But amazingly enough everything went as smooth as cutting butter with a knife.
We went passed 12 checkpoints but only got stopped twice and they only wanted to see our passports and even then they barely looked at them this is including the border crossing as well and nobody wanted to search our bags for that matter either.
They only opened the trunk once as we entered Colombia and nothing more.

For the crossing we paid 55 bolivares per person in departure tax and another 50 per person in the por puesto from Maracaibo to Maicao and there we got the bus to Santa Marta.
The only problem we actually had was when we had just gotten in to Colombia and was on our way to Maicao there was another checkpoint, Colombian this time and we had to get out and I gave the officer my passport, he flipped through it once, twice and then a third time really slowly, he was looking quite serious by now, and he took Steffis passport looked trough it once and then looked at us and said “But where is your Colombian stamp?”
At this time I could feel the heart beating in my throat, and I was trying to figure out what we could have missed.
Because in our precious guidebook that we by now had lost almost complete faith in, it had said clearly that it was very important to make sure to get all the stamps, and pay all the exit fees.
Otherwise there would be problems in Colombia. So we had been so sure that there was nothing we had missed.

I got the passport back and went for the page were the Colombian immigration officer had put his stamp, found it and showed it to the officer, hands shaking and the pulse beating in my throat.
He smiles and says something like “oh, there it was.” And also that it wasn’t the color he was used to.

Both of us still a bit shaken got to Maicao and straight away caught a bus to Santa Marta for a 4 hour trip. Went straight for a hostel that was ok but not too expensive but the best part was that the toilet didn’t have a door. Only like a shower curtain so this made us come closer to each other in a whole new way…

All around Taganga there are hills and a lot of them are quite high and give an amazing view so one day we climbed and walked for almost 2hours to get to the top and we got an amazing view seeing all the way to Santa Marta and also along way into the Tayrona national park.
The sun was really hot that day and it felt like we were walking around in a desert because of all the cactuses.
The nature here reminded me a lot of Greece and Cyprus with really reddish earth and almost no trees.

On our last day in Taganga we did a one day tour to the Tayrona national park. It was beautiful, First we had to walk through the jungle (the landscape being a lot different than from Taganga with really dense jungles and monkeys) and along the water to get to the best beach.

dangerous beach

Tyrona park

Unfortunately we only had time to stay there for about 2 hours and then we had to run back to catch the bus that was supposed to pick us up and drive us back.

So when we got to the parking only about 5 minutes late the bus hadn’t shown up yet and the park was closing. We borrowed a phone and rang the bus driver who told us he was on his way and about 30 minutes away, meaning that he had just left Santa Marta.
When he had driven us back as compensation we only paid half price for the ride back.

A happy donkey

Next day we headed of to Cartagena to meet up with a couchsurfer.

Ciao
Chris

written by  Steffi & Chris on December 8, 2009 from Taganga, Colombia
from the travel blog: 212 days
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view from Erv's apartment

It turned out that she was living in one of the houses that our bus had driven past and both me and Steffi had commented on the super white entrance.
The apartment building was really close to the water and from Erv’s apartment we got an amazing view of the ocean.
First night we didn’t do much we just went for dinner together with another couchsurfer who was also sleeping at Erv’s place.
The next day we went to explore the Old city which is really beautiful. It’s an old colonial town surrounded by a wall and also a huge fortress close by.
We spent the whole day walking around the city and looking at the buildings and we also had lunch with another guy from Couchsurfing named Jorge living close by who told us about the city and what you could do and gave us some inside info.

Crazy dancers

That same night when we were on our way back to the apartment we stumbled on a really cool live dance performance on one of the plazas it was different kinds of traditional dances and I think we spent at least 30 minutes just sitting there watching the moves, the colors and listening to the rhythm. Sometimes it was so fast that just looking at it made you tired.
That night we had dinner at Erv’s place that Rihanna (the other couchsurfer) had cooked. It was really good and when I get home I really need to get better at cooking food. Pasta and tuna just isn’t enough.
Second day, we went to the Castillo, a fort close to the old city center, that was used to protect the city from the pirate attacks and also to keep it from being conquered.
Cartagena has a really interesting history, it was the most important town for the Spanish in the South America because it was from here they shipped all the gold and other treasures they found while conquering the continent. Therefore it has always been other nations and also pirates who have attacked the city and tried to take its treasures.

When me and Steffi finally decided to call it a night, this was about two hours after Erv had gone home we found her asleep and snoring outside her door since, she had tried banging on the door she said but Rihanna had her earphones on and didn’t hear. So what do you do when it’s late at night and you have forgotten that the key is downstairs in the reception? You sleep on the floor, that’s what you do.
Our last day in Cartagena we were both really hung-over at first. Could it be the free rum? Any how we didn’t do much except argue with the laundry lady who had made one pair of socks and a shirt disappear but we got it back after an hour, that I spent sitting at the laundry place looking pissed off so I guess that one point for us. That afternoon we caught the 12hour bus to Medellin to se Pablo Escobar’s hometown! But that’s another story.
Cheers
Chris

written by  Steffi & Chris on December 12, 2009 from Cartagena, Colombia
from the travel blog: 212 days
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on a street in Colombia

Next, we had gotten the tip to take the subway up into one of the suburbs that are high up on the hills surrounding the city and take a cable car up to the top. There we could watch the sun set over Medellin. It was really beautiful and you had a really nice view over the city, only problem was that the area is supposed to be really dangerous and poor so we couldn’t leave the station and had to wait for 30 minutes until the sun went down.

Next day we started with walking around a little bit but since we had covered most of everything we decided to take it easy and save our strength for the night.
We had decided to go out and try the night life and had found one club that was supposed to be very popular with dwarves working as waiters. Only when we came there the place was closed so we ended up just taking the cab back, and so ended our night out in Medellin.
On our last day we slept late really relaxed and waited in the room until checkout just packed our bags watched TV and did not much at all, even from travelling you need to take days off.
So at 3 o’clock we went to have lunch at an amazing crepe restaurant we had found the day before. While we were sitting there we started talking to a local guy at the next table, just basic things like how to get to the bus station and how long time the bus would take. So we chitchatted for some time when we waited for the food and just about as we got our food the guy had finished eating so he paid his bill and the waiter turned to us and told us that he paid our bill as well.
A bit shocked we thank him and he tells us that it’s a gift from him to us to remember Medellin. And it really became a great memory. I have never had anything like it happened to me before.
After lunch we went to the bus station since we thought the bus would be 12-13 hours but when we came there we found out that it was only 8 hours which in most cases would have been good news but for us it meant that we couldn’t take the bus we had planned on since then we would arrive in the middle of the night.
Lucky for us the bus station was connected to a shopping mall that also had a cinema so to kill some time we went and saw Avatar for 2 dollars and what a surprise. It was an amazing movie and both I and Steffi loved it. So after that we just got on the bus and left for Cali. The Salsa capital.

Chris

written by  Steffi & Chris on December 16, 2009 from Medellin, Colombia
from the travel blog: 212 days
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svenskcolombianchilenarna

frukost!

It was a long night and the next day we both felt a bit “sick” so we didn’t do much at all. Even at night I still felt sick this time bad for real and not just hung-over so we stayed in that night and prepared for our next bus ride.
We had decided that we should take the night bus again because it was another 11hour bus ride but at about mid day the owner of the hostel told us that the night bus to the border town was not such a good idea since a lot of the buses had been robbed and the closer to Christmas we got the higher the risk was of getting stopped.
We quickly decided that we should go by day instead but since we were hoping to celebrate Christmas in Otavalo we didn’t want to get there just the days before.
So we rushed to the bus station and took instead an 8 hour bus to Pasto in Colombia. Children were staring at me and Steffi since we were the only tourists on the bus and one of the girls asked if she could buy my eyes. When we arrived to the terminal we decided to stay the night there and leave early in the morning to Otavalo. Only problem was that we had not thought of the altitude changes and since we were now at almost 2800 m it got really cold (you could see your mouth making little clouds as you breathed) so we pulled on almost all the clothes we had and just tried to stay warm. Then finally at 6 in the morning we considered it safe to keep travelling so we took the bus the last 3 hours to the border and then crossed over into Ecuador.

Chris

Sorry about not being really up to date with the posting but now we are almost there!

written by  Steffi & Chris on December 19, 2009 from Cali, Colombia
from the travel blog: 212 days
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Merry Christmas

For Steffi I had bought several gifts and then I had bought a bunch of Christmas tree balls and also table tennis balls that I painted and hung up in a bouquet of bougainvillea and so I made a small Christmas tree full of Christmas presents. It is quite hard to explain but it looked better than it sounds.

During the day Christmas Eve day that is we went bike riding together

having a moment with a tree

Un regalo por navidad

We went on riding our bikes and saw some angry looking kids blocking the road with a rope made of grass begging for a “Christmas gift” or they wouldn’t let us pass. They let us go anyways. Since we already had stayed longer than the time we had rented the bikes for we took a different road back that wasn’t quite as steep but on the other hand a bit longer, we went around the “mountain” instead of over it but as I and Steffi had stopped to take some pictures of a piglet and some ducks Sunni had found a pick-up willing to give us a lift back into town so we got there a lot quicker.
After we got back we met up with Stefanie and Berndt, some other people at the hostel and together we went out and had a Christmas dinner together.
After dinner we went back to the hostel and at this time Sunni had already left since she had decided to start doing some volunteering in the morning at a school close to the village. But the rest of us went on and we built a fire in the fireplace at the hostel and there we shared a bottle of rum, some coke and nachos. It was almost a perfect Christmas day.
On Christmas day we didn’t do much, we had planned to do a lot, like shopping at the market but we all felt the day before and didn’t do much at all instead.
Until night when we once again built a fire and this time we had a little barbecue with some sausages shared 5 bottles of wine and had a great evening once again.

Cock fight

On the Sunday all 4 of us went horse riding for 3 hours in the mountains and it was absolutely amazing. Fantastic scenery with huge mountains and big canyons little rives flowing past and everything else is green, really really deep green. We thought that the ride would take us to some crater lakes that are quite close by but apparently we had misunderstood the information. But as compensation the guide took us to some medicinal springs where we got to bathe and cool down for a bit before we went back to the ranch so all in all we were very happy with our excursion even though it didn’t really end as we had thought.

After the horses we just went to the bus station and caught the first bus to Quito.

Bye bye

Chris

written by  Steffi & Chris on December 24, 2009 from Otavalo, Ecuador
from the travel blog: 212 days
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view from super cheap room

After that we shared a taxi to the new town to look for a hostel and also so Steffi and me could look around and plan our Galapagos trip.
We actually found a really good offer in the first shop that we visited but we still went around different shops trying to find one that could beat the first offer but that didn’t happened so we booked it 5 days 4 nights on a 1:st class cruise ship for 1035 dollars, and that was including the flight to and from the Galapagos.
It’s not that we looked for a 1:st class ship it just happened to be the cheapest option.

That same day we also found a hostel that seemed perfect to celebrate New Year’s at, since the old town where our current hostel was at is not too good with bars and to go out we wanted to move for new years, and of course we moved together with Berndt and Stefanie.
The next day on the 29:th we all went to the Equator together. It is about 45 minute bus ride out from town. But on our way to the bus we experienced the mustard incident.
All four of us were walking down the street when Stefanie (not my Steffi) says to Berndt, “You have something on your backpack.” And the whole backpack was full of mustard and also Steffi’s back had gotten sprayed. Almost directly after we had seen it a man who was walking in front of us comes up with napkins and offers to help clean it up. But we said no and everybody held one hand on their belongings.
After we had gotten cleaned up we went on to the middle of the world.
When we got there we found a small park with some restaurants and a huge monument showing the location of the middle of the world. Funny thing though is that this isn’t really the equator. When they calculated it they didn’t have GPS and so the real Equator is actually 500m away outside the official park and there is a smaller museum there that was a lot better and we got a guided tour and got to do some experiments on the equator, like the water going straight down and trying to balance and egg on a nail (Berndt was the only one who made it.) This museum was a lot better and it was not only the equator but also all of Ecuador and its different cultures.

At the real equator

At the equator

The next day we didn’t do much at all we moved to our new hostel and Steffi and I fixed the last details for our Galapagos trip.

satiric caricatures

Monkey masks for New Year

Best hot god

Scary mask

We went on just walking up and down the street eating the best hot dog ever with chips topping and drinking beers. At about 11.30 we started to notice that people were leaving the street. We tried to find out where everybody was going but apparently everyone went home to their families or friends to celebrate the New Year at home. Also some people said that it’s too dangerous to be in the streets after 12 and wondered why we weren’t going home? Still we found a tourist club that was owned by some Pakistani so we rang in the New Year watching a sort of dance of on the street and also some guy had brought one small box with fireworks so we got to see some of that as well.
Our last day in Quito we spent being hung-over and transferring pictures from Berndts camera to our computer. It actually took longer than what it sounds like. And then on the 2nd we went to the airport to go to Galapagos. When we got there first you have to get your bag x-rayed to check for foreign plants and animal products. But that’s another story.

Amor y Besos
Chris

written by  Steffi & Chris on January 1, 2010 from Quito, Ecuador
from the travel blog: 212 days
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I had seen it on Animal Planet. I had read about it in National Geographic. It’s nothing like TV. It’s so unbelievably much better.

We thought we would have to plan the trip to Galapagos in every detail so we wouldn’t leave it broke. But somehow everything just sorted itself out for us and we got lucky, real lucky.

We arrived in Baltra, Galapagos, at noon on the 2nd of January. We started by checking out different hostels and found out that the oldest hostel was the cheapest. I have taught Chris well who haggled the price down to 15 dollars for a double room w/ bathroom per night. Very cheap considering it’s Galapagos.
That day we just wandered around the island, watching sea lions steal fish from the fishermen and checking out some dive shops for diving on the next day.

On the way to the dive spot the following day I was scared of getting sea sick. Unlike Chris I’m not used to the ocean.
We dove two times and got to see hammerhead sharks, white tip sharks, a turtle and lots of big schools of fish.
Before the first dive when the first group of divers was going in, the sea got extremely rough (which my stomach couldn’t handle) so I got a sea sickness tablet. It helped a lot although they also work as a sleeping pill so I slept like a baby the 1 hour ride back.

The following day it was time for our cruise. We met up with the group and went on a tour around the island of Santa Cruz having a sort of tortoise theme.

We saw several giant tortoises in the wild. There is now a healthy population of about 3000-4000 giant tortoises on Santa Cruz but it hasn’t always been like that. Before when the pirates and the whalers were the only ones using the islands they used to take the tortoises for food since they can go up to one year without food or water. One whaler could take up to 500 tortoises on board which they would put upside down to keep as food stock. A very slow and cruel death.

Diego

Getting a tan

The next day in the morning we woke up at Plazas to the sound of barking sea lions (It sounds like they’re about to throw up). Plazas are two beautiful islands with colors of red, green, blue and black only inhabited by animals. We saw iguanas, marine iguanas and loads of sea lions. One of the first things we noticed was the smell of the sea lions and how totally handicapped but cute they look on land. All the rocks were dotted by hundreds of red Sally Lightfoot crabs. The marine iguanas are endemic to Galapagos and are the species that has changed the most through evolution of all the animals that once came to the islands.

When we came back to the boat we spotted a big school of eagle rays so Chris and I decided to join them. Three minutes later we’re swimming with 40 of them! We could even swim down having them all around us and they didn’t mind at all. The feeling was indescribable. They really look like creatures from a fable and somewhat like birds, therefore the name eagle rays.

The following day we had arrived at a new island called Espanola, an island that is basically uninhabitable for humans because there is no fresh water source.
We first walked along a beautiful long white beach where sea lions were busy sunbathing, talking and taking their silly morning walk. A completely sand covered sea lion ran up to me from nowhere and surprised me and even though you tried to keep the 2 meter distance to the animals which are the National Parks rules the animals kept breaking them. Not that we minded too much =)

We were lucky enough to see the albatrosses which come here to mate and nest.
The male always comes first to the island and although they only have one partner their whole life, the male always tries to find another female before his “precious” comes back. Therefore the males always get into fights with other males. This means that almost 25% of the offspring are bastards.
The albatross is a huge bird with a wingspan of about 2.3m and usually they need a long runway to takeoff either water or a clear field but because of Espanolas high vertical cliffs and the strong wind that come from the south east they are able to take off by just jumping of the cliff.

Next day we went ashore on Floreana which is best known for its mystical history. In the 1930's a German dentist and his mistress, a young family (the Wittmer family who still live on the island) and a self-styled BDSM inspired baroness with her three men came to settle in the island. Shortly after the baroness and her lovers arrived chaos began.
The baroness and her entourage terrorized the other inhabitants while planning to build a luxury hotel.
Eventually the baroness, two of her lovers and the dentist all turned up missing or dead. There has been much investigation searching for what really happened on Floreana, but there have never been any hard answers.
Floreana is also famous for its Post Office Barrel which British whalers established in 1793 to send letters to and from England. This tradition has continued over the years, and visitors may drop off and pick up letters, without stamps, to be carried to far destinations. We picked four postcards all addressed to Stockholm and left two. We’ll see if they arrive!

Next we went ashore on the olive green beach where we got to see flamingos up close. The flamingos get their pink color from the shrimps which they in turn get from the alges. On the beach there were also turtles and small sting rays.
After that we went to snorkel at Devil’s Crown which is a collapsed volcanic crater. It was a lot of current which would normally attract a lot of sharks but we only saw one. I got to see my first turtle under water which was really cool.
We got back to the boat and it was time to prepare for a hasta la vista dinner since it was the last day. There were speeches and we thanked the crew. Then we had a really nice dinner together with wine.
We hanged out with everybody on the deck before going to sleep. Early the next day we went ashore on Bachas where we saw some more flamingos, turtles, crabs and marine iguanas.
On the way to our last destination we saw a huge and very polished ship cruising over the water with a black helicopter on it.
Then it was time to say good bye to everybody but Betty, who would also stay on the island for some more days.

We got back to our hostel and met up with Betty later for dinner. The following day it was time to dive again. We first dove at Gordon Rocks (hoping to see some more hammerheads) and then at North Seymore. I didn’t see any hammerhead this time (Chris did) but instead a beautiful enormous Manta ray with a wingspan of almost 4 meters which made my day and the dive worth every penny. He came really close and just cruised by.
We also saw turtles, spotted eagle rays, white-tip and black-tip reef sharks. The next dive we saw a huge hammerhead, a massive garden of garden eels and white-tips.
We met up with Betty again in the evening and went on a mega touristy bug train around town.

Enormous manta ray

Next day we went diving at Cousin’s Rock and near Bartolome. This time we actually had the navigator of the huge boat (that I mentioned earlier) on our small boat and he told us that the boat was actually owned by ONE guy, a Russian billionaire, which he and his family used for holidays. The 29 year old navigator did almost exactly what Chris wants to study so he happily told us about his job. The children, 13 and 19 years old, didn’t look forward to go to the Galapagos at all since all kinds of water sports are strictly forbidden. They weren’t allowed to use the helicopter they had onboard either which they usually only used to bring the family from the airport to the ship after they had landed in their private jet. Amazing how different lives some people lead… Here’s the link to the boat
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_%28yacht%29

The first dive we saw a huge school of eagle rays, golden cow rays, tuna fish, hammerheads, white-tip sharks and sea lions playing in a cloud of fish. We ended up holding onto a ledge and just watching the show going on in front of us. Everybody loved it except a tiny black fish which kept on nibbling on my fingers.
Between the dives we got to snorkel and saw our first couple of penguins which Chris got to see swimming. I found a sea lion which I played with who stole my snorkel for more than a minute before he finally gave it back to me. Sea lions are in fact chubby comedians with whiskers.
The next dive we saw a beautiful little sea horse, sea lions, tuna, turtles, two white-tips that circled around us for 5 minutes, moray, puffer fish and lots more. The diversity of the marine life on Galapagos is as incredible as the life on the islands. I have never seen so many different animals in one single dive.
We went out to eat a goodbye dinner later that day with Betty since she was going to fly home the following day.
The next day was our last day at the Galapagos. It was cloudy and we were tired after an intense week so we decided to spend the last day on the beach doing nothing. A day that turned out to be a day we’ll never forget.

When we came to the beach there were no tourists only National Park personnel and Police men standing in the water with their clothes on. We asked one of them what was happening and he told us three dolphins had stranded.
They had been there since 6 am trying to save them but they just kept coming back. No one knew why they tried to commit suicide like this but probably because they were sick or old.
Now it was around 11 am and they had two dolphins left. We asked if they needed help and got a big YES. Chris and I were shown out to one of the dolphins which was then alone. The dolphin was about 3 m long and we held him until rescue came which was a small rubber boat.
The boat had a long rope made of sheets tied together and with that we tied it around the dolphin and towed it out into the deep water.
Now there were only one left but this one was in very rough water and when the boat came in to put the harness on it almost flipped because of the waves. Instead Chris and another volunteer dragged, pulled and swam with the dolphin to the calmer end of the beach 500 m away. When we got there the sea had gotten rough there as well and the boat was unable to come close enough.
The National Park decided that we would do one last try because sooner or later you just have to realize when to quit and let Nature have its way.
The last attempt was to carry the dolphin to a calm bay 100 m away. It took 15 strong and fully grown men to carry it. Not two as in the movie “Le Grande Bleu”.
On the way, the dolphin was really stressed and when we got to the bay you could feel its heartbeat really fast but it calmed down after a little while. The dolphin swam off and we didn’t see him again.
We thought we were done and started walking back but on the way we saw that one of the dolphins had returned and gotten stranded on some rocks. In one last effort, the National Park personnel decided that we should carry the bleeding dolphin to the calmer bay as well. In the end it swam off as well but it looked really weak and we don’t think he made it.

It was a rare experience both tragic and amazing. I never thought I would come that close to such a magnificent creature like a wild dolphin.

This was the BEST week of our lives!

Steffi

written by  Steffi & Chris on January 11, 2010 from Puerto Ayora, Ecuador
from the travel blog: 212 days
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Huaraz lies at more than 3000m above sea level and we came there after a long bus ride.

We started from Guayaquil where there is a huge bus terminal combined with shopping centre. And from there we took a night bus across the border into Peru and Piura where we just changed buses and kept going to Piura were we stayed one night and the next night we took another night bus to take us all the way to Huaraz.
The first day we just spent sleeping and letting our bodies catch up a little bit. I was also feeling a little bit sick so it was good not to move around a lot. Also the altitude makes you really weak as well.

But the next day I was feeling a lot better so off we went to visit a glacier and with some help of mate de coca we were able to handle the height.
Pastoruri is located in the Cordillera Blanca at about 5000m above sea level. On the drive in we stopped at a natural spring that had carbonated water coming out and then we also stopped at another mineral spring but unfortunately we couldn’t really see the colors since there was an overcast sky.
And then finally we came to Pastoruri the bus dropped us of at the base of a trail that lead up to the glacier and we used the opportunity to ride up on horses it was about 1.5 dollars for the ride up and I think it was a really good idea since the height made it hard just to walk up some steps.
When the horses had dropped us of we still had a bit to go that we had to walk up and it was really weird to be walking close to the cloud base. Every now and then one of the clouds sunk a little bit and it got very foggy.
Then finally we made it all the way up to the glacier and it is not the biggest in the world nor the highest but it was still cool and I can only imagine what it must look like with a clear sky.

We stayed there a little while got to play with the snow and then we walked all the way back down again!
Then on the drive out the sky cleared up a little bit and we could see some of the high peaks and the valleys and it was a beautiful scenery. Although Steffi missed a lot of it since she was sleeping her way through it. On the way back to Huaraz the bus also stopped to get some lunch and after an extremely overpriced meal Steffi found a little sheep baby that she got to hold.

That was all we did that day and the next we went walking around town and since it was almost a clear sky we were able to get some good pictures of the mountains and the city.
Also Steffi stole a picture of a lady who had dressed up her lama and was walking around the main square with it.

Thank god for our good zoom =)
We also bought the tickets for the bus and that night we left for Lima and some couchsurfers who were waiting for us there.

Chris

written by  Steffi & Chris on January 17, 2010 from Huaraz, Peru
from the travel blog: 212 days
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A different and special place in other words. We met some fun people and one night they had a small party in the apartment where we really got to practice our spanish.

Unfortunately, Chris got food poisoned almost instantly after we arrived and the day after I as well and we ended up staying three nights in Lima before going further.

Next stop was Cusco but since there was a bus strike we had problems finding a bus. Luckily we heard about one company going so we bought tickets and later that day we were off.

Esteffi

written by  Steffi & Chris on January 20, 2010 from Lima, Peru
from the travel blog: 212 days
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We came to Cusco after a 20h bus journey that took us over the andes from Lima, and on the way all our fellow travelers where sniffing Alcohol, like the kind you clean wounds with to help with the motion sickness and such.
what more was that during the night our neighbors had brought an opened bottle of red wine on the bus and all of it leaked out on the floor and soaking our stuff, including our Guidebook we tried yelling at them and complaining to the staff working on the buss but we barley got a "I'm sorry."
We did give them the evil eye for a long time though. =)

When we arrived we first walked around in the rain looking for hostels and after much work we found one that was cheap enough and had what we needed (like warm water and thick blankets.)
After that we spent the first two days getting used to the altitude and booking a tour to see Machu Picchu.
Then we had everything sorted out and we were scheduled to leave on the 27:th.
But first there was my birthday, Steffi woke me up and had hid presents in the room.

So i found a alpaca sweater in a drawer together with a nice little flute. and a sticker for my coming motorbike saying "i Love boobies" and a picture of a blue footed Boobie from Galapagos.
after that we had breakfast in bed and then we spent the day walking around town and getting a massage.
Also we moved to a new hostel that was fantastic! owned by a South African lady and called Casa de la Gringa.
and thanks to this hostel we ended up staying allot longer in Cuzco than we had planed for.
Also we got a free night! but thats a long story ;)
All the room are individual and most of them have a beautiful view over the city!
During my birthday it rained allot though and also during the night so the next day we went to check our tour and they told us to come back that same night to tell us if we could go or not.
Because all the rain had caused massive landslides so allot of roads and houses around Cuzco was damaged. That night we also found out that they had closed Machu Picchu and all the roads to Aguas Calientes were destroyed leaving thousands of people trapped and than the next week our so they were helicoptering people out and carrying supplies in.
So the next days we spent trekking around Cusco and especially around The temple of the moon with is a truly beautiful place! when we saw that Steffis reaction was. " Fuck Machu Picchu!".

Thats all we did i Cuzco next we went to Puno and Lake titicaca but thats another story!

Ciao
Chris!

written by  Steffi & Chris on January 25, 2010 from Cusco, Peru
from the travel blog: 212 days
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