TravelStream™ news feed for member pennyimo on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/pennyimo en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Mon, 06 Jul 2009 11:29:04 -0400 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/pennyimo/2/1246890472/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/pennyimo/2/1246890472/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/pennyimo/2/1246890472/tpod.html Mon, 06 Jul 2009 11:29:04 -0400 Thailand, Laos, Cambodia

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Ko Tao, Thailand

We've been down south for a few days now, but time is going much too fast for our liking. We are now on Ko Tao where it feel like we've hardly spent anytime at all and yet we're leaving on a ferry tomorrow morning for Ko Panang, our last stop before heading back to Bangkok.

Our first island stop was at Ko Phi Phi which was beautiful and sunny, if slightly more touristy than Tao. We spent our first day there on the long sandy beach on the north side of the island before climbing up to the view point to watch the sun set where...lo and behold we ran into...Lara and Tarby! They had some pretty enthusiastic stories about the island nightlife...a lot of fire limbo and buckets by the sounds of things. We took it easy our first night there as we were all feeling pretty worn our from night buses and ferries. The nest day we took a boat tour to some of the beaches around phi phi which included a trip to "The Beach" (as in the one where the novel/film were set). We did lots of snorkelling (though failed to spot any of the promised sharks) and lots of sunbathing on all the beautiful beaches. That evening we headed out for a meal before hitting the beaches for the nightlife which included skipping on a petrol soaked rope that was on fire. I decided to pass on this one since we didn't really see a siungle person escpae without getting tripped up and burned. We did venture to do some fire limbo though which was pretty fun. All in all an excellent night. Our final day on phi phi before catching the ferry was spent in a beautiful swimming pool over looking the beach which thankfully was nice and cool, unlike the sea on that beach which was a bit bath-like.


We got to Ko Tao by over night ferry and have spent all our time napping and reading and sunbathing. Perfect. We have also just got our emails about our hospital placements next year so im going to have to end the blogging to go and find out about that!

weeee

xxxxxxx
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Vang Vieng, Lao Peoples Dem Rep

We have survived tubing! yay!

We had a pretty awesome couple of days on the river but are now tubed out and ready to it the islands. 3 days in Vang Vieng was definitely long enough for me. Its a tourist honey pot, just rows of restaurants which show one of 2 programs on repeat: Friends and Family Guy. Most people there are drunk most of the time. We had a particularly special bus journey down to Vientiane to catch our flights, sat behind a "man" who was practically passed out before getting on the bus, and didn't make it long into the journey before falling completely unconscious and wetting himself. Twice. He was bad enough, but then it turned out that his disgusting dreadlocked friend, who thought the whole thing was hilarious had given him 3 Valium pills and was still poring a bottle of whisky down his throat after pulling him (still unconcious) off the bus on arrival. I mostly felt sorry for the man sitting next to valium man, who had to stand up the whole journey. Dreadlock man, needless to say did not offer him his seat or look after his (probably dead by this stage) friend but instead bored us with the most self involved and tedious conversation with dreadlock girl sitting accross the aisle a about what personality types they had and how their lives had shaped them into the people they had become and the road they were now taking. Special.

Rant over!

We are now back in Bangkok spending the day before heading down south the Kho Phi Phi this evening (arriving at 10ish tomorrow morning). Cannot wait!!!!!

xxxx

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Luang Prabang, Lao Peoples Dem Rep

After finally ending our cramped and sweaty boat ride, we were pretty desperate to settle into a guesthouse and get clean, and luckily we found a cheap one fairly near the center. Christie even managed to negotiate a discount on the rooms. Once we'd sorted our stuff out, we set out, starving hungry in search of food, which took a bit longer than usual as we managed to get lost and wandered around aimlessly for about half an hour. It was worth the wait though, dinner was awesome. We've all decided we love Lao food....I even branched out from Tom Yum!

There's a 10:30 pm curfew in Laos after which the bars all shut, except for, strangely, the bowling alley. So we headed, along with the other 150 or so people from our long boat to the Luang Prabang lanes which felt a bit like being on a weird sort of school outing! Anna was victorious in bowling, knocking out a massive 3 strikes in a row: hidden talents! I think that's about the same number of shots where I managed to knock down a single pin....We headed back frm Bowling aftyer realising that one of out Irish friends was a bit worse for wear: and there was me thinking that the Irish could take their drink! We jumped in a tuk tuk to take us back into town, arranging to meet the same tuk tuk driver at midday the next day to head off to some waterfalls nearby. He seemed to take a bit of a likng to our merry group, not surprising as Anna somehow managed to tip him more than the total cost of the whole journey! Good job Anna....

After a slow beakfast the next morning, we met Irishes, Tom and tuk tuk man to head to the falls. Maybe hoping to get another massive tip, rather than just waiting at the bottom with all the other tuk tuk drivers in the car park, our driver came with us right up to the falls, which turned out to be an excellent thing as he showed us a route which led us right to the top of the falls, to this infinity pool-like ledge where you could swim in the basin and look over the edge right the way down the falls. The path to get there was pretty hidden so we were there all on our own for ages. Tuk tuk man/camera man also showed us where it was safe to jump in and got some excellent shots. After an awesome few hours at the pools, we headed back down for banana fritters before jumping back aboard tuk tuk to get back to visit the mount in the middle of Luang Prabang that you are supposed to go up to watch sunset (sadly too cloudy). After another tasty dinner, we headed home for bed, since we had an early start the next day to catch the bus to Vang Vieng where we all are now.

Vang Vieng is a travellers magnet, pretty much a complete culture void! The draw to come here is "tubing", a sort of pub crawl along a river where you sit in rubber hoop and float down the river, stopping along the way at these bars, wach of which has some sort of rope swing or zip wire. Its brilliant fun, some people come here planning on staying a few days and just don't leave for months! We have a flight to catch however, besides which, while tubing is brilliant fun, I'm not sure I would want more than a few days worth of Vang Vieng!

More on this later, I'm off to go tubing!

love
xxxxx

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Pai, Thailand

So haven't put up an entrry in a while, mainly because I wrote a massive long one and then the stupid computer was on didn't save it. Very frustrating. Now I feel like there's quite a lot to catch up on so I will try and keep things consise.

Going back all the way to after we finished the trek and our excellent night out with On in Chiang Mai: the next day we got up bright and early to catch a mini bus along a very windy but beautiful road to a small town further north called Pai, which Mum and Dad have made sme "hilarious" jokes about do to with 3.1415 and gravy etc...Pai is, as previously mentioned the place to "chill" so we soon set about doing that after finding some accomodations in cute little bamboo huts. We spent that first day getting our bearings (not hard, there are pretty much only 4 roads in Pai), eating amazing sandwiches and smoothies and reading and relaxing at our guest house. I went for an exploratory run up the road which took me a bit more out into the countryside past some paddy feilds and all sorts of other stuff which was really authentic looking, as well as past some very bemused locals who kept reminding me that scooters are very cheap to rent...! Post run, we all decided to treat ourselves to some pampering massages and body scrubs which left us relaxed, clean, and in Bernie's case, trying to reattatch her shoulder muscles after her "tough love" old massuse lady treated her to an especially firm massage. We then headed out for a tasty meal before crashing pretty early to recover from several days of short sleep hours. A very chilled day.

The next day, we decided to go a little bit against the grain for Pai and rented some bicycles to cycle up to one of the waterfalls. Most people rent scooters, but we all decided that since Christie and I can't drive (not an impediment to being able to hire a scooter legally out here apparently) we decided to be captain sensibles and get some excersise at the same time. We also figured that since we had already had our body scrubs, there was no motivation for taking off more layers of skin skidding accoss gravelly roads. So we headed out after breakfast, on possibly some of the most dubious bikes in the world whose gears seemed be a law unto themselves and found ourselves on a road climbing steadily out of the town. I think if at this point someone had told up what was coming we would have all given up. At every corner, we expected the road to level out, but each time we went round, it only got steeper! It was absolutely knackering. Even the parts we thought when we were going up were flat we discovered on the freewheel back down were not at all. It took us two exhausting and very sweaty hours to reach the falls by which time everyones knees were very shaky. The falls were pretty cool though, with little swimming pools and slides, and a bunch of local kids to keep us entertained with their free running came of case over the sheer rock faces, pretty impressive stuff.

The ride back down took us barely fifteen minutes and we didn't have to peddle ONCE!

We went for a rewarding dinner that night at a falafel restaurant, where we ran into a kiwi guy we met in Chiang Mai who we now call Mark slasg Dave after an unfortunate and very embarrassing forgetting of names when we introduced him to a girld from our hostel who had joined us for dinner. More and more people from Chiang Mai popped up over the course of the evening which after dinner took up to a really cute little cocktail bar for Mai Thai's and guitar serenading. The guitarist payed us the Thai song that we had learned on our trek, the one line of which we knew we sang very enthusiastically. Mark slash Dave also got some pretty good footage of Christie and Anna's rendition of a westlife classic. Excellent. After heading off to a couple more places with more people gathered along the way, we went back to the guesthouse for sleep.

Our final day in Pai was spent, appropriately, chilling. We found a big pool to swim and sunbathe by before catching the bus back to Chiang Mai. From Chiang Mai, we would be getting another bus to the border crossing for Laos and a 2 day boat ride down the Mekong to get to Luang Prabang. I'm not going to blog to extensively about that, suffice to day it was incredibly hot and cramped, sat on punishing church pew seats surrounded by 18 year old "guap yar" (gap year) students all "finding themselves". There were a couple of plus points which I will mention:

1) the scenery: spectacular
2) lots of reading time
3) the people we met at our stop over after the first day. A boy calle Tom we had previously met in Bangkok and two hilarious Irish guys he had aquiried as travel buddies. They are excellent company and we've pretty much all stuck together since we met.

The boat takes you to a place called Luang Prabang which will be the next entry. I'll try and be a better blogger from now so I'm not trying to cram so much into each entry!

Love love love

xxxxx

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Chiang Mai, Thailand

Right, so separate entry needed for the trek as we have crammed so much in the last few days!

The first day, we met our group and set off to start the trek, stopping on the way to visit an Orchid Farm, which I know Granny Treat would have loved. The flowers were really beautiful, but we have used up quite a lot of photos, trying to find our "muse" flower and being all arty and stuff. After that we went to a market to buy food supplies (and some yummy local fruits to snack on) before driving on to an elephant home thing where we met our elephants. They are SO friendly looking (especially when you are carrying a bunch of bananas to feed them) but actually not all that comfortable to ride if you sit on the seat. After a bit, our guide let me move forward and sit on the neck behind the ears which is much more comfortable, if a little bit bristly. Bernie's guide practically had her up there from the very beginning. Her and Anna's seat also had an umbrella attatched so it looked a bit like Bernie was Anna's lady in waiting, looking after the elephant while Anna relaxed under the parasol. It was amazing being able to get so close to them and to feed them, but we were a bit worried about how they might be being treated as they had these big hook things to control them with....Mine and Christie's elephant was called Python which seemed an unusual choice of name for an elephant, especially as the others all seemed to have fairely normal names like "Christina".

After elephant riding, we had lunch and then set off walking for the afternoon. It was a pretty steep uphill climb and at one point, I had a running race against our guide (Pon) which he won despite carrying mine and his bag for it. But then apparently, sometime he runs the whole 10km uphill which sounds pretty hard core to me! We were all pretty sweaty by the end but had spectacular views to keep our minds off how bad we probably all smelt. At the very top of the hill, we arrived at the hill tribe village where we would be staying that night. After settling into our hut (made entirely of bamboo with disconcertingly springy floors, we went for a "tour" of the village which pretty much consisted of taking a look into a family home where there was just a man smoking vast quantities of opium before going to visit some rabbit huts(!?). We then headed back to our hut to make liberal use of Bernie's vast quantity of baby wipes (perks of having a num who's a midwife!) before settling around the indoor campfire for dinner which was a delicious curry, soup, rice and vegetables. It was really cosy all sitting around the fire so we stayed up late trying to all freak each other out with ghost stories, along with the other group members, an American couple and two girls on a post university Gap year from essex who we got on really well with. We decided to pass on our host's generous offers of some opium to share with them and headed to bed next door. However, a bamboo hut is not the most airtight of environments which might explain the incredibly strange dreams everyone seemed to have that night! We were def the noisy people in the group and were probs keeping everyone up with our giggling, especially Christie and Bernie who, judging by their conversations seemed to think that their mosquito net (full of massive holes¦) was sound proof...!

The next morning we split off from the rest of the group who were only doing a three day trek and headed off down a very slippery hill which in parts we were practically skiing down! We made our first stop at a chinese tribal village where were made friends with a very cute little girl before carrying on to a waterfall where we had a very refreshing pre lunch swim. We were all still pretty full from breakfast but still managed some tasty chilli noodles before setting off walking again. The afternoon walking carried on down hill through the jungle, taking us past another waterfall and along a stream, with Pon teaching us a thai song all the way about a girl who steals a man's Bob Marley T shirt! At around 4.30 we arrived at our over night stop which was an amazing bamboo hut which was open on one side looking out onto the river. It was pretty incredible. After a spontaneous afternoon Yoga session with Pon (who's a bit of a pro) we had dinner (yet more delicous thai food) and then played cards until bed time. We were introduced to Anna's competitive side in card games (she claims to be the least competitive in her family...in which case I'd be scared to play cards around the Burford's house!) Sleep was perfect.

The final morning, we woke up late, to see lots of elephants wandering past our hut. Was pretty cool to be on a river bank on a sunny day in thailand, with elephants just strolling past your open air bamboo bedroom! After breakfast we walked to a rafting center where we were introduced to the basics of rafting before jumping on board with our mental raft guide, whose entire aim in life seemed to be to get us each in turn on a rotation into the water. rafting was brilliant fun though, if pretty tiring (and very wet). For the final 15mins we swapped onto a bamboo raft which he sort of "punted" down the river, pointing at every stick along the way claiming it was a snake. On the one occasion that there was a real snake, sitting on a rock, Anna missed it so our guide decided he should punt back up river to fund said snake which had since gone into the water that we were standing ankle deep in. Very reassuring. After getting our vengeance on the guide, by pushing him off the raft (Christie also made a pretty good job of not letting him back on after the first push!) we stopped for lunch (Pad Thai mmmmm) before getting back into the van to drive back to Chiang Mai.

Despite it being a pretty knackering few days, we still had enough energy when we got back (after some amazing showers, obviously) to head to the night market for some shopping and dinner. We met up with Lara, Tarby, their friends Alex and Alex and On (our mental travel agent!) to head out to a jazz bar where we listened to some live jazz whilst drinking som suong, this weird rum whisky stuff that On was ordering by the bottle. We were a bit worried about the cost of all that plus mixers at the end of the night, but despite on having enthuiastically ordered four bottles of the stuff, it only came to 140 bhat each (about 2 pounds 50!)

All in all, a brilliant few days! We have since headed north and are now in a little town called Pai. Ask anyone about this and all that they can tell you is "its just really chilled". When you get here you understand what they mean. But thats a whole other entry!

love love love

xxxxx
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Chiang Mai, Thailand

This entry marks a week that we have been in Thailand, but it feels like so much longer. We have just returned to Chiang Mai after a three day Jungle trek, which was absolultely awesome. We booked it through this woman called On, whose agency we probs would never have gone into had it not been so enthusiastically recommended by Lara and Tarby, who we ran into on the road outside. It was literally a case of running into then as Tarby spotted Bernie and I out running (BIG mistake at midday, it was BOILING). It was amazing just bumping into them on the street like that and massively lucky asI had tried clling her but had the wrong number. Silly.

Anyway, On has pretty much sorted us out for everything while we are here (all for stupidly discounted rates!). We booked a cookery course to do on our second day here, where we learned about thai incredients, prepared enough food to feed a thai army (and rioting opposition) and almost set ourselved alight, all in one day. I can now make Tom Yum soup, spring rolls, Pad Thai, Sweet and Sour, Panang Curry, Sticky rice with mango and Papaya salad. We also got a recipe book AND...A SIGNED CERTIFICATE...woop woop! A few of the people we met on the course were going to watch some mai thai boxing later that evening, so we went back to On (to get discount tickets, obviously!) and spent that evening watching the fights, which was pretty cool and playing spot-the-lady-boy, which wasn't hard as in the bar behind where we were sitting, between each boxing match, the lady boy bar staff all danced and did karioke to classics like YMCA. Brilliant. Its so funny, we found that in general, girls can spot them STRAIGHT away, but boys are much more easily tricked! For example, funny conversation with pne of the boys from the cookery course who had come to the boxing:

Him (tapping me on the shoulder): HA HA, look over there at those dancers. The one in the black dress. Its definitely a lady boy!
Me: Wha...? But...they're ALL lady boys (There were about 15 of them)
Him: Huh? I mean...Yeah.....erm...obviously. But yyou know. That one is REALLY obvious.

The bar was called "Same Same...but Different"!

After the boxing we went out to this amazing roof top bar for a bit but headed home pretty quickly to sort out stuff out for the trek.

xxxxx
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Bangkok, Krung Thep, Thailand

We have all arrived in Thailand for our months trip here, which feels even more deserved since we all got degree results duringthe few days before leaving. Christie and I also spent our last few days in London moving house which was hectic enough without packing for a holiday as well. Obviously I was going to forget something: My camera. Luckily we have 2 other camera's among us and Bernie has brought along her video recorder which has so far captured some EXCELLENT footage (for editing!)

Our first night in Bangkok was excellent. We managed to find a guest house and get into rooms minutes before the monsoon hit (so far everyday this has been between 4 and 5) which was lucky as it turns out monsoons are REALLY REALLY wet. Who'd have guessed? We decided to follow guide book advice and headed to China Town for dinner, ambitiously setting out to walk there before realising we didnt really even know where WE were. So obvs we went for the authentic option and jumped into a tuk tuk (these are pretty much our favourite things in the world) which took us straight down to China Town where you can get some pretty weird looking foods. My favourite (to look at) was the grilled Pig face. We ate at this road side stall where we had the garlikiest and tastiest chinese and thai food you've ever tasted. Anna bravely tried 2 prawns which led us all to decide that we are all going to eat something new out here. Which is how Bernie and I ended up sharing a locust later. They are crunchy and not all that tasty.

The rest of the night was pretty much spent along the main strip opf the tourist area in Bangkok, Khoasan Road, and then in various tuk tuk drag races. Having thought we'd be shattered from the plane journey, we didn't manage to get to bed till about 3.30 in the morning. Amazing first day!

Our second day in the city, we visited the Grand Palace, wandered arond the streets and generally enjoyed being in Bangkok. The Grand Palace and all the temples in the complex were amazing and very sparkly. Basically its a big temple shaped disco ball. If Buddah was a more vengefull God, he would probably smite me for that....

We then got a night bus to Chiang Mai which is where I'm writing this from. Trying to get back into the swing of blogging. After a year spent writing essays it should have been easy....hmmm

love love love

xxx
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/pennyimo/1/1218764400/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/pennyimo/1/1218764400/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/pennyimo/1/1218764400/tpod.html Thu, 14 Aug 2008 22:02:12 -0400 Barbara and Briget do South America

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Lima, Peru

Only a few hours left to go in SA now. Brig and I have spent the last 2 days wondering around Miraflores, the nice suburb of the city where all the well to do Limenos sit around people watching and drinking Starbucks coffee. Speaking of, I was quite excited at first, but I am a bit worried that I might have been ruined for Starbucks now, by having had such strong stuff everywhere that it just doesn´t cut the bill. oh dear.

We´ve been doing lots of plodding around the shops and also eating lots of the yummy food here and other than that, just feeling sad about leaving. Have also run into some familiar faces: bumped into a girl from UCL in one street corner and then also the awesome swiss couple from our Salkantay treck in the supermarket. small world. Other than that, not much of interest to note. Haven´t been into central Lima as apparently there are strikes and protests happening which doesn´t sound fun. early rise tomorrow for our mammoth journey back to London. Have heard the weather is rubbish. Thats boring. As is this blog, so I´m going to leave it there. Hope I haven´t bored everyone too much the last 2 months! See you all very soon eeee

Love love love and BBBB

Penny xxxx
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/pennyimo/1/1218578940/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/pennyimo/1/1218578940/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/pennyimo/1/1218578940/tpod.html Thu, 14 Aug 2008 21:40:31 -0400 Barbara and Briget do South America

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Colca Canyon, Peru

Arequipa, as well as being a really lovely city in itself is also where most people base themselves for a trip to the Colca Canyon, the second deepest in the world (the deepest is apparently the Cotahausi canyon nextdoor though our guide, who was from the Colca claims that they are mistaken and just haven´t measured the deepest bit of his canyon). There are lots of tour agencies all offering a fairly similar 3 day trek into the canyon but given our lack of time and apparently superior trekking skills we decided to opt for a 2 day trek covering the same distance. The only draw back being that we had to ´get up´ at 11.55pm to get the 1am bus. Originally we had booked the tour for the 9th and 10th but as Barbs was feeling a little under the weather (we worked out we had only had 1 nights sleep of over 5 hours in about the last 2 weeks... good), decided to delay, giving ourselves an extra day to explore Arequipa (definitely one of my favorite places so far). The extremely bumpy bus arrived in Cabanaconde at about 6.30 and after a quick breakfast we set off down into the canyon. After all our volcano climbing and mountain passes it was strange to start off a walk by descending 2000m but the scenery was incredible looking down into the canyon and up at the snowcapped mountains either side. After about 3 hours we arrived at our lunch stop for soup, omlette, rice and tea (what else to expect on a trek but a 2 course meal...) and a nap in the sun before setting off for 3 hours more walking in the afternoon.
The afternoon walk included a little climb (a mere 250m up... pshh). I would like to mention here that there was a pair of competitive french girls in our group who had been missioning it down the hill all morning and clearly thought they were better than us, this was our first chance to prove them wrong. Barbs (despite still feeling a little unwell) and I both beasted it up this little hill leaving them trailing in our dusty wake. Less than 3000m above sea level... too easy.
Not that we are competitive in any way.
We arrived in the afternoon at the Oasis at the bottom of the canyon which has a number of hostel/camp sites for people doing the colca treks and, after a carb loaded dinner slept in a funny little bamboo hut (essentially a non-mosquito proof, non-wind proof tent with beds in it).
The next morning I was woken up at 2.45 by our guide, along with the other walkers (two german girls and Barbs got a ´lie in´ untill 4 as they were riding up on Mulies, as the german girls called them) to start the 1100m climb back out of the canyon. I really enjoyed the climb, probably purely because it was a climb and gave me a chance to show the french girls what-for, seeing as it was dark and so couldn´t really see much other than the 2m of path in my head torch beam and the occasional pair of eyes in the bushes.
The view from the top at sunrise was amazing though, as was getting back into the warmth for a well earned breakfast in Cabanaconde.

Imo xxx

Argh the french girls! To be honnest, the relationship there didn´t start well after shorter french girl stole one of Brig and I´s bread rolls at breakfast on the first morning. A serious matter for sure. Bet she regretted that as the excess weight of it in her belly held her back as we zoomed past her on the up hill segment. Mouahahahahaa. I ended up getting a "muley" up the next day, because at the point when our guide was counting muley requests, I was in a bit of a trough (literally as well as metaphorically, we were at the bottom of the canion). The ride was interesting, I don´t really know how muley knew where he was going as it was pitch black and the path was very narrow. I know that mules are traditionally called stuborn but mine was more an "independent thinker", alternately sprinting ahead of the other muleys, then stopping to wait for them to catch up before powering on again. Also, every now and again, he seemed to decide that he´d had enough of this up hill buisness and turn around to start heading back down which sent muley-man, Antonio into a fit of "MULA MULA" and "adelantes" (thats mule speak by the way, im real good at it these days. I think actually, he was maybe a like bit Imo: wanted to make things harder for himself by turning around to climb segments of the path again, and they also have powering ahead and having to wait in common, not to mention my muley´s ambitious attempts at hops from boulder to boulder.

After a yummy breakfast at the top (where Brig and I kept bread roll´s well guarded from roll-pinching-shorter-french girl) we travelled by bus to a place called "la cruz del condor" where you can watch the enormous 3 meter wing spanned birds swooping around looking for food to snatch. They are really cool: before I had wondered what was so special about them (they are a bit vulture like) but when you see them up close they are really beautiful, and make this amazing wooshing noise when they fly over head. After a respectable amount of oooing and aaaahing the condors, it was back into the bus where Imo and I were kept entertained all the journey back to Arequipa by a DVD of songs and video´s playing on the bus of woman called "Jaqueline" who can neither dance, sing or change facial expressions. No one else on the bus seemed to find it that entertaining....

Back in Arequipa, courtesy of Brig´s parents, we got to stay in a fancy hotel that we turned up to in full trecking gear where we spent a lovely few hours padding around in hotel dressing gowns and slippers, enjoying amazing hot showers, trying to swim in the freeeeezing swimming pool and generally getting really excited about everything. Lovely.

Thats about it for Arequipa. It was a really nice place to spend some of our last days in Peru and it was starting to feel really familiar just as we were leaving (especially the book exchange shop, which we managed to swap books 3 times in a week, good good!). We had planned on going to Nazca afterwards, but due to some bus issues (to tell a short story in a deservedly short way, we missed the bus because we were sitting around in comfy chairs in the hotel reading) we have ended up coming straight to Lima.

One more blog to go, sure you are all mouring: its like when friends ended (only more streaked with the tragedy of unbearable loss?). love love and bbbb

Penny xxx
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/pennyimo/1/1218577560/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/pennyimo/1/1218577560/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/pennyimo/1/1218577560/tpod.html Tue, 12 Aug 2008 18:27:21 -0400 Barbara and Briget do South America

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Arequipa, Peru

I reckon this will be the last but one blog, as we are off home in only 3 days. Arequipa has been a really lovely place to spend some of our last days in Peru, though. Its a beautiful city and one that feels much more functioning than Cusco: for a start, the Arequipan: tourist ratio is a little bit more balanced. Its set below the perfect el Misti volcano which is snow peaked at the moment. Apparently this only happens once per year so we feel quite privileged.

Before heading off to visit the nearby Colca Canion, we spent the first few days in a really nice hostel where we were very caringly looked after by the owner, Silvia, who is the sort of woman who can pinch your cheeks and call you cute without being in the least bit annoying (a VERY rare gift). On our first day there, in between trying to cook us variations of plates of corn and toasted sandwiches, she took us up onto the roof of the hostel from which there are amazing viewsof the Volcanoes. I´m not sure how it is that they become snow-peaked, the sun shines 360 days a year in Arequipa and we haven`t seen a cloud since being here, yet somehow one day they were brown and the next, white! Arequipa is mainly constructed from the rock from the volcanoes, which is white, and with the sun, makes the streets in Arequipa very nice to stroll through. Which is pretty much what we did for the first few days (this is after I slept for about 24 hours to catch up!). We also tried the local specialty, Queso Helado (frozen cheese) with cinnamon and coconut which is really yummy and plodded our way through a million and one alpaca shops which all sell exactly the same thing and yet can all be visited without boredom.

We also visited the beautiful Santa Catalina convent, which is like a mini town in the city, where the nuns lived in total seclusion for 390 years. You can see why they didn´t want anyone coming in: they probs wanted to hide the fact that their convent was a bit more like a luxury retreat: they all had their own little flats down beautiful very brightly painted orange, blue and red streets with fountains and private roof terraces (where Brig and I speculate a certain amount of sunbathing went on...). The convent was set up by this one nun who then hand picked the other nuns from rich families to come and live in her party-pad convent with all their servants and cooks and stuff. Then, later on, a new abbess took over and laid down the law, as did the local bishop who imposed such restrictions as "only 1 servant per nun". Party poopers.

After some lovely days in Arequipa, we headed off to the Colca Canion, which brig is currently bloggin about on the computer next to me, so I won´t talk about here. Was very nice though.

Tonight, we are getting a nightbus to Nazca, to hopefully see the lines tomorrow, weather allowing, then its onwards to Lima then home. Home involves a 6 hour flight, then a 6 hour wait in Altanta and then a 7 hour flight. Not fun. afterwards, Brig and I are heading separate ways, me to corwall and Brig, to watch the Olympics solidly for 4 days. I´m not sure I´v ever seen Imo so excited: she keeps spewing out facts about all the athletes and gets this giddy/glazed look in her eyes when she talks about running distances and medal predictions and stuff, and clearly doesn´t understand how I will be coping with no TV in cornwall...

see everyone soon eeee lots of love and BBBB

xxxxxxxxxxx

PS: maman, re meal when I get back, chicken/bread sauce sounds perfect, and Alexander, I appreciate self sacrifice in offers of Shepheards pie. Did Sam write that from your joint travel pod account as some sort of Sabotage?

Hope the rain stops by the time I get there.... x
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