Rio... (to be completed)

... cue catch-up blog #3...

..........anyway, back to earth, we are now in Rio de Janeiro and sweating almost as much as we were in the Amazon. We are going to check out some of the Samba schools tonight, and then tomorrow we go visit the favelas (i.e. slums - City Of God styles) and catch a futbol game at the Maracana stadium at night, then the next day possibly rock climb to the top of Sugar Loaf mountain... :-) Life is good.



Anyway people, we are healthy and happy, hope you are all the same.

Take care of your beautiful selves
J & J

[A bit of] Chile and Mendoza, Argentina!

... catch-up blog #2 ...

San Pedro was effectively for us a cafe called El Adobe where we chilled out for a couple of days with a succesion of back packers who came through our hostel. Down time was certainly needed. Great cafe too!! Chile is positively western and first world compared with Peru. It is considerably more expensive - we managed to blow as much dosh in 2 days at Adobe as a week in Peru!!

With a few spare days now that Bolivia is off the menu we slingshot through Santiago and take a bus through the Andes to Mendoza in Argentina. These mountains dwarf anything we have seen before and the different shapes and layers and colour of the rocks and earth are incredible. The road also traverses a 3 1/2 killometre tunnel through the rock. Pretty impressive!! It does not matter what you have heard before, or how conservative you might be. The people in Argentina are far and away the most physically beautiful people that we have ever seen in our lives by a long long way. Sorry everyone :- You hear about it but are still taken aback. I think the biggest part of it that about one out of 20 isn't absolutely gorgeous. ........and they are not bad!! Apart from checking out chicas, we also had an incredible day mountain biking in the foothills of the Andes and also visited a few wineries (unfortunately the wine wasn't the best...)

Bring on Rio!

J & J

PS The Chile / Argentina border crossing formalities are the biggest debacle we have ever seen - it took 3hrs to process 40 people on a bus. Loco.

PPS Click here for photos from around Santiago and Iquique, and click here for photos from Mendoza

Hasta luego Peru...

Hola Chicos,

Sorry it has been so long between postings. Since the post it has been non stop drama of the organisational, scenic, and dangerous varieties. Things over here can change really quickly and you have to be really flexible to change plans, something we have become experts at much to the annoyance of the lovely Kristy at Flight Centre and our ongoing love-hate relationship with LAN. Anyway.....

We arrived at Cuzco after leaving Arequipa (my word, that seems like such a long time ago). First thing (after marathon sleep) was a trip around the ruins close to town; one of which was called Sacsayhuaman, pronounced "Sexy Woman", we got a lot of mileage out of that one I can tell you. Cuzco is a really pretty town with a beautiful mix of Incan, Spanish and modern architecture - it's more expensive than other parts of Peru, but still really cheap. Better still Scottito's estamago infermio had scaled down so he could now fully enjoy some exotic cuisine, "How do you like your Guinea pig, sir??" After deciding to forgo the Inca Trail in order to allow time for 4 days in the Amazon, we went up to Machu Picchu by train/bus. We were always a bit sceptical of hugely hyped attractions but the beauty of this place defies belief. The setting is ridiculously stunning and because of its remoteness it was untouched by the destructive Spanish. It doesn't matter how long you spend there you leave feeling it was too desparately short. Just incredible!!

The land of contrasts. The next day we fly into Porto Maldonado and catch a boat up the Madre de Dios (Mother of God) river into the Amazon. Here we spend 4 days in the EcoAmazonia lodge trekking/boating and checking out all the flora and fauna. We saw many species of monkey (including one that bore a remarkable resemblance to Fordham), tarantulas, night trips spotting Caymans, Tapirs, and all sorts of critters that I had never heard of. and Ants!!! thousands of huge ants with almost an inch long with big pinchers and poisonous bites. Seriously watch your step. These guys rule the forest!! The nights in the forest are incredible the birds and bats come alive at night and make so much noise that it is almost literally impossible to sleep. A good broken 4 1/2 - 5 hours a night. Loco.

............and now the wheels started to fall off. Things had been going far too smoothly at this point, with the exception of having my camera taken off me in Arequipa, we had been cruising along nicely. Cue, bus trip to Puno to check out Lake Titicaca and cross into Bolivia. We have been drifting in and out of sleep on the overnight bus as you do, only to stop in the middle of nowhere at about 4am for no apparent reason. Little did we ignorant gringos know that we have just driven into a spot of civil unrest. We find out that the road has been blocked by angry butchers - they have strewn rocks and broken glass over the road for kilometres. At this point the only option is for us to get out, get our packs and walk through the roadblock (at 4:30am!!!). It wasn't until we got to the far end of the roadblock that the protesters started to arrive with whips and homemade machetes shouting Gringo as well as other things. We looked away as best as possible and walked past them (scary).

We finally get to Puno and are pretty tired at this point. We go and check out options to get into Bolivia as we are pretty keen to get out of here if we can. We find out that there are worse problems along the road into Bolivia and no one knows what is really going on . We decide that getting into Bolivia this way is not happening so we find a cab who says that he will try to find a way back past the roadblock to another town. So he drives straight along the main route and passed the mostly cleared road into the protesters ( nice work cabbie) We get stopped as they decide to shake the car, paint slogons on the bonnet, threaten to throw bottles through the windscreen, and with the timely intervention of some older cooler heads let us on our way. We tipped that cabbie. We haven't had a lot of sleep in the last 5 days and are now looking at a flight back to Lima and then down to the border of Chile as our best option of progressing the journey. 40 hours and 6 hours sleep later we arrive in San Pedro de Atacama in Chile. Sleep..........

Hasta luego Peru, you've been fantastic...
J & J

P.S. Click here for photos from Cuzco, Machu Picchu, and the Amazon, or click here to see a few pics from our roadblock fun.

La Pais de los Incas

Hola Señors y señoritas, muchachos y muchachas,

Well we have been in Peru for 8 days, and it has been pretty eventful so far. We are sitting in an internet cafe in Arequipa in the South having yesterday come back from a three day hike in the Cañon de Colca. Unfortunately Scottito´s astomago infermio (dodgy stomach) added another dimension to the hike which was already full of excitement. We started with a 900 meter vertical decent on the first day into an amazing canyon surrounded by mountains 5-6000 metres high, absolutely stunning with beautiful coloured earth, cacti galore and mules cruising up and down the mountains carrying the local villagers and their goods. The accomdation for the trip was little villages built on the steep sides of the Canyon and filled with the happy wizened grinning old quecha in the colourful hats and clothes that the brochures make you believe are everywhere in Peru. So far it could be true. The next day was a hike along the side of the canyon through a couple of villages and the final day the inevitable 900 metre accent which had to be completed and breakfast eaten prior to 7am (ouch) when the bus arrived. Hard work, and not a lot of places on trail for a pit stop (as Scottito and his astomago infermio can attest to).

Before Arequipa we spent a day in the lovely desert oasis of Huacachina, a ideallic little lagoon and a few buildings surrounded by miles and miles of sand dunes. We went for a trip out onto the sand dunes in a dune buggy and had a go at sand boarding (albeit not that successfully). Here we met up with a local craft seller, who would spend his time scouring the desert for fossilised shark teeth from a time when the deserts of south west Peru were ocean and crafted these into necklaces for turistas. We had a great night with Megaladon (Julio Casar) who we will always be greatful to for the spanish translation/lessons and his good humour and company.

Working backward further we arrived in Lima after managing to shorten our flight from LA - Lima - Santiago - Lima to just LA - Lima (long story that we will tell you when we have a little more patience for airlines) and saving ourselves 10 hours travelling time. The accomodation in Lima was gratis in the Sheraton hotel thanks to Aaroncito and his good friends at the Starwood group of hotels. It was nice to have a good bed again after the long haul flight and internet access to sort out our onward travel issues (part of the same long story). Lima is a big bustling chaotic dirty monster of a city with traffic quantities and lack of order that defies belief. We spent some time at the beachy surfy resort Miraflores and around the Plaza de Armas (center of the city) before getting set for the trip south.

So far it has been an awesome trip filled with constant amazement at these wonderfully friendly, warm, but incredibly poor people, the conditions that a lot of these people live in are amazing but their desire and efforts to get ahead certainly give you a kick up the bum and put most of the western world to shame.

We are both happy and healthy (mostly, grumble, oh ooh, here we go again) and looking foward to travelling tonight to Cuzco - the heart of the Incan empire with Machu Pichu and other Ruinas galore. Hope you have all been enjoying yourselves. Speak soon.

Hasta Luego mi Amigos

P.S. Milly please feel free to correct our crap Español.

P.P.S Click here for photos from Lima, or here for photos from Arequipa and the Colca Canyon