Caz & Gaz's World Tour 09-10

Hi all,

This entry covers our last few weeks in S America before we headed to New Zealand. After leaving Cusco we headed south to Arequipa, nicknamed 'the white city' because of the light coloured volcanic rock many of the citie's colonial buildings are made from. The city was a nice enough place, backed by snowcapped mountains and a volcano (as shown in the pics below), but we didnt really do much here in our few days here other than relax following all the walks and trips we had done in Cusco.

One of the highlights for me of this place was going to visit a museum housing Janita, 'the Ice Princess': a 500+ year mummy of an Inka girl who was a willing child sacrifice to one of the nearby mountains whom the Inkas worshipped. Got to learn a fair bit about the Inka's traditions of human sacrifices as well, such as how it was the children of high class that would be offered because they were a greater offering, and how they and the priests would walk great distances to get to mountains, some of which modern day climbers have only recently conquered. You couldn't take photos in the museum, but here's a photo of Junita I nabbed from the internet to show just how eerie she looked!

On leaving Arequipa we took a beautiful bus journey up to the Colca Canyon, which until recently held the title of the World's deapest canyon. Deciding to walk down around and back up the 3191m canyon perhaps was not the best idea we've had, and our two-day-solid trek in the valley was perhaps the most knackering walk either of has has ever done - steep winding gravel paths on each side of the canyon that just seemed to go on and on and on... This wasn't helped of course by our taking a wrong turn one side of the canyon meaning that we climbed to a village which was much higher than we had intended to climb to. We also weren't helped by some sort of water pipe bursting on our second day that had the effect of turning the whole track into a river of back mud as we, very slowly, tried to stagger back up.

Despite our tiredness we were still able to enjoy some of the fantsatic views on the walk

This pic shows how the path turned into a river just as we were most tired

The next day we, masochistically, woke up early to go to Cruz del Condor- a part of the valley where condors can be seen flying close up (aided by the valley being just the right height to match the height at which they soar). It was pretty amazing seeing these huge (if very ugly) birds fly just overhead such that you could hear the air under them.

By this point we only had a week and a half to travel around 900 miles south to Santiago where we were due to fly out off, so naturally it made great sense for us to travel north to Nazca. Nazca was famous for 300 giant shapes that have been carved into the desert and date back to between 900 and 600BC! They can only properly be appreciated from above, and thus were only 'rediscovered' last centuary when pilots spotted them from above. No one fully knows how they were made so long ago, nor why, although most 'in the know' people seem to agree that they were probably made to please their Gods. Caz took a tour to see the lines (below is 'the hummingbird' I think);

whilst I stayed behind at the hostal to watch Favre throw a last second touchdown pass to beat the 9ers.

We now had only 10 days to make it down to Santiago, so yet again we decided to head further north, this time to Huacachina, which was literally an oasis in a desert of giant golden sand dunes where we kicked back for a couple of days.

Tried our hand at sand boarding too - it was real hard work walking up the massive sand dunes, especially becasue it was SO hot (in fact this was one of the very few occasions I've know it to be too hot for Caz) . Unfortunately when we did get to the top we strugled to get down the dunes with any speed. Still, had a good time trying, and the lack of speed meant we got some photos that made us look like we could actually board - think Caz had come to a complete stand still when this photo was taken:

So we now had just over a week to travel 1000 miles in time to get our flight in Santiago. A 17 hour bus journey took us to a border town from where we crossed into Chile to the city of Arica, where we spent a day relaxing on the beach.

We then caught a couple of busses down to Valparaiso, a journey that took over 30 hours by bus! Thankfully the busses were really comfy,so we managed to get a lot of sleep. The journey took us through the Atacama desert, the world's driest desert, so I tried to pass some of the time trying to get (just a few) pics.

We arrived early in Valparaiso, just as the city was waking up. We checked into a hostel before heading out to explore the port town and it's small beach. We had arrived in time to catch the last few days of a free music festival that had bands playing in various squares throughout the city, so this provided our entertainment for Sat night, whilst our last couple of days here were just spent wandering around the city's hills and brightly coloured buildings.

Here's one of the festival during the afternoon:

After a few days relaxing in Val, we had just a 2hr journey to get to Santiago, our final stop in S America. Santiago was a nice city, but not particulalry a lot to see as a tourist, so we spent our last few days reading and wandering around before heading off to NZ where we currently are half way through our 6 and a half weeks here (Cath, recently re-read your blog to see what you got up to. It's been wierd seeing places that you and Rusty were - think we spotted the v same penny farthing you had a photo of Rusty on. And we stayed at the same hostal as you did in Christchurch as u seemed to like it lots - we loved it too!).

So sorry about the really long entry, but really wanted to move a bit closer to catching up with this thing. Hope all good with everyone back home, always good to hear from people

Hey!

The next part of our trip was all inka-related activities! We spent about a week in Cuzco and the Sacred Valley (the area around the city). Although touristy, Cuzco's a really beautiful city with lots of inka walls with old spanish churches and stuff built on top.

Whilst by the end of our Inka time we had become sick of all the steps the Incas seemed to have built, we did enjoy making use of their slides:

We visited some surrounding towns: Ollantaytambo and Pisac that were even more inka-y - farmhouse-style buildings separated by narrow stone walkways and water channels. We saw loads of spectacular ruins too, with temples and houses, tunnels and aquaducts.

Ollantaytambo:

Pisac:

The American Football season started too, so Gaz has been extremely excited to see the occasional game or two (and I'm been reading lots more books!!). Next, for even more inka-ness, we did the inka trail! It was a four day trek, through some beautiful scenery: alongside rivers and through cloud forests and past high-up lakes where we saw andean deer.

It was only us two, and two other tourists in our group, our guide (who was great), and then 9 porters(!!) who carried tents and food and things. We couldn't believe there needed to be so many of them, cos we were carrying all our own stuff. They fed us up with loads of lovely food, so maybe it was all food they were carrying... We camped in some beautiful spots on the sides of mountains, where clouds passed right by us. But it was absolutely freezing at night in our tiny sleeping bags, even though we were wearing all our clothes!
This is a view from where we camped the first night:

The other two in our group were really nice, but very competitive - on the last day, on our walk to the Sun Gate and Machpicchu they were almost running to make sure other groups wouldn't overtake, and that we'd be first to the top! (You know I can't be bothered with winning!)

Machupicchu was amazing, much bigger and more stunning than I imagined. And as if three days hard walking wasn't enough for us (far too many massive inka steps for my liking, what's wrong with a slope?), we decided to climb another big hill to look at Machupicchu from a different angle (I'm not sure why now!). Although it was tiring, we had a great time on the trek!

Whilst we loved the trail we were glad to get back to our fantastic hostel in Cusco, one of the nicest we have stayed in to date, not least because of the views we had of the city whilst we made the most of the nice breakfast they provided:

So after a couple of days rest here we caught another nightbus to Arequipa where we'll pick up from next tme we actually get round to writing this. Hope all good with everyone back home X

Hey everyone,

So we ended up doing some voluntary work in an institution for adults and children with learning disabilities. Dont want to write too much about the institution itself here, but we both enjoyed what we were doing and miss those kids we worked with, even though we were only there a relatively short time.

Throughout the majority of our time in La Paz we lived with a Bolivian family and a number of other volunteers. It was great staying in one place for a while, and also great to spend a chunk of time with some good people such that we could go well beyond the usual conversations we seem to always have whenever we meet up with travellers (¨where are you from?¨, "where have you been?" etc.). La Paz is a beautiful city, set within the crater of mountains, with snow capped peaks visible on the horizon. And at 3700m above sea level it´s the tallest capital city in the world. Despite the bustle it seemed to maintain the friendly and relaxed vibe we had experienced in the rest of Bolvia - def one of my favourite cities.

Weekend entertainment whilst we were in La Paz included going to watch Bolivian women wrestle,

as well as a fantastic weekend break we took to Sorata, a quaint village in the mountains where we went with some of the other volunteers.

Our month in La Paz seemed to speed by really quickly compared to other months, probably because we had been staying in the one place, and we headed off at the begining of September to Lake Titicaca, a huge lake (143 x 60 miles) between Bolivia and Peru. Surrounded by snow capped mountains the lake was beautiful. and because of the size of it it was hard not to think of it as being the sea.

We stayed on various places on and around the lake for around a week, both on the Bolivian and Peruvian side. Our favourite place on the lake was on Isla del Sol, a small island where the Incas beleived the sun was born from. I loved it that there were no cars or roads on the island, and we spent a few days hiking round the steep terraces that looked over the island´s lakeside beaches.

When on the Peruvian side we booked a tour of the Peruvian islands. Whilst we didn´t so much enjoy the sensation of being hereded along that goes with being in a tour group, we did enjoy visiting the floating islands where around 2000 people on islands made of reeds and mud (they had supposedly originally started living like this as a means of protecting themselves against the incas). I won a necklace here in the very first guess the depth of the lake competition I´ve entered!

The tour also involved a night on an island where we stayed with a local family and where we got dressed up in traditional costumes (with just a poncho and hat I seemed to get of pretty lightly compared to Caz) and then taken to a party where we were encouraged to do some traditional dancing that seemed to mainly consist of spinning round.

So from the lake we took another overnight bus to Cuzco, which we´ll write about some other time. Curently in Ica (Peru) waiting to catch a 16hour bus down to the boarder with Chilie - we have a bout 900 miles to cover before we get our flight from Santiago on the 8th Oct. Hope all good with everyone back home - always good to hear from people. Lots of love, Gaz X

Our next stop was Sucre. Our journey took us through a landscape of ravines and open plains, mountains, cacti and dried rivers. It was something like a cowboy film, but also like nothing we'd seen before. We were both a bit ill in Sucre (pay-back for all that eating in Santa Cruz!), so we did quite a bit of lazing around the city. Besides lazing, we took a trip to see the dinosaur tracks at the edge of town. There were plenty of impressive dinosaur statues, and a viewing area, but for quite a long time we were rather confused about what we were actually supposed to be looking at... (not like home where there'd be hundreds of arrows and close-ups).

I was really suprised about how many women in Bolivia still dress traditionally (no men seem to) - they wear these velvet or sparkly/gaudy pleated skirts, and a shawl, their hair is kept long and in two plaits, and they wear the most amazing kind of little top hats that always look a size or two too small! And apparently whether they wear the hat straight or slanted depends on whether they're married or single?! I love the hats! I'd like one, but I think I'd also need a long black wig to complete the look...

We spent a day in Potosi, on our way to Tupiza. Potosi used to be an incredibly rich city hundeds of years ago because of its silver mines, and the ornate architecture is lasting proof. But it's SOOOOOO cold cos it's over 4000m high- tallest city in the world!!!!

So we headed on to nice warm Tupiza. Tupiza really is like a cowboy film - it's where Butch Cassidy met his end - and we went on wonderful walks and a horseride to canyons, through layers of red and grey and golden mountains, and pillars of rock and so many cacti.

We started our Salar de Uyuni four day tour from Tupiza. The tour was amazing! We were with a really lovely French-Canadian family of a dad and two daughters, so as well as English and Spanish, there was some French mixed in too - it was all very confusing! We saw so many beautiful sights every day:
Craggy mountains, rivers of ice, llamas and alpacas, a pool from a hot spring that we had a dip in, turquoise lagunas, bubbling other-worldy geisers with thick grey sulphur-spewing bubbles (I managed to break some ice when I was skidding over one of the lakes, and now my trainers absolutely stink of sulphur - I'm sure I'm very popular with whoever can smell them...), pink lagunas with hundreds of majestic flamingos (I don't know why, I thought flamingos lived in the warm...), an oasis of thousands of ancient cacti.

But the star attraction was the salt flats. It was so amazing to be in the middle of such a massive, flat, expanse of white. Because it's so flat, there's no depth perception, and we had lots of fun taking stupid pictures:

From Uyuni, we caught yet another bus to La Paz (where we still are, and one day we'll be up to date with this blog!)
lots of love to you all, C x

Hi everyone,

Got out of the habit of updating this blog (and have been struggling to find places we can actually upload photos). We´re currently in La Paz, Bolivia, where we´ll be staying put for around a month and are already enjoying not having to constantly pack our bags. Because it´s been quite a long time since we last updated this, and because I can't be bothered writing about all the places we´ve been to, we´ve decided to use some of our time here to catch up on the blog in a few installments.

Much of the rest of our short time in Salvador was spent looking for a replacement camera to the one that got nicked. Salvador is a really beautiful city with lots of colonical architecture, but it didn't feel a particuarly safe place and we felt glad to be on our way again.

The next few weeks were spent stopping at various points along the coast as we travelled north. Didn't really do anything much other than laze around on beaches, so all was v good. Our favourite stop on our costal trip, which was also our last beach in Brazil, was at Pipa. There was one beach with dolphins, and as it was only accesible at low tide we would get up early every am to go swim with them (it was more like swimming ´at´ them than ´with´ them but they did occasionally jump out within a few metres of us) - definitely one of the best parts of our trip.

We both could have stayed in Pipa a lot longer, however we had already booked a flight. So we bid farewell to the dolphins, and 4 buses, 2 planes, and one taxi later we arrived at our hostel in Campo Grande. CG itself wasn´t particularly exciting, just a concrete city and nothing compared to the beauty of Pipa, but we didn´t spend long here as we booked a 4 day tour of the Pantanal, a 92,000 square mile wet land national park. Saw loads of wildlife including loads of caimen (small alligators - allegedly not dangerous if approached from the front)

loads of capibaras (no idea how to spell their name, but they are ridiculously lazy rat/kangeroo/pig/teddy bear looking animals that laze in or by the rivers);

toucans;

yet more monkeys, wild hogs; and loads and loads of birds such as Kingfishersand macaws. Our guide was the brilliant Johnny Indiana - he was great at spotting animals but incredibly tactless and bossy - "you! get out now. Stand there. Take picture!" We didn´t argue. The tour was great with boat trips,horse rides and walking and jeep trips. Caz did some fishing and caught a piranha for her lunch (I stuck with the vegi option of beans).

So after a great time at the Pantanal we headed straight for Bolivia, where I´ll leave Caz to take over from.

Lots of love,

Caz and Gaz X

Hey! Hope things are good with everyone?!

Since Gaz´s last blog entry, we´ve been having an amazing time in Rio and Arraial d´Ajuda:

Rio was great - we stayed in a really cool and friendly hostel on the road connecting Copacabana and Ipanema beaches. It was perfect for morning swims - we just had to decide left or right, walk for a couple of minutes, and we were on yellow sand! Rio´s such a spectacular city - I love the way there´s so much contrast in the landscape: the picturesque beaches with turquoise water; the jutting peaks; the huge skyscrapers filled with millions of people crammed between; and the favelas (slums) climbing their way up lots of the steepest hills.

We had great views of the city when we caught the cog train up Corcovado peak to see up close the Christ the Redeemer statue that watches over the whole city - he has such a serene expression. It was so high that the train went through a cloud on our way up! We also attempted to go up Sugar Loaf mountain, but repairs were being done on the one of the cable car lines, so we could only go half way up, but we still had wonderful sunset views! And in an attempt to take as many modes of transport up hills as possible (!), we took an old bonde (streetcar) over Lapa´s disused aqueduct arches, up cobbled streets and winding alleys into Santa Theresa.

As well as the wonderful sights, Rio had a great atmosphere and we had fun nights out with some of the lovely people we met in the hostel, at a samba club and learning to make caipirinhas! Caipirinhas seem to be Rio´s favourite drink - and my new fave! Maybe I should buy Gaz a fruit crusher to make me them when we get home..!

We took two overnight buses (with a beach day in between in Vitoria) and then a ferry to our next destination, Arraial d´Ajuda. Arraial is a relaxed little cobblestoned town with miles and miles of beautiful golden beaches backed by palm trees and forest. We spent our days at the beach, swimming in the warm shallow water - we can´t believe it´s winter here, it´s so hot! We stayed in a great hostel there too, with a pool surrounded by banana trees overlooking the rainforest. As it´s off-season here, we had the whole place to ourselves! In the evenings, the preparations for the region´s big June festival had begun, so we saw bunting, tents being put up and lots of children partner dancing (some of the younger boys didn´t seem very enthusiastic!) dressed in farmer-ish outfits with straw-looking hats on!

We decided to head to Salvador for the days of the festival. So we caught the ferry to the bus station, and managed to get the bottoms of our big rucksacks wet in a puddle of something leaking from a truck. After smelling the rucksacks, we decided that the something the truck was leaking may have been wee! Disgusting!!!!! Luckily, the leaking didn´t get to our clothes, and all I had to throw away was a sudoku book!

Salvador was ready for a party! We went out to the festival on the streets and in the squares around our hostel, where bands were playing on big stages, drumming groups and brass groups were walking up and down the streets and people were dancing! We had a fun night, but on the way back to our hostel we were in a crush of people all trying to get along the street. When we got through the crush, the camera had gone from Gaz´s pocket. Which is why you may have noticed there are no photos on this entry... (We´re planning to get a camera replacement tomorrow.) So if any of you have been to Rio and have photoshop, please add us to your pics - haha!

Lots of hugs xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Hey ! This is about the 7th time I´ve attempted to write this so really hoping computer doesn´t crash this time. Stupid technology

So Caz left off when we had just arrived in Puerto Iguacu, which is a small Argentinian town bordering Paraguay and Brazil, and also is a base from which to explore the Iguacu falls and national park. The falls were spectacular - the sound and sight of 275 water falls crashing up to 80m into the river below was amazing and def one of the highlights of the trip so far.

Uploaded yet another one of the falls - in an attempt to give some perspective, this one has a viewing tower with people on it on the cliff on the left (but hard to make out).

So we then said ´adios´ to Argentina, and, without even knowing how to say ´hi´ in Portuguese, we headed into Brazil. In search of warmer weather we decided to skip the southern part of Brazil and instead took our longest journey so far (25hrs in total) to get some tropical beach action in Paraty, a smallish town with some 60-odd islands and 300 beaches in it´s vacinity.

After a good few days doing not much there, we decided we deserved a bit more beach and headed to Ilha Grande - an island of rainforest and beaches. Whilst quite touristy we were visiting in the off-season and the island was big enough to find some deserted paradises, even though some of them took six hour round trips through the rainforest to get there!

Less tiring was a boat trip we took around some of the beaches - my fave part of this was at a lagoon full of fish - was so cool being able to swim right amongst hundreds of them as they swarmed to eat bits of fruit some kids were throwing in to them. A new swimming stroke helped me blend right in

Seen loads of other wildlife between the island and Iguacu too, like humming birds, parrots, an alligator and loads and loads of monkeys (saw so many on the island we almost stopped paying any attention when we saw them. Almost.)

Anyhow, as I finally manage to finish this, I´m writing from Rio de Janeiro where we excitedly arrived today. Just about to take some lessons in making the local cocktail which I´m hoping tastes something like mojitos (wrote this a few days ago but we´re still in rio).

Hope everything good with all back home.
bw
Gaz X

Hello Everyone!
Thanks for my bday texts/emails! I had a lovely day on my bday - we hired a car with a couple of guys we met at the hostel, and took a day trip to Penisular Valdes National Park to try to glimpse some weird and wonderful animals. We managed to see some guanacoes (kind of llamas), a grey fox, patagonian hares, and some other animals and birds that we don´t know what they were... But most exciting were on the beaches and cliffs of the park where we saw Elephant seals and Southern sealions. There were a few different colonies, and they were so noisy, making kind of barking noises like fat dogs! And all they seemed to do was rest and fight...

We got dropped off in Puerto Piramides where we spent my birthday night just eating my cake and lazing around.

We had stayed in Puerto Piramides with the intention of whale watching, cos even though it was slightly out of season (they normally arrive in June), we had been told they had already been sighted! I was well excited! So we went on the only boat trip that seemed to be running (and there were only 8 people on, including a toddler and a baby!) where we had to wear extremely attractive outfits.

The boat ride was quite bumpy, but we saw more seals and sealions close-up, and Gaz even managed to spot an out-of-season penguin! When it was almost time to turn the boat round and go back to the small port, we got our first sighting of a whale´s back in the distance. It didn´t come up again. But then we saw the air spurt (or whatever it´s called) of a whale pretty close, and then it´s tail came out of the water, so close. Maybe only 20m from the boat! And we could see the massive shape of the whale underneath the dark water - it was amazing!!! (Sadly no photos as I was too busy just gaping, and Gaz was busy holding on to the rocking boat.)

After Puerto Piramides and Madryn, we headed to Cordoba, with a quick stop in Bahia Blanca to break up the journey. In Bahia Blanca the only exciting thing we did was go to a small musuem about the european immigrants to the port, where it was all in spanish, so we could only look at the pictures and eat the amazing (possibly welsh-influenced?) cake!

After another overnight bus journey the involved a baby repeatedly being sick (nice!) and a broken down bus, we arrived in a scorching Cordoba! (sunshine at last!) That night was the celebrations for Argentian independence day (from Spain), so there was a party atmosphere in the streets, and musicians playing on a big stage in the square and on the streets.

Cordoba is a big student city, and we spent a couple of days there looking at the beautiful uni buildings and churches and just relaxing.

Aiming for Puerto Iguazu, our next stop to break up the journey was Resistencia, a city where the streets are filled with sculptures! Although it was rainy, I had a lovely time exploring the streets for beautiful sculptures, and went to a really cool exhibition too. Gaz has got an achey knee, so sadly he mostly just rested that day.

We´re currently in Puerto Iguazu, and are planning to go see the spectacular falls tomorrow!

(Sorry about the number of photos of me, and lack of ones of Gaz - I´m not this vain, but Gaz loves taking photos lots more than I do!)

Lots of love xxx