Wednesday 3 August 2011

Arghhh me hearties :D

Since I last bloged myself and john have made our way east via river boat down the amazon. We are currently in the capital of the amazons: Manaus. The time we spent in rio Branco was uneventful, we explored the city and markets, the docklands area and that was about it. We swiftly purchased our boat tickets from the boat down at the dock, this was good because it meant we were able to see the boat before we committed to the ticket but seeing as no other boat was selling tickets I don't think we had much choice.

So the time came to leave, we packed up and went in search of some where to eat breakfast as the boat was at 9. We found a nice breakfast buffet, filled up hen off down the docks to board the boat. By now it looked very different, the whole of the bottom deck had since been loaded with cargo and the hill filled with hundreds of water melons. The 2nd deck where we were meant to be sleeping was full with swinging hammocks, bags, and children running around! So we swiftly strung up out newly purchased hammocks (next to the kitchen, result) and settled into our relaxing 3 day ride. The trip included 3 meals a day, bread and coffee in the morning (at 6) beef, rice, noodles and lentils for lunch and the same for diner except with chicken and water melon for afters. Needles to say I had a good fill, I'm shore All the lauding about in hammocks, sunbathing and swimming was good for my weight, doubt any progress there tho! So as mentions all there was to do on the boat was sunbathe on the upper deck, sleep and read. Swing ad I finished my book o. The 1st day I did a lot of sleeping and sunbathing. The views from the boat were beautiful, throughout the trip lush amazon jungle lined both sides of the river. With the breakfast  being so early I was luckily up and awake (thanks to the coffee) I. I'm to see the amazon sun rise,  I'll attract a picture because I can't really describe t other than amazing, orange globe rising from behind he jungle casting colours across the ripples in the water caused by the boat. In the Night time equally as beautiful was the sun set changing the sky from blue to purple, pink and then pitch black with millions of stars.

Arrival in Manaus was smoth, offloaded, map out on a mission to track down the hostel. We got lost because do think we got off at the wrong port in the city but never the less after about 30 minets of walking we arrived. To early to check in we unloaded our baggage and went for abit of exploring, 1st things 1st where's the supermarket! Drinks and snacks purchased we killed some time chilling in a park eating and chatting about games, nerdy hour.

Our activities so far here in Manaus has been to explore the city, which it is, very big and developed nothing like the towns we have been passing through since Cuzco. The city had s many nice looking revamped old buildings including the cities opera house, a large pink mansion with a vividly colourfully dome at the top that is visible for miles around.

One of the highlights of Manaus has been the visit to the park of science. This is a 130km square area of preserved jungle with a range of amazon plants, trees and animals. We sore otters, manatees, alligators, snakes, frogs, piraña and turtles! It was great to see the animals, especially the turtles (a bit of an obsession). We spent the day walking through the dense jungle viewing the animals and taking pictures. A thoroughly enjoyable day. Now this all sounds great but he effort it took to get there is ridiculous! This was our 2nd day in a row attempting to get in. Day 1 we decided to walk to the distance goths park, by he map in our hostel his did t look very far. 3 hours later we arrived, heat exhausted and sore footed only to find out the place was closed! So we decided to get the bus back Into town. Day 2. We left the hostel early in search of the bus stop that wIll take us there, hour and a half later were still wandering from bus stop to bust stop searching for one that had our bus. Finally success. We arrive an the park is amazing. Now to get home, we get on a bus and little do we know it's taking us to the centre of the local university campus moths centre of town. Darn the bloody language difficulties. So standing there like muppets we try to will ourselves to get on another bus and hope t takes us into town, it did eventually but that was a shoving bus ride constantly trying to work out if we were heading in the right direction.

2nd boat ticket purchased, Belem here we come!

Saturday 30 July 2011

Army training ground? Ops.

One of my revelations on his trip has been my realisation that I have an urge to play sports, competitively and the raw physical side of things. This has spurred on my drive to get fitter and so myself and John have been trying to get as much exercise in as possible in our free time. Jogging has become a morning event, the 1st jog I have done in quite a wile killed me, i was shattered. The reason I'm gouge on about this is the other day myself an john came across a playing field and outside gym in the centre of town, so swig as it looking like it was for public use we, well use it publicly. 20 minuets into our session, myself jogging and sprinting around a football pitch and John lifting weights we are approached by an armed soldier. Only then does it become evident this is an army training ground, the army base across the road should have been a sign. And so we were told to leave the training area, back onto the streets for jogging in future think!

Sunday 24 July 2011

So puerto veloh.

So Puerto Maldonado was interesting, it was a pretty small town with not much to do, myself and John attempted to find the zoo but couldn't seem to find an address for it anywhere and lonely planet was no help what so ever! We visited the Plaza De Armas which was like most other plazas in Peru, shrubbery with benches and a focal point in the middle, in this case it was a clock tower, usually it has been a old fountain. Another tourist site we visited was the obelisk, a large glass tower in the middle of the town that you were allowed to go up for a few soles. From here we were able to see over the whole town and view the river and newly opened bridge completing the long awaited pan continental highway connecting the Peruvian coast with the Brazilian coast. The day of Arrival was the grand opening of the newly built bridge and the whole town and surrounding towns people had gathered, queuing  up waiting for the arrival of the former president of Peru. Myself and John were going to enter but the cue was immense so instead we killed the time getting breakfast in a small pastry shop, after we were able to see the former president from beyond the barrier. We watched as hundreds of Peruvians crossed the bridge on foot all being filmed by regional new crews, which was aired in the evening. Surprisingly having only been there for a few days it was quite easy for me and john to settle in. we found somewhere for breakfast, lunch and dinner, all different places and all at reasonable prices. Also to mention is somewhere me and John named the "old ladies" just like the one in Cuzco but this place sold refrescos, or super chilled pint size fruit juices for 25p! We had at least 2-3 a day they were that refreshing in this heat, I went for apple and John decided to work his way through them all.

So the time came for us to leave, we had exhausted all tourist attractions, explored the town and it's markets. We left for the bus station only to find we couldn't purchase our ticket from there and by the time we got to the ticket office the bus for that day had left, so we waited an extra night.   *insert drama* so here's where it gets interesting, having missed the bus the previous day we were determined not to miss this one, so we left for the bus station an hour early, but we realised we didn't know where we were meant to meet the bus! Schoolboy boy error I know. So instead of going to the terminal I went with my gut instinct and went straight to the ticket office, by this time we were running low on Peruvian cash as we have been using it over the past couple days so sexist have to exchange it at the boarder. So upon arrival at the office we get told there is another location for the buses heading into Brazil. On the other side of the river! so our taxi takes us to the river; by know cutting it pretty close to departure time, myself and John panicking. We get loaded onto a tiny motor powers boat and have to sit here as it agonisingly snails it's way across the river, the last of our cash to pay the boat man and we were across. Luckily we didn't need another taxi, if we had then we would have missed our 2nd bus in two days! Pure relief when we eventually sore the bus at the end of the dusty road.
Currently in Rio Branco Brazil, Amazon territory, nice and hot! Time to work on this tan that seems to refuse to develop. One negative note......Portuguese, I hate it!

Sunday 17 July 2011

Good bye to the point family.

Inti raymi AKA
inkan sun god
Happy 4th of July.




 Today marks the end of my time at the point. its been an amazing month, I've met so many awesome people. i think i know know what it must have felt like living in that traveler community in "the beach"living with so many different people from all over the world, everybody with a different accents and outlooks on life.. its been great and I've made some amazing friends during my time there, i was truly sad to leave my second family of travellers, but never the less the amazon is calling. I've loved the month of events in Cuzco, waking daily to fireworks (yes even in the day time), dancing in the streets, religious idles being carried through the streets to drumming, trumpets and flutes. i feel like i became a part of Cuzco standing in the streets amongst its people enjoying the celebrations of their culture, inti raymi, corpus Cristi and 100 years anniversary of Manchu Pichuas well as enjoying bonfires, firework displays and BBQ's for our American and french friends day of independence, the 4th and 14th of july


Local markets, yes thats a big guiny pig!
currently sitting on the bus from a Cuzco to a small amazon town called Puerto Maldenado, the rain is pouring and its very hot at 3am, welcome to the jungle I'd say! john doesn't seem to be adjusting to the heat as well or the prospects of all the humidity and mosquitoes. its great to be back on the road again, i had forgotten how much i loved sitting on a bus watching the scenery and climate outside change so dramatically as well as the scenic landscapes (must be the nerdy physical geographer inside me). the bus is currently winding through the jungle, passing previous land slides and small shack villages, before these shack cookeries would worry me but now all i wanna do is go and see what there cooking, is it more strangeness like Guinea pig  ?.
 i cant wait to get to Puerto Maldenado and explore a little bit of the amazon i can see outside my window, similarly there are many things i want to see in Puerto Maldenado, one being a zoo with a collection of amazon flora, fauna and animals. i suppose i should try get some sleep. that's all for now until I've done something interesting to tell. 


Going to miss them all!



Wednesday 22 June 2011

The Point.

So as mentioned before I have successfully become a bar man at the point in Peru. This has been a great experience so far as I am thoroughly enjoying my time there. The staff are great and I've gotten the hang of the drinks. Every night is never boring, there is something always going on; weather it be game nights, fancy dress nights or ladies night. All 3 I have had the pleasure of working during. So for the game night, poker and beer pong was on the agenda, being staff I was obliged to play. For the fancy dress night it was a super hero theme and luckily they had a spider man costume, a very very small one. However being the smallest and in need of a costume, I claimed this. It was quite funny to see everyone dressed up, john as an Inca and some of the other staff as Rambo, cat woman, super woman and a cowboy. Now, the interesting part. Ladies night, now this wasn't the usual kind of ladies night, the catch was it was that the men had to dress as women. So bra, blouse and make up on I had to serve customers, which was fine for the ones that knew it was ladies night. This lead to many strange looks from guests for the whole night. The whole of Cuzco during both the day and night have been alive with music, dancing, parades, floats, live music. It has been great out in the city every day with something different always there, as i write this I can hear the flutes playing from the band currently performing in the Plaza De Armas. Last night there were hundreds of people dressed as Incan's with burning torches and carrying a man dressed as a leader up on a hand held float. It was great to watch this from a window on the second floor balcony on the plaza. I plan to enjoy the rest Cuzco has to offer ad the week of festivities continues.

Tuesday 14 June 2011

Cuzco far.

 
Since My last post myself and john have been getting to know Cuzco, an awesome city filled with beautiful buildings and a lot of history. The longest inhabited city in the whole of Peru it was initially used by the Incas until the invasion of the Spanish. Last week I truly put on my tourist shoe in Peru, myself and john visited several museums providing history of the Incas and the history of Cuzco. They were interesting, with mummy displays, scale models of Inca sites including Machupichu and saqusaywaman and the usual collection of metalwork’s and textiles.

The mentioned Saquasaywoman is an Incan fortress located on the outskirts of Cuzco. This provided a great day out with a walk through the city and then up its slopes to the site and then the day spent exploring the routines. It was quite strange to see such a large site so close to the city after the 4 days it took to get to the remote machupichu, however I wasn’t complaining as the fortress being on top of a hill there was great views of the city and several nice view points on the route around the site. The routines called saquasywoman, or as the gringos know it "sexywoman" was great to walk around as the weather was nice and having visited the Inca museum the previous day I was able to appreciate the history attached with the fortress.



Another site overlooking the city that I visited was "christo" like Christ the redeemer looking over rio but smaller. I have wanted to go up and see it since arrival to Cuzco as at night time it is fully illuminated up on the hill top looking over Cuzco. It was quite a climb up to the Jesus taking us through caves that me being an adrenaline junky was tempted to do abit of free style rock climbing, quite fun, especially when the caves were pitch black. My good deed for the day was when myself and john were climbing the hill we came across a n elderly man in need of help, he was trying to push his drink stall up the hill. He explained he had broken his legs when he was younger and so needed our help. We pushed it up, getting to the top of Christ completely satterd. The views from Christ was amazing, to the back of us we can see saquasywoman o our front Cuzco, Viva el Peru in the distance carved into the hill side.

As mentioned the opportunity to get a job working as bar staff arise, this is the perfect opportunity to try and balance out my budget deficit arising from the overpriced nature of south amerce so far, as well as being valuable experience. The bar we were supposed to be working in strung us along for a weekend only to tell us he had given away the jobs, Great guy. Never the less barmen are sought after all over the city and so I have secured a position at a hostel called "the point", starting tomorrow. The job doesn’t provide a wage however free accommodation, dinner and discount on anything else in the hostel is the norm. so starting tomorrow ile have the days to explore more of Cuzco and some of the evenings making drinks, should be interesting as the bar manger seems like a cool guy.

The splitting up of the Gvi group was sad as myself and john made some great friends so it was great to be able to meet back up with some of the other volunteers, Claire returning from nazca and Colca. I hope to also meet back up with Sandeep who is also in Cuzco at the moment on returning from machupichu. Similarly the other day when exploring the city with john it was great to spot 2 familiar faces, Olivia and Emma from the teaching group of gvi volunteers on their way to their next gvi project. it always amazes me when I run into people I have met along my travels. The food in Cuzco has been great, with a range of different restaurants from local small eateries to large restaurants. One place ive been meaning to mention is un nammed however it has been a great regular eating hole for myself and john during our time in Cuzco. A tiny restaurant with about 4 tables’s serving traditional Peruvian food every day of the week for a very reasonable price of 5 soles for a soup, main dish (consisting of meat cooked in various ways, rice and veg) as well as a drink. Now this in relation to other restaurants is about a quarter of the price in any other place we have eaten and so a great find. The woman cooking our food has come to know me and john as the "amigos” a thoroughly lovely woman, I shall give her a good tip the last time we leave as i don’t understand how she is providing such good food so cheaply! Other places to mention would be the restaurant called Kormasutra, an Indian restaurant with great interior, music and amazing food. Considering that Claire was only back in Cuzco for the weekend we decided to check out a cafe called jacks, the food was pretty western however it was a nice treat after cooking for myself for the past week. Apple and cinnamon porridge, chunky chips and 2 mojitos at 9.30 in the evening, the waitress must have thought I was a right weirdo. For the evening relaxing on beanbags enjoying happy hour was pretty chilled.
Now for the past few days there has been a large festival going on in Cuzco, Hundreds of children from 6 to 18 dressed in traditional clothing dancing in formation with sticks for the boys and feather things for the girls, this lasted 3 days and nights. This was great to watch in both the daytime and evening as the colors of their uniforms was great in the sun and the misty lighting of the main square at night gave the dancing an eerie feel to it. This has been great however the dancing starts from 5 everyday, constant drumming has become my wake up call.

I am excited to be starting as a barman tomorrow and hope to enjoy more that Cuzco has to offer in the coming week.

Monday 6 June 2011

Machupichi

A 4 day jungle trek to the ancient inka city. As doing this trek solo is illegal me and john were forced to settle with a tour provider, Condi tours. On arrival to Cuzco with the GVI crowd it was soon decide that myself and john were going to do the trek one day behind the rest as we were still recovering from out epic travels into Colca canyons.

So wakening up at 6 in the morning to be greeted by our guide half a hour late was a awesome start to a trek but never the less we loaded u}our stuff up and were off. On the agenda for the 1st day was biking down to the beginning of trail in a small town. I’ve done quite a bit of biking on this trip to know when it was bad. And it was. The beginning part being on asphalt it was incredibly frustrating having to cycle slowly and in formation. This I hated, being a hardcore death road veteran. At the bottom we all got back into the van only to be delayed by a good 2 hours which meant we got lunch late. Thank god I had stocked up on snacks for the trek. Lunch was good, traditional Peruvian dish of soup made from some super vegetable that only grows at a certain altitude (looked like a truffle with the consistency of a potato. Not to bad. The accommodation was average, but after a day of biking any bed is a good bed.

Day 2. This day was great; we trekked through jungle paths where we came across traditional farmers who were drying out coffee beans. We were also able to see the coca plant growing wild and eventually try it. Now I'm all for experimenting but this was just rank. I rolled up a few leaves and placed a small charcoal looking rock in the centre then began to chew; the taste was sop disgusting I had to spit it out after 2 minuets. The coca leaves did leave me with a slightly numb mouth so it wasn’t all doom and gloom. At the same house that we tried the coca leaves I was also able to try coie, or as I usually know it, Guinea pig! Yes it was a fluffy little Guinea pug cooked up. It tasted very nice, similar texture and taste to chicken. Afterwards we were able to see some of the Guinea pigs brothers and sisters living wild in the kitchen, there escape hampered by a very large door step. So back on the trail we descended down onto a rived bed where we were forced to climb up over large rocks, tough going by normal standers. The days trekking was rewarded by 2 hours in a natural hot springs, this was awesome. After a good old soak it was a short drive to the next town. Where we ate slept and generally recharged out batteries for the next day.


Day 3. The trek continued, through jungle and mountain sides as we came closer and closer to the foot of machupichu. having got a good nights sleep I was full of energy and vigor, however john had injured himself in the hot springs, jumping in after being told it was under 70cm deep, he decided top jump never the less and paid the price, a cut foot. So the days trekking was a leisurely one at most as I hung back with john taking it easy, this I don’t mind as I arrived in agues caliente not to tired. I eventually managed to get online at the foot of machupichu to post the colca trek as the access to internet had been severally limited in the towns along the way. Another early night for me as we were supost to be up at 3 in the morning to begin the assent up to the famous inka city.


Day 4. I woke feeling like I hadn’t slept at all. not the best feeling when you know you have a grueling climb ahead but still I got dressed and was downstairs in time for the departure. a 40 minuet walk to the entrance for machupichu in the pitch black dark. Luckily john had brought his light as I had forgotten mine back at the hostel. arriving, we qued up until opening time and then 400 plus people began the climb up the steps, just like ants as out guide had correctly described it. This was HARD. I had to grit my teeth and mentally push myself to keep going and make it to the top, by this time my thighs were burning and my bum thoroughly toned. More queuing at the top then entrance, due to my amazing stamina i was able to be in the 1st 20 to make it into machupichu and so was able to get some good pictures of the city empty.


Walking around the city it was amazing to think this was all built well before the times of technology and all the other modern building tools. Our guide gave us a good insight into some of the techniques that were used and showed us around all of the sacred buildings, such as the temple of the sun and moon. So 2nd on the agenda after exploring all the streets and crevices of the city was to conquer winapichu. The large mountain you see in most machupichu pictures. This was an amazing climb, up minute inka steps each hand carved out of local stone. Apon arrival to the summit the views were spectacular, being able to see a full 360 degrees around and look down upon machpichu and see how huge it was and the way it was positioned on a mountain side. Now. the climb down was particularly hard for john, those tiny rock steps, fine going up but became torture for him and so we got down kind of late but never the less we were determined to climb half way up the other mountain looking over machupichu, that being machupichu mountain. Half way up was the sacred sun gate; this apparently providing an amazing light display once a year, however by the time we got there it was getting latish. The climb up was equally as difficult as winapichu but the views and the sun gate itself was a complete let down, just a couple derelict walls and so we descended back to the city, and got the bus back to agues client. Here both me and john made executive decision to go and spend a hour in the hot springs ready for the train back to some small town where we would be making a bus connection back to Cuzco. Now this is a ridiculous side effect of having a name that doesn’t sound like its read. At the train station we were told to look out for our name on a piece of paper. Mine was no where to be found. strange i defiantly have a bus out of here. This was when I noticed a name I had herd plenty of times in SA. Spelt cian cox. Yes cian. That was how they spelt my name. Fail. anyways the bus ride back was fine, got to loki checked in only to find out it was the last night I would be able to see Luke, Sam, Joanne and jess. This meant no sleep for me and we swiftly headed to the bar for a night of dancing on bars and general revelry. Great end to an amazing 4 day trek.

For a comprehensive colection of machupicchu picutres folow the below link.
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150212583470956.332859.734175955&l=8a28dd0581

And for Colca Canyon: http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150209706705956.331870.734175955&l=1225fd4d56

Friday 3 June 2011

2 men and a Canyon.

So this post is going to be slightly late but i need to get it down before i forget!

So despite all of the horror stories me and john had been told about those that hiked into the Colca canyons solo (without a guide) we were determined to do it solo as my friends Timo and Roy told me it was thoroughly terrible with a tour. So minimal planning and we were off. we got the bus to a small town called cobanaconde (like copa cobahna with anaconda). the 1st night we arrived it was the evening so we went to the nearest hostel to check in. we realised when we arrived that one of the things we didn’t plan was accommodation......I know, amateur mistake. Never the less there was plenty of choice. 2 hostels. One called valley of fire and another that I can’t remember the name of. We went fir the latter. Very decent hostel, and for 10 soles a night, good value. so the morning came and we set off, at around 7 ish.


With my tourist map in hand and local directions now and then we were able to make it into the canyon. Colca being the deepest canyon in the world it took 7.5 hours for me and john to trek down into the canyon and over a ridge, then descends into an oasis. Along the way down the heat was blazing and we frequently had to move aside as the paths were small to make space for the locals coming down with their donkeys. One point to mention was the trail of donkey poo that reassured us that we were on the right path. So the scenery was amazing and the best reward was finally arriving at the base of the canyon at the oasis, named Eden, with is a pretty good comparison. Palm trees, waterfalls, swimming pools in the middle of a semi desert canyon. Pure bliss. For the night me and john stayed in little bamboo huts, and whilst john swam I slept.


For most of the canyon trek I was going full out, getting my trek on good and proper, john found it slightly harder to keep the pace as for many parts on the way down he was hampered by his fear of heights. Several times there was an extremely narrow path and a sheer drop, pretty scary for him ime guessing, but never the less we both made it down. Frequently getting "lost" as john would call it. I call it the scenic route. So for the 2nd day we began out hike out of the canyon back up to the town of cobanaconde. This route up was only 4 hours but from an elevation of 1000m to 2000 in 4 hours. The trail was completely vertical.
What we didn’t know was that usually people who do this route leave at 4 or 5 in the morning, this was too avoided the mid day heat. Me and john left at 8 in the morning and didn’t make it back up for 5 hours. We ran out of water and almost came to as crawl as we got to the top. It was purely mental strength that got us out of that canyon! But never the less I survived. So, this is where it gets ridiculous. We make it back, and have lunch. I order the steak and john orders the alpaca (lama steak) but the order gets mixed up and I get his, we then swap when the waiter tells us were eating the wrong food, but still neither is shore if he is right as both dished tasted and looked identical. So that mini crisis over we went out in search of a bus.

The time being 2.20 pm. the bus left at 2. We missed it by 20 minutes and so had to wait till the next one, at 9 in the evening. So with lots of time to kill we went to the internet cafe where john played games and I talked to Alice. We were both quite disappointed with the evening as we had planned a night out with the rest of the GVI volunteers but with a 6 hour bus ride ahead of us at 9 in the evening that was off the cards. Finally arriving back in Arequipa we were relieved to be back on familiar ground. The trouble hasn’t finished yet. So on arrival at our usual hostel we find the front desk deserted and every bed full. Middle of the night fully loaded up with our bags we went in search of another hostel; luckily there was a wild rover in Arequipa, a usual haunt for the gvi crowd. Having stayed in this hostel in La Paz I knew it would be easy to get a bed, and so we were settled for the night. Finally. We slept and the next day began the planning for our next move onto Cuzco with the rest of the gvi team that had finished and were off in the same direction. Tickets bought we enjoyed a final night out in Arequipa and then the next morning the 10 hour bus ride. Sunday, Bus day.

Stress head moment in the bus station. I had a bottle of drink in my bag that I was holding for Joanne as she had no space in her bag; this bottle was my down fall. we were running late and my bags were brought inside as I was searching for the others, this being the bag with the glass bottle in. it was dropped down on the floor and so all of my stuff got covered in liquorish smelling alcohol. Then we had to rush for the bus only to find my bag containing dinner and snacks for the trip was in the hands of another volunteer on another bus. I. was. Stressed. The bus ride was cold and i arrived in Cuzco sleep deprived. Never the less we got settled into a very nice hostel and spent the day recovering from Colca and the bus ride. Me and john decided to stay in the rival hostel to the one previously mentioned (wild rover), staying in Loki. This hostel was pretty awesome and if possible me and john are considering getting jobs there as bar men for 2 weeks. Ime shore it would be a great experience and really help john and myself to become more open people. That’s all that’s happened up to the beginning of Cuzco so far, minus the face me and john are currently 3 days into a 4 day hike to Machu Pichu, currently at the base of the mountain. I will blog all about it when we’ve visited the ruins and got back to Cuzco. Pictures to be added to this post at a later date. Hope you enjoyad this post. =]

Tuesday 24 May 2011

Sad to leave GVI

So the past week and a bit have been one of my favourite so far in this trip. Last weekend a large group of the GVI volunteers decided to go away for the weekend to the beach, a 3 hour bus ride to the sleepy village of Moyendo. In total we were a group of 12, so it didn’t matter that the beach and town was literally deserted!

GVI Volunteers

One of the great things about this trip was the price, 10 soles bus ride there (2 quid) bus ride back 8 soles, 3 course meal 8 soles a nights accommodation 10 soles. Was a pretty good deal for a weekend at the beach. One downside if there was one at the beach was how cold the water was, were talking colder than English beaches, but then again it is winter here, but that never stopped me Luke and Sam from going in.

Getting my beach hunk on

so we went out in the evening in our large group only to find the bars were empty. we endeavoured to have a good night though and so quickly filled up a local karaoke bar, it was interesting to say the least, I personally sung a bit of Tinie Tempah then came the limbo, great fun. Later into the evening we found out where all the locals were, there was a band playing in one of the big halls so we all went there and got covered in beer and had a good old dance up! Now being as we were at the seaside it was a given that the ones left by the end of the night go onto the beach to relax, however the idea of a refreshing swim was to tempting and i soon found myself swimming in freezing water at 3 in the morning! Awesome night.

Chilling on on the balcany

So the second week of tanking began on the Monday and to say there was problems with the progress would be an understatement, a combination of materials not being delivered, masons not arriving, water cuts and the changing of the site. But never the less me and john put into the work and we got some decent progress on the site, it was sad that we didn’t get a chance to fully complete a water tank but we have made enough progress for our fellow volunteers to complete it.

Happy tanking

I was able to see some of the completed tanks as this is not the 1st tank in this area, it was fun getting the chance to paint it bright gvi blue with a large phoenix on one side, complements of Joanne, our artyist member. 2 of the most notable members over the past 2 weeks of construction have to be Jesus and Leonidus (like the guy from 300) these 2 were truly an epic team up. leonidus being the leader of the district we were building the tanks in helped us continually throughout the 2 weeks and for a small guy he was very strong, carrying sand bags up massive hills. Jesus or Heysus as its pronounced here despite having one hand put us all to shame when it came to shoveling and moving boulders. A lot of respect for him, having lost a hand deactivating mines in the jungle after a war between 2 South American countries (cant remember the specifics) and yet still able to put in a 6 hour construction day and then work night watch duty in the community. These 2 will be sadly missed, as a treat and because this group of "tankers" must have made a lasting impression on the Friday of me and johns departure from the community a meal was prepared for us all by leonidus, some fried pork with crackling potatoes and a local sweet potato cut into slices (As well as onions, but we will not speak of them). The meal was delicious and was defiantly well received by all the tankers after a long day working in the desert.

By this time it was a Friday and as normal with gvi the weekly BBQ was organized, all the volunteers provided something that could feed everyone so all in all it was a very good spread, wachamoley (some avocado thing) crisps, burgers, chicken, tuna pasta (complements of me), a large chocolate cake as well as drinks and nibbles. It was a great BBQ however sad being that it was mine and johns leaving meal, the night ended with a speech from Patrick (our project manager) about how much he appreciated the work me and john put in over the past 2 weeks. there had been some deliberation over what he was going to say at this speech as apparently me and john gave him so much material, most notably our title as the biggest tools on the site due to our testosterone fueled manly jokes up on sight with Pat. We both received cards signed bye everyone and a mini alpaca toy (mini fluffy lama), very sad to have left the group now. On a better note myself and john are staying in Arequipa for a extra week until our friends finish there volunteering this was we can all celebrate the groups departure, weather it is on to other south American countries of back home. So the plan for this week is to trek into the world’s deepest canyon for 3 days to visit an oasis and hopefully see the elusive condor.

Sunday night was a very interesting one, the group decided to have abit of a splurge so we all dressed up and went to an “expensive” local restaurant (around 10 quid for the whole meal). Here we all indulged, the triple of meat was quite popular, consisting of 3 steaks: lama, pork and beef. The lama was incredibly nice, similar to a well cooked beef steak.

Meaty madness

Another popular dish was the triple of fish: sword fish, salmon and tuna. The night ended with some of us going on to a pub locally and playing drinking twister, needles to say 3 of the tankers jointly won as they just couldn’t make us fall, its all this construction work getting us toned and muscular.

Saturday was an arranged bike trip included in the gvi tanking project; this consisted of a 45KM bike trip down the side of a volcano surrounded by another 2 volcanoes. A perfect setting for the supposedly end of days, we jested that it would be an awesome way to go it the world did end on that day, cycling away from lava. So this was a pretty bumpy dirt road on not the best of bikes, but never the less very enjoyable, I particularly like the "short cuts" that we took at our own peril as they were more dangerous. So needles to say me and john took most of them swiftly leading to john face planting 8 times, extremely comical to look back and see him sprawled out on the floor. One achievement of this biking trip was the fact I managed to break one of the bikes due to my sheer awesomeness, I have no idea how it happened but I remember feeling a sense of achievement riding this bike to the death!
End of days...I think not

Got a short week ahead but I can tell its going to be a great one, ile blog when I have returned from the colca canyons.

Laters =)

Friday 13 May 2011

End of week 1.

So this week has been well HARD! the construction is way more hardcore then I was expecting 5 hours in the desert perched on a hillside under a hole in the ozone layer mashing boulders with sledge hammers.


Hardcore I know. So Ive spent the week dusty and covered in dirt, but its pretty rewarding to see the area the tanks are going to be built on slowly developing. As mentioned 2 of the volunteers have been sick for this weeks work (Clair and Micaela) so its been just me john Joan and Cariell. "Good workers according to the local labourers we have been working with. So today (Friday) the local company didn't deliver the materials for us to begin building so the 4 of us plus Pat, he overseas and gets stuck in with the work were doing, went and painted one of the other tanks,finished recently by another group of volunteers. Got quite blue with paint, luckily I was wearing a ragged pair of MC hammer trousers over my jeans, good for the paint but bloody hot! So as mentioned Ive had quite a bad chest infection, this coupled with the back breaking work has turned into a deadly combo of torn back muscled sending me into spasms when I cough, I'm alive tho. Tonight the plan is a group dinner with the other volunteers in a local pizza place, then a pub quiz, then experience a bit of decent Arquipian night culture, should be fun, however I cant drink being on the antibiotics, energy drinks it is. For the weekend myself and some of the other volunteers are going to the beach on our days off, will be nice to have a good old swim as Ive been missing it since Santa Cruz. this weekend is much deserved as we are all feeling the strain of working as hard labourers. but on the bright side when this tank is built it will provide over 50 families with running water all through the day, in contrast to them having to travel quite far and then bring the water in bots up quite a large hill. So bring on next weeks work is what i say! that's all for now as i am smelly and dusty and need to get myself ready for the night ahead.

Monday 9 May 2011

Host family.

So people, i made it to Peru a week ago, I'm currently in Arequipa. i met up with john eventually. So GVI has begun! I've met a good bunch of volunteers, the 6 "tankers" and the rest of the teachers. We had the 1st night in this pretty nice hotel, which has a turtle running lose int he garden called Paco. Awesome.
so yesterday was interesting, all of the volunteers were paired with there host family. so I'm currently living with this nice family, Edna and her husband. I have my own room and bathroom/shower. I'm 20 minutes walk from the city centre, which is good for when i need to make it there in the morning for the tanking. So for the next 2 weeks i will be building water cisterns in a small Arequipian village. But for the next 2 days i have 10 hours of Spanish lessons to get through. On a down note i seem to have developed bronchitis, lucky my adopted father is a doctor and so prescribed me with some antibiotics. Hopefully on the mend. Arequipa is a really beautiful city, allot of Spanish architecture, and lovely cathedrals and Churches, a link for the pictures will be up in the next few days. Cant wait for the actual construction to begin so i can get physical! possible trekking in the worlds deepest canyon, called the colca canyons in the next 2 weeks.

Thursday 28 April 2011

Coca museum.

As mentioned in yesterdays bloging I went to visit the coca museum. I had read about it in lonely planet and searched for it the other day but was unsuccessful. Following a tip of from another traveler I managed to track it down. Its signposted alright, but you would only notice it if you were a giant. It was all the way up the wall. Anyways, the museum was quite interesting, took about 1.5 hours to get all the way round. There was a lot of reading to do, luckily they had a translated manuscript for gringos like me. Don't get me wrong, I have enough Spanish to get bye, but when I'm faced with a wall of text its a bit hard. The tour gave a lot of information on the traditional uses of the coca leaf all the way up to its synthetic uses in modern medicines. One interesting part was the bit where they gave information on the medicinal uses from thousands of years ago. As well as a full rundown of the development of cocaine and its notorious reputation world wide. one interesting statistic: America represents 5% of the worlds population and apparently consume 50% of the worlds cocaine. Says a little bit about western culture I think.
Today I tracked down the super market to bye some snacks, it took like 3 hours to get there and back! I see why this hostel hasn't bother with a communal kitchen, its much more convenient and probably cheaper buying you meals from the hostel or locally.
Tomorrow I plan on visiting a few museums in the north of the city, apparently they can all be done in a few hours. There about the history of La Paz and its indigenous population, as well as having gold and silver artifacts. Should be interesting. Sorry about there being no pictures for today, the museum wouldn't allow photography.
If its worth blogging  I'll  have another short piece to read tomorrow.

Wednesday 27 April 2011

Easter in La Paz

-->Ive arrived in La Paz.


The views of La Paz as the bus arrives was pretty awesome. La Paz being a large valley and the houses and  city taking up the whole of the sides! Pretty impressive. So 1st impressions of La Paz were good.


I'm staying in a hostel called wild rover. to my horror it was full of English people. when i say full i mean FULL. A bit disappointed having left the group i had in Santa Cruz. oh well, new people new places right?

With it being the Easter holidays most of La Paz was closed during the day so i never really got a feel for the hustle and bustle of La Paz until Easter was over. During the evening the streets were filled with people on there way to church, it was very busy and there were people dressed in strange full body and face suits with pointy hoods, like the KKK but with big colourful crosses sewn onto the frontunfortunately i didn't have my camera on me to capture this. On the bright side on Easter Sunday i was exploring the streets and markets and stumbled upon a parade of musicians and people dancing in red and white outfits (photo attached).


As mentioned the hostel was quite British and quite disappointing, however now i have managed to meet a few people, i forgot there names, but the Ozzie i met on the 1st night, Shane i remember saying we should really stop standing next to each other when we introduce ourselves. "hey I'm Sean, I'm Shane" "ooh that'll be easy to remember, Sean and Shaneinevitable names get mixed up with them forgetting which is witch!

Visually La Paz is very nice, a lot of beautiful churches and the sheer fact its built on slopes makes the whole experience very different. Orientations wise its very handy in that whenever i get lost all i have to do is head downhill and I'm soon in the main thoroughfare, which i know directions from
. One thing i found quite funny, the local women are small dumpy and wear the most strange little top hats.                                                                                                            

 I think Santa Cruz and samaipata set very high standards for La Paz food and company wise. sorry to say but La Paz is shockingly westernised, everywhere there are fast food places and you have to really struggle to find a decent local restaurant that isn't rock bottom fast food prices or sky high post eats. and so regrettably Ive been eating at the hostel more and more with it being a pub and a hostel.

The day after Easter it seems like the whole of La Paz came out of hiding. and the city is back to normal, full of markets and people. One of the most notable markets is the witches market, this place is strange. from stuffed frogs to mummified lama baby corpses. apparently bought and berried under the porch of new houses to bring good luck.........Bizarre. Speaking of lamas, Ive purchased myself a nice local jumper made from lama wool, pretty warm and comfy, need to shrink it on a hot wash tho as the only did mediums.


One of the good points about the wild rover hostel is the tour operators that are stationed in the hostel lobby, allowing easy access to the activities around la paz. me and Shane decided to do the "worlds most dangerous road" tour. 400 Bolivianos, like 40 quid for a whole day of mountain biking from 4,000 feet above sea level to 1,500.

It. Was. Epic!

As the name suggests the road was very dangerous, to the left a seer drop of apparently 750 metres and this is on a very uneven, narrow gravel road down the mountain. pritty adrenalin filled. We were in a small group of 4 males and so we were able to really push it and go quite fast. i rode into a ditch once and came pritty close the the edge a few times, my heart was pumping. On the way down there was waterfalls and apparently very beautiful views from the top. I say apparently because it was raining like crazy for the 1st 2 hours, nevertheless we all got soaked. As we decended the views got better and i was able to take some decent pictures. on a side note, the instructore gave us all nicnames, mine was shaggey from scooby doo and his was choie, like chobucka from starwars, good idea with he nicknames as i seem to find it harder to remember latin names then english names, and ime terible at that aswell. To top it all off when we arived at the botom we had a beer, a buffet lunch and a swim after a hot shower. all part of the package. We arived 2 hours before the other groups, just goes to show how fast we were going.


 

So thats the main blogable parts of la paz so far, tomorow I plan to visit the coca museum, i hear its quite intresting. Ile let you know how it goes.

Friday 22 April 2011

Welcome to the hippy vilage.

Santa Cruz. What can i say. its been eventful! the food is amazing; the drinks are just as good. every person I have come across has been helpful and accommodation to my hybrid language of English and Spanish.
a point to mention, I now know the names of my acquaintances. Roy and Timo from Amsterdam, Florian from Cognac France, Lolo from cape town south Africa and mark from Berlin Germany. I know a right mix of people. well the 1st night we all decided to spend the day exploring Santa Cruz, a nice town, beautiful looking buildings in the city centre and as you get further and further from the centre the more it becomes shacks. a lot of places I have been now seem to follow a similar pattern. (See attached pictures for the diversity). as it was getting late into the evening we decided to go out and eat, found a nice little place called KIWIS. run by a local who moved to America, married then moved back to Bolivia to start up a restaurant. we then went on to a bar locally and drank and got merry with the local people, was good not to be surrounded by gringos! the next day myself and Lolo went in search of somewhere for him to bye some cloths (the airport lost his luggage). we got epically lost in the very poor parts of Sata Cruz, on the bright side we were amongst the more indigenous looking Bolivians and the markets were very nice to have a wander through. there are so many good places to eat and drink in Santa Cruz, on the second night after leaving a swanky looking bar we stumbled upon some local Bolivian people (mainly down to Lolo’s impeccable charisma. on the spur of the moment we all piled into a car and were off for a house party! the night was very spur of the moment. the next morning some of the people in my group went off to meet up with the females they had become attached to on the night, I had a swim and in the evening a good all you can eat BBQ put on by the hostel. all you can eat and drink sounds good to me for 7 quid. needles to say I was stuffed by the end.

Roy, Timo left for Sucre, mark for Asia and Lolo for somewhere else in Santa Cruz. so me and Florian decided to have a 2 day trip to samaipata to visit the mountains and a word heritage site called la Fuertes, an ancient pre-Hispanic Inca fortress on top of a mountain. we did a lot of hiking, the scenery was, indescribably (pictures attached). I tried to capture the beauty but was unable to. in samipata we sore quite a bit of wild life, vultures, birds, insects, butterflies. it was nice. saminpata is properly one of the most beautiful places I have been in my life and I will most certainly be returning here when I am older. its a village full of hippy travellers and indigenous mountain people, giving the town a very relaxed feel and the buildings are lovely. I bought some souvenirs from the hippies, hand crafted from organic materials sounds good to me. I am now back in Santa Cruz, hostel in La Pàz booked for tomorrow, bus to La Paz booked for today. 17 hours. I could have flown for a slight increase in price but with the altitude of La Paz they say its better to acclimatize slowly on the way up instead of flying. I look forward to the activities in La Paz, mark came from there previously and he climbed snow caped mountains and rode bikes down dirt roads, both of which appeals to me! A bit of adrenalin never killed anyone. 
ile blog next from la paz.
Sean