We've traversed an awful lot of continent since we last spoke.
Unfortunately we don´t have much time to tell you about it, since we need to go and celebrate having sucessfully crossed the Colombian border in a daring night-time mission with disguises and zip lines and stuff.
Suffice to say all is well, and that we hope to be back in the UK on the 23rd December (fingers crossed). You can see some highlights of the final stages of our journey here (including scary giant dinosaur monsters in the park).
Tomorrow we have to journey across Colombia in a tiny plane, and then somehow make our way into Venezuela. WOOP! Should be a laugh!
Looking forward to seeing you all soon
xxx
Friday, 18 December 2009
Sunday, 13 December 2009
Peru photos
Some photos of the Peru leg here.
Including Iquitos, Lima, Nazca, Cusco, Machu Pichu and Huaraz.
Including Iquitos, Lima, Nazca, Cusco, Machu Pichu and Huaraz.
Some other things that have happened recently
Righty-ho. Hello again! This update is coming to you from the town of Trujillo, somewhere towards the northerny middly coasty bit of Peru. Most of what I have to say however will not concern Trujillo, because we´ve only just arrived, and all we have to report so far is that their banana pancakes are very big and that almost everything is closed on Sundays. Last night was spent on another extremely comfortable bus which took us all the way from Huaraz, using the medium of Forrest Gump to pass the time. This excellent film was marred only slightly by the Spanish dubbing which made the protaganist sound less stupid than he really is and by the fact that the subtitles (strangely also in Spanish) appeared to be telling a completely different story to the dialogue. Enjoyable none the less.
Speaking of enjoyment, Huaraz was really extremely good. I can´t emphasize this enough - it was VERY NICE INDEED. What made it so good were the mountains. There are lots of them, they´re very high and covered in snow and best of all we went and camped in them for a week. Totally brilliant. Some of them, for example, look like this:
Upon arriving in Huaraz, we stumbled a lot and felt dreadful, on account of the way in which we had spent the preceeding two days (see Steph´s post below). Afterwards, we found a friendly Peruvian women with whom we conversed in Spanish (something which we are increasingly finding to be possible, which is nice). She took us to her hotel and rented us a tent, some sleeping bags, a big canister of gas and some spoons. Then we got on a bus which went up some PROPER MENTAL little roads through the mountains. Miraculously it didn´t fall off (although we did have to change a tyre twice) and took us here instead. Then we headed off into the hills, like the intrepid explorers that we are. I say hills - actually they´re REAL MOUNTAINS - we started walking at 3,200 m, and our highest point was a 4,800 m pass. It´s actually quite difficult to breathe at that sort of height, especially with a big rucsac on your back, but we managed to survive none the less. It being the middle of the rainy season, it rained a lot, but that was OK, and made the cozy snugness of our tent and the warming goodness of our noodle soup all the more welcome at the end of a day´s walking. We saw some absolutely spectacular scenery - huge snow-capped peaks, lush green valleys and the most amazing blue-green, crystal clear glacial lakes. The advantage of the rainy season is that hardly anyone else is stupid enough to attempt trekking, which meant that we pretty much had the whole moutain range to ourselves - really superb. Highly recommended to anyone of a mountainy disposition. Also of note was Steph´s new found skill of bull scarer-offing, which was absolutely priceless to watch of a morning - youtube evidence to follow shortly. Having covered over 50 miles of Andean mountain and climbed a total of over 2 km, we eventually arrived exhausted back in Huaraz, via an equally spine-tinglingly terrifying bus ride. Since we´re now in a bit of a mad rush to make it back to Caracas in time for our flight home, we barely had time to scrape the mud, dead skin and blood off our feet before having to head for the station to take the aforementioned bus here to Trujillo (although we just about managed to find time to fill ourselves with cheese before leaving.)
After extracting ourselves from this intenet cafe, we´re going to head off to the beach for a few hours (assuming this is not also closed), and then it´s more bussy magic tonight - this time up to Tumbez, near the Equadorian border. The crossing into Equador is apparently billed as ´worst border crossing in South America´, so that should be a laugh. Assuming all goes well there, it´s on to Quito, and then up to the border with Colombia to try to negotiate our way back to Venezuela.
Much love to all, and we look forward to seeing you all again soon!
xxx
Speaking of enjoyment, Huaraz was really extremely good. I can´t emphasize this enough - it was VERY NICE INDEED. What made it so good were the mountains. There are lots of them, they´re very high and covered in snow and best of all we went and camped in them for a week. Totally brilliant. Some of them, for example, look like this:
Upon arriving in Huaraz, we stumbled a lot and felt dreadful, on account of the way in which we had spent the preceeding two days (see Steph´s post below). Afterwards, we found a friendly Peruvian women with whom we conversed in Spanish (something which we are increasingly finding to be possible, which is nice). She took us to her hotel and rented us a tent, some sleeping bags, a big canister of gas and some spoons. Then we got on a bus which went up some PROPER MENTAL little roads through the mountains. Miraculously it didn´t fall off (although we did have to change a tyre twice) and took us here instead. Then we headed off into the hills, like the intrepid explorers that we are. I say hills - actually they´re REAL MOUNTAINS - we started walking at 3,200 m, and our highest point was a 4,800 m pass. It´s actually quite difficult to breathe at that sort of height, especially with a big rucsac on your back, but we managed to survive none the less. It being the middle of the rainy season, it rained a lot, but that was OK, and made the cozy snugness of our tent and the warming goodness of our noodle soup all the more welcome at the end of a day´s walking. We saw some absolutely spectacular scenery - huge snow-capped peaks, lush green valleys and the most amazing blue-green, crystal clear glacial lakes. The advantage of the rainy season is that hardly anyone else is stupid enough to attempt trekking, which meant that we pretty much had the whole moutain range to ourselves - really superb. Highly recommended to anyone of a mountainy disposition. Also of note was Steph´s new found skill of bull scarer-offing, which was absolutely priceless to watch of a morning - youtube evidence to follow shortly. Having covered over 50 miles of Andean mountain and climbed a total of over 2 km, we eventually arrived exhausted back in Huaraz, via an equally spine-tinglingly terrifying bus ride. Since we´re now in a bit of a mad rush to make it back to Caracas in time for our flight home, we barely had time to scrape the mud, dead skin and blood off our feet before having to head for the station to take the aforementioned bus here to Trujillo (although we just about managed to find time to fill ourselves with cheese before leaving.)
After extracting ourselves from this intenet cafe, we´re going to head off to the beach for a few hours (assuming this is not also closed), and then it´s more bussy magic tonight - this time up to Tumbez, near the Equadorian border. The crossing into Equador is apparently billed as ´worst border crossing in South America´, so that should be a laugh. Assuming all goes well there, it´s on to Quito, and then up to the border with Colombia to try to negotiate our way back to Venezuela.
Much love to all, and we look forward to seeing you all again soon!
xxx
Motion, lots of motion, and sickness, a bit more sickness.
But don´t get me wrong - only in the best possible way. Just as funfairs always make you a little bit weird in the belly, so this whirlwind trip has kept us On the Edge of Nausea.
In Nazca we were hot downhill champs for a day, o yes. Ski Sunday should be updated for the modern world and translated onto sand, with K and I presenting as we bomb downhill on weird wooden boards, that awesome theme tune covered by a clangy Peruvian mountain band ringing in the background. Sadly in reality you don´t actually travel that fast at all on wood on sand (though I hate to discolour your delciously highspeed account Kieran!)... Sandpaper has never been known for its smoothness, really, has it. Before hurling ourselves down The World´s Tallest Sanddune we were told that the world record - top to bottom - was SEVEN SECONDS. Aghast, we thought that sounded very fast. It turned out that ´top to bottom´ is in actual fact 3OO metres, once you´ve climbed up halfway from bottom, and that 7 seconds equates to about the pace of an averagely merry llama running downhill at average speed.
For all that cynicism both Kieran and I wowed our Peruvian guide by safely beating the world record hurtling downhill on our bums. Sandy, but the least stylish way is always the most effective.
Tick: motion-that-followed-sickness count 1.
Motion-that-followed-sickness count 2 took us both by extreme surprise. Having bravely dealt with churney boats, dodgy alligator and heady mountain heights, the last thing that should cause us trouble is a piddly little aeroplane flying a few feet above the desert, right?
Well! Nazca Home of The Highest Sandune Ever apparently landed on its tourist feet by also having been chosen by the ancient Nazca culture (1,100 B.C. – A.D. 750 FYI) as the perfect spot for drawing hundreds of giant hummingbirds, spiders, monkeys, fish, whales, llamas, and lizards in the sand. See figure below. To this day no one has a clue what they were for, or why they were there. This is mainly because the only way to see these lovely pictures is from the air (or google earth, which is also cheaper) and everyone´s almost dead certain that the ancient Nazcas did not have aeroplanes (yet to be proven) or google earth (proven).
By way of example, The Monkey:
This monkey is, no word of lie, roughly 250 metres wide. And it´s been there in the sand for HUNDREDs of years. Quite some staying power. Someone accidentally built a road through the tail of the lizard so that one looks less cool, apparently.
Ápparently´, because taking to the air in a hi-tech super-lite really-fun 4-seater desert plane, Steph discovered that her belly was REALLY bad at flying: I didn´t see a thing other than the ground wobbling as we took off and the door opening as I dashed through it to lie as flat as poss on the safe ground once we landed. Kieran valiantly snapped photos of every figure as we soared agonisingly one way round it, then the other way round it, so that i could at least look at the photos. Ridiculous. Not even telling myself that Michael Palin would´ve been down with it helped. The pilots and helpful grounds-people in neon jackets tell you that looking at the horizon helps. It does not. The horizon is impossible to find. Think cat in a see-through tumble-dryer plus sand.
But we ´did some culture´ though! Lonely Planet cultural activity achieved.
From Nazca and its sandy lines, via Lima again to Cusco (3395m above sea level), we checked into loco hostal Loki, partied too hard on white russians and warm Peruvian wine and began a monumental four-day trek to legendary Machu Pichu. Healthy bout of hangover and/or altitude sickness in tow. Lonely Planet says drinking aggravates altitude sickness. Kieran says it helps, and he´s going to be a doctor, so we went with his advice. Pehaps this was erroneous. Day 1 of The Expedition required mountain biking from 4200m to 2500m in hail, fog and headache with dubious brakes and an exquisitely large crevice constantly to one side of us. Hairy. But we have learnt that Motion + Sickness = FUN....
... Having dried out amongst the chickens in a tiny mountain foothill town (inadvertently eating some of their brothers as warming soup, oops), we set out marching through the forests of the Urumbamba River valley, Inca ruins-wards.
Palin would definitely have been down with this and most probably has walked the Inca Trail himself, but I thought it about time to try a new Patron Saint of travelling. Maybe we´d feel less sick. So, enter Mr. Hiram Bingham (very difficult for Peruvians to pronounce so it took us a while to figure out who he actually was). Tall, lanky, conservative Yale Professor and later US senator, he is probably the basis for the actual Indiana Jones character. FACT. More to the point, he got all excited about the Andes and the Incas and asked so many questions and went so far around Peru on petulant mules that he finally found Machu Pichu pretty much on his own in 1911. Wow. Definitely worth a try as a P.S. of travelling. He wrote a completely exciting book about his adventures creatively called ´Inca Land´ which is so good that the National Geographic have published it as one of the World´s Hundred Best Adventure Classics. Christmas read? It really is good. In fact, as naff as it is to quote (!!) someone else in a blog, he does way better at explaining what the trek to Machu Pichu is like than I could, and I know you won´t read the book (which you should) anyway, so:
"From Torontoy to Colpani the road runs through a land of matchless charm. It has themajestic grandeur of the Canadian Rockies, as well as the startling beauty of the Nuuanu Pali near Honolulu, and the enchanting vistas of the Koolau Ditch Trail on Maul. In the variety of its charms and the power of its spell, I know of no place in the world which can compare with it. Not only has it great snow peaks looming above the clouds more than two miles overhead; gigantic precipices of many-colored granite rising sheer for thousands of feet above the foaming, glistening, roaring rapids; it has also, in striking contrast, orchids and tree ferns, the delectable beauty of luxurious vegetation, and the mysterious witchery of the jungle. One is drawn irresistibly onward by ever-recurring surprises through a deep, winding gorge, turning and twisting past overhanging cliffs of incredible height. Above all, there is the fascination of finding here and there under the swaying vines, or perched on top of a beetling crag, the rugged masonry of a bygone race; and of trying to understand the bewildering romance of the ancient builders who ages ago sought refuge in a region which appears to have been expressly designed by Nature as a sanctuary for the oppressed, a place where they might fearlessly and patiently give expression to their passion for walls of enduring beauty. Space forbids any attempt to describe in detail the constantly changing panorama, the rank tropical foliage, the countless terraces, the towering cliffs, the glaciers peeping out between the clouds".
In Nazca we were hot downhill champs for a day, o yes. Ski Sunday should be updated for the modern world and translated onto sand, with K and I presenting as we bomb downhill on weird wooden boards, that awesome theme tune covered by a clangy Peruvian mountain band ringing in the background. Sadly in reality you don´t actually travel that fast at all on wood on sand (though I hate to discolour your delciously highspeed account Kieran!)... Sandpaper has never been known for its smoothness, really, has it. Before hurling ourselves down The World´s Tallest Sanddune we were told that the world record - top to bottom - was SEVEN SECONDS. Aghast, we thought that sounded very fast. It turned out that ´top to bottom´ is in actual fact 3OO metres, once you´ve climbed up halfway from bottom, and that 7 seconds equates to about the pace of an averagely merry llama running downhill at average speed.
For all that cynicism both Kieran and I wowed our Peruvian guide by safely beating the world record hurtling downhill on our bums. Sandy, but the least stylish way is always the most effective.
Tick: motion-that-followed-sickness count 1.
Motion-that-followed-sickness count 2 took us both by extreme surprise. Having bravely dealt with churney boats, dodgy alligator and heady mountain heights, the last thing that should cause us trouble is a piddly little aeroplane flying a few feet above the desert, right?
Well! Nazca Home of The Highest Sandune Ever apparently landed on its tourist feet by also having been chosen by the ancient Nazca culture (1,100 B.C. – A.D. 750 FYI) as the perfect spot for drawing hundreds of giant hummingbirds, spiders, monkeys, fish, whales, llamas, and lizards in the sand. See figure below. To this day no one has a clue what they were for, or why they were there. This is mainly because the only way to see these lovely pictures is from the air (or google earth, which is also cheaper) and everyone´s almost dead certain that the ancient Nazcas did not have aeroplanes (yet to be proven) or google earth (proven).
By way of example, The Monkey:
This monkey is, no word of lie, roughly 250 metres wide. And it´s been there in the sand for HUNDREDs of years. Quite some staying power. Someone accidentally built a road through the tail of the lizard so that one looks less cool, apparently.
Ápparently´, because taking to the air in a hi-tech super-lite really-fun 4-seater desert plane, Steph discovered that her belly was REALLY bad at flying: I didn´t see a thing other than the ground wobbling as we took off and the door opening as I dashed through it to lie as flat as poss on the safe ground once we landed. Kieran valiantly snapped photos of every figure as we soared agonisingly one way round it, then the other way round it, so that i could at least look at the photos. Ridiculous. Not even telling myself that Michael Palin would´ve been down with it helped. The pilots and helpful grounds-people in neon jackets tell you that looking at the horizon helps. It does not. The horizon is impossible to find. Think cat in a see-through tumble-dryer plus sand.
But we ´did some culture´ though! Lonely Planet cultural activity achieved.
From Nazca and its sandy lines, via Lima again to Cusco (3395m above sea level), we checked into loco hostal Loki, partied too hard on white russians and warm Peruvian wine and began a monumental four-day trek to legendary Machu Pichu. Healthy bout of hangover and/or altitude sickness in tow. Lonely Planet says drinking aggravates altitude sickness. Kieran says it helps, and he´s going to be a doctor, so we went with his advice. Pehaps this was erroneous. Day 1 of The Expedition required mountain biking from 4200m to 2500m in hail, fog and headache with dubious brakes and an exquisitely large crevice constantly to one side of us. Hairy. But we have learnt that Motion + Sickness = FUN....
... Having dried out amongst the chickens in a tiny mountain foothill town (inadvertently eating some of their brothers as warming soup, oops), we set out marching through the forests of the Urumbamba River valley, Inca ruins-wards.Palin would definitely have been down with this and most probably has walked the Inca Trail himself, but I thought it about time to try a new Patron Saint of travelling. Maybe we´d feel less sick. So, enter Mr. Hiram Bingham (very difficult for Peruvians to pronounce so it took us a while to figure out who he actually was). Tall, lanky, conservative Yale Professor and later US senator, he is probably the basis for the actual Indiana Jones character. FACT. More to the point, he got all excited about the Andes and the Incas and asked so many questions and went so far around Peru on petulant mules that he finally found Machu Pichu pretty much on his own in 1911. Wow. Definitely worth a try as a P.S. of travelling. He wrote a completely exciting book about his adventures creatively called ´Inca Land´ which is so good that the National Geographic have published it as one of the World´s Hundred Best Adventure Classics. Christmas read? It really is good. In fact, as naff as it is to quote (!!) someone else in a blog, he does way better at explaining what the trek to Machu Pichu is like than I could, and I know you won´t read the book (which you should) anyway, so:
"From Torontoy to Colpani the road runs through a land of matchless charm. It has themajestic grandeur of the Canadian Rockies, as well as the startling beauty of the Nuuanu Pali near Honolulu, and the enchanting vistas of the Koolau Ditch Trail on Maul. In the variety of its charms and the power of its spell, I know of no place in the world which can compare with it. Not only has it great snow peaks looming above the clouds more than two miles overhead; gigantic precipices of many-colored granite rising sheer for thousands of feet above the foaming, glistening, roaring rapids; it has also, in striking contrast, orchids and tree ferns, the delectable beauty of luxurious vegetation, and the mysterious witchery of the jungle. One is drawn irresistibly onward by ever-recurring surprises through a deep, winding gorge, turning and twisting past overhanging cliffs of incredible height. Above all, there is the fascination of finding here and there under the swaying vines, or perched on top of a beetling crag, the rugged masonry of a bygone race; and of trying to understand the bewildering romance of the ancient builders who ages ago sought refuge in a region which appears to have been expressly designed by Nature as a sanctuary for the oppressed, a place where they might fearlessly and patiently give expression to their passion for walls of enduring beauty. Space forbids any attempt to describe in detail the constantly changing panorama, the rank tropical foliage, the countless terraces, the towering cliffs, the glaciers peeping out between the clouds".
Spot on.
Starting walking at 4am on our last day, Kieran and I made it up to the top with our new trek buddies in the first
50 people of the day. This is supposed to be quite good because one of the littler mountains you climb up to look down
on the ruins from is too little and sinking to have more than 400 bodies on it a day. This means people like to be sure
and get in amongst the first 50, just to be safe. Sorted.
More importantly, the place was BREATHTAKING. Ruins take on an extra-spectacular aura when you have hiked your
brains out of your body to get to look at them, but these are something else entirely.
Clinging to the small rocky plateau that hangs off the 2800m high peaks, the place made us all feel dizzy with
mystery (dehydration/exhaustion) and thus mad enough to climb the surrounding peaks for the ensuing 11hrs.
Compelled to get Í´ve-been-there, look-how-stunning-it-is-guys photos´ from every possible angle, we walked
and walked and walked the hilltops `til all we could do was waddle.
And so waddling a few thousand metres down to some lusciously steamy but yellow-with-sulphur aguas calientes
(hot springs for you uncivilised ones), we healed our toes, took a large draught of the local tiple and a train back
to Cusco. Hiram would´ve been down with that adventure. And I am definitely going to become an Explorer-Mountaineer.
Motion accomplished, sans sickness. Result.
Cusco brought us more hangovers and a beast of a night out dancing (´deadly´ to you Irish), an ensuing horrifically sickly
journey back to Lima from whence we voyaged intrepdily into the Cordillera Blanca mountains in the North. Trekking ahoy,
hurrah hooray! (But sighs as we realise the motion and the sickness still haunted us (for our sins, for our sins).
Check out the humour of the mountain folk in their Christmas present toy suggestion for kids and their eatery names ...!
Tuesday, 1 December 2009
Clostridium, Capitals and Coming down slopes very quickly
Hello again. Things have moved on apace since last we spoke. We´ve been to not just one but TWO new places, which is a lot, and doesn´t even include the places we just passed through. We stayed in Iquitos (biggest city in the world which is not accessible by road) for a few days, and went to a butterfly farm where this happened:
You´ll notice that that clearly isn´t a butterfly. We were outraged and left.
Afterwards we went out for dinner and ate some alligator, which was very nice but unfortunately made me violently ill. A torturous plane journey across the country ensued, and we were forced to spend an enormous amount of money on a lavish hotel in Lima to help me recouperate. Sadly our schedule didn´t allow us much time to hang out and see the sights (not even the amazing Llama Woman - see below), and we had to get on a bus out the very next afternoon. Buses in Peru are RIDONCULOUS. Despite being very cheap thay are like hotels on wheels - people come round and serve you soft drinks and full-on cooked dinners, there are blankets, pillows and the like, you can actually LIE DOWN, there are movies to watch and EVERYTHING - we arrived in Nazca and had to be dragged off. Luckily the hotels in Peru are also like hotels, but don´t have wheels, which means they are as comfortable as the buses and easier to find. We stayed in one of those for a while, and went out on some excursions.
Today we have done something amazing, which made us look like this:
We had to get up at half 3 in the morning because otherwise you die of heat exhaustion, and then climb up the biggest sand dune in the world (2080 metres), which was very hard (not literally of course, because it´s made of sand). Then we strapped planks of wood to our legs and threw ourselves down again. It was excellent - you can go really fast and stuff. It´s almost impossible to stop but that doesn´t matter because it´s also very difficult to hurt yourself. Since we got up so early we still had most of a day left, which we´ve spent eating a number of avodados. Soon it´s time for a Pisco Sour or two, and then it´s off to the bus. Next stop - Cusco.
Oh, and the thing with the Llama Lady - basically someone wanted to build a big statue of someone famous in a square in Lima. Since they wanted to convey an image of power, glory, dignity etc, they asked the sculptor to give her a crown of flames. Unfortuntely the poor chap wasn´t really familiar with the use of that particular artistic metaphor, and since the Spanish word for "flame" is "llama" he gave her one of those instead. HA!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
