Hey y'all,
I'm starting to get requests for more travel details so that usually means its been a while and time to churn out another edition of the Roni Chronicles...where to start...
I arrived in the States a couple of months ago (wow, it's been that long!) to my fabulous aunt and uncle in Brownsburg, Indiana. I had a great time catching up on sleep, having hot showers, and getting used to the cold again (although I kept getting told that it wasn't cold, to me, it most definitely was!). Arriving in America was a opportunity to completely restock my toilet bag with new lotions and potions with labels in English so I could actually know what I was using rather than pretending all this time. It was also a time for reacquainting myself with american menus. My poor Aunt Val and Uncle John spent many hours sitting at retaurant tables, patiently waiting for me to read through what seemed like endless pages of options, repeatedly telling the poor waitress that we needed 'just one more minute', to eventually come to the decision on what to have for lunch, and then again at dinner, and occasionally at breakfast too...there were just too many options and not seeing tortillas on the menu completely threw me, I had no idea what to order if it didn't come with a tortilla! But eventually we made it through the readjustment period, and although I still get laughed at for eating with a knife and fork, rather than just a fork, meal times are now somewhat less of a mission for us to get through.
Within a week of arriving in America, I had already stepped foot back into a hospital, itching for work that I was, Aunt Val organised for me to job-shadow in the ED of her hospital for a day. Well, that was some experience. It was great being back in the hospital environment, made me realise even more how much I was looking forward to getting back to work, although I really can't wait to get back to my babies rather than the older people in ED, they just didn't respond as well to me blowing bubbles for them! But it was a good introduction to the america health system, the user-pays deal, not my scene, but when you don't know any different then you don't realise how wrong it feels for those of us that do! It definitely had its pros - the technology was fantastic, a computer in every assessment cubicle, a computer for every nurse in the nurses station, everything electronic, and it even comes with its own scanning machine like a supermarket checkout! "Would you like a bag of saline with your order of penicillin today? Beep!". A well-oiled machine...the down-side being the little old ladies, blue in the face and unable to breathe properly that were having to 'sign their life away' as such for insurance purposes before they were even assessed, not so much fun really. But it was a good day, a great experience and a bit of an eye opener...
The next day, I saw in 25 years on the planet, it was a quiet day, no raucous parties, instead lunch out with friends, an afternoon spent holed up in a bead store picking out all new delights, and then dinner out at a Texas Steakhouse where I was completely humiliated to my Uncle's delight by being made to sit on a saddle-chair thing and having it announced to the whole restaurant it was my birthday and then getting "Yea-haa'd!"...so embarassing but all in good fun of course! That weekend, Aunt Valarie and I were off to do the Race for the Cure in downtown Indianapolis, a fundraising walk/run for breast cancer. It was great, thousands of people showed up, survivors, family, friends and everyone inbetween and all pacing out the course around Indianapolis to raise funds. The Zoo even got behind it by having one of their elephants out displaying a huge pink ribbon banner over her as we walked past. And that night we hopped a plane to Orlando, Florida for a few days of rest and relaxation in the Florida sun. I was well-ready to warm up by then and soaking up those warm rays was my number one priority for four days straight. Inbetween times we took in the Great American Pie Festival - although we skipped the All-you-can-eat pie buffet, a couple of nights wandering Downtown Disney, dinner at the Rainforest Cafe (I still love the fact that it rains inside!), and negotiating the huge 25-theatre movie complex and the Mega-Virgin record store. It was a great few days.
In the weeks after that, between organising a job in Canada and trying desperately to sort out my Canadian work permit, I managed to buy myself a new camera so I can now continue to record my journey, organise and upload the photos that I do still have from my travels and write a few emails and make a few phone calls to long lost friends! Its amazing how much organising there is to do when you've been 'in transit' for so long! I also managed to go to the races a few times, my friend Dean has long bred race horses and has been saying for years that he'd take me, so the opportunity arose and off we went to the races and his little beauty Easy-Dashing Gal took out the race, hooray! My winnings of $31.40 was the most I've ever won and probably ever will win, but all from a $2 bet! And I got a photo in the Winner's Circle! Of course the next time she was racing, I had to go again, for moral support of course ;) and she did us proud and won again, hooray! Another photo in the Winner's Circle and a trip back to the stables to congratulate the girl herself, and I have, according to Dean, officially become the good luck charm, a title that comes with a bit of pressure, but I'm willing to bear it of course (thanks Dean!).
The next day it was off to King's Island amusement park in Ohio with my new cousin Matt where we spent an entire day getting thrown around on rollercoaster after rollercoaster, each one faster and scarier than the next, and each line longer and hotter than the next, until we completed our day with a ride on the longest wooden rollercoaster in the world, The Beast. It really was a beast, it was, I think, 4 minutes in duration and fast and scary and very very cool. Our headaches (read brain damage) at the end of the day proved just how cool the rollercoasters were, although I think that I've had my fill for at least the next year!
Only a couple of days after that, I hit the road again, heading for Washington D.C.. I bought my ticket for the Greyhound bus, 'the only way to see America', and thinking that I'd experienced some pretty rough bus trips in the last 15 months, really, how bad could 16 hours on a Greyhound be? Well, I now understand all the laughing at my expense that coincided with that. The Greyhound bus was, hands down, the worst bus ride I have ever had in my life. I was harassed by hideous men from the second I stepped on board til the moment I got off in Washington \nD.C., I got no sleep all night after waking to find someone's hand in my lap(!), and so as you can imagine the trip crawled by. Thankfully I arrived in Washington eventually at 6am and I have never been more grateful to get off a bus in my life! I spent 4 days in Washington seeing all the sights, the monuments dedicated to all the past presidents and the fabulous Smithsonian museums - Museum of Natural History, Memorial Museum of the Holocaust, and the Museum of the Native Americans. I loved Washington, it was so clean and spacious and not at all the grey concrete office-type city that I had imagined, with trees and parks everywhere, and a great coffee shop on every corner! From Washington, I caught an express chinatown bus (never again the Greyhound!) to New York City where I spent a week living the city life. It is such a crazy city, it was everything I imagined it to be really, but better I think. It wasn't as dirty as I had imagined (although it was no Washington), and it was easy to get around and I always felt safe there. I saw all the usual sights - the Statue of Liberty, Brooklyn Bridge, Empire State Building, Rockefeller Centre, Times Square and of course Ground Zero at the World Trade Centre site which is now a huge construction zone for the Freedom Tower. I was lucky enough to be staying right on the edge of Central Park so enjoyed the greenery there, although I did go to relax in the park over the weekend and was scared away by the THOUSANDS of people there on the grass, we're talking not even 30cm between each different group of people, agh! Not nice. I trawled through the Guggenheim and Met museums on cheap night, and had to go to the Natural History museum just to compare it to the movie of course (Night at the Museum, very funny!). So I had a great few days seeing New York before meeting up with a friend Alex from home that I hadn't seen in years we worked out later. We caught up in Times Square, saw the new Shrek 3 - anyone that hasn't seen it yet has got to, its fabulous! We had a fabulous time enjoying Times Square at night, the lights are just overwhelming, so bright that I was actually wondering why the sun hadn't set yet at 11pm but when I looked up it was just the power of the billboards all lit up, crazy! The very next day my friend Lisette from nursing arrived in New York and we had a great couple of days together, wandering all the villages of New York - Little Italy, Chinatown, Greenwich Village, Soho, and then treating ourselves to two(I know!) Broadway shows over two nights. We were in heaven. Lisette's last night in the city we celebrated with New York cheesecake after the show, and the next morning was a wander through Central Park again to the Central Park Zoo where if you have seen Madagascar, you, like myself, will be disappointed to hear that Marty, Alex, Gloria and Melman are not actually residents of the Zoo! No, there are no lions, hippos, giraffes or zebras at the Central Park Zoo. There are however, lots of cute penguins, some sealions and 2 poor bored polar bears. It was a sad farewell to Lisette after that as she carried on her way to camp for the summer, and I headed downtown on my last afternoon to check out the New York Stock Exchange. Now, naive as I am, I thought I could go in and check it out in person...well no, after 9/11 everything has changed and visitors are no longer allowed in to see so it was a little disappointing but I got the photo of the front just like everyone else, and I can at least say that I saw the building...hmph...I did see the Trinity Church which is close to Ground Zero but somehow managed to stay completely untouched in 9/11, talk about saving grace... So that was really it for my time in New York. The next morning I caught another Chinatown bus to Boston but by the time I got to Boston I was sick as a dog with a flu that had been trying to get me down in New York for a couple of days but only succeeded on the bus to Boston. I was in Boston for only 3 days and truthfully didn't really see a lot of the city coz I was just too sick. I found the original Cheers bar, walked part of the historic Freedom Trail and then did a city Trolley tour which takes you around all the important sights - slack I know but it was the only way I was going to see anything in the state I was in! The next day I found the beach right at the end of the subway line, and, still feeling miserable, dipped my toes into the icy Atlantic ocean, and then lay on the sand and tried to absorb a few sun rays. After only a few hours I headed back to the hostel for an early night and then the next day flew back to Indy.
Now I'm back in Indy, again working on my Canadian work permit, and planning a trip for next week up to Chicago for my immigration medical - fun, fun, fun! There are more adventures in the works but you'll have to hear about them all in the next installment. Til then, take care, feel free to check out all my photos I've finally uploaded at www.flickr.com/photos/ronimcgill - you can see all the different sets on the side and just click on them to open, everything from NZ onwards is up there! Enjoy!
Ronald McDonald
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
Friday, April 13, 2007
Spanglish Lessons in Central America: When you don't speak spanish, always find another traveller who does and your problems will be solved!
Hola!
Central America, the true challenge, on my own, just me and my backpack for 5 weeks...it was fabulous! Yes, I did survive, thanks to everyone who emailed their concerns, they were noted...and then disregarded and I was off on my adventure!
I started in Mexico City where I only had a mild meltdown when I realised I was completely on my own again(!). I spent 3 days there seeing the sights, the Cathedral (largest in the Americas), trawling through the Museum of Anthropology for hours and hours (that was one heck of a history lesson!), the Museum of Medicine (took notes on some very cool bizaare natural remedies), and the largest market in Mexico. Spent a day at Teotihuacan, the Temple of the Sun and the Moon, climbing the tallest pyramid in the Americas at 70 metres, the view from the top was pretty good.
I left Mexico City, negotiating the metro system, backpack and all, and headed south to Oaxaca, lovely colonial town famous for markets, weaving, and special Oaxacan mole sauce made with chilli and chocolate - yum! With a few other travellers from the hostel, we went to see the Monte Alban ruins set on top of a huge flat mountain outside of Monte Alban with a view over the whole valley, then weaved our way through the famous Oaxacan markets before jumping on the overnight bus to Puerto Escondido on the Pacific coast of Mexico. The bus ride was something else completely, screaming round corners at breakneck speed all night long, there was no sleep for any of us that night. Arrived in Puerto Escondido, we wandered down to the beach to watch the sunrise before figuring out where we were going. Two of the others moved on to a beach further down the coast but Eileen from Canada and I decided to stay and that was the beginning of more than two weeks travelling together through Mexico.
Puerto Escondido was a beautiful, relaxed beach town, where we spent 3 days lounging on the beach, going out on boats with locals to spot turtles, and drinking margaritas while lying in hammocks, a really hard life. We took the overnight bus to the town of San Cristobal, up in the mountains and freezing cold(!), and did a trip to Canon del Sumidero where we saw caimans, pelicans, herons, and a petrified waterfall cascading down the side of the canyon which was very very cool, shaped like a Christmas tree. After a 2 days there it was back on the late bus to Palenque, a town famous for the ruins in the jungle, and that was exactly where we were headed that next morning. The Palenque ruins were exquisite, beautifully set in thick green jungle with monkeys and birds chirping, we spent a few hours there, looking around and then just lying in the shade of a tree staring up at the ruins. Then it was off to see Misol-Ha, a single waterfall set down the in jungle that you could climb in behind and into the cave, and then onto Agua Azul, a long series of crystal clear blue waterfalls cascading down over sandy coloured stone. We passed the afternoon away just lounging in the waterfalls, enjoying the peace and quiet of the forest around us, it was perfect. Back in Palenque, Eileen and I grabbed our packs and it was back to the bus station, to another overnight bus (saves time AND money on accommodation), this time on our way to Merida. There never seems to be an easy overnight bus ride, but this one wasn't disturbed by the crazy roads or driving, it was disturbed by the military coming aboard at 1am and ordering us all off for a baggage search. Everyone with a pack had to empty the entire thing for it to be searched and then repack it all before we were allowed back on board and the trip could continue...not so much fun in the middle of the night, and in the middle of nowhere, but its just part of the adventure.
Merida was a big town, the centre point for most of the ruins in the Yucatan Peninsula, and after breakfast we headed straight out to Uxmal, where it poured with rain as soon as we got there! The iguanas there seemed to love the rain, they were all out and about which was fun to see, although we definitely fans of the rain that much. We ended up having to do a running tour of the ruins, from building to building coz its not that much fun having to sit soaking wet on a bus back to town for a couple of hours! That night we were invited out to a Salsa club by some locals which was fun enough, except of course, I can't salsa to save myself! They all tried to teach me, but I'm afraid I'm a bit of a lost cause when it comes to having to shake your hips like those south/central American girls can! I was having more fun getting up and playing the maracas with the band! After a few hours sleep, we were up and off to visit Chitchen Itza, the most famous ruins in Mexico. They were pretty impressive but over-crowded with hundreds of tourists so after a couple of hours we grabbed the next bus to Tulum out on the coast - to the beach!
Tulum was a beautiful white sand beach with turquoise water and swaying palm trees where we ended up staying for almost a week, sleeping in our hammocks in a 'dormitory' cabana-style - a large open shack where backpackers could come and hang their own hammock...it was great except for the lack of doors and windows that meant every night you got covered in sand when the wind came up and blew it all over you! But we easily managed to pass a week with lounging on the beach each day, and we even managed to wander the 200 metres down the road to the Tulum ruins after 5 days on the beach! The Tulum ruins were spectacular, set against the amazing backdrop of the turquoise ocean and cliffs, and surrounded by green grass and palm trees, you could imagine why the Mayans chose to build a city there!
Leaving Tulum meant saying goodbye to Eileen as she headed back up north in Mexico and I continued south into Belize where I spent 6 days chilling on Caye Caulker, a very small island off the coast of Belize, famous for the Belizean Barrier Reef. I passed my time there snorkling with nurse sharks and sting rays, soaking up the sun on the dock at the backpackers, hanging with the local Carribbeans, learning how to understand them, getting harrassed by Australian backpackers and meeting my next travelling buddies, all good fun. After almost a week it was time to move on to Guatemala along with new travel buddy Brian from Florida. The bus trip into Guatemala was uneventful until we crossed the border and our bus didn't follow us! We managed to find out after a couple of hours that another bus had broken down and ours had gone back to help out, but hadn't told us about it, so we just had to sit and wait for it to come back, Guatemalan time though! Eventually it returned and we arrived in Flores, Guatemala, a little island on a lake which was just beautiful. There wasn't any room left at the backpackers by the time we got there but they let us sleep in hammocks in the garden so that was fine, we were getting up at 3am for the sunrise tour to the Tikal ruins anyway, it wasn't like we needed to be in the hammocks for long!
Tikal was amazing, again set in the jungle, we arrived in the dark and hiked through the jungle by torchlight til we reached one of the tallest temples where we climbed up to the top and sat to watch sunrise. Sunrise didn't really happen as it was clouded over but we had the most amazing views of tucans flying from tree to tree, talking to each other as they went, and gradually the mist rose and we could see more and more of the ruins poking out from the jungle. We then had a few hours of exploring the ruins, climbing up all the temples, scaling some of the steepest staircases I've ever seen - worse than Angkor Wat in Cambodia that's for sure! We just chilled at the backpackers for the afternoon, then it was time for Bri and I to catch the night bus down to Antigua via Guatemala City. It was a long uncomfortable ride, but I was used to it by then and eventually morning arrived and so did we to Antigua. Antigua is a beautiful town, all cobbled streets and cute buildings. We had a couple of days there, staying at a funky backpackers where I met two kiwi girls which was very exciting, they hadn't met any other kiwis since they'd been travelling and they were the first kiwis I'd met since saying goodbye to Mary back in Brasil so it was fabulous, we didn't stop talking for ages coz it was just so nice to hear someone that sounded the same as I did and who could understand everything I was saying and vice versa! Brian just sat dumbfounded listening to us talking in our kiwi slang about everything, he said later he could only understand half of what we were saying, especially because we were talking so fast too! Of course, we had no problem understanding ourselves! I also met up with a guy Phil at the hostel, who I'd met on my trip to Palenque the few weeks beforehand, it took us a while to figure out where we knew each other from, but we got there in the end, funny what a small world it is when you're backpacking... That afternoon Brian, Phil and I climbed Volcan Pacaya, the active volcano on the outskirts of Antigua. It was a steep climb up but within an hour and a half we were climbing on real lava, feeling the heat coming out of the rocks and daring each other to get as close as possible to the real red hot lava within reach, lot of fun. We stayed there to watch the sun drop down below the clouds and then climbed/slid back down the volcano with torches. It was great, dirty, but good fun.
Another day of wandering the town, exploring markets and drinking fabulous Guatemalan coffee, and then it was another farewell, this time to Brian heading in to El Salvador, and Phil staying in Guatemala, as I carried onto Honduras on the 4am bus - gotta love these early starts! After a very long day, I finally arrived in La Ceiba on the coast of Honduras around 7pm and found somewhere to stay for the night, because the next morning I was off to Utila in the Bay Islands to learn to dive!
The ferry across was rough as anything and there were people dropping like flies everywhere and I was so incredibly thankful I don't get seasick, but after only an hour we had arrived on the island and I was booked into Underwater Vision dive school before I knew it! It helped that the dive instructor from Underwater, Alfred, was on the ferry over too and had me hooked while still onboard! Utila is a great little island, very laidback, with the main reason for visiting being to dive or learn to dive. The dive course started the next day and it was 4 days of sometimes 12hours or longer, hard work but very enjoyable. I loved learning to dive, took to it like a fish to water and am now stuck with the problem of desperately wanting to go back and do my Advanced Diving! I had another few days on the island, enjoying Semana Santa (Easter) and the festivities that go along with it - a huge rave on the beach on the night we finished our course with fire dancers and all sorts was a great way to celebrate getting our Open Water Certificate! After a few fun dives it was time to leave Utila, head back to the mainland and make my way back up to Mexico City.
I was at the airport at 4am the next morning, on board the plane waiting for take off when they decided there was some technical problem and they cancelled the entire flight! It took 8 hours to get everything rebooked, a long day wasted at the airport, but the airline took us back into town for the night at least. The next day went without a hitch and managed to get up to Mexico City smoothly, it was just a long trip with flights from La Ceiba to San Pedro, to San Salvador, to Guatemala Ctiy, to Mexico City! Talk about the long way round! But I got there, and had been planning on sleeping in the airport overnight but a couple that had been delayed with me from Honduras were on the same flight and they lived in Mexico City and took me back to their apartment with them - that was a different experience of Mexico City! They live in a nice neighbourhood and we wandered cafes and enjoyed dinner at a Mexican Japanese fusion restaurant! It was totally different to the few days I had spent in Mexico City those weeks before, that's for sure! The next morning I was back at the airport at 5am, boarding my flight up to the States and after a few hours flying and a nervous customs experience, they finally let me into the country and onto Indianapolis where I was picked up by my Uncle and Aunt - hooray! It was so nice to get picked up from the airport instead of having to find my way somewhere in another strange city to another strange backpackers, what a treat! And I've been nothing but spoiled since I arrived, hot showers every day, my own room with a double bed, not sharing it with 10 other people, and a flushing toilet that really flushes! Its all a little overwhelming, but I'm loving every second, except the weather - in two days we've had tornado warnings one day and snow today! Hard to believe that only 3 days ago I was on a tropical island in the Carribbean...! So I'll be here, hanging out, recuperating for a while, will hopefully travel round a bit, see a few places in the States and then who knows where? But I'm sure there'll be more adventures just around the corner...they never seem to be far away when I'm around!
I hope everyone is well, thanks for all your emails, I promise the individual replies are coming now that I'm back in civilisation!
Take care, and signing off,
Senorita Ronita xxx
Central America, the true challenge, on my own, just me and my backpack for 5 weeks...it was fabulous! Yes, I did survive, thanks to everyone who emailed their concerns, they were noted...and then disregarded and I was off on my adventure!
I started in Mexico City where I only had a mild meltdown when I realised I was completely on my own again(!). I spent 3 days there seeing the sights, the Cathedral (largest in the Americas), trawling through the Museum of Anthropology for hours and hours (that was one heck of a history lesson!), the Museum of Medicine (took notes on some very cool bizaare natural remedies), and the largest market in Mexico. Spent a day at Teotihuacan, the Temple of the Sun and the Moon, climbing the tallest pyramid in the Americas at 70 metres, the view from the top was pretty good.
I left Mexico City, negotiating the metro system, backpack and all, and headed south to Oaxaca, lovely colonial town famous for markets, weaving, and special Oaxacan mole sauce made with chilli and chocolate - yum! With a few other travellers from the hostel, we went to see the Monte Alban ruins set on top of a huge flat mountain outside of Monte Alban with a view over the whole valley, then weaved our way through the famous Oaxacan markets before jumping on the overnight bus to Puerto Escondido on the Pacific coast of Mexico. The bus ride was something else completely, screaming round corners at breakneck speed all night long, there was no sleep for any of us that night. Arrived in Puerto Escondido, we wandered down to the beach to watch the sunrise before figuring out where we were going. Two of the others moved on to a beach further down the coast but Eileen from Canada and I decided to stay and that was the beginning of more than two weeks travelling together through Mexico.
Puerto Escondido was a beautiful, relaxed beach town, where we spent 3 days lounging on the beach, going out on boats with locals to spot turtles, and drinking margaritas while lying in hammocks, a really hard life. We took the overnight bus to the town of San Cristobal, up in the mountains and freezing cold(!), and did a trip to Canon del Sumidero where we saw caimans, pelicans, herons, and a petrified waterfall cascading down the side of the canyon which was very very cool, shaped like a Christmas tree. After a 2 days there it was back on the late bus to Palenque, a town famous for the ruins in the jungle, and that was exactly where we were headed that next morning. The Palenque ruins were exquisite, beautifully set in thick green jungle with monkeys and birds chirping, we spent a few hours there, looking around and then just lying in the shade of a tree staring up at the ruins. Then it was off to see Misol-Ha, a single waterfall set down the in jungle that you could climb in behind and into the cave, and then onto Agua Azul, a long series of crystal clear blue waterfalls cascading down over sandy coloured stone. We passed the afternoon away just lounging in the waterfalls, enjoying the peace and quiet of the forest around us, it was perfect. Back in Palenque, Eileen and I grabbed our packs and it was back to the bus station, to another overnight bus (saves time AND money on accommodation), this time on our way to Merida. There never seems to be an easy overnight bus ride, but this one wasn't disturbed by the crazy roads or driving, it was disturbed by the military coming aboard at 1am and ordering us all off for a baggage search. Everyone with a pack had to empty the entire thing for it to be searched and then repack it all before we were allowed back on board and the trip could continue...not so much fun in the middle of the night, and in the middle of nowhere, but its just part of the adventure.
Merida was a big town, the centre point for most of the ruins in the Yucatan Peninsula, and after breakfast we headed straight out to Uxmal, where it poured with rain as soon as we got there! The iguanas there seemed to love the rain, they were all out and about which was fun to see, although we definitely fans of the rain that much. We ended up having to do a running tour of the ruins, from building to building coz its not that much fun having to sit soaking wet on a bus back to town for a couple of hours! That night we were invited out to a Salsa club by some locals which was fun enough, except of course, I can't salsa to save myself! They all tried to teach me, but I'm afraid I'm a bit of a lost cause when it comes to having to shake your hips like those south/central American girls can! I was having more fun getting up and playing the maracas with the band! After a few hours sleep, we were up and off to visit Chitchen Itza, the most famous ruins in Mexico. They were pretty impressive but over-crowded with hundreds of tourists so after a couple of hours we grabbed the next bus to Tulum out on the coast - to the beach!
Tulum was a beautiful white sand beach with turquoise water and swaying palm trees where we ended up staying for almost a week, sleeping in our hammocks in a 'dormitory' cabana-style - a large open shack where backpackers could come and hang their own hammock...it was great except for the lack of doors and windows that meant every night you got covered in sand when the wind came up and blew it all over you! But we easily managed to pass a week with lounging on the beach each day, and we even managed to wander the 200 metres down the road to the Tulum ruins after 5 days on the beach! The Tulum ruins were spectacular, set against the amazing backdrop of the turquoise ocean and cliffs, and surrounded by green grass and palm trees, you could imagine why the Mayans chose to build a city there!
Leaving Tulum meant saying goodbye to Eileen as she headed back up north in Mexico and I continued south into Belize where I spent 6 days chilling on Caye Caulker, a very small island off the coast of Belize, famous for the Belizean Barrier Reef. I passed my time there snorkling with nurse sharks and sting rays, soaking up the sun on the dock at the backpackers, hanging with the local Carribbeans, learning how to understand them, getting harrassed by Australian backpackers and meeting my next travelling buddies, all good fun. After almost a week it was time to move on to Guatemala along with new travel buddy Brian from Florida. The bus trip into Guatemala was uneventful until we crossed the border and our bus didn't follow us! We managed to find out after a couple of hours that another bus had broken down and ours had gone back to help out, but hadn't told us about it, so we just had to sit and wait for it to come back, Guatemalan time though! Eventually it returned and we arrived in Flores, Guatemala, a little island on a lake which was just beautiful. There wasn't any room left at the backpackers by the time we got there but they let us sleep in hammocks in the garden so that was fine, we were getting up at 3am for the sunrise tour to the Tikal ruins anyway, it wasn't like we needed to be in the hammocks for long!
Tikal was amazing, again set in the jungle, we arrived in the dark and hiked through the jungle by torchlight til we reached one of the tallest temples where we climbed up to the top and sat to watch sunrise. Sunrise didn't really happen as it was clouded over but we had the most amazing views of tucans flying from tree to tree, talking to each other as they went, and gradually the mist rose and we could see more and more of the ruins poking out from the jungle. We then had a few hours of exploring the ruins, climbing up all the temples, scaling some of the steepest staircases I've ever seen - worse than Angkor Wat in Cambodia that's for sure! We just chilled at the backpackers for the afternoon, then it was time for Bri and I to catch the night bus down to Antigua via Guatemala City. It was a long uncomfortable ride, but I was used to it by then and eventually morning arrived and so did we to Antigua. Antigua is a beautiful town, all cobbled streets and cute buildings. We had a couple of days there, staying at a funky backpackers where I met two kiwi girls which was very exciting, they hadn't met any other kiwis since they'd been travelling and they were the first kiwis I'd met since saying goodbye to Mary back in Brasil so it was fabulous, we didn't stop talking for ages coz it was just so nice to hear someone that sounded the same as I did and who could understand everything I was saying and vice versa! Brian just sat dumbfounded listening to us talking in our kiwi slang about everything, he said later he could only understand half of what we were saying, especially because we were talking so fast too! Of course, we had no problem understanding ourselves! I also met up with a guy Phil at the hostel, who I'd met on my trip to Palenque the few weeks beforehand, it took us a while to figure out where we knew each other from, but we got there in the end, funny what a small world it is when you're backpacking... That afternoon Brian, Phil and I climbed Volcan Pacaya, the active volcano on the outskirts of Antigua. It was a steep climb up but within an hour and a half we were climbing on real lava, feeling the heat coming out of the rocks and daring each other to get as close as possible to the real red hot lava within reach, lot of fun. We stayed there to watch the sun drop down below the clouds and then climbed/slid back down the volcano with torches. It was great, dirty, but good fun.
Another day of wandering the town, exploring markets and drinking fabulous Guatemalan coffee, and then it was another farewell, this time to Brian heading in to El Salvador, and Phil staying in Guatemala, as I carried onto Honduras on the 4am bus - gotta love these early starts! After a very long day, I finally arrived in La Ceiba on the coast of Honduras around 7pm and found somewhere to stay for the night, because the next morning I was off to Utila in the Bay Islands to learn to dive!
The ferry across was rough as anything and there were people dropping like flies everywhere and I was so incredibly thankful I don't get seasick, but after only an hour we had arrived on the island and I was booked into Underwater Vision dive school before I knew it! It helped that the dive instructor from Underwater, Alfred, was on the ferry over too and had me hooked while still onboard! Utila is a great little island, very laidback, with the main reason for visiting being to dive or learn to dive. The dive course started the next day and it was 4 days of sometimes 12hours or longer, hard work but very enjoyable. I loved learning to dive, took to it like a fish to water and am now stuck with the problem of desperately wanting to go back and do my Advanced Diving! I had another few days on the island, enjoying Semana Santa (Easter) and the festivities that go along with it - a huge rave on the beach on the night we finished our course with fire dancers and all sorts was a great way to celebrate getting our Open Water Certificate! After a few fun dives it was time to leave Utila, head back to the mainland and make my way back up to Mexico City.
I was at the airport at 4am the next morning, on board the plane waiting for take off when they decided there was some technical problem and they cancelled the entire flight! It took 8 hours to get everything rebooked, a long day wasted at the airport, but the airline took us back into town for the night at least. The next day went without a hitch and managed to get up to Mexico City smoothly, it was just a long trip with flights from La Ceiba to San Pedro, to San Salvador, to Guatemala Ctiy, to Mexico City! Talk about the long way round! But I got there, and had been planning on sleeping in the airport overnight but a couple that had been delayed with me from Honduras were on the same flight and they lived in Mexico City and took me back to their apartment with them - that was a different experience of Mexico City! They live in a nice neighbourhood and we wandered cafes and enjoyed dinner at a Mexican Japanese fusion restaurant! It was totally different to the few days I had spent in Mexico City those weeks before, that's for sure! The next morning I was back at the airport at 5am, boarding my flight up to the States and after a few hours flying and a nervous customs experience, they finally let me into the country and onto Indianapolis where I was picked up by my Uncle and Aunt - hooray! It was so nice to get picked up from the airport instead of having to find my way somewhere in another strange city to another strange backpackers, what a treat! And I've been nothing but spoiled since I arrived, hot showers every day, my own room with a double bed, not sharing it with 10 other people, and a flushing toilet that really flushes! Its all a little overwhelming, but I'm loving every second, except the weather - in two days we've had tornado warnings one day and snow today! Hard to believe that only 3 days ago I was on a tropical island in the Carribbean...! So I'll be here, hanging out, recuperating for a while, will hopefully travel round a bit, see a few places in the States and then who knows where? But I'm sure there'll be more adventures just around the corner...they never seem to be far away when I'm around!
I hope everyone is well, thanks for all your emails, I promise the individual replies are coming now that I'm back in civilisation!
Take care, and signing off,
Senorita Ronita xxx
Spanglish Lessons from Brasil: Disaster, it all went to custard when I had to start speaking Portuguese...
Oi! (yes, I picked up how to say hello in Portuguese at least!)
Time has again passed in a mad whirlwind here in South America, in the lush and tropical land of Brasil (yes, note the spelling, the rest of the world seems to get it wrong for some reason). Brasil has been an amazing country full of fabulous experiences, taking me a little by surprise. I didn´t have a lot of expectations, you never know what you´re going to get when you arrive somewhere, but I have truly loved Brasil and almost everything it has to offer.
We crossed over the border from Argentina into Foz do Iguacu where we had a couple of days to enjoy the incredible beauty of the Iguacu falls, all 250 of them, stretching across two countries and covering anyone within a kilometre radius with water spray from the force of them! From there it was straight into the Pantanal, a mere 230,000 square kilometres of tropical wetland, mosquito haven, and animal and bird paradise. We spent two nights at the jungle farm, sleeping in hammocks, enjoying horse-riding, jungle-trekking, toucan-spotting, croc-catching and piranha fishing, and one night in the jungle lodge getting cosy with the millions of mozzies that we got to know quite intimately. It was a first for many things, learning to recognise yet another species from the croc family - the caiman, spotting toucans and macaws flying free in the open, learning what a Capybara looks like (the worlds largest rodent) and how to say its name, and finding out what piranha tastes like (fishy, if you were wondering)! It was wicked, and definitely one of the highlights of my whole trip.
After the Pantanal, we went looking for some refuge from the mosquitos in Bonito, a small town known for its crystal clear water and amazing snorkling. Well, the water was clear and the snorkling was ok (not the ´best in the world´ i´d been told), but we definitely didn´t find any refuge from the mozzies so we high-tailed it out of there after a couple of days, in favour of heading north towards Parati, giving time for our bites to heal. We stopped along the way at a nice little beach town where it poured with rain so we all voted for an upgrade and ditched the tents for a night and found a couple of nice little cabanas to shelter from the rain in. It was all going well, sitting inside, playing cards, a fridge to cool the drinks, until bed time when we discovered that the roof had been leaking downstairs right onto the beds! So 6 of us were all upstairs, squished together like peas in a pod, sharing 3 mattresses on the floor, but at least we were dry, and had the bonus of not having to pull our tent down the next morning! Hooray!
Parati was a bit crazy, the last stop before Rio meant that all the overland trucks that had been travelling through South America for the last 4 months were all congregating together at two little campsites for the few days beforehand, and it all equaled madness. It was a pre-Rio buildup of partying 24/7, as well as throwing an all day boat-cruise in there too! A lethal combination of sun, salt, sea and drinking, ending in everyone needing a Nana-nap by dinner time!
Saying farewell to Parati meant we were on our way to Rio de Janiero, and it was the last leg of our journey. It was a fairly short drive to Rio, only 4 hours, and the time passed quickly with many repeats of Peter Allan´s `I go to Rio´ and lots of maraca shaking, all in preparation for the Carnaval of course! The Carnaval was an incredible 5 days of street parties, parades, balls at the Scala Club (including the Red & Black Ball, and the Gay Ball), staying up all night and getting back to the hotel in time for breakfast before we crashed, and of course, lots of Samba-ing. The night of the Sambadrome parade was incredible, 9 hours of solid samba, 6 different samba schools, each with more than 5000 members, all competing to be named the best school, it was crazy. We were in the cheap seats (of course, being Budget!) right down the end of the Sambadrome which is 1.6km long, in with all the locals, it was such a crazy atmosphere, lasting all the way til 6am.
The end of Carnaval on the 21st of Feb meant the end of my `Budget Expedition´ and it was a sad farewell to many friends, heading off to all over the world, and it was also time for some serious recovery and relaxation! If only...
The day after Carnaval, Lindsey, Becs and I thought we´d try and do a little sightseeing, and for the first time since arriving in Rio took our cameras out of the hotel and walked the 5 minutes up the road to see the famous Rio Arches and take a photo. Unfortunately while taking the photo, two street kids decided to make the most of the opportunity and one jumped Lindz and took off with her camera, and the other got me from behind and tried to steal mine. Unfortuantely my camera was still around my neck and under my arm so in the process I got pulled to the ground and dragged across the concrete until eventually my camera strap broke and the kid got away with it. So it was a very sad farewell to all my photos from Argentina, Chile and Brasil, damn these big memory cards! It ended up as not as relaxing a day as planned coz we had to then spend the rest of the day and what felt like all night, at the police station making a report and filling in paperwork. Not fun. But at least we were ok, no major injuries, just a few bruises and grazes, and at least we didn´t have anything else on us or that would´ve gone too I would imagine!
So after that, Lindz and I were happy to move out of our hotel in the semi-dodgy area of Lapa, and into our accommodation for the next week and a half, only a couple of blocks back off Copacabana Beach! We´ve had a lovely semi-relaxing 10 days of lying on the beach, swimming, wandering all the different beaches including Ipanema and Leblon, sightseeing up Sugarloaf Mountain and Christ the Redeemer and generally laying about inbetween organising flights, camera shopping, and insurance reports!
So now it comes time to farewell South America, and funny enough, on the anniversary of my leaving New Zealand last year to head to the Outback. South America has been an incredible journey through so many different landscapes - mountains, beaches, deserts and jungle, and so many different countries. I have experienced all sorts of emotions, incredible highs, with a few lows, and all things in between, and I have a million memories to draw on. I think I can say without a doubt, it has been everything I hoped it would be. Now it is time to move onto the next adventure, I fly out tonight to Mexico City where I have 5 weeks to travel through Central America as I please, on my own, me and my backpack and wherever the wind takes us...hopefully somewhere along the lines of Mexico, Belize, Honduras and Guatemala...a new direction, a new adventure and another million memories to make. Can it get better than this...?
Til next time, take care,
Senorita Ronita xxx
Time has again passed in a mad whirlwind here in South America, in the lush and tropical land of Brasil (yes, note the spelling, the rest of the world seems to get it wrong for some reason). Brasil has been an amazing country full of fabulous experiences, taking me a little by surprise. I didn´t have a lot of expectations, you never know what you´re going to get when you arrive somewhere, but I have truly loved Brasil and almost everything it has to offer.
We crossed over the border from Argentina into Foz do Iguacu where we had a couple of days to enjoy the incredible beauty of the Iguacu falls, all 250 of them, stretching across two countries and covering anyone within a kilometre radius with water spray from the force of them! From there it was straight into the Pantanal, a mere 230,000 square kilometres of tropical wetland, mosquito haven, and animal and bird paradise. We spent two nights at the jungle farm, sleeping in hammocks, enjoying horse-riding, jungle-trekking, toucan-spotting, croc-catching and piranha fishing, and one night in the jungle lodge getting cosy with the millions of mozzies that we got to know quite intimately. It was a first for many things, learning to recognise yet another species from the croc family - the caiman, spotting toucans and macaws flying free in the open, learning what a Capybara looks like (the worlds largest rodent) and how to say its name, and finding out what piranha tastes like (fishy, if you were wondering)! It was wicked, and definitely one of the highlights of my whole trip.
After the Pantanal, we went looking for some refuge from the mosquitos in Bonito, a small town known for its crystal clear water and amazing snorkling. Well, the water was clear and the snorkling was ok (not the ´best in the world´ i´d been told), but we definitely didn´t find any refuge from the mozzies so we high-tailed it out of there after a couple of days, in favour of heading north towards Parati, giving time for our bites to heal. We stopped along the way at a nice little beach town where it poured with rain so we all voted for an upgrade and ditched the tents for a night and found a couple of nice little cabanas to shelter from the rain in. It was all going well, sitting inside, playing cards, a fridge to cool the drinks, until bed time when we discovered that the roof had been leaking downstairs right onto the beds! So 6 of us were all upstairs, squished together like peas in a pod, sharing 3 mattresses on the floor, but at least we were dry, and had the bonus of not having to pull our tent down the next morning! Hooray!
Parati was a bit crazy, the last stop before Rio meant that all the overland trucks that had been travelling through South America for the last 4 months were all congregating together at two little campsites for the few days beforehand, and it all equaled madness. It was a pre-Rio buildup of partying 24/7, as well as throwing an all day boat-cruise in there too! A lethal combination of sun, salt, sea and drinking, ending in everyone needing a Nana-nap by dinner time!
Saying farewell to Parati meant we were on our way to Rio de Janiero, and it was the last leg of our journey. It was a fairly short drive to Rio, only 4 hours, and the time passed quickly with many repeats of Peter Allan´s `I go to Rio´ and lots of maraca shaking, all in preparation for the Carnaval of course! The Carnaval was an incredible 5 days of street parties, parades, balls at the Scala Club (including the Red & Black Ball, and the Gay Ball), staying up all night and getting back to the hotel in time for breakfast before we crashed, and of course, lots of Samba-ing. The night of the Sambadrome parade was incredible, 9 hours of solid samba, 6 different samba schools, each with more than 5000 members, all competing to be named the best school, it was crazy. We were in the cheap seats (of course, being Budget!) right down the end of the Sambadrome which is 1.6km long, in with all the locals, it was such a crazy atmosphere, lasting all the way til 6am.
The end of Carnaval on the 21st of Feb meant the end of my `Budget Expedition´ and it was a sad farewell to many friends, heading off to all over the world, and it was also time for some serious recovery and relaxation! If only...
The day after Carnaval, Lindsey, Becs and I thought we´d try and do a little sightseeing, and for the first time since arriving in Rio took our cameras out of the hotel and walked the 5 minutes up the road to see the famous Rio Arches and take a photo. Unfortunately while taking the photo, two street kids decided to make the most of the opportunity and one jumped Lindz and took off with her camera, and the other got me from behind and tried to steal mine. Unfortuantely my camera was still around my neck and under my arm so in the process I got pulled to the ground and dragged across the concrete until eventually my camera strap broke and the kid got away with it. So it was a very sad farewell to all my photos from Argentina, Chile and Brasil, damn these big memory cards! It ended up as not as relaxing a day as planned coz we had to then spend the rest of the day and what felt like all night, at the police station making a report and filling in paperwork. Not fun. But at least we were ok, no major injuries, just a few bruises and grazes, and at least we didn´t have anything else on us or that would´ve gone too I would imagine!
So after that, Lindz and I were happy to move out of our hotel in the semi-dodgy area of Lapa, and into our accommodation for the next week and a half, only a couple of blocks back off Copacabana Beach! We´ve had a lovely semi-relaxing 10 days of lying on the beach, swimming, wandering all the different beaches including Ipanema and Leblon, sightseeing up Sugarloaf Mountain and Christ the Redeemer and generally laying about inbetween organising flights, camera shopping, and insurance reports!
So now it comes time to farewell South America, and funny enough, on the anniversary of my leaving New Zealand last year to head to the Outback. South America has been an incredible journey through so many different landscapes - mountains, beaches, deserts and jungle, and so many different countries. I have experienced all sorts of emotions, incredible highs, with a few lows, and all things in between, and I have a million memories to draw on. I think I can say without a doubt, it has been everything I hoped it would be. Now it is time to move onto the next adventure, I fly out tonight to Mexico City where I have 5 weeks to travel through Central America as I please, on my own, me and my backpack and wherever the wind takes us...hopefully somewhere along the lines of Mexico, Belize, Honduras and Guatemala...a new direction, a new adventure and another million memories to make. Can it get better than this...?
Til next time, take care,
Senorita Ronita xxx
Spanglish Lessons in Patagonia: Frio = cold, Muy frio = very cold!!!
Hola! Happy New Year to everyone, I hope you all had a fabulous one!
Now as per usual, I know its been a while since the last update and I've packed so much into that time that there is no way that i can put it all down in an email, or you'll all be bored to tears by half way through. So I'm going to do what I promise to do each time (and never actually do it) and try and make it quick, i'll skip parts and just give a general outline of the crazy stunts i've been up to this episode...
Christmas was spent on the beach in Bahia Inglesia, Chile, and it was a fabulous celebration which spanned 2 days and 5 countries, where copious amounts of alcohol were consumed for us and all those at home, and there followed many crazy antics as you can imagine including the Budget Expeditions Christmas Olympics where the prize was a bottle of rum, just incase we didn't have enough! So it was a Xmas like no other before and I couldn't think of a better way to celebrate really! After Xmas was more beach time at La Serena and a couple of days in Santiago before heading into the mountains to Pucon where we spent New Years camped beside a lake underneath beautiful snow-capped peaks. I even managed to climb a live volcano on new years eve, in the ice and snow to get to the top, to not be able to see any lava that day coz there was too much wind and too much thick gas blocking our view, bugger. It was terrifying, but at least I can say that I've done it right? Although I think i'm quickly working out that i'm more of a beach girl that a snow girl... So New Year's was a repeat of Xmas really, another 2 day affair with much silliness, practical jokes, and laughter. It poured with rain at midnight and everyone got saoked but it didn't ruin the party, just made me feel at home really!
Since NY's, we've been travelling through Patagonia by way of Argentina, from Bariloche (chocolate capital of Argentina - heaven!) through El Chalten, and El Calafate, all the way down to Ushuaia, 'the end of the world', the world's southern-most city. In that time as well as getting steadily colder and colder and colder, I've trekked my butt off, completing an insane 40km trek to Torre Glacier and back, in one day! It was pure madness and I loved every second of it, I trekked to the glacier, had to pull myself across the river on a rope and then continue the trek to reach the front of the glacier where we spent a couple of hours walking over the glacier before repeating everything just in a backwards order! I don't think my feet have quite recovered still weeks down the track...and I was wondering why there were only 2 of us that wanted to do the trek, hmmm.... We saw the Merino glacier, one of the most active glaciers, watched the huge chunks of ice come crashing down into the water in front of us, very cool, and in Ushuaia trekked for a day in Tierre del Fuego National park where I saw heaps of beaver dams and real woodpeckers that looked just like Woody Woodpecker!
Leaving Ushuaia, I was more than happy to be heading back up north, thinking that at least I'd be starting to get some heat back in my bones after a consistant 4-10 degrees, but I was mistaken. We went back into Chile to Torres del Paine National Park where we spent 4 days camping and walking. The first day it poured with rain and we spent the day all crowded into the one shelter in our camping area playing cards and drinking rum to stay warm and thankfully for the days after that the weather cleared up. So it was off to trek the Grey Glacier, another beautiful walk and beautiful glacier, although there were moments where the wind was so strong we were getting blown off the track! I spent the next day horse-riding, weaving in and around trees through the forest, crossing 6 water-crossings where the water was up to the horses saddle and taking in the beautiful scenery around me of Torres del Paine, one of the most beautiful parks I've seen here.
After Torres, we did start to warm up a bit, staying in Puerto Madryn for a couple of days, lying on the beach, soaking up the rays, I was the only one not complaining about the heat for the first bit! Now that I'd got the chill out of my bones i was happy as Larry and ready to take on Buenos Aires which was next on the agenda and wow, what a fabulous city it is! We danced all night long at club 69 to the crazy transvestite show they put on, took in a Tango show at the famous Cafe Tortoni, enjoyed a bike tour around the city - definitely recommended why to see the sites, as well as shopping til we dropped! The Recoleta cemetery where Eva Peron is buried was incredible, like a city all of its own with proper cobbled streets and mausoleums instead of houses, and scraggly cats running around everywhere, and the Pink Presidential Palace was looking fabulous for us, underneath a layer of scaffolding and netting! Not a good time for renovations when I want a photo! But I loved Buenos Aires, it would have to be my favourite city here in South America easily and was most upset to leave...until we got to our next stop on way to Puerto Iguazu which had a swimming pool in the campground! Most exciting when its over 30 degrees and humidity is around 80%! We're now in Puerto Iguazu where this campground has a pool too, so really, you're lucky i'm writing an email at all! We're off to see the Iguaza falls tomorrow which should be fab and then its a sad farewell to Argentina, I have loved it, and into Brazil for the final countdown to Rio Carnaval in little over 2 weeks, hooray! I can't believe it'll all be coming to an end so soon, but its been a blast so far and the last few weeks are only going to get crazier, bring it on!
Hope everyone is well, love to all, keep the emails coming!
Senorita Ronita xxx
Now as per usual, I know its been a while since the last update and I've packed so much into that time that there is no way that i can put it all down in an email, or you'll all be bored to tears by half way through. So I'm going to do what I promise to do each time (and never actually do it) and try and make it quick, i'll skip parts and just give a general outline of the crazy stunts i've been up to this episode...
Christmas was spent on the beach in Bahia Inglesia, Chile, and it was a fabulous celebration which spanned 2 days and 5 countries, where copious amounts of alcohol were consumed for us and all those at home, and there followed many crazy antics as you can imagine including the Budget Expeditions Christmas Olympics where the prize was a bottle of rum, just incase we didn't have enough! So it was a Xmas like no other before and I couldn't think of a better way to celebrate really! After Xmas was more beach time at La Serena and a couple of days in Santiago before heading into the mountains to Pucon where we spent New Years camped beside a lake underneath beautiful snow-capped peaks. I even managed to climb a live volcano on new years eve, in the ice and snow to get to the top, to not be able to see any lava that day coz there was too much wind and too much thick gas blocking our view, bugger. It was terrifying, but at least I can say that I've done it right? Although I think i'm quickly working out that i'm more of a beach girl that a snow girl... So New Year's was a repeat of Xmas really, another 2 day affair with much silliness, practical jokes, and laughter. It poured with rain at midnight and everyone got saoked but it didn't ruin the party, just made me feel at home really!
Since NY's, we've been travelling through Patagonia by way of Argentina, from Bariloche (chocolate capital of Argentina - heaven!) through El Chalten, and El Calafate, all the way down to Ushuaia, 'the end of the world', the world's southern-most city. In that time as well as getting steadily colder and colder and colder, I've trekked my butt off, completing an insane 40km trek to Torre Glacier and back, in one day! It was pure madness and I loved every second of it, I trekked to the glacier, had to pull myself across the river on a rope and then continue the trek to reach the front of the glacier where we spent a couple of hours walking over the glacier before repeating everything just in a backwards order! I don't think my feet have quite recovered still weeks down the track...and I was wondering why there were only 2 of us that wanted to do the trek, hmmm.... We saw the Merino glacier, one of the most active glaciers, watched the huge chunks of ice come crashing down into the water in front of us, very cool, and in Ushuaia trekked for a day in Tierre del Fuego National park where I saw heaps of beaver dams and real woodpeckers that looked just like Woody Woodpecker!
Leaving Ushuaia, I was more than happy to be heading back up north, thinking that at least I'd be starting to get some heat back in my bones after a consistant 4-10 degrees, but I was mistaken. We went back into Chile to Torres del Paine National Park where we spent 4 days camping and walking. The first day it poured with rain and we spent the day all crowded into the one shelter in our camping area playing cards and drinking rum to stay warm and thankfully for the days after that the weather cleared up. So it was off to trek the Grey Glacier, another beautiful walk and beautiful glacier, although there were moments where the wind was so strong we were getting blown off the track! I spent the next day horse-riding, weaving in and around trees through the forest, crossing 6 water-crossings where the water was up to the horses saddle and taking in the beautiful scenery around me of Torres del Paine, one of the most beautiful parks I've seen here.
After Torres, we did start to warm up a bit, staying in Puerto Madryn for a couple of days, lying on the beach, soaking up the rays, I was the only one not complaining about the heat for the first bit! Now that I'd got the chill out of my bones i was happy as Larry and ready to take on Buenos Aires which was next on the agenda and wow, what a fabulous city it is! We danced all night long at club 69 to the crazy transvestite show they put on, took in a Tango show at the famous Cafe Tortoni, enjoyed a bike tour around the city - definitely recommended why to see the sites, as well as shopping til we dropped! The Recoleta cemetery where Eva Peron is buried was incredible, like a city all of its own with proper cobbled streets and mausoleums instead of houses, and scraggly cats running around everywhere, and the Pink Presidential Palace was looking fabulous for us, underneath a layer of scaffolding and netting! Not a good time for renovations when I want a photo! But I loved Buenos Aires, it would have to be my favourite city here in South America easily and was most upset to leave...until we got to our next stop on way to Puerto Iguazu which had a swimming pool in the campground! Most exciting when its over 30 degrees and humidity is around 80%! We're now in Puerto Iguazu where this campground has a pool too, so really, you're lucky i'm writing an email at all! We're off to see the Iguaza falls tomorrow which should be fab and then its a sad farewell to Argentina, I have loved it, and into Brazil for the final countdown to Rio Carnaval in little over 2 weeks, hooray! I can't believe it'll all be coming to an end so soon, but its been a blast so far and the last few weeks are only going to get crazier, bring it on!
Hope everyone is well, love to all, keep the emails coming!
Senorita Ronita xxx
Spanglish lessons in Bolivia: This one´s easy - Feliz Navidad!
Hola!
Well, another country checked off the list as such, Bolivia went by far too quickly with only a week and half to try to experience it...although we did manage to fit a heck of a lot in in that short time - as per usual!
La Paz was big and dirty and manic 24 hours a day and it probably wasn´t a favourite. We were staying in the dodgiest place yet with live wires hanging down through the ceiling, the hot water heater sparking above our heads in the shower and open light switches in the bathroom next to the shower with no curtain to stop the splashes! Not to mention the 10 flights of stairs to get up to the room...an experience that´s for sure... But from La Paz we got to go up to Death Road and mountain bike down it at breakneck speed on a gravel road with a sheer cliff on one side, now you can´t have more fun than that really. We started at 4640m above sea level and cycled down 64km and 3364m of gravel road, defying death the whole way and managed to reach the bottom with no loss of skin, teeth or broken bones, and with enough energy to keep hold of a cold beer - well earned I think! Seriously good fun and much recommended if you´re ever in Bolivia!
After that adrenaline pumping ride, we left La Paz on our way to Uyuni where we spent 2 days on the largest salt flat in the world, driving around in 4wd jeeps taking crazy photos of each other standing on other peoples heads and falling out of salt shakers. It was a great couple of days, climbing over Fish Island covered in the largest cacti you´ve ever seen, and then the next day climbing a volcano on the edge of the salt flat to get a fabulous view of miles around. The most exciting part of our adventure was when our fabulous driver spent the whole of the first day falling asleep at the wheel! Now that was something that none of us had learnt to say in spanish yet - wake up! But with continued loud coughing, sneezing, laughing, and even a couple of songs thrown in there for good measure, we made it to safety at the end of the day....good thing that there´s not a lot that can go wrong on a large flat piece of salt right? We did miss one stop that our driver slept through when everyone else pulled off but not to worry, when we caught up with everyone at the end of the day, they said it was kinda boring anyway! We were pretty grateful we didn´t have to send the recordings of our ´final words´ home though...yes we did make them - watching them now is pretty funny actually! So a great couple of days, Sleepy Sam the driver was on his best behaviour the next day, bit of a bummer really coz I was ready to jump into the drivers seat if he feel asleep again! But made it back to Uyuni no probs, and Sleepy Sam only got half a tip!
Sucre was the next stop, the official capital Bolivia. It was a lovely town with fabulous chocolate shops that we all made use of for the day we were there. And then it was on to Potosi, the highest town of its size in the world. We had just a day there also, but it was enough. A few of us had a tour of the Silver mine there, climbing 2kms into the side of a mountain at 4500m with no ventilation and miners working all around you in horrendous conditions, it wasn´t a fabulous time, but it was a very worthwhile experience to see how hard life is for people still. You should have seen my jaw drop as 3 men pushed a trolley past me carrying 2 tonnes of rock, it was incredible. After a couple of hours underground as such, and after inhaling about 2kg of dust and dirt, we emerged into the daylight and got to go blow up some dynamite! That was wicked, it was so loud and the whole ground shook, but it was good fun.
And that was Bolivia really, it was too short to really get into the culture, but from what I saw of it I liked it. The people were friendly, the landscape quite harsh and dry in most parts, but it was wicked.
After Bolivia we crossed the border into Salta, Argentina for just a few days, enough time to lie beside the pool at the campground and soak up the sun, and then go white water rafting and zip-lining, both of which were wicked. The rafting wasn´t too tough, it was more of an opportunity to attack each other in the different rafts with water, great fun for a couple of hours. After a wicked Argentinian bbq for lunch - the best steak ever!, it was off to zip-lining where they shove you in a haress, clip you onto a wire and then send you soaring across rivers, between mountains, and over canopies. It was wicked! The longest wire was 500m long and we were hundreds of metres up above the ground, definitely got the adrenaline pumping!
Now we´ve crossed over the border again, out of Argentina for now and into San Pedro, Chile. Got up at 3.45am this morning to see the Tatio geyser which was worth every minute of lost sleep, it was so cool. It was minus 5 degrees, in the Atacama desert, the dryest place in the world and we could´ve been on another planet with all the geysers and thermal vents. It was awesome. We´re off to see the Valley of the Moon in about 10 minutes so I´m going to have to leave you now and run back to camp. But I want to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas, I´ll be thinking of you, those at home in Kiwiland and everyelse all over the world, while I´m lying on the beach enjoying my South American christmas. Take care all, be safe over the holidays.
Senorita Ronita xxx
Well, another country checked off the list as such, Bolivia went by far too quickly with only a week and half to try to experience it...although we did manage to fit a heck of a lot in in that short time - as per usual!
La Paz was big and dirty and manic 24 hours a day and it probably wasn´t a favourite. We were staying in the dodgiest place yet with live wires hanging down through the ceiling, the hot water heater sparking above our heads in the shower and open light switches in the bathroom next to the shower with no curtain to stop the splashes! Not to mention the 10 flights of stairs to get up to the room...an experience that´s for sure... But from La Paz we got to go up to Death Road and mountain bike down it at breakneck speed on a gravel road with a sheer cliff on one side, now you can´t have more fun than that really. We started at 4640m above sea level and cycled down 64km and 3364m of gravel road, defying death the whole way and managed to reach the bottom with no loss of skin, teeth or broken bones, and with enough energy to keep hold of a cold beer - well earned I think! Seriously good fun and much recommended if you´re ever in Bolivia!
After that adrenaline pumping ride, we left La Paz on our way to Uyuni where we spent 2 days on the largest salt flat in the world, driving around in 4wd jeeps taking crazy photos of each other standing on other peoples heads and falling out of salt shakers. It was a great couple of days, climbing over Fish Island covered in the largest cacti you´ve ever seen, and then the next day climbing a volcano on the edge of the salt flat to get a fabulous view of miles around. The most exciting part of our adventure was when our fabulous driver spent the whole of the first day falling asleep at the wheel! Now that was something that none of us had learnt to say in spanish yet - wake up! But with continued loud coughing, sneezing, laughing, and even a couple of songs thrown in there for good measure, we made it to safety at the end of the day....good thing that there´s not a lot that can go wrong on a large flat piece of salt right? We did miss one stop that our driver slept through when everyone else pulled off but not to worry, when we caught up with everyone at the end of the day, they said it was kinda boring anyway! We were pretty grateful we didn´t have to send the recordings of our ´final words´ home though...yes we did make them - watching them now is pretty funny actually! So a great couple of days, Sleepy Sam the driver was on his best behaviour the next day, bit of a bummer really coz I was ready to jump into the drivers seat if he feel asleep again! But made it back to Uyuni no probs, and Sleepy Sam only got half a tip!
Sucre was the next stop, the official capital Bolivia. It was a lovely town with fabulous chocolate shops that we all made use of for the day we were there. And then it was on to Potosi, the highest town of its size in the world. We had just a day there also, but it was enough. A few of us had a tour of the Silver mine there, climbing 2kms into the side of a mountain at 4500m with no ventilation and miners working all around you in horrendous conditions, it wasn´t a fabulous time, but it was a very worthwhile experience to see how hard life is for people still. You should have seen my jaw drop as 3 men pushed a trolley past me carrying 2 tonnes of rock, it was incredible. After a couple of hours underground as such, and after inhaling about 2kg of dust and dirt, we emerged into the daylight and got to go blow up some dynamite! That was wicked, it was so loud and the whole ground shook, but it was good fun.
And that was Bolivia really, it was too short to really get into the culture, but from what I saw of it I liked it. The people were friendly, the landscape quite harsh and dry in most parts, but it was wicked.
After Bolivia we crossed the border into Salta, Argentina for just a few days, enough time to lie beside the pool at the campground and soak up the sun, and then go white water rafting and zip-lining, both of which were wicked. The rafting wasn´t too tough, it was more of an opportunity to attack each other in the different rafts with water, great fun for a couple of hours. After a wicked Argentinian bbq for lunch - the best steak ever!, it was off to zip-lining where they shove you in a haress, clip you onto a wire and then send you soaring across rivers, between mountains, and over canopies. It was wicked! The longest wire was 500m long and we were hundreds of metres up above the ground, definitely got the adrenaline pumping!
Now we´ve crossed over the border again, out of Argentina for now and into San Pedro, Chile. Got up at 3.45am this morning to see the Tatio geyser which was worth every minute of lost sleep, it was so cool. It was minus 5 degrees, in the Atacama desert, the dryest place in the world and we could´ve been on another planet with all the geysers and thermal vents. It was awesome. We´re off to see the Valley of the Moon in about 10 minutes so I´m going to have to leave you now and run back to camp. But I want to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas, I´ll be thinking of you, those at home in Kiwiland and everyelse all over the world, while I´m lying on the beach enjoying my South American christmas. Take care all, be safe over the holidays.
Senorita Ronita xxx
Spanglish lessons in Peru: Ruins, ruins and more ruins and yet I still don´t know how to say it in Spanish...
Hola amigos,
I don´t know where to start really...Peru has been fabulous, love it. It has certainly been a busy few weeks, travelling from the north of Peru, down the coast, into the desert, the mountains and more and it has been some ride...but I´ll try to go quickly so I don´t bore you all...
Mancora was our first stop and where I last emailed from, it was a sleepy little seaside town where we managed to all get successfully sunburnt enough to remind us for the next week that we´d been at the beach. Then it was down the coast to Huanchaco where we camped for a couple of nights inbetween visiting Chan Chan, the ruins of the largest mud city in the world which they´re trying to restore, and then the Pyramids of the Sun and the Moon which were pretty cool to look at, all the painting inside that is still original, just a shame that the guide was so intensely boring it put us all to sleep. A couple of nights around the campfire toasting marshmallows and drinking out of tin cups and we were ready to head back to a hostal so it was off to Huaraz, up in the mountains via some more ruins of course...can´t remember their name but they were really old, around 800BC and crumbled when we walked on them...and yet they still let us...made for an interesting tour quote - ¨its ok, they´re old¨...
Got to Huaraz, and half of our truck seemed to come down with a nasty gastro, a combination of altitude sickness and a bug that was going around meant that there were many unhappy people, thank goodness I wasn´t among them, but it did mean I was on nurse duty for a while... Huaraz is famous in Peru for having the highest peak, Huascaran, ice-climbing and mountain climbing. Didn´t partake in any of that while we were there, but while everyone else was sick in bed I did a trip up to Lake Chinancocha which was beautiful and saw the buried city of Yungay where about 25,000 people were killed when the city was buried in an avalanche in 1970, very sad.
Leaving Huaraz with a truck of recovering sickies we wound our way down out of the mountains and into the desert smog of Lima where we occupied ourselves for a few days by taking in the San Francisco Monastery, the Catacombes - very wrong to have that many bones in one place, and the Museum of the Inquistion where we learned all sorts of torture techniques that the Spanish used when they arrived into South America, lovely...
Heading out of Lima, first stop was Paracas where we had a trip out to the Ballestas Islands and saw lots of the usual...pelicans, penguins and boobies - yes, that would be the bird...plus hundreds of stinky sea lions. Back on shore I had an unexpected reunion with Guy who had started his South America trip that day with another company, but had spotted our big yellow truck on his return from the islands. It was a very quick hello and goodbye as his truck was leaving but as it turned out, the good bye wasn´t for very long. After the Ballestas Islands we took off into the desert where we went dune-buggying and sandboarding for an overnight trip. It was seriously the most fun I´ve had in a long time, it was crazy driving up and down and sideways and vertically and horizontally on these huge sandunes, like a giant rollercoaster that never stopped. That night was a Pisco sour party in the desert and then we all fell asleep in the sand eventually, waking up when the sun came up over the dunes, only a couple of hours later! A great night had by all...
Next stop was Nazca where you could have a flight over the famous Nazca lines - the pre-Inca lines in the desert formed into different shapes. I passed on the flight after talking to a few people who´d already done it, and boy was I glad of my decision when everyone else came back either green, gray or vomiting...those planes were pretty small and it was not the calmest of days...I spent the day instead lying beside the pool at the campground, and that was where Guy and I next ran into each other, when he came back from his flight looking a pretty green shade of gray too! So after talking to the tour leader, it turns out that our trucks are going to be travelling parallel for a lot of the trip around to Rio which probably isn´t quite what either of us were expecting!
After a night at Nazca, we packed up the tents again, and headed to Puerto Inca, the holiday destination for the Incas back in the day, where we had a great sangria party that night camping right on the beach with a big bonfire and pig on a spit, good fun. I was one of the few that braved the water, it was a little chilly but not really by New Zealand standards! Then it was onto Arequipa for a couple of nights, doing exciting things like laundry, but also checking out the beautiful Santa Catalina Convent, and the Museo Santuarios Andinas where Juanita the Ice Princess is kept. She is a mummy who was an Incan sacrifice 500 years ago on top of Ampato Volcano, and was dicovered in 1995 when an avalanche revealed her. She is perfectly preserved and quite amazing to see. After having a dinner of Cuy - guinea pig, no they´re not pets over here they eat them, we saw a movie and then headed out of Arequipa at 2am wrapped up in our sleeping bags on board Moose on our way to the Colca Canyon to try to get there early morning so we could see the Condors flying. It was a long rough night but we survived and we made it in plenty of time to see the magnificent Condors soaring on the thermal currents of the canyon. The surprising thing was the fact that they were selling slingshots at the markets there and the local school kids were actually buying them and using them to try to hit the Condors - horrific. Then it was back along the bumpy road to Chivay for a night where most of us crashed in a big way...
On our way to Cusco the next day we passed over the highest pass of the trip, at 4900m, we were all feeling a little dizzy and nauseous but it was cool to be able to see it and experience the freezing cold! But arriving in Cusco was fabulous at the end of the day, coz we knew it was time for the Inca trail, what we´d been building up to for so long. Our first day in Cusco was pretty relaxed, just preparing ourselves for what was to come, and then we headed off to the Scared Valley of the Incas for a day, taking in more ruins at Saqsayhuaman - pronounced Sexy Woman, you can imagine what fun we had with that one... and ruins at Pisac as well as a visit to the Chicheria where we all got to try Chicha the local corn alcohol, and then more ruins at Ollantaytambo where we got a practise run for the inca trail, climbing up and up and up hundreds of steps. We stayed out there overnight and the next morning it was an early rise, all set for Day 1 of the Inca Trail.
Day 1 was fine, a couple of patches where it gave you an introduction of what was to come the next day but mostly just nice scenery to enjoy and you guessed it, some more ruins, Llactapata. We also spent the day getting used to seeing porters running past us with 25kg on their backs, gas bottles, ovens, stacks of chairs, they are incredible. Getting to camp that afternoon meant an excuse for a celebratory beer, before an amazing dinner and then early to bed for a 5.30am wake-up for Day 2. Day 2 was the hardest day, we climbed steadily for hours straight up, eventually reaching Dead Womans Pass at 4200m and what an achievement! Your legs burn, your lungs burn but when you get to the top its all worth it...that is till you go over the other side and then have to climb straight down for 700m to reach camp. There was much cheering from camp everytime someone arrived in which was such a good moral booster after a killer day, and I´m proud to say that I totally outdid my own expectations. The average time to complete day 2 is 7hrs and I got into camp in under 5hrs, so I was pretty stoked - all that running training I did in the Outback certainly paid off! That night was passed with a game of Uno with the guides and us all keeping warm by drinking tea with rum - not something I´d tried before but its definitely recommended! Another amazing dinner and it was into bed to spend the whole night freezing and listening to the thunder roll and the lightning crash outside. We were lucky in our tent that there wasn´t a lot of leakage, but others weren´t so lucky and got a bit wet.
Day 3 started at 5am and was a really nice day with 2 passes but neither as high as Dead Womans, and a few more ruins to look at, made more interesting by the fog and clouds that kept rolling in and surrounding us as we walked. Day 3 was the longest one at 15km, but an enjoyable end when we got to camp and there was cold beer waiting for us! We all flagged the offer of a warm shower for 5 soles in exchange for another beer for 5 soles, figuring that we only had dirty clothes to put back on afterwards so what was the point! It was a very early night however as we were getting up at 3.50am to head to the Sun Gate for our first glimpse of Machu Picchu, Lost City of the Incas. Day 4 dawned clear for us and after a short hours walk we reached the 100 steps leading to the Sun Gate and as we came over the top Machu Picchu was bathed in sunshine, no cloud cover, just perfect. It was an incredible view and one that we treasured as we knew that only 1 in every 10 days are you able to see Machu Picchu from the Sun Gate. We took a while to absorb the scene and the feeling and then slowly trundled down the mountain side to the Watchmans Hut where we took the usual photos and got our first up close encounter with the lost city. We wandered the ruins for a couple of hours with our guide and then 7 of us brave ones headed up Wayna Picchu, the mountain towering over the city. We climbed steadily up the mountain with the aid of a rope as the steps are so steep, and got to the top in half an hour - not bad after 4 days of walking! There we stayed perched on the boulders on top for more than an hour just taking in the spectacular view of the surrounding mountains and Machu Picchu below us, and the butterflies swarming around us. We all agreed that the experience of the Inca trail would not have been the same without climbing to the top and experiencing the true tranquility and peacefulness of the mountain sanctuary.
Climbing back down, we wandered the ruins for a little longer but ended up leaving before our impressions were ruined by the hundreds of hideous loud tourists that were arriving on buses by then. We prefer to remember our Machu Picchu free of other people with clear views of everything rather than getting pushed off the side of the ruins by an over-eager tour guide and his group...
The train ride back to Cusco was torture, 4 very noisy smelly uncomfortable hours where sleep was unavoidable. But it all worked out in the end coz arriving back in Cusco, after fabulous showers, we were all pumped and headed into town to the pub where a small group of us successfully completed the 24hr challenge of staying up from 3.50am Day 4 of the Inca trail to 4am the next day. It was lots of fun, and have now gained ourselves the title of ´hardcore´! The next two days were recovery time, saw the Inca Museum, had a massage and did a bit of shopping but not much else!
Last stop in Peru was Puno, Lake Titicaca where we visited one of the floating reed islands, and stayed with a family on the island of Amantani where we watched the locals play football, climbed to the top of the island to watch the sunset and then went to the fiesta that the locals put on for us, dressed by our families in their traditional clothing, very funny to look at, but a great night dancing away to local musicians.
After spending our last night in Peru partying in Puno, it was across the border into Bolivia yesterday. We’re now in La Paz, enjoying the sights, and currently preparing to cycle Death Road tomorrow, should be great!
Sorry its so long again guys, but I’m sure you will have skipped the bits that don’t interest you too much! I hope all is well with everyone, am loving getting your emails, keep it up, its so good to hear everyone’s news.
Love to all,
Senorita Ronita xxx
I don´t know where to start really...Peru has been fabulous, love it. It has certainly been a busy few weeks, travelling from the north of Peru, down the coast, into the desert, the mountains and more and it has been some ride...but I´ll try to go quickly so I don´t bore you all...
Mancora was our first stop and where I last emailed from, it was a sleepy little seaside town where we managed to all get successfully sunburnt enough to remind us for the next week that we´d been at the beach. Then it was down the coast to Huanchaco where we camped for a couple of nights inbetween visiting Chan Chan, the ruins of the largest mud city in the world which they´re trying to restore, and then the Pyramids of the Sun and the Moon which were pretty cool to look at, all the painting inside that is still original, just a shame that the guide was so intensely boring it put us all to sleep. A couple of nights around the campfire toasting marshmallows and drinking out of tin cups and we were ready to head back to a hostal so it was off to Huaraz, up in the mountains via some more ruins of course...can´t remember their name but they were really old, around 800BC and crumbled when we walked on them...and yet they still let us...made for an interesting tour quote - ¨its ok, they´re old¨...
Got to Huaraz, and half of our truck seemed to come down with a nasty gastro, a combination of altitude sickness and a bug that was going around meant that there were many unhappy people, thank goodness I wasn´t among them, but it did mean I was on nurse duty for a while... Huaraz is famous in Peru for having the highest peak, Huascaran, ice-climbing and mountain climbing. Didn´t partake in any of that while we were there, but while everyone else was sick in bed I did a trip up to Lake Chinancocha which was beautiful and saw the buried city of Yungay where about 25,000 people were killed when the city was buried in an avalanche in 1970, very sad.
Leaving Huaraz with a truck of recovering sickies we wound our way down out of the mountains and into the desert smog of Lima where we occupied ourselves for a few days by taking in the San Francisco Monastery, the Catacombes - very wrong to have that many bones in one place, and the Museum of the Inquistion where we learned all sorts of torture techniques that the Spanish used when they arrived into South America, lovely...
Heading out of Lima, first stop was Paracas where we had a trip out to the Ballestas Islands and saw lots of the usual...pelicans, penguins and boobies - yes, that would be the bird...plus hundreds of stinky sea lions. Back on shore I had an unexpected reunion with Guy who had started his South America trip that day with another company, but had spotted our big yellow truck on his return from the islands. It was a very quick hello and goodbye as his truck was leaving but as it turned out, the good bye wasn´t for very long. After the Ballestas Islands we took off into the desert where we went dune-buggying and sandboarding for an overnight trip. It was seriously the most fun I´ve had in a long time, it was crazy driving up and down and sideways and vertically and horizontally on these huge sandunes, like a giant rollercoaster that never stopped. That night was a Pisco sour party in the desert and then we all fell asleep in the sand eventually, waking up when the sun came up over the dunes, only a couple of hours later! A great night had by all...
Next stop was Nazca where you could have a flight over the famous Nazca lines - the pre-Inca lines in the desert formed into different shapes. I passed on the flight after talking to a few people who´d already done it, and boy was I glad of my decision when everyone else came back either green, gray or vomiting...those planes were pretty small and it was not the calmest of days...I spent the day instead lying beside the pool at the campground, and that was where Guy and I next ran into each other, when he came back from his flight looking a pretty green shade of gray too! So after talking to the tour leader, it turns out that our trucks are going to be travelling parallel for a lot of the trip around to Rio which probably isn´t quite what either of us were expecting!
After a night at Nazca, we packed up the tents again, and headed to Puerto Inca, the holiday destination for the Incas back in the day, where we had a great sangria party that night camping right on the beach with a big bonfire and pig on a spit, good fun. I was one of the few that braved the water, it was a little chilly but not really by New Zealand standards! Then it was onto Arequipa for a couple of nights, doing exciting things like laundry, but also checking out the beautiful Santa Catalina Convent, and the Museo Santuarios Andinas where Juanita the Ice Princess is kept. She is a mummy who was an Incan sacrifice 500 years ago on top of Ampato Volcano, and was dicovered in 1995 when an avalanche revealed her. She is perfectly preserved and quite amazing to see. After having a dinner of Cuy - guinea pig, no they´re not pets over here they eat them, we saw a movie and then headed out of Arequipa at 2am wrapped up in our sleeping bags on board Moose on our way to the Colca Canyon to try to get there early morning so we could see the Condors flying. It was a long rough night but we survived and we made it in plenty of time to see the magnificent Condors soaring on the thermal currents of the canyon. The surprising thing was the fact that they were selling slingshots at the markets there and the local school kids were actually buying them and using them to try to hit the Condors - horrific. Then it was back along the bumpy road to Chivay for a night where most of us crashed in a big way...
On our way to Cusco the next day we passed over the highest pass of the trip, at 4900m, we were all feeling a little dizzy and nauseous but it was cool to be able to see it and experience the freezing cold! But arriving in Cusco was fabulous at the end of the day, coz we knew it was time for the Inca trail, what we´d been building up to for so long. Our first day in Cusco was pretty relaxed, just preparing ourselves for what was to come, and then we headed off to the Scared Valley of the Incas for a day, taking in more ruins at Saqsayhuaman - pronounced Sexy Woman, you can imagine what fun we had with that one... and ruins at Pisac as well as a visit to the Chicheria where we all got to try Chicha the local corn alcohol, and then more ruins at Ollantaytambo where we got a practise run for the inca trail, climbing up and up and up hundreds of steps. We stayed out there overnight and the next morning it was an early rise, all set for Day 1 of the Inca Trail.
Day 1 was fine, a couple of patches where it gave you an introduction of what was to come the next day but mostly just nice scenery to enjoy and you guessed it, some more ruins, Llactapata. We also spent the day getting used to seeing porters running past us with 25kg on their backs, gas bottles, ovens, stacks of chairs, they are incredible. Getting to camp that afternoon meant an excuse for a celebratory beer, before an amazing dinner and then early to bed for a 5.30am wake-up for Day 2. Day 2 was the hardest day, we climbed steadily for hours straight up, eventually reaching Dead Womans Pass at 4200m and what an achievement! Your legs burn, your lungs burn but when you get to the top its all worth it...that is till you go over the other side and then have to climb straight down for 700m to reach camp. There was much cheering from camp everytime someone arrived in which was such a good moral booster after a killer day, and I´m proud to say that I totally outdid my own expectations. The average time to complete day 2 is 7hrs and I got into camp in under 5hrs, so I was pretty stoked - all that running training I did in the Outback certainly paid off! That night was passed with a game of Uno with the guides and us all keeping warm by drinking tea with rum - not something I´d tried before but its definitely recommended! Another amazing dinner and it was into bed to spend the whole night freezing and listening to the thunder roll and the lightning crash outside. We were lucky in our tent that there wasn´t a lot of leakage, but others weren´t so lucky and got a bit wet.
Day 3 started at 5am and was a really nice day with 2 passes but neither as high as Dead Womans, and a few more ruins to look at, made more interesting by the fog and clouds that kept rolling in and surrounding us as we walked. Day 3 was the longest one at 15km, but an enjoyable end when we got to camp and there was cold beer waiting for us! We all flagged the offer of a warm shower for 5 soles in exchange for another beer for 5 soles, figuring that we only had dirty clothes to put back on afterwards so what was the point! It was a very early night however as we were getting up at 3.50am to head to the Sun Gate for our first glimpse of Machu Picchu, Lost City of the Incas. Day 4 dawned clear for us and after a short hours walk we reached the 100 steps leading to the Sun Gate and as we came over the top Machu Picchu was bathed in sunshine, no cloud cover, just perfect. It was an incredible view and one that we treasured as we knew that only 1 in every 10 days are you able to see Machu Picchu from the Sun Gate. We took a while to absorb the scene and the feeling and then slowly trundled down the mountain side to the Watchmans Hut where we took the usual photos and got our first up close encounter with the lost city. We wandered the ruins for a couple of hours with our guide and then 7 of us brave ones headed up Wayna Picchu, the mountain towering over the city. We climbed steadily up the mountain with the aid of a rope as the steps are so steep, and got to the top in half an hour - not bad after 4 days of walking! There we stayed perched on the boulders on top for more than an hour just taking in the spectacular view of the surrounding mountains and Machu Picchu below us, and the butterflies swarming around us. We all agreed that the experience of the Inca trail would not have been the same without climbing to the top and experiencing the true tranquility and peacefulness of the mountain sanctuary.
Climbing back down, we wandered the ruins for a little longer but ended up leaving before our impressions were ruined by the hundreds of hideous loud tourists that were arriving on buses by then. We prefer to remember our Machu Picchu free of other people with clear views of everything rather than getting pushed off the side of the ruins by an over-eager tour guide and his group...
The train ride back to Cusco was torture, 4 very noisy smelly uncomfortable hours where sleep was unavoidable. But it all worked out in the end coz arriving back in Cusco, after fabulous showers, we were all pumped and headed into town to the pub where a small group of us successfully completed the 24hr challenge of staying up from 3.50am Day 4 of the Inca trail to 4am the next day. It was lots of fun, and have now gained ourselves the title of ´hardcore´! The next two days were recovery time, saw the Inca Museum, had a massage and did a bit of shopping but not much else!
Last stop in Peru was Puno, Lake Titicaca where we visited one of the floating reed islands, and stayed with a family on the island of Amantani where we watched the locals play football, climbed to the top of the island to watch the sunset and then went to the fiesta that the locals put on for us, dressed by our families in their traditional clothing, very funny to look at, but a great night dancing away to local musicians.
After spending our last night in Peru partying in Puno, it was across the border into Bolivia yesterday. We’re now in La Paz, enjoying the sights, and currently preparing to cycle Death Road tomorrow, should be great!
Sorry its so long again guys, but I’m sure you will have skipped the bits that don’t interest you too much! I hope all is well with everyone, am loving getting your emails, keep it up, its so good to hear everyone’s news.
Love to all,
Senorita Ronita xxx
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