Ben & Sophie's World Tour 2008-2009

Lima then home

2009-06-10T11:12:00.000-07:00

We fly back to Lima and spend the day in the Monestary catacombes which are full off an impossibly huge amount of human remains, arranged in chambers and concentric circles. The guide is awful and keeps sneaking out of the room ahead of us to hide. None of the group hear much of what he says and he just seems to prove our thoughts that Lima really has all the right ingredients and the wrong cooks. The tours elsewhere in South America have all been much better.

We eat tasty arabic food in Miraflores' posh restaurant district and have to say goodbye as Sophie goes out to get her flight. I spend the final evening in the hostel chatting to a welsh couple and drinking.

Final day - i get up early with a slight hangover and decide to walk the length of central Lima from Miraflores to the Plaza de Armas. The weather is foggy 9 months of the year here and it never rains. The bullfight museum is shut but I make a beeline for the art gallery and along the way I stop at Huaca Pucallana and see the pyryamids built of mud bricks. I get to the park but the gallery is shut so go to the Plaza San Martin where the sculptor misunderstood the order to place 'llama' (flame) on the staue's head and dutifully put a small llama. The walk takes all day and I finally get to the plaza and celebrate with a final Pisco Sour before getting my taxi to the airport and the long flight home.

Iquitos pt.2

2009-06-10T10:56:00.000-07:00

We went and met our guide and went up river to visit the Yagua tribe. The tribe welcome us with red face paint and give us a welcome dance. It's all for tourists, but nice to see what you'd think of as a typical amazonian tribe. We fire blow darts at a target and buy a couple of trinkets, before leaving for the zoo.

At the zoo were groped by monkeys, handed caimen, clawed by parrots and draped with snakes. The guys are friendly and we drink a glass of Clavihuasi with them - apparently it's an aphrodisiac. When we pay, they don't have change and so we go out to a floating petrol station to get some!

Next day we go out to Lago Quistacocha where we see a selection of jungle animals including Puma and the 2m long Paiche fish, then walk around the lake and botanical gardens. For lunch we eat paiche - really tasty and more like white meat than fish.

The next morning we went back to the market for another look about and bumped into Lito again. We ask him to take us out to see the Vitoria Reina - the giant water lillies, and we do. On the boat today is Marlo and Jorge, 2 friends who also live in Belen. They invite us to go for a drink in a floating bar and we drink Chuchuhuasi & coke, while listening to the local talents of 'Ilusion' - a local band. When the bar is full on a weekend everyone is knee deep in water! After a few jugs of Chuchuhuasi we head back to Iquitos to find that the city is closed down in protest of the oil firms damaging the environment and pushing out the indigenous people.

Iquitos pt.1

2009-06-10T10:41:00.000-07:00

Iquitos was a bit of a last minute decision between Equador and the North West, but I really wanted to see the stereo typical amazon tribes before leaving.

We woke up to find our room crawling with lines of ants and nearly ate a bowl of them with our cereal as they'd got into the bag over night. To continue to theme we ate alligator and turtle at a local restaurant for lunch after wandering around the tour agencies who were offering trips out to the amazon to stop in lodges, but many of the activites we had done in Bolivia, and so decided to stick around Iquitos instead. I'd recommened turtle but they are protected I found out later :S Ooops...

Later we met a guy who introduced himself to us in spanish and asked where we came from. We said 'Birmingham' and it turned out that Mad Mick had been to Black Heath market the week before to buy fishhooks! Proof that no matter how far you stray from home there's always someone else there who lives around the corner. That night we watched a Brazilian troup doing Capoeira as we supped a few lagers.

The market at Belen was incredible. We saw monkeys, turtles, snails and much more. While walking through we were approached by a boatman called Lito who offered us the chance to go out to see the floating town. Lito lived there and Belen was spectacular - a town of raft-houses with stilts sitting on the river alongside Iquitos. Boats passed with people selling goods and kids played in the water, there was even a gay bar! Back on land we met another local lad who asked if we wanted to go out tomorrow and we agreed to meet and go to visit the local tribes.

The trek to Kuelap pt.3

2009-06-09T05:34:00.000-07:00

We eat and set off by taxi for the massive hillside fort of Kuelap. The site is as big as Machu Picchu but only partially excavated and the many circular building are covered in moss and surrounded by trees. Apart from us, there are 3 others at the sight - a bit of a difference from Machu Picchu! One reconstructed building shows how they would have looked (with pointy thatched roof) and we're shown carved animals in the entranceways in the stonework.

We drive back to Chachapoyas and eat Guinea pig (which is definately recommended) with Tom & Brad after realising at 11pm that in order to catch our flight tomorrow we are going to have to leave at 4.30am!

We get up early and get a combi to Pedro Ruiz - a transport hub we're told. We get there an hour later and are told that the only way to get to Tarapoto we have to go back the way weve come to cajamarca and then get another combi from there... Much much later we arrive in Tarapoto on the edge of the amazon and settle into a restaurant in a downpour. Unwillingly I order curried cows stomach - but I suppose thats what happens when you just order unknown things from a menu! We get our plane to Iquitos - the biggest city in the world inaccessible by road - and crash out.

The trek to Kuelap pt.2

2009-06-09T05:19:00.000-07:00

Day 2 - we get up and set off across the hills around the river. My knee had been gradually getting worse throughout the first day and now starts to worsen. We trek across land and into the cloudforest walking along pre-columbian paths made from rough, pointy and slippery ancient stones. I end up walking with a knee support and a stick like an old man... We climb and are able to scramble into covered areas of the jungle to see unexcavated stone constructions hidden away on the hillsides! The ancient stones are covered in moss and climbing around them is about as close as being Indiana Jones as you'll ever get. We descend down a torturous path towards a tiny village where we can eat & sleep.

The next day we continue on horses, which turns out to be one of the most nerve-wracking experiences in a while! The path we take is up and across the mountains across roads that have been used for so long that the hoofs of the horses have, over the years, gouged the track into giant ruts. These ruts are full of rain water and mud. Our horses are knee deep and struggle over the hurdles, sliding and scrambling up and down steep banks, while we are battered with thorny bushes. the occassional shout of "cap!" indicates that someones lost a hat to the trees.

We pause on the hillside and eat lunch before continuing, occassionally disembarking so the horses can tackle the trickier parts without extra weight and we follow, jumping from mudd lump to slippy rocky after them, pulling ourselves up steep banks with our hands. We visit more hidden jungle ruins and eventually arrive at our next lodge where we are promised a beer and a hot shower... we get neither...

The trek to Kuelap pt.1

2009-06-09T05:06:00.000-07:00

From Chiclayo we travelled east to Chachapoyas and booked onto a 4 day trek to the huge pre-Inca fortress of Kuelap, reached by foot and horse through cloudforest. We borrowed a camera from the nice folk at the hostel and donned rainponchos and wellies along with Brad from Colorado and Tom from Canada and set off..

We drove out towards Karajia but after meeting our guide soon hit a problem - locals in a village were digging up the only road through. After a few minutes the 30+ villagers came to the agreement that our driver could push 2 rocks over the divide and try to pass over the top of them in the car - it worked! At Karajia we could see a set of 8 sarcofogi on the cliffside - oddly primitaive clay figures painted in red paints with flat faces and some with skulls attached to the top - sons or trophyheads we were told... Bones lay around the path and our guide warned us legend has it they have a strange wasting disease that affects anyone touching them...

Back at the car we set off and shortly after this we hit the mud! After sliding around in the sludgey road we ground to a halt. Being good little travellers we all jumped out to help push to vehicle. I was soon sprayed head to foot in thick orange mud. Then it started to rain. We finally managed to back out the sliding car out and the driver refused to go on - it was on foot from here for another 2 and a half hours before we got to our lodge through the beautiful Gran Vilaya and the Valle de Belen with its huge snaking river. We passed the evening laughing with the 2 lads and gazing up at the incredible view of the stars above.

Chiclayo

2009-05-25T18:09:00.000-07:00

Chiclayo in the North West is best known for the many ruins around and we went out to visit some of them - One tomb is the Lord of Sipan - a massive collection of torquise & bronze including huge earplugs that looked like they weighed a ton, masks, headdresses and other stuff including gigantic necklaces decorated as cats heads and nose rings so big they covered the whole of your mouth - probably to disguise the wearers expressions and teeth - they were supposed to be half animal-god with pointy teeth! They were also buried with a selection of warriors and women for the afterlife. We visited a site where there were 26 pyramids from the Moche culture and also the Sican cultures museum in which the lord was buried in a fetal position upside down with his head disconnected - in similar but less lavish bronze and gold. This time buried with 22 young females... popular bloke.

We visited the huge markets later in Chiclayo and saw chickens, guinea pigs (they eat them here - an Inca delicacy) and loads of other stuff including weird fruit (mangos the size of an apple) & Shaman goods and herbal remedies. I very nearly bought a genuine voodoo doll! Sadly I actually relaxed my gaurd a little too much here and took a few pics - then conveniently in a cramped isle a fat man in front dropped a load of change on the floor and blocked the way trying to pick it up. In the following crush of people, someone knocked me and stole my camera... I knew it immediately and swung around but there were too many people and it could have been anyone... grrrr... thank god I backed up my pictures 3 days ago... phew

Pucallpa - Central Amazon

2009-05-25T17:48:00.000-07:00

We got a flight out to Pucallpa and zipped off on a mototaxi (3 wheeled motorbike) to the little village of Yarinacocha. We trudged aroundwith our bags for a bit getting super sweaty then hauled ourselves into a hospedaje. Yarinacocha was ace - a small harbour on a lake alongside the river Yucama which joins the Amazon. We ate fresh fish grilled and yuca and sat eating it, when we were approached by a small girl. We asked a few questions and she tried to sell us some bracelets, eventually introducing her aunty and then her grandmother. They were from the Shipibo tribe who live up river in San Francisco. Laura, Laura and Maura then asked us to stay with them the next day and the elder Laura gave us both necklaces as gifts.

We then chatted to a friendly boatman and spent the day out on the water spotting sloths in trees and looking at the tiny stilted huts along the water. Next day we found Maura and got a boat out to San Francisco and stayed with Oscar - little Lauras uncle and his wife Sonia for the night. They were all Shipibo tribespeople and once back home got back into flipflops and t-shirts from their more traditional selling gear. The community mostly are artisans making textiles and pottery and although they wear normal clothes back home they live in simple wooden huts with earthen floors and basic beds, cooking outside. The day after we walked out to the neighboring village of Santa Rosa to visit more of Oscar´s family who had a pet monkey.

We wanted to go out to Puerto Bermudez to visit the Ashinika people but there were no planes, no cars or buses and it was 3 days by boat... we decided to buy a ticket by plane back to Lima then head north.

Back in Lima we popped into the museum of the spanish inquision which was actually pretty uneventful then shot off on a bus overnight upto Chiclayo

Lima briefly

2009-05-22T12:23:00.000-07:00

Finally arrived at Lima, Peru´s huge 8 million (i think) capital and quickly found it to be traffic hell, complete with expensive accomodation and little of much interest to do. Miraflores was a nice area but could have been anywhere. The coast was covered in fog and the place was teeming with joggers. We ate at a pizza restaurant with a couple of drunk men. We did meet a nice lad who ran an internet cafe though and chatted for a while then swapped emails - people in Peru are easily the most friendly i have ever encountered anywhere in the world. Hmmmm. We decided to leave as quickly as possible and booked a flight out to Pucallpa in the Amazon.

Pucusana

2009-05-21T17:13:00.000-07:00

Pucusana was great. We arrived and were unable to get to our little hostel on the hill because the drivers of the little mototaxis (3 wheel motorbike things) were all watching the football. When it finiished they took us to the place where we were welcomed by the owner Elizabeth who was loveley! The views of the port were amazing and we went down to eat my new favourite food - ceviche - raw fresh seafood in a lime and chilli salsa... Next day we wandered off over the nearby hills in the garua - coastal fog which is pretty permanent for most of the year here. We found some old walls on the top of the hills, then decended down a perilously steep cliff to a stangely deserted beach, which turned out to be private, but there was noone around except for a gardener who didnt seem to mind us. We trekked back to town, visited a deserted beach reached through a cave and ate some more stunning fresh seafood before being chaufered around the harbour on a little fishing boat to see more wildlife. On the way back in we saw a huge fish being hauled out of a fishing boat by winch. We also took out an afternoon to go to a small village to visit the pools which have medicinal properties and weird green water.

From here we said our goodbyes and continued up to Lima...

Cusco to Nazca and up the coast

2009-05-17T17:41:00.000-07:00

Back in Cusco we tried to make the most of the painfully expensive Tourist ticket we were forced to buy and visited some museums, got a body massage then hopped on a bus to Nazca. Unfortunately the bus forgot to drop in Nazca (11 hours away) and carried on up the coast to Lima (further 8 hours north) where we damanded a hostel room and a return bus later that day. We got into Nazca at 8pm that night making a nice 32 hour trip from Cusco - nazca... and booked our selves on a flight first thing over the nazca Lines.

The Lines to be honest were good to see but not much different from photos apart from the nausea caused by flying over then banking steeply every 2 second so people on both sides of the plane could see. They dont know what the lines were used for - some think they were for water aqueducts, some about constellation and some that they were for rituals but there are about 400 animals or figures hundreds of feet wide, only visible from the air and the people who made them had no way of viewinf them. Better than the lines was the Necropolis in which hundreds of tombs had been found and robbed leaving a desert full of bones and rags in which archeaolgogists had reconstructed a few tombs with what was left.

After Nazca we went to Ica and admired a few trophy heads, mummies and other stuff then nipped off to Huacachina - a desert oasis in the middle of massive sand dunes. The place was idylic and we went zooming over the dunes in a dune buggy! It was wicked!! I even went sandboarding down the dunes - they were really steeep, but I have to say that I made it look easy gliding gracefully to the bottom at top speed and then nearly braking my neck again as I realisied I didnt know how to stop and flew off.

from Ica we went north to Pisco and got a boat out from the harbour at Paracas to the Islas Ballestas (a poor mans galapogas apparently) and saw thousands and i mean thousands of birds and sea-lions on the islands - there are so may birds here the government collect their poo (guano) which is 8meters deep in places to sell abraod as fertiliser. The Islands all look white until they get to the sea there is that much bird shit on them. We wandered off from here to the Peninsula and saw several dead sea-lions and many birds and went wandering over the sand dunes to a tiny port which was in the middle of nowhere - it was incredible.

From here we decided we needed a little rest before going back to Lima, so got a bus and a selection of little local collectivo buses to the tiny port town of Pucusana which turned out to be the best spot in Peru so far...

Sacred Valley and Machu Picchu

2009-05-17T17:10:00.000-07:00

After deciding that tours to Machu Picchu were expensive we decided to DIY it and go village by village to Ollntaytambo then get the train and take the inca steps up to Macchu Picchu itself..

The first stop was Pisaq a giant hillside fort surrounded by Inca terraces. The site was huuuuge and really impresive with atmospheric pipes being played and chimes. While exploring the ruins we were approached by the son of a Shaman (apparrently) who after a quick read of mine and sophies hand energy told me I was Ímpatient´ but that was ok as Soph was ´Patient´to balance... Urumbamba was a bit uneventful, we had planned to visit some more ruins but decided to press on to Ollantaytambo which had another huge hillside terraced set of ruins looking over the town. A podgy American pointed out the tiny curves cut into the giant stone walls and noted that the technology to cut this detail in such large pieces with such precision was still beyond us now and that obviously aliens must have interveined. From here we got a train to Aguas Calientes - the town next to machu Picchu - and very nearly punched the ticket man square in the face when he told us how expensive this little train journey was (considering there is no other transport there and you pay extra for useless tat like snacks and even dancing thrown in on the jounrey on the even more expensive trips). Anyway the mountains seen from the train were amazing and in contrast Aguas Caliente was a damp dump sat at the bottom of them. We got a bed in a hovel/damp cellar and set out in the morning at 5am to walk.

It was dark and damp and we set off up the mammoth trek up vertical Inca steps that took about an hour+ to climb and arrived knackered at Machu Picchu to be clapped to the top by a small group of Israelis only to behold a stunning vista of telephones and waste bins. We nipped round these and showed our over priced ticket to the guy to see Machu Picchu proper. The view was stunning. Stunningly white actually as it was completely covered in mist and we could hardly see a thing. Slowly it lifted and we could finally see the giant complex. It was pretty amazing, but better than the site itself was the trek up the massively steep Wayna Pichu (The peak at the back of Machu Picchu) which we clambered up and down over several hours and at the top even crawled through a cave and up over steps to a small temple right on the very top. The views were immense!

Canyon Country, Cusco and The Scared Valley

2009-05-13T15:46:00.000-07:00

From Arequipa we headed North to Colca Canyon. To get to the deepest Canyon in the World (the one next door is actually a little deeper in truth) we went in a taxi via series of little villages. At the first we clambered up a waterfall only to descend down into an old mans trout fishery! He was soo friendly and gave us a peek around. We also went out at 6am to see wild Viscatchas - which are like chinchillas - bounding across rocks in the freezing cold of the desert. We saw different traditional dress including white hats and sequins on the women (one of who we gave a lift to as we passed her village). As is usual in South America each village had a central Plaza de Armas and Iglesia (Church) established since the Spanish Conquision. We eventually got to the Cruz del Condor - a point from which you can see Condors fly closely and possibly the most dramatic canyon scenery ever! It was soo vast and deep its hard to believe and made you feel wably approaching the edge - the sides are incredibly steep and so big that villages exist a regular points along its sides. Most people trek down to the bottom and back, it takes a 5 hours down and more back up... we opted to walk over the rim of it, stopped at an amazing hostel drinking Pisco Sours (incredibly tasty alcholholic drinks) and ventured down a bit, then nipped off to Cusco.

Cusco was pretty touristy and although the streets are cobbled and many of them have ancient Inca walls on top of which the new building are built, it felt a bit hollow as every building was a restaurant or shop. We stayed in a great hostel previously a Tambo (roadhouse) looking over the city. I didnt really like Cusco much until we were suddenly caught up in a parade of dancers that continued for hours. Many tradional costumes and dances were in troups by region and they banged drums and swirled about wearing really bright, decorative costumes. Some oddities were cowboy-types with whips, guys in grass hats, a drunken man and wife fighting song and a gang of men in balaclavas with moustaches on them who whips each others legs then danced off arm in arm- presumably traking the piss out of the spanish who of course conquered the country.

We got a bus out to Tambo Machay - an Inca fountain and walked back to Cusco via another Inca ruin to Saksaywaman (pronounced sexy woman) which was a huge ruin with zigzag walls designed to be the head of a puma - a shape the ruler wanted for the town.

Back in Cusco we headed out for to Machu Picchu.

Lake Titicaca & finally -- Peru!

2009-05-10T17:38:00.000-07:00

We got a bus to Copacabana (not the Brazillian one but the Bolivian one) and went wandering the ruins. The lake is the Wolr´ds highest navigable lake and is closed in by the Andes mountain range on the border with Peru. From Copacabana we got a boat out to the Isla del Sol - the Isla the Sun was born on and center to a handful of South American cultures including the Incas.

We made friends with a gang going to the nothern most point of the island on a tiny boat on top of which we had our bags balenced and feared they would slide off into the sea forever. At the northern bay it was incredible - goats, donkeys, families worked on the land and there were hills over which we found a sacrifical table and a set of ruins from Inca times. The views of the lake were immense. We spent the next days in the fields around the northern part in which husband & wife teams in traditional dress tilled the land using hand trowels, digging potatoes.

Back in Copacabana we headed north to Peru on a bus and crossed the border to find clean busses, paved roads, good food and expensive accomodation in Puno.

From puno we headed for Arequipa and found it to be rather noice actually. The food in Peru ois great unlike the greasy, carb laden-efforts in Bolivia. In Arequipa we visited a monestry which was like a huuge complex, a town within a city. Every corner looked like a medaeval kitchen or bed chamber with whips that the nuns had used up until the 70´s. We saw books that were hundreds of years old in an ancient libarary at the Recoleta and a tradional band in a Pena - trad. folk club.

From Arequipa we tried to go to a bull fight but it were unable for a week or so, so headed to Cusco..

La Paz

2009-05-09T14:52:00.000-07:00

La Paz...

Working from memory now and it was a while ago but here we go while I have a minute...

Well, La Paz was hectic, the streets were rammed full of cars zipping down narrow cobbled streets and people with millions of little old ladies (Cholas) in traditional dress selling on the streets. There were a gang of Zebras (men in costumes) directing traffic and a usual chaos about the place. Sadly within hours of arriving we heard a thump as we left a cafe and saw a teenage girl on the floor - she´d been hit by a bus.

Aside from traffic chaos, there were some great things to do in La Paz - There was also a wicked musical instrument museum, a musuem on Coca with interesting quotes like "1 in 2 North Americans arrested test positive for cocaine"... hmmm... The view across the city was immense which we saw from our bus on the way to watch the Wrestling that takes place in El Alto - a city on a plateau that looks out over La Paz with an 80% indigenous population. The Wrestling was great, Ninja Turtles, midgets and women in traditional dress pulling hair and dropkicking each other.

We also went to the ancient ruins at Tiahuanaco - a giant Temple with astromonical lake on top, plus a rock with a hole shaped like the center of your ear canal that amplified sound (possibly used to scare tample-goers or hear better). There were also monoliths and gates in stone that had on calendars for the 2000 year old civilisation that predtaed the Inca and of which incredibly little is known... There was also a sunken chamber in whihc heads were carved, possibly of enemies now residing as Trophy Heads...

We bought tickets for a tour to Rurrenabaque - in the Bolivian Pampas in the Amazon Basin. We got a 40 minte flight out in a rickerty 12 person plane and then spent a few days at a jungle lodge with resident Caimen (Alligators) after speeding by jeep from the airport down dirtroads to our boat. The first day we saw many birds, Squirrel Monkeys, Howler Monkeys, turtles. We went out by boat at night Caimen spotting by shining a torch into the banks and looking for glowing eyes!

Day 2 we went out to hunt anacondas! No really we did... we spent a sweltering few hours roaming the grasses in the waterlogged lowlands trying to spot movement by our feet in search of huge anacondas... without luck. apparently its not the best season and they were allusive although one person did see 2 slithering away from them in the water. The trip was made extra fun/agonising by a gang from Leeds who´s mentality had obviosly stopped at age 16 sand a gang of Aussies & Americas who were like extras from Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas and promptly turned up and fell in the river, then cruised the waters complete with a crate of beer.

Day 3 we went out to an area where pink river dolphins collect and swam with them! (nasty animals dont come here as the dolphins butt them out of the group to protect themselves and their young). We could swim really close and see them breaching and I even touched one with my foot - they were slimy...

Back in Rurrenabaque - the office told us that there were planes but there were not. Bad weather meant a bogged airstrip and so after 3 days without flights and a days wait for us, we got a bus. It was 30 minutes hereon the plane and after a jeep ride in which the jeep got stuck in the mud (We were sharing the road with guys on mopeds, family cars and huuuuge trucks.) it took 20 hours back to La Paz along (officially) the world´s most dangerous road. 30+ people die a year on this cliff hanger. We took sleeping tablets and got back early morning.

Safely back in La Paz, we headed out to the Isla del Sol on lake Titicaca...

Mining Dinosaurs and Caving

2009-04-22T16:12:00.000-07:00

From Uyuni we went to Potosi which is know as one of the richest cities in the world when the Spanish first descovered it as it has a huge hill known as Cerro Rico (Rixh Hill) which was full of silver and funded the Spanish for many years. The town has silver mines still but the silver has run out so its mainly poor miners digging with handtools in unbelievably bad conditions still using dynamite etc. We wanted to go down into the mines which you can but I got hit by a bad case of sickness, which had me bed ridden for a day with a constantly bubbling stomach, a bit shaky and in need of a toilet about every 20minutes; and so a 5 hour tour underground in the dark didnt sound so good...

We did however go for a wander to the tower observatory and from there spotted a silver refinary (i tihnk) and so walked down to see what it was like. We looked over the wall and took a few snaps. One of the workers spotted us and called out. He said we could go in and look around if we wanted in exchange for a few coca leaves (which the miners chew nonstop) so we went in. It was a tad scary as they told us how toxic raw silver is while swishing their hands through the crushed rocks as it was being sprayed with water. Inside we wandered about pools where the silver was filtered and then let back into the river (!). We had no coca to pay with but left the 5 men with about 5 pounds for their quick tour and their faces lit up... a fiver buys a lot of coca leaves in Bolivia!

After Potosi we headed for Sucre where we ´accidently´ booked into a really comfortable hotel in an old colonial building. We immediately liked the place despite the traffic cruches at certain corners and the buses spewing out black plumes of exhaust fumes. The food was good and we settled into a more comfortable life instead of the freeeezing cold of Potosi.

We took a taxi out to the dinosaur prints that were found at a cement factory on the edge of town. The cars here tend to switch sides of the road depending on the pot holes. It´s actually more dangerous to stay in your lane! The footprints are of loads of different types of dino, some walking in pairs, some running and one of a veloceraptor jumping (presumably to eat another dino). The park also had cheesey life size plastic replicas which made noises.. nice. After this we went back into town to find a wicked museum of Festival masks from all over Boliva -they are amazing - some of weird manga-esque women, some of devils with boggle eyes and many many others... wait for the pics...

From Sucre we travelled up to Cochabamba and found ourselves at 1am being driven by a worrying bloke to a hotel in the worst neighbourhood. The hotel was actually fine but we had bad first impressions of Cochabamba - it was manically busy with markets everywhere. Once we actually explored and got to the center of town it changed miraculously into a sophisticated cafe area and the nothern part was posh with high rise buildings and pretty churches. We had some good Turkish food in a nice resturant, rank cocktails in a really cool bar and I even got a hair cut by a woman who first used a blowtorch to clean the blades of the shaver and a cutthroat razor to trim my neck.

From Cochabamba we took a tour out to Torotoro to see more Dinoprints (this time on the ground and not upright like a wall) and to go caving and walking in the canyon. We took a bus that was more like a monster truck which played kung-fu movies at full blast to try and drown out the noise of the engine and failed. We spent about 6 hours listening to the noisiest music we owned with sunglasses and caps on to shade our eyes from the light of the blarring TV, driving over roads that were rugged and had occasssional waterfalls or streams crossing them. When we finally got to the hotel we were beddraggled.

The tour guide the next day was a lad of 17 called William who had been a guide at the National Park for 8 years and that day was training up a lad of about7 and a girl of 11 or so. He took us to see the prints and hiking in the canyon. We saw green macaws swooping around the edges. Day 2 we went caving in a vast network of caverns in the National Park. "Your supposed to have helmets but we dont have any so be careful" said William as we entered. The surrounding hills were amazing! The caves were incredible and we clambered, ducked, army crawlled and pulled ourselves up waterfalls and past stalagtites with a gang of Cochabambinos who were living in Virginia USA.

Back in Cochabamba we headed towards the Bolivian capital of La Paz...

Salar de Uyuni Tour

2009-04-10T13:13:00.000-07:00

So we set off for Uyuni from Tupiza after waiting in a que at the bank for ages only to find my card didnt work and there was no other way of getting cash...

((Im doing this from memory so theres loads ill forget right now but...))

We got on well with the Aussie couple who were very much the beautiful people with perfect lives who loved to ski etc... much like us obviously. The scenery was amazing and the route went through valley and deserts, villages and hills, we saw wild vicuna (like skinny llamas) and llamas with pink ear tassles (to shows which farmer owned which).

For lunch we stopped on a hillside and munched humitas which are cornballs with spicy meat inside wrapped in a leaf, supplied by our cook Julie. Mid day we paused in a tiny mud vialle with crumbling buildings, later we stopped over night at a small village on a hillside at which there was very little exept a church, basketball court and lots of small indigenous kids trying to sell us the odd llama hat or glove. If you accidentally got them in a picture they wanted to be paid, but most of them hid or scampered away the minute you looked at them. There was a grave on a hilltop and the sunset was incredible - like a sort of dawn-of-time dinosaur movie with lush valleys and snowcapped mountains and a sweeping sun. Dinner was soup and it was freezing! There were 2 or 3 thick felt blankets on all the beds and we needed them!

The photos are the best source for what the place was like but day 2 we got up about 6 and nipped off in the jeep, driving past giant moutains and lakes with crazy sulphourous edges and really bright pastels shades in the desert sands and rocks eveywhere. Laguna verde was toxic with chemicals and we saw flamingoes some of the lakes. A thermal pool was at the spot for lunch and we dipped our feet in amongst the gang of travellers and stared out at the amazing landscape. The bubbling mud and thermal pools was next and reminded us of Rotorua in New Zealand but the landscape in South America is absolutely MASSIVE. One was bright red, and looked like a huge bubbling bowl of tomato soup.

Next morning we got up in the freezing conditions and headed for some ruins which were built by the Inca and haunted by devils and phantoms - the local villages make sacrifices to keep them away from their doors at night..! After this we zipped off through more unbelivable scenery and mountians, lakes etc, to see Borax miners set up in the Salar and the huge lakes of flamingoes and crusty white shores we stopped at Laguna Colorada and braved the icy wind the wander the hills a bit before buying some much needed bottles or red wine from a small door in the village and playing the obligatory travellers cards. Eventually the electricy was cut and we went to bed!

Laguna Colorada was the most amazing place!! The refelctions of the clouds in the salty water was incredible and lines of pink flamingoes walked about over the views. The most dramatic scenes since farewell spit in New Zealand. We visited the desert of Dali rock formations where I did my celebratory forward roll. We crossed the second biggest salar in Bolivia then arrived at our stop for the night at San Juan, where we attempted to get to the hills to see the burial mounds but were defeated by a mightly sandstorm that came out of nowhere and hammered the village with sand for a few hours. Our guide stayed outside the whole time trying to fix our jeep!

Next morning we got up about 5am and shot out to the salar to see the sunrise. The salar if you were wondering is a gigantic salt lake that you can see from space, the biggest in the world and is the remains of a giant lake that once filled the whole of the Alti planos (high plains) of the andes. Now it is a vast white crusty desolate desert of white salt, which we skimmed across in our jeep as morning broke. (You can see it in my pofile pic on Facebook). The whiteness goes on forever, but in the middle is fish island a fossilized marine hill where huge cacti now grow. We drove out over the salar and broke open small holes to put our hands under the crust and find salt water salt crystals that were huge and perfectly square- like sharp edged cubes!! After this we saw salt sulptures in one of the salt hotels that used to be here and spotted farmers piling up and takig away salt for porcessing. That night we stopped in Uyuni which isnt the prettiest place, but has interesting markets and squadrons of military who jog about chanting ihn the morning...

Tupiza, Bolivia

2009-04-10T12:51:00.000-07:00

Tupiza was pleasant and relaxed, we passed through some dramatic scenery on the way on thetrain and got nabbed by 2 women at the station as we looked for accomodation. We ended up in a reasonable hotel with inquisitive kids. Tupiza is set in the middle of a series of reddy / silver hills and there were good views out over the surrounding area from a Jesus statue mounted on a nearby hill. We watched kids doing the long jump at school from up high. The markets here are amazing and theres more fruit, electronics, pants, socks and weird things like llama feotus that you can buy. If you want good luck bury a llama feotus under your house. The mandarins here are the best I ever tasted and I never really liked them before...

Billy the Kid & Butch cassidy got shot here in a nearby village but the site is supposed to be pretty dull so never bothered to venture out there, we did go horse-riding though up through the Cabrada where we could see odd rock formations in bright red towering over us - the Devil´s door is one and the valley of the Penis´another - named because the rocks all look like Rod Stewert (not really... use your imagination - or look at my pics on facebook if I ever find a PC able to upload at a reasonable speed). We went across desert up to a crevace waterfall type area and we left our guide to go explore. Sophie still has a scar on her hand from where he tried to teach us how to "trot" and she dug her feet in a bit too hard and the horse went for it! She was hanging on for dear life!

We decided that we deserved a night out and went to the promisingly named "DnB" night club which was behind a corrugated steel door and decorated like Doctor Who´s tardis with tinfoil trim and felt walls. The seats prettyt much touched the floor they were so saggy and we drank cocktails that were pretty much tripples for a couple of quid. Inside was a weird mix of middle age couples who looked like they´d just come for a quiet drink (although the South American beats were soooo loud and cleverly seamlessly mixed on a DVD player..??), younder couples and random travellers. We spoke to (yelled at) a Welsh couple who were possitively hammered. The girl managed to knock not 1 but 2 drinks over me, but they were friendly and the guy kind of reminded me a lot of Grizz. Anyway they said Bolivian food was rubbish and they were rude and that we should go see the landscapes and head quickly for Peru.

Next day we both had super-hangovers and by the point we left the hotel to eat were still prtty wobbly. I ordered a pizza and soph took one look at it, sank into the sofa and went green. We put it in a box and ate it in bed.

We booked up our tour for the Uyuni slat flats and clambered abord a jeep with an Aussie couple (who seemed positiviely loaded - with money that is) and headed out on a 4 night/3 day trek across the desert.

Northern Argentina cont...

2009-03-28T13:32:00.000-07:00

Been a while since I updated so heres a brief outline of whats we been upto...

After Cafayate we travelled up to Salta then onto Jujoy then up towards the Bolivian border by way of a few little villages;

First stop was Cachi - well more of a detour really but we´d heard it was really pretty and worth the time, so went. And it was - stunning little village beneath huge snowcapped mountains in a desert of cacti. We went to some ruins which looked decidely new ?? but were more impressed or interested in the shacks/mud huts that the locals lived in on the edges of the town - people are soooo poor and really do live in mudhuts with a door, a window, a dog and a tv.

Salta was a good city we wandered up to the hills and looked out over the city - massive! Cant remember much now... crazy-busy shops and streets. Many Argentine cities are the same format - square in the center with church and similar street names heading out in a grid format. We got a bus onward to Jujoy and sat next to an old lady who dribbled icecream over herself and the table we ate ate at...

Jujoy was much bigger than expected too but the feel here is much different the stalls are more on the streets which is more typical in Bolivia and people are more indigenous and traditional, less European looking. We stopped at a wicked hostel with friendly folks and chatted to the lad who ran it and a German girl but had to leave the next day sadly as they didnt have room. Breakfast in South America always consists of bread by the way... and jam or Dulce de Leche which is condensed milk caramel which they eat by the bucket! It appears in drinks on bread and in deserts (not the deserts). We went to an amazing cemetary here - walls and walls of box-like crypts with small pictures of the people on and plastic flowers. It was stunning to see so many rows upon rows of people. The huge crypts were well maintained (some of them) and it was interesting that these richer dead-people were in better housing than the poor in the shantytown next door who´s roofs were corrugated steel sheets held down by bricks! We walked out to the lakes here and it took us hours to get there by foot and bus! after a 6kn uphill trek we got to the park entrance and were a little underwhelmed by the lakes in the drizzle... more interesting was the little houses we found by taking a wrong turn only to be warned off by angry dogs. We ended up back at the bus terminal and both had didgy stomachs - feeling bad we hauledout backpacks around for hours waiting and amused ourselves by writing abusinve notes to each other and passing them accross the table to each other... finally we got a bus to Tilcara - only to find that it was VERY local and knackered...

Tilcara - heres a story - We arrived in late - 1.30 am - after a ride on a tiny local bus crammed with people. Buses often ride with a police officer onboard as protection against bandits etc. I suppose! We figured we should be able to get into a hostel as most have 24hour reception, but found that everywhere was closed and the town was smaller than expected and it was dark with cold cobbled streets and gangs of teenage kids worrying us a little. We trudged arround town carrying our backpacks in the freezing air and tried a few hostels and hotels without luck - all shut up and noone answering!! Seriously considered crashing out in the kitchen of one hostel we found with the door open, but we eventually happened on a small bar that was buzzing and playing loud music. We asked the girl inside if she could help and she phoned her friend but no luck... She did manage to point us to another hostel which was open though... phew! Crashed out knackered. Next day - Tilcara is pretty with many artisans selling stuff like llama anythings hats, gloves, socks, jewellery etc and it also has a fort on the hill and we explored the ruins amongst giant cactuses and looked out down the huge valley. Back in the town we chanced upon a weird Easter celebration and lots of local kids appeared to the sound of a brassband - the girls were dressed as witches and the boys as Devils with elaborate sequin costumes, masks and covered in mirrors! They all danced and threw handfulls of white chalk at each other. We also trekked upto a waterfall up the canyon bast the "Devils Throat" a huge drop with water cascading over it. The surrounding mountains are stuninng with huge seams of red running through them for miles. The cafe also played an amzing selection of pan-pipe Beatles covers... mmmm...

Humahuaca is a small cobbled Quetchua village and we found a tiny place selling beer, with additional drunk local collapsed inside. We bought a meal and I was suddely hit with a wave of paranoia and became convince that I had food-poisoning! We left quickly and found that the town had had a powercut plus it threw it down with rain! Sophie woke laughing the next day with a song about being stuck behind a chair in her head..?!? We wandered the streets and markets and watched a (robo-)saint appear breafly from the church tower, and also found a bizarre cemetary with brightly coloured spotty headstones (many for musicians) behind a giant monument at the top of some steps. More shacks and brick huts with families living inside. We watched a folk band play in a cafe that night and were both becoming increasingly concerned about our lack of bowel movements over the last few days... erg... the problem with a 60% bread diet methinks - although the fruit is amazing here, supermarkets and markets are usually a walk away and you only seem to be able to find street vendors selling sweets and chocolates and/or bread.. or restaurants that serve fried meat with bread, potatoes, rice and/or spaghetti - carbohydrate-mayhem... theres no way you can loose weight in South America...

Nearing the border we went to La Quiaca and its pretty dead really, aside from the fact that when we arrived there was a roadblock and we had to carry our bags into town (30mins away!). We drank tasty Liquardo´s when we arrived (fruit-shakes) and watched dubbed TV which was a novelty!

We crossed the Bolivian border to Villazon after waiting with 2 Canadians and a Peruvian. Lines and lines of people carrying masive amounts of contrband wrapped in blankets on there backs accross was a sight for sure, it was only a short distance over the border but the difference was amazing! Chaos!! People eveywhere and many, many of them wearing traditional dress - Chola women ware bowler hats with long black pigtails, tied at the back with aprons and petticoat skirts. Many women carry bright shawls on their back with everything from fruit to children wrapped in them! We ate at an Óriental´place - we could have anything so log as it was chicken, and it was all served with not just chips, but rice and spaghetti. Very Oriental. Despite the simplicity of life here, the artwork is top-quality and the walls were painted with amazing murals in a kindof trad/manga style. The childrens play park was a giant dinosaur and there was a funfair in the street. We got the train to Tupiza which made a nice change from the buses. The train shuffled along at a reasonable pace and as we had to buy exec. tickets we got to watch a selction of 80´s music videos on a little TV in the corner - songs that we have heard on repeat and I can hear right now throughout Bolivia... Wham, Spandau Ballet, Tina Turner and other random middle of the road rock ballads -- they love em!!

North Argentina

2009-02-28T06:27:00.000-08:00

After San Juan we took a night bus to Tucuman where we spent a few days sorting out some basics and chatting to a few travellers.

Instead of going traight to Salta we decided to take a slight detour through Tafi del Valle - a beatuiful little village set on a hillside above a huge valley and felt for the first time to really be in South America. The little artisan shops were run by native indigious people and they looked significantly less european. The temporature here is also really dramatic shifting from blazing sun in the afternoons to icy chills in the evening. Many people ride horses and wear decorative wooley hats and jumpers. We spent a day wandering the valley with wild horses and jumping over streams. Hitched a lift back to the viallge with a truck driver who took us up to the top of the valley to drop off some stone for road workers before dropping us back in the town center.

From Tafi we continued to Cafayate intending to see the ruins at Quilmes the next day. Cafayate is totally tourist orientated. Every shop in the center is intended for tourists and compared to the little crafts shops in Tafi the place is pretty charmless. The drive in was stunning however and we could see the Quebrada of striped red rocks. We went for a wander towards a hill and were approached by a skinny Quetchua woman who offered to be our guide. We spent the day wandering the hills and waterfalls, lakes and caverns with her and 2 Argentinians. A real test for my spanish chatting all day to the guy and listening to the guide about which plants were cures for everything from cancer to asthma.

Decided to give the Quilmes ruins a miss and head north for Salta then on to Bolivia via Jujoy as reccomended by a couple of people instead of heading for the expensive and touristy San Pedro in Chile (no point going west for ages only to return when we can go north directly to Bolivia).

Argentina

2009-02-22T12:36:00.000-08:00

Travelled through the Andes mountain range (stunning) to Mendoza - really plesant, and from San Juan up to San Augustine - a quiet little village from where we could jump off to the surreal National Parks in the area. Ischigaulasto park (which is the only place in the world apparently where all the sediment layers of the Triasic period are visible) was good - loads of dino bones fund here including the oldest and most primitive of them.

Rock formations are really odd and interesting as it the bottom of a river vallry known as the Valle de le Luna (Moon Valley) but the people seem more interested in what there names are (ie, the mushroom, the sphinx etc!). Also went to Talampaya park which was incredible - ancient petroglyphs and huge mountains jutting up into the sky created by the plates pushing into the Andes from the West coast and then being pushed back up inland creating really high red plateaus which are stunning. There was a gorge where a channel was worn away by a river over millions of years that must have been 80 feet tall - when you shout from beneath, it amplified the sound and echoed off for a good few seconds in the surrounding hills!

Took a 4hr bus back to San Juan, followed by a 14hr bus up to Tucuman heading North towards Salta.

South America - Chile

2009-02-14T09:29:00.001-08:00

Well we got into Santiago, Chile on the 5th and spent a while acclimatising to South America. Chile is a little more run-down than i expected being one of the richer countries on SA but it´s actually massively more rich in culture than New Zealand and its been a breath of fresh air having the place covered (and i mean covered) in artwork - from posters, graffitti (over EVERYTHING) to poetry (i got a poem from 2 chilean girls for a donation ) street performers, theater and millions of great places to eat. The food is stunning quality and our first night here we ate enough meat (a argentinian mixed grill) for about 4 people for about a fiver each! Wine is really good too and they serve beer and wine in everything from mini-bottles to giant bottles and jugs. The performers are amazing - theres a one man band with ahuge bass drum on his back and symbols attached to his feet who plays impossibly complex samba rhythms while swirling around and spinning in circles. At traffic lights there are mimes, bands and jugglers. Went to a few art galleries which were good too.

Weve grown to really like Santiago and after being a bit paranoid about theft to begin. We have found the people really friendly, humourous and helpful. My spanish is being tried and tested!! Some people seem to be easy to chat to and others act like I have come from mars, but I bought a new digital camera and have organised transport with little difficulty.

We went out to Valparaiso for 2 days on the coast. Its a weird place half a flat port area, and half on the hills. Funiculars (elevators) to take you up the steep hillsides to a shantytown like area, where some of Chile porest live, but amongst these are bright and fantasical mansions, art studios, posh restaurants, many,many colourful jumbled houses, shacks and quaint cobbled streets. We went to a bizarre cemetary on a hill and a guard took us around a prison built 200 years ago to defend the port but used until 14 years ago by General Pinchet for political prisoners - stones cells and crumbling walls are now graffitied by artists and the place is going to be an arts center soon. The markets were incredible - fruit piled in massive amounts and loads of fish.

Were back in Santiago now but just bought a ticket for Mendoza in Argentina tomorrow! The Andes mountain crossing is supposed to be incredible but a girl at our hostel got a court date for mistakenly carrying 2 apples accross! We are not taking any apples..!

New Zealand - Highlights

2009-01-27T16:44:00.000-08:00

Aha! This blog format is blatently not working as I just never get time to update enough and always leave my diary in the van/hostel! Definately going to change this for South America, and will probably continue in a more usual 'blogging' manner ie, random updates as i go along.... so he's number 1...

Update
Well I've been out travelling in New Zealand since October and have bought a camper van and driven around North and South Island with Sophie who is now joining me to South America!

At the moment were stuck in Auckland trying to desparately sell our camper and going a little stir crazy...

A quick tour of the highlights so far (see diary for more details day-to-day)... anyway here we go...

NORTH ISLAND

Parnell - cool Auckland suberb - excellent food! Loadsa galleries!
Waitomo caves - saw glow worms up close!
Bay Of Islands - stayed on a boat, swam in phospherant waters and kayaking to an island! Got fed weird sea-things caught by the crew and snorkelled with loads of fish around reefs!
Tauranga - got drunk with a crazy Icelandic fisherman & his medium-wife (see previous diary entry).
Rotorua - Wai-o-tapu - incredible thermal and volcanic pools, geysers and crusty formations, streaming ponds and all manner of weird coloured rocks, sand, bubbling mud and shooting steam!
Coromandel Pensinsula - found crabs and wandered around cathedral cove, missed out on Hot Water Beach (where you can dig a little thermal pool for yourself in the sand) but got to New Chums Beach after a 30 minute trek over headland and rocks - totally stunning beach, weird volcanic rocks and deserted!!!

SOUTH ISLAND

Cape farewell was isolated and a really amazing headland. Farewell spit is a massive (and i mean massive) expanse of white sand you can get lost in - as far as you can see, theres just dunes of sand and sea - incredible! Best place in New Zealand!!
Wharariki Beach was incredibly desolate and beautiful, Soph wandered into a cave past some weird looking rocks only to be grunted at by them! They were a couple of Sea-lions! She came scampering across the beach to me pointing after a bull-sea-lion warned her not to get any closer! We got really close to them. They smell really bad.
West coast was bleak and rainy, rainy, rainy. Dismal!
We went on an Ice Hike over Fox Glacier and scrambled over the headland to Franz Josef Glacier. They were both big wedges of grey/blue ice streaming down between mountains. We spent a day hiking over Fox in crampons and wandering through ice holes and crevaces. Wanted to do a skydive over the glaciers but defeated by poor weather over the next few days...
Went hanggliding in Queenstown - running over the edge holding onto a Japanese guy and then swooping over the mountains was amazing and caught some really great thermals (both our flight partners - spookily from Japan and Chile! - said so). Perfect weather, excellent flights! Really wanted to take a course to do paragliding afterwards!
Spent Christmas at Milford Sound - an incredible fjordland area with breathtaking scenery, huge mountains rise up from nowhere - really sharply- and give way to valleys, waterfalls and gorges. theres a basic tunnel cut right through one mountain you drive through - kea's (alpine parrots) hang around the car parks.
Went to Stewart island - a haven for wildlife especially Kiwi's although we didnt have longenough to see any (they're nocturnal).
Spent New Year in Dunedin - a University city, went to outdoor fireworks, got very drunk and felt a bit miffed at the lack of NZ nightlife even on New year! A french girl summed up well when she said "These Kiwi's need to come to Europe! We'll show them how to party!"
Otago pensinsula was pretty - saw Yellow Eyed Penguins (World's rarest!) Coming ashore and clambered over a massive sanddune in the pooring rain, then hid in a hide watching seals fight on the nearby beach.
Christchurch was a weird chunk of England dumped in New Zealand even down to the filthy public tiolets (which have been immaculate most places in NZ so far!). Watched Benjamin Button at cinema (during which I almost died of old age!).
Saw a whale in Kaikoura on a really rough sea, people were looking green at points! Also saw a blue shark, little blue penguins and some albatross.

BACK ON NORTH ISLAND

Went tubing underground in Wait-o-mo and floated, leapt and scrambled through rock caverns with running water and glow-worm lighting
Tongariro Crossing was a day trek over the volcano, which was just incredible from start to finish! Volcanic craters, green & blue lakes, amazing views, thermal pools - just look at the photos on my facebook & see!
Big Day Out festival in Auckland - saw Mike Patton, Trevor Dunn & Dave Lombardo in Fantomas play the Director's Cut - stunning & really cool if a tad 'orchestrated', got crushed to death in the dance tent to the Prodigy , Son of Dave was the best act at BDO with his impromptu beatbox blues, he got 2 girls on stage and gave out spirits and fruit(!?), Pendulum were shocking and dumbed down all their own stuff plus covering 'Master of Puppets' by Metallica - they had guitar, drums & bass player - what happened to the DnB?!?!? - luckily saved by dancing our asses off to Simian Mobile Disco!

2009-01-21T20:06:00.000-08:00

Nov 23rd

No one at office so a free nights camping! Watched local Maori lads snorkelling for mussels north of whitianga.

Went to new chums beach - after spending as while trying to locate the 'way in'. Turned out we had to clamber over the headland rocks, then scramble accross the land for 30mins before emerging at an amazing beach! Crazy red and black volcanic rocks alongside white sands! Best Beach in NZ so far!

Nov 24
Cooks beach. Drove through some bays to Hahei
and saw Cathedral Cove - after spying out a few crabs from the near by headland rocks. Craggy steps lead down to two beaches split by an impressive rock arch. Pinnacles in the sea. Wanted to go to Hot Water Beach recommended by Aussie girl, but bad weather maent we carried on - Hot water beach is where you can dig out a seat in the sand and it fills with hot thermal water - like a mini spa! Sad to miss it..

Drove to Waihai - massive mining town with active mine at one end - Huuuuuuge pit (like an asteroid had hit) with tiny diggers still trundling to the top then back down.

Nov 25.
Still in Waihai we saw aman taklking to a glove puppet walking down the road. Seems all this mining has taken its toll on the locals (many in wellies).

Nearly drove into a police car taking a sharp turn from the motorway down a farmers track down one way bridge..! Eek. Walked round Karangahepe Gorge over walkways and swing bridges and through an ancient mining site inc. tunnels through Gorge sides where carts used to run with gold & silver. Took a stroll through a massive tunnel in pitch dark for ages to emerge other side of hill.

Continued to Tuaranga and just as we parked, looked up to see the girls from the other night who had successfully managed to get threir car out of the ditch and we exstatic to see us. Gave us their number and said we'd meet up but ended up getting back into town late that night and didnt bother. Sat at a pub, where a pub quiz was on - very english. couple of Kiwi plumbers asked us to join them for a drink and were joined by a crazy (and very, very drunk) Icelandic fisherman who was celebrating his biggest catch ever with his (very, very odd and drunk) wife, who seemed to slip in and out of consciousness - we thought because she was drunk - but at one point she came around and pointed to me (as I was talking to the wild fisherman about his icelandic son) and said like some psychic medium "He's Balanced" and then "Five years!". Ended up sat out the front of the bar after hours with the young kiwi's, the fishermen and the bar staff, where were slightly over-proud of being kiwi's and part-maori.

Nov 26.
Drove to Mount Mananui - a pleasant harbour if a tad resorty, by a mountain. Had a wander by the bay and then up the mount - an odd mix of wilderness, built up city, Sandy beaches and grazing sheep - all in one view - truely diverse. New Zealander's seem to have a weird appitite for jogging up mountains too we're finding.

Continued on to Rotorua - known for it's nateral thermal features. Before we arrived you can smell the sulphur - thats why its known as sulphur city. Its also called Roto-vegas as its very tourist-orientated. After a bit of so you apparently get used to it and dont notice, but we never quite did.

Lake Rotorua was plesant with randoms flying around in helicopters and water-planes.

2009-01-08T23:48:00.000-08:00

Nov 21st.

In Coromandel. Pleasant area. Went to see a local band in a pub - hmmm. Left early afetr disapointing Maori blues band with out of place Kiwi guitar widdly god.

Nov 22nd.

Went to Driving Creek Railway - a mad railway that takes you up into the hills built by sculptor Barry Briknell. Pottery there - weird surreal pots & people all the way to the top on a ricketty homemade 'train'. Went to Kauri Grove in Coromandel Forest and saw Siamese Kauri trees. Camped up and chatted to some UK girls who were based in Turanga and had parked there car over an edge with 2 wheels off the floor!

2008-12-22T18:15:00.000-08:00

Nov 19

Drove to Kauri Forest at Waipoua after eating the best Carrotcake in the World at a little cafe (It was called that too!). Saw Tane Mahuta - the God of the Forest - not a wizard - a 1500 yr old tree and his foursisters - 4 tress growing from the same base. Kauri are MASSIVE btw.

Drove through the drab Dargaville and then to the scenic Matakohe site where a woman was baking bread for dinner! Kiwi camp sites are well equipped to say the least and there seems to be a bit of who can cook the best competition going on!

Nov 20

Drove all day! Planned to try and get to Waiheke Island by Auckland, but things went a tad wrong. Stopped at the loveley Warksworth and then got lost trying to find a ferry in Auckland that we thought might take us with the van to the island but then realised that we couldn't cross over to the pensinula off the other side so drove round the long way round and stopped at Miranda where we ate Fish & Kumara (NZ Sweet potato) chips. Not pleasant. Miranda campsite has a Hot Spring though so we went for a dip in the steaming pool late at night:)

New Zealand (2)

2008-12-15T21:47:00.000-08:00

Nov 17th.

Worst weather yet. Went to Rewa's Village which is a recreation of a Maori settlement in the Kerikeri Basin. Basic stoneag huts made of flax and wood.

Went out on a cruise on a boat called 'The Rock' from wharf back in Pahia. Shot at a duck with an air rifle off the back of boat in an attempt to win a free beer, fished (without luck) and ended up in an on-board dorm with a cou[ple of Aussie girls and a bloke and his mother. Went night kayaking in the waters around the boat, which was absolutely amazing! The waters have in them phosperance which glows and shoots off like little green stars when you dipped you paddle in! Weird! And really stunning under a clear starry sky. Went snorkelling and swimming of the back of the boat later which was *freezing* but totally amazing - when you moved and swam phospherant green sparks flew off you in the water! The phospherance is actually an algae which for some unknown reason glows when disturbed - The most amazing experience in NZ so far - Swimming with sparks flying off me under a perfectly clear starry sky! Sat on the back of the boat with Sophie, one of the crew (from Coventry!?) and the Aussie girls, before freezing half to death and going to bed.

Nov 18.
After a rough nights sleep (in which Soph decided to chat in her sleep to the dorm) we went down to an amazing porridge & fruit brekkie, then snorkelled out on a reef - saw loads of fish up close and swam until the water made me shake so much with cold I had to go back. After getting back to normal body temperature I kayaked to the beach of an island from the boat, and then want on a wander about. We found that the hills were all covered in soft grass, that was really deep and spongy. Kayaked back to the boat feeling like a Maori warrior.

During lunch a couple of dolphins swam alongside the boat and the crew offered up the chance for us to eat some sea urchin type things and mussels they'd caught. I ate a couple which were actually really tasty (one more expensive than caviar in japan apparently) which looked like and had the texture of a small yellow slug. Mussel's were amazing.

Back at Pahia we set off to the west coast to Oponomi and found an amazing beach with metalic silver colours and stunning sunset caused by the huuge sandspit alongside the coast.

North Island (1)

2008-11-26T00:16:00.000-08:00

Having to keep a diary and refer back to it as not getting the time to get on internet for long amounts...

Nov 10.

Staying in Parnell which reminds me of Moseley - lots of art galleries and restaurants. Saw a load of Maori carvings in mesuem which were good, including a full Whare (meeting house) and Waka (Boat). The Maori paint things red to protect them with Tapa (Sacredness) and the carvings have different meanings like spirals are the circle of life, they are pretty intricate with silver shell eyes on the faces.

Nov 11.

We bought a Toyota Lucida at a Backpackers car market with a load of pots and pans etc. After taking the car on a test run it broke down round the corner from the yard! Flat battery... got a good deal on the car though which is in really good condition apart from the flat abttery. Sorted Insurance out (Which is stangely optional in NZ) and road tax (which you buy by the 1000 km). The seller of the van replaced the battery and paid for a new bed to be installed in the back in place of the seats! We also had curtains fitted.

Drove North from Auckland to Warkworth which is very quaint and parked up at dusk at Sandspit. The plan is to go North around North Island then loop back down through Auckland and through Napier on the East Coast down to South Island.

Nov 12.
Bought an mp3 transmitter for the van so we can listen to music on the go - very important! The people who work in NZ are much more relaxed! We asked about the mp3 player and the woman said to bring the van round the back, take it out the box put in a battery and if it worked and we liked it then to buy it! A vast contrast to Argos who we bought the mp3 players from back in UK where they would not refund them even if in perfect condition.

Drove to Waipu which holds a Highland Games at New Year?! then onto Whangarei (Pronounced Fang-a-ray) where Sophie introduced me to the card game 'Slam' at the campsite. Campsites are really well equipped with cookers, pans, microwaves etc. Not exactly 'roughing it'.

Nov 13.
Went into Whangarei town basin and had coffee, then went for a walk at the A.H.Reed Memorial Park where there were huge kauri trees and a waterfall. Kauri trees are huge (some of the biggest in the world) and just go straight up - but the are really wide. Plenty chairs in them methinks.

Drove North to Waitomo and dropped into Waitomo Glowworm caves on a whim. George the Maori guide was well funny and kept taking the piss out of an Aussie guy there. The caves were really cool, loadsa stalagtites and mites 25 million years old. Apparently they found some maori woman living there when they discovered them - she'd run away from her tribe. But the most amaziong thing was the glowworms which covered the ceiling and glowed bright neon green in the dark! George showed us them up close and explained that they create a horizontal thread - like a hammock they moved around on, beneath which they hang lines down which catch small gnats that they eat. The worms are about an inch or 2 long and visible with a torch - there bums glow green to attract the gnats.

After that we stopped breifly at Wakawaka for the Toilet - decorated by artist Friedrich Hundertwasser in glass bottles and broken crockery - interesting but a little underwhelming, then onto Piahia which sits on the Bay of Islands and is the off-point for much sea-faring fun inc. snorkelling, driving, sailing etc... Stayed at Haruru Falls.

Nov 14.
Got a ferry over the bay to Russell which Captain Cook (I think) described at the hell hole of the Pacific as it was full of drunks, prostitution etc. It is now a very quaint (most places are quaint it seems) place. We went for a walk upto the flagstaff where the brits and Maori had had a bit of a flag putting up war - one put theirs up the other cut it down and so on for many years. Had fish & chips and saw a weird ameoba like blobs on a shell on the beach - it was a seethrough jelly thing (about an centimeter accross) which crawled around suprisingly fast... and a blobbly shiny thing on the rocks too ... weird.

Nov 15.
Drove round the corner to Waitangi where the Maori signed an agreement that settled their tribal wars and gave the nation over to the reign of the Queen of England. What was best was the aw huge waka (boat) and a really good wander round the grounds - amazing coastal scenery and saw a family of wild Tui birds (they make mad noises like R2D2 from Starwars), small black lizards in the rocks and and shrimp and black/red crabs.

Drove up to Kerikeri which is known for it's stunning citrus fruit and parked up at a campsite after a few beers. Did the washing!

Nov 16.
Wrote a nasty letter to 3 (phone company) they conned me just as I was leaving the UK into some dodgy deal, so I wrote a suiatble nasty letter then couldn't find a postal address for them online - damn them!

Went to the Stone Store which is the oldest European building in New Zealand at a massive 170 years old(!!). The store had a nice atmosphere and big old stone floors - it still sells exactly the stame stock as when it opened - from the same suppliers (!) including pitch forks, rope, soap etc.

Went to Rainbow falls which was also pretty nice, then went to drive inland a bit for a change of scenery to Kaikohe - but it was rubbish! The only site was a dodgy American diner-style 70's place and we drove back to Kerikeri and stopped at... a cheesy RV American-style Waggon Park instead. lol.

Went on a wander to a winder and bar but they were all shut, so nicked one of the famous kerikeri oranges from an orchard for later, naughty me.

Auckland

2008-11-08T20:58:00.000-08:00

Set down in New Zealand after a reasonable flight where I actually slept! Thats a first..

Weather is kinda like a warm summers day with a constant sea breeze.

After Japan, Auckland was a bit of a shock as it's very western and people could understand us again, which was kinda weird cos we'd got used to them not.

Best things about Auckland are the amazing restaurants (many Japanese) which are reasonably priced and the mad, mega trees which are huuuuge and really odd, like being stuck in Pan's Labyrinth or Jurassic Park. They look like the have had their trunks removed too. Think loads of roots attached straight to the branches spreading out everywhere.

Settled in for a few days at a comfy hotel and have just bought a Toyota Lucida XR Turbo, which sounds really swift until you discover its a people-mover which is just about to have the back seats removed and a bed put in! We bought it at a backpacker car yard after having a look about and then testing driving a couple. Funnily this ones battery died round the corner from the yard and we had to wait for the guy to nip out with his 4x4 to jump start it. A new battery is assured as part of the Warrant of Fitness (NZ MOT Test) we just had done on it. We pick it up tomorrow and can get going up the North Island and then further South later :)

Just got back from Rangitoto which is a volcano just North of Auckland - you can still see Auckland from the volcano. Went on a 5 hour trek up to the crater and into some caves which were mega.

Japan

2008-11-06T23:03:00.000-08:00

Hello! Hello!

Well finally got a few mins to update you on my travels... Just found out I cant add pictures at present so they be added later.

Touched down in Auckland a couple of days ago and I am sat in a basement Internet Cafe after buying myself some new walking boots at a beastly 130 pounds and a jacket too...

Anyhow...

Oct Friday 31st
After a sleepless 11 hour flight flew into Tokyo Narita airport and got a bus out to Asakusa where our Roken (Trad. Jap hotel) was situated. You get a ciouple of tatami mats to sleep on and free green tea and a kimono. Went to markets and shrines in the area and celebrated our first japanese lench with a tuna sandwich from a little place oposite a Bathhouse. Shrines and Temples are plenty and the Japanese like to go and get their fortunes read by shaking little wooden sticks from a box, matching the symbol on the stick to a draw and then reading a message from the draw that tells them their fortune. They also waft smoke from insence onto themselves to sooth aches & pains and douse themselves in water as part of the Shinto cleansing tradition. Senso-ji is a massive temple and pretty impressive.

Asakusa is pretty quiet for Tokyo, but something that struck me about all of Japan is that everyone is super-clean, quiet and ordered - even in big crowds people are quiet and rarely raise their voices. The Japanese were soo friendly too. As we walked past a little wooden bar a women waved us in and we bought some little kebabs and a beer. Nobody speaks much english at all, so we got by with just a few basic words and lots of pointing.

It was Halloween and we actually managed to find a party going on in a bar. The guy on the door even gave us 2 tokens for free drinks to celebrate. Main shock is Japan is really expensive! Im talking 2 pounds for 2 average bananas here! But they do sell HUGE apples and I mean monsters! Ace!

Oct Nov 1st
Went out to Ginza today on Tokyo Subway. Ginza is shopping central and big high street fashion area. Got breakfast in a Ramen noodle shop which was ace - you pick what you want from the menu (printed on a vending machine) and pay for it then take up you voucher to the chef who cooks it up and hands it to you. The quality of food is really good, in fact the quality of everything is. Went ot Shibuya crossing this afternoon - it the classic crossing with the high rise buildings and videoscreens where people all walk from every angle when the walk sign comes on. Wandered around the Love Hotels where you can buy rooms by the hour and looked in the shops which are all MEGA. Seriously, the stuff they sell in amazing and the shops are rammed with novelty stuff from dried octopus to mexican wrestler masks and cute stuff. Went to Roppongi which was pretty cosmopolitan and had another round of Ramen noodels, finished the day of with sushi from the 7/11!

Oct Nov 2
We wanted to get out to Yoyogi park and Harajuku today to see the crazy street fashion but ended up sleeping right through til 4pm! I wondered why it was getting dark as I was getting up!! Clobbered by Jetlag BIG TIME. Felt really odd for ages and tried to get back in the swing of it, so went to Akihabara where they sell loads of electronic goods and manga and bought an amazing meal in a well posh restaurant of boiled chicken and egg on rice. Food is mostly kinda odd and very intricate, lots is gloopy and soft dough is common. Went to Shinjuku which was big city and bright lights.

Oct Nov 3rd
Today we got out of Tokyo and went off early to Kamakura which is about an hour on the Japan Rail network out west. The place is full of shrines and temples and we managed to go on a wander over some hills where the trees were really gnarley and rooty. Bought some amazing steamed dough buns with stirfried food insode that were yum! After getting back to Tokto we went out to Shimbashi Central Tokyo and had some more noodles!!

Oct Nov 4th
We got up early and went to Tsukiji fish market which we just caught the tail end of as it starts at 3am in the morning! Ate really good sushi in a bar - had conga eel, manta shrimp, seared tuna and some squid etc! Got fuch soup and veg and felt stupid not really knowing how to go about eating it! Was goood though.

Went out to harajuku afterwards and had some seriously good crepes! Went to Yoyogi park! Gotta go my time is up!!!!

Im now in Auckland! Reverse culture shock!!!!! It's very western! and were freaked out by people being able to listen into our conversdations again!!!

Just a quick update!

2008-11-03T14:18:00.000-08:00

So far been flying round Japan, to a range of places like Shibuya, Shinjuku, Ginza, Akihabara, Kamakura - temples & shrines... etc etc eating, etc. Very Expensive!

Got walloded by Jetlag sun and slept right through!

Loadsa pics & updates soon I promise!

BTW - please dont phone my old num (07786 555300) i am cancelling it soon. 3 are EVIL! explain later....

First Post!

2008-10-27T15:32:00.000-07:00

There's nothing here yet - you'll have to wait til i leave!