Turning 30 South American Style

New York

katrinamckeever — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 02:25:00 GMT

Last stop on an epic journey and as much luxury as we have enjoyed on our whole trip. We dined in style, drank in hip bars, saw the sites and accidentally walked into Macy's during the horror show that is the August annual one day sale.

Commitment shy couple that we are, we didn't book a hotel room until the very last minute, ending up with the expensive cast offs that more discerning clients booking months ahead of their holiday had spurned.

After hours on Skype phoning around every overbooked hotel we could find, we got a bed and breakfast in Brooklyn that looked like pure luxury on the web but was actually a pretty enough place with a pretty hefty price tag and the stingiest breakfast in the world.

Great location though near Smith Street with loads of bars and lovely restaurants near by so we bunked down for the night ready to wake refreshed and explore the big apple.

We woke and headed across the road to a lovely French cafe for breakfast, watching our fellow diners tuck into eggs benedict, fresh orange and all manner of pastries as we presented our voucher for a single croissant and coffee each to the waitress. Lovely and buttery but quite literally the cheapest thing on the menu. Talk about mean.

Ah well, the city that never sleeps awaited and we headed out ready to enjoy the hustle and bustle. Without planning to, we immediately found ourselves underneath the Empire State building, wandered over to the Flat Iron building and wandered back ending in Macy's on the day of the famous (never heard of it myself though) one day sale.

Steve made the mistake of leaving me by the first floor of ladies wear and arranging to meet me back at the escalator in a few minutes.

I soon realised that a 65 per cent off sale is no place for lady and hid at the bottom of the escalator praying for Steve to return soon.

Steve meanwhile got hopelessly lost in the maze of Macy's and spent almost an hour frantically riding stairs up and down the 34th Avenue desperately trying to find me.

Enough was enough, we headed off to China Town for some take out, getting ourselves lost again and settling into a Vietnamese restaurant for some delicious noodle soup and tofu. Mmmmm, New York can sure do food.

After freshening up, we hit a few bars back in Brooklyn. We talked to the most boring man in the world who within five minutes had told us he earned a lot of money, was making waves in the art world as an unpublished poet and could sing very well but did not want to risk his voice on karaoke. He was very sweet though and we could only assume he was very drunk.

Heading up the road, we tried a few more for size before settling on bar stools where another drunk man accidentally bought us both a drink.

It seems he did not notice Steve beside me and thought I was a lady of easy virtue sliding up onto a bar stool next to him as a big come hither gesture.

Much awkward silences later, he was replaced by another extremely drunk man who told us he was rich, a hedge fund manager no less, and was buying part of Coast Rica to go and live there because the USA was coming to an end and would never recover from an imminent recession on a scale not witnessed since the depression.

We discovered that people in Brooklyn like to talk and often about something quite interesting so you just have to sit there and listen.

And if you don't want very drunk people to talk to you, you really shouldn't sit on the bar stools.

After being politely evicted from our final bar at around 4am, we headed home and woke the next day with heavy heads. Not fit for much, we watched the football in our room and headed out in the afternoon to Battery Park see the Statue of Liberty across the water, passing the former World Trade Center site on the way where I stubbed my toe on a grid so hard that it started bleeding. Clearly not a tragedy on the same scale but it did hurt.

We also had great fun walking past the American Stock Exchange shouting: "Buy, buy, buy. Sell, sell, sell." Ah yes, greed is good as the great Gordon Geko informed us, but childish antics are more fun if you are a tourist.

One of the best ideas of the weekend though was to walk across Brooklyn Bridge into Manhattan as you get a great view of the famous skyline framed by the impressive steel structure of the famous landmark.

A great place with great people, we could definitely see ourselves living there and loving it if only someone would let us in.

We will definitely be back, some day, and next time we will probably buy the T-shirt.

Kat on a hot tin roomette - riding the Atlantic coast Amtrak in style.

katrinamckeever — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 02:21:00 GMT

Kat on a hot tin roomette - riding the Atlantic coast Amtrak in style.

A roomette for two on Amtrak for the 31 hour train journey from Miami to New York is about as close to flying first close we are likely to experience any time soon and oh what fun we had.

It all started at the train station where we were informed we had a private lounge. Had we known this we would have arrived ten hours before departure to fully appreciate it. As it was we had just five minutes.

Muffins, danish pastries, fresh coffee, cans of soft drinks, bottles of water, sandwiches and sweets. We swiped the lot, raiding the fridge like a fat couple from Burnley on Supermarket Sweep.

Haul in tact we pretended our tickets to the guard who informed us we could not possibly walk the 200 meters to our room and should wait here for a ride on the golf buggy. Meanwhile an 80 years woman stumbled past with a heavy bag and had to heave it all the way herself. I love traveling first class.

After being shuttled up the platform by a frighteningly cheery man we were seated in our roomette, which although shockingly small housed everything needed for a long journey including a toilet.

At first I thought it was a seat, having no door and being well, next to my seat. But no, convenience indeed, I had to shift just five inches along the bench and lift the lid to enjoy a little light relief.

I always prefer to be good yard away from someone using the toilet, preferably with a door in between us.

A feeling I was assured was mutual, we instigated a 'no using the toilet in the roomette' rule.

As there was no other toilet available nearby, this later became the 'leave the room and draw the curtains if somebody wants to use the toilet in the roomette' rule.

Matters of hygienic services aside, we pulled off our shoes, put our feet up, fluffed our pillows and enjoyed the feeling of luxury. (Really you could ignore the toilet after a while).

Free coffee and juice with ice on hand, three meals a day in the dining car (with tablecloths) and the United States of America rolling past your window.

We spotted orange orchards, men on porches on rocking chairs, wooden clap board houses, deep rivers and bays and more trees than you can shake a stick at.

Not the most scenic rail ride ever, but pleasant enough and we got a better view of the Atlantic coast of the states than we would have from the air.

As night fell, our friendly cabin guard came and transformed our facing seats into bunk beds. Dimming the lights and opening a bottle of red we smuggled aboard, we got giddy as school kids on summer camp.

Truly the way to travel. Beats being barked at and man handled at the airport.

Welcome to Miami

katrinamckeever — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 02:20:00 GMT

Happily tucked into a seat on Lan Airways, blanket on lap and glass of red in hand, I turned to Steve and said how lovely - for the first time in almost a year we will be able to just talk to people, in English.

The first person we met in the airport strolled boldly up to us and asked: "De donde vienen ustedes, Bogota?".

Quite quickly we realised that Miami is about as Latin American as a city can be without actually being in Latin America. We already knew this, but we didn't realise quite how true it was.

And oh what a lovely city. First pleasant surprise came at the airport. We were dreading the immigration line after having such a bad experience of it at New York on the way in but it was lovely. People here were genuinely pleasant and even had a bit of a laugh with us.

We soon discovered the cheap seats we got from Colombia were probably due to a combination of it being a popular holiday destination for Latin American holidayers and arriving in the middle of hurricane season.

Fortunately we missed hurricane Fay by a week, but we did have some quite impressive tropical rain to greet us on arrival, partially flooding the streets of South Beach.

Flip flops on, we waded through the water to get a pizza at a lovely friendly place run by tattooed blokes who chatted to us as we perched on our bar stools shoveling bin lid sized pizza slices into our gobs.

The next day we got up with the sun rise to get onto the beach and could not quite believe how lovely it was.

True, it was packed and every square inch of sand was covered in loungers and umbrellas, but the sand was lovely powdery white and the sea stretched for miles, crystal clear, shallow and oh so still.

Stepping into the ocean here is like dipping your toes into a lovely warm bath, soothing, relaxing and heavenly. The warm water means that you can lie bobbing around like a floating tadpole for hours without getting the least bit shivery.

And to be honest, the glaring white heat from the sun makes it pretty much the only pleasant thing to be doing on this beach in mid summer, unless you have a large sun shade and cooling fan close by.

After a couple of hours we beat a retreat from the merciless sun and headed down the strip for something to eat.

We caused something of a commotion in a restaurant after trying to negotiate the 'optional' 18 per cent tip. The cheeky waiter took the 18, then treated himself to a little extra on top.

Renegotiating his tip down involved a long wait, and him throwing a hissy fit and threatening to call the manager. Us unbowed, he finally handed over the change.

That done we set off with self righteous zeal to explore the art deco district and snap some pictures of the lovely palm tree lined pastel shade streets. It really is a beautiful city,much more so than we imagined (Miami Vice did tend to look at the steamier side of the city, all be it from the perspective of a yacht).

A night on the town led us to a half empty Irish bar at 3am on a dull Tuesday morning, sipping pitchers of beer and talking nonsense before stumbling home to bed.

It made us want to come back with more time, money and clothes to really do the place justice as it really is an incredible place.

Barely visiting Bogota

katrinamckeever — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 02:16:00 GMT

Owing to oversight on booking coach ticket, we missed out on a decent view of Bogota leaving ourselves little more than one day in which to race around the city.

To be fair though, we didn't exactly race around it, selecting instead to visit a very good art museum, several bike shops and a Turkish themed falafal house.

The latter was an excellent introduction to the culinary delights of the town and very welcome indeed after twelve hours on a bus from our Caribbean paradise into the gloomy grey skies of the center of the country.

But we got the feeling that here, like Buenos Aires, young people live, work and party and probably have a good time doing it. We wished we had more time and money to explore.

Arriving at Bogota bus station we were quickly approached by five part time comedian cabbies who joked with us as Steve whipped off his trousers in the middle of the rank to change into cycling shorts and ride into town.

Vanishing as quickly as they appeared, we set off into town me on the bus and Steve on his bike meeting in the historic center to find a bed for the night which we found easily enough.

Bags in room, we found a big kebab joint and ticked into some actually very nice falafal thank you very much.

Limited on time and with a massive plane and train marathon through the states ahead of us, we spent the morning looking through bike shops for a cardboard box to transport Steve's bike home.

Job done, we had a quick nose around - plaza, church, colonial building and museum of religious art all present and correct.

Then back home to watch the Gilmore Girls on cable before swearing and cursing the wheels of Steve's bike, discovering the pedals had become welded on and throw allan keys across the room.

Bike in bag, we went to the Bortoli art museum to look at his pictures of giant fat bottomed nude ladies in kitten heel shoes and they were ace.

The museum also had stuff by Francis Bacon, Picasso, Dali, Monet, Henry Moore, things that even art buffoons like me have heard of and not a pre colonial or religious art work in site.

It was like stepping back into an international world beyond Incas and invaders.

And that was pretty much it. Pizza slice for tea, couple of cheap beers in a student bar opposite the university, quick glance at fly posters with actual graphic design promising international and local DJs at clubs across the summer.

Cursing ourselves for not having more time and money, we headed off to bed ready for our flight the next day to Miami, and home.

Hammock swinging in Taganga

katrinamckeever — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 02:09:00 GMT

With its horseshoe bay framed by rolling hills, little fishing boats bobbing in the clear water under a warm Caribbean sun, Taganga, we discovered, is best viewed from a hammock, glass of wine in hand.

True, there is not much to do here beyond diving, drinking and dozing about as your hammock swings softly in the gentle breeze but that is surely the point of a little fishing village.

We were put off coming here by people who told us there was nothing here beyond dive centrers but when we popped here for dinner from Santa Marta we couldn't believe we had stayed in the port side town for so long when this little nugget was just up the road.

It is lovely, very chilled, relaxed, calm and pretty with plenty of little bars and cafes.

We splashed out here on a little hill top cabin with its own veranda and watched the sun set over the bay with a bottle of red or three we found on special offer at Exito supermarket.

The view was beautiful, with boats rolling into the bay at sunset as sky turned rose coloured and the sea all shimmery. Muy romantica.

And beyond short strolls up the road to feed ourselves on fresh baked baguette sandwiches or fresh eggs for breakfast, we did very little else.

Just laid in the hammock for days, watching the boats rolling in and then rolling out again as we nodded off with a good book.

Gallery: various

katrinamckeever — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 01:46:00 GMT

various

Ciudad Perdida Katrina Jones and the Lost City

katrinamckeever — Fri, 8 Aug 2008 01:36:00 GMT

Reared on a diet of Indiana Jones and Romancing the Stone, I had been looking forward to the machete swinging jungle trek vision of the Ciudad Perdida for months and happily it lived up to expectations. We forged waist high rivers with backpacks on our heads, clambered over boulders, walked through coffee plantations, bathed under waterfalls and camped in hammocks under the stars. It was ace.

The whole trip took six days and although we only walked for around three or four hours a day the heat and humidity really took it out of us, much more than altitude ever did on our Altiplano hikes. But what fun we had. The real joy here is the walk, the city at the end is just a bonus and the walk really is great.

We set off in our group of 17 with Turcol guide Edwin and cooks, porters and mules. Anyone who didn't keep up was left behind but there was always someone at the back to make sure you didn't get too lost.

Every day has a different topography with jungles, rocky river beds and cultivated indigenous villages. Within an hour of the first day we had reached our first swim hole and everyone stripped off and jumped off rocks into the river below providing blissful relief from the heat. We were pretty much wet from that moment on as the humidity would not allow anything to dry even when wrung out and strung out overnight.

Revived on regular offerings of pineapple chunks, oranges and bananas along the way, we made the three day walk up to the lost city through some spectacular scenery. Lush forested hills gave way to hill top vistas across the jungle that spanned for mile upon mile of lush verdant green. No machete action on the well kept route necessary but you got the feeling the jungle would reclaim the path in an instant if people stopped walking it.

Our guide Edwin was quite a card, his family history is tied up with the site and he loved telling it.

His father was one of the original grave robbers who came to Santa Marta and hiked up the Ciudad Perdida in the 1970s on the tip of a local friend. They began robbing the gold from the burial pots unaware of what they were finding and selling it well below value. When they tried to flog it in Bogota though it came to the attention of Government officials who realised it was something quite big and stepped in to stop the looting.

Years later, Edwin was the guide who took a group of international tourists up there and got kidnapped by guerrillas, managing to escape and falling under suspicion himself as being part of the plot. We took his story with a hefty pinch of salt until he produced the newspaper clippings showing him at the center of the story.

Caribbean slumming in Santa Marta

katrinamckeever — Fri, 8 Aug 2008 01:14:00 GMT

Santa Marta didn't look too promising at first, especially after we took a wrong turn out of the bus station and ended up walking for hours in the back breaking 30 degree heat late at night. But illness and changing travel plans conspired to keep us at this beach side town for a lot longer than we expected and although nothing special, it is not a bad place to while away a few days.

We were so tired when we arrived in the town that we could barely lift our eyes to look at a room but despite this seemed to look at every hotel in the place before settling on the friendly sweat box that is the hotel miramar. After two nights feeling like Steve McQueen bleeding sweat in the awful heat of the tin box we called a room we had to move out though in search of air con. Nice people though and we found a great bar across the road that sells cheese toasties at midnight, cheap as chips bottles of larger and is home to some very friendly prostitutes.

Once we got air con things began to look up. We could skip down to the beach in the morning, retreat back into the cool of our room at the height of the 38 degree midday sun and head out again at night when it dipped to a more tolerable 35.

Managed to get a bargain deal on our ciudad perdida tour but had to put it off for a few days when Steve and then I got a cold. This gave us plenty of time to establish that there is pretty much nothing here except a bank, a beach and some cheap corner shops posing as bars. Maybe the heat was getting to us but we didn't care one bit.

Cartagena

katrinamckeever — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 10:21:00 GMT

We spent three days on a bus traveling across the length of the country to reach the sunny Caribbean coast and arrived in Cartagena happy and hot. We ditched plans to stay in the back packer ghetto at Gethsemane shortly after I accidentally wandered into a crack den thinking it was a hostel. And so into the cruise ship annexe of the inner walled city, a lavishly restored Disney version of colonial Colombia. As close to Havana as Latin America gets but with the soul taken out. It is so breath takingly beautiful and entirely unreal at the same time. No one lives there, it seems almost entirely functioning to serve wealthy tourists with local people hired as extras to sell fruit in the streets and add some character.

It is a spectacular place, painted in the brightest sassiest coluors available, with rich reds, blues and yellows all lined up cheek by jowl and covered in tropical plants bursting out of terracotta plant pots and trailing trees. A photo opportunity awaits on every street corner and even the police do their best to fit in with the scene with some riding a scenic horse and cart around the cobbled streets.

We spent three days wandering around the city walls, searching for shade in the plazas and having many beers in a picturesque al fresco bar by the clock tower at the main square. And we had a lovely balcony on out hotel right in the center so we could sit out at night watching the boys on the pavement below checking out the girls walking by.

Colombia: Pasto and Popayan

katrinamckeever — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 10:00:00 GMT

And so to Colombia

I was really excited going for the border at Colombia. It is pretty much the last country we will visit on the trip and every kept on telling us about the freindly people, beatiful towns, great beaches, Caribbean breezes. Sounds lovely.

Crossing the border was a breeze, we were stamped in with a smile and waved across the frontier into a waiting taxi to make the bus trip an hour north to Pasto and straight into the hostel at the other end. Not much in the way of exhilirating night life and the food was awful in this town, so after a quick nosey round in the day light we skipped on north to Popayan in an eight hour journey breathing petrol fumes the whole way. I perked up when a young man got on the bus holding a chicken though.

Arrived in Popayan at night and spent a while searching for bad food at over priced restaurants. By day we saw the town was pleasent enough. Had all the usual plaza surrounded by banks, church and white washed offices and some nice enough cobbled streets. Also managed to find a really beatiful hotel.

But every time we went to find a museum or church or even somewhere to eat it always seemed to be shut. Rather annoying really but the ensuing boredom drove us into one of the best bars I have seen in the continent.

It is an antique old thing, run by a tiny little old man who shuffles to and from the bar with his beer bottles. He has a great wall to wall record collection behind the bar and keeps the record player on a shelf at head height so he is on eye level with the turn table, postioning the needle with a flourish waiting to hear the bosa nova beats kick in before he shuffles out to greet the next punter.

Quito

katrinamckeever — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 09:42:00 GMT

Lovely white washed historic Quito is easily one of the loveliest colonial cities in Latin America, but a total ghost town at night as residents hurry home to bolt their doors against the violent reputation of the city. It is a real shame as it could be a spectacular place, beautifully restored and you can watch the artists at work brushing up the frescos in the church or climbing up ramshackle scaffolding to paint the clock towers on government buildings.

We stayed in the old town with a beautiful view from our window taking in three historic churches, all lamp lit at night giving the town a creamy glow. By day we wandered around having coffees, looking at the impressive buildings, strolling through the library and cultural center and enjoying bustle.

The historic center is filled with little cafes and we found one really good one attached to the theater which did lovely coffee and fresh bread where you could sit for an hour or two and read the papers.

But come night fall, all that was open was a handful of tourist restaurants, all next door to each other in the same heavily guarded arcade. The fear of violence that prevents normal residents from venturing into the center at night makes it difficult to open restaurants and bars.

With very little open, it made more sense to grab a few beers and hang out of our window watching the world go by below.

Gallery: salt

katrinamckeever — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 08:03:00 GMT

salt

Banos, which hopefully means bath, not toilet.

katrinamckeever — Wed, 9 Jul 2008 07:54:00 GMT

Lovely Banos is a smashing little town, surrounded by forest topped mountians and waterfalls and blessed with an ambudance of natural hot springs. It is a really beatiful place with lots of lovely hostels, restaurants, coffe shops, book exchanges and more than its fair share of great cakes. We checked in to the most beautiful hostel that is heartbreakingly cheap and has a lovely little balcony. Unfortuantely it is so cold and wet here at the moment that any attempt to sit out on the balcony would be just plain foolish.

The aformentioned lovely cakes in mind, we headed out yesterday for a long walk in the mountains. A few minutes into the uphill walk we noticed a local lady struggling to carry a barbecue up the path and I foolsihly offered to help. She handed the thing right over and after struggling for a bit carrying it between me and Steve, he decided it was easier to just lug the thing uphill himself. And so began the half hour sprint uphill with a barbecue, Ecuadorian family in hot pursuit behind. We dropped off the barbecue at the ladies house nearly at the top and she rewarded us by ofering us a coke each. We declined, said a quick hello to her kids and their turtle and headed off. But as we reached the viewing platform at the top we cut short our plans for a four hour walk. The weather was bad, we were absolutely freezing and the clouds were obscurring the view of the volcanoe behind the hills we had come to see anyway.

Instead, we headed back downhill, put on out swimming trunks and headed to the banos for a soak in the hot springs. Set at the base of the hill with a waterfall tumbling right into the pools, they ranged from freezing cold plunge pool (empty) to luke warm pool (packed with kids) to absolutely boiling hot stock pot the colour of chicken soup. Add a few celery sticks, carrot and a bouquet garni and you would have a lovely meal. We skipped out the middle pool as it was swarming with kids and sitched between the freezing pool for about ten seconds and then the boiling pool. There were so many minerals in the water your skin was prickling all over the moment you hit the water. With nothing else to do all afternoon we sat back looked up at the mountains and enjoyed. Ahhh, bliss.

Into Ecuador - A whirlwind trip through Loja and Cuenca

katrinamckeever — Wed, 9 Jul 2008 07:33:00 GMT

New month, new country. We skipped through the north of Peru in a whirlwind of bus rides that left us in Loja, southern Ecuador in a bit of a daze. Exhausted from the trip, we entered the city through a surreal Disney version of a medieval German moathouse. After finding a hostel for the night and splashing out extra for cable TV only to find it was only Spanish language channels we headed out to find some grub and found the local team Liga were in the finals of the Libertadores cup. This was great luck, except that anyone in the food service industry was watching the game and not cooking us food. We swallowed a few beers in a beatiful jazz cafe bar, cheering them on, but had to skip away at half time to fnd something to eat before we passed out. We woke the next morning to find that inexplicably, they had won (the first Ecuadorian side to win for quite some time judging by the TV coverage) and will now play Manchester United in a freindly. Not much else to do in Loja but as we left the hostel owner rushed up to us and gave us an owl pendent each to wish us luck in our journey through Ecuador. We have absolutely no idea why - we only stayed one night and did not talk to her all that much bar the usual few pleasentries. Think she have mistaken us for another couple or maybe she just is incredibly freindly to all her guests.

Back on the road we headed for Cuenca in one of the most annoying bus journeys ever. The bus drivers here we have come to realise just love to slap some sentimental rock pop South American ballads on the stereo, crank it up full blast and subject all passengers to it for the duration of the journey. It was so loud that it even drowned out the Prodigy, turned up full volume on my Ipod with a hat and scarf tied around my head to try and block out the noise.

But Cuenca itself is lovely, all colonial houses and churches on cobbled roads in various states of repair. We have been in a bit of a daze due to the heavy travelling recently so we just wandered around for a few days, nipping into churches, art galleries and coffee shops as we passed by them without any real plans to anything. Spent long leisurely afternoons sipping coffee and reading the USA papers. Strolled by the river and saw a very old man making Panama hats by hand, using an old flat iron to bind the glue and drying them on stands on the florr outside the shop.We even managed to find a few bars which were quite nice if spectacularly empty. Had one bar entirely to ourselves at 9pm on a Saturday night. Great.

Surf, sand and cemented ruins at Trujillo and Huanchaco

katrinamckeever — Mon, 7 Jul 2008 02:06:00 GMT

Desperate for some rest and relaxation after a hard few weeks of doing nothing we spent a few pleasant day at the beach near Trujillo. Our hectic daily schedule involved waking up, eating, having a nap and then dozing off reading a book in the sunshine with some cheap beer. But after a day of luxurious lolling around the weather turned ugly so we set off sight seeing to look at some actually quite interesting ruins just outside Trujillo. There are two competing sets of ruins one is a huge city made entirely of mud bricks and now stuck back together by concrete. The other is a sort of inverted pyramid called the sun and moon temples with a scary head painted on all the walls in red. I reckon the later wins, largely due to tales of huge human sacrifice piles. It also helps that the Moche god's name is The Decapitator. A Hollywood ready civilization if ever I heard of one. In a fit of energy Steve donned a wet suit and had a quick surfing lessons before watching the sea go dead calm as he attempted to go it alone that afternoon. He spent about six hours bobbing up and down on his board in the most eerily calm sea ever known. I preferred to watch him from the shore but managed to stand in a pile of fish guts and lobster claws left on the beach by the reed boat fisher men after they gutted their day's catch. Not pleasant. A couple of days exhausted the pleasures of Trujillo and Huanchaco though so we boarded a bus and headed north, across the border to Ecuador.

Huaraz

katrinamckeever — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 06:32:00 GMT

We arrived in this lovely mountain town with great plans to trek across the national park and maybe even climb a mountain. We leave having done a half hour walk spending hours on a bus to get there.

The problem was that it was just so hard to try and set anything up, unless you pay top dollar and book a tour. Every official we asked for information told us things were too far away, too hard, not allowed entry without a licensed guide. It all seemed so foreboding. After the event we finally managed to get a map and realised that it probably would have been really easy and there was absolutely no need for a guide what so ever.

We did manage a wee ramble near the tourist lake which was beautiful and made us want more, more more. The range of peaks nearby are all capped in deep snow and right up to the snow line are beautiful shrubs, flowers, trees and all manner of life that make it truly spectacular and so different from other mountain ranges that we have seen in the Andes so far. We got a collectivo up the tourist lake which is that spectacular turquoise blue colour that you only get really high in the mountains with freezing cold glacier melt water. It was ringed by pebbled beaches and pretty shrubs, with beautiful mountain daisies and all manner of flowers that I couldn't begin to name. So beautiful we are really sad we didn´t get to trek here and see more of the place.

Sandboarding at the Oasis Huacachina

katrinamckeever — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 06:31:00 GMT

Indiana Jones has a lot to answer for. After watching the new film in Cuzco, we couldn´t pass by the Nazca Lines without having a least a little glimpse of the famous scribbles and to be fair, they weren´t really up to much. The town itself was all but wrecked in last year´s earthquake and the lines look like they were dug into the ground last week. I think this is one for people who are really into the whole Nazca mystery, for random chancers like me and Steve, it was a five minute glimpse then hop back on the bus to Huacachina, scene of some terrible crimes against sand.

The resort (near Ica) was also hit really hard by last year´s earthquake and our hotel room although charming, had no roof on the bathroom. It is a weird place, a laguna of fresh spring water set in a ring of sand dunes in the middle of the desert. It was once a glamorous spa resort for the rich and famous, but is now a faded old dame with a murky pool of stagnant water that would kill, rather than miraculously cure anyone who dared enter it and loads of backpackers cluttering up super cheap restaurants and skiting down the dunes on bits of old kitchen furniture.

Fortunately the weather was lovely and we spent most of our days with a piece of MDF strapped to our feet, sand boarding down the massive dunes. All great fun on the way down, especially if you apply wax and watch the thing fly down, dragging you after it on your back, hands flailing wildly. The real bummer was trying to crawl up to the top in the glaring desert sun, sand falling down all around you and reducing you to crawl on all fours and rest every two steps to regain your strength.

A solution was called for, we booked a sand dune buggy tour. This is basically a roll cage with an engine and seats which takes you into the desert and deposits you at the top of dunes, collecting you at the bottom to drive to the next one. All very lovely, but we had the driver who had clearly escaped from the asylum and stolen the keys to a buggy after kidnapping the true driver. He raced at the dunes at speed, drove up them at vertical angles, pausing at the top to let you feel it flip backwards slightly and just as you thought it was going to roll over and kill all on board he would spring his foot on the gas and throw you down the other side of the dune at full speed. All the while he would be looking back over his shoulder at the captives on board, grinning manically the more we screamed "please god no, stop, we want to live." The other groups looked on in shocked horror as we came to a screeching halt just inches from their faces, all on board screaming.

Great fun.

Machu Picchu

katrinamckeever — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 09:49:00 GMT

When something gets as big as Machu Picchu you get a little concerned that after great expense, time and distance to get there it can´t help but fail to live up the giant reputation that rests on its shoulders. It´s a wonder of the world visited by thousands of people every day and one of the most recognisable international landmarks.
Weirdly though, when you get there, not only does it not look like its pictures but it also seems strangely empty, easily swallowing up all the tourists who visit leaving you space to relax, sit on the terraces and just enjoy the feeling of being there.
The journey there is half the fun so we did a three day mountain bike a trek trip from Cuzco that would have been brilliant if we had working bikes. Sadly the bikes were not just bad, they were dangerously dis-repaired with broken gears, brakes and even saddles. Of our group of eleven, all of whom had done the death road trip or were experienced bikers, five came off on a mild down hill road, with one broken arm, cut head, arm leg and back and one concussion between us.
Rather than moan though, we simply kicked the bikes repeatedly when we finally came to the end of the road, cracked open a few beers and got on with it. Even our brave trouper with the broken arm simply swallowed a job lot of pain killers and trekked on with just a bandage - plaster casts are for wimps apparently.
The trekking days were lovely, looping across original trails cut into the side of the hills, through jungle terrain and onto the valley floor, following the path of the river to Aguas Calientes, the town that serves as a tourist base for Machu Picchu.
Along the way we visited the most stunning hot springs, where for two pounds you could sit in a huge naturally warm pool with great mountain sides dripping with tropical forests rising above you. As we were trekking with a Swedish girl, I even plucked up the courage to go hot pool, even hotter pool and then freezing cold water fall in that order. I cannot recommend it, the very cold water was unpleasant rather than refreshing but then I am a bit of a wimp when it comes to cold water plunges.
On the final day we were woken from our beds at 4.30am to climb the last hour and a half up the mountain to Machu Picchu by the light of the moon, arriving at the site at 6am in time for the doors to open. And it was great fun, made you feel like you earned it.
Once inside, the view is spectacular and you really get a sense of the majesty of the place that is so familiar through postcards, posters and documentaries seen a million times. It is not just the ruins that make it so stunning but rather the scenery around it.
It is set on top of a mountain, with a peak on each side of it and others circling all round it, all lush tropical hills dripping with greenery. The grass on the site is such a beautiful lime green colour that you don't see anywhere else in Peru and it is really soft, almost English lawn texture.
There is a different view around every corner, with more terraces, stone work or gardens revealing themselves bit by bit. And we even found the energy to climb Wana Picchu, the neighboring mountain peak that you see in all the photos of Machu Picchu which was just great. You got a lovely view of the whole site from the top and the chance to literally slide down the side of ruins and clamber over boulders and caves at the very top.
We spent the afternoon relaxing on one of the terraces, getting sunburned and tired until we absolutely had to leave to catch the backpacker train out of Aguas Calientes back to Cuzco.
All in all a very good few days.

Valley deep mountain too high in Arequipa

katrinamckeever — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 09:06:00 GMT

Arequipa is a lovely little city, ringed by volcanoes and built out of white sandstone rocks, a nice gentle introduction to tourist heavy southern Peru. We headed there on my insistence as I wanted to trek in the Colca Canyon nearby. And after getting off the bus I couldn't´t help feeling just a little smug as it is such a pretty place. Nice big plaza fringed with palm trees and two storey colonial buildings, all with pricey restaurants on their balconies. Our plan was to trek the Colca Canyon and then climb up Mount Mitsi, the 6000meter volcano that is visible all across the city. All was well until we took the bus out to Colca Canyon, the deepest canyon in the world allegedly and undoubtedly a trek too far for us.
The bus ride itself was lovely with spectacular views 3000 meters down into the canyon, across subsistence farm terraces and little villages. The main problem was that this was by far the best view we were ever going to get. We spent the night in a rock bottom hostel and set out to trek to the bottom the following day at around 7am. Two hours took us to the bottom and a nice wee camp ground with a luxury swimming pool which had its own waterfall. A lovely day indeed. The problem was the return trip back out of the canyon.
We had gone the opposite way around to the tour groups and realised that may have been a mistake after three hours of sheer uphill climb with no break. It got worse after six hours and even worse on the seventh hour. SEVEN hours up hill, with camping gear strapped to our backs. It was awful and what made it worse was that there was no rewards whatsoever. The best view of the whole thing is from the top. And rip off merchants along the way charged five times the cover price for a bottle of water. Pretty essential stuff and left you feeling rather bitter about the whole thing.
On return to Arequipa we had some very much deserved cold beers and some lovely Turkish kebabs to recuperate and decided to leave the Misti volcanoes climb for now and get drunk instead. We deserved it.

Death Road mountain bike trip to Coroica

katrinamckeever — Sat, 7 Jun 2008 06:54:00 GMT

As the ultimate mountain bike widow there was no chance of sneaking out of La Paz without at least some experience of the death road, one of the most famous downhill mountain bike rides in the world.

My options were to catch a bus down and wait for Steve at the bottom with a cold lager or hop on a bike and do the 3,000 meter descent from the Southern Altiplano to tropical valley myself.

For reasons that are still unclear to me, I opted for the latter and joined a tour group with Bside adventures to tackle the mythical singe track mountain pass.

I was a little nervous as we set off at 8am on a freezing cold La Paz morning, and our guide did not really help maters when he called us all to stop at the side of the road.

Five minutes into the ride we were staring down a 500 meter cliff face to the charred remains of a coach which had plunged off the road several years before killing all on board.

Cheerily, he urged us on. I grabbed hold of my breaks and started pumping them for dear life.

After an hour on tarmac choking on toxic diesel fumes we turned off onto the death road proper, a single track mountain pass with sheer drops of up to 400 meters at right angles to the road.

From the top you can see the sheer folly of driving a car along this thing as the road is barely wide enough for one car with passing points dreadfully few.

In the good old days, drivers would reverse in dense fog along the tiny road and slide off into the abyss, or crazy drunks and tired drivers would fall asleep at the wheel and plummet down to the valley.

Fortunately now it is pretty much closed to traffic so the fatalities have all but ceased and mountain bikers, I was assured, are safe.

And it is a beautiful route, with a birds eye view of the valley below and waterfalls and rivers spilling over onto the road. If you dare lift your eyes you can see condor like birds circling over head, close enough to count their feathers.

Helmet on and $2,000 bike between me and the road I let rip and started flying down hill singing Indian Jones theme tune out loud and shouting wee heeeyyyy every time I hit a corner at speed.

I did get the colly wobbles a few times, especially when I hit rocks with my back wheel sending the bike sliding towards the edge but all in all it was great fun, especially riding through the river at the bottom of the road.

At the end of the route we loaded the bikes into a mini van and headed up to Coroica which is a little village perched at 1000 meters above the valley with the most beautiful views of lush hillsides smothered in tropical forests.

I splashed out and checked me and Steve into the five star hotel for the night with views across the valley.

Poor Steve though, he opted to do the ride solo, climbing up to the start of the death road and tackling the 7km climb up cobble stones at the end too.

By the time he arrived, darkness had fallen so he never did get to appreciate the sunset views he paid for.