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35 soles to enter! No Gracias


2010
06.24

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When we arrived back at Cusco we changed hostel from Pariwana to Loki due to the fact that a lot of our trek group were staying there… They neglected to mention the 100 or so steps it took to get up to it! & we hoped we had seen the last of the steps! The showers were very nice and powerful & hot though so spent a while just soaking up the water :) Went and got completly overstuffed on the buffet curry – I´m  a sucker when its all you can eat! Only went up to the buffet around 7 times… Managed to get in a fair few happy hour drinks at Lokis bar which was completly packed because noone could be bothered to walk the mini marathon to the bars in town! Leisurly up the next morning for a suprisingly good breakfast.. I can´t quite remember what we did for the rest of the morning (probably watching the football/being very cultural), the next thing I remember was sitting in The Real McCoy eating my bangers and mash and Pol with her roast beef and yorkshire pud sandwich (not up to mum standard – Pol ) but still good!

In the evening we had a bus to Arequipa, so after some emotional goodbyes & facebook swapping we set off in a taxi to the station. Our bus overnight was ok, (I think it actually wasn´t that good, but compared to last nights, I´m remebering it fondly; but I´ll get to that in a min..) We arrived at Arequipa at 4 45am (!) and had a stressful time booking onto the 6am bus to Colca Canyon. The ticket desk didn´t open till 10 to 6 and there wsa a big rush of locals wanting tickets and very few left. Polly was getting completly ignored by the male ticket man who seemed to scan over women to the next guy wanting tickets, so I pushed my way to the front and got us a couple of the last tickets. The 6 hour bus wasn´t too bad and we managed to avoid paying a 35 soles (8 pound) entry fee. An offical looking women got on the bus and was selling the tickets which she said were compulsery.. Some tourists bought them straight away, but us and a few others refused as we´d never heard of the fee and thought it could just be a scam and when the women said there was a checkpoint we said we buy the tickets there then. With a humph she got off the bus never to be seen again, and the bus was never stopped for a checkpoint! REsult :) We did read in the bran new lonely planet this afternoon that the fee is genuine and they have just introduced it – obviously having some teething problems :) Anyway we arrived in Colca Canyon to some awesome chicken sandwiches and dropped our bags at the hostel that we were going to stay at the next night. After lunch we set off on the walk down the canyon to the Oasis. Took us around 2 hours to get down which wasn´t too bad, but you could see the pools all the way down hich was tantalsiing!! The place we were staying in was only 10 soles a night and had a very nice pool with a big rock to jump off (I´m easily pleased :) ) Another footie match followed in which the locals were easily defeated! The meals weren´t bad at the Oasis.. but they were quite simple (Polly wasn´t a fan, but I thought they were ok) The next morning we had the Oasis to ourselves as tour groups left early and the new group didn´t arrive till late so we had the pool and sun loungers to ourselves! Finally managed to drag ourselves away at half 2 for the 3 hour hike back up the canyon! Polly managed to keep a good pace going up the canyon and comprised with our music blaring out loud (we are totally wanna be chavs) the journey up wasn´t too bad. We got in to the hostel about 30mins before it got dark and as we had paid an extra pound each we had an en-suite with hot water ! so some nice showers before our epic meal! Probably went a little crazy with our ordering… Started with Alpaca Kebabs and chips, followed by a large pizza, followed by another bowl of chips finished off with a big plate of Nachos! Saved loads of money though as we just asked for glasses and made cocktails of Vodka, Inca Cola and Lime Juice!! The next morning we were up to suffer through the England match glad we got through.. not fancying our chances against Germany though..  Watched Italy get beaten by Slovakia(or was it Slovenia I can´t remember) this moring which was a great match if anyone watched it :)

We had another epic bus day yesterday to get us to Huchachina. Had to ride the 6 hours back to Arequipa then an overnight one to here. The overnight bus was horrible, was very cramped and I slept terribly. Although turns out it was mega cheap. We paid 30 soles to get here and someone travelling the opposite was was offered a ticket there for 140 soles! So feeling a bit better about it now. Polly had spent today in bed as she has been feeling like she would like to chunder everywhere.. although she perked up a bit this evening. Huachina is a vey small oasis town in the middle of huge sand dunes, which I climbed up today.. Hoping to go dune buggeying and sandboarding tomorrow as long as Polly is better. Put a load of photos onto DVD today as had a mini memory card scare and don´t want to risk losing them all (think some virus is in the camera and I don´t have the cable to plug it in and get rid of it grr) Only got to last a few days though so I think we´ll be ok :)

I heard back from my uni and have got my first choice accomadation which is very nice.. Have to come back at christmas and easter but it saves me 900 pounds which I thought would be worth it as I wouldn´t spend much time there anyway! Looked at Pollys tonight and she thinks she knows where she is going to apply to.. Bristol do it differently so it doesn´t matter when she applies. Also have confirmed that I am going back to cycle heaven this summer which is great although I emailed to check I was starting on the 1st of July and they though that I wasn´t back till later, but its great that I can start then; so I guess its straight back to work!!

Anyway kinde hard to believe that in 3 days time we will have taken off just under an hour ago to fly home! Have got 3 very busy days ahead though so it´s not over yet!! Xx Polly probably would say hi, but she is in bed!

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Salcantay the epic : part uno


2010
06.19

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Finally back after our one week salcantay epic trek…. yes, it was supposed to be a five day trek… we´ll get to that later. It was amazingly awesome but also, getting back for a shower and a massage planned for tomorrow is almost as awesome.

Day 1: Alarm goes off at 4:00am- ewww. We didnt get too much sleep, probs coz we ended up chatting in andy and charlottes room for far too long. oopsies! Anyways, bags were packed and we huddled by the courtyard door thing waiting for someone to pick us up….4:30-5 was the specified time, and to be fair 5:15am wasnt too bad going. Turned out the guy who was also waiting at the hostel was with the same company as us whoop. Got on a bus to some random place (slept) and then had what was (according to the itinerary) a delicious breakfast… stale bread and jam. And we had to pay! 1.75 pounds! ridiculous. Toby paid a little bit more for some eggs so his wasnt sooo bad, and in the end i didn´t pay for mine as i happened to sneak off to the toilet just at the right time. hehe! We then were told about a train strike which basically meant we couldnt do the 5 day trek it either had to be 4 or 6. Apparently some other people had been warned about this, but apparently our agency didnt think it was too too important :S after some important deliberation (would we make the england match on the 6 day?!?!¿¿) toby decided we would go for 6 day, as did basically everyone else.

And then we were off! there were 10 in our group, 5 english, couple of aussies, usa, swiss and german. All really young and cool… basically we were very relieved we werent´with a bunch of aging rich tourists, many of which seem to be lurking in the cusco area. We walk up hill (groan for a few hours maybe 4) before stopping for lunch with an awesome view… and now for the test of food… after the salt flats we were anxious…. but they passed! spag bol with garlic bread and soup for starter! waaahay. In the afternoon we did more walking (apparently thats what you do on a trek!) and arrived at the campsite at 5 something. Our guide marco said we were very fast compared to normal groups… and the other group from the same agency arrived like an hour later! we got piles of popcorn for a snack :) :) followed by beef casserole and more soup and constant hot drink offers (great for me…not). We managed to stay up til about 8:30 before crashing in the FREEZING tents (we were at high altitude).

Day 2: awake, 5:30am – crazyness. Apparently this was the hardest day of the trek, climbing to the highest point of 4,600m altitude i think…. We got given a snack pack  for the morning after a pancake breakfast :) and headed off… freezing. About half an hour  later we were all boiling from walking uphill and i changed into my short shorts which i didnt think would see the light of day anymore on this trip. They looked well good with my llama pattern leg warmers! The walk up was tough! especially the last hour. Toby didnt seem too fazed by it but i had to stop every 5 seconds for breath (i blame the altitude) he was very encouraging and eventually we made it took some pics (v impressive snowy mountain, the salcantay one the trek is named after. From there it was about 2-3 more hours downhill until lunch but we made good time which meant after lunch (yummy healthy stuff) we could have a nap by this stream. It was boiling and i got a stupid tan line on my leg which im still trying to get rid of!

More walking, this time we crossed from snowy mountains into the jungle. SO weird, we literally walked through this arch way thing and you could feel the humidity hit you and the plants started to change. It was a nice walk but we were told around 4 ish one hour to the campsite and it was soooo much longer. EVery corner we hoped we would be there, but werent. The campsite again had an awesome view, and beer for sale! awesome times! More popcorn, more beef casserole and half the group went to bed straight after again. the rowdy five english stayed up and made our own rave with ipod speakers, prodigy tunes and flashing torches and lighters. A-MEZZZZIN!  Especialy as the other group were on the other side of this sheet thing getting a lecture from their guide on inca history. <hopefully the lights were very distracting for them :)

Day 3 : After a lot warmer and nicer nights sleep we got up at 6am (lie in!) and as a special treat on this day we only had to walk 7 hours! I cant even remember the walk on this day to be fair, but im sure it was very jungly and hot and nice, not too uphill as i recall. WE finally made it to the village of la playa for lunch around 2… and they managed to tune in the world cup for us, cant remember what match. more beer, amazing buffet lunch and an actual toilet for a change. OOPS, forgot to mention that on this day we switched guides to the rubbish inca history one so it was a bit of a snore fest after marco the original awesomely chilled one… henry was just not up to scatch. That afternoon the boys all played football… peru against the rest of the world. I was tempted to play, but it got pretty serious and i quickly decided cheif supporter (and entertainer of all mosquitos in the area) was my job. The game went on far too long (like 2 hours… and the peruvians kept cheating and disallowing our goals because we were too good. But we won like all the many games. Henry did chat to me later though and said i was very lucky because my boyfriend was a very good football player…. rightttt. More beers and popcorn obviously followed as did another earlyish night 5:30am wake up again.

Day 4: Last day of walking (or so we thought…) It was a toughy! especially as we had to carry all our stuff as the horses that had been carrying them had sensibly turned back as they didnt wanna walk the ridiculously tough walk. I did quite well out of it as me and toby shared one huge rucksack (which obvs he carried ) and i had the small day pack, which was almost breaking (thats what you get for paying 3 pounds) so sadly couldnt have much weight in it.  :( We powered through the walk uphill, walking ahead of the guide, mostly so he couldnt make us do unnecessary stops….I suppose you could say it was worth it though as we good to this look out point where we had a really cool view of macchu picchu in the distance so we stopped and picniced our lunch (it was 10am but we were wellll hungry from the uphill). Then it was downhill. Really steep really horrific far too  long. At many points i felt like jumping of the dangerously close edge but there was an end like 3 hours later where we came to this “village” (a couple of shacks along a railway line) with a really massive waterfall… stopped for a burger with chips in it :) and then yet another 3 hour walk along the railway line. the guide had left us by this point but that was for the best and we powered through and at last made it to the town of aguas caliente at the bottom of macchu picchu late in the afternoon. It was a euphoric moment, although the town was a bit of an ugly monstrosity. We marched through (the four of us at the front anyway) on a serious hunt for beer. 20 soles the first places tried to charge us (5 pounds for a litre… rip off!) so we continued… bargaining our way, still no luck. We turned a corner and all of a sudden had two places battling for our custom…. 15…..12….10 …. free nachos included-… sold! so we sat there desperately in need of showers filthy smelly feet in this actually quite nice place with actual posh tourists in it … and a beer had never tasted so good!!

ANyways tobys turn to report xxx

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Make up your own title… we cba tbh


2010
06.12

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Toby has just offered a prize to the person who thinks of the best and most witty title….

So we finally managed to leave Copacabana, tres sad, especially considering the deilghts of the twelve hour bus that lay ahead. We knew it was going to be long and to be fair the bus was pretty comfy but i got 10 pages into my book before deciding i actually couldnt continue it was that rubbish so had no book, music we´ve now heard far too many times and a toby tucking into some 800 page fantasy beast book. fun times. Thank god for the packed lunch we had picked up the night before otherwise we would have been starving! as there was literally no food options on the way, plus we had no peru money to buy any with.

We arrived …finally! grrr it was long.. and then we had to get a taxi to the hostel becauase the bus station was in the middle of nowhere… we have barely taken any taxis in south america and the stories and the guide book (r.i.p) make it sound like everyone is a potential scammer/ criminal. So we checked the id of our official taxi and headed off. And by the end i felt meanish, i was all, how much,…. how many minutes, and he was like good evening, check out the plaza and stuff. Oh well, we survived and got to the hostel, which is probably the first one we´ve booked ahead that hasnt left me feeling slightly disappointed in some way… except for the really loud live music right next to our dorm, good times!

Woke up the next day watched a bit of the world cup with our amazing breakfast… dry bread rolls, jam and butter (people just do not understand the concept of breakfast!) and then randomly ran into our friends andy and charlotte who we met in Santiago turns out they had just got back from the inca trail and were staying in the same place. whoop. We immediatey went out for lunch after the delicious breakfast ( it was about 11ish by this point… lil early oops. And we went to this realli nice place they had been to before… like places we would want to go to at home but cant afford… to be fair, couldnt realli afford it here, but it was treat day! (everyday….) was YUM and there was even a queue outside.

Checked out cusco. Very nice, sunny, plazas everywhere, tourist LAND but pretty and colonial. And there was a festival thing on so we got to see some cool costumes and dancing and about 2 fireworks in the evening :) We also booked our trek to macchu picchu, which leaves tomorrow at 4:30am! ewww. for any geeks that would like to research it, its called to salcantay trek, 5 days 4 nights, 3 of which are camping… no shower!Not entirely sure where it goes, apparently there is lots of uphill mountain walking and then it joins up with the inca trail for the last day to go up to macchu picchu for the sunrise.  Toby is proper psyched! and i am proper psyched to be able to say ive done it when we get back :p little concerned about the fact we have a full day 9-5 of free time at macchu picchu after a three hour guided tour … may be a little too much culture for us to manage perhaps will take the books :)

Last night we went out with charlotte and andy and there friends from the inca trail, started at an irish pub with happy hour (prices werent THAT happy) and stayed for actually quite a few hours, then moved onto a club with was wayyyy crowded but free drinks and music we had actually heard of. Toby would like to point out that flip flops are a poor choice of club attire, especially when their are people with heels around. Lasted pretty late realli like half 2 whoop! but woah, was not a fan of the headache this morning. I had to leave the hostel in pyjamas and no shoes and last nights make up to buy a big bottle of water from the nearest vendor who totally ripped me off but i was too tired to care.

Then we chilled in the sunny courtyard of the hostel for a tan sesh, before heading out for the football, early… needed to get a good seat obvs.  Went to the irish bar from the night before, got the last free table and ordered a mammoth but expensive lunch. Shepherds pie and burgers :) It suddenly struck us just before the match started that as we werent actually in england, there may be some american fans. Far too many ( more than 20! for our liking). We had some good banter, some quite vicious but they deserved it. Every single time america got the ball the chants of usa would began. GROAN! one word…. starts with knob…. ends in heads :) but we survived, and thankfully we didnt lose or we would have had to sneak out under the tables at the end to avoid the harassment. but yeah, lets hope we play better in the next match… which is strategically placed the day after we get back from our trek.

And thats pretty much it… no internet for six days!!! arghhhhhh

Toby says hola :) xxxx

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Umpa Lumpa, Dooba Dee Doop


2010
06.09

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Well im pretty sure this is one of the first times we´ve done a second blog post from the same place! Yup… still in Copacabana, tonight will be our fifth night in the hotel but to be fair we are leaving tomorrow to get on with actually travelling and stuff (well to be fair, mostly to ensure we can watch the england match on saturday) so whoop a nine hour bus awaits… good job we picked up a packed lunch from the restaurant tonight :)

So what have we been up to?? well sunday didnt even seem to exist because between us i managed to get out of bed for a couple of hours shopping and tea in the evening but apart from that i mostly felt like i could just chunder everywhere… and as for toby, when he wasnt in bed, he was chundering everywhere! well not everywhere. thankfully we have our own bathroom.  Sadly it seems suspiciously like our fav restaurant from the night before may have given us a lil bit of food poisoning ,… whooop. But we are consideraby better now. We did watch 17 again though in the evening on our own tv… yayyy and obvs bought choccy to go with it.

The next day we didnt wanna do anything too strenous so mostly just chilled, and at some point managed to hire a rowing boat with the most ridiculous oars ever, planks of wood nailed to longer, thinner planks of wood, for two hours. We went out a bit but then spent at least an hour just floating with our music and books working hard on the tan. (toby would like me to point out that he also climbed a hill on this day… i looked at the photos so that as good as counts…) Got back and realised we didnt realli have too much money left and luckily for us the bank was shut for the occasion of it being a monday. SO we couldnt pay for the hostel but just about got away with it. Booked our boat out to the isla del sol, apparently its like this mystical place where the incas came from but to be fair, weñ´ve lost the guide book and we couldnt really read the spanish signs so it could have been anything. After a very uncomfy two hour boat ride, we arrived on the north side of the island and bought two BEASTY sandwiched for 60p each and set off on our epic 4 hours long trek to reach the other side of the island  and the boat to pick us up.

After about an hour we came to some inca ruins, apparently an old temple or summit. We are now slightly worried for macchu picchu just for the fact that it might turn into one big mock fest. For instance over the course of our 10 minute look we came to the conclusion that the incas were in fact actually umpa lumpas (even toby couldnt fit through their archways) and that they had built loads of tunnels for carrying willy wonkas chocolate to the chocolate worshipping table just around the corner. Tres mature.

On a more cultural note,  today we discovered that the incas were actually pretty recent, like the 1400´s so technically we had the minster and they had something less complex than stonehenge. Im sorry if that sounds like a burn. The walk was long and uphill and realli hot and sunny (toby describes it as very nice) and to be fair there were some funky snow covered mountains you could see and the lake was realli clear blue (although way too freezing to go swimming in) I just realized this morning that i look like an idiot because i burned my legs just on the bottom bits on the back from my cropped trousers from this walk and now look rather silly.

Anyways, random people kept asking us for money, not in a begging way but in a , yes 50p to walk through my village kinda way. Well you can imagine how much we liked that…. i didnt  even wanna walk through their village. If only we knew more spanish we could have argued a lot better. but all i could say to the third woman when she asked, was why??? for the ruins she replied. Well im not being funny, but the only ruins i saw were the shambles of the village. ..not to be harsh or anything.

After an atrocious cheese sandwich and hairy portion of chips from a restaurant that wasnt even in the sun, we were off to the islas flotantes.

The floating islands for a few planks of wood together, making room for a table and chairs… yes, some may call it a dock, but not the bolivians.  the driver of the boat was like, who would like to get off and have a closerlook….

No-one was the answer. and it was a full boat.  but that could have been because when i tapped toby on the shoulders, he looked around a nd said really loudly… awww we´re at the  &$%&  floating  islands ….

anyways got back in time to go to the bank and were no longer poor, although this was shortlived as we had to go back again the day after. Went for a nice meal for 3 pounds each (warm bread and butter, salad buffet, soup, beef in tomato sauce with rice and potato and more veg, and chocoalte cake, and a jug of lemonade… was immense!!)

we then treated ourselves to some alcohol (1 pound 50 for a massive bottle of vodka, but im so hardcore i managed about 3 glasses then fell asleep at the grand old time of 8:30pm. Will try harder next time.

Today we didnt do much … for a change… more lie ins, more sun, more shopping, more smoothies which i spilt all over before we had even started so they didnt end up being such a good deal. ANnnnnndd thats about it.

Cusco manaña whoop!¡ xxxx

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Her name was Lola… she was a showgirl


2010
06.06

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Yeahhhhh man, we are in Copacabana… not the one from the song, but shhhh. This is the cheaper,  bolivian one with a big lake as opposed to a resort of beach but it”ll do. We have a private room again yayyy with ensuite and tv and a view from the window! cant even remember the last time that happened. It costs 4 squids each per night but that does include breakfast (a stale bread roll with unidentified fruit juice….)

We have decided to totally lard arse here for a few days maybe rent a boat for a bit today and maybe go to an island tomorrow… but apart from that… eat, tan, sleep, and more of the same, maybe some more souvenir shopping…

Our second day in la paz was the first day in the whole of the travels that we have actually dedicated to shopping (souvenirs) which was awesome. We went to the witches market, which was very lacking in witch-y things, a few plant herby things and lots of llama foetuses yummmm but apart from that it was all for the tourists which we totally didnt mind.

Found a well good place for lunch… we got soup (toby has become my official runny soup finisher (and starter) as i am not so keen…, quarter chicken with rice and chips, and a drink.. for one pound thirty. Good deal! except this random man with a balaclava stood right in front of us on the other side of the window and seeemed to be staring at us for like a full minute, which was terrifying. He then banged on the window and went away, toby reckons he was trying to get the attention of the waiter but i was convinced he would be waiting for us round a corner… he wasn”t.

For the rest of the afternoon we checked out the other parts of la paz, which took like an hour maximum  and then some more shopping! bought the newest series of greys anatomy (yayyyyyyyyyyyyyy) and watched a double bill at the hostel, only to find that we are missing the last 6 episodes (nooooooooooooooooooo).

The next morning we were up super early (missing our pancake breakfast) to go biking on the death ride,,, whoop. got to the ofice for seven and after a non pancake breakfast headed off. It was ALL downhill except for the last five minutes which is my kind of mountain biking as you could basically not pedal at all just make sure you dont fall off the edge and brake a lot. You are concentrating quite hard and if your toby your going so fast you cant even see the scenery but i guess it was quite dangerous-y. finished around one and i wasnt too far behind, even though i had an almost falling in a river experience which left me with a very wet left shoe… and admittedly i did walk all the uphill bit, but only because it was quicker than my attempt at biking.  chilled out after finishing with a buffet lunch and a swimming pool, which i was VERy tempted to go in but didnt quite make it. I also got bitten by the most killer mosquito ever. whoop.

after the LONG drive back to La Paz all we had time to do was eat and sleep not too thrilling.

Then bus in the morning to the copacabana which we like a lot. its basically one road with lots of touristy stuff and not much else. went to the awesomeest restaurant last night with amazing nachos and enchiladas and chocolate cake! covered with fairy lights and a well good jack johnson / reggae versions of the beatles soundtrack and furry rugs on the chairs.  And board games… we played connect four and chinese checkers and battle ships because we are just soooooooo cool.

And this morning, we completely blobbed out and just about managed to make it to the internet place for about half 12…..

and thats it! 3 weeks left!

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

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You want us to pay again! We don´t think so…


2010
06.02

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Must write blog… Jeez Sarah stop distracting me :p Been on the internet for 45mins and am only just starting.. Still when internet is 25p an hour its ok to fb for a while. You´ll get what the title means later in the post… We are in La Paz atm having got straight on an overnight bus after our salt flats trip, so we were feeling lovely and clean as despite the tour guides promise that there were hot showers there obviously weren´t any!

The salt flat tour was good fun and had some comedy moments. The guy who sold everyone the tour wasn´t the most honest person we´ve met and booked one too many people on the trip. Watching everyone slowly work out there were 13 people rather than 12 was entertaining and when the guy returned (he went out to help get people as apparently a bus had broken down, this meant we set off an hour late) he had quite a few questions to answer!! We ended up getting 4 bottles of wine free as an apology. Tbf we didn´t mind the extra person as it didn´t affect the squisshynesh and was an extra person to talk to! The trip started off slow with the train graveyard (whoop whoop) but picked up as we went to the cactus island with 9metre high cacti and then obviously the salt flat where we took a few comedy photos! We went into this cave that you had to pay a pound to get into and you saw it all as soon as you entered. Wasn´t exactly big but some coolish formations. The first hostel that we stayed in was made of salt and cactus so was quite cool. Got extremly cold later in the evening though and the power cut around 10 so early beds. The sky outside was extremly cool and one of the highlights, as it was super dark and you could see thousands of stars and the band of the milky way! Tried to photo it but ended up with a black photo! Oh well you´ll have to believe me that it was awesome :)

The next, once they had defrosted our jeep, we set off to visit 5 different lakes in craters. Some were a bit dull but the red one was very cool and reflected the mountains around it! There was also this huge red empty crater at about 5000m metres that after about 30 seconds of running across it you were completly out of breath. When my uncle when travelling round SA 10 years ago he had photos of him doing headstands at various places. I took it a step further and got an awesome photo of me doing a handstand (woah) in the crater! Expertly taken by Polly of course :) You will see the photos one day, but Bolivia isn´t renowned for quick internet. We paid today to get all our photos since New Zealand put onto a DVD as we had another memory card scare and lost some photos so we wanted to make sure that they are safe!

Anyways, I digress. The third day didn´t start brilliantly as I was sick due to the undercooked chicken the night before. I noticed and stopped eating it, but obviously not soon enough. I did improve quickly though which was a relief as we were in the jeep a lot the third day to get back. The highlight of the third day was the hot springs in the moring, which really warmed and woke you up! Was lovely and hot (in the water, outside was around 5 degrees!) We then drove around an hour to see this supposedly amazing lake that was the worst we have seen all trip, just brown and half empty! We then had to turn around drive the hour back as we had made the detoir specially!

We then had a long drive back with a few little stops mainly for the break. On the leaving the national park the guards wanted to see our passes that we had paid 15 pounds (!) for on entry. We had left ours at the hostel as we didn´t see any need for them! The gurds demanded we paid again, but we stood our ground and said no (to guys stood there with pistols :s) and eventually they gave in and let us pass when we pointed out (well the girl who spoke english and spanish pointed it out for us!) that they could ring the other office who would know we bought them (you had to write down your passport and name etc when you bought the pass) so we got through! Yaaay! Was quite a long drive back, but along fun 4 x 4 tracks and when we got back we had a couple of hours for some super good pizza and chocolate cake (treat day?)before the long bus that got us here at 6am! Got to our hostel eventually and the guy was a bit confused with our booking. Check in was at 2pm so we had booked the previous night so we could check straight in. This had confused him so I think we aren´t paying for the extra night! Yaay :) Spent today trying to plan what we want to do here. Going to mountain bike down death road on friday we think and doing the witches market tomorrow but haven´t really got much set in stone atm! Trying to organise our 5 day trek that we want to do in Peru around the England games atm!! Anyway getting a bit peckish now so going to go eat!

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Cactuses and Chicken


2010
05.26

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We successfully managed to waste the day in Cordoba…i don´t really mean waste…in mean cinema :) robin hood this time, we are actually regulars. For those of you aware of my film taste, you can imagine that endless wars with bows and arrows involved is like my idea of an amazing film…not. But, it was pretty much the only option and not too too bad. (Polly was actually enjoying it, whenever I sneakily looked over she was grinning!)

Tried out an ice cream place afterwards, soooo cheap like 90p for a sundae with fruit two scoops whipped cream and sauce, we accidentally went back today for more…milkshakes this time… mmm! Bus was average… tea was far too late. We stopped at like 9 and almost everyone got off and came back with bought food which we took as a bad sign but we had been promised food, so persevered. By half 9 i had almost given up, eaten my one banana (only food we had) and resigned myself to a hungry sleep…. and just as i was nodding off, at about 10:10pm round comes another delectable selection of ham and cheese sandwichs plus mushy ham with corn and peas in a lasagne form kind of. Yum.

Arrived horribly early (still dark) to a gas station in the middle of nowhere. Noone fancied telling us there was another bus hidden behind our bus to take us to the town so we wandered into the cafe thing and had a very stunted convo with the guy trying to sell us coffee.. where are we??? looks bemused, pulls out map and points to a place which is not really near to salta, where we are going…oh dear… Luckily he realised our stupidness and took us to the bus, just before it was about to drive off. Close call! and an hour later we were at our hostel.

Salta is really nice, especially after not living anywhere for a couple of days…and very hot and sunny!!!! yayyyyyyy i actually got another tan line today.. it had been very missed. Yesterday was argentinas 200th birthday/independence day celebration which apparently required shops being closed about 4 days in advance … for preparations.. obvs. So we managed to catch a bit of the parade (seemingly every person in salta was involved in some way) then had a lovely lunch in the main plaza square thing … sat outside. It was the first restaurant for at least a week and the first proper food for a few days… the chicken salad sandwich was yumyum.

In the afternoon we headed up in a cable car to the top of a tall hill thing (they seem to like their tall hills where you can view the whole city) chilled out there in the sun with icecream (hard life) then got some photos with the waterfally things they had created, before coming down checking out the markets and trying to sort our life out for the next few days… the plan for ages has been across to buenos aires and then up to salta and then….. yeah, we hadnt really got that far. But its sorted now. That afternoon we booked a day trip for today to a nearby-ish town and then tonight we have yet another night bus (groan… but yay for saving on accomodation)(but really it isn´t a proper nightbus at it leaves at quater to 1 in the morning!!) to the border of argentina and bolivia… so by lunch tomorrow we should be in cheap land ! cant wait! and we have like over two weeks to spend there so should be able to chill out a bit :)

The day trip today was really cool, a lot of driving but worth it for awesome pictures. Basically you take a really scenic route to this village called cachi stopping at various points for photos and then stop at the town for lunch then head back. Not sure quite why, but it was only me and toby on the tour, so personal guide and chauffeur whooop… little apprehensive at first but ended up good. Apparently there was supposed to be another two but we called at their hostel (yucky time of about 7am…and they were still asleep so we drove off.. gutted times!)

Will hopefully get the pics up either tonight or sometime soon but basically loads of funky mountains, some with snow on the top, loads really reddy or orangey because of the iron apparently…probs took too many photos.. the highlight for me (and toby has concurred) were the cactuses or cactai or whatever you wanna call them. Apparently it was the second largest cactus reserve in the world so we partied on down all alone with the cactuses while the guide sat in the car far away. Because there were only the two of us in a car as opposed to the minivan full we were ahead of all the other tours which meant it was totally deserted for us. Commence photoshoot… with toby modelling the bed head look he works so well (unless your sophie who thinks it needs to go!)

Made it to Cachi and decided to use our two hours well and go to the museum and the church like the guide recommended….just joshing! we sun bathed in the centre square with our premade lunch :) last night we bought an epic pre cooked roast chicken and ate it with rice and tomato sauce yesterday (it was one of the best teas in aaages :) – toby) but had enough left for massive baguettes.. and an apple as well (gotta stay healthy!)(plus crisps… don´t want to get too healthy do we) finally got of our bums for a walk up to the cemetery wayyy too much effort up a hill, when we were already at a high altitude (which i am blaming completely for my out of breath ness) had a nice look then wandered down to find the car.. i fell asleep pretty much straight away but got woken up for a lovely mountain stroll (great) which was nice but……. so was sleep. Then it was tobys turn for sleep not sure how, as our guide had decided he was colin mcrae (toby says its a good job we werent in a helicopter…..) and we made it back to salta in good time..just what we needed a couple of extra hours to hang around whilst waiting for the bus. Polly did suggest that in those couple of extra hours we go to an ice-cream parlour……

its now ten to 9 and we are just waiting until a suitable time to go for tea comes, probs like 45 minutes….. groan. hungry!

anyways, next blog will be from bolivia

xxxxx

what do you say to a liar from south america?

i don´t bolivia! :)

2 comments

Life on a bus (with lots of ham and cheese)


2010
05.24

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So… i finally woke up on that afternoon…and a very nice someone went out to the supermarket to buy our healthy tea (fish fingers and chips… with peas and sweetcorn might i add) and a sneaky chocolate bar to make me feel better…and then he cooked it all while i blobbed in front of my super sweet 16 on mtv. We did actually manage to make it out to the jazz bar in the end. It said on the flyer it started at 10pm so we decided to head out about half past…fashionably late… good job we didnt go at 11 like toby had suggested… We got there and the place was pretty busy ordered our ginormo beer to share and heard about a minute of music then they all stopped grabbed their coats and went outside. <i was sure it was just a cigerette break but still, it would have been a rip off to pay the 2 quid entrance feww for that! We didnt need to worry though, they came back and did almost an hour so we got our moneys worth…and the double bass player (who had a really cool electric one) im sure is a runaway from coldplay… he had the look downnnn.

Got back to the hostel where the second round of ring of fire was just commencing…how could we resist, except iut was the american version called kings cup and obviously not as good… boooo! but it was fun and at 2am ish it was our latest night in a while.

Which was great for my johnson cough which has been getting louder and more annoying until about today where i think it is starting to subside a little, as well, the epically runny nose is on its way out… whoop.

the next morning we got a bus to Montevideo, the capial of uruguay. I remember learning all the countries and the capitals in grade 10 spanish class, but never actually thought i´d go there… but to be fair i probably wont be going back. It was ok, nothing too special… cloudy and all food was expensive so we hit a new low and got plain pasta with tomato puree for tea, saved by a fruit salad we made ourselves. Was still feeling pretty rough and had passed it onto toby a little bit so early night, gutted for the people in the dorm that had to sleep through the cough… ha!

Day 2 montevideo… had already booked our bus for the night but woke up feeling suprisingly energetic and went on a ´free´ walking tour with the hostel… you had to tip.The guide, although she could speak good english decided not to 90 percent of the time, so all we gleamed about the city was mainly here is the library and law school, have a look at the market, mee tback here in 50 mins.

It was a weird market, kinda like a car boot sale in the middle of the city, but they had stands for most things, remotes, rabbits, underwear, bikes, gold things, birds, old games consoles, fake dvds…nothing caught our eye really though and we continued on with the tour… which was pointless except for the fact that where the tour ended happened to be at a really cool park with another market, peddle boats and a drumming group, which they neglected to show us… we quickly paid our 1 pound tip each and went to explore…/ collapse in front of the burger stand with our hamburguesas numero dos…cheese onions sweetcorn ketchup… mmm.. the drummers were still playing and the sun was out so sitting was nice for a while.. then a wander round the market (still too expensive) and then a sneaky turn on the peddle boats. Toby decided that we should see if we could get a chunk of wood all the way through the mechanism (why¿?) which hindered our progress for a while, but we got there and then made the long walk back to the hostel to get ready for a night bus, back to corboda in argentina.

We´re trying to get to a place called salta in the north o argentina but no buses went there so corboda was the furthest and stpped us from having to go bak to buenos aires and pay more for taxis to get around, so here we are again and today we went back to the same cinema we went to last monday to watch robin hood. Another bus tonight, finally getting to salta so we are proper bums…left our bags in a locker at the bus station as obvs we have no hostel to go to … sob.

Tea last night was thrilling, ham and cheese sandwich followed by ham and cheese croissant followed by ham and cheese lasagne but at least there was food and at least it was free… i bet we will have the same joy tonight. lets just hope that they dont consider 3 crackers breakfast again… grrrr.

And yeah think thats about all to report…

xxxxxxxxxxxx

4 comments

Want Clean Clothes…


2010
05.21

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Hola :) that is my basic Spanish phrase yes, but I have improved slightly and can ask for things and costs so can survive. Some phrases are still a little out of reach of both of us though. Yesterday we went to a landeratte to have Everything washed (for the first time in SA…) and it wasn´t self service. You had to ask what you wanted so Polly pointed at our clothes and said ´Want clean clothes´ (In Espanol obvs) The woman managed to work out what she was saying so I am sitting here in lovely clean smelling clothes :)

Our couple of days in BA was very nice. The bus ride was basically a chauffered limo due to the fact we were the only passengers sitting upstairs! There were a few people downstairs, but in total about 5 people on the bus including the driver! Got a taxi to the hotel door for about the correct price. Taxi drivers have lots of ways to make fares more than they should be. We chaecked at tourist info how much it should be and Polly basically told the driver that the fare should be about 25 Pesos. Our hostel was amazing. The guidebook rates it as one of the best in Latin America and it was voted in the top ten worldwide by hostelworld.com. The staff were really great and when we arrived at around 9 they said the beds wouldn´t be ready until 11 but we could head up to the rooftop terrace for breakfast :) Better brekkie than at most hostels, with pasties and oranges so you could make fresh orange juice. The views over the city were also pretty good, although I never remember to take my camera up and get any photos :( We met a Canadian couple while having breakfast who had arrived the night before and we ended up going together to some area of the city (I can´t remember which sector) It had this huge metal flower thing though, that rotated to follow the sun and opened and shut when it was day or night. Was quite cool. Also the huge cemetry place which we wandered round for quite a while and got lost as we refused to pay 1 pound for a map! They bury people above ground here and build houses to put the coffins in. Was a bit creepy seeing lots of coffins (the houses have windows) but some were very decorative. Some over the statues of the people were a bit ridiculus – see the picture of the guy in a dressing gown! Evita was also burried there, although I have no idea who she was, apparently quite a famous singer and she had lots of fresh flowers…

Was quite a long wander to the cemetry and to get back we went via the posh area with its very expensive shops and door men on the hotels everywhere. Our hostel was very central though which was helpful to get to the sights everywhere. In the evening we cooked ourselves as the hostel bbq was slightly overpriced at about 15 pounds!! We watched a film on the huge tv about a women who went out with the nanny who was 15 years younger. Was quite good but I have no idea what it was called. The next morning we were meant to be up early, but didn´t. Polly has been feeling a bit rough recently so needs a lot of sleep. She is in bed atm.. We went out to La Boca in the afternoon via the very bumpy bus! Its a big tourist place with lots of colourful house :) and grafitti art. Polly finally bought a purse as she hasn´t had one since Cambodia, so now she can look after her own money! We saw the football stadium as well, although the football season has finished now so not many games on. Managed to resist the very touristy restraunts in La Boca and ate a huge pizza back in the centre for a very cheap price as it was a localy place.

In the evening we went out to a tango show and dinner :) We had a one hour tango lesson before the show so we are no both experts in the Tango!! The meal was very nice and filling. Due to it being 4 courses! Was definately the poshest place we have eaten in on our travels. The show was great fun, although the singer was a bit dodgy. The costumes were awesome and the band were really good. Got to dance with dancers to show off our skills! The next morning we left to catch a boat to Colonia del Sacramento in Uruguay! The country that we weren’t expecting to visit. No-one guessed it so no prizes, sorry. We arrived in the afternoon and had a wander around the town. It’s very nice and lovely to have a break from big cities. We cooked an impressive rice dish with peas, sweetcorn, carrot and beef. And had a make shift game of monopoly last night. There wasn’t a dice so we used cards instead as the numbers. And chess pieces as our characters. Polly said that Sarah would be impressed with our commitment to the game! Polly narrowly won.. but it was close.

Today we used the hostels free (and very rickety) bikes to ride around the old town, most of it which is cobelled so was quite a bumpy ride! I managed to buy us grapefruit juice, the only one that Polly doesn´t like, to have with our mamoth burgers at lunch, then we ditched the bikes to go wander around the craft market and some other shops. Came back quite early so we could have a lie down. I´ve just finished another book so have come to write this. Going to have to go and find something to cook for tea tonight. There are no big supermarkets and the choice at the smaller ones is very limited :s Then later we are going to a jazz bar as there is live music tonight :) Hopefully we will have the energy! Getting a bus to Montevideo tomorrow then going to have a 36 hour epic all the way back up to Salta! Anyway some Spanish person is starting to talk to me and Polly is asleep so I have no idea what they are saying!! Ahhh going to run away byeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

5 comments

Milkshakes and Popcorn…. mmm fatties


2010
05.18

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So… we woke up friday morning ready for horse riding times… after the lovely experience of our travelling friend matt being sick from too much absinthe in the dorm. Luckily…. he was not on the bunk above us…. which turned out to be unlucky for the irish girl underneath who had just got to the hostel after a long bus ride, and then got sicked on… oh yeah and it got her bag too, so what did matt do, roll over and go to sleep. Lets just say the cleaners were not too happy to be woken up in the middle of the night :S good times.

BUt we were up fine at some yuckily early time n the morning, ready for our pick up and when the guy got here, he took one look at tobys outfit and was like, ill wait you can change quickly. He had chosen to go for flip-flips and shorts, for trekking on horses, in the foothills of the andes. NUMPTY. so after a quick change into trousers and hiking shoes and rain jackets, which we didnt need because it was actually surprisingly warm, although they had forecast rain for the next day in the same place. The views were very cowboys and indians movie and there was sooo much dust im pretty sure im still emptying it out of my socks. yuck. it was a couple of hours wandering around mountain valleys and stuff which was really cool and we stopped for a break and some mate which is the national drink of argentina or summi, and totally disgusting and then carried on. They tried to sell us the pictures for quite a lot but we declined as we managed to get enough good ones ourselves…

We got back only 2 hours late of the scheduled time i think that south america time might be quite similar to fiji time and mooched mostly that afternoon, sneaking in a sub del dia, which is sub of the day… and crikey, ordering in spanish is quite the mammoth task when you consider how many questions they ask you. Toby opened with his usual, hola, a and then i had to take over, but it was a yummy sandwich in the end, and we even managed to ask for tomatoes only on half!

Had a night bus that night, way more comfortable than asia, or australia (the worstest so far) but no free food or movie which we had been promised. boooo. Got to Cordoba well early (8ish) but the hostel was rubbish and didnt get our beds ready until like 2 so we had to do a lot of hanging around but finally got in. Had a look round that afternoon, found some street markets and went out to eat for a change. Tea is really weird here because they dont eat until at least 9pm so when we were starving at 8 barely anywhere was open, and we ended up being the only people in our restaurant. apparently people sleep from like 5-9pm then wake up eat and party till crazy times in the morning… nightclubs don´t open until 2am!

so we chilled out, and then saw some random tango-ing in the main square where they set up speakers and people seem to just show up was cool– but we wanted costumes! and there was none! booo. Sunday…… woke up wayyyy too late, like 11ish or summit, after the women at reception promised us that she would wake us up at like 8 so we could go quad biking. She didnt but it turned out the weather was too bad to go biking anyway so nice lie in. We eventually got up bought a pile of chocolate croissants for brekkie/ lunch and  headed towards alta gracia a village thing which is only of interest because there is a che guevara museum thing we went to which was cool, but it seemed to focus on what games he liked as a child and silly stuff like that as opposed to what he actually did. oh well. I thought we had done well as that was our first museum in the whole time travelling. Another meal out (mostly because the hostel kitchen was completely shizzer) with the most amazzzzzzing milkshakes ever…although deciphering the flavours from the waitress who kept saying helado con leche (ice cream with milk) yes, we guessed, but what flavour!

Anyways, next day another lie-in… a city tour thing on a bus had been on the cards but we ended up at the cinema watching a ewan mcgregor film….oops! with the most massive-est popcorn ever invented, we couldnt even finish it by the end of the film it was that big! The film- ghost writer- was sadly average with a very unsatisfying ending .

Chilled out again (bet you are bored of reading this by now) then waited fir another bus to buenos aires! –where we are now !

xxxx

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