A journey to the alter and South America - Cath & Andy

49 hours in transit... and a new home

Cath & Andy — Tue, 29 May 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Well, we have made it home to good old wintery Canberra, but not without some unexpected travel adventures.

We arrived at the airport at 7:30pm Thursday night only to be told that our flight home had been cancelled. Lan Chile were actually pretty good about it and organised for us to stay at the Crowne Plaza for the night, with an anticipated flight out the next morning at 11am. It was really interesting to see just HOW BAD people are when unexpected things happen, people were so rude and demanding to staff, others were crying, some japanese fellow was snorting & spitting and others just generally carried on like pork chops - many I think wanting upgrades, but how can you upgrade an entire full plane?? Really is their any point in complaining? They said the plane was 'broken', there was no way we were wanting to get on a broken plane!

Cath was pretty sick with a head cold by this time & just sat on the floor in the airport, not really fussed by what was going on around us as we waited for our hotel and transport vouchers. By the time we got back to the city & to the free dinner it was midnight, and all we really needed was a bed.

Our 11am flight was delayed by an hour (because the transport company didn't get everyone back to the airport on time), and finally we were on our way. The flight for Cath was a nightmare as she had really bad sinus congestion and her ears screamed and squealed and her head felt like it was going to explode for the whoe 15 hour flight, Andy was lucky enough to get some sleep.

We couldn't get a connection to Sydney, so we had to spend a night in Auckland (once again on the airlines budget) and had to get back to the airport at 4am. Whilst we were in Auckland for almost 12 hours we didn't get to see anything as it was dark by the time we got out of the airport and unfortunately Cath was too sick to go sighseeing - we struggled through another free meal with Cath almost falling asleep at the table.

Eventually we did make it home with 2 more agonising flights for Cath and only just making our connection to Canberra with 10 mins to spare.

Much to our delight, Cath's parents had moved almost all our belongings from the old flat into our new apartment before we got home, meaning that we could spend our first night in our own place. We were outstounded at how much space we have, and cupboards and more than one room (I'm sure the novelty will wear off soon), very exciting! Now for the fun of decorating and actually buying some furniture...

Anyway, we will update again soon with some statistics from the trip - until then ciao ciao

Andy = old

Cath & Andy — Thu, 24 May 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Birthday cake for the birthday boy

Yep, yesterday Andy turned 30. We are back in Santiago and have been checking out other parts of the city that we missed the first time.

World Trade Centre Sculpture

For Andy´s birthday we started the day with a very cultural visit to the Museo de Bellas Artes, an amazing beautiful old building with plenty of classical and modern art. Then it was time for a coffee and the birthday cake at a local coffee shop before heading out to the Providencia area for some shopping and a ride on the subway. Its incredibly easy to use, fast, cheap and clean and is recognised as one of the best subway systems in the world! It is, however, incredibly busy with over 1 million people using it daily!!!

Andy´s birthday dinner

We had lunch at a bustling Italian restaurant and were fascinated by the speed and efficiency of the staff covering four floors and about 100 tables with only 6 wait staff. The food was amazing and its popularity is well deserved with a great dining atmosphere. We cruised down through the parks that afternoon back to the centre of the city before heading out to Off The Record, a hip and popular restaurant where the President is known to dine. There we had arguably our best meal in South America with an entree of some of the best calamari we have ever had and a main of a shared platter with various meats, stir-fried vegetables, potatoes and a great bottle of Chilean wine. Our photos don´t do justice to how GOOD the meal really was. The atmosphere was like an old cinema with ticket booths as bars and old cinema seats for chairs around the tables and photos of famous people all over the walls. Very cosy and a great way to spend your birthday dinner.

Look! Mountains!!

This morning we awoke to see the bazarre sight of mountains in Santiago! Usually the smog is so thick you can barely see their outline but today, even though still smoggy, at least on the Eastern side of the city, the snow-capped Andes loom large over the city - a magnificent sight and one that many people don´t see.

We fly home tonight and miss Seumas´ birthday due to crossing the dateline, but we will have a beer for him at some stage. Cath has a bit of a cold, we are a bit sad that our trip has come to an end but are also excited about our new apartment and seeing everyone.

Rumbling earth, Penguins and Pisco

Cath & Andy — Mon, 21 May 2007 00:00:00 GMT

La Serena Church

After another 7 hour bus adventure we arrived in the small, but not without charm, town of La Serena and promptly booked ourselves on two tours of the surrounding area. We spend the first afternoon just wandering around and sussing out the place along with getting back into the swing of having a big, late Chilean lunch.

The next morning, just before we were to be picked up for our tour, we were greeted by an earthquake! Very strange experience that lasted about 45 seconds with slow rumbling climaxing to a reasonably big shake at the end, but nothing damaging. Our hostel host informed us that it was almost a weekly event!!! We now know why all the pavement around town is a bit uneven.

Guanacos - last of the ´big four´

Dolphins - Isla Choros

Our tour took us north of La Serena to Reserva Nacional Pinguino de Humboldt where we hopped on a boat out to Isla Choros and Isla Damas to see the wildlife and beautiful surroundings. What a great experience, we saw Sealions, Dolphins, Humboldt Penguins, thousands of birds, a massive whale bone and some beautiful coastline and on the way we finally saw some Guanaco! We´ve seen plenty of Llamas, Alpacas and Vicuñas in our travels but the fourth member of the family illuded us until now.

Sealion argument - Isla Choros

Humboldt Penguins - Isla Choros

Horsemen - Elqui Valley

View down river Elqui - Elqui Valley

Today we took a tour inland into the Elqui Valley famous for being a fabulous Pisco growing area, and also having a fog that stayed around until lunch time. Unfortunately today turned out to be the Chilean day of the Mariners or something like that so every town we went to had a parade going on which closed the only road through it and most of the museums and pisco factories we were supposed to visit! Nonetheless, we found some places open and saw some things that we didn´t expect so not all was lost. The valley is beautiful with lots of patchwork farming and fabulous barren pre Cordillera mountains as a backdrop. Also, this area is famous for having only 3 rain days per year, and guess what happened! Not a lot mind you, but we´ve seen something a lot of people haven´t.

Tomorrow its another long bus trip back to Santiago for our last two days before coming home - can´t wait to see you all.

Andy & Cath.

Valpo - city of escalators

Cath & Andy — Fri, 18 May 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Argentina/Chile border on our tour day

Argentina/Chile border three days later

After an early morning start in Mendoza for our border crossing bus to Valparaiso, we found out why it had been so cold the last few days. By the time we got to the border we saw that a snow cover of at least 20cm had fallen since we came up here on a tour three days ago. The views were spectacular but, given what we know about Argentine drivers, we had a few misgivings about choosing a bus company called El Rapido with a few crazy passing maneouvers and some fresh fingernail marks in the seats....

Stuck at roadworks on the border crossing

Typical Valparaiso street

Ascendor in Valparaiso

We made it through ok and landed in the warm and colourful Valparaiso after getting off the bus a town too early and set about walking the hills and riding the Ascendors (railway cars that defy logic and gravity to get you up impossible slopes). Valpo is a perculiar town, they don´t have window washers at traffic lights, instead they have performance artists juggling and doing crazy ball tricks. Also artists of all description sit at every vantage point across the city and paint the view selling their wares once they are finished. It also is a town kind of bipolar, the hills are very haphazard and quiet but as soon as you step down onto the flat area of El Plan its all hustle and bustle with a blocked street pattern and heaps of traffic and noise, but at least you can switch between the two with relative ease if you´ve had too much of either.

Valparaiso view

Unfortunately, other than wander the streets and admire the view, there´s not a whole lot else to do in Valparaiso so after 2 days of boheimian relaxation we decided to hop on a bus and head up north to La Serena for one last town and area to explore before heading back to Santiago.... because we haven´t had enough bus travel yet.

Mountains, cañons, wineries and food...

Cath & Andy — Wed, 16 May 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Mendoza street

We arrived in Mendoza after an overnight bus from Cordoba, bus travel here is very comfortable with some busses having fully reclining seats the size of a business class seat in an aeroplane. To our surprise when we arrived at 7:30am it was still dark with the sun not showing itself until 9am. It was also freezing cold and when we went into town at midday on Saturday, everything was closed. Suffice to say, it took us a little while to warm to Mendoza but we´ve spent the last 5 days in and around the city and its quite nice and strangely a bit like home with its tree lined streets. We are often reminded of Garema Place as we stroll around from coffee shop to steak house. We think we should have visited Argentina first on our trip as now we don´t have the major culture differences and everything is so civilised, it is a little harder for us to find things of interest which is strange as it really is beautiful here.

Cath at Aconcagua base camp - note the frozen water!

Puente del Inca, Mendoza Province

We did a tour of the mountainous regions around Mendoza all the way to the Chilean border stopping at Aconcagua, the highest peak outside of the Himalayas at 6962m, and Puente del Inca, a natural formed bridge stained by sulfur in the thermal waters that run over it. Predictably it was very cold, have a look at the frozen lake behind Cath in the photo, but being surrounded by such large mountains with a dazzling array of colours and shapes was makes 6 hours in a bus and a sore neck worth it. The colours in the mountains here are nothing like anything else we have seen in the Andes and the barrenness makes it very beautiful.

Perfect winery view

We couldn´t come to Mendoza without doing a winery tour - they have over 900 wineries in the area and supply 70% of Argentina´s wine. We were very lucky to book a tour that had nobody else on it so we were chauffered around with a personal guide to 4 wineries that included a 5 course wine matched lunch and also barrel tastings and full tours through their production including seeing people labelling bottles by hand. The wineries here are quite different to Australia and to get into a winery you must have a booking as there are security guards and big locked gates at each winery. The tasting is quite different too as you pay for the tasting but there is no ´big sell´ trying to get you to buy anything, its just an excuse to sit around and appreciate the wine that they make. The wineries here would have to be in some of the most spectacular scenery in the world. Its also amazing to see that within approximately 20kms and probably 50m elevation they have quite different microclimates around each wine region due mainly to their proximity to the Andes.

Cañon del Atuel, Mendoza Province

Andy at Valle Grande in Cañon del Atuel

Yesterday we did a tour to the south of Mendoza through Cañon del Atuel which is kind of a mini grand canyon that has had 4 dams and hydroelectric plants built in it. Would have been good without the dams but still an amazing canyon with interesting rock formations (some look like elephants, penguins, monks, turtles and of course male anatomy) and once again beautiful colours in the rock. It was freezing (again!) and our guide didn´t speak english but it was still a good experience, just a shame that the sun wasn´t out to light up the colours it the rocks.

Tucking into a big dinner - check out Cath´s steak!!!

mmmm piggy-pig

We have done some of the best eating here of our entire trip with each dinner including a full bottle of wine. The weight we have lost over the rest of the trip from all the exercise we have done will surely be back on by the time we leave Argentina. We are booked on a bus tomorrow across the border into Chile to see the Pacific Ocean again and spend a few days in and around the coastal town of Valparaiso.

Still having a ball and can´t believe its been nearly 2 months!
Andy & Cath.

More randomness...

Cath & Andy — Mon, 14 May 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Some more random observations from South America:

- Salt - we will need a detox when we get home
- Men like to sing in the street in public and loudly
- You never need to order bread, it comes free with every meal (lots of it)
- Busses and Trucks are faster than cars, the bigger the bus, the faster it goes
- Gum trees everywhere
- Speed humps are sometimes in the middle of the highway for no apparent reason
- Argentinian highways have street lights
- Every bus we have been in has had a cracked windscreen
- Potato, you can never have enough ... apparently
- Argentinian steak thoroughly deserves its reputation as the best
- Asking for the bill - it will never, ever, come if you don´t ask for it.
- Long lunches, a standard lunch lasts about 2 hours with a 1 hour rest afterwards.
- Smoking, everyone everywhere - is there such a thing as a non-smoking hotel room?
- Its perfectly normal to leave your home and go nightclubbing at 2am
- The sun rises at 9am in Mendoza (all of Argentina is on one timezone)
- At cafes in Mendoza people drop pens/torches/stickers/lollypops/lottery tickets on your table every 5 minutes trying to sell them to you - quite annoying.

Paragliding in the Argentinian Sierras

Cath & Andy — Fri, 11 May 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Paragliding in the sun

Cath all geared up

Yep, in an effort to conquer Cath´s fear of heights, and test out Andy´s stomach, we decided to go paragliding - Cath´s fear of heights is still intact, Andy´s stomach, predictably, made a bid for freedom. It was a fantastic experience though despite almost losing our fingers to frostbite and the giddying twists, turns and ups and downs.

There is certainly more to look at and do in Cordoba than there was in Rosario although our trip here was a little interesting with the choice of movie being the Texas Chainsaw Massacre - we´re glad we weren´t travelling at night with some unexpected stops on the side of the road...

Andy in Cordoba pedestrian mall

We´ve had a lovely time here just chilling out and eating. We´ve had amazing food and our choices of local wines keep getting better and better ... and we still haven´t made it to Mendoza which is supposed to be the capital of wining and dining! Although the food has been fantastic, we still can´t find vegetables or fibre in any great quantity. Meals seem to be served with a side of potato, be that chips, wedges, potato gems, mash or bake. We did try to order a side plate of vegetables last night, but they were pretty tasteless and even that came with potato on it! The other cool food related thing you can do is walk into a shopping mall food court and buy a 1Litre beer from every single food outlet (though we didn´t look at Maccas). It is a strange feeling to be sitting inside a mall drinking a 1L Heiniken as everyone shops around you at 7pm on a Tuesday night (the malls are open until at least midnight).

Cordoba´s Jesuit Block Streetscape

Jesuit Block building - Cordoba

We have also decided that Argentina is closed for renovations. Just about every Museum, public building or tourist attraction, right throughout Argentina, is covered in scaffolding and a troop of workmen being renovated. In 12-18 months this place will look like new!!! Suffice to say, we haven´t been to one Museum yet, but the food is keeping us company.

After a bit of tooing and froing with the internet and a travel agent we have decided that we will give Iguazu a miss on this trip. It was going to cost us a bomb to get there and back from where we are by plane, and we didn´t have 3 days just to sit on a bus if we had taken the bus option. Even if we had gone from Buenos Aires it would have cost us about 1200AUD to fly and that´s the cheapest place to go from. So we´ll take it easy in Western Argentina and we might even have a bit of time up our sleeves to see some more things around middle Chile before our flight home - maybe we´ll sample another wine or two?

We are booked on an overnight bus to Mendoza - the heart of wine country - tonight so there should be more fantastic dining experiences on the way. There are also a lot of National Parks and volcanoes in the area so we should get back to nature again. We have been reminded that we are home in 2 weeks so probably not many more entries till we see you next.

Andy & Cath.

Perfect Argentinian town ... I think not

Cath & Andy — Tue, 08 May 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Yesterday we landed ourselves in a town that the Lonely Planet describes as possibly the "Perfect Argentinian Town". The city is made up of entirely square blocks that are actually quite small and manageable, unfortunately it makes trafic flow a bit of a nightmare and everything looks the same. If we hadnt seen so many amazing cultural and scenic other cities on this trip we might have quite liked this laid back town but we just couldnt find anything to do on a Monday, even most of the shops appeared to be closed at 3pm!!

They did have a big river front with some big ocean-going ships tied up in it which was interesting to see and also the burial place of the designer of the Argentine flag. Che Guevera was also born here. We did find the electric busses (exactly like a tram in Melbourne but on wheels) a bit of a novelty but we seriously only took one photo and that was Cath in front of the flag monument.

We had planned on spending a few days here but had decided to hot foot it out of there on a bus to Cordoba. Despite the cities being around the same population, there seems to be heaps more to see and do here than in Rosario. However we have discovered that after 11 hours on a bus, Argentina is really very flat in the middle (unlike Andys belly after eating a 400g steak tonight).

We will probably spend a few days in and around Cordoba with possibly a side trip to Iguazu Falls if we can swing it from a travel agent before heading to Mendoza to drink more wine and eat more of this fabulous Argentine bovine.

Stay Tuned,
Cath & Andy.

On the mend...

Cath & Andy — Sun, 06 May 2007 00:00:00 GMT

We left the big city and slums of La Paz and landed in the big and very much more modern city of Buenos Aires and found a few surprises. We remembered quite quickly that Argentinians (especially the men) are very competitive. Nowhere is this more evident when riding as a passenger in a taxi racing between sets of traffic lights for a single lane opening ahead. Unfortunately, due to their rather relaxed adherance to lane markings, the one single opening quite frequently allowed both cars to fit, much to our dismay. The other thing that became apparent was that they speak a different kind of Latin American Spanish than in Chile, Peru and Bolivia. In all other countries we have been fairly well understood whereas here it seems nobody understands us. Often they even repeat back to us the correct pronunciation which to us sounds like what we have said but they still don´t understand us.

View onto worlds widest road - Buenos Aires

We managed to get a nice hotel room one block away from what claims to be the widest road in the world ... and at 9-10 lanes (each way!) we´re not going to argue! For such a large road, its actually quite nice with parks separating every three or four lanes.

Andy in Buenos Aires

We have spent the last few days here chilling out and letting Andy get a bit better which he is doing slowly. And before you all start going on about all the crazy stuff he´s been eating, he probably picked something up from either scrambled eggs or some fried chicken skin - nothing out of the ordinary there... La Paz doctor said that this is the most common source of salmonela.

We went to a soccer (futbol) game last night which was certainly an experience. To say Argentinian fans are fanatical could be a bit of an understatement. The crowd, the noise and the smells were overwhelming. At either end of the ground behind the goal posts were the opposing teams fanatical supporters with very large fences between them and the pitch. On the side where we were there were more home team supporters but not part of the official cheer squad, though no less noisy. The sides of the ground were separated from the playing surface by a 3m wide and 5m deep trench filled with some revolting ooze at the bottom which really stopped you thinking about a pitch invasion. We were frisked on the way in and there was a riot out the back at half time when one side pushed down a security fence but we were in the safe confines of a tour with tour guide who assured us that we were safe as long as we stayed in the stands. We didn´t see a goal as we left just after half time because Andy was feeling (and being) unwell but apparently, according to our taxi driver, it was a 2 all draw by the time we had gotten back to our hotel.

Tomorrow we head north to Rosario, we have put off Iguazu Falls until maybe another week or so just to make sure Andy is well enough before we head back into the Amazon.

Ornate Doorway - Buenos Aires

We think that a lot of our friends would like Buenos Aires, its quite a beautiful city and has some amazing shopping (we didn´t know you could make that many things out of cow) and interesting street performances including Tango. We will upload some photos when we can find a good internet place.

Bye for now.
Cath & Andy.

La Paz gives me the poos

Cath & Andy — Fri, 04 May 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Plaza San Francisco - La Paz

We left Copacabana on a bus for La Paz which was 5 hours to cover 160km. We did get a ride across Lake Titicaca on a punt watching our bus on another which was kinda cool. The entry towards La Paz was a bit daunting through dirt streets, and lots of poverty but that was just El Alto, a city above La Paz itself. Once we got through that, the views of the city were simply spellbinding, Pity that view was the only highlight of our time in La Paz.

We had a bit of a walk around the city but there was not much on offer, the coca museum was interesting and the witches market was smelly and disturbing with all its llama foetus´on display. Apparently you bury one under the cornerstone of a new building for good luck - they just grossed us out a bit.

It only took us half a day to see the highlights of town and we were wondering what we would do for the rest of our time there before our flights to Buenos Aires.

Cool Bus - La Paz

La Paz Street

As luck would have it, the next morning Andy fell ill with some salmonela and spent the entire day with his head and backside on the toilet fulfilling one of Cath´s fears of one of us getting sick in Bolivia. Cath had to call for a doctor which was daunting as the Lonely Planet guide says "In a medical emergency, don´t go to the hospitals..." The doctor, who was actually quite good and recommended by the hotel, gave Andy a needle which stopped him vomiting and promised that we´d be fine to fly the next morning. He even returned to check up on him late last night just to see how he was faring. Amazingly, with some antibiotics, plenty of water and a small amount of food, Andy is feeling much better today ... and we´ve made it to Buenos Aires.

Tomorrow is a new day and Andy is set to have his first meal in two days tonight so its all looking up from here. Despite it raining here, the city looks quite interesting with lots to see and do. There are also plenty of parks for us to laze about in till Andy fully recovers.

The other good news that we got was that our unit will settle on the 18th of May so we will have a new house to come home to after all!!!

Cath & Andy.

Her name was Lola ... She was a Showgirl

Cath & Andy — Mon, 30 Apr 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Thats right, were in a place called Copacabana, and Andy cant get the song out of his head!

This end of the lake is very different from Puno. Weve gone from industrial fast paced Puno (kind of like Newcastle) to laid back and beautiful Copacabana which is more like Byron Bay - after only a 2 hour bus trip with an "interesting" border crossing into Bolivia. Lets just say, theres nothing stopping people walking straight through the border.

Car blessing - cheaper than insurance

We had another chill day in Copacabana before doing a full-day "tour" of Isla Del Sol (the island of the Sun) where Manco Copec, the first Inca, was born. On our down day we witnesed a very bizarre ritual blessing at the Cathedral in town where people line up to have their cars blessed by the priests (for a small fee of course). People decorate their cars with ornate flowers before the priest comes around and blesses the car and family with holy water. After this the owners drench the car in alcohol and let off fireworks. We saw about 30 cars being done and it was a very strange sight. This happens every day at 10am and 2:30pm.

Cath hiking Isla Del Sol

The Isla Del Sol "tour" lasted for about an hour and then we were off walking the length of the island on our own to get to the pick up point. The walk was about 7km and took us about 2.5 hours at altitudes constantly above 4000m and lots of up and downs, some very steep. Along with the strenuous walk, the views along the way were breathtaking. It really is a very beautiful place with bluer than blue water and barren Medditeranean type landscapes. We were both really happy we chose to do the full-day hike from North to South as people on a half-day trip didnt see much at all except for the stairs coming out of the port. It took us half and hour to walk down them to meet our boat only just making it in time for the ride back to Copacabana.

View to Isla De la Luna from Isla del Sol

There is some bizarre weather up here. The air temperature is probably only 10-15 degrees but when you are in the sun it feels more like 25 and burns your skin in no time. When you venture into the shade, however, the cool breeze off the lake makes you switch from a t-shirt and sun hat to jumpers, jackets and beanies. It has also rained every day that we have been around the lake, and at this altitude it is basically ice and they have some wicked thunderstorms.

Lake Titicaca and Island Adventure

Cath & Andy — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 00:00:00 GMT

We managed to take a tourist bus from Cuzco to Puno on the shores of Lake Titicaca (actually pronounced Titi-haha I am sure much to Robs amusement). It was a good ride with a few stops to see Inca ruins but the rain and cold winds after lunch meant that we were over it pretty quickly and just wanted to get there. When we arrived in Puno it was sleeting and we were glad that we had pre booked a night of accommodation. However we were not ready for the four flights of stairs we had to climb to get there. (altitude really affects you)

We spent a day chilling out and seeing the sights of Puno, so we were bored by 10am but it was good to have a rest day before our overnight tour to the islands around Puno. We headed out to the Uros floating islands that are made out of reeds which were really interesting to see how these people lived. Predictably, these days they live in tin sheds and use wooden boats tucked away behind the tourist created spectacle. Its such a shame that the whole experience is 100% commercial and put on for the tourists but it was interesting, and Andy got to try some more weird food.

Floating Reed Islands - Lake Titicaca

Andy eats a Uros Banana - lake reed

We then putted out to Amantani Island, our boat was capable of about 5 knots top speed and for 4 hours it got a bit tiresome. At the island we were billeted out to families for a home stay to experience how they live. The trek uphill from the waterfront was fairly difficult at altitude but the home afforded great views of the lake and the family were just lovely. Unfortunately they spoke about as much conversational English as we speak conversational Spanish so we didnt get to speak to them much. A severe storm blew in at about 6pm whilst we were out walking around the island so we had to run back in the hail to "one of those mud brick houses over there" that didnt have electricity or heating. We spent the night huddled together in a single bed to keep warm. That said, it was actually quite a good experience.

Andy shivers - homestay Amantani Island

Amantani Island

The next day we went to Taquille island and were once again greeted with rain and sleet which made our hour-long trek across the island a bit painful. However, after lunch the sun came out and we had a nice 4 hour boat ride home.

Andy tucks in to a Guinea Pig - mmmm tasty

When we got back to Puno we decided that, as it was our last night in Peru, we should try some of the local delicacy .... Guinea Pig. Lets just say it had lots of bones and crackling like a pig, but was pretty tasty!

Random observations from the half way mark...

Cath & Andy — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Just thought we would post some random observations as we have passed the half way mark in our South American adventure...

- Cath has discovered that there is such a thing as too much cheese. In Chile, cheese seems to be part of every meal.
- Roadsigns are purely recommendations, nobody follows them even when there are traffic police standing on the side of the road next to them.
- Attractive Latino women lose some of their appeal when you see them squat and pee in the street (This is common everywhere outside of major cities, both boys and girls)
- Car horns can mean a myriad of things for instance:
= I am approaching a T intersection with a stop sign but am not stopping so I am letting you know that I am passing straight through (first beep has right of way?)
= Get out of the way
= The light turned green less than 1 second ago and I am not moving so get out of the way
= There is a child, person, pig, donkey, alpaca on the side of the road
= I am overtaking you
= I am passing a bus parked on the side of the road
= I am a taxi and I want your attention (this can be any number of bird like noises for horns including some that sound like a wolf whistle)o
Suffice to say, its a pretty noisy place, we had an Italian fellow from Rome tell us that they use the horn a lot here so that should give you some indication.

- Flushing the toilet is optional, Cath has had a few surprises but thinks this is more a tourist problem than a local one.
- Do not order anything a la carte unless you really aren´t hungry. You can get a 2 or 3 course meal with choices for every serving for a third the price of a single a la carte dish.
- More people speak some English in Peru than they do in Chile
- A tour with an English speaking guide does not actually mean you will get an English speaking guide, Agencies will tell you anything to sell you a tour.
- Children can really make a place, the kids are really beautiful here when they aren´t trying to sell you finger puppets, postcards or beanies on the street.
- American 16 year old tour groups are painful.
- If you return to a hotel after a tour with a night away you seem to get upgraded with either, a TV or a bigger TV, a bigger room, better towels, shampoo in the shower - this has happened to us four times already!

In the jungle the mighty jungle...

Cath & Andy — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Spider Monkey - Amazon Basin

We have just spent the last three days in the Amazon Basin at an eco-resort 1.5 hours long boat ride down river from Puerto Maldonado. The heat and humidity knocked us for 6 when we got off the plane. The other thing that was hard to deal with was the group of 16 year old American kids that were along for the ride also - very taxing on the patients.

Andy the riverman - boots and all

We went to an island in the middle of the river called Monkey Island - guess what we found there? yep, monkeys. We walked around the island looking at the 5 different kinds of monkeys that like to eat bananas but none of them grow on the island so they were very happy to see us carrying a big bag full.

Lion Monkey - not much bigger than your hand

The second day we were there Cath wasn´t feeling well so spent the morning in a hammock resting while Andy joined a tour group (not the American kids thankfully) for a trudge through the jungle mud to get a taste of the various jungle flora and fauna. And of course, because we were in a rainforest, it rained.

Macaw - Amazon

The amount of noise generated by all the animals in the jungle is amazing. We were woken on the second day by the sounds of Red Howler Monkeys sounding out their territory. They sound like a cross between a jet aeroplane and Cath´s parents´kettle! Just the thing to wake you up at 5am!!

We saw tonnes of beautiful birds, some lizards, frogs, caimans, tarantulas, weird bugs, butterflies and a resident Tapier named Carina that hung around the resort as a pet. The Tapier looks like a cross between a Elephant and a Pig but is actually a jungle cow and we were most impressed that it can eat grass whilst it is lying on its side being patted by tourists. Its kind of a jungle wombat with a snout and somehow quite endearing.

Mud path in the Amazon

Amazon River boat

Cath on river boat

It was quite a change to be in low altitude (175m ASL from Cuzco´s 3300) in a dead flat environment. Apart from the opressive humidity, mud, bugs and heat, we had a pretty cool time its just a shame that Cath was sick for most of the three days we spent there but she´s better now and ready to tackle the local cuisine again.

Tomorrow we are on a bus out of Cuzco to Lake Titicaca with a few stops on the way to look at ruins and stuff. We plan on a few rest days at Puno before heading out to the floating islands and then crossing into Bolivia (don´t stress mum, its not such a bad place).

Love to you all,
Andy & Cath.

A tissue, A tissue, Machu Picchu

Cath & Andy — Sat, 21 Apr 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Well, we made it to Machu Picchu (actually pronounced Pick-chew in case you were wondering). We had an interesting train ride down from Cuzco to here including an "oh my god he´s a terrorist" moment when the Italian lad sitting in the seat across from us reading a manual on flight navigation had just had a telephone conversation with his family saying "today´s the day" asked us to look after his bag and proceeded to disappear to the toilet for a very, very long time....

He came back and actually turned out to be a nice guy who we had a fairly long conversation with along with the people around us. It ended up with him talking in Italian to another Italian guy across the isle. That guy´s girlfriend was from Peru and ended up talking in Spanish to the Brazillian lady sitting across from us! We didn´t understand a word, but they seemed like good conversations.

At Aguas Calientes we spent a down day going to the hot springs, eating and drinking doing a mini pub crawl on the hill down from the hot springs. It was interesting when we had to meet our tour guide that night after quite a few...

Machu Picchu House

Machu Picchu is simply awesome. The ruin site is huge and we spent more than 8 hours walking around the ruins, sitting on a terrace taking it in and Andy climbed a small mountain to get a different view. Why anyone would build such a large complex so high up a mountain and so far down a valley in the middle of nowhere is still lost on us, but its a very cool place. The stonework wasn´t as impressive as some other sites we have visited but the setting and the sheer size of the place more than makes up for it.

Machu Picchu Street

2 Aussies on top of a mountain

The train ride back to Cuzco wasn´t nearly as interesting as the ride out and we were absolutely knackered after getting up at 5am to get up to Machu Picchu for a 6:25 tour.

Inca stuff...

Cath & Andy — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Our flight from Arequipa left early on Tuesday morning flying through a town called Juliaca just near Lake Titicaca (we managed to book on the right day this time!). The view from the plane coming out of Arequipa was absolutely stunning as we flew between two 6000m+ snow capped volcanoes. We were forced to have two days of easy going as we picked up a bit of a stomach bug in Arequipa.

Our arrival in Cuzco was nothing short of whirlwind. Our flight left Arequipa at 8:00 and by 10:30 we had booked into a hostel, and booked three tours for the next three days with an ever so friendly travel agent. It all seemed a bit pushed upon us, but we didn´t get anything that we weren´t after anyway and the price was reasonable.

Cath next to Inca Wall - Cuzco

Plaza de Armas by night - Cuzco

Cuzco is an interesting town. It is in a valley totally surrounded by close mountains and at night when standing in the Plaza it looks like jewels all lit up around you. That said, we would probably like it a lot more if there weren´t so many pushy restaurant touts and people selling crappy textile goods from finger puppets to drink bottle holders. We cannot walk or sit for more than 30 seconds without being approached by someone wanting our money. There are lots of very steep cobblestone streets and the town is really set up very well for tourists.

Yesterday afternoon we did a tour of some churches (both Inca and Catholic) in town and some Inca ruins just outside the city. Simply breathtaking standing next to a 130 tonne block of granite that had been carved, polished and moved 17km into place more than 500 years ago.

Andy at Sacsayhuaman (pronounced sexy woman... almost)

View over Cuzco at Dusk

Today we did a full day tour of the sacred valley culminating with a visit to Ollayantambo which was a Inca fortress and city about half way between Cuzco and Machu Picchu. The 240 stair climb to the sun temple at the top was worth it simply to marvel again at the engineering feats of the Incas. It became fairly obvious to us when we saw it just why the valley was sacred to the Inca (and pre-Inca too) as the valley is very long, wide and fertile at the base in a landscape dominated by the steep volcanic Andes.

Sacred Valley - near Pisac

Market weaver - Sacred Valley

Ollantaytambo - Inca Terracing

Cath overlooking Pisac ruins

Tomorrow we are off on a train to Aguas Calientes just below Machu Picchu to take in the Sacred Valley some more and then head up to Machu Picchu on Saturday. Cath has wanted to go there since she was about 12 years old so the anticipation is palpable.

Talk to you all in a few days time!

Andy & Cath.

... at the Colca ... Colca del Cañon

Cath & Andy — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Peruvian Market Lady - Canyon Del Colca

We left for our Cañon del Colca tour on a crappy old bus chock-full of people from Peru, Chile, the US, Canada, Belgium and of course Australia. After numerous hours driving and a few stops, we crossed over a head pounding 4800m mountain pass into the Canyon. Along the way we stopped to have a look at herds of Llamas, Alpacas and Vicuñas, had some cups of mate de coca (coca tea - good for altitude aclimatisation apparently), looked at some very impressive geological features of the landscape and pass by the ever present roadside roadside market selling what we can now see as the standard market fare.

Cath drinking Mate de Coca (coca tea)

We descended to 3600m in less than an hour with some spectacular scenery to Chivay where we would spend the night. After checking into our hotel we were back on the bus and out to the thermal pools for a nice warm dip and we gave eachother´s feet a well needed massage. Dinner was served in a local restaurant with traditional music and dancing - including the tourists! It took no time at all to be out of breath at this altitude.

Andy with folk dancing girl - Canyon Del Colca

The next day was a 5am start to get out to the Condor viewing area at a high vantage point in the Cañon. The half hour wait in the freezing cold wasn´t fun but we did get to see the town waking up and some spectacular views as the sun came into the valley around us. The cañon is 3191m deep and is second in the world only to another one close by. It was impossible to get any sort of perception of scale, we couldn´t figure out if things were a couple of hundred metres away, or kilometres. Unfortunately, you can´t capture that in photos either. In the picture of Cath with the cañon behind her there is a single lane bridge at the bottom of the cañon which is just tiny. The Condors took a while to show up and we only saw 10 in total but these birds are huge! They have a wingspan greater than 3m and a body to suit, but tiny little heads. At one stage everyone was watching one glide around out in the middle of the cañon when one did a fly-by close to the viewing area too quick for anyone to take a photo. All we could hear was people gasping and saying ¨cor blimey, look at that!¨ well, whatever that translates to in Spanish anyway.

Condor - Canyon Del Colca

Cath next to Canyon Del Colca - look for bridge in picture to see how big this place is!

Back on the bus and a few more roadside stops on the way home before arriving back in Arequipa. A day off today to soak in more around town and then a flight to Cuzco tomorrow morning.

Mountain Market Lady - Canyon Del Colca

Love to you all,
Andy & Cath.

Mummies and Monasteries

Cath & Andy — Fri, 13 Apr 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Plaza de Armas, Arequipa

A day of cruising the streets of Arequipa and taking it all in. We started with a breakfast overlooking the Plaza and then headed for the Museo Santuarios Andines where they have a whole bunch of stuff recovered from girl sacrifices on the massive volcanoes surrounding Arequipa and throughout Peru, Chile and Argentina.
The museum is fantastic with a video about how the girls were discovered, why it all happened and how the preservation is being undertaken. The girl sacrifices were to apease the gods. The Inca thought that the volcanoes were gods in their own right and when they were angry (ie, errupting) a sacrifice of a beautiful and untouched girl would calm them and elevate the girl to being part of the gods themselves. It was really good to see the information presented well and they stressed the point that it was a normal and beautiful part of their lives, not something barbaric.
Then again, the girls were starved, drugged with alcohol and then their skull was fractured with a metal star on the end of a piece of rope when they were killed, not to mention already feeling the effects of altitude sickness. But they were buried with fine garments and offerings to the gods so they were very much venerated by their people.
We didn´t get to see ´Juanita the Ice Princess´who is the most famous and best preserved sacrifice girl as she is not on display from November to April, but we did see one of the others and it was truly amazing to see the preserved clothing, skin and hair - truly mind blowing.

Cath having crepes and Beer, Arequipa

After the mummies we had a bite to eat at a creperie and headed to the Monasterio Santa Catalina which we were told by the guidebook was a paradise for photographers, and they sure weren´t wrong! We reeled off at least 100 photos in less than 2 hours. We then tucked in early before our Canyon del Colca tour tomorrow.

Mr and Mrs Collins at Monasterio Santa Catalina - Arequipa

Monasterio Santa Catalina - Arequipa

Arequipa reflection - more art by Andy

Border crossing, the desert, and a breakdown

Cath & Andy — Thu, 12 Apr 2007 00:00:00 GMT

After a few relaxing days in Arica we decided to spice things up a little today... We planned on catching a bus across the border into Peru and up to Arequipa (sounds fairly simple) but when we got to the bus station early in the morning there were no buses and a lady hounding us to drive us across the border in her car.

There were a few other passengers and, as it turned out, plenty of other drivers doing the same thing. Apparently this is actually a taxi service not something dodgy, but we did share a few nervous glances at eachother during the process. We were dropped at the bus station in Tacna, Peru and shuffled into a bus agency for a transfer to a bus to Arequipa.

All things went well until about 3.5 hours into the trip when in the middle of the desert, half way up a mountain and with no mobile phone reception and no water, the bus stopped. We sat there for nearly an hour while our bus driver donned the overalls and proceeded to venture into the engine bay of the bus to fix it while the passengers looked on. The best we could make out was that there was some problem with a drive belt as there were plenty of spares hanging from a hook inside the rear hatch. Noone mentioned anything to any of the passengers about what was going on and we only found out when we decided to get off the stifling bus to sit in the sun and breeze and have a look for ourselves. We both wished that Gaz was here with his deisel mechanic skills.

The bus being fixed - with supervisors

View from where our bus broke down

We made it to Arequipa and through some Bangkok like traffic and crazy taxi drivers in tiny cars we arrived to the stunning central Plaza de Armas, Wow. We had planned to spend some time here to get some more aclimatisation and do some tours of the surrounding region but after a short walk around, we think that we might possibly stay for a while...

Our hotel room has a balcony with a view to one of the volcanoes covered in snow that surrounds the city, city centre, cobblestone streets and stunning colonial buildings.

View from our hotel room

Carrot art - served with our omlette

We can´t wait to have a coffee at a second story restaurant overlooking the Plaza and people watch tomorrow morning.

ciao ciao
Cath & Andy.

Where the Desert meets the Sea

Cath & Andy — Wed, 11 Apr 2007 00:00:00 GMT

After a 10 hour overnight bus ride through the desert (probably didn´t miss much) we arrived in Arica near the Peruvian border.

After a moment of panic thinking that we had lost eachother in the public toilets, we caught our first taxi of the trip into the centre of the city and sat in a park looking for a hotel to book in to. After we had sorted that out and had a shower (we were still in the clothes we put on at 3:30am the day before) we decided to discover the coast by foot.

Arica is a strange town. We are at the same latitude as Cairns but instead of Rainforest meeting the sea, there is just sandy desert and big mountains with no vegitation. There is a massive bluff right next to the city which is where Chile defeated Peru in the Pacific war. Quite an interesting museum and a very impressive sight looming over the city.

El Morro headland, Arica

Where the desert meets the sea

We have just been chilling out for two days in the tropical beach climate. Andy made friends with a waiter who, when we stopped back into the restaurant for a coffee this morning was so happy to see us again, he shook our hands and gave us free biscuits. And finally after about 30 attempts at ordering a decent coffee we finally got it right. Chileans have their coffee black and when you ask for it ´with milk´(con leche) they make it with hot milk, instant coffee and no water.

We have also discovered that Chileans eat big. We have no idea how there are so many good looking Chilean women wandering around because they eat such big meals! All bread, rice and fried stuff. Our lunch today consisted of:

Bread with salsa,
A bowl of mixed vegetable soup,
A main of chicken, a cup of rice, and salad, followed by
Dessert of cake or some other sweet,
A half litre each of freshly made juice

All this for approximately $4.00 Australian each. The food here is not spicy or adventurous, really just a lot of BBQ chicken, fried eggs, hot dogs and steak. The people watching has been great in this city with guitar players and singers roaming up and down the local restaurants (Cath´s dad would love it, they are very talented musicians) and people playing dominoes in the street. Andy has really loved this town as it certainly isn´t set up for western tourists like San Pedro was.

We´ll upload some photos later, we didn´t bring our cables for the camera and only popped in to check email while we´re waiting for the post office to open up after its 3 hour lunch break (this is normal). We´ve noticed some of our pictures are coming up wrong or have been lost by the site so we´ll try and fix that when we can.

Sunset, Arica

Iron Church built by Mr Eiffel

Tomorrow we are off on another bus adventure crossing into Peru and up to Arequipa. Its been great to spend two days doing very little and taking the city in after being toured out in San Pedro.

Talk to you from Peru,
Cath & Andy.