Beej and Bee´s South American Adventures

True Peru:

bee_beej — Tue, 4 Aug 2009 04:20:00 GMT

Well, we´re back (by popular demand) blogging and its been so long we can barely remember the places we left off...but we´ll try....

Headed into the beach town of Mancora in Northern Peru, as we still needed more beach days before moving into trekking territory. Our times...arrival time into new city, 3:00am, time to find place to sleep, 3:03am, time for rain to start pouring down, 3:04am. Streets were completely deserted, but somehow we find the one person out n about at this early hour who happens to have accomodation connections. Not sure if we have mentioned this before, but we now have a travel fairy accompanying us. Wooshaaaa, she strikes again.

Ohhh Mancora, a sifty strip of beach with a perfect wave. (perfect for absolute beginners that is) Here we ate some good food and hung out with some fun kids, its also the spot of our joint surf lesson, the highlight being our attempt at sharing a wave and completing a high five whilst riding that said wave. Unfortunately, we choked in the manoever and wiped out just after we´d stood up. Plan to is now to head to Brazil for some more waves (and lessons!)

From Mancora to Lima to Huccachina, decided to go straight through after riding into Lima on the bus. Stuck in traffic we decide to look out the window at a bit of culture on the streets. We see a man, a man a bit agitated, a man weilding a stick, a man who is yelling at another much older man. Now this man runs at the older man with his stick, which we realise is not just a stick, but a stick with a weapon like nail sticking out of one end. He takes the weapon nail stick and strikes the older man´s scooter light, knocking it clean off. Now the older man, was quite calm up until this point, but seeing his scooter de-lighted takes a few steps towards Nail Stick Man. Nail Stick Man doesn´t like this, discards nail stick weapon and reaches inside his leisure suit hoody for a gun. A gun. A gun. That´s right a gun. Older man instantly and wisely backs off. Gail Stickman strolls off down a darkened alleyway. We decide not to stop in Lima.

Huccachina. We planned to stay two days, one night. But this tiny town, with just one main street, a big lagoon surrounded by massive sand dunes won us over. We ended up 6days, with a bit of sand boarding, a bit of sand sitting, a bit of sand sliding and a bit of sand climbing. A day tripper to Poor Man´s Galapagos, which lived up to its name....wild life count: 7 penguins, 4 sea lions, 5 boats of tourists circling sea lions, 400 odd birds and a lot of bird poop. And a day tripper to go up in a plane to see the Nasca lines...brilliant for the first ten minutes, which was also the point at which the guy beside the pilot began utilising his sick bag.

Next destination, Cusco, 18 hours by bus. 18 hours that is if you are put on the correct bus. 34 hours if you are not told that your bus has been cancelled and that this new bus takes a completely different route. Oh well, lucky our really strong sleeping pills were at hand. Great on the first overnight stretch. Not so great on the second leg, when half an hour after taking the pills the bus breaks down and we have to return to town. Now we´re so so so sleepy because the pills have kicked in. Decide to stay awake by arguing with the bus company boy for a discount.

Cusco is a beautiful town, we loved it. Its located at high altitude, 3300m, so the steep steps were pretty tough to get up. We had a few days drinking coca tea acclimatising and after a big night out salsa ing, we realised why they don´t reccomend alcohol whilst aclimatising. Hang overs are quadrupled.

Now what we´d been waiting for....finally our next and final trek. We knew that we were going to love this, from the very first moment in our first initial trek meeting. When our guide first called us his ´family´, spent a full hour and a half detailing in detail the exact planned journey times and activities in minute detail, even the points where we will be able to ´make nice beautiful photos´, even everything which was already summarised on the three page handout - we just knew that this was the trek for us.

So the Trek was definitly different to our Lost City Trek, we definitely weren´t used to being told what to do and its true to say that we may have missed out on some excellent photos since we rebelled against our guide´s persistant instructions to ´make beautiful photos now´. The mountains, scenery, animals and locals were amazing. The high altitude made for some chilly nights camping...minus 15 degrees, Note, negative 10 degrees is the officially ok temperature to commence spooning for warmth at. It was awkward so we´d rather not talk about it.

Quest to Machu Picchu.

On the waking of the rooster and the crow, thy two young ´maidens´ set forth to scale the mighty ancient forgotten city of the Incas. The youngest of the maidens woke beset with an illness of such great proportions that the elder sought herbs and potions from the others that were settled at the inn. With refreshed limbs and both a bounding in steps, our two young maidens tamed and then mounted that steel creature, known through all the lands as Machu Picchu bus number 21 and before the sun´s crest hast reached the tip of the five fourty five littleth hand, our fair maidens hadth conquered thine first and holy challenge in their might quest. We were awake and on the bus.

For those of you who think our last little story is a bit weird, just imagaine how you would want to tell stories if the last 3 books you´ve read have all been fantasy fiction. Not much choice in back packers book exchanges. (F n F and the almighty Twilight series, note, we´ll be writing in teenage vampire talk next, don´t you worry)

We were actually very lucky that our Machu Piccu guide had incredible and vast knowledge of the Incas and their lost city and we both thought the actual city was breath taking.

Back to Cusco for hot showers and some admin travel days, plotting the next b and b adventure. Decided that it was time to say goodbye to True Peru as we now knew it and head into the much anticipated Bolivia.

Ecuador: The Rollercoaster Ride Continues

bee_beej — Mon, 6 Jul 2009 10:10:00 GMT

hola

Sorry we´re slow poke bloggers, but we´ve been sifting in a great little surf town, internet has not been our priority at all.

Here are our sneaky highlights since we last updated....

Hung out on Taganga beach in Columbia, the hippy graveyard, as still extremely exhausted from our trek and our first night out, yes first night out in a whole two weeks of travel!!!!!! Sifted in Taganga for a while (as we discovered we had bonus days due to us not working out our timetable very well) and returned to our pattern of nana nights in.

Made our way to Cartegena, a busy Spanish influenced coastal city, beautiful old town, stinky everywhere else. It was now time for Bee to catch the vomit virus, especially good timing, in a town where its not safe to go out at night so Beej was forced to read books back to back in a hostel / sauna where the air conditioning was broken.

So we did manage a good day in Cartegena. Decided to head to the beach. Maybe would have prefered slightly longer at the beach, one hour was lovely but, unfortunately we jumped on the Spanish tour boat that went round the islands explaining in Spanish..... something ( we don´t speak spanish so can´t tell you) instead of the direct transportation boat to the beach. But it was the beautiful carribean sea that we´d been expecting so there´s always silver lining...

So we jumped on a plane and said ciao to blearing car horns, fried potatoes and the colourful country which is Columbia.

Tally so far....

Countries 1, Kidnappings 0, Sicknessess 2.

Quito Ecuador, elevation 2850m above sea level, second largest ecuadorian city, and its most dangerous....

Noticed its first feature when getting off the plane and walking up the slightly sloping platform from the plane, was the slowest walk ever and seemed like a mountain, luckily we knew we were fit from the trek and it was just a bad bout of ass. (accimatisation suckee sickness)

Not much to report on Quito, wandered the narrow streets a bit, slept a bit (Bee still sick), experienced chicken foot soup just the once and visited some amazing markets in cute town called Otavalo.

Next natural decision was to go to a place called Banos, the Spanish word for toilet) of course we´d want to spend quite a while here, as we´d been spending a lot of time in these lately (esp Bee) and didn´t want to venture outside of our comfort zone.

We then had a busing 'incident' on the way to Banos but we´re not ready to talk about it just yet, tune in, in a few months we might be ready to go into it.

But we can update our tally:

Countries 2, Kidnappings 0, Sicknesses 2, Robberies 1.

We fell in love with Banos, its a cool, safe! little thermal town, with hotpools (lots of locals with eyes for christmas) and adventure activities, of these we chose the safest one possible, buggy riding. The buggy´s top speed of 5km per hour uphill meant we were never going to get into much trouble, despite going offroad and also down private, inaccessible roads where security had to track us down and making us leave. Also did an exceptional Spanish class in Banos, the Mayra Spanish school if anyones in the neighbourhood. It was HUGELY better than our class in Columbia where we were taught all of hello, goodbye and thanks.

Our next bus trip, also our first overnight bus trip was actually fine thanks to strapping our belongings to bodies and the help of some strong sleeping pills.

Rocked into Montanita (this town is why we came traveling!!!) Ecquadors main surf spot, a small six sandy streeted town (try and say that ten times, go on) filled with street stalls, surf shops, bars and locals.

So now we´re no longer having nana nights in at 7pm and rising at 5 or 6am. Instead we woke this morning at 2pm and decided it might actually be time to leave. We love this town, our biggest decision each day is what to eat and there are SOOOOOOOO many good options. Oh and the dogs are amazing, they all sift round, like homeless but well fed dogs and they love people and will adopt you, but may try to attack. Beej had to drag one along the road by her jeans, Edwardo the dog, as we named him, took a liking to her legs and jandels. After a jandel wrestle and a Ceasar like hiss and tap on the head, Beej, the pack leader, managed to get away.

We now have to mention the newest member of our traveling party, Bee 3. One night we were busy building a sand couch to watch the sunset from, we had our cask of fine white wine and orange juice, we had Doors and Bob Marley playing in the background, when all of a sudden Bee 3 and her Mum came up to us and nearly kicked over our sand creation. Beej tried to distract them, while Bee carried on building, but Bee 3 was persistant and barged through the sand again. But we couldn´t get angry, they eventually sat at our feet to watch the sun set and eventually fell asleep. Bee 3 and her Mum are actually dogs. This would have been weird if not.

We absolutely love this town, have met some cool people, there´s always something to do, we´ve even been here for a surf competition, plenty of surfer eye candy, especially from a distance. We actually thought we were watching the gromets at one stage, but infact it they were just Ecuadorian surfers. They´re all 4 foot 1.

We´re now leaving Ecuador´s largest surf town and heading to Peru, next stop Peru´s largest surf town. Stay tuned....

The Lost City: Cuedado! Watch out!

bee_beej — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 09:19:00 GMT

Amigos!

The Trek to Ciudad Perdida, The Lost City

First off, our trekking team line up, our boys...J Dawg, a US golf pro and Kano, an Aussie (Londoner) on a mission to find a South American bar to buy, Tomas and Aurelian, the lovely French boys and lest we forget Tony, the highly entertaining British Translator that bonded our wee group together with his crazy antics.

Hose and Enrique, our brilliant chefs and guides

It all started so badly. Semi panic set in on the very very first day. Before we´d even left the restaurant, before even one proper trekking step had been taken, the first returning trekker we saw arrived back on a donkey, yes a donkey. (a true trekker would never opt for a donkey, we thought, being true trekkers ourselves) She was completely defeated and did the slowest most painful cowboy walk we have ever seen, collapsed at the nearest table, tears welling in her eyes. Marvellous.

She told us that day 1 and 2 are easy, day 3 is extremely hard out and she didn´t even want to mention the rest of the days.

So when scrambling up the never ending very FIRST hill, Bee´s chicken sized lung capacity and Beej´s puking tendancies set in. We were struggling.

The boys deserted us, running up the second half of the endless very steep incline and the Frenchies overtook us right at what we now fondly recall as Vomit Point. It nearly destroyed our moral.¨If this was the first hill of the first ´easy' day 1, how the hey are we going to cope with the rest of the day, let alone another 6 of them?????

But with some dry retches, a fair few curses, a few panicy do you think its too late to turn back and just end this? and a do you think its too late to get a donkey? we managed to sort ourselves out and make it up the rest of the hill and enjoy the cool watermelon waiting at the top. This actually was marvellous.

All this in just the first hour, you´ll be blogging forever so here´s a selection of some of our favourite bits of the trek....

1. Now Tony (the translator) is not your typical looking Englishman. He has a tight curly affro (Carribean mother) and its pretty tanned and kind of rugged looking. On returning from the Lost City, Tony fell behind our group walking with Enrique. He spys another group of trekers crossing the stream up ahead and decides to nip behind some rocks, strip off all his clothes, wait until the group is close then jump out yelling gutteral unintelligible cries! He then dissapears back behind the rock leaving the trekkers absolutely speechless. Hilarious. Then while still in hiding, in his best proper english yells ´What are you waiting for? this way old chaps´

This wasn´t all Tony got up to...on the first day he nuded up for the first swim, arrived on the camp covered in clay thought he would go native, did a ´queen of the jungle´¨ act at one camp in front of some local kids...oh the list could go on!!

2. Bee caught leprocee of the legs..sooooo many mosie bites, rock scrapes and infected blisters. Her legs became the map to the lost city, align the spots to the stars, find the extra spot and that's the key to getting there. Latest count was 179 right leg, 160 on the left.

3. Keeping up with the boys...after our first hill attempt we decided we couldn´t let that happen again...so we decided when the going gets tough to seperate...let the boys know this and sure enough we were split up and the boys didn´t put up with any whinging. Although Caino was awesome on the last day after BJ was weak from the vomit disease he pushed her up 3 hills...that boy has way too much energy...he was her hero that day and was brought many beers once back on town.

4. The secenery and rainforest deserves a mention. We had amazing weather the entire time, without fail the afternoons were a massive down pour excellent because by that point we were safely rocking in our hammocks safe and dry, by day it was sweltering...all the better for developing our buns of steel and calves of titanium. We did probably 12 river crossings, one via ´the cage´ (this is why we came here!!!) 21 kilometers ups and downs each way. And the rainforest was alive with so many critters and plants, wild pineapples popping up, I have to mention the massive spiders. The local indigenous people were very sweet, the Black and White Witches made peace with the local kiddies by offering them gifts of pois which we made with the local vines and leaves. To our annoyance and embarrasment they were absolute naturals and nailed it straight away, showing us up big time. Poor witchees.

5. Nearly forgot to mention the lost city, no wonder it got lost in the first place, its friggen miles away. We were blown away, very impressive, especially after climbing up a billion (we counted) midget sized steps to get there.

6. But our proudest moment wasn´t actually reaching the Lost City it was actually making it back to the starting point without breaking down and getting donkeys. It was close, very close, but we made it in true trekker styles. We love trekking. Kinda.

Tayrona National Park: The love of hammocks begins

bee_beej — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 05:52:00 GMT

Hola

So we are in Santa Marta and decide to head to Tayrona National Park then on to the lost city trek, we pack up our day pack, which is a mission in itself as we need to fit 10 days of clothes it it include beach wear and trekking gear.

we head to catch the bus, well more like a van. Get to the corner and its caos...a million vans going past...all yelling at us...none going to the park, not only that we seem to be the center of attention.....thanks blondie Bee aka white witch...someone finally lets us know that we need to go other side of markets...off we go, but half way through the market it turns into a meat market, a meat market in 30 degree heat, no refrigeration, just lumps of festering meat, mmm mmmm...bj starts gagging...bee just looks down and finds a way out....we take a wrong turn and end up on the machanics street...hmmm not blending in too well here. At this stage it had been an hour and not loving it...luckily we both could laugh about it and before u know a van comes past and yells Tayrona...we are on our way.

Get to the park and start our journey....a 2 hour walk to the beach where we are going to stay...well they said it was 2 hours. All excited at the beginning, watching ants, chasing chickens, talking to cows even saw a monkey....we then hit a dirt track and its not quite so easy....oh and then the rain begins and its been an hour and a half....hmmmm long story short it takes us 3 and a half hours on a dirt track but it was worth it...a beautiful beach...sifty people and some very comfy hammocks. First night make some friends with some Isreali guys...nice guys but so serious, couldnt quite understand the kiwi humor mostly because it involved taking the piss out of them.

Next day up bright and early for swimming and beach time...this pretty much covers the next 2 days along with afternoon naps in our hammocks...we meet some other cool people that night and it turns into the cliche backpackers sitting around the table, guy with a guitar having some beers....again the Isrealis get all serious so luckily we meet Diego...this awesome guy from USA, a surfer who entertained us for hours with his stories from living in NZ...

We had to meet our jeep for the lost city tour early...so was an early start and we had six days of treking ahead we decided to get these crazy little mules on the way back....back to the entrance of the park waiting and a little nervous about what was ahead...

Arriving and loving it...kinda!!

bee_beej — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 23:09:00 GMT

Hi all,

Well after a very very early London departure on the nasiest easyjet flight eva (what did we expect???) we arrived in Madrid ready to catch our flight to Bogata Columbia. All started well, excited, sleepy. heading to the gate and and suddenly my credit card not there...hmmmm not a good start, not to worry Bee saves the day (by looking the rubbish) and the journey continues.

Arrived in Bogota in the evening and straight to our hostel and to bed. Starting to realise that learning Spanish may have been a good idea.

After a very early start (jetlag) we head out to see the sights of Bogata, 6am and so busy, people heading to work, real mixture of people lots of business men (not many woman) and they all have very clean shoes as there are so many shoe cleaners.

We were waiting for the airline office to open so just started to wander...saw lots of people heading to one building so we thought we would follow....mums you will be pleased to know out first sightseeing place was a church, beautiful and full, everyone seems to go before work.

Rest of the morning was spent wandering and resting and a trip to the gold museum, jetlag and a bit of altitude sickness was hitting us hard....by 2pm we were shattered hungry and wished we knew Spanish! We are leaning it slowly, Bee´s picking it up really well, my head hurts everytime I try (I blame the altitide sickness)although I have nailed Si - yes not even an option anymore.

After a late night of 7pm we got up early and flew to the Carribian coast - Cartegena, we decided beach time was needed and wanted to bus up to Santa Marta after an jumping in the taxi and having a fight with the taxi driver (him yelling and me in spanish and me yelling at him in english and Bee with her ´can´t we just be friends´face on) we took an interesting ride through the slums got to the bus terminal and jumped on a 5 hour bus drive to Santa Marta. Countryside is amazing really started to feel like we were finally starting the adventure...

So we are in Santa Marta now - about to head to Tayrona National Park to have some beach time and then head up for a six day trek to the lost city...little bit anxious especially as knee still hurting - for those who don´t know I had a jagerbomb related accident on the sat before leaving london, left london limping, not ideal!

We will update this as soon as we get back as I am sure we muppets will have some stories to tell

Adios

Bee and Beej xxxxx