Bogota

After another short indulgent flight we rolled out of the airport at
Bogota in search of a colectivo - sharedbus into the city centre. We
totally failed. We found ourselves in the taxi queue. A young driver
jumped out and asked 'Platypus?' This was in fact the very hostel we
had chosen from our ancient lonely planet, it obviously has a solid
reputation! It turns out that Playpus owns half the street!
Our first mission was to visit the gold museum - a history of gold
from all over the world, then focusing more on South America. It's a
really good museum, with loads of English info too ;)
Next we went up the cable car to escape the city. Bogota has the same
population as London! The tourist district is pretty small though,
phew. After the cable car we went for a stroll and were approached by
two policemen. They told us the area was not safe then walked us to a
main road to get a taxi! They don't want any problems on their watch!
Our taxi driver then ripped us off, literally a two minute journey to
where we were going. We paid him less then jumped out. We decided that
if he called the police on us, it would be the same two guys who had
put us in the taxi in the first place!
We tried to find a cinema, and failed! People kept sending us back
towards the danger zone, so we just went shopping instead! The central
streets had been pedestrianised for Christmas shopping, I think it was
the Saturday night before Christmas, everyone was out on the town.
Sunday morning we packed up and headed to the airport - we were
heading to Costa Rica! The hostel organised a mini-van taxi for us. I
don't know exactly what was wrong with it, but it was the bumpiest
little van in the world, and the driver seemed to be having difficulty
with the gear box. We were pretty relieved to arrive at the airport in
one piece, with plenty of time for our new favourite restaurant -
Crepes and Waffles :)
On the flight we decided to get into the spirit of it all - rum and
coke please! Oh boy, it was literally rum on the ricks with a dash of
coke in the top. Hmmmm. The guy next to us was chuckling as we sipped
away grimacing! We crumbled and got extra coke and all was well.
Colombia!! Best place ever! Will definitely be coming back to explore
more before all the other gringoes here about it!!!!
Next, Costa Rica!

p.s. I'm way behind on this!!! Trying to catch up!!!!!

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Nuqui, Pacific Coast, Colombia

Ciao coffee country, we're off to the beach...in a tiny wee plane!
Just before landing we realised that we were not by the coast, but
over a huge city! Where was the pacific jungle? This was concrete
jungle! As it turns out it wasn't a direct flight, but 2 connecting
flights: Pereira-Medellin-Nuqui. We finally landed in the tiny village
of Nuqui and walked out of the airport to find our hotel. From the
limited research that we had done, we were expecting a fairly
substantial tourist town, with good surf, and lots of boats heading
off to remote sandy beaches - the Eco-lodges in the area featured in
Colombia's 14 day whistlestop tours. We dumped our bags at the hotel
and headed off into town in search of an ATM and information about Eco-
lodges and tours. It soon became aparent as we wandered through the
streets that there was no bank, no ATM, no way of getting any form of
cash. Plastic visa cards were about as useful as a box of matches
under the sea :( the sleezy police told us we would have to fly to a
different town to get cash!! We found Internet and decided to call up
one of the Eco-lodges to see if they could accept visa or help us!
Within 10 minutes a lodge manager was knocking on the glass door of
our phone booth- obviously we were pretty easy to find 'have you seen
2 gringoes? That's right, the ones with no money...' He had been on a
shopping trip to the big city, and was heading back to his lodge, the
boat was waiting. A quick chat with John led to a very useful chat
with the lodge owner, who lives in Medellin city, he kindly agreed to
let us pay for the lodge and flights on arrival back in Medellin!
Phew! Crisis evaded. We thought we might need to sell all the digital
gadgets, wash dishes or worse to get back to civilisation. We grabbed
our bags from the hotel, paid the owner a few bucks by means of
apology for not staying, and ran to the boat.
As the boat headed out into the ocean, we were able to see the full
extent of the 'beautiful fishing village', it was actually more like a
slum built on stilts on a stinky swamp. We felt rescued!

We landed on the beach and were welcomed by a group of about 5
children! We were introduced to one of the girls by John 'this is my
wife'. She looked very young, but this is rural Colombia! We walked
along the beach towards the huts as the rain began to pelt down. We
arrived, drenched, and were introduced by John to another girl 'this
is my wife'. Right, two wives, both very young! There was no mistake
about it, over the following days we witnessed behavior that would
indicate he did have at least 2 wives, and possibly additional
girlfriends!
The boys at the lodge showed us around the area, the other lodges, how
to get coconuts down from the trees, beautiful waterfalls. We were the
only people there, the food was amazing, the ocean was rough and
beautiful. We visited some natural hot springs on the tiny village of
Termales.
Our first night, I was upstairs getting my torch and something caught
my eye. On closer inspection I realised it was a huge rat! That night
before bed we checked for it, no sign. In the middle of the night I
hear rustling! I turn on my torch and spot the thing jumping off my
bed-side table! It had been chewing my earplugs!!! We told John about
it in the morning - 'don't worry, the boa contrictor will find it!'
We had an amazing couple of days, very chilled out. Much needed after
all the buses we'd been on over the past week!
We left the lodge and went back to Nuqui on the boat, then flew to
Medellin where we met the owner, found an ATM, paid him, while Kirsty
got his contact details - he looked like Keanu Reaves! He had also
bailed us out of a potentially holiday destroying situation! He gave
us a mini tour of the city before we flew to Bogota, capital city of
Colombia.

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Villa Martha - Colombian Coffee Farm

We breezed into Pereira on the freezy bus and went straight to the
airport to see when we could get a flight to the Pacific coast, Nuqui.
We managed to get flights for tomorrow morning. This left us the rest
of the day in Pereira -not a spectacular town, but the surrounding
hills are brimming with coffee farms - Finca. Kirsty managed to find
Ville Martha - owned by Martha and her husband Raphael. www.fincavillamartha.com
We jumped in a cab and headed 10 k out of town into the hills. A
friendly policeman along the way helped out with directions. We
arrived in paradise. Fresh juice on arrival, then off to chill out by
the pool, then a tour of the whole coffee making process. Martha and
Raphael's friends were visiting for the day, one of whom spoke some
English - always useful! So we picked the red coffee berries, saw how
they get shelled, washed, dried. Then how the little pods get shelled
again, then fed into the toaster machine, 20 minutes later = the best
coffee in the whole world. I can't sleep tonight. We explored the
whole property, which had all been expertly built by Raphael. Martha's
hobby is collecting old things; the house is full of ancient
typewriters, clocks, irons, masks, coins, telephones, pencil
sharpeners! Such a great family atmosphere after hostels and buses.
They have 3 boisterous alsatian dogs, cunning creatures, playing games
by the pool all evening -hot jaccuzzi after dinner...soothing jaccuzzi
bubbles :) we learnt a lot of Spanish today - amazing how when you
have to communicate, it speeds up the process! Today was the best day
of our trip so far. This little place is so special and unique.
Colombia is amazing, so unspoilt - I wonder how long it can stay like
this!
Tomorrow early start - 7am flight to the coast. At least the day will
start with a grand cup of coffee.

Sent from my iPhone

San Agustin to Pereira

We were hungry at the bus station. We rolled out of the VIP salon to
the fullest restaurant and requested to see the menu. Uh oh - no menu.
Just a cute girl in hot-pants reeling off all the specials to two
tired hungry girls who speak only poccito espanol. We tried our best,
gestures galore... I ended up in the kitchen peering into all the pots
on the cooker, we ended up with two gourmet plates, one of the best
meals yet.
We jumped on the bus -a big nomal sized nice bus, with air-con...a
little too much a/c. We froze!!!! 9 hours became 12, but the scenery
was amazing. The Japanese are very good at building tunnels through
mountains, quick, efficient, straight roads...here they go over, then
down, then over again, then down again. The air in my inflatable
pillow keeps changing volume - it'll start perfect, then as we climb
the mountain I'll have to let air out because it's too full, then as
we go down it'll crumple up and I put more air in it.. Then the whole
process repeats!!

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Colombian coffee

San Agustin

Statues at San Agustin

Rolling hills of Colombia, San Agustin

Chatty chatty parrot

Eco-lodge

Eco-lodge in the jungle

San Agustin

San Agustin is one of Colombia's main archeological hot spots. The
area has loads of ancient free-standing stone carvings, left behind by
a mysterious pre-Columbian civilisation. Nobody seems to know much
about the people who lived here. The carvings are focused around
burials, tombs etc. Beautiful.
Yesterday we went to the main site, then walked the 3km back down to
the town. The people here are super friendly, seemingly so happy to
encounter a foreign tourist.
Things that stick out: beautiful houses with pristine tropical
gardens, horses - working horses, juice restaurants, sugarcane, coffee
crops, fruit everywhere, flashing Christmas lights on all the houses,
girls in slutty clothes, cars with booming stereos out of the boot,
tavernas brimming with men drinking 'Poker' beer at 10am on Sunday
morning, friendly people shaking our hands :)
We booked a jeep tour for today to see the other sites and some
waterfalls. 6 foreigners all crammed in, Kirsty and I got the back
sideways seats i.e. in the boot. Kirsty not happy. By the time we had bumped along for
an hour, the sick bag was ready again. I must mention that she hasn't actually been sick on any of these buses yet!
 The other sites were all similar to the main site in San Agustin, but it was good to check out
the countryside and have a wee peek into how people live here. Lots of
agriculture: fruits, coffee, banana, plantane (sp?), sugarcane, cows
grazing, horses. The waterfalls were good too. They claim that one of
them is the second largest in South America, but we aren't sure that
can be true. They also have this '7 metre' statue, we were looking for
it all day only to realise that we had seen it, 5 metres of it is
under the ground, only 2 metres sticks up!
We had a cash flow problem in San Agustin. We had exchanged a few US
dollars at the border, and again at the bus station. We were holding
out for the ATM in San Agustin. There were 2 in the town. First one,
no queue, no money inside. We go around the corner to the other one to
see a sea of people all lined up waiting. We decided to come back
later, same problem. Turns out it was payday, people come from all the
tiny villages to collect their wages - the ATMs can't handle it! We
owed George for our accommodation and our jeep tour, and we wanted to
get a bus north. George to the resue, drove us to the next big town,
to an ATM, now we're at the bus terminal waiting for another overnight
bus - apparently on better roads - to Pereira. George is a legend, he
totally looked after us, we would be washing dishes if it weren't for
him!
Today is Monday. We fly to Costa Rica on Sunday. We're heading north
to try to fly from Pereira to Nuqui on the pacific coast. Notice FLY
and not bus. Our tolerance is lowwww at the moment! ;)
Time is running out here but we definitely like Colombia the best and
wish we could see more of it.
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Ecuador to Colombia

Our flight was short from Coca to Quito - 25 minutes from boarding to
touch down. Very different from the 14 hour zig-zag bus that we had
taken from Quito to Coca. Money well spent.
Quito is a big busy city, our mission was to find a bus to the border
town of Tulcan (7km from the Colombia border). After checking times
with 2 companies we finally found a bus leaving in the afternoon, 6
hours. We went shopping, all the markets are all geared up for
Christmas! We had heard lots of scary stories about Quito from other
travellers, but we felt safe - it felt like there were police on every
corner.
The bus was long but the scenery was beautiful - volcanoes and
mountains. Tulcan was a tiny town. The hotel that we had researched
was closed, but second choice was probably the best hotel we've stayed
in yet. Sky TV, watched smallville :) power shower. Great breakfast.
We got a taxi to the border. No queue, walked across a bridge with our
luggage, went into the Colombia immigration office, no queue, stamp
stamp done. So easy - Geographically too! The Peru -Ecuador crossing
was very weird - kinda all over the place. This time there was only
one road, the Panamerican highway. Both offices were right there. Got a
taxi from the border to the bus station in Ipiales and were on a bus
within 5 minutes bound for Popayan. This was another hellish
mountainous zig-zag journey... 8 hours. Kirsty had the sick bag out
again! We got stopped and searched 3 times along the way. The girls
just get bags searched, the guys get a proper pat-down and ID check.
We arrived in Popayan and within an hour we found ourselves on another
bus, bound for our first Colombian destination - San Agustin. We
managed to pick up a hamburger as we jumped on the bus- frozen in the
middle :( This bus journey was meant to be 5 hours, it ended up being
7 hours, on rough rough rough untarred roads, picking up locals from
little villages along the way and dropping people off constantly.
Towards the end of the journey the bus stopped, the driver got our
bags out and announced that we would be getting picked up by the
tourist information representative from San Agustin. The bus would now
skip this town and continue to it's destination. It felt wrong at the
time, but it turned out to be the perfect solution. We picked up our
small backpacks from under our feet and noticed that our food bag was
missing. Our theory is that because of all the zig-zagging, it must
have slid out and someone fancied all the sweets and chocolate :( I'm
particularly sad about it because it had my book in it too. I was
reading about these 3 blokes who followed the path of the amazon, from
source in the mountains of Peru, to the Atlantic, in a rubber raft.
I'll never know if they made it :( I'll buy it again.
So, along comes George. He looks after all the forigners in town, very
sweet guy. He had been woken up by the bus driver to come and meet us
at 2am. He still managed to give us a guided tour of the town as we
crept along the sleeping streets. We had hostels looked out but George
offered us their tourist information accommodation, which was cheap
and perfect. So happy to climb into bed after the worst bus journeys
we'd experienced yet. We counted up 130 hours in 5 weeks.
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Peru to Ecuador and the Jungle!

Let me just explain our route changes. We had originally planned to go from Peru to Bolivia, then back to Peru and up the coast. Boliva would have been the cheapest and probably one of the best destinations on our plan, but we were simply running out of time to squeeze everything in. There's still so much of this continent to see, we'll just have to come back! So, now Peru 3 weeks, Ecuador - simply to do some Jungle, Colombia 10 days. We fly to Costa Rica in 10 days.

So, we left paradise behind and jumped on a bus to take us over the border into Ecuador and up to Quito, the capital city. 15 hours. Before the border we were on a local bus, sitting at the front, the door wide open, craziest bus driver in Peru. We stopped at the Peru border office, everyone jumped off, queued, passports stamped, then back on the bus. It then took us to the Ecuador office, everyone off the bus, queued, mosquitos!! Then those of us who were heading to Quito had to get taxis to the bus terminal to jump on a different bus. It took hours! As soon as we got on the Ecuador bus we kept stopping at police check-points for luggage searches, they check ALL the luggage, look under the bus, very thorough. Then our bus had a flat tyre, so more delays...long bus journey. We arrived at 8am into the smoggy, bus congested city of Quito. We jumped in a taxi to another bus depot to search for our next bus to the jungle town of Coca. We arrived at 8:45 and we realised that we could catch the 9am bus to Coca...13 hours. We made the decision to jump straight on instead of catching the night bus that night. It was a rough rough rough twisty turny bus journey through tiny little villages...Kirsty had a sick bag at the ready for about 12 hours of the journey. I watched 2 violent movies on the bus - 'The Shepherd' and 'Walk the Line' or something...the kind of movies where it didn't really matter if you understand Spanish or not. We arrived, found a hostel, booked a jungle tour and went out to get some food in the town. We were literally the only gringoes in town. We had another meal of chicken and rice before heading back towards our hostel, suddenly - wham! All the lights in the entire town had gone out! Total blackout. Everyone seemed to have candles at the ready though, all a bit suspect. It's just turned 8pm now, and the lights are still on, so it can't be everyday. (About 5 minutes after I typed this the power went off!! It's now the next morning!We were pretty sad because we'd got an amazing hotel, air-con and TV but it only ended up being until 10pm. yey.)
The next morning we were headed out on the Rio Napo towards an eco-lodge in the jungle. Our guide was this charismatic 'bird-man' called Patrick (from Ecuador). His hobby is to talk to the animals. Total nutter, but very passionate about his job. We arrived at the lodge to find a lone German eating breakfast. He jumped up to greet us. We learnt that he had been there on his own for 3 days, doing all the tours on his own...he very extremely happy to see us. That same day about 6 people all showed up, and it turned out to be a good group. We walked in the jungle, we looked for animals, looked for animals, looked for animals...we saw a couple of tucans and numerous other exotic birds, also they had a large 'enclosure' where they had a number of Tapiers (sp?) a bit like a hippo crossed with an ant-eater - these animals were very friendly, strokable...probably shouldn't be able to stroke jungle animals!! We went out in the boats at night and the tapir came too...swimming along side us as we paddled! We learnt a lot about the jungle plants, vines that smell like garlic, ants that taste like lemon, a tree that bleeds red goo that can be used as toothpaste and also with cancer treatment...all pretty fascinating stuff. We went out in the boats at night and found a small caman. We weren't sure if it was real or just a model, again, this was in their 'enclosure' - but then it did move. We tried our hand at pirana fishing. Hours in the canoes, I caught a small sardine and a tiny cat-fish, but no pirana. I suppose if the tourists are fishing everyday the piranas would either catch on and swim elsewhere, or maybe the tourists have caught them all! We were much less afraid of the murky river after our failed attempts!
All the boxes were ticked, but our expectations had been higher. I think to see tons of animals you would have to go much deeper into the jungle, much further from civilisation. The town of Coca was only an hour by boat from the lodge, and exists so that they can tap the oil reserves in the area. Not ideal conditions for animals to flourish.
Today we fly to Quito and then bus up to Colombia. I think the border crossing will be much the same as Peru-Ecuador.
All my photos are on my proper camera and none of the internet access has been fast enough to upload anything yet, so photos will have to come later!
xxx

Sun, sea, surf...

We arrived in Mancora and found ourselves in paradise. Finally hot weather and beach. Holiday time. I've been amazed by how diverse Peru is. It's sooooo dry and barren along the entire length of the coast, but along the rivers and canyons they somehow manage to cultivate the rocky land and grow everything they need. Then you have the cold mountains and the jungle. So many different ways of life, it's amazing.

So, we're staying at Kimba's Bungalows. Best place in town. Just off the beach, we can hear it. Kimba is a surf dude who spent loads of time in Bali, and now he's made this beautiful little resort style bungalow village :) There are horses on the beach, a million surfers, yummy sea food, we have a pool, smoothies for breakfast. It's good. It's good to just be in one place for a while after all the buses. I had a surf lesson yesterday, it was amazing. As I was out sitting on my board waiting for waves, fish are jumping around out of the water all around me, then BOOM! A huge pelican dive bombs into the water after the fish, right next to me...I almost fell off the board. Pelicans flapping around all over the place, looking for breakfast. I'm going back to the beach later with the zoomy zoomy lens to get some pics. The water is warm, no wetsuit required. Went out last night, I think there were more dogs on the beach than people...it's really quiet here. Kirsty is sleeping it off today...

Went for a mild jog along the beach this morning. After the Inca Trail hike, I decided that it was time I tried a little run. Felt ok, just my calves were screaming. I think the beach is a good place to re-start the running, low impact etc. pretty happy about it. As I was running, I ran straight into two washed up animals...not sure if they are big seals or what exactly, but they may have been caught up in fishing nets or something....big birds circling above, they looked as though they had been baking in the sun for a few days :(

Time to go and lie by the pool!

Tomorrow we pack up again and head to Ecuador, another long bus. We don't have time to see much, but we're going to go to Coca and do a 4 or 5 day jungle trip into the Amazon, before heading to Colombia.

--
Isla McRae
6 Durweston Street
London
W1H 1EN
U.K.

0207 2244191
07908 571153

Trujillo and Chan chan

Trujillo is a cute little colonial-style town near the beach, 9 hours north of Lima. It used to be a Spanish walled city and they've now restored all the buildings within the old walls. We visited the Temple of the Sun and Moon, ruins of the Moche people (200-900 AD) then the ruins of Chan Chan, belonging to the Chimu civilization. The inca's then cut off their water supply and defeated them, along with the rest of Peru and beyond. These ruins are basically like big sand castles. It never rains here, hasn't rained for 12 years! They're expecting El Nino this year (lots of crazy rain) and they have scafolding and plastic all ready, just in case the rain washes everything away!

We jumped on another overnight bus bound for the beaches in the north. Next stop, Mancora.

--
Isla McRae
6 Durweston Street
London
W1H 1EN
U.K.

0207 2244191
07908 571153

Lima to the north

So, the crazy bus journey came to an end...21 hours of corners! The first thing that I did when I got off that bus was find a loo to vomit in...again. I think coming down from altitude and the zig-zag journey from hell combined to make me feel like death. We decided the best thing to do was to go and see a movie:2012. We were sure the movie would end in plenty of time for us to head back to the bus depot for our next bus up to Trujillo. Brilliant action-packed movie. Credits start rolling, check the watch...30 minutes before our scheduled departure...uh oh! RUN! Adrenaline still pumping from the excitement of the movie, we dash into the street to find a cab ready to zoom us rapido to the bus. First car started arguing over price...and had a tiny engine. Next! Big car, rapido? Big grin. let's GO! Craziest car journey of my life. The traffic in Lima is nuts at the best of times, never mind when you taxi driver thinks he's Jenson Button. Yikes. We made the bus and passed out.

--
Isla McRae
6 Durweston Street
London
W1H 1EN
U.K.

0207 2244191
07908 571153

Inca Trail to Machu Picchu

>
> I'm currently stuck on a bus in the middle of the desert on my 21
> hour journey from Cusco to Lima. The road appears to be closed,
> everyone is out of their cars, they are playing U2 over the
> speakers. It's actually nice to be stationary after 12 hours of zig
> zag switch back roads coming down from 3000+ metres back to sea level!
>
> 6 of us from our Picolo Locanta Hostel were waiting to be picked up
> at 5:20am, the buzzer went and two cheery guides called out my name
> 'Izla' and Kirsty, the other 4 were going on a different bus. We
> zoomed around the sleeping city of Cusco picking up all the other
> couples, lots if couples! We had a group of 14. We all had breakfast
> together before we started on the 26 mile hike, just a marathon -
> nae worries! We got loaded up with our sleeping bags and camping
> mats and enough warm clothes for the arctic. Everywhere we've been
> there have been little ladies trying to sell us everything -
> massage, Mach Picchu, Lama photo, alpaca... there's no escaping it.
> Even at the start of the hike there are little ladies watching you
> load up - extra strap miss, water at 10 times the price miss,
> walking stick miss...
> Off we go. When you book the trek you have the option of hiring a
> porter to carry some of your luggage. Kirsty and I declined because
> we reckon we're hardcore and carried all our gear. The first day was
> nice and flat, our guide Cesar, pointed out all the other inca sites
> on the way, the sun was shining, we stopped every hour or so.
> We arrived at our first camp, surrounded by snow-capped mountains.
> The gringoes played football with the locals before dinner. The food
> on these treks is unbelievable...mountains and mountains, starter,
> soup, rice, noodles, meat, cake.... Also at the mini-breaks we'd
> have popcorn, biscuits, hot drinks on tap. Breakfast on day 2 was
> amazing - fresh mango, pancakes, porridge, toast, yoghurt...
> We slept pretty well the first night - too hot in all our alpaca
> gear. The tents were about 2 inches apart, but there was a roaring
> river to block out any other noises...snoring etc.
> Day 2 was to be 5 hours uphill, to the highest point 4200 metres-
> Dead Woman's Pass. After Cesar warning us about the climb, Kirsty
> and I decided to enlist the help of an extra porter for the climb.
> We paid a fair day wage but later discovered that our stuff had been
> split up between the existing porters, loading them up even more. We
> had 19 porters with our group and 2 chefs. The porters used to carry
> whatever weight they could, but the Peruvian government brought in
> regulations to make sure they carry a maximum of 25 kgs. They weigh
> the packs each morning...I'm sure some heavy ones slip through. It's
> crazy and so unnecessary. The porters carry up chairs, tables,
> tents, cooking utensils - all of which could be stored at each camp.
> The porters need the jobs and so they are against the construction
> of permanent structures and lodges in the mountains. Some of the
> porters really struggle though, wearing lama skin sandals instead of
> hiking boots, no rain gear. Crazy.
> Anyway, day 2 was tough, even without our packs, then the rain came.
> So much driving freezy rain. That night Cesar told us all the ghost
> stories related to dead woman's pass.
> We all went to the nasty bathrooms in groups!
The next day it was really cloudy, White all around. We missed all the
spectacular views and the rain came again. We had our full packs on
and had aching shoulders by the end of the day - started walking at
6am, finished at 4pm. This last camp was situated just an hour from
Machu Picchu, complete with hot showers and a bar. Civilisation felt
strange after a few days in the middle of nowhere. Showers were good
though!
We woke up at 3:45am and had breakfast. Then queued up at the first
gate. When the gate opened it felt like a gun had gone off...everyone
trying to get there first, jogging along the cliffs to see sun rise.
Crazy argy-bargy going on. The air was filled with anticipation: would
it be as magical as we all hoped?!
We finally climbed the monkey steps up to the sun gate and there it
was below us... and it didn't disappoint. Perfect weather!
Got all the postcard photos before hitting the cafe. Filled up on coke
and food that cost as much as central London's finest cafes. I turned
around to find Kirsty chatting up a fine looking lad from LA, she did
come away with a ticket up Huyna Picchu, the hill overlooking Machu
Picchu. They only give out 400 tickets a day. We joined the queue,
reached the front. Kirsty simply smiled and the wee man let us in with
one ticket. I didn't think it was even worth joining the queue. Good
work Kirsty. We climbed up the steep cliffs for an hour to the top, it
was the most amazing part of my whole trip so far. We saw a couple
getting engaged. The rain came, headed down into town. Met the jealous
group for lunch. Then back to Cusco to sleep! Shattered!
Still feel like I don't know enough about the Incas or Mach Pucchu, so
really looking forward to reading more about it.
Summary: Amazing experience, tougher than I thought it was going to be!!
>

Update coming soon

Got back late last night from the Inca Trail...it was amazing, tougher than I thought it was going to be, but also more beautiful than I thought it was going to be. The weather was pretty rubbish for the 2nd and 3rd day, but it was glorious sunshine by the time we reached Machu Picchu. Exceeded all expectations.
We're catching an overnight bus back to Lima tonight, then another overnight bus tomorrow night to Trujillo - we're finally heading north! :) I'll write up the Inca Trail report from the bus tonight!
xxx

--
Isla McRae
6 Durweston Street
London
W1H 1EN
U.K.

0207 2244191
07908 571153

Inca trail

Tomorrow we start our 4 day trek. It's been a long wait, but we're
pretty excited now. It's been really rainy, we have nice rain ponchos
and lots of socks, snacks and popcorn!
We were both affected by the altitude when we got here, but feeling
good now, ready to rock! We're going with 'Peru Treks' they organise
the whole thing. 16 people in our group plus guides and porters to
carry tents and cooking gear. I hope we have a good group, so many
tourists whinge all the time!! Back on email Sunday.
Have a good week!
x

Sent from my iPhone

Alpaca Sherpa chic

Overnight bus

--
Isla McRae
6 Durweston Street
London
W1H 1EN
U.K.

0207 2244191
07908 571153

Lima to Cusco

So, the night before we left Lima, i am awoken by Kirsty yelping out
in pain. We initially thought that her malaria tablet had got lodged
in her chest... Hours and hours of painful chest compressions
followed. I though she was having a heart attack or something! We went
to hospital in the morning, pretty easy process, they tested her and
told her she was fine. With the pain diminishing, we decided to press
on.
So, our luxury 21 hour bus ride was cancelled due to protesters taking
over the roads. We had to go via Arequipa on the overnight bus
instead. It was a pretty good diversion. We jumped straight on a local
bus out to canyon del colca, for an overnight trip. They advertise
this canyon as being one of Arequipa's main attractions, you'd expect
it to be just down the road, not 5 hours on the bumpiest roads! It was
when we were up at snow level that we realised we hadn't brought warm
enough clothes with us. Even the lamas looked cold. We found some hot
springs to soak in, and early to bed, it was the warmest place to be!
Next morning we caught the 4am bus to the canyon. We almost missed it,
and were blessed with the back seats of the bus...within the first 20
mins, I knew this was going to be a rough trip. I moved to the front
of the bus. It pulled over to let someone off, I jumped off and threw
up... momento por favor... The let me sit up the front after that.
Rough rough rough. We got to the canyon lookout point. From 7-9
condors famously swoop by. We watched the swooping then jumped on a 5
hour bus back to Arequipa. Arequipa is Peru's 2nd largest
city...surrounded by desert.
We had lunch in the main square, dehydrated, ordered a massive bottle
of mineral water. Half way through, Kirsty notices that the water has
loads and LOADS of nasty sediment, dirt, green fluffy balls, she
claims she saw a red worm too. Yuck! I'd drunk about half the bottle.
They must have just filled it up out of the tap or something. We
didn't pay for lunch and the decided that the best thing to do would
be to make ourselves sick... better to get it out instead of letting
it go through our systems. So we found a nice loo and managed to vomit
our nice lunch and scummy water :( sick twice in one day :(
We then jumped on the overnight bus to Cusco - base camp for machu
picchu. We froze on the bus, it rocked up at 5am, we had McDonalds hot
cakes for breakfast, the found our hostel and crashed out.
4 terrible nights sleep in a row. Headache from being at altitude.
Found some coca leaves in the hostel, so have had lots of coca tea.
Nice to be in the one place for a while, we start out trek next
Wednesday, so we're just chilling out and will do some day trips from
here over the next few days.
Can't believe it's only been a week!! Feels like we've been away for
ages!

Sent from my iPhone

Lima, fog, Sherpa chic

So, we survived the 6 hour flight with no entertainment. After
realising that I am pathetic at sudoku I decided to talk to the lady
next to me. She was a missionary, en route to the remote regions. She
had spent time in Laos and Cambodia working with schools, so we had
lots to chat about. As the plane was landing she grabbed my hands and
said a prayer for us, asking god to watch over us on our travels.

Tooting cars, curb crawling policemen! I don't know why I bothered
changing my hair colour.
Lima is on the coast, and there seems to be a constant fog hovering
around the city. Nice enough place, but nothing spectacular. It's not
that warm here, and we're off to the mountains, so we decided to stock
up on winter woollies, Sherpa chic gear. We seem to have backpacks
full of summer skimpy clothes!! We booked a VIP 21 hour luxury bus to
cusco...wifi & food, and fully reclining seats! What more could you
want! That's tomorrow's excitement!
I need to take more photos on my iPhone, it's so easy to upload them
to this page and facebook :)
I used WiFi skype phone for the first tine tonight!! Magic! Free! Just
like chatting on the phone.
Very jet-lagged. We've been waking up at 5:30am and flaking around
8:30pm...
Goodnight x

Sent from my iPhone

Miami done

Waaaa it's been so crazy already, and the real travelling is only just
about to begin!!
Thursday was a long day, on 3 hours of sleep, we finally arrived at
Miami's InterContinental hotel. No free WiFi, no free breakfast, no
free soothing jacuzzi bubbles, but amazing beds :) we got lost on the
way, but a slightly dodgy taxi ride saved us.
Friday, we hung out on south beach, (amazing!!! Huge!!!) built
sandcastles, found some new mascots to join us on the trip... Dino &
Al - photos to follow later! We shopped, swam in the pool, sneaked
into the hotel spa, saw a cockroach! Feels like the off season in Miami.
Today, we watched sun rise over the port of miami, watched dolphins
leaping around the bay! We swam in the pool and then headed to Fort
Lauderdale airport. Now we are about to board a flight to Lima, it's
like ryanair! We're loaded with sweets for the 6 hour flight.
Loving the google free wifi at this airport - that's about the only
thing though. I just paid $1.50 for a banana!
More later! Weather has been perfect :) xxx

Sent from my iPhone

Meetings, Boxes and eBay

4 weeks to go!

I finally handed in my notice at work - bitter sweet. Everyone is pretty excited for me, they're all aware of the big wide world out there, with the majority of the department being Japanese. My boss spent 6 years in Sydney, so that helps, they understand why I need to go. Lots and lots of meetings....

I finally got organised and arranged my boxes for shipping. Anglo Pacific, so far so good. They delivered on Saturday, the driver texted me to let me know that they were outside, 'I didn't want to wake you' at 6:50 am. Now I just have to sell half my life in eBay to get everything IN the boxes. Currently selling an inflatable pumpkin suit?!?! Any takers?

We now have the first few days totally booked. Kirsty gets discounts at Intercontinental Hotels worldwide, so we've booked 2 nights at the Intercontinental on Miami South Beach. May as well start the holiday well rested!
We have flights to Lima, and 2 nights booked in a hostel by the sea. Gives us a day to explore Lima, and work out our route to Cusco, we have a just over a week to play with.

With a trip to Amsterdam, a wedding in Ireland, and a weekend in Scotland, all before I go... time is most definitely running out!!

At least I'm finally off crutches and am able to dash around!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The planning begins

STAGE 1:
Travellers: Kirsty and me
Departure: November 12th 2009
Destinations: Miami, Peru, Bolivia, Brazil, Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala and Belize (time permitting).

STAGE 2:
Travellers: me
Departure: February 15th 2010
Destinations: Borneo (diving), Singapore, Australia.............................

Reasons for the above:
Having been away for 4 years in Japan, life back in London feels too...mainstream, or something!
2 years in an office job has definitely ruined my eyesight, and my soul.
I have an Australian passport but never lived there.
Having trained for an ironman triathlon through the coldest UK winter in 20 years, I decided that enough was enough. Training in Australia will be amazing!
Holidaying from Australia will be amazing!
Life is too short to be stuck in one place.
Travelling with Kirsty will be such a fantastic experience that we'll share forever.
It's time to learn some Spanish!
It's time to learn to surf properly!
Credit crunch - thought I'd throw that in for good measure.
Restless.
Bored.
Time to mix it up.
Bring on the next of life's wee adventures!

Reason for blog:
To keep you all updated on the trials and tribulations of Team McRae, as we scoot around the world.
To make you sufficiently jealous, while you sit at your own office desks, destroying your own eyes, and your own soul ;-)
To inspire you to do something about the above point.

Let the journey begin!