The backpacking diaries

Photos: Rio Carnival

helenhughes — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 18:00:00 GMT

Photos: Paradise Paraty!

helenhughes — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 08:30:00 GMT

Paradise in Paraty!!!

helenhughes — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 08:00:00 GMT

We left Iguazu to embark on a 32 hour journey across the Argentinean border into Brazil and on to the cute colonial and coastal town of Paraty, four hours south of Rio. The journey should have involved five buses and a taxi but at the last minute we decided to be kind to ourselves and splurge some cash on a private transfer to the international bus station in Brazil (cutting out 3 of the 5 buses – my brother who keeps reminding us “this is NOT a holiday, you’re meant to be traveling!!” would not have been impressed!).

We're not looking forward to Brasil, simply for the fact that the language there is Portugese, of which we know not a single word! After 3 months in Spanish speaking countries, occasionally listening to the Spanish language CDs and now having bought a Spanish/English dictionary, we finally feel like we’re getting somewhere with the language. Clearly this is not the case as was proven perfectly at the Argentinian/Brazilian border when changing the last of our Argentinean pesos into Brazilian currency. I ask the woman behind the counter to give me small notes (because getting change in these countries is always an issue) and she looks at me very confused and as though I’m slightly mad but I persist thinking she’s just being stubborn. Eventually Kirst hears me and comes over to inform me that I’m clearly the confused one! Instead of the word for small (Pee-ken-ya) I’m saying (Pee-kan-tay), which actually means spicy tomato salsa!! Kirst is howling with laughter and the women behind the desk realize my mistake and also find it hilarious, and I just stand there looking red faced and muttering about how similar those two bloody words are!!!!!

24 hours into the journey and after the most comfortable night bus we may ever take in our lives (big fully reclining lazy boy leather chairs, hot meals, and English movies!!!) we arrive in Sao Paulo – one of the largest and most violent cities in the world (the stats on the number of daily murders don’t make for pleasant reading!) We're pretty nervous about being there and so decide not to risk being robbed (or worse) for a third time and to ship straight on through to Paraty. We have a four hour wait in the bus station and would you believe even in those four hours, we manage to get mugged!! I've gone to the loo and kirst is sitting eating a plum when an elderly woman approaches her and starts talking and gesticulating at her in Portugese. Kirst finally figures out that she's demanding a plum and of course, kirst hands one over. Like she said later, "I didn't want to risk refusing her, that old woman could have had a machete in her handbag!!! Best to just hand over the goods!!!!"

When we arrive in Paraty, 32 hours after our journey began, its 10.30pm! I'm exhausted after being talked at for the last four hours by the sweaty German insurance broker in the seat next to me! Interesting guy but give it a break!!! You'd have thought he'd have got the hint and shut the f**k up after I cosied up under my blanket and put my eye mask on!!!! But when we get off the bus we're instantly revived, its still 28 degrees, there are palm trees lining the cobbled rustic roads of this caribbean looking town and there's a samba band doing an impromptu performance in the bus station. We've arrived in Brazil!!!

Our good mood is dampened when we arrive at the hostel. The lounge/kitchen/bar/reception is tiny, hot and heaving with ppl. Then we get shown to our 9-bed room, which consists of three triple bunk beds and a space in the middle of them roughly the size of your average doormat!!! We're both given the top beds and I'm right under the ceiling fan. Didn't realise quite how close i was to that vicous fan til climbing into bed that night I almost get decapitated by it!!! That's the last time I sleep on the top of a triple if i can help it!! The hostel's one saving grace is that it's right on the beach and the view that night was incredible - white sand, palm trees, calm water, and all bathed in moonlight, beautiful!!! Unfortunately we then get told that the beach is filthy and the water too dirty to swim in!!!! Decision made! First thing next day we get the hell out of there, we don't really know where we're going and we don't really care, we just know we're not staying there for one more night!!

Turns out to be the best decision we ever made! We end up staying at Blue Jungle hostel which is surrounded by jungle, so peaceful, horses in the field next door and a huge swimming pool! We head straight into town and invest in two lilo's (possibly the best 7 pounds I've spent in Brasil!) and more or less spend the rest of the week cooling off from the incredible 38 degree heat bobbing about in the pool on the lilo! Perfect!

Paraty itself is a beautiful colonial town with wonderful white washed buildings and cobbled streets. Its really quiet and peaceful and feels safe (for Brasil anyway!) Every night in the square there is live music and stalls selling caipirinhas (best cocktail ever) made with every conceivable fruit you can imagine!! But perhaps the best thing about Paraty is the self service pay by weight ice cream parlour with about 35 different flavours and zillions of different toppings and sauces! We heard about this place before we arrived and our only regret is not have visited the place more often!!!!!

It was my 29th Birthday while we were staying in Paraty. I woke and went for breakfast where the hostel owners presented me with a cake they had baked that morning!!! Then checked email and I'd received 40 b'day messages (if I'd have known that buggering off to the southern hemisphere would result in this much love and affection I'd have done it years ago!!) Luckily the internet went down the following day which gave me a great excuse not to have to reply to everyone!! As for presents; Kirst knows I'm trying to travel light and don't want to be weighed down with unnecessary crap, so for my present she gave me a hug - how thoughtful she can be!!! Mum and dad sent me a text and my brother communicated to me via telepathy!!!!

So we spent the day on the incredible, hot, secluded, sandy Trinidad beach. Just a slight contrast from last year when I had the day off work cos we were all snowed in!! In the evening we had a pre-dinner caipirinha which turned into 5 caipirinhas and no dinner!! Needless to say I was pretty hammered and spent some time that night hugging the toilet bowl!! Anyway we didn't get back to the hostel til 10.30am and though neither of us has much memory of what we got up to, we're assuming it was a good night!!!

On the 9th Feb we sadly packed up, left the lilos floating on the pool, said our goodbyes and got onto a bus headed for Rio. We're feeling about as scared as we are excited!!! This is it - it's Carnival time!!!!!!!

Iguazu Falls!

helenhughes — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 16:25:00 GMT

We were gutted about leaving Buenos Aires (by far our favourite place so far) and figured we needed to do something good to feel happy about having left. And what better than one of the 7 natural wonders of the world?!!!! The Iguazu Falls are one of the things I definitely wanted to visit when I planned to go travelling years ago and so actually being there felt pretty surreal! The falls are absolutely awesome, on a scale that is incomprehendable! There are 275 falls in Iguazu and the volume of water thundering down is crazy!! We had a fantasic day walking around the national park, taking pics of the falls and all the wildlife there, then we went on a speedboat which took us right underneath the falls! It was sooooo much fun!!! We got absolutely soaked through to the skin and the water was thundering down so hard we couldn't see a bloody thing, we were just howling with laughter the whole time!!!

Check out the photos, no words can describe it really!!! Just immense!

Photos: Iguazu Falls

helenhughes — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 14:39:00 GMT

A crime statistic and still loving Buenos Aires!!

helenhughes — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 13:22:00 GMT

Buenos Aires - the city that never sleeps!!! Well, it certainly lived up to its reputation!! Never have I seen so many sunrises and sunsets and so few middays!!!! We loved Buenos Aires, ended up staying for 2 and a half weeks and if we didnt have to be in Rio for the carnival, we may have never left!!!

Monday nights (for three weeks) we went to Konex a disused warehouse downtown where La Bumba, a samba/african drumming band played the most uplifting funky improvised beats! It was packed every week with a mix of locals and tourists, the atmosphere was electric, you couldnt help but dance and starting at 7pm you saw the sun go down as the music picked up, incredible experience!!!

Then on Wednesdays we discovered a gay night at a club called Bahrein. The music was classic house and when they played Robin S - Show Me Love and the whole place erupted it had to be one of my best memories of the trip!!! Pure happiness!! We loved the place and being gay it was like a home from home and meant we could dance without having to put up with the Argentinians giving it the old latino charm every 2 minutes (gorgeous though they are, it can get a bit tiresome when a girl's trying to dance!!) Nothing gets going in B.A. til midnight, clubs don't even open til 1 or 2am and they keep going all night, its brilliant!!! Two weeks on the trot we left at 7am and not before the final song had been played!! Then we'd walk through the city, past the river back to the hostel. The perfect time for sightseeing, with the quiet streets and at 7am it was ONLY 25 degrees! Admittedly we got a few funny looks from the city slickers on their way to work and us in our going out clobber stumbling home, but hey, we're used to getting funny looks by now!!! Sometimes you'd think they'd never seen a blonde before in this city!!!

The clubbing wasn't all happy times, we did get our camera nicked from my bag when we were in a club. So the following week we re-visited loads of our fave spots and re-took the photos only to attempt to up-load them on our final day there and for the computer we used to corrupt the memory card. Hence the lack of photos, we now don't have a single photo of Argentina, by far our fave country so far, gutted!!! Anyway having become a crime statistic we felt it only right we claim on the insurance and for that we needed a police report. We had to go to the station closest to where the robbery took place which meant we got a lift in the police car (a first ever for me and litle did i imagine it would take place in argentina). Infact I was so excited about being in the back of a police car I took a photo from the back seat, which the copper found totally confusing but kirst and I thought was absolutely hilarious!!!

So after almost two weeks in a crazy party hostel and having done irreversible damage to my liver, we move to the quiet area of San Telmo full of ancient mansions, antiques markets and narrow cobbled streets. On Sunday night they have an outdoor milonga (dance hall) in the main square, all the locals (all ages) come to practice their tango technique. Everyone really is big on tango out here, it isn't just a put on for the tourists. And its so fantastic to see all these people of all different ages getting together and dancing this fantastic dance. Its just brilliant people watching!! It was so much fun! Its the sexiest dance, the women are soo hot, so we were picking our favourite dancers and trying to work out who would be going home with who at the end of the night!!

Of course, I had to give it a go myself (not at the milonga, that's purely for people who know what they're doing!) I did a tango lesson at the hostel and it has to be said, it's pretty tricky! I thought i was gonna dislocate my hip at one stage, i was standing on one leg with the other leg twisted round my partner while i attempted to flick it and kick it. I was pretty sure i was gonna loose my balance and send us both toppling over and end up in a heap on the floor! He looked extremely worried and broke out in a sweat. I think my enthusiasm and the look of sheer determination on my face, he could see me getting totaly carried away and ending up kicking him in the nuts!! Luckily i managed to avoid either!

Later we went to see how the professionals do it at a proper tango show and at the end the male dancer asked for a volunteer, of course, you guessed it! My hand shot up!!! So I´ve now danced with a professional! He kept telling me to relax but good God, that's easier said than done, when you're new to this tango stuff and he's marching me up and down and spinning me round at a crazy speed, theres tons of ppl watching and my shoe kept slipping off!!! Good entertainment for everyone else though, i´m sure!!!

So a whole month in Argentina and not a single morsel of steak crossed our lips!!!! So to all those who said it wasn't possible, YOU WERE WRONG!!!! Infact it turns out that the Argentinians are sick to death of steak, they're totally over it (they don't tell you this in the Lonely Planet!), which is why we found some of the best vege restaurants we've ever eaten in - all full of locals, enjoying good healthy wholesome vege food, and who can blame them! Only issue was they all bloody closed at 3.30pm. Its like 3.30pm is the witching hour for vegetarians and you can't eat after that! Well with our wild partying, we were doing well if we made it up and out before dusk let alone by 3.30! So many a day we were seen scrambling into our clothes, whatever we could find and legging it up Avenida de Mayo to get to some vege buffet place before it shut!!!

So in the lovely mansion hostel with antique furniture and a balcony overlooking the pretty street below, there were bed bugs!!!! Well, in kirst's bed there were at least! And she got bitten to death! so on our final weekend in B.A. we had a shopping day planned in the posh area of Palermo and it had to be said she looked like she had a bad case of the measles!! We got some very strange looks and bless her she was itching like crazy! So the only shopping we did that day was a tube of hydrocortisone cream to take the swelling down and the shopping got ditched in favour of a much needed bottle of sparkling and some people watching outside a bar in the main plaza.

But even after the theft of the camera, and the bed bugs, and the stupid opening hours of the restaurants and the oppressive heat, we love love love Buenos Aires, and most definitely would have stayed longer if we didn't have to be in Rio for carnival! Infact we may never have been ready to leave! But without a single photo we have no evidence of how amazing it is, so you just have to visit B.A. yourself, its soo much fun, the party scene is the best and the men are just to die for!!!!

Argentinian Detox or not?!!!!

helenhughes — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 01:43:00 GMT

After the excesses of Christmas and New Year we decided it was time for a detox! We also worked out that we've budgeted 1000 pounds per month and we're away for 7 months and yet we only have 4000 pounds each!!!!! Who did the maths?!!! I'm not quite sure but thank god i went into psychology and not accountancy!!!!

So we hauled up in a very cheap hostel with a free breakfast, which we took FULL advantage of and cooked for ourselves and didn't drink a drop of alcohol for a whole week!!!! Amazing, i know! And we actually managed to stick to our ridiculous budget of 8 pounds per day!!!! One day we went to a bar and had a diet coke and it actually felt indulgent!!! Unfortunately all of this coincided with us being in Mendosa, which is ironically the capital of the wine producing region of Argentina - 70% of the country's wine is produced there and so its super cheap great wine!!!! What bloody timing eh?!!!

But Mendosa itself is a beautiful city with tons of plazas and a park as big as the city itself so we were jogging in the morning before it got too hot and then sunbathing in the afternoon. 30 degrees and sunny every day, we didn't want to leave! Well we did, cos next stop was Buenos Aires . . .

And B.A. is even better! There might not be plazas and parks but there's bars and clubs and thats way better!!!! Once we got here and checked into a party hostel and had our first sniff of vodka after a week of tee-totalling we both seemed to forget the budget ever existed!!!! We're cutting corners and angling for freebies wherever we can though. On Tuesday we even went to a really posh steakhouse just cos we heard they give you free champagne while you wait outside to be seated!!!! And they did!!! And boy did we take full advantage of that! Then we ate all the free bread they gave and asked for more then ordered the cheapest - and only vegetarian thing on the menu, a salad!!! Then got given a ton of free lollipops for pudding, nice one!!!

Which brings me on to food!! And if one more person tells us how much we're missing out by not eating these bloody amazing steaks I'm gonna scream!!!! We know they do good steaks, alright!!!! We get it!!!! I've never seen lumps of meat like i've seen here, bloody gigantic!!! So its virtually impossible for us to overspend on eating out cos we can barely find a sodding thing to eat!!!! At the supermarket in Mendosa they sold frozen vegeburgers so we had them for our dinner every night, so we're in steak and wine country, drinking diet coke and eating vegeburgers!!!!!! No wonder everyone thinks we're weird!

Luckily the clubs don't open here til 2am, so we're out til very late - this morning got in at 5.30, just as the sun was coming up! So we're getting up at 2pm and only managing one meal before we get back on with partying!!! Sorry mum - I'll worry about my liver some other time!!!

And on that note, I'm going back to bed!!

Photos: Bolivian Christmas!

helenhughes — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 03:23:00 GMT

White Christmas!

helenhughes — Thu, 7 Jan 2010 08:24:00 GMT

Well, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!! Rather belated, I admit, though I have been in the Atacama desert and cut off from civilisation (and the rest of the time pissed or recovering from the night before!!) We started our second Gap Adventures tour through Bolivia on the 14th December. On the 22nd Decemeber due to the very bad influence of our new tour group Kirsty discovered the joys of red wine and it´s been pretty much a blur from then until early Jan!!!!!

Before xmas we went to the silver mines in Potosoi where 8 million ppl have died and 3 die every month working in the mines (Bolivia don´t take safety very seriously!). After the tour of one of the working mines our guide purchased a stick of dynamite and prepared a bomb (in the minibus) then we drove to a bit of empty hillside and she lit the fuse. We were passing it between the 15 of us and getting our photo taken while the fuse burnt. I was last in the queue!!!!!!! "Don´t worry" she said, "its got another minute before it blows"!!!!! I threw it at Luke who´d volunteered to run with her and bury it, he was still holding it at least a minute later while she was digging a hole in the ground for him to put it in!! They´d been running away from it for only about 20 seconds when the thing went off and good god, it was an explosion!!!!! Imagine that happening in the UK? I don´t think!!!!!!! but hey, thats bolivia for you!!!

Christmas was spent on the spectacular salt flats, the photos will say it all, just stunning scenery!! We´d had a brilliant day but couldn´t wait to get to the hotel to do our secret santa and start the drinking on xmas day night! We were in jeeps driving across the salt flats to our salt hotel, only an hour and a half til we arrive and we joked "how do the drivers know where to go on the flat stark salt plains where there is nothing but blinding white salt in all directions and then the horizon?" Answer: they don´t!!!!!! The rain came in and visibility reduced to nothing and after a couple of hours we realised the driver had bugger all idea where the hell we were! We were travelling in convoy so every 20 mins we´d stop, the drivers would chat in the rain then we´d start driving round in circles again! They hadn´t got a sodding compass between them and unfortunately kirst and I had forgotten ours too!!! I tentatively asked whether anyone had an i phone to see if we could try using GPS?!!! "Turn left at the next grain of salt!!" You guessed it - GPS wasn´t an option. I was beginning to worry we´d run out of petrol soon and on a personal note i was desperate for the loo and not for something that would get washed away by the rain either!!! EEk!!!! The tour leader was in our car and he just told us we´d be spending the night in the car and put his ipod in! Not quite the reassurance we were looking for when you´re lost in the desert on xmas day!!!! Anyway some time later the rain stopped, clouds lifted and we could see the horizon again which meant the drivers could navigate and halleluyah we made it (and i didn´t have to leave a present in the middle of the white salt flats!!)

On boxing day we saw moon landscape, mountains, active volcanoes and pink flamingoes. then unsurprisingly one of the clapped out old jeeps gave up the ghost completely and apparently the AA don´t cover the desert so i spent the afternoon with two more in our car and kirsty and the tour guide sitting practically on top of me - much fun was had by all!!!

Then 27th Dec we crossed into chile and left Bolivia and its stunning landscape and pretty dire food behind! Apart from the bus never arrived to pick us up, so we left Bolivia and were stuck in no mans land waiting to get into chile for about an hour with a bag of lollipops and two cereal bars to our name! No stress, a different bus came eventually and once we were over the border into the little cute dusty and hot border town of San Pedro we cracked open a case or two of Cab Sav and another night lost in a haze of red wine!!!

You could be forgiven after reading this for thinking that most of the action is happening at night. Contrary to this, we are surfacing during the day, and on the 28th I went sandboarding. amazing fun!!! Quite a lot like snowboarding but hurts a lot less when you fall (and I did), infact spent so much time on my arse kirst struggled to get a picture of my face!!! But i seemed to get there in the end and was soo much fun!!!

New Years Eve was spent in Santiago, Chile. Our group weren´t much into clubbing (much to my dismay) and the tour leader hadn´´t bothered to make a restaurant reservation and with 20 of us in our group we couldn´t get a table anyway. Kirst and i were so pissed by the time we left the hotel, i don´t think we really noticed. so we ended up seeing the new year in standing outside a burger joint and infact weren´t even together cos at the crucial 12 o clock, kirst was in the loo and i was running around completely trollied calling her name!!! Yet another fantastic new years eve, not!!!!!

So the Gap tour is now over, we´re officially on our own from here, scary!!! and on the 4th Jan we made our first bus journey and border crossing (into Argentina) all on our own!!! Very proud of ourselves! We´ve stopped in Mendosa (the area is surrounded by vineyards and produces 70 % of Argentina´s wine, need i say any more?!), its a beautiful city, we love it! Unfortunately one or two other people think so too, so when we arrived we couldn´t find a bed for love nor money, we trawled the city, backpacks on, looking for a room with an israeli couple we´d met at the bus station. eventually we found a room in a crappy hotel across town for the 4 of us! So we slept with these strangers (who were lovely) in a room you couldn´t swing a cat in, paint peeling off the walls and a toilet that didn´t flush!!!

Next day we got the hell out of there and not happy with the new place, later that day, moved again!! Now we´re in a really nice place with our own room (its a triple but we hope we keep it to ourselves) we have our own bathroom, free breakfast (and we´ve found the stash of cereal so keep helping ourselves throughout the day) and free internet (here i am), all for a bargain 8 pounds each! Its not perfect by any means - the light in the bathroom has an interesting strobe effect going on (i applied my eye make-up y´day using my head torch) and they play bob marley on repeat from 5pm til at least 2am!!!!! I love reggaee but good god, buy another cd!!!!

The plan is to stay here for the week and head to Buenos aires on sunday for serious partying and of course, to learn the tango, can´t wait!!!!! In the meantime we´ll attempt not to die from the heat (30 degrees every day - i can feel the sympathy oozing from you all), oh and do a tour of the vineyards! I don´t ride a bike, so we decided the perfect time for me to learn would be in argentina, riding around vineyards on the back of a tandem with kirst in control, both getting every so slightly tipsy on red wine! I´ll let you know how that one goes!!!! xx

Bolivia: On a budget!!

helenhughes — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 07:41:00 GMT

So having said our sad farewells to our Gap Adventures group (who were travelling on through Bolivia and into Chile - the trip we will do starting on 14th Dec) we were all on our own in the big, high altitude (3900metres above sea level)smog-fest that is La Paz!! We had 2 and a half long weeks stretching out ahead of us before we were due to leave and this really isn´t the sort of place you choose to spend a 2 week holiday!!

We checked in at Wild Rover, a party hostel and then did our sums and realised we´ve been spending way more than we were meant to, so partying was on hold and all of a sudden we had a budget to stick to!!! 150 bolivianos (15 pounds) per day, with the bed in the hostel costing 50 bolivianos a night, we were down to 100 each (10 pounds) per day! Sadly the cocktails we´d been drinking up to this point were costing 22 - 30 bolivianos each!!!! Ouch! A diet of 3 or 4 cocktails a day it is then!!!

So our first week was spent having early nights, getting up late and then touring the many coffee houses of this city trying to outstay our welcome for as long as we possibly could. N.B. We can now safely say that the only place you can get a decent cappuccino is Alexander Coffee, though it costs 20 bolivianos (only 2 pounds to you guys but one fifth of our daily budget!) And the week flew by!! We were getting up so late we were averaging having breakfast at about 3.30pm and then the traffic is so crazy here that it takes about an hour to cross the road, so no point trying to pack too much into a day! In terms of culture, we did manage to pop our heads into the San Francisco cathedral (admittedly for all of about 2 minutes) and the museum of contemporary art, and we´re still intending to visit the Coca museum. Then ater finding a gym on wed, we went to an aerobics class on thurs evening!!! No surprise to those who know me, that even in Bolivia I´m managing to get my gym fix in!! Now as we´re at high altitude the advice in the Lonely Planet is walk slowly, eat little and don´t have sex (one out of 3 of those has been particularly easy to stick to!!), so we find ourselves doing Body Attack one of THE most intensive cardio classes ever!! OMG, it was in a proper scary gym down in a basement, full of meatheads!!! This muscle machine guy bounces into the aerobics studio (a room with no air con and the slippiest floor ever!) and starts barking spanish at us!!!! Quite honestly kirst and I were terrified, he was jumping around and we were doing our best to keep up!! I´m not sure who i was more scared of, the guy instructing the class or the shit I´d get from kirst for suggesting we did the class in the first place!!! Anyway, somehow we got through it without requiring CPR or the use of an oxygen tank! And we were still speaking to each other afterwards!! We must have looked pretty hilarious, red-faced and sweating and looking like two girl guides who´d taken the wrong turning, in our hiking shoes and walking shorts (the best we had to wear!!)!!!

So after a week of early nights and no drinking we were getting serious alcohol withdrawal so we knew Friday was gonna be a big one!! We were really excited about it all day. After a couple of hours in an internet cafe in the afternoon we bought a big bottle of vodka and headed back to the hostel to get ready to party!!! Only to discover that with the presidential election on Sunday, drinking had been outlawed for THE ENTIRE WEEKEND!!!! To say we were gutted was an understatement, we laughed because the only alternative was tears!!! We´d known that nothing would be open from midnight sat so that sat night was a right off but not friday aswell!!!! We tried to make the best of it, got changed, put on a slick of mascara and sat in the hostel bar sipping our vodka and cokes. At first it was quite exciting, because the hostel was serving even though drinking was illegal so we were told the police could raid at any time and if they did we were to hide in an upstairs room, exciting!!!! and we had to keep the noise down so no one outside heard and raised the alarm. It was the 1920s prohibition all over again and here we were in a proper speakeasy!!! But without the sexy 1920s outfits, tights, red lipstick and the music it just wasn´t the same!! so 2 vodkas and a cheese toastie later and we took ourselves off to bed. Both secretly wishing we could teleport ourselves home for one final wild night out on the town in Brighton!

Sat we had a much better plan, we checked into a quiet hostel on the other side of town with a tv lounge and a huge collection of dvds and a kitchen so we could cook our own food and spend the whole weekend veging in front of the telly and eating! The one thing we´re missed (apart from decent music and cadburys chocolate) is sitting on the sofa watching movies! But then sat morning kirsty woke up with a bad case of d and v, yuk!! So the supermarket shop wasn´t quite as much fun with kirsty looking as white as a sheet and about to pass out and I still cooked veg fajitas but she never touched them, and then the tv lounge turned out to be home to the world´s most uncomfortable hard leather sofa ever!!

Sunday morning she was feeeling better and we strolled around town! It was sooo eerie!!! No restaurants, shops, taxis, the city was empty. It took us 10 mins to work to downtown la paz when on a normal day it takes 40 cos of the traffic and trying to cross the roads!!!! All the kids were out playing on their bikes (people actually have bikes here, on a normal day you´d be on a suicide mission if you rode a bike down these streets!) and were playing football in the middle of the dual carriageway, it was just like xmas day, apart from really hot and sunny!!! Basically we´re really glad we did stick around to see a totally different La Paz, it was quite an experience!! And that night it was round 2 for the fajitas, with kirst´s appetite returned and a dvd marathon!!!! Yay! Then early to bed cos we had a 3.30am start to catch a flight to the Amazon Basin for our jungle adventure. . . .

Peru: Poverty, pom poms and partying on Pisco sours . . . Oh, and Maccu Pichu!!

helenhughes — Tue, 1 Dec 2009 09:05:00 GMT

We have now completed our 21 day whistle stop tour of Peru and crossed the frontier into Bolivia!! Though its hardly noticeable that we´ve changed countries cos ts all very similiar, apart from a change in currency and even cheaper!

We were struck by the amount of poverty in peru though we could have missed it as we were shuttled from one three-star hotel to the next, all with comfy beds, hot showers and wireless internet. Eating in tourist restaurants and drinking in bars much too pricey for locals. While we had wireless internet the average person on the street takes their work to a man in the town square who sits on a bench with a typewriter and charges a few pesos to type work for people!! Everyone is selling something or offering some service, its a country full of entrepreneurs - Alan Sugar would be impressed!! So we´ve felt very privileged and rich, as you can expect.

But the real eye opener came whe we stayed with a family on an island on Lake Titicaca. Our bedroom was a seperate building with stone floor, en-suite, curtains, comfy beds, while the family slept in one room with mud walls and floor and all in one bed (2 adults and 5 kids)! We were terrified about the homestay, still not having learnt much spanish and not needing to use any since the trip started cos our argentinian guide has sorted everything for us. Kirsty started frantically reading the spanish phrase book while i resigned myself to the fact that dinner with the family would be a silent affair with the odd bit of charades thrown in! The meal was a wonderful veg, quinoa and potato soup which filled me up and i was hoping that was the entire meal but then came main course!!! A steaming mountain of rice served with pasta and potato, OMG, carb overload or what!!! Bearing in mind I´m the no-carbs queen, my eyes virtually popped out of my head and I turned to kirst and asked "Can you die from eating too many carbs?"!!!

So as expected we ate in total silence with the 5 kids in the family whispering amongst themselves, the mum sitting on the floor next to the wood-burning stove she was cooking on (she never really gave us eye contact, and dad didn´t make an appearance. After the tense silence seemed to have lasted an eternity, I exclaimed "Wow, I´m full!!!" bur rather too loudly!!! The kids virtually jumped out of their skins and turned to look at me by which point I was blowing out my belly and rubbing it to gesture fullness and smileing with a huge grin!! Kirst just started laughing and told me later that I looked like an over-enthusiastic Father Christmas!!! Needless to say the rest of the meal was conducted in complete silence!

The following day we left the homestay (humbled but relieved that the experience was over!!) and visited another island. Where the islanders live a very traditional lifestyle, sustaining themselves with a couple of cows and chickens and living a very simple lifestyle with few possessions, probably not far from life in the UK 500 years ago! All the women wear traditional peruvian dress, layered colourful skirts and black shawls with wide brimmed hats. We were told the siza of the pom pom on a womans shawl denotes whether or not she is single - the bigger the pom pom the more you know she is single. Kirst and I plan to start to work on outfits made entirely of pom poms as soon as we get back!!

We have certainly acquired a reputation as party girls amongst our group on our Gap Adventures tour! Each time we have arrived in a new town the others ask, wheres the cathedral or the museum? From Kirst and I its always, is there a nightclub? If so, where? and where can you get a decent cappucino? Not exactly culture vultures!! But hey we´ve got 7 mths to soak up galleries, museums and ancient inca ruins, we need to pace ourselves!!! Anyway we´ve embraced Peruvian culture in one sense and thats through our love of the national drink Pisco and in particular the cocktail Pisco Sour, made with Pisco ( a nice healthy measure, egg white (essential protein which we are lacking!!), lemon juice and sugar!) Its the perfect combination between sweet and sour and very alcoholic - love it!! Its been responsible for breaking down barriers amongst the members of our group and after a few pisco sours even the most quiet and unlikely members of the group have been persuaded (by us) into a club and onto the dancefloor!! Our tour guide told us on the final night he´s never had a group thats partied as much as ours!! and Kirst and I take full credit for this!! I´m also responsible for getting everyone into a karaoke bar, much to most of their initial dismay!!! But mine and the tour guide´s enthusiasm for it overrode their protests! Theirs 12 in our group and between us 7 different nationalities and i can tell you I´ve discovered nothing cuts across language barriers or cultural differences like a good old rendition of Whitney - I wana dance with somebody!!!! Its a classic no matter where you come from!!

However the partying was temporarily interrupted for the Inca Trail!! 4 days, 3 nights camping, 40km (26 miles), well over 1200 metres of climbing, and all done at over 3000m above sea level. I must confess the walking was much harder than I´d anticipated. At that altitude even a bit of uphill walking gets your heart racing and makes you very out of breath, let alone five hours of very steep uphill walking on the second day to reach 4200m, and just to add to the experience it ws driving rain and very cold!!! We´d planned to celebrate when we reached the top but instead took a quick picture and started our decent to the camp, which meant 2 hours of downhill. walking down treacherous slippy uneven rocky steps in the rain!! To ay we were relieved to get to camp that night would be a bit of an understatement!! The third day involved ten hours of walking but was much better weather and a more pleasant walk through the rainforest, and less uphill!! Then on day 4 it was up at 4am and stat walking at 5am to reach the sun gate for 7am, and wow it was worth it!!! the skies were clear and the views down to Maccu Pichu were fantastic, we got the all important photo of me and Kirst with ruins in the background, yippee!! By the time we walked a further hour to the ruins i was so tired and hungry I didn´t take in any of the actual tour, which was a shame. We were like the walking dead, struggling to keep our eyes open. the minute the tour finished we found a patch of grass and fell fast asleep! So proud we acheived it and definitely planning to do a lot more hiking before the trip is finished!!

Gallery: First Stop Peru

helenhughes — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 08:56:00 GMT

How many llama photos is too many?!!

Here we go!!!!!!

helenhughes — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 02:51:00 GMT

And they´re off!!!! Its got to be said, I was freaking out on the flight here, thinking what on earth am I doing?!! And after having such an amazing weekend in Brighton with the best of friends, who can blame me?!

But now the trip is underway, its all good!

Yesterday was Wednesday, I should have been sat in the Team Meeting listening to tales of woe about crap IT systems and not enough inpatient beds, instead I was tearing around the Peruvian desert on a sand buggy, at brake neck speed over massive sand dunes and down the vertical drops the other side - awesome!!! Then sandboarding, which I love!!!!!

Afterwards a trip to a winery to try the famous pisco, I´m loving the pisco sour, like lemon meringue pie in a glass but very alcoholic!!! Think they´ll be forming a staple part of the diet whilst in Peru, to accompany the vegetarian omlettes and chips, oh yes, the joys of being a vege abroad!!!!

Last night we went into full backpacker mode, sat around drinking beer and playing cards! The rest of the group we´re with are really great, and we´re together for 3 weeks!

Today we´ve decided we deserve a break so we´re opted not to do the flight over the Nazca Lines and instead we´re gonna chill by the pool!! Cos, its hot and sunny! Oh, yeah, you heard me right! And, I did warn you all this wasn´t gonna make for pleasant reading so don´t be cursing me now!!!!!!

My lack of organisation in advance of this trip has been quite astounding! Not only did i have no south american currency the day i was due to fly and no idea whether or not accommodation was booked, i have no idea of the details of this trip we´re currently on at all. We missed the welcome briefing on day one so we´re still referring to the others as ´tall ozzie guy´ and ´girl with pretty green eyes´, too late now to ask their names! And for the first day and a half had absolutely no idea where we were as we hadn´t been given the itinerary! Then I heard a girl ask when we were doing the flight over the Nazca Lions. Awesome, some sort of safari flight and we get to see big cats, right up my street! Kirsty had to inform me it was the Nazca LINES - markings in the sand in the desert, nothing to do with big cats!!! Still, good name for an American football team i reckon ' the Nazca Lions´!!!