Kim, Col & Casey in South America

Inca Trail completo y muy bien! Trip winding up

dysfunctional — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 13:43:00 GMT

We're back in Cusco, Peru, after surviving the Inca Trail. It was awesome. The views were spectacular. Hiking up steep stairs at high altitude was tough going and rewarding. The guides were good, the porters were amazing, and we had a good group. Unfortunately, 5 or 6 of our group of 14 got varying degrees of sick on the last night, and thus felt at least a little off during the climactic final hike to and around Machu Picchu. Still, we made the best of it, and the views were awesome during the relatively short periods where the clouds, rain and fog parted sufficiently for us to see them. I´ll upload some photos as soon as I can.

A few people have commented that I haven´t updated this journal for a while, but I actually have. Obviously not while I was trekking, but I have actually been adding photos fairly regularly, and writing descriptions on photos (some older photos and some newer ones). So if you´re keen for an update and there are no new ´stories´, revisit the photo section and you´ll usually find some new stuff. There´s a lot of photos on there now, and more coming.

Unfortunately for our South American festivities, we are nearing the end of our 9 week trip. We´ve covered a lot of ground in 9 weeks, and most travellers we meet are impressed with how much we have managed to fit in to the nine weeks (my favorite highlights are in bold):
- we flew to and explored Santiago, Chile through the smog and dogs, and discovered the realities of often having to pay to use the toilet and not being allowed to flush the toilet paper anywhere in the countries we visited in South America;
- we took a scenic flight to and trekked the stunning Patagonian mountain ranges and saw the glorious glaciers in Southern Chile and just across the border in Argentina, where we partied with a local band from America del Sur Hostel in El Calafate;
- we flew to and partied hardy at Loci Hostel in La Paz, Bolivia, survived mountain biking down and busing back up the Worlds Most Dangerous Road where the terrain drops hundreds of meters mere centimetres from the edge of the one and a half lane dirt road, and discovered that not all South American countries offer as frequently poor food quality as Chile;
- we bussed to Uyuni, Bolivia and took a four wheel drive tour to watched the sunset, climbed a volcano and a cactus infested hill on the Bolivian Salt Flats named Salar de Uyuni;
- we bussed to Copacabana, Bolivia, took a boat to and then trekked north to south and stayed the night on the island on Lake Titicaca named Isle de Sol;
- we bussed to Puno for a no night flying visit to take a Floating Islands tour on Lake Titicaca, Peru;
- we bussed to and partied even hardier at The Point Hostel in Arequipa, Peru, and hiked the nearby beautiful Colca Canyon;
- we sand boarded, dune buggied, climbed and ran down the sand dunes of Huacachina, near Ica, Peru, relaxed at the poolside bar, and discovered South Americas most frustrating pool table;
- we took a 4-person, single engine aeroplane flight over the huge Nazca Lines symbols in the desert of Nasca, Peru;
- we partied at Loci Hostel in Lima, Peru where the vista is frequently dull, and the food for us did not live up to the reputation;
- we took a hell run series of buses from Lima in Peru to Baños in Ecuador, not doing anything or spending a single night of the bus in between;
- we got off the bus in Baños, wolfed down breakfast, then immediately set out on a white water rafting trip, then relaxed in the thermal baths of Baños (which means ´baths´ in Spanish);
- we took another hell run series of buses from Baños in Ecuador to Cali in Colombia, again not stopping in between;
- we partied and salsa-ed really really badly in Cali, the salsa capital of Colombia;
- we bused again north to Cartagena, Colombia, and explored the colonial citadel and architecture;
- we bused further north to Santa Marta, Colombia, and stayed in nearby Taganga, from where we hiked the Lost City Trek to Ciudad Perdida, starting with a short motor bike ride and then getting into some muddy, wet, steep, hot, sweaty trekking through beautiful jungle scenery, cutting across creeks and streams, sleeping in hammocks, getting eaten by mosquitos (points to Kim for eating one in revenge!) and explored the Lost City made up of around 600 circular terraces made of stone cut into the mountain in the jungle;
- we took a boat ride to Parque Torona on the Colombian shores of the Caribbean, and relaxed in the available sun on the beautiful tropical beaches, sleeping in hammocks in a raised rotunda on a rock jutting out of the beach;
- we bused it to Bogota, the Colombian capital city that we saw only from the bus, the taxi and the airport, then flew back to Lima for a single night before flying far to early in the morning to Cusco, Peru;
- we partied hardy at Loci Hostel in Cusco, Peru, until 10:30am, after ending up in a locals-only (no Gringos) bar with a bunch of locals who fought over our company and loved mine and Casey´s incessant drumming on the tables to the beat of their local music;
- and we trekked the awesome Inca Trail to the abandoned but only partially ruined Incan city of Machu Picchu (one of the largest known Incan ruin sites remaining) hiking up the seemingly endless stone stairways built by the Incas, visiting many of their ruins, hearing many tales about the Incas from our guides (only 200 people a day are allowed on the Inca Trail) and stayed an extra night in Aguas Calientes (which means ´hot springs´ in Spanish and is the name of Machu Picchu town, which exists solely to cater for the huge hoard of tourists that flock to see Machu Picchu) where we relaxed and recuperated in the hot springs (notably not as impressive as the Baños hot springs).

Quite an impressive list, and its only a summary. There are many stories to be told regarding all this, but I´ll save those for when I catch you all individually.

Now, all that is left is one night hear in Cusco, Peru, 2 days & 1 night in Lima, Peru, and 3 nights in Santiago, Chile (all journeys in between being flights) prior to departing Santiago at about 11:30pm Chile time on Friday 21st Nov and arriving back home in Melbourne at about 9:30am Victorian time on Sunday 23rd Nov, after a 15 hour flight with one brief stopover in Aukland.

I´ve decided not to tour New Zealand on the way back, but would really like to do it soon. I will probably go to Geelong with Kim & Casey on the day we get back, then catch the train to Warrnambool to visit people and pick up my car before heading back to Melbourne, maybe via Ballarat to visit my brother Jason. So I might be in Melbourne to catch up with everyone else from about Wednesday 26th Nov.

I may not write another story between now and then, but I´ll keep updating the photos on this site. Hope everyone is doing well, and I look forward to seeing you all.

Salud!

Love Col.

Gallery: Colombia (and Ecuador)

dysfunctional — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 11:02:00 GMT

Ecuador quickly by bus, then highlights from Colombia

Gallery: Peru

dysfunctional — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 11:00:00 GMT

Lake Titicaca, Colca Canyon, Nazca Lines, Huacachina, Lima + more

The fight to regain travel normality...

dysfunctional — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 01:07:00 GMT

Back in Lima, Peru and almost on track. We've not done so bad really. After KC discovered his passport lost while down near Arequipa, we managed to file a police report, bus 15 hours to Lima (through Nazca and Ica), get him some passport photos, lodge a temporary passport application, rush back to Ica and Nazca for originally intended activities, and now return again to Lima ready to collect KCs new temporary passport on Monday. Pat on the back for all involved that we are not drastically behind our original schedule at this point.

Unfortunately, our schedule is sadly lacking in accuracy. We are still tight on time though. If we leave Lima on Monday with KCs new temporary passport, then we'll have about 15 days to get out of Peru, pass through Ecuador, visit Colombia, and get on the plane in Bogota for our next return to Lima. During that 15 days, we have 4 days just on the Lost City Trail an Indiana Jones style trek through the jungle to recently discovered and overgrown jungle ruins. We had also hoped to get in a visit to the Amazon Jungle (the "real" jungle) in Ecuador, as well as some white water rafting. But if we took another 4 days for those 2 activities in Ecuador (which may not actually be enough time to do them properly), then we're down to only 7 days. And we were planning to bus it all the way!

Given its Lima---(9hrs)---Trujillo---(5hrs)---Piura (on top of which we must add time for Cartagena on the way) and that doesn't quite get us to the Ecuador boarder. So lets just presume for the minute that we can be in Ecuador by Friday 24th.

That leaves 10 days before we fly out of Bogota, Colombia toward Lima, Peru. During this time, we have to travel by bus north across Ecuador and Colombia to the northern beach of Colombia, chill on the beaches and do the 4 day lost city trek. Frankly, we're shagged.

So now the debates will begin... what do we skip? Equador entirely? The Lost City trek?

On a lighter note, we had a great time in Ica and Nazca. Ica is a little oasis in the midst of massive sand dunes. So we jumped in a dune buggy, raced across the dunes, and jumped onto sand boards for our first sand boarding experience. It was great. The dune buggy was as fun as the dune boarding itself. We also climbed about 20 minutes (very hard work) up a massive dune above the hostel to watch the sunset, then ran full pelt down the dune in about 20 seconds. That was exhilarating!

And the Nazca Lines were awesome. We were the only 3 passengers in a single engine airplane, arcing around above the different aspects of the Nazca lines, which are massive symbols to the gods, marked in rock by the Incas. The monkey was the best, but there were heaps of other impressive ones. Will have to try to put up photos shortly.

I have been on the Internet too long and should share it around some. In summary, my voice is still completely lacking any semblance of high notes, and I am still coughing frequently and harshly. Ran into some boys that said heaps of people in Cuzco had the same thing (which makes sense, because I'm sure I got it from the American girl Kara, who had only just left Cuzco when we met her). These guys said it had them for about 15 days, and losing voice is common. That sucks hardcore, because I'm only on day 10 of it now. I am so hoping I get over it soon. Traveling around is all about talking to and drinking with people, and I am unable to do either of those things properly like this. Ba! Stichy McPain should be able to remove his stiches soon, and Mucho Rashy is looking a little more normal and says he is feeling a lot less itchy.

Anyway, enough of that. I'm off to try and figure out what to do next. Hope all is well with everyone. I'll try to get some more photos up soon, although I must admit to being disappointed with no comments thus far on the last lot! Have you all seen them?

AND A BIG HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO PEEBS!!!!!!! I know its not actually your birthday today man, but it is the first chance I got to throw it in. Hope you had a good one. I will have a birthday session with you when I get back!

All the best,

Col

Gallery: La Paz, Uyuni & Isle de Sol in Bolivia

dysfunctional — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 05:46:00 GMT

We stayed at Loci, La Paz for 5 nights, way longer than we intended, but had a blast and visited the Death Road & Witches Market. Then we visited Salar de Uyuni, the Salt Flats after a 12 hour bus ride from hell, followed by a visit to Isle de Sol (Sun Island) on Lake Titicaca

Update on Stitchy McPain, Rashy & Spoondog´s Epic Arequipian Adventures

dysfunctional — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 01:28:00 GMT

And the fun continues...

Well, we are all feeling quite a bit better now, after a whole heap of sleep and our first quiet night in ages (in fact, Kim's first night in a bed for days).

We were actually making an attempt to leave yesterday, but got caught out unexpectedly by a dizzy spell from KC. We had only made it about 500m up the road when KC had to stop and sit down. Given his condition, we figured it was probably a good idea to postpone our leaving Arequipa, even though we have now stayed here twice as long as we planned.

Later in the day after my last post on this site, Kim & Kara had slept for many hours while I continued drinking, and Casey staggered around, lacking coordination and still in quite a bit of pain (not surprisingly!). Eventually, Kim & Kara got up and started drinking and playing pool with us, but KC was constantly bumping balls, moving them back to the wrong positions, and even falling on the table. We all just thought he was drunk still (coz he did have at least a couple of drinks during that day) but given his near blackout the following day (yesterday) and the fact that he can not actually remember yesterday, we are now wondering if it was not as much to do with a weird manifestation of concussion as it was the drinks. Either way, he is feeling much better now. His chin is not hurting as much today, and he has regained coordination, after 2 he has had 2 quiet nights. So we have booked our tickets for an overnight bus from 9pm tonight.

On the other hand, when Casey decided to go pass out 2 nights ago, Kim, Kara & I decided to go out with the locals and other travellers yet again, and proceeded to have another crazy night. No one was injured this time, thankfully, but none of the three of us got any sleep until well after midday yesterday, and in fact Kim did not get to sleep again until after we all went with to see Kara off on her bus to La Paz. Having already done La Paz, none of us are going with her, but for quite a while Kim seriously considered taking off with her and catching up with us again in Lima in a few more days. Anyway, Kara has left now and we are off in a different direction today. We will hopefully all catch up with her again when she comes to Aus or we go to this Burning Man festival in America that she told us so much about. She is also planning on touring Europe at the same time that I am, so I might end up cruising with her then. We will wait and see.

We are all doing pretty well today, though each of us has residual problems from the last few days. Mine is that the cold I picked up from Kara combined with multiple other factors, and thus yesterday and so far today, I have no voice!

Anyway, KC is hassling me about getting moving, so I am off for now. Tonight we bus to Iqua, to spend a day checking out the nearby Nazca Lines, and Dune Board near the oasis. Probably the next day, we will head to Lima, to deal with KCs passport issues, which will probably take a couple of days.

All the best and stay cool everyone,

Col

Stitchy McPain, Rashy & Spoondog´s Epic Arequipian Adventures

dysfunctional — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 07:15:00 GMT

Wow, what an epic adventure! We´re here at The Point Hostel in Arequipa, Peru, sadly shaking our heads in a confused state of self-imposed bewilderment and dehydration. We had the most epic day yesterday/today. In the earlier stages of our trip, we selected on a given day the winner for an award based on who had done the most stupid, unlucky or hilarious thing for the day. But after Casey´s efforts over the last 48 hours, I doubt very much that we´ll be able to top it. :o) Casey as seriously set a new standard for being a complete and utter retard. It is epic!

The panic began when Casey reached into his bag to grab his camera and realised that his money belt wasn´t there anymore. We were at the Colca Canyon, which is bloody amazing - one of the deepest canyons in the world at 10725 ft (3269 m) more than twice as deep as the Grand Canyon in the United States. We were on a 2 day hike from the top of the canyon to the bottom, where we stayed the night, then hiked back up to the top. A decent effort, I must say. Needless to say, there´s no electricity or phone lines down at the bottom of the canyon, and even where there are phone lines, Casey could really make any use of them because he has no phone numbers on him, can´t speak Spanish, and was fairly certain that his money pouch had been stolen from his bag while he was sleeping on the bus.

So, as you would imagine, Casey was stressing out badly, and unable to do anything useful about it until he got back. With all that excess nervous energy, he cained it up the canyon to the point where the guide joked that he was running up it, and felt the need to catch up with Casey in order to slow him down.

When we returned to the hostel, our shit got spread out everywhere in a vain hope that we could find his money pouch. We had packed before the Colca Canyon trip in a less than sober state, so none of us could be sure we didn´t have it. See, he had his passport, credit card and drivers licence all in the pouch, and so it is the worst thing possible to loose with the sole exception of maybe your camera with all the amazing photos of what we´ve done. After looking absolutely everywhere, we finally gave in to the inevitable - it was gone, most likely stolen.

So Casey stresses through the day, and by sometime after about 10pm, he had received from the tourist police a dodgy piece of paper with some stamps and signatures on it which we can only assume is a statement regarding the stolen property. Its a poor quality print, all in Spanish, and I haven´t bothered yet to attempt to translate it. Either way, Casey still has to visit the consulate in Lima to try to get a new passport. Until then, he can´t leave the country!

So, Casey (as I´m sure you can understand) proceeds to drown his sorrows with us in the bottom of a Pisco bottle (a local drink that really isn´t very good - some kind of bad grape brandy) a whiskey bottle, and many cervezas (beers). We played a few games of pool, talked shit with some cool English folk, and played this game called Jenga el Grande.

Jenga is basically a whole bunch of wooden blocks (large blocks in this case), initially stacked in a fairly stable manner. The idea is to carefully remove one block on your turn without toppling the stack, and place that block on the top of the stack. There´s plenty of rules to catch you out, and when your caught you have to take a shot of this concoction they whipped up behind the bar in a bucket, with about 7 different ingredients and plenty of potency. If anyone thinks the block is too easy, you take a shot. If you help someone else, you take a shot. If you use 2 hands, you take a shot. Etc.

So after much drinking and playing around, we hit the town with some locals for the second night in a row. The place was just a regular club - clubs are all the same. But there were some cool people there. Kim was busy necking an American chick called Kara, who we´d met a few days prior. We all had a fairly low opinion of Americans in general, but this chick is the bomb. Great girl, good fun.

So Kim was busy, I had no idea where Casey was, and I found this really cute, sexy local Peruvian chick and talked with her for a half hour or so. Finally, she had to go, so I stumbled drunkenly around in search of Kim & KC. Eventually I ran into Kim & Kara, who said they´d been looking for KC but couldn´t find him. Kara had asked the bouncers, who said they hadn´t kicked anyone out, so we eventually came to the conclusion he´d gone back to the hostel. So we caught a cab. So far, not so bad.

When I walked into the hostel, I saw Casey passed out against he wall. He looked as drunk as I felt, which wasn´t surprising given the copious amount of alcohol we´d all consumed. So I woke him up, and we all headed upstairs towards bed. Talking to Casey, asking him how he was going, he says something along the lines of "Yeah, good. I will need a just two or three stitches though. Who can give me stitches?"

Well, we are dumbfounded, all asking at once why he needs stitches. Then he tilts his head back and shows us this big gash on the underside of his chin. Turns out, he´d tripped over some girl and face-planted on the stairs! No wonder he vanished. Must have killed, even through the dulled drunken senses. So he´s there trying to talk us into giving him stitches, which we clearly did not have the requisites for.

I´d well and truly hit the wall. I was so tired and drunk, I actually passed out at about this point. Felt so bad when I woke up this morning to tails of Kim & Kara taking Casey to the hospital, and watching the doctor give KC stitches. Apparently, there were two operating tables in the room, but only one light. The other guy in there was a car accident victim, who was in much worse shape than KC, so they actually grabbed a torch and did the stitches under the flash light. Crazy shit!

So Kim was grumpy this morning, KC was comatose for the first half of the day, Kara had no sleep at all, and I was feeling a bit hung over, but actually not so bad. I had plenty of laughs with other hostel folk about KC´s epic night, and watching him passed out with a hand down his pants. We felt bad for him, of course, but it WAS quite funny.

We´ve had such a blast during our time so far, and actually have had a pretty good run (except for the above!) Its quite difficult to find enough time to write up any stories about what we´ve been doing. The keyboards are often terrible (like this one - I´m just persevering) most don´t have burners, some should be in a museum and definitely NOT be running WinXP, and some don´t have USB access. That part sucks coz it means I never get to upload photos. Got so many I want to upload for you all to see. We´ve been in some amazing environments, seen incredible scenery, met an absolute myriad of fun and interesting people, and partied like we invented it. We´re definitely holding up the Aussie reputation for partying and drinking. Everyone seems seriously impressed with our talents in those regards. It has been so awesome.

Miss you all, but having an absolute blast. Hope all is well for you, healthy, happy and having a good time. I look forward to sharing beers and stories with you all in late November through January, prior to my next trip through Asia, Europe, and maybe Central America.

I´m still thinking 3 months starting Jan/Feb in Asia (Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, India, Nepal, China, Japan - SO much in only 3 months) then into Europe. Probably spend more time in the expensive European/British/Scandinavian countries earlier in the year (April - June), then spend July/August in the cheaper eastern European countries. I´m planning on being there until at least October, but I´ll get a British working visa just in case. They only offer the 6-months-in-a-2-year-period-working-visa until the age of 30, so I´m unlikely to make it back to use it after next year anyway - might as well just get it and see if I feel like hanging around and working or just heading home.

Will be interesting to see what I do then. But I am very tempted to also travel from Mexico through to Colombia then down through Brazil to Argentina, which we´re sadly missing on this trip. I always knew travelling would be addictive, coz everyone always says it, but it suits me so well, I´m quite amazed. Still, missing friends and family for so long would suck. Meh? Wait and see.

Next we are off to Nazca to see the Nazca Lines - hopefully sky dive above them. That would be so awesome! If you don´t know what they are, Google it, coz they´re supposed to be amazing. Then we´ll hit the Oasis at Huacachina for some dune boarding on the way through to Lima for a couple of days to sort out Casey´s passport issues and so I can catch up with Kelly, a Peruvian chick from Lima that I met back in La Paz, Bolivia. Should be good to hit the town in Lima with a local. Then we head further north towards Ecuador for the Amazon jungle & north Colombia for the Caribbean beaches and the Lost City trek, which is the ruins of a city only found 20 years ago, with treks only being run in the last 10 years or so. Should be awesome. It´s 4 days of Indiana Jones style jungle trekking to overgrown pyramid ruins. Then back through Lima to Cuzco for the authentic 4 day Inca Trail trek, prior to our return to Melbourne.

This has been a good session on the internet, but I´m seriously sick of this stool and the sun being too warm on me through the window, so I´m gonna take off now. After all this, I´ve still barely touched on the experience we´ve been having, but that will just give me more stories to tell you all when I get back.

Col

Departing El Calafate - Mach II

dysfunctional — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 20:25:00 GMT

We´re ready early to leave the America del Sur hostel in El Calafate, Patagonia, Argentina, and hoping that this attempt will be more successful.

After a big night out Saturday night, listing to a solid set by some hostel guys in a local band, we rolled grumpily out of bed, got ready as quickly as possible, and headed off to the bus station. Arriving at the station after a quick detour to the ATM for cash, we approached the driver and offered money for our fair. That was about when reality kicked us solidly in the junk, and we were left deflated and pissed off after being informed that the bus was full since we didn´t buy the tickets earlier!

So, on the bright side, we scored a day of relaxation at what is, we agree, the best hostel we´ve stayed at so far. Gave us time to sort out a few things, like Kim calling Commonweath Bank to deal with the issue of not being able to recieve his security SMSs for bank transaction confirmations (and therefore not being able to make transfers to new billers).

The BIG issue we dealt with, though, was the Santa Cruz saga. There´s currently a considerably volatile civil unrest situation in Bolivia, specifically in certain provinces including Santa Cruz, where we were scheduled to arrive in only a few days. After hours of tourturous Skpye conversation with Qantas, we´ve now moved our flight to go to La Paz instead of Santa Cruz, to avoid meandering into a road block or worse.

Anyway, gotta go catch my bus.

Buenos dias! Chow.

Col

Gallery: Patagonia

dysfunctional — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 07:00:00 GMT

The awe-inspiring Patagonia region of Chile & Argentina

Gallery: Santiago, Chile

dysfunctional — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 12:30:00 GMT

A whole new continent