TravelStream™ news feed for member martinandheike on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/martinandheike en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Wed, 02 Nov 2005 11:07:06 -0500 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/martinandheike/martinandheike/1121782560/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/martinandheike/martinandheike/1121782560/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/martinandheike/martinandheike/1121782560/tpod.html Wed, 02 Nov 2005 11:07:06 -0500 Heike's and Martin's adventure's as they circumnavigate our ikle old world....This is our dream to share... As this now being viewed by people we have not met yet please do make comments!!

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Teresopolis, Brazil

Well after a very emotional departure from the Orphanage we left for more wilder terrains, beginning at "Sierra dos Orragos" where we all began some serious acclimatisation to both the weather, working as a real team within the more broader regions of Brazil. Having spent a week in the Orphanage had seemingly provided us with a sefety net now leaving us open to a bit of a culture shock and back to reality once more. Brazil is just massive and quite challenging in more ways than one. Here the team got to grips with really working as a team and after 7 seven long hours in the local Bus staion we were ready to embark upon setting up campsite and beginning some real hard core walking!! In the long seven hour wait the team had to find fuel for the good old triangia stoves, food enought o feed an army!!!! How to get from here to our actual designated campsite and also who would take charge of what????? Poor old Mat!!!! we all got there in the end due to good old team work and much hunger pangs!IF YOU HAVE GOTTEN UP TO THIS POINT I AM GOING TO RETURN AND COMPLETE THE ENTRIES BUT HAVE RUN OUT OT TIME FOR NOW SO CIAO CIAO
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/martinandheike/martinandheike/1121174100/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/martinandheike/martinandheike/1121174100/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/martinandheike/martinandheike/1121174100/tpod.html Wed, 02 Nov 2005 10:37:27 -0500 Heike's and Martin's adventure's as they circumnavigate our ikle old world....This is our dream to share... As this now being viewed by people we have not met yet please do make comments!!

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Sau Paulo, Brazil

Well after an epic experience as independent travellers per se we ar now off once more on a trip of a different challenge. This time going with a group of students from my school doing our third World Challenge trip.Our first destination was "Sau Paulo", what a vasty city this is, it's reputed to house a population of 20 million plus.....We got lucky (as we were at the mercy of the teams decision making skills) and the team made a good choice of Hostel, luxury in fact by our sdtandards. From here we made an interesting journey out to an orphanage/Childrens Home on the outskirts. This was meant to be a pilot example of the Olympic Village that they had begun, but now scrapped. Our first impressions? What a great open outdoor complex with buildings in very good nick indeed in comparison to other places that we have seen and experienced on route (that being many!!). The kids here are luckier than most if being away from their loved ones can be good taht is. but the staff here are just tremendous and incredibly caring full of love for the whole bunch that are bl;essed to be hereand not in one of the more tightly crammed and less stimulating Orphanage options available out there.Our week was a very busy one combined with interacting with the kids and putting on a whole host of activities and also gettin gthem involved with some of the art work the staff wanted us to get involved in doing to liven up the surroundings and make it more inviting as well as providing some form of education too. Our students made up music lessons with some very squeaky recorders courtesy of Ruths big contributuion!!!! A sports daywith a mixture of teams getting very wet as well as very competitive indeed!!! We also were given the privelege of spending some time with the resident gardener (yes he let us rampage thro' his vegetable patch!!). Here we did some serious garddening and made plenty of progress in very little time, much to his delight. The kids here are truly inspirational and lathough their individual stories ar difficult to absorb, they are just so unconditional in the love that they have to give and they teach you so much about what life is all about. This is a place that will stay forever in my heart, all of ours for that matter. It makes you appreciate that your health and happiness is all that matters in life, the rest follows through.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/martinandheike/martinandheike/1119379680/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/martinandheike/martinandheike/1119379680/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/martinandheike/martinandheike/1119379680/tpod.html Sun, 31 Jul 2005 15:40:24 -0400 Heike's and Martin's adventure's as they circumnavigate our ikle old world....This is our dream to share... As this now being viewed by people we have not met yet please do make comments!!

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Buenos Aires, Argentina

We thought of traveling through the Argentinean countryside by bus over three or four days.But we couldn't face it and flew to Buenos Aires which is well "bueno"Unfortunatly it is their winter so only 12c but it´s sunny.Very European like a cross between paris, Barcelona and Geneva with a bit of London (the good bits) thrown in.And it,s cheap which is good as we are almost out of money!!We stayed for a couple of nights in a nice hotel in the centre, 12 pounds per night "hotel chile" then we found an apartment for about 80 pounds per week in an very up market area near to where Evita is staying (mind you she is dead)We have 10 days to explore the sights and be tempted by cheap shopping, made the mistake of going to an antiques market in San Telmo (very good) on sunday and even bigger mistake of rushing back to the apartment to watch the U.S F1 Grand Prix (the worst I,ve ever seen and I,ve seen some shockers). Monday was a bank holidayArgentina is famous for hiding Nazis,s, Fangio and steak, the best in the world. Big thick and juicy and the steaks not bad either.Now we have an apartment with can cook so now only restaurant for lunch and dinner. The quality is high as is the choice and the price is low. We start off by saying we cannot possibly have another steak and then have another steak. The most we paid for a meal 4 courses with Champagne was 11 pounds per head.Over the course of two weeks we went to a Camden town type of craft market near our apartment very good and bought, we visited San telmo a area famous for it,s antiques market and bought.By the time we left we had 70 kilos of stuff including a new travel bag.Even so we did not go crazy even though our apartment was next to the design centre housing 60 very good design shops.We also visited La boca a run down area that has attracted money by painting it,s houses in bright colours (that,s it) and watched the money poor in.It,s also famous for it,s football club where Maradonna played.One of our visits was to the Gaucho market where the Artinian Cowboys come to sell there wares and dance in the street. Obviously very touristy but with the cities locals.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/martinandheike/martinandheike/1118683980/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/martinandheike/martinandheike/1118683980/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/martinandheike/martinandheike/1118683980/tpod.html Tue, 21 Jun 2005 15:26:21 -0400 Heike's and Martin's adventure's as they circumnavigate our ikle old world....This is our dream to share... As this now being viewed by people we have not met yet please do make comments!!

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Salta, Argentina

Well, we thought that crossing the border would be a warmer experience, we thought wrong...It is as cold here as where we were in "Uyuni" it seems. The journey across the border was relativly straight forward, no bag checks, but we did have a few misdirections to get to the Argentinian Bus Station. When we finally made it, we were in luck with both a bus to "Salta" (7-8 hours) our next destination, and that we got it cheaper than on the "Bolivian" (yes it was cheaper) side. They even took our "Boliviano`s too at not a bad rate (the exchange rate is really pants on the border towns..). The only downside of the journey was that you have three potential Police/Army bag checks, where you have to drag all your bags up to their desks and they search thro`. All good fun at 1am, 3am.....in the freezing cold weather!! Finally we arrived t 4am in "Salta", which is much bigger than we expected, found a sweet little Hostal and crashed out. Salta is a nice little city (not) at approximately one million in population and growing!!! we decided to go and do some wine tasting in the local area which is a region known as "Cafayete" about 180km southwest of here. we had a great trip out and our guide was a really interesting guy with lot`s of the local history. On route we stopped off to see the "Devils Canyon" and then a great place that is tucked away from the roadside, which is used both as an "Ampitheatre and accouistics theatre for various important musical renditions etc...... It is just wonderfula nd we were trested to a musical of both Guitar and voice by a local singer/musician (yes we bought the CD just for the memory). The scenery around here is just wonderfully autumanal in it`s colours and this is also changed by the lighting during the day.....See the photo`s.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/martinandheike/martinandheike/1118510520/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/martinandheike/martinandheike/1118510520/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/martinandheike/martinandheike/1118510520/tpod.html Tue, 21 Jun 2005 14:47:13 -0400 Heike's and Martin's adventure's as they circumnavigate our ikle old world....This is our dream to share... As this now being viewed by people we have not met yet please do make comments!!

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Tupiza, Bolivia

After a really cold snap in "Uyuni", it was finately time for some warmer climes... we took a very long and windy journey through some fo the most fantastic deertlike scenery southwrds thro` Bolivian Territory. It was quite different to that of the "Atacama Desert" in Chile, as there were just Cacti everywhere!! Great big Canyons all over the place and people living totally out in really isolated parts of the world, that you cannot begin to imagne are survivable in these cold winter months!! It`s fine in the daylight hours as the sun blazes away, but night time is a different story indeed!!! "Tupiza" when we finaly arrved was a quaint if lacking in real character, as a town, but we were assited b a very confident young chap by the naame of "Nico", who helped us ot in the direction of a local Hostal, thamnks "Nico", he tok us about a short tour of the town too. All we had to our name was 10 Boliviano`s, which in sterling equates to 1.20! No ATM, and after one and a half hours of going int various places, we discovered we ccould not get a cas advance on our VISA card....HHhhm Heike is very hungry and we have barey enough for one perons food. Martin found agreat little "Ch , place on the way to the main "Plaza" and we explained our predicament. "Alfonso" the owner replied, "No problemo, you eat her and just pay me Manania", where in England would you get that kind of hositality?? Not anywhere!! So, courtesy of "Alfonso`s" generosity and goodwill, we had one of the best meal in "Bolivia" ever, Argentinian steak and Chorizio sausages, yum!! The following day we made our way to the border town, "Villazhon".
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/martinandheike/martinandheike/1118334360/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/martinandheike/martinandheike/1118334360/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/martinandheike/martinandheike/1118334360/tpod.html Tue, 21 Jun 2005 14:45:30 -0400 Heike's and Martin's adventure's as they circumnavigate our ikle old world....This is our dream to share... As this now being viewed by people we have not met yet please do make comments!!

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Uyuni, Bolivia

Our trip from "San Pedro" Chile, across the astonishing landscapes to Uyuni in Bolivia, would take us three days and two nights. There are several agencies, but we went with "Cordillera Traveller" who´s selling point was that their drivers never got drunk. We set off in the standard "Overland Vehicle" a Toyota Landcruiser. A wonderful creation. Our travelling companions were John from Ireland, but now a teacher in Korea and three young (at heart!!) ladies from N.Z. Georgie, Pat and Sally. The landscape was rocky and barren, then sandy and filled with Cacti. We passed yellow lakes, "Laguna Blanco" (caused by the Salt/Sulphur mineral content. "Laguna Verde", (Copper) and the red lakes, "Laguna Cordera" (Iron Ore). Some were iced over, which was just magnificent and there were still a few "flamingoes" surrounding the area, most have migrated off to warmer climes elsewhere!!!. At one point we were at nearly at 5000m, so once aagain at altitude. Every time we thought we had seen all the wierd Topography you could imagine, there was some more just around the corner. As we were high up, it was very cold, until we thawed out in the midday sun, or in the thermal pools which we passed on the first day. Our first night was spent in a dorm with the others, we both had two sleeping bags and three heavy blankets and were fully clothed. Heike even had her wee hat on!! On day two was made up of more amazing rock formations, that looked like stone trees and then thermal geysers and popping mud pools. Night two was spent at a slightly warmer hotel made of salt, with salt walls chairs ect, very posh and we ate Llama steak for tea whch was jus tasty for a cold snap. On day three, we crossed the main salt plains, all 12000 sq kilometers of salt, up to 8 meters thick. Right in the middle we stopped at a rock out crop an island full of Cacti. Very strange you have to be there, for that sort of experience. Still bloody cold too! We pressed onwards. Just outside "Uyuni", we stopped at the railway graveyard, a little boys dream of rusting steam trains. So we played Cassy Jones for a while. Arriving in "Uyuni", we said farewell to our driver Mister "D" (the pronounciation is too hard!!), guide and excellent cook, we arranged a hotel for the night and booked a bus to take us south the next day, somewhere warm!!!!!!! "Tupiza to be exact....nearby to where "Butch Cassidy" and the "Sundance Kid", were alleged to have been killed.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/martinandheike/martinandheike/1118100840/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/martinandheike/martinandheike/1118100840/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/martinandheike/martinandheike/1118100840/tpod.html Mon, 13 Jun 2005 13:14:19 -0400 Heike's and Martin's adventure's as they circumnavigate our ikle old world....This is our dream to share... As this now being viewed by people we have not met yet please do make comments!!

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San Pedro, Atacamba Desert, Chile

Well folks, yet another South American country for the list!! we waved a sunny "Arequipan" Peru goodbye and took a swift plane journey to the border town of Then we had the most staright forward border crossing of them all over into Chile!!! well deserved after our last border adventure, methinks. First impressions of "Chile"? It`s very flat and desertlike indeed. The road from the border to "Arica" (first point to catch a bus southwards). Is as straight as a straight thing, you literally see as far as the road takes you......Just like in the movies. From here we took an ovewrnight bus (yes yet another!) onto "Calamba" and then chnged onto "San Pedro", home to the "Lunar Landscape" environment. Here it is once again a much colder climate and so back on with the woollies!!! After an overnight journey to the border we reached the town of "Calamba", Chile to change buses moving onto "SAn Pedro", where we planned our trip over the "Salt Flats" of "Sala de Uyuni" Bolivia. We went to two different companies offering the same tour, "Colque Tours" and "Cordillera Travellers,both recommended by different people. We chose to take the tour with "Cordillera" as the guy just seeemed to know his stuff and had the right answers!! it seemed rioght to pay the small extra for peace of mind..... Before we left for "Salar de Uyuni", we went to visit the "Valle de Luna", which is a really "Moonscape" landscape and just quite amazing to see indeed. lot´s of sand and many sculptural formations formed by the wind!! We spent the whole afternoon there, and climbed one of the recommended peaks to catch the amazing sunlight, when the sun sinks behind the peaks. The colours are just not captured by our little "Cybershot" replacement for the stolen 35mm. But the experience was worth it, we just sat upon the rocks watching and waiting........then it was a real ahhhh experience. Well worth doing. On day number two, we'd booked ourselves onto probably the most expensive tour we have done since being away!!! It was with an agency called "Nomade Expediciones", used to be called something else before, but there was a change of partners etc... We spent one day looking and observing "Rock Art" as they ca}ll their indeginous peoples art work, carved into the mountainside of "Great Canyons" which split the "Atacamba Desert" in two, north of "San Pedro" by 180/90km´s. It was well worth it, as we had the whole desert to ourselves (with our trusty and very knowledgable guide of course, courtesy of Maurio!!). All in all throughout the 12 hour day we visited four separate sites, and experienced very different forms of art work.....just wonderfully preserved from the elements due to careful thought by the artist themselves in the choice of locations for the carvings/paintings. It was a fabulous day of walking in glorious weather experiencing "Indigenous Indians work" from 2,000 - 4000 years ago. It was just WOW! we also saw one of te first observatories of Southern America, where the "Indians" had faced one of their carved pieces of rock towards the constellations, it included depictions of Llamá's, ducks, non flying birds etc..... it was just a case of little by little discovery, the more you looked the more you see. For all you rock lovers and painters/sculptors out there this is definately a must see if ever in the Chilean district!!!! Time to go checlk out some "Salt Plains" now......Ciao!!!!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/martinandheike/martinandheike/1117925880/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/martinandheike/martinandheike/1117925880/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/martinandheike/martinandheike/1117925880/tpod.html Mon, 13 Jun 2005 13:07:20 -0400 Heike's and Martin's adventure's as they circumnavigate our ikle old world....This is our dream to share... As this now being viewed by people we have not met yet please do make comments!!

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Arequipa, Peru

Well folks after much deliberation and researching the news and asking the locals what the current situation is in ¨Bolivia¨, we have decided to divert our route into Chile and go and see the ¨Salar de Uyuni¨ (Salt Plains) from the Chilean side of things... It´s a bummer that we have to miss out the major ¨Bike ride¨, but better safe than be sorry.It{s a case of we could get into La Paz the capital by bus then walking through the blockades and cab the otherside; but getting out again would be tricky. ¨Arequipa¨ is a wonderful Colonial City with a most amazing Monastery, there are still Nuns living there and the scenery surrounding us is of the Volcanoes and other snow capped mountains. The weather is much more subtle with a slighty warmer and balmier feel than ¨Puno¨. Where we have just travelled from, thank goodenss.Plus $20 4star hotel and three course stylish lunch for under a pound. We have also landed on our feet with a really sweet Hotel and room too. The simple things really do count, it´s the first proper bath we have had all year round (if we discount Sarah & Stu´s pad in Sydney and Gareth and Fi,s Bermuda). We were planning to go see some caves with 3000 year old paintings but to do it indepenndently is going to cost way too much (when compared to what we have recently been doing!!). So we may just recharge our batteries and plan our journey into Chile from here.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/martinandheike/martinandheike/1117680960/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/martinandheike/martinandheike/1117680960/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/martinandheike/martinandheike/1117680960/tpod.html Sat, 11 Jun 2005 18:11:02 -0400 Heike's and Martin's adventure's as they circumnavigate our ikle old world....This is our dream to share... As this now being viewed by people we have not met yet please do make comments!!

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Puno, the coldest place on earth right now!!, Peru

After a somewhat luxury tour south towards the Lake we ended up doing a few days touring the ¨Floating Islands¨and seeing how the Indian indeginous communities live out on the Lake. It was really quite interesting and a real insight as to how the simple lifestyle really works. The views out onto ther Lake are just wonderful, it´s just so vast. (15 times the size of lake Geneva) You can just about see over to Bolivia (although it looks likely we won´t be travelling that way due to the real problems they have been having!!). I was very tempted to stay, but the cold made me change my mind!!! At an altitude of 4800m it is the highest Lake int he world and bloody freezing, especially at this time of the year. In addition to seeing the floating islands of "Uros" we actually stayed with families on the more permanent ones, "Amantan and Taquile! and that was quite fun, even if it was a tad touristy too. The visitors bring in quite a bit of revenue and it is only 20 or so of the total islands on the Lake, that actually choose to allow visitors onto their islands to stay. As our guide stated, nothing stays the same forever and even humans evolve also. The Indian population (which ahs been proven that they do evolve from the polynesian community) may well wear western jeans and clothing (although most of the people seem to wear there indigenans dress even when working in the fields) but their way of life continues and their beliefs are still there too. They look to Pachamama¨ (Mother Earth) to provide the land and water for their lifestyle....The whole belief system and how they make offerings is really interesting all round. We even braved another climb (one of many!) to the most worshipped place on the locals island, to watch the beautiful sunset. In the evening we were made to dress in the local dress, the women in big heavy skirts and embroidered blouses, with shawls on heads (not dissimilar dress to other mountainous regions around the world) and the men in big poncho´s complete with big pointy hat (all hand knitted by the locals, each one tells a story about the wearer and their occupation, single/married, fisherman/farmer etc...). Just to feel utterly ridiculous!! and then join in the local dances of the community, it was a great way of getting to know our families, breaking the ice, and really tiring with the thin air!! Wow they are pretty energetic and it´s a great way of keeping warm too. The locals only speak Quechua and so only small amounts of spanish can be spoken at any time. On our very dark return to the family home, we watched the stars in the sky. Which was just so amazing as there is not electricity at this time on the islands if at all ever, and the stars shine so brightly against the midnight blue of the sky. It reminded me of the african skies at night, we could even see the ¨Southern cross¨ and the Milky way¨, WOW! It´s such a tranquil experience and the way of life here simple but contented, we were glad to have been a part of it for a short space of time (see pics and you´ll agree we think). Moving onwards to more southerly places...........First we had to stay in Puno on the lakes edge with a touristy feel.We unfortunately or fortunately met Helen a young aussie who had just been mugged a few minutes before by three guys who had taken everything.The police i must say were great and after giving her $20 dollars we saw her safely to her hotel. Her phone call home to mum must have been fun.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/martinandheike/martinandheike/1117298340/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/martinandheike/martinandheike/1117298340/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/martinandheike/martinandheike/1117298340/tpod.html Sun, 05 Jun 2005 19:26:59 -0400 Heike's and Martin's adventure's as they circumnavigate our ikle old world....This is our dream to share... As this now being viewed by people we have not met yet please do make comments!!

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Cuenco, Ecuador

A long bus journey found us in "Cuenca" a lovely Colonial city in Equador. We spent a day wandering around watching the local scenery and listening to a band of Mexican musicians in the very grand Central Plaza. You can spend hours just ¨people watching¨ in places like this. Family life is extremely important over here and there´s a real mix of the hill people in very traditional dress, and then the more mixed families of Spanish and Indian race.... "Cuenca" is also the place which is famous for making Panama hats, not Panama (it's a long story). So I,m now the proud owner of my own (see picture). we were taken thro´the whole making process, from the extraction of the fibres to the way in which they are woven and then pressed into shape. Pretty interesting stuff, as when you see them being sold they all look pretty much the same. Our next stop was ¨Villcibamba¨, in the very south amongst a wonderful backdrop of mountains and rolling hills. so beautiful and perfect for relaxing in after feeling a tad under the weather from our stint in the jungle! The Hotel we stayed in was just excellent. Run by two german brothers, ¨Pieter und Dieter¨ (at first we were sure they must be partners!!) and really good for everything in order to relax...ahh..
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