S.America trek

Otavalo in the north

rella — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 11:19:00 GMT

hola chiccos

we have arrived at the indigenous area and there was a massive market of artesan goods today, all hand made and interesting, i am bringing back a stack of luggage!!! we did lots of bargaining today, got some great stuff, plenty of jewellery, blankets, artwork, wooden bowls, bags, tshirts, rugs, embrodied goods...more...the colours are so deep and beautiful, can you tell i am about to set up home?? good news on that front, the lovely roberto has spotted an awesome apartment in marrickville and is looking at securing it for us, so please cross your fingers for us as we want to stay in the ville!!! we have also managed to pamper ourselves in Latacunga, charming and the land of hairdressers, feliss indulged and i instead opted for the $2 and $4 manicure and pedicure, so i now have racy red paws! The owner of the salon wanted us to fit him in his suitcase...

We have decided to skip quito, and instead stay in this cool relaxed place where we will probably site see and pamper up some more.

take care lovelies and see you soon.

I have put up more photos, sorry had trouble last time.

ciao. xx cindy

Hola from the Selba (Jungle)

rella — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 11:57:00 GMT

Hola,

Thanks for the comments chiccos nice to hear your friendly voices. I am having lots of laughs here with my amiga especially when we have found our selves in an indigenous canoe sailing down the river and over rocks and into rocks that have left our boat with a little too much water in it if you know what i mean!!! The jungle is beautiful, the views spectacular and the pace so far away from modern life, BLISS!! We have met some lovely people along the way and made friends in each stopping place. Cuenca is a lovely city with an old town feeling and it is probably one of the favourites so far. Banos was stopping point only to organise our tours. We spent today in the country side, the opposite side of jungle, and it is very dry but the mountains are like a patch work. We visited a volcano that has a lagoon that is really bright, for the SA amiga`s it is like the colour of the blue lake in murrary bridge if my memory serves me.

anyways, we are pitstopping in a buzzing place and have bought goodies and my bag is too full now so am buying more luggage....such a good place to find hand made colourful pieces made by artesans (artists). We are on the count down and heading north to Otavolo and then to the capital Quito to softly ease our way out of this place, so sad to leave, really loving it here.

enjoy the photos.

love cindy

Midnight at the Boarder

rella — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 07:50:00 GMT

Hola amigas,

We sadly left the Andes behind, but we have by no means left the high set mountains behind, they are closley by where ever we are, they are a beautiful sight and becoming familiar. We managed to stop in a colonial city that is incredibly colourful and easy going, the main square had this beautiful statute i think of independence, a male figure holding a lighted flame, it was rather large and breathtaking. We opted for a bit of relaxation and ate avocados, tomoatos and cheese on crackers with our well loved vodka. needless to say i broke a glass, just can`t keep my excitement down really! We are steadily journeying onto the cloud forests and amazon so we have been on and off buses with minutes to spare and have had good luck on getting tickets just before boarding. We stopped today in a little sleepy town Loja that has quite a few squares and an old street that was very quiet, we suspect there has been a bit of siesta time going on here. Hope you are all well. I heard the news that Peter Garrett has approved an uranium mine in SA, so disappointed but kind of expected him to compromise he long lost values.

x cindy

Altitude II

rella — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 11:19:00 GMT

I forgot to mention about our first day here that we had done a deal with a local vendor to organise a hotel and a tour and went with him in a taxi in an office to pay him, after we left we realised we had no idea what the name of our hotel was or the address and we thought we hadn`t got our change from paying him! thankful our brains were not too bad as we only wandered for about 5 minutes before we stumbled on our hotel. thankfully it has kick started us into getting our sh$%t together.

Today was pretty interesting we headed into the high mountains and managed to take a short small horse ride to the top of a small mountain to see a gorgeous waterfall, it is so scenic, serene and pleasant that it was difficult not to relax and just take it all in. We drove through a lot of rural areas where the women are dressed in the brighest coloured dressed and wear these beautiful spanish hats that have fanned material on the side, they have captured me and i am now trying to hunt one down.

hope you are checking the photos out.

xx cindy

Altitude

rella — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 11:45:00 GMT

Oh god, i think the altitude has affected our brains, we are among the highest of the andes mountains, they are spectacular and wonderful to be amongst. My friend walked straight out into the traffic today, god it was pretty serious but we seriously are not thinking. I have managed to leave australia with half a brain and haven´t really packed appropriately as we have been to minerals baths today that looked absolutely filthy so we opted for the private hot baths that still look brown but were at least some what cleaner than the public area, i took a bath without bathers but think the minerals did me good. we managed to book a couple of tours to lakes and natural mineral baths for the next two days before we head out of here further north to a quaint little town. it was so warm here today, we managed to hang out in the plaza where i got sunburnt and got out shoes shined and cleaned by young boys while there was some model shoot going on next to us ,the girls were pulling out their purivan poses which feliss and i have tried to emulate in photos that i will later upload. Our original plans got cancelled today but they offered us a free tour in place of that and along with another couple we headed off around the city on a private tour. we got to chat with the driver for a while when the other couple went to check out a trout farm i skipped it for obvious reasons and we had some laughs with the driver who is 34 but looks much older, conversations generally end up with do you have chiccos (children) to which we reply we are free with boyfriends it is funny trust me. we went to a great look out and realised that we are actually staying in grande (big) town that was wipped out by the earthquake in 1962 70 00 people died and they are still rebuilding, we finished driving down the only original street from that time, it was lovley and an old man jumped up demanding we all photograph him!! we have found a favourite eatery which just happens to be vegetarian and has been given us good nutrition!! hope to hear from some of you soon! x cindy

The sights of Lima

rella — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 13:02:00 GMT

Hola amigos,

Well i can´t actually say i made it to Lima, the most I saw was on my way heading north out of the area to the moutains today. I stayed in a little seaside town called Branko and we managed to stumble into a great local bar where we had no problems engaging with some cool locals and i tested out my spanish and managed to tell them i was free rather than i was a librarian maybe i have a new profession calling me__?? After some vodka we had a very late night needless to say the next day slipped by us. we managed to organise our selves by late evening and shared dinner with a slovakian guy who had lost his luggage and had a great sense of humor, we all had a cup of tea before we headed off to pack our bags to head towards the mountains where i am at now. we have managed to book a couple of tours to see the glaciers and hot springs over the next couple of days, i hope to get a chance to take some photographs of the amazing snow capped mountains. not sure when i can post photos as there seems to be a lack of facitilites. i have managed to find some vegetables today spinach soup and vegies and rice, a nice change from egg and rice and potatos.

take care everyone.

x cindy

Arrived

rella — Thu, 9 Jul 2009 02:35:00 GMT

Hola Amigos,

Just arrived late last night into Lima after having a small stop over in santiago, a breath taking mountain range ¡ the andes in fact surrounds the city which is now capped in parts. A very historical city with buildings established back in the 1500´s and some influence in parts on the archietecture by some brilliant scholars who went to France and belgium at the time. People are very cool and so nice and i am learning the basics, feliss is well up to speed and is conversing no problems with people, so i am lucky to be getting lessons from her. We hope to move on in a couple of days based on whether we can get out of here as there is a bus strike, we could be taking some salsa lessons earlier then planned!!

hope you are all well.

will keep you posted.

muchos love

cindy, tinners and cinds.

Gallery: S America

rella — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 17:17:00 GMT