TravelStream™ news feed for member jamesjames on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/jamesjames en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Mon, 26 Feb 2007 13:54:17 -0500 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jamesjames/latinamerica06/1170813240/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jamesjames/latinamerica06/1170813240/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jamesjames/latinamerica06/1170813240/tpod.html Mon, 26 Feb 2007 13:54:17 -0500 Latin America 06

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Cusco, Peru

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Oruru, Bolivia

solamente fotos ahora, yo escribire mas tarde...
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La Paz, Bolivia

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Copacobana, Bolivia

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Cuzco, Peru

So a minor drama on departure from Arequipa- On arrival at the bus station all geared for our pre-booked Cama, B discovered she was without handbag. So a hurried taxi trip back to the hostel, mad dash sprint from an apparently very unfit J, and mad dash back to the terminal ensued. On arrival as we were evading security dogs to enter the bus-exit of the terminal, we discovered that our bus had gone, and our only hope was to chase it..
So chase it we did - the same taxi driver who on first impressions was rather too laid-back for this sort of action, but in fact turned out to be rather astute in the ways of bus-routes, as well as having god on his side (the compulsive crossing/praying/etc must have helped), caught the correct bus within minutes, and overtook it. Now this was a tad confusing, as we were under the impression that we were wanting to stop and flag down the bus. However we bowed to the local knowledge, and made ourselves comfortable for what we assumed was to be a trip of indiscriminate length, somewhere in the direction of Cuzco.. It turned out that our taxi driver had decided that the only way to stop this bus was to stand in front of it - a feat not easily accomplished while it is traveling at around 100km/h - so a spot was found where the bus would need to slow. As the bus cornered, a combination of wet-tea-towel (not entirely sure where this came from) waving, B belting on the doors/windows of the bus, and a mad dash after the bus, brought the bus to a halt. Several minutes of panic ensued, as it seemed that the bus driver had re-sold our seats, but finally we were on, and settled comfortably in our Camas.
What better way to calm one's nerves than a bout of bus bingo (in Spanish, of course)? Obviously luck was on our side, as B proceeded to massacre the opposition, and proceeded to the front of the bus to collect her prize accompanied by a bus load of rapturous applause!
So after all that adrenaline it wasn't hugely surprising that we didn't sleep so well, and arrived in Cuzco in a rather sorry state.
We headed up to my old flatmate Jesse's hostel - Loki - to discover that it is in fact the most popular spot in town, and without reservations we didn't have a show.. Somehow we found ourselves at Marlon's Hostel - a cool new spot with a great family atmosphere. So a couple of days exploring Cuzco followed - a great spot to remember what real food/coffee tastes like with the plethora of amazing cafes, and a beautiful city with mixed Inca and Spanish influences.
Catching up with Jesse was great, and cool to hear how much he is enjoying this hostel lifestyle he has found himself in.. Interesting how one has to go to the other side of the world to find out what's been going on at home (Pete, you have been busy)!
Finding ourselves with a few days to kill before the Inca Trail, we headed into the Sacred Valley to check out some ruins, and discover what these Incas were all about.. Ollataytambo was our first stop - cool wee town, remaining in a similar state as was built by the Incas - amazing engineers, their (still running) aqueducts are incredible. Temples/forts remain on the hillsides overlooking the town, with huge stones dragged from a site 6kms away - the 'tired stones' sitting at the bottom of the hill -those that never quite made it to the top! Amazing terracing on the hillsides too -apparently the valley flats had been stripped of nutrients, and so to sustain the empire, this was the only option. So much work.. but i guess if the Inca (king) decides, and death is the other option, one works!
Pisac was the next stop -a famous market on Sundays was the goal, but we decided a morning stroll (? - it was 5km of near vertical! -good practice for the Inca Trail) up to some ruins overlooking the town. These have to rate at the top of the list of Inca ruins I've seen - mind-blowing site perched above massive valleys on both sides, immaculately preserved, and us being the only people on the site all added to its allure. I'll let the photos do the talking..
The Pisac market was a tad disappointing, so we retreated to Ulrich's - a great cafe, with superb food, a cool vibe, books, games and movies (watching The Motorcycle Diaries while in this part of the world adds so much to it - and understanding some Spanish too!) before heading back to Cuzco to organize/acclimatize ourselves for the upcoming adventure!
A belated birthday treat, B took me to The Fallen Angel - a crazy bar/restaurant that has a (verifiable) reputation for the best capreñias this side of the stump. Before an evening of tearing up Mama Africa's (the happeningest 'club' in town - classic cheesy '80s all night! - B was in heaven!) dance floor, and being enticed into every other bar in town with promises of free drinks, only to discover in each place that the free drinks were Cuba Libre's (Rum & Coke) - great, if only one of us would drink them!
Birthday treat's continued with breakfast the next morning (a wee french cafe with amazing scrambled eggs with spinach, smothered in prawns and topped with fresh parmesan.. Possibly the best breakfast I've had - high praise indeed!), followed by massages, and a very chilled day.. Nice.
Which brings us to today... and mad dash organizing ourselves for a 5.30 departure tomorrow morning on the Camino de las Incas..
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Arequipa, Peru

Those damn BusCamas! Great if you can get them, but if you're too late, and have to settle for a SemiCama... Hmmmmm. It was a sleepless night from Ica to Arequipa..
But once we were here! A really beautiful city - locals claim that when the moon left the earth, it left Arequipa (apparently implying it's beauty).. And they're not wrong..
One day was spent exploring the city, and its famous hedonistic (?) monastery, before heading off to the Colca Canyon - the deepest canyon in the world! OK, once again I'm stretching the truth - actually the one next to it is 162m deeper - but seriously, this one is massive, and once its greater that 1km vertical, whats a couple of hundred meters??
Anyway, after a 4.30am start, and adorned with fluffy llama hats, we were at Cruz del Condor at 7.30am to grab prime spots before the tour groups arrived. The condors duly arrived at the appointed hour, and impressed all with their majesty. The life of a condor has to be pretty cool - ascending on thermal currents, before swooping down and attacking the nearest rodent for breakfast..
On advice from locals that it was 6km to Cabanaconde - the nearest village - we hiked. It turned out to be 14km. The final 2km, however, was accompanied by Christina and Claudio - our pint-sized guides - taking us through paddocks, streams, and over walls before arriving to a very welcome Alpaca steak..
Descending to the bottom of said canyon: 7km (horizontal), and over 1km (vertical) later we arrived at "the oasis". An electricity-less paradise with one of the most unique views possible - on all sides near vertical cliffs stretching to the sky.. Having intended to trek back out the next morning, plans had to change as we realized that that would be a physical impossibility. A day of 500 playing, fruit-picking (and getting hit at/by), and general lazing resulted.
The following morning a 4.30am departure was in order to beat the sun's rays, and after 2.5 grueling hours we were back!! Amazingly, almost unanimously the trek down was deemed to be harder, although that could have been due to the 14km warmup..
Somehow the 7hrs of buses back to Arequipa passed in a dream (as most of us were dreaming), excepting a horror 20 minutes early into the trip: an unpaved road, no suspension, and a full bladder were a terrible combination for 3 of the party... an emergency exit, blind panic running to a baño, followed by a re-entry where climbing over the locals back to our miraculously-saved seats was required.
The final day before a very-early-booked BusCama overnight trip to Cuzco was spent exploring the local markets, with cactus and other strange fruit-tastings, and a visit to Juanita - the Inca ice-maiden. A child-sacrifice discovered on the top of a nearby mountain, this was awesome. It gave us some insight into the Inca culture, and customs before heading to the capital of the former empire. If you're in Arequipa, visit her.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jamesjames/latinamerica06/1168871880/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jamesjames/latinamerica06/1168871880/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jamesjames/latinamerica06/1168871880/tpod.html Sun, 25 Feb 2007 20:37:16 -0500 Latin America 06

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Huacachina, Peru

And overnight onwards south..
A recent addition to transport options (since we hit Peru) are "BusCama"s - literally BusBeds - the business class section on the bottom floor of the bus.. For around USD6 more, you can upgrade (if you get in early enough) and get the full leather seat, loads of room, dinner and breakfast, and the chance to sleep! So Trujillo-Lima gave us our first taste of this luxury. And i ain't going back! On advice (albeit contradictory) we cut straight through Lima, and traveled on to Ica.
I want to stretch the truth and say that Ica is home to the world's largest sand dunes, but apparently that sort of behavior is frowned upon these days.. So, home to nearly the largest sand dunes in the world, Ica is a tourist's paradise. Or rather Huacachina is a tourist's paradise. A desert oasis, 20 mins from Ica, surrounded by massive dunes, the place is somewhat surreal.. A bit less amazing is that the lagoon at the oasis is actually dry, and so the city council top it up with a truckload of water every day, in order to keep the tourists coming!
Huacachina saw the arrival of Frances and Jonathan from NZ, our travelmates for the next wee bit, and so as an introduction to the continent: Sandboarding!!! This is mad. Involves Dune buggying with a madman driver around, up, over and down dunes (sometimes becoming one with the dune, and requiring a push from other buggys and/or passengers), before arriving at an interesting spot to launch oneself down a near-vertical slope on a waxed snowboard-shaped device.. unfortunately the thrill is so much that keeping one's mouth closed is quite impossible, and therefore a mouth full of sand results. Deciding some rip-off sunglasses were required in order not to damage our regular (in my case also rip-off) sunglasses, we opted for PINK. Four of us in pink glasses flying down dunes with little regard for control, let alone safety, was a sight to see! According to Alexis, our driver, guys in pink glasses had to be mareka (Latin American slang for gay - unfortunate if your name's Mareka!), and so proceeded to hassle us for the duration of the trip, before accepting both mine and Jonathon's at the end of the trip -"for you and your friend"...
Being as it is, in the middle of the desert, there isn't a lot more to do in Huanchaco, so overnight it was to our next stop...
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jamesjames/latinamerica06/1167598440/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jamesjames/latinamerica06/1167598440/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jamesjames/latinamerica06/1167598440/tpod.html Tue, 23 Jan 2007 18:47:38 -0500 Latin America 06

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Tena, Ecuador

So, back on the path we had covered only a week before, back to near the top of Ecuador to head into the Amazon.. A brief stop in Baños to pick up some of Casa Hood's famous Pie de Manzana, and who should wander past, but Simon and Merete of Rumba fame.. Hijinks resulted, and as a result plans changed again: New Years in Baños, and the four of us to head to Tena for the jungle expedition.

This left a couple of days to kill, so we headed off canyoning (rappelling down waterfalls).. All went without a hitch until the final waterfall, a 45m monster during the descent of which the back disappears to leave one dangling a fearful height from the floor. Somehow everyone survived (including the guide's 8 year old daughter) and went on to fight another day... And what a fight it was: After Betsy had to pull out of the competition with a stomach bug, i was left to tackle new year's eve with a bunch of Danes, dutch, yanks, a pom, and a belch (from Belgium, of course).. Naturally drinking games, plenty of full-volume singing (Simon is as enthusiastic singer as i am), street dancing with the locals, stage dancing, tantrums (from the belch), and other now-forgotten hijinks resulted, followed by a return to my hostel (con mucho jabon de la otra hostal) and B to recount the stories (naturally refusing to speak anything other than a very garbled Spanish before mercifully passing out).. Just the usual Ecuadorian new year's eve!

New year's day dawned sunny (I'm told) and we were onto a bus to Tena.. High spirits at first (accompanied by yet more singing - see "The Tena Song" below) soon soured on the 2hr first leg, winding our way down the mountain, standing in an overcrowded, overheated, suspension-less bus, while hangovers kicked in... Whilst i managed to hold onto my stomach, other members were not so polite, but we all seemed to arrive in Tena intact, as well as a Swedish extra discovered by Merete and Simon, who... it'd be nicer if i didn't mention too much..

The Tena Song (to be sung to the tune of The Vengaboyz' "Ibiza Song") words by J. Hole
Whoa, we're going to Tena
Whoa, into the jungle
Whoa, we're going to have a party
Whoa, with a Kitchewa fam-i-ly..

And into the jungle!! Following Don and Margarita's (also of Rumba fame) tip, we found a tour group called Ricancie which is a collection of Kitchewa communities that have banded together to earn some tourism dollars for their communities.. We headed in with dreams of seeing monkeys, pumas, and other wildlife, but apparently we were far too close to civilization to be seeing these, and it turned out that the actual community experience - seeing how these people actually live - that turned out to be the highlight of the trip.. Staying in some pretty grotty lodgings, without running water (great once the giardia kicked in), and eating some pretty damn horrible food (sometimes with added, unanticipated protein), added to the authenticity of the trip, but this was more than made up for by the jungle expeditions; learning about Kitchewa farming, trapping, traditional medicine and handicrafts; visiting and playing with the communities' kids (and teaching them "Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes"); and an "authentic" traditional Kitchewa cultural performance of the same song 6 times (we suspect that in fact this tribe never had any musical or dance background, but had been told to create one for us - we added to their repertoire by teaching them "The Boogie Woogie" (you put your left foot in, etc) - the only song that was known sufficiently by the three nationalities).
.. And then i got sick again the day before we left.. Best not to dwell on that, suffice to say that 3 hrs tramping through the Amazon, with near death exhaustion setting in, getting swarmed by bees along the way, with chronic giardia, was not a pleasant start to my birthday! On a positive note: the traditional medicine (made with a variety of roots, leaves, sap and who knows what else!) - whilst i don't know if it fixes an upset stomach, certainly does do what they say it will - flush one's system - with great vigor!

I Saw the Snake (to be sung to Ace of Base's "I Saw the Sign" (the taste in music improves!)) words by J. Hole
I saw the snake
And it opened up my eyes
Because it scared me, yes the snake did
It scared me Oh-oh-o-oh

I saw the snake
And it opened up my eyes
I saw the snake

Then he just slithered of to get into the jungle where he belonged
(The jungle where he belonged...)

Finally we made it to Tena for a very subdued Birthday dinner (the roller-disco plans had to be shelved, unfortunately), where i discovered that i am rather taller than the average Ecuadorian by heading into the nearest baño only to feel the room's light bulb explode on my head as i walked into it... Possible electrocution resulted.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jamesjames/latinamerica06/1168717500/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jamesjames/latinamerica06/1168717500/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jamesjames/latinamerica06/1168717500/tpod.html Tue, 23 Jan 2007 18:45:46 -0500 Latin America 06

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Huanchaco, Peru

In what may turn out to be a rash decision, and one which i know many of you will be inconsolable about, i have cut my hair.. The end of the flowing golden locks! In the meantime, B managed to get her legs waxed - apparently standing in the middle of the salon, with numerous onlookers, using recycled wax, and with a skirt around her waist, wasn't the pampered experience she was used to..
Anyway, finally we depart Ecuador, and head into the Peruvian desert. After 33 hrs, and 4 different buses, we arrived in the surf hotspot of Huanchaco. Deciding a few days of beachtime R & R were in order, we planned to learn to surf while we we were there - somehow the mañana mentality pervaded the scene, and we never quite got around to it!
The most active we got in our five days there was a visit to Chan Chan - the largest pre-Columbian city in Sth America, and a pretty impressive effort, too. We were very excited to hear crowded house on the stereo at the entrance - however, explaining to a shopkeeper that this music was from our country was met with distinct lack of interest... While we were there, archaeologists were uncovering parts of the city - impressive to see the care that they take over the detail - tiny paintbrushes clearing away dirt - amazing when you realize how long this must have taken them to get this far! The site was hugely impressive, and we visited around 1/8th of what it originally was! Pretty cool to see how many people lived in what is a fairly inhospitable desert environment..

Not much more to report.. a few days in the sun, many ceviches, lots of reading, and a wee bit of spanish learning filled our days extremely nicely, before heading south.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jamesjames/latinamerica06/1167598080/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jamesjames/latinamerica06/1167598080/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jamesjames/latinamerica06/1167598080/tpod.html Fri, 12 Jan 2007 13:32:32 -0500 Latin America 06

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Quilatoa, Ecuador

The longest mountain chain on earth.. A good spot to get lost??
Deciding it was time to get off the beaten track for a while, we headed into the Quilatoa loop - days hiking from village to village, through some amazing gorges, down rock faces, across crazy half-bridges, eating terrible dinners, eating fantastic dinners, avoiding maulings from one crazy cat, etc, etc...
Planning on getting to the end of the loop in time for market day in Zamboa on Saturday, we headed anti-clockwise.. it seemed a good idea at the time, but as the ascending increased, and the quality of accommodation decreased we realized why most go the other way.. Starting in Sigchos, we were met with looks of confusion when we asked for the road to Isinlevi - "The bus goes there this afternoon!", however after a couple of false-starts we were on the right track.. a few wrong turns were corrected by friendly (if somewhat bemused) locals, and we arrived at a beautiful old farm house hostel - "Llullu Llamas" (if anyone is going to Quilatoa, go here!). Really lovely people, and a cool homely feel (complete with a self-composting toilet, with a view!) and a mad, mad cat (not to mention the lasagna) made for a great spot to stop. Unfortunately our market plans meant we couldn't stop for long, and the next morning, we were off to Chugchilan..
A beautiful hike through a hidden valley was followed (of course) by us missing the turnoff, and ending up clambering down someone's farm (more bemused locals) before finding a cliff to descend. This accomplished, we discovered that we had missed the bridge, and clambered/slip/climbed/trudged our way to a crazy half-bridge, that lead to some jumping stones.. and eventually to the other half! Across, after six hours of effort, tuna sandwiches have never tasted so good!
Chugchilan didn't live up to the hype, and the next day we were off to Quilatoa.. They recommend that this section is done in the other direction.. with good reason. We ascended around 1km over the course of the day (after starting at around 3km above sea level)! However the relief (read unrestrained delight) at finally viewing the lagoon (really beautiful, by the way) may have made it all worthwhile..
Unfortunately, we were then into Quilatoa, a made-for-tourists-but-without-any-of-the-amenities-that-tour ists-like town, where due to a combination of altitude, exhaustion, and possible food-poisoning, we both promptly fell ill. This led to an extra night in Quilatoa (thankfully after switching to the upscale hotel), and the abandonment of our market plans..
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