The Bikini Diet

It’s a couple of days before we hit Rio and from the depths of my backpack I’ve just dug out that bikini I’ve been carting around with me for the last 6 months... I’ve been carrying it of course with the ultimate vision of frolicking on the beach looking as good as those scantily clad Brazilian women - however deluded that may be!? Guess we’ve all got to have some sort of aspirations and one of mine is to pretend I’m not pasty and flabby but instead tanned and svelte and ready to compete for attention with g-string wearing goddesses on Copacabana beach :)

So with this vision in mind you’d think I’d be embarking on some mega detox diet of diuretic foods, vegetable juices and the like. No! I’ve instead been forced to partake in the ‘Argentine Bikini Diet’... Not read about this one in Cosmo this year? Look out for it! This high sugar, red meat and pastry diet is certain to be all the rage! Though perhaps it should be referred to as the ‘Strap it on your Arse Diet’ or the ‘Add 3 kilos in 3 weeks Diet’ :)

If you haven’t been to Argentina then this might need a little explaining... though maybe I could just say this nation eats caramel sauce or ‘dulce de leche’ with virtually everything. Breakfast consists of spreading it onto white bread and medialunas (or croissants) – something Konrad has become rather addicted to... that’s cream, sugar and butter every morning on white bread with added healthy lashings of butter! Feeling sick? Then perhaps you need an ‘alfajore’ or biscuit covered in chocolate and filled with ‘dulce de leche’ to give you that required morning sugar high? And of course following this nutritious start to the day, for lunch, the bikini diet requires that you eat least 6 empanadas and/or a big juicy ‘lomito’ or steak sandwich! And just when you thought you’d eaten for 3 of you already, come dinner time (at the spritely hour of 10pm) we’ll need at least 500g of steak at the ‘Parilla’ with additional white bread and ‘papas fritas’ or chips on the side. Given too that you’re likely to be experiencing some major sugar lows during the day, then maybe a little tasty cake or pastry with some more dulce will sort you out... even better how about a big tub of ice-cream with some more healthy dulce? :) And as for vegetables, well who needs them anyway? Aren’t fries some kind of vegetable? Okay the occasional tomato or onion is allowed with your hunk of meat as long as you don’t forget that side of dulce :)




With a diet like this you’d think you’d be a prime candidate for bowel cancer and a serious case of haemorrhoids. However, after consultation with a random woman authority on the subject, I was informed that the local remedy for the traffic jam in your gut is the digestive drink of Yerba Mate – which is a disgustingly bitter herbal tea Argentines seem to drink incessantly out of a special cup or ‘mate’ through this funky straw. We made the mistake of trying it once and I don’t care how blocked up I am, I’m never drinking that shit again! I read somewhere once that bitter herbs are good for liver and bowel cleansing so I guess as long as you drink 5cups of this medicine a day, then hopefully you’ll digest that 3kgs of red meat and 10kg of sugar you are consuming per week. I think I would prefer to eat some fruit and vegetables instead however :)

To illustrate this practice for you, I have provided a snap of a gentleman at Iguazu Falls having a sip on his Yerba which he of course brought a large supply of, together with his thermos, for his outing to the waterfalls! Never leave home without it!


And then of course there is the red wine that you need to consume copious amounts of as well! Not that we are complaining about this one though. As most of you are well aware we are both big fans of this nectar of the gods and here in Argentina they produce a great drop at a great price! I’m glad to report that we’re taking full advantage of this :).

When we last left you, we were on our way to San Rafael and Mendoza to take in some of the wineries or ‘bodegas’ as they are known locally and of course do some serious wine tasting. And this we did! 4 bodegas in San Rafael, a highlight of which was drinking the Bianchi Particular Malbec, 2004 (one of the best wine’s I have ever tasted) and; 6 in Mendoza, which involved hiring a bicycle and cycling approximately 25kms – quite an adventure when you haven’t ridden a pushbike since riding around your tennis court in Joburg at the age of 10 and when you’ve been consuming various glasses of plonk along the way. Some of the highlights from this day out were the fantastic wine museum at Rutini (their wines are amazing too) and being gifted a bottle of Temperanillo from a boutique winery called Boschi. All in all it was a great couple of days in this region and although they are famous for producing the best Malbec in the world, we had the pleasure of tasting some fantastic other varietals as well.



From Mendoza we travelled through the original capital of Cordoba and onto the swinging, kick arse, super cool city of Buenos Aires!! Honestly, what a fantastic place... Parisian architecture and cafes, Barcelona night life, London shopping, New York energy all with a little touch of tango and Latino flair. If you haven’t already been, then I suggest you book in a trip now! We spent an awesome week there wandering aimlessly through the barrios of San Telmo, Palermo and Recoletta; visiting markets; shopping for shoes (yes I did pick up a couple of pairs, including a fabulous pair of purple snake skin numbers – by way of example, Palermo seems to have more designer stores than Soho in New York) and; just soaking up the vibes.

Of course we wanted to experience the excellent nightlife this city has to offer and while we did make it to one of BA’s top jazz bars to watch a great fusion jazz band that was recommended to us by some locals, we were unsuccessful in our attempt to hit ‘The Big One’- a 2000 capacity nightclub playing the best of BA electronica music recommended to us by our friend Ignacio at Telmotango Hostel. Being Australian and having started our drinking all too early that day (without eating dinner either as the bikini diet prescribes dinner only after 10pm remember) we unfortunately hit the wall around 1:30am - way too early to hit the dance floor given that the club only opened at 1am, no self respecting Buenos Airean would be arriving before 3am and the place didn’t actually get going until around 5am! I guess grandma and grandpa should have gone to bed around 6pm and set the alarm to wake up around 2am to start drinking vodka shots to ready themselves for the party! We will know better for next time!








It may come as somewhat of a surprise but Argentina is famous for the sport of polo – yes that pretentious sport invented in England and only played by the likes of Prince Charles – is actually most popular in and around BA. The large number of horses on the land has lent itself perfectly to the establishment of many polo clubs, produced the best polo players in the world (a fact the Argentines are quick to point out) and resulted in plenty of annual polo tournaments open to the viewing public. Of course being the upper class wannabe wankers that we are, we thought this no better place to experience the sport first hand and so organised our way out to the Tortugas Open on a Saturday afternoon to watch Indios Chapaleufú II and Pilará play - just for the record Pilará won 14-12. This was to be a particularly exceptional match as each team had 37 goals (very good as 40 is the maximum goal handicap per team... look it up on Wikipedia if you think you need to know more) and thus was very fast paced and of the highest quality. Although knowing very little else about the rules of polo I was sufficiently entertained throughout the afternoon as we sophisticatedly downed a bottle of Torrentes from Salta (though this may have contributed to our not making it to ‘The Big One'... perhaps we should have instead taken to sipping on Yerba Mates as all the locals seemed to be doing). In any case we thoroughly enjoyed the occasion though it has to be said that this was without a doubt the smeggiest sporting event I have ever witnessed. In this particular tournament each player had between 12 and 20 horses and there were just 3 families of brothers represented across the two teams – we were told that 5 Argentine families dominate the sport as you really do need a small fortune to even think about venturing onto the field to wack that little white ball around. That said the players did of course display some excellent horsemanship coupled with superior hand-eye coordination and the play was so faultless and smooth that we had to remind ourselves of the incredible skill involved by those on the field.



Sad to be leaving this great city – we really could have spent another couple of weeks there – we next visited the spectacular Iguazu Falls on the Brazilian/Argentinean border. Having arrived in some very torrential rain, we were getting ready to pull out our 2 dollar garbage bag ponchos purchased just before we started the Inca Trail and brave the park. To our good fortune however, the following day was just beautiful and we got to enjoy an amazing day at the falls. Overall the park comprises of 275 waterfalls which makes for some spectacular views from the many walking trails made accessible to the visitor. We especially enjoyed the view from the ‘Garganta del Diablo’ or the Devil’s Throat where you get to watch 1800 cubic metres of water per second (that's a hell of a lot of water) pour over a 70 metre drop onto the river below. I can’t say whether or not we enjoyed them more than Victoria Falls but the shear number of waterfalls and the jungle environment in which they are surrounded make them very unique and something well worth visiting. We spent 7 hours there enjoying the views and took only about 300 happy snaps :)





We have just arrived in Rio and are about to bring this grand 2 year adventure of ours to an end. We are eager to explore this beautiful city as well as head down the coast to Parati and Ilha Grande for some sun and beach action. I’m of course very much looking forward to donning that bikini of mine and showing my body some sun after too long, so stay tuned for pics of me looking fabulous (or not … maybe I’ll spare the world those images :)).

It’s time to go and drink some Caipirihnas so I’ll sign off and look forward to seeing most of you very soon.

Ciao

The Amazing Race

I’m lying on a tropical beach being fanned by a cohort of 7 adoring blondes and as I go to take another sip on my mojito, bang! A light shines blindingly into my eyes. What’s happening? Am I being interrogated by the Thought Police? No it’s Nic (well kind of a Thought Police I suppose :)). She’s looking particularly dashing wearing her head torch following another restful night’s sleep on the hard ground and she’s saying “get your lazy arse out of bed! it’s 4 o’clock already”. Being violently wrenched from a dream, particularly one involving 7 blondes, is never a good way to start the day and the next half an hour is like a blur; within minutes of being woken our things are packed, we’re out of the tent (which the porters have already started to pack away) and breakfast is literally being hoovered up.

When I finally come to my senses it’s a about 5:00am and our troop of 6 is lined up at the Wiñay Wayna control gate. Our guide Coco’s just left us, likely to ensure an easy passage through the control and there we are wandering how it is that at least 70 or so other muppets have made it to the gate earlier then us this morning? Guess the fact that Machupicchu is still 7kms away (or approx a 2hr walk); that most people tend to come up by bus from Aguas Calientes where buses start running from 5:30am; that there are only 400 tickets issued a day for Wayna Picchu (the best lookout for Machupicchu); and that likely only the top finishers are going to get a ticket, is sufficient incentive to have everyone up well before the crack of dawn.

As we anxiously follow the procession of hikers on this 4th morning of the Inca Trail, the dawn slowly breaks only to reveal a thick fog blanketing the lush rainforest we’re marching through. The pace starts to quicken and we manage to pass a first group of other hopefuls who’ve had to slow down. We pass another, and then another before reaching the Monkey Stairs and as others stop to admire the heavy fog at Intipunku (or the Sun Gate) – the other and probably most famous vantage of Machupicchu – we shift gear. Carrying full backpacks and now moving at ‘porter pace’ I hear a sad voice call out “don’t end it badly” as I dart past the decrepit farker. Slowing down for a second to see where the rest of the group is, Ryan the 20 year old California from Santa Cruz runs past and as Nic chants “we’re not going to make it anyway” I declare “It’s just for sport now!”


Not quite able to outpace the young lunged American (he had a smaller backpack than me the bastard :)) I come in second with Nic closely behind. To our delight the whole of our group has matched our pace and despite a lengthy queue at the Wayna Picchu gate somewhat denting our optimism at a quarter to 7 in the morning, we’ve won the race and are duly rewarded with a ticket to climb to the lookout at 8:30am! It’s not likely that we’re going to see anything given the heavy cloud but we’re still going to chance it we reckon – I mean it was only a light run this morning and we could all still do with another 400m vertical ascent :). (It did obviously clear up once we reached the top - ref title photo).


Of course the preceding days on the trail weren’t nearly as rushed. Nor were the couple of days prior in Cusco for that matter (or Qosco as the locals prefer to refer to this once Inca capital and thus “centre of the world”... the conquistadors thought instead to rename it Cusco meaning “small dog” in Quechua). The town of Qosco, destroyed by the Spanish and subsequently rebuilt on top of the remaining Inca ruins, carries such a strong sense of history – not just for the remaining ruins but also because of the many 16th century buildings (including some amazing churches) that were built atop of this once grand Inca city. And a visit out to the Sacred Valley; the ruins of Pisac, Ollantaytambo and Chinchero, provide further insight into the scale, beliefs, social structure, eventual disbanding, etc, of what between the 12th and 16th centuries is thought to have been the largest empire in the world.





However, walking the 400 year old stone path that was reserved for the Inca nobles is obviously the best way to experience what this world was actually like. To think that messengers would relay information across this 42km trail within hours while it look us 4 days to walk is amazing. So too of course is the magnificent landscape of the mountains, cloud-forest and rainforest that the trail meanders through, and it has to be said that for all our recent hiking, this has to be up there as one of the best.





It’s most astonishing however that although the Spanish are known to have walked through the valley below the city of Machupicchu this jewel was never found and thus remained so well preserved until its discovery in 1911. Even more so is the fact that, as the Inca’s knew (and as is reflected in the designs of some of their structures), the area is prone to seismic activity and despite the efforts of curators and academics to preserve the site the fact that it sits directly on a fault line is sure to eventually destroy it. (Is this the real reason why the Incas abandoned it?)



At the risk of killing you with endless useless facts however, I’d best get back to the real Amazing Race. You didn’t think it was just going to be about Machupicchu did you?

A few days before setting off on the Inca Trail I get an email out of the blue from Tony (not quite out of the blue as I’d written to him sometime before but still a pleasant surprise). As I’m responding to his email, or more specifically justifying how it’s not in the budget, that it’s off our route, that given the timing of the Inca Trail (which we had to book 5 months in advance) it was late season, etc, it hits me like a solid left jab straight in the nose: We’re not going skiing? What do you mean we’re not going skiing? This can’t be! We love skiing!

Now, sure we’re here on the backpacker route, acting all experienced, only a step away from sporting happy pants (it’s a farken big step! but I did buy an Alpaca jumper that not even my dad would wear – guess we’ll see at Christmas though won’t we :)) and still pained with being removed from the heavenly bliss of life in Val d’Isere (we miss you guys back there loads too) we thought we’d try to forget this skiing obsession of ours. You know, we thought maybe we should pursue other interests. Perhaps basket weaving? (Perhaps not! :) – sorry AJ we just couldn’t do that sort of shit to ourselves). And as for this hiking thing that we’ve started to get into... sure its good to go for a leisurely walk in the mountains but you gotta be kidding if you think this is some kind of sport! C’mon, you can only walk up so many faarken hills before you have to start skiing down some of them!

Right, with mission in hand and one Inca Trail to get in the way of planning time we had no time to lose! We were going skiing, no matter the distance, no matter the cost (within some semblance of reason) and completely foregoing that we had initially planned to spend 2 weeks in Bolivia... who gives a shit about Bolivia right? There’s nothing to see there anyway! Well, perhaps just a couple of things... mental note; just add a couple of things to the plan... maybe... if there’s time that is :). And given that my all too conscientious research assistant Nicola had just discovered that it’d recently dumped 1.5m of snow, we now had our objective firmly in sight: Get overland from Cusco to Las Lenas (only some 2000kms away) through Bolivia (seeing stuff?) before the snow melts and go skiing!

The Amazing Race had just begun!

Day 1:

10:00pm: Freeze your arse off on an overnight bus from Cusco to Puno.

Day 2:

6:00am: Arrive in Puno.
9:00am: Take boat out to Uros floating islands.
9:30am: Wake Nic as she falls asleep during crappy demonstration of how islands were made.
12:00am:Try to avoid getting sick off lunch.
2:00pm: Board bus to La Paz
7:00pm: Watch bus as it nearly sinks trying to float across the lake with our luggage.
11:00pm:Find dogdy hostel.
12:00pm:Sleep.


Day 3:

9:00am: Wake up.
9:05am: Try to shower. Oh that’s right there was only enough ‘aqua caliente’ in the whole of the hostel for one Goulasz to take a shower this morning. (I didn’t need to shower anyway!)
9:30am: Do La Paz!
6:00pm: Board overnight bus to Sucre.



Day 4:

7:00am: Find another dodgy hostel.
8:00am: Have breakfast and do the tourist thing again! (Remember to happy snap all the pretty colonial architecture).
2:00pm: Bored!
8:00pm: Brave some pizza.
2:00am: (Nic) Wake with chronic indigestion!



Days 5 & 6:

Embark on 36 hour transfer from Sucre to Salta in Argentina... Very long! (Of course made somewhat more interesting by having one last bout of that mystery rotten egg gas burp stomach bug thingy).


Day 7:

Have a well earned bottle of Malbec on the main square in Salta :) Feel free to eat street food again! (You really can’t go past the Lomitos – or steak sandwiches... yummy!)


Days 8 & 9:

Take final 28 hour transfer to Malargue through Mendoza (pen this amazing post :)).

Race successfully completed, we were ready to take our just reward of 3 days of skiing in Las Lenas – one of the premier ski resorts in South America :))!!!


The next morning, with packed lunch in hand we arrive at Las Lenas about 9:30am (we’re transferring everyday from Malargue which is an hour away) and given that the condition of the 50% ticket discount that we’re after is that we hire our skis and boots at the resort, we head straight to the rental shop. Seeing as we’re so keen to get out there (it’s a beautiful sunny day and there is no time to lose – we only have 3 days remember) we take the first pair of boots we try and without even noticing that there is no wax on the skis we’re given we march to the door in true Slavic Warrior (over-excited) fashion with a couple of pairs of Salomon X-wing 8s. As soon as we actually manage to pay for our rental (this is no mean feat as they won’t accept Visa and that’s all we got) – and go through a similar ordeal getting our lift tickets – we head straight up to the highest lifted point, the top of the Marte chair.


As we try to put our first turns in down a little blue run however, both of us seem to be finding this sport incredibly difficult? Feeling very uncoordinated and not willing to accept that we’d both forgotten how to ski after a couple of months of hiking (damn this quasi sport... I knew too much walking wasn’t good for you :)) I finally decide that these skis have a dodgy tune (did I mention they hadn’t seen wax in months) and desperately need a service. Instructing the service guy that the edge on a set of skis needs to be de-tuned by half a degree for them to be ski-able (not easy when you don’t speak much Spanish – but it did seem like he knew what I was talking about... I think I’ve had this problem before you know... though just a couple of times perhaps :)) we head off to have our sandwiches and a couple of beers. We return a half an hour later with renewed enthusiasm and are ready for the afternoon session!


With the weather closing in and with both of us having even more trouble trying to carve these skis than in the morning session it soon becomes clear that either his hand-file tuning job on these skis made them even less ski-able then before or just that Salomon has managed to produce another shit pair of skis! Likely a bit of both! And not being able to stand my own whinging anymore (skiing’s about carving not whinging kiddies!) we do the only thing we can... trade in the top of the line Argentinian rental gear for a pair of Atomic Izor 7.5s for Nic and Rossi 8S Oversize for me. Having wasted nearly a whole day on some really shit skis we now have skis that do what you tell them to and are finally ready to really take on the mountain!


To our good fortune the bad weather that afternoon results in 30cms of fresh snow overnight and the following day is just amazing; we start with carving out fresh lines in 5-10cms of powder on top of the groomers, then get some real leg burn trying to float carve skis in some deeper snow off the back of the Marte chair and finish with a great afternoon work out carving up the pistes again. And just when you thought it couldn’t get much better than the day before, the colder temperature overnight dries out the snow a little for our last day which is as near a perfect day of skiing as you can have – a bluebird, with hard packed perfectly groomed pistes first thing in the morning, followed by some fresh lines off-piste later that morning (so accessible too... fantastic) and ending with skiing the groomers until both of us are so exhausted we can barely put a turn in.



What a wicked couple of days skiing! And what a fantastic little resort Las Lenas is; with literally everything from great long pistes for carving; to easily accessible steep couloirs and powder bowls (for the brave) – you just need to luck out on the conditions which I’m glad to gloat that we did :).

In keeping with the themes of ski resorts and wine regions we’re now off to San Raphael and Mendoza for a few days of wine tasting. Life is hard :). But only for another month or so :(.

Ciao

Are you experienced?

There we were sitting on the bus from Vaqueria to Huaraz, having just completed a 4 day hike in the Cordillera Blanca (a 5 hour collectivos ride on a pretty gnarly mountain road), being forced to endure some pretty noxious BO (as none of the 15 of us in the van had showered in days) and we’re being subjected to ‘Mary from Middle America’ trying to convince us that she’s the most ‘experienced’ of all the ‘enlightened travellers’ on the well trodden backpacker route through South America. She had quit her fabulously high paying regulatory job (that she loved and was exceptionally ‘good’ at), given up that MBA they were putting her through in the process, forgotten to shave her armpits, recruited some burly Romanian who was apparently really good at “kicking some arse” and together with her other Israeli recruit proceeded to boast how they had managed to avoid paying the park entry fee. Incidentally the Israeli guy claimed to be so good at avoiding entrance fees that he had managed to gain entry into Machupicchu via some back entrance free of charge.

The conversation continued along the lines of who had been travelling the longest, had the greatest backpacking cred (whatever that is) and who was managing to spend the least amount of money possible... Yawn! Sure we’ve heard of Couch Surfing, we’ve even hung out with one of its biggest advocates (and we’re still amazed at how Daniel managed to go on holiday to Spain from London for a week on 50 pounds) but we’re not sure this actually amounts to the best travel experience. As we were being advised however, living on crackers and cheese alone for weeks is the done thing and wherever possible it’s best to avoid gaining any kind of knowledge from local guides – the preference instead is to ignorantly stumble your way through national parks and historical sites. The fact however that they were later detained and forced to pay a significant fine for attempting to enter Huascaran National Park free of charge was almost as amusing as our guide declaring at the same control that he was not a guide and had not escorted our group of 5 on the trek... But we’ll pick that one up later!

During all of this riveting travel banter I couldn’t help but reflect on our experiences in South America thus far. Weren’t we the ‘most experienced’ of all world travellers after all? With almost two years on the road, countless road trips and multiple borders, we figured the last few months of our world trip should go relatively to plan. However rewinding back to LA airport where at 1:30am we were being denied check-in to our flight to Lima perhaps this wasn’t all going to be so easy. Maybe we should have read the Peruvian entry requirements more thoroughly but instead we found ourselves trying to rationalise with this check-in chick who would not bend the rules in any way nor accept that we were planning on travelling overland out of Peru into Bolivia on a bus we hadn’t yet booked on September 3... 1 hour later, 1 Mastercard purchase of $1200 for flights to La Paz and we were on our way (don’t worry we recouped the funds 24 hours later in Lima by cancelling the flight).

From our first day in polluted Lima, riding local collectivos and attempting to see some of the city’s sites, it became very apparent we desperately needed to learn some Spanish. We relied on our hostal to book our bus to Huaraz, do our laundry and I think we paid the respective price for this – only double the going rate!

After a relatively comfortable overnight bus trip (the first of many and in hindsight the easiest) we arrived in the mountain town of Huaraz – approximately 400km north of Lima and at the heart of the Cordillera Blanca, which is home to Peru’s highest mountain, Huascaran (which at 6768m is incidentally the second highest in South America). Since we had naively booked our 2 weeks accommodation on the internet, our host Jamie was there to meet us. So we had overpaid for our room, there was no hot water as advertised, the internet was actually at the shop across the road and the breakfast didn’t exist. Lesson number 1; never book in advance in South America!! We managed to negotiate the price a little, insist on breakfast (which was actually a bad mistake as it turns out the fresh strawberry juice poisoned us and marked the start of our never ending stomach ails) and organise Spanish classes with Jamie’s sister in-law Sylvia. We spent the large part of the first 10 days taking Spanish classes and acclimatising to life at over 3000m. Gracias Sylvia! Me llamo Nicola, soy Australiana, quisiera un bebida y nosotros estamos yendo a Cusco por dos noches por favour! So that is about the extent of the Spanish we learnt but we are now able to book buses and accommodation, negotiate prices at markets and understand some restaurant menus – what else do you need hey?


We also managed to fit in some treks. The first one to Laguna 69 was a bit of a fizzer as Konrad was the first to go down from the dreaded strawberry juice and spent about 4 hours in some Swiss guy’s tent curled up with a high fever and making frequent dashes to the dunny with bad diarrhoea... Nice! A big thanks to the Verbier ski instructor Sebastian (how do we keep running into these people?) who kept me company and tried to assist with Konrad’s ails by providing a warm sleeping bag, coca tea and aspirin. Not immune to Granny’s evil tonic either, I was unfortunate enough to experience the same thing for the following 5 days which meant not a lot of action – other than lots of visits to the toilet (though I’ll spare you any more details). We did however make a day trip out to the ruins of Chavin de Huantar which we thought to do by local bus. Of course this turned out to take 3 times as long, involved sitting on the floor for 3 hours on the return journey as there were no seats left on the bus (reference title photo) and cost more than the guided tour! I suppose this is the price you pay for being so ‘experienced’! Also, we successfully hiked up to Lake Churup – which at 4450m was the first of our high altitude treks. This trek was not without incidence either as I started the day by vomiting, though persisted with the hike only to then encounter a rather challenging rock climb right at the end (see pic below). If you have seen me indoor rock climb then you will understand it is not my forte... I did manage to make it up there with the assistance of my mountain guide Konrad only to burst into tears out of shear trauma at the top and then have 3 Peruvian girls find the whole thing so hysterically funny they thought to laugh and point at me :( How rude!!


So with all this ‘experience’ behind us we next embarked on researching the 4 day hike to Santa Cruz/Alpamaya which unbeknown to us is apparently most beautiful mountain in the world? Now talking to the tourist office, local guides, tour companies, guide books etc we were repeatedly being told that we could only do this trek with a registered guide... and besides we have no camping gear either so this seemed to make the most sense. After walking around town and working out the going rate for the hike we finally signed with our chosen agency which ensured us a registered guide, the best equipment, food and of course expert local knowledge. So we again naively believed another Peruvian trying to sell us something! I guess we shouldn’t have been too surprised when our 22 year old guide Marco showed up, spoke only Spanish (luckily there was a French bloke who spoke a little Spanish who could translate from Spanish into French, which we could then translate to the other 2 Danish girls into English), was curiously taking us to a different entry point for the trek and seemingly knew very little about the surrounding mountain ranges! Did I mention the tent he provided us with had a cover which was 2 sizes too small thus allowing wind and rain to enter in during some exceptionally cold nights camping at over 4000m? Oh and that’s right, when it came to going through control he declared he wasn’t even a registered guide!!!! Well I guess we paid the park entrance fee, unlike our smelly friends on the bus! I’m not sure who was more experienced here though, ‘Mary from Middle America’ or Mr and Mrs Goulasz :) At least we had food for our 4 days and didn’t have to live on crackers... though I will say Marco’s carbo loading diet of pasta, rice, potatoes and bread all in one meal has to have caused the biggest digestive traffic jam either of us has ever had to deal with... better than diarrhoea I suppose! Sorry I’ll try not to talk too much about our guts but it’s hard not too when it’s been such a big part of the adventure in Peru so far! Despite this the trek was amazing and we were exposed some of the most ruggedly beautiful mountains either of us has ever seen – though we only saw the backhand side of Alpamayo for 20 minutes whilst the clouds cleared and thus can’t declare whether or not we agree with it being the most beautiful mountain in the world. We also hiked to 4750m and although we nearly punctured a lung or two along the way, it was a great achievement to get up that high.




Having completed our first mountain adventure, it was time to move south and onto the town of Nazca. Not much to say here actually... the most interesting bit is me throwing up for 3 hours on the bus due to a newly developed tendance towards motion sickness (sorry, there I go talking about my guts again). We did however survive a rather hair raising bus trip where our bus driver decided it was a good idea to travel at 120km/hour in virtually no visibility and continually overtake on blind corners – we had some really close calls and even Konrad was freaking out. If you have the time you should Google traffic incidents in Peru! I made the mistake and found out through a travel warning to all Britains that 776 people died in the first six months of this year and a further 1300 were injured. Needless to say we are now holding tightly onto the Virgin Mary which Bozena kindly gifted to us before leaving Oz to keep us safe. Unfortunately when we did get to Nazca, we didn’t take the flight over the lines due to bad weather that morning (even though we had a flight booked) but rather climbed up the pathetic viewing tower and took a trip out to an archaeological site – all pretty uneventful and we quickly moved onto the beautiful city of Arequipa.

We were very impressed with the Spanish architecture in Arequipa, in particular the beautiful main square with the El Misti Volcano towering behind, the churches and the Santa Catalina monastery. We also managed to find great French coffee and crepes and drink beer in a lovely French bar! There appeared to be a lot of French people in this town for whatever reason, in fact there seem to be quite a few French people on the backpacker trail who we constantly bump into and get the chance to practice our bad French :)



From Arequipa we ventured into the beautiful Colca Canyon. Again we considered doing this trip alone but after working out costs it proved more cost effective for us to join a tour group. This time however we were pleasantly surprised with an excellent guide who gave us a great insight into the canyon (Colca meaning store or shop and where the Incas came to gather food and medicinal plants), its fruits (including cactus fruits such as Tuna and Sancayo), plants and local communities. Here we were also fortunate enough to engage with a local family, drink chicha with them, make an offering to Pacha Mama (Mother Earth) and work one of their ancient terraces. We mustn’t forget viewing the flight of the magnificent Condors first thing in the morning either. And I know what you are thinking, what’s this about us being impressed with ‘travelling birds’? Guess you need to experience the grandeur of these creatures first hand to fully appreciate them – just amazing!






Of course no trip to South America would be complete without a visit to the jungle and with limited time we decided our best bet was to make our way to the town of Puerto Maldonado and the Tambopata Reserve (again this involved about 5 hours of painstaking pavement pounding and information gathering in Cusco before we made our final decision). As we are also on limited funds, we went against the advice to take the 45 minute flight from Cusco and instead opted for an 18 hour bus trip at a tenth of the cost! Okay, I don’t think either of us had any idea what we were in for and our decision was purely based on cost (if we had more money I swear we would have flown). When the bus turned up at the bus station, I thought Konrad was going to pick up our bags and walk out :)... Obviously he didn’t and instead we boarded the bus. So how bad can 18 hours on a smelly bus with non-reclinable seats, no toilets, loud chicha or jungle music playing constantly and seriously bumpy, unpaved road be? Hmmm – REALLY BAD!! I wish I had videoed Konrad’s comments at 4am but let me just say cranky does not nearly describe the mood!!

We eventually made it to our destination and once in our lovely jungle hut the pain of the journey became a distant memory. We spent the next 5 days exploring the Madre de Dios River (which eventually flows into the Amazon) and the Tambopata Reserve. We were lucky enough to have a guide virtually to ourselves for most of the excursions and quite fortunate to experience some great jungle walks, boat rides, local fruits (including the cocoa tree – see pic below for where chocolate comes from) and excellent wildlife. To name a few of the mammal species we saw; Saddleback Tamarin monkeys, Dusky Titi monkeys, Brown Capuchin monkeys, Coatis and the Red Amazon Squirrel. We also had the pleasure of observing about 10 Giant Otters feeding on fish in Sandoval Lake, saw some amazing birdlife (including Chestnut Eared and Yellow Ringed Toucan, Hoatzin and a number of Macaw, Parakeets and Parrots) and caught a glimpse of several White Caiman along the river bank.









Having just endured the 18 hour return bus trip from hell to Cusco (OMG!!) we are now taking in some of the sites of this beautiful town, recovering from another stomach upset and look forward to embarking on our Inca Trail to Machupicchu on August 28th.


‘Til next time and bon apetite :)