ended up with really reflected this arty feel - not the most luxurius setting but very homely, rustic and quirky and best of all less than half the price of the other hostel we had planned to stay in!

The next day we caught the local bus for the half hour trip to the nearby town of Purmamarca to go for a walk around the beautifully coloured rocks. We then headed back to Tilcara and walked up to the fort of Pucara above the town. I think you probably need to see the photos to appreciate the stunning views! The other big excitement of that day was the food - nearly as cheap but much better than what we had been eating in Bolivia. The Lonely Planet describes Bolivia´s food as "ho-hum" and that is pretty accurate, whereas we were able to get much more creative stuff as soon as we crossed the border. One big excitement was getting fresh vegetables with our meals as this is something we had really been missing.

After wandering through the at times very grim (lots of skulls!) Tilcara museum yesterday morning, we caught a lunchtime bus and arrived here in Salta late afternoon after being slightly delayed by a half hour pretty half hearted bus search. Salta is a busy city with lots of shops, and despite the fact that neither of us are big on shopping it is good to be somewhere where we can buy a few things we need. Andrew finally managed to get some trainers that fit him - we've been trying since Cusco! We also spent a very excited half hour in the supermarket, and made dinner for 6 for a mere 1 pound each including - you've guessed it - just about every variety of veg we could get our hands on.

Oh yes, and the wine is amazing and so cheap, so there were a few sore heads in our hostel this morning. We're off to do some wandering around the city now and plan to stay in Salta until Sunday, before heading a few hours further south to some of the best wine regions. Dad - not quite sure when our next tea day will be!

From the Salar de Uyuni to Tupiza

2006-10-09T17:44:00.000+01:00

We set off at 7am on Friday morning, after establishing the night before that we were going to stop to see some mummies in the town of San Juan. This little side trip was interesting, although the mummies themselves were a bit grim and not always especially realistic, leading us to suspect that some were planted there simply to get 5 bolivianos out of tourists. Oh, such cynics we are! Our next stop was the really fascinating caves which were formed from fossilised algae and only discovered in 2002. Even I had to stoop to avoid hitting my head, which of course I didn't do - another bruise to add to the one I got when stumbling from the jeep the previous day. Consistent at least...

We were then heading in the direction of several apparently beautifully coloured lakes to spot flamingoes and admire yet more stunning montainous backdrops. We could tell that there was a bit of anxiety among the drivers about the health of our jeep, and so we weren't especially surprised when it made a very odd noise, Abel shouted out "Dios mio" (My God) and we came to an abrupt halt. It was around 9.30am. The cheery Swiss guy and friends from the other jeep also had to get out whilst their driver took ours to the nearest town to phone for a replacement jeep. They said they'd be back within 3 hours which to be fair they were, and this meant that the other group carried on, smirking at us as they left. However, the promise that it would take another hour and half for a replacement to arrive was at best an underestimate.

It was at this point that we really bonded as a group, and the reaction of 'Eduardo' in particular was very entertaining. Lots of other jeeps passed us and stopped to offer help, to which he continually requested beer! Sadly we didn't get any but Emily did entertain us by playing her travel size guitar, we played cards, wandered up a nearby hill and read lots of sections of the Lonely Planet South America guide, irrespective of whether we were planning to visit the country in question! Fortunately we had broken down in a very lovely place, but after 6 and a half hours the attraction had worn rather thin.

We were finally on our way again in the replacement jeep at around 4pm. The boss of the company was absolutely certain that we would be able to see everything that was on our itinerary. We pretty much did albeit a bit more quickly that would usually be the case, including beautiful lakes and hundreds of flamingoes. As it begain to get dark, however, our anxiety levels rose - bear in mind that the road is not really a road at all, so very rough and rocky, and there are certainly no street lights! We were however treated to an illuminated view of the arbol de piedra (rock tree) courtesy of our replacement driver Felipe´s headlights. We also saw the most amazing views of the full moon, an incredible sight which we would have missed if we hadn't been driving so late in the day. Finally we arrived at our destination around 8pm and after dinner close to 10pm we were more than ready for some sleep.

After our first night of sharing a freezing cold dorm we were up at 5am the next day to head off again. In summary we saw geysers, bathed in hot springs, saw more lakes, more stunnng countryside and really did have the feeling that there was something more beautiful around every corner. Again the photos say it all. There is no doubt that if so much natural beauty was found in one area in another country, the tourism trade would be stronger but the fact that it is still relatively untouched is a big part of the attraction. Unfortunately due to the delays the night before we didn't get to see the apparently beautiful Laguna Colorada which is a rusty red colour, but we had seen so much that we didn't feel like we had missed out on much at all.

After another fun evening (despite eating the world' most overcooked spaghetti!) we were off again early the next day to head towards Tupiza on the final leg of the journey. This was by far the worst day, mainly because the roads were so steep and the driving so scary. There were also no notable sights and we were not happy that we had been lied to about going to see the place where Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid were killed. We felt that we had been very patient and good humoured through the problems of the trip, and although we were more than happy to go with the flow we really didn't appreciate being lied to.

We were back with Abel at this point - jeep number 3 - and really there should be a law against 24 year old guys driving too fast around steep mountains! We climbed up and then descended from just over 5000m - at the highest point when he stopped for us to admire the view I honestly thought that we were heading off the side of the cliff. This wasn't helped by the fact that about 10 munites earlier I had overhead Abel tell the cook that there were problems with the brakes - sometimes I really wish I didn't understand Spanish! We were very relieved to reach Tupiza 2 nerve wracking hours later and after making our concerns very clear we all booked into a lovely and very cheap hotel - our first shower in 5 days was very welcome!

Dishonesty from guides seems to be a common complaint in Bolivia, which is really unfortunate as it is wonderful place. It has without a doubt been fascinating to spend a bit of time here and they really do have claim to some of the most beautiful sights I have ever seen. We have now had a relaxing stopover in the small town of Tupiza. We were due to go horseriding but refused because the guide was extremely rude to us when we asked for the helmets we'd been promised - we felt we had enough of living life too close to the edge for a few days at least! We are now about to head to the border with Argentina and are certainly leaving Bolivia with many happy memories.

Day 2

Day 3

Day 4

From Oruro to Uyuni and Salar

2006-10-09T16:59:00.000+01:00

It really is difficult to know where to start in summarising the past week, so I am going to split it into 2 bits and rely on photographs to do a lot of the talking. What I will say first and foremost is that if you ever get the chance to come to South West Bolivia do it - it is one of the most stunning, fascinating and varied landscapes you are ever likely to see. Oh, and make sure that a guy called Abel isn't your jeep driver. More about that later, for now back to the start...

Last time we posted we were just about to board the train for the 6 hours trip from Oruro to Uyuni; it really was the stunning journey we had expected. Almost as soon as we left the station we very going through the middle of what seemed like a lake, complete with flamingoes and cows walking through the water - very bizarre sensation but a beautiful sight. We passed through many small towns and villages on the way, and also endless plains with stunning mountains and hills as the continuous backdrop. As you can see the views at sunset were stunning and it was a bit disappointing that the last 2 hours of the trip were in darkness.

When we arrived in Uyuni at 10.30pm we were greeted by lots of people trying to sell us beds for the night and tours of the Salar de Uyuni otherwise known as the salt flats. The place we ended up staying at was basic but fine, pretty much the same description as I'd use for the town itself, and we were tired so decided to wait until the next day to decide on which tour group to go with. We spent a quiet Wednesday in Uyuni, which has no remarkable attractions but it is the main starting point for tours so always attracts tourists. We were able to sort out a 4 day trip very easily, and chose to go with the company that would drop us in the town of Tupìza, 3 hours north of the border with Argentina. The other options would be to head into Chile or back to Uyuni, neither of which fitted with our plans.

On Thursday morning we found out that we were sharing Abel's jeep with a Dutch couple - Kira and Eduardo as he calls himself as his Dutch name Ewout is too hard for people to pronounce! - and an American girl called Rebecca. We had a brief stop at the very odd home for dead trains and then went on to the salt flats. I am not going to try too hard to explain the landscape, apart from it looked like ice but in fact was 12000 sqare km of salt which was once a sea. Totally incredible sight especially when all you could see all around you was pure white. The whole scene did very odd things to your perception of distance the silly photos show, and it is even possible to stay in the middle of it all in salt hotels.

After playing around like small children for a while, we were in really good spirits as we reached our lunch stop. Unfortunately the group in the other jeep from our company were not so positive and there was a bit of an argument going on. A Swiss guy who continually proved himself to be unpleasant over the next few days was being extremely confrontational as he didn't think that the tour corresponded with the contract he had signed. We´re still not quite sure what he thought he was missing. The end result was that another American girl called Emily transferred to our jeep as he was giving her a really hard time for not translating all his complaints. We just thought that he was missing the point and were happy to welcome the very positive Emily into our group. Our team as we called ourselves from then on was complete!

After lunch we headed on to see some more of the salt flats, including an island filled with cacti, another surreal but beautiful sight as you can see from the photo. We then left the salt flats and headed to our first stop for the night, admiring the light doing spectaular things to the mountains as the evening drew closer. All in all it was a magical day followed by lots of good chats and laughter through the evening. We were all very pleased that we had been thrown together yet got on so well, and went to bed looking forward to more adventures the following day. We weren't going to be disappointed...

La Paz - photos

2006-10-08T17:32:00.000+01:00

Bolivian traffic

Love the hats :-)

One of the protests we got to see..

An interesting few days in La Paz

2006-10-03T18:02:00.000+01:00

After our impressive first glimpses of the city on Friday evening, our bus took us down to the city centre. We were slightly disconcerted when the tourist police (no, I'm not making that bit up) got on the bus just before we were due to get off, escorted us off and took details of all the taxi drivers who were picking us up. They also told us to take great care of our belongings, and although reassuring in some ways their presence did seem a little at odds with what appeared to be a bustling but not immediately threatening city. Anyway, we were pleased that we had pre booked the Adventure Brew Hostel (complete with its own micro brewery and a free beer for each night of your stay!) so that we didn´t need to wander round the city with all our belongings.

We dumped our stuff in our very nice room and then spent a good few hours in the bar before heading out with a group for dinner at a highly recommended albeit somewhat unexpected Lebanese restaurant. (Mum, in answer to your question re food will post on this soon I promise, although the short answer is everything from pizza to alpaca!) We had a good evening with tasty food and good wine, and incapable of partying despite our best intentions (yes, it is age) crashed out by midnight. On Saturday morning we enjoyed our first lie in for at least a week - never let it be said that the life of a backpacker is too easy!

Our first stop on Saturday was the Coca museum, which was really interesting as it mapped the use of the coca leaf in the culture of this part of the world, looking of course at its illegal uses but also its health benefits to the generations of people who have always chewed it. We spent the rest of the afternoon wandering and quickly realised that La Paz is not really a city with lots of must see sights, but one that you can walk around finding different things round ever corner - not least the weird witches market area!

There are throngs of people around all the time and many markets and street stalls selling everything from fruit juice to safety helmets to huge popcorn to pads of paper. The shoeshine boys are also everywhere, many of then looking more than a little sinister because they tend to have their faces covered with ski masks. Apparently this is to disguise their identity as there is a stigma attached to their work, and they are often just trying to make ends meet to support their families or studies. There is clearly poverty in La Paz, but also a greater degree of wealth than we expected, but I suppose that´s the way it is always going to be in the centre of a large city.

When we headed back to the hostel on Saturday evening we were chatting to a girl we knew, when we realised that the girl sitting next to her was our ex housemate Helen´s friend Tania who we had met in London, proving once and for all that it is a small world! We were up in the bar eating excellent (and well cooked!) BBQ food and chatting to her and several others, but unfortunately Andrew began to feel unwell, followed by Cath on Sunday morning.

The Lebanese food on Friday night was blamed as a couple of other people who ate with us were also sick. It wasn't anything serious and we´re fine again now, just frustrating that we missed out on a few days although it was always going to happen at some point. We also felt that we could have missed out on more if it had happened elsewhere on our trip so far - we had no urge to mountain bike down the world's most dangerous road, which is what everyone else seemed to be doing! In many respects the pollution of La Paz made us feel worse; being a city in a basin isn't necessarily a good thing, especially when you see the aging cars and buses spouting out fumes all day. As we were driving up and out of the city early this morning, the smog was very evident below us.

We´re now in Oruro, south of La Paz and the most northerly town in Bolivia's train network. We arrived this morning on a smelly old bus which went the last half hour seemingly minus one tyre, but can´t complain for 4 quid between us for a 3.5 hour trip! We're now waiting for the train to Uyuni from where we will start our salt plains tour. Really excited not only about the salt flats, but also our train journey which is supposed to be spectacular - we have splurged 6 pounds each on top class Executive class tickets so looking foward to 6 hours of comparative luxury...will let you know how it goes!

Cath (& Andrew)

The Peruvian experience

2006-10-02T17:02:00.000+01:00

http://www.petethomas.co.uk/peru/video.html

Thanks to Pete Thomas and Leo (the peruvian guide in the video), not to mention the young peruvian and his faithful chickens (or are they ducks?)

Andrew (& Cath)

The journey to La Paz

2006-09-30T22:33:00.000+01:00

We didn't manage to get tickets for the direct (5 hour) bus from Puno to La Paz, so we had to go for the indirect one which was scheduled to take 7 hours. Not the end of the world, and we were told that the scenery would be stunning so were quite happy to be saving a few quid and seeing some more things along the way.

We were also reassured by the fact that the bus left dead on 7.30am - despite the efforts of a very angry French girl to hold things up by insisting that she needed to get on this bus even though her ticket was for another company. We enjoyed a comfortable and uneventful couple of hours ride to the Bolivian border, and got through immigration with no problems. It was however interesting to note that the Peruvian side had about 6 staff to do their stamps and the Bolivians just one, so inevitably it all took a bit of time.

We were then asked to load our bags onto the top of a minibus and everyone piled in - as you can imagine this stage of the journey was particularly unpleasant for tall people and cramped even for me. We were a little concerned that this would be our transport for the next 3+ hours, but fortunately it was only a short ride to th the next stop, Copacabana. Many people were stopping off here to see the other side of lake Titicaca but those of us who were heading straight on to La Paz were asked to come back in an hour for the 1.30 bus for La Paz.

After having a quick drink and snack with another English girl we boarded our bus. Sitting behind us were 3 English guys we had met in Lima (who seemed to have had bad luck from day 1 - food poisoning, hospital visits, getting lost on a one track island, 40 hour bus from Quito to Lima amongst others) and next to us a couple of girls from the Wirral. It seemed that between us we had met just about every other person on the 3 or 4 buses also heading for La Paz, proving once and for all that the so called Gringo trail is alive and kicking...

The next interesting interlude was when the bus stopped and hour or so later at yet another shore of Lake Titicaca and we were told we had to get off, cross the lake on a boat and the bus would meet us at the other side. Again the photos say it all! Pleased that our vehicle and ourselves had all made it across in one piece - let's just say that the boat was a bit full and didn't like moving very fast - we were back on the bus again. Well, most of us were. Somehow we had managed to lose 4 people. The driver was all set to head straight on, but us passengers persuaded him to wait a little longer as we knew how unhappy we'd be to be left behind. After 10 minutes or so he gave up and we were away, taking some poor stranded peron's snacks and spare shoes with us. Mental note: don't be late for buses in Bolivia.

Finally after a few more hours passing seemingly endless snow capped muntains, we made it to the city of El Alto, a vast sprawl just outside La Paz with limited but clearly developing infrastructure. After winding our way through yet more interesting traffic, we stopped above La Paz to admire the view. All I can say is wow! The photo should give you some impression of the incredicble view down into the basin that contains the city, but it is certainly something that you should see for yourself if you ever get the chance. Despite our by now very long (9 hour) journey we were all in good spirits and looking forward to seeing what life was like inside the city itself.

arriving into Bolivia

Our bus goes across the channel

Our full "small" boat

A view of La Paz (a small part of it)

Glorious mountains in the background..

Lake Titicaca - photos

2006-09-29T01:55:00.000+01:00

Our memorable last few days in Peru

2006-09-29T01:50:00.000+01:00

We arrived in Puno, a small(ish) town on the lakes of Lake Titicaca on Wednesday afternoon. Some Canadians we met at the Colca Canyon had ponted us in the direction of a really nice hostal they had used, so we checked in and set about planning for the next few days. First priority was to book our trip out on the lake - Puno itself is not the most beautiful town you´ll see, the main draw is the nearby Lake Titicaca. For those of you who haven´t heard of it, it is the highest navegable lake in the world, and absolutely huge with it.

Our tour began at 6.45 am on Thursday (one of far too many early starts this week!) and we headed down to the harbour where numerous similar tour boats (30 passenger) were setting sail. When you see the lake you can understand the significance of the altitude thing - sorry to keep going on about it! - as it really does see like you are very close to the sky but also you have the sensation of being on the sea. Really hard to explain and totally stunning, hope that the photos do it justice.

Anyway, our first stop was only about 20 minutes away from Puno - the Uros floating islands. Although they now have mod cons including solar power, and are visited by many tourists each day, the Uros people still live on floating islands as they have for many generations and use reeds to make just about everything. The totora reeds are used to build their houses, for food, for crafts and most fundamentally to build the islands themselves. As well as tasting the reeds, we also had the chance to ride on a reed boat - it was definitely one of the most interesting and totally different experiences we have had so far.

We then set sail again for the 2.5 hour trip to Taquile island. The closest comparison I can find is that it felt like we were on a Greek Island. It was very easy to forget that we were actually in a lake not the sea! The water was calm and crystal clear and the whole island was very tranquil in spite of the tourists. In many ways it seemed like the islanders there had been able to maintain their traditions and simple way of life in a way that the Uros hadn´t and I suppose that their distance from the mainland helped with this. One interesting fact is that the male islanders wear different hats to denote their marital status, or different again if they were authority figures. The community is clearly strong, work is carried out by everyone and the fact that many people live into their 90s didn´t surprise me, not least when I saw a man who was probably around 70 carrying a clearly heavy load of wood up steep steps.

So all in all we had a very lovely and interesting day with a great guide, and as we headed back we were happily admiring the view from the top of the boat. However, just to add a bit more excitement, we spotted a large number of grey clouds gathering ahead of us and when the lightning really started we hastily made our way back inside our now very flimsy seeming vessel. Not like me to panic in choppy water (Mum & Dad remember the Mauritius boat trip I´m sure!) and Andrew wondering out loud about how many boats had been struck by lightning really didnt help. What really freaked me out however, was when the driver started saying some kind of blessing over coca leaves (yes, they are used for everything) before throwing them into the lake! Then the hail started, the boat rocked even more and I started seriously asking myself what I was doing in a not entirely new small vessel in the middle of a Peruvian lake (highest in the world or not!) - especially one that had no form of windscreen wipers!

Needless to say we made it back to dry land with no real problems, and it is probably something that happens every day (see Andrew´s post re weather). My sense of adventure is well and truly still intact you´ll be pleased to hear and it has been a very memorable day to end our fascinating 3 weeks in Peru. Onwards to La Paz early (boo!) tomorrow.

Altitude and Changing weather of Peru

2006-09-29T01:47:00.000+01:00

This is just a short post about the changes in weather that Cath and I have experienced (here in Puno in particular)..

But first here's a small photo showing the effects of going from Cusco to Arequipa (a drop of about 1,400m).. Personally I wonder what that's doing to our insides, no wonder people get altitude sickness...

On the topic of weather though, we had arrived in Puno to glorious blue skies (although a bit nippy because of the altitude), and decided to wander in and try and post about the last few days at a nearby net cafe..

While we were in said establishment a slight weather change occurred, by the time we finished and were ready to book our trip on Lake Titicaca hail stones had started to fall.. Actually it was more like hard snow, below you should see a photo of it in the street after about 15 minutes..

Luckily for us we were only a short dash away from the hostel (though we did hide out in a shop until the worst had past)...

Arequipa - photos

2006-09-29T01:41:00.000+01:00

Canon del Colca - photos

2006-09-28T01:51:00.000+01:00

Forgot to mention on the earlier post that the bus we had to the condors actually had a burst tyre (unfortunately the spare was not exactly pumped up either...)

Oh and a few of us helped out a local in Chivay :-)

One last thing about this trip forgot to mention that we went to La Calera hot springs, had a faint odour of sulphur but was great on those tired muscles (life is hard sometimes) ;-)

Losing things...and not quite losing the pedometer

2006-09-27T23:31:00.000+01:00

Many of you will know that losing things like keys, bags etc is pretty common in the world of Cath. Therefore thought you might be interested in the pretty impressive log of items lost on the trip so far (bearing in mind we're less that 3 weeks in):

2 pairs of (fortunately cheap) sunglasses and 1 sunglasses case
A couple of pairs of contact lenses
My fluffy blow up neck pillow - really upset about this one, hoping it will reappear from a corner of the pack sometime soon
My glasses - not quite as bad as it sounds - have loads of lenses and was planning to get new ones in Oz anyway. Still rather annoying that my only clue was that they went missing somewhere in Cusco!

Pretty impressive eh? On the positive side at least at this rate my pack with be very light very soon.

One thing I haven't managed to lose is my pedometer. My brother John & sister in law Varsha bought us some travel essentials before we came away, most of which are proving to be extremely useful. However, the talking pedometer complete with panic alarm has been not so much useful as highly entertaining. I was quite excited about being able to know how many steps I had taken as we trekked and it was a little generous in its step count (think bumpy roads) which I was more than happy to ignore. However, it then reset itself so my total step count for the entire trek was 14! To add insult to injury, the panic alram has a clever habit of going off when it feels like, so the serenity of the montains was shattered more than once and a few fellow trekkers knew me only as the one with the alarm. At least it has provided plenty of laughs, usually at my expense!

C

Cañon del Colca

2006-09-27T23:18:00.000+01:00

On Monday we went on a 2 day bus tour of Cañon del Colca (we had the option of doing a 2 day hike ranging from 4,900 -> 3,400 -> 4,900m, but strangely enough decided against it...), which is where you can see the rare Andean Condors (if you're lucky)...

This trip came with a bilingual guide, who to be honest wasn't very good.. That said the sites and a few of the other people on the tour made up for it. Unfortunately for the guide (who kept trying to get us all along to his mates restaurants) we were in slightly rebellious mode, in that we decided to go our own way and get 3 course meals at half the price of the single plates being offered..* About half of the bus followed us in doing that... :-)

Other than seeming to start our own rival tour group, we did get to see the entrance of the 2nd deepest canyon in the world (the deepest by an extra 163m is the nearby Cañon del Cotahuasi), and one of the best viewing spots for seeing the Andean Condor, luckily both Cath and I did actually see a Condor swoop right past the viewing spot we chose (mainly because it wasn't packed with people), however at the fairly high speed that bird was moving by the time I got my camera out it was just a speck in the distance...

For those unlucky enough to miss the birds many of the towns on the way to the viewing spot (oh by the way it's opposite a known nest of a family of Condors, apparently about 40 of them nest nearby), have the birds of prey on display (you can have your photo taken with them for a mere S/. 1)... That is along with the traditional souvenir touts and the children in traditional gear dancing for all the tourists at 6:30 in the morning..

We've liked seeing the traditions of the Andean people, and it's been nice finding out more than just the Incan and Colonial history of the places we've been, but (particularly on this tour) the tourist aimed folk dancers and traditional clothing was starting to get a little too much.. Going on the trek and seeing actual villages where the actually wore that clothing seemed much more real.. That said we have been enjoying ourselves and having fun wherever we've been..

Now we're in Puno, right by Lake Titicaca and looking forward to seeing what this nice little town has to offer :-)

Andrew (& Cath)

Oh, unfortunately I forgot to bring the cable with me to this net cafe so I can't upload photos of the spectacular canyons and amazing tiered walls of the Incas.. But we should be able to upload something in the next couple of days :-)

* I do have to point out that the price difference was S/. 15 for the guides recommendations, to S/. 8 for where we went to eat, with S/. 8 being about £1.20 - more a case of not liking being told what to do!

Arequipa

2006-09-27T22:46:00.000+01:00

Been offline for a few days now and the internet hasn't been too reliable which is a bit frustrating. However, I am still of the opinion that it is quite impressive that it works at all so can't complain too much - cue groans from geeks around the world! Either way, bit of catching up to do so here we go...

After my good night of sleep on the bus from Cusco to Arequipa we got to our hostal at about 6.30am Saturday and promptly went to sleep until lunchtime. Lazy is one word, totally exhausted after the trekking/partying/travelling my preferred explanation - adrenaline levels had certainly dipped by this point. When we had woken up slightly, we wandered into the city which has a particuarly nice Plaza de Armas (main square, common characteristic of all towns and cities here) with white buildings made from the local volcanic rock sillar, a very different type of stone than we had seen elsewhere in Peru. The city is surrounded by the volcano El Misti as well as some other stunning mountains.Quite a backdrop.We also arranged our Colca Canyon tour for Monday and Tuesday, ate some dinner and drank some beer - so all in all not the most productive of days but a very welcome laid back one. We are on holiday after all!

We were much more with it on Sunday and so set off for some proper sightseeing. First of all we went to the Museo Santuarios Andinos which is home to Juanita the Ice Princess. She was an Inca girl sacrificed over 500 years ago and found on the top of nearby Mount Ampato about 10 years ago incredibly well preserved by the ice. The Incas believed that the mountains were Gods so they tried to appease them by sacrifices. Pretty grim stuff, but fascinating to see the near perfectly intact girl, the best preserved example of several such sacrifices that have been found. It was also a bit spooky I have to say, but altogether worse for the specially chosen Juanita.

Later on we went to see the Santa Catalina monastery. It is a convent founded in 1580 where daughters of rich families lived a luxurious lifestyle complete with servants. It was really interesting to gain an insight into how they lived in what can only be described as a town within a town. They certainly didn't take a vow of poverty! We rounded the day off with a beer in a cafe overlooking the cathedral in the Plaza de Armas as the sun set. It was one of those times when the view was worth the extra few sols, especially as the beers still came out as under a pound each!

Over to Andrew for more about the Colca Canyon...

Wedding photos (are now up)

2006-09-27T00:25:00.000+01:00

For those that have been bugging us (and you know who you are) about when you can see some more wedding related photos...

Or just look on mypixmania.com

Huge thanks to Vinny for uploading and organising all those photos!

Andrew (& Cath)

A quick word about me and sleep

2006-09-24T18:10:00.000+01:00

I thought you might be amused (unless you were on the trek in which case you won´t like me much) to hear that on the second night of camping I managed to sleep through a pack of dogs (estimates vary from 10-30) howling through the night. Needless to say a few people woke up!

Since then, on our overnight bus to Arequipa, I have slept through a loud film and an entire game of bingo. Yes, bingo. Ryan you would have loved it I´m sure.

Off for a snooze now!
C

Post Trek party - photos

2006-09-22T22:01:00.000+01:00

Some photographic evidence of our post trek celebrations. Conspicuous by their absence are any photos of Andrew´s particularly stunning dancing - so if any fellow trekkers are reading this and would like to help me out on this please let me know!

Cheers
C

Machu Picchu

2006-09-22T21:49:00.000+01:00

After several hard days trekking we arrive upon Machu Picchu, well that is we catch a bus, then a train and finally another bus again before arriving at Macchu Picchu. For those that are curious, from Cusco there are lots of different treks you can do, most finishing up at Machu Picchu, kinda. As far as I can tell there is only the famous Inca trail that you actually hike up to Macchu Picchu, the rest include various hiking but seem to all finish up at Ollantaytambo (which is where you can catch the train to Machu Picchu)...

Anyways, it was absolutely fantastic to be up at the top there, and the SAS guides again did a fantastic job of taking us on a tour around and telling us all about how it was discovered and what Archaeologists have been able to figure out.. (Though of course with no written language it is all theories)...

I especially liked the theory on Inca art, where the rock formations represent the mountains in the background..

I don't know how to sum up being up in Machu Picchu, but I will say that unlike the Nasca lines (which slightly disappointed me) I was not at all disappointed by these spectacular mountain ruins, I think that was also helped by all of us having a real sense of achievement in finishing the hikes.. Basically we were on a huge high (as well as bit of exhaustion) that definitely helped the party get going that night :-)

Ok, I'm starting to gush way too much, I'll just say loved it! And hope the photos sum it up... :-D

Andrew (& Cath)

Lares Trek for CRY Day 3

2006-09-22T21:36:00.000+01:00

I´m going to keep the day 3 commentary brief, as I think the photos speak for themselves, although as is usually the case they don´t do the landscape justice. It was another long and exhausting day reaching around the same altitude as before, and this time we took it a little more slowly simply because our legs wouldn´t let us do otherwise. Particular mention also has to be made of the chocolate Andrew magically produced at one stopping point - I think it got many people through the rest of that particular climb...

We finally made our excited entrance into camp at around 5 and a great fun evening followed. We were all able to relax, safe in the knowledge that although we´d be making an early start again the following day, we´d also be spending a fair part of it off our feet. The walking part would be exploring Machu Picchu, so everyone was of course really excited about that too. Oh yes, and we were heading for our first shower in 4 days!

Lares Trek for CRY Day 2

2006-09-22T21:19:00.000+01:00

After our first night of camping in the freezing cold, we were awake just after 5 (usual morning timing - really not my idea of fun!) and had a big breakfast before our warm up and the real start of the day. There had been several theories about which way we´d be heading out of camp, but to be honest all of them were uphill so it didn´t really matter! I´m going to add in some of the place names when we have them to hand, as spelling is something of an issue otherwise.

Anyway, we made our way up for a few hours, and after a brief flatter section alongside a gorgeous lake we made our way up a very steep section leading up to the 4400m pass. By this stage the group had spread out over quite a long way - here is a view from near the top of some of those who were behind us and believe me there were plenty ahead of us too!

Fortunately for us by this stage we were in a small group of particularly upbeat trekkers who shared our approach of taking plenty of breathers as well as laughing lots - you know who you are, thanks guys! Bearing in mind that we had been told that adding another 20m in altitide could be enough for us to get sick, you can imagine the relief we felt at reaching our highest point; I think the photo says it all...

We then had the pleasure of a downhill section, and some amazing views of turquoise lakes:

We finally reached our well deserved lunch stop. By this stage the headaches has kicked in - mixture of dehydration and the body trying to deal with the altitude. We soon picked up again and after a much more gentle afternoon reached our second stunning campsite at about 5pm exhausted but exhilirated.

You can also see from the photo that there were a few beers on sale from some of the locals who has clearly predicted the mood of many - I stuck to the Gatorade which really says alot about how much the day had taken out of me. The models of those wonderful hats (which came out at every night - like I said it was pretty much compulsory!) are the fantastic Ian & Jane - cheers guys!

Cath (& Andrew)

Cusco ruins & Lares Trek Day 1

2006-09-22T21:05:00.000+01:00

As Cath has told you, we did a full day walk around Cusco to help everyone get used to the altitude. Here are some pictures of that and the Llamas who joined us for the start of the trekking, enjoy!

The Lares Trek for CRY - Cusco Ruins and full trek day 1

2006-09-22T20:36:00.000+01:00

We´ve got our breath back a bit now so thought we´d add a bit more about the trek. It´s been a funny day for us now that everyone has left, and neither of us is feeling 100% - hardly surpsising I suppose! We´ve therefore decided to have a chilled out afternoon before we leave Cusco this evening. As you can imagine a lot has happened this week so we´re not going to post it all in one go but thought we´d better write up sooner rather than later so that it´s still fresh in our minds. We´ll also be doing a piece for the CRY website so will link to that when it is up there.

So, going back a week...

After an afternoon of wandering, some of us went out for a quiet drink on Friday night, but most people were very tired and quite a few had already begun to show some signs of altitude sickness ie headaches, sickness, shortness of breath to name but a few. The first of many briefings from our group leader Kelsoe (bit of a running joke throughout the week that we have had just a few long briefings!) left most people feeling very anxious on top of it all as we were warned that it was pretty much certain that some of the group would be unable to complete the trek. I think it´s fair to say that the altitude issue had been played down before we came out to Peru, but that´s also understandable. Basically you don´t know how you´ll react until you head up there and it has nothing to do with fitness - it is purely a matter of luck.

So, with no small amount of trepidation, on Saturday morning we headed up as a group to see some of the ruins just outside Cusco, mainly to get everyone used to the altitude. It was the same area that we had seen a few days before, but it became immediately clear that the local guys we had with us (from a company aptly named SAS!) really knew their stuff and we were able to find out more about the fascinating world of the Incas. In fact the local crew were absolutely brilliant all week, as was the English guide Simon who lives out here full time so also knows the area very well. We were also astounded by the quality of the food that the SAS guys have produced for us, all cooked from scratch in the middle of nowhere!

Anyway (digressing already!) by the end of Saturday several people were very unwell and as we were preparing to leave the city early on Sunday morning to start the trek proper at much higher altitude it was more than a little concerning. Fortunately we were both fine and of course we had the advantage of being in Cusco a few days in advance of the group. We still had no idea how our bodies would cope with heading higher, but we were more than ready to give it our best shot. After leaving the hotel at around 6am and spending a few hours on the bus, we arrived at our starting point and after amusing the local kids with our warm up we were off.

We were joined en route by some llamas (truly ridiculous creatures but cool to have around) as we wound our way up past a very lovely river and over the hills. You may be surprised to hear that we were amongst the first people to arrive at the lunch stop - we certainly were! It was also a good opportunity to get to know some of our fellow trekkers a bit better as we were happlily chatting away as we walked - so far so good. After refuelling we took a brief trip on the bus again, which was infinitely more scary than the trekking (remember the Peruvian driving stories and add lots of tight corners!) before our final ascent to our camp for the night. We arrived at around 5pm , so just time to set up our beds for the night before it got dark very quickly at just after 6.

I should add that by the end of Sunday four people had already headed back to Cusco as they were so unwell. Of course it was bitterly disappointing for them all to have to stop, and we all knew that it could be any of us next. Therefore when I was feeling especialy unwell on Sunday night I began to panic slightly, but fortunately I woke up feeling fine again on Monday. Good job really as this was to be the first of two much more challenging days.