| Paul's profilePaul & Chan's World TourPhotosBlogLists |  Tools  Help |
|
July 13 Peru 26/6/07 - present27/6/07 - Mancora - The first time i´ve been ill and its probably down to the Ceviche last night, sick three times early in the morning. Mancora is a little fishing town that seems very popular with the surfing community. Our surfing lessons are cancelled today because they are doing a movie about Mancora and our instructor has gone to see what its all about.
28/6/07 - Mancora - Its red hot again and today we had our surfing lessons which were really good. A couple in our group seemed to be able to stand up easily but I wasn´t too clever and it took me loads of go´s to stand up. Chan was pretty good. Played football on the beach with the locals, they all seem pretty rough but don´t mind if you give ém some back. We all went out on the lash for Jos´s birthday and I got wasted and ended up pole dancing in the club and even trying to remember the salsa from our lesson last week. We are told a few stories of the bad side of Mancora with some tour leader being pretty bashed up by some locals with a big rock.
29/6/07 - Mancora - I had the squats today (number 7´s, i´ll explain later) so I chilled out around the room and washed some of my football shirts.
30/6/07 - Mancora to Huanchaco -
01/7/07 - Huanchaco - Our group did a guided tour of the Moon temple of the Chimu civilisation which were the race directly before the Inca´s. We also went to Chan-Chan which was their capital and the largest adobe (mud) city in the world.
02/7/07 - Huanchaco to Huaraz - Long day on the road, spent the morning hugging the coast then after lunch we took a left and and went up into the Andes. The altitude really affected our group, going from sea level to a pass 4200m higher in a couple of hours. 3 or 4 people were sick and most people felt a bit ill. We were assured that this is the toughest day on the trip because of the change in altitude. Warm showers are such a blessing. Chan paid for tea as I won THE bet.
03/7/07 - Huaraz - Ice climbing was fantastic, we scaled the front of the Pastoruri glacier which was about 15-20m high. I was really proud of Chan as she went first when no-one else seemed that keen to start off with. Because it took so long I had to climb the other line and it was absolutely solid, I got a massive kick out of reaching the top as I don´t climb and i´m scared of heights. Juan our Chillean guide was great but it took its toll on the group as we were climbing at 4600m 24 hours after being at sea level. Absolutely brilliant day.
04/7/07 - Huaraz - Me & Chan had a chillout day to recover from the ice climbing. Went to a cafe for some delicious coffee and cake, bought a warm top, went on tinternet and had a walk round the market a saw a guy that was either dead or very nearly. Massive education pretest on the main street which we watched for a while, riot police & everything it didn´t kick off though.
05/7/07 - Huaraz to Lima - Stopped at a service station and at one end of the road was a line of riot police & and angry mob at the other end. After a while the police forced us to move in case they had to use tear gas, but it never got that far and the angry mob gently drfited away. It was quite exciting for a while and most of us got photos of the two parties.
06/7/07 - Lima -
07/7/07 - Lima -
08/7/07 - Lima to Huachachina -
09/7/07 - Huachachina to Nasca -
10/7/07 - Nasca to Puerto Inca to Arequipa - MORE ROAD BLOCKS & PROTESTS! We left Nasca early and arrived at Puerto Inca in time to set up camp before we played football whilst others made our lunch. We played ´North´vs ´South´and it ended 2-2 (I scored 1 for the North) when we were told to eat lunch quickly because we had to pack our tents back up and leave because 48 hours of protests were due to start at midnight and we needed to be in a big city (Arequipa our next destination). We finally got to Arequipa around 9pm and me & Chan upgraded to the hostel for the first night so we could get a good nights sleep.
11/7/07 - Arequipa - Brilliant weather here, a group of us went round the museum that houses ´Juanita´ the Inca Ice Princess. Apparently they sacrificed beautiful virgins to try and appease the gods. They thought the gods were angry when natural disasters struck i.e. storms, el nino, avalanche etc. The Inca´s used to take the young virgins to the top of the mountain, poison them and then whack them on the head to kill them. This was a massive honour for the virgin as they thought they were going to live with the gods. We went to the Zig-Zag creperie for lunch and had a great meal whilst playing on the free chess sets. Poodle & Camera Chris had Alpaca which is like a Lama. Some people went to Kareoke bar and some of us stayed around our fire. Kiwi Helen used to drive a ´subauru imprezza´ (hilarious pronunciation). We camped and it was absolutely freezing.
12/7/07 - Arequipa - A group of us went to the local market and Poodle had a ´Jugo de Rana´(frog juice). They take a couple of live frogs, bash them on the counter till they´re dead, rip the legs apart to skin them then cook them for a bit. After that they put them in a juicer, througha sieve and then add some other juice. He drank almost 2 glasses and most of us tried it (it tasted nutty, but most people likened it to horlicks) Chan didnt try the frog juice as she thought it was sick. I had some pork like meat from the market which was nice and it was quite a good experiance seeing what they sold, dried frogs, bulls balls, sheep heads and loads of other random stuff. A few of us went to see the new Harry Potter film at the pictures and it was quite good, although the books always seem loads better. Chan didn´t go and watch Harry Potter with us. Loads of strikes around the country may jeapordise our Inca trail.
13/7/07 - Arequipa - July 04 Ecuador 14/6/07 - 26/6/0714/6/07 - Me & Chan were kept apart on the flight from Miami & I sat next this right weirdo.He was apparently a crystal Palace fan who lives in Washington DC, having previously lived in Ecuador & some former Eastern bloc country. He was semi conscious for the whole journey, the result of either beers or drugs. Quito looked quite nice as we flew inn at night, then got the short taxi ride to Hotel Majestic.
15/6/07 - Its overcast and colder in Quito, with the temperature about 20deg. We had a good day, we went in and climbed the basilica which was the scariest moment of my life to date. I went to the highest point possible, even Chan didn´t go that high and i´m scared of heights! We also had a bimble around the old town with the best bit the San Francisco museum and cathedral. The museum is a bit gory with loads of statues and paintings of jesus on or carrying the cross.
16/6/07 - Got my haircut in a pelaquaria (hairdressers), it turned out ok considering I don´t speak any spanish and the barber didn´t speak any English (two pound fifty including a tip). Had the welcome meet and met all the other people on our trip in total 15 English, 2 Kiwi´s & 2 Aussies. Our Tour leaders are Nat and Aussis, Drew a South African and Jos from Durham. We travel in ´Trevor´our bus/truck thingy which has 34 seats. Loads of others join in Lima (week 3 of 10) to take our group to 33.
17/6/07 - 9am start, stopped at the equator for photos on the way to Otavalo. Got a little chess set (Spanish vs Incas) for 6 quid, tried to barter on some other goods but wasn´t successful. We had the best fruit pie and ice cream in the world ever for lunch then went out as a group in the evening and had the set menu for $3 each - sweet. All the people in Ecuador are so small I feel like a giant.
18/6/07 - Travelled from Otavalo to Misahuali (Amazon Jungle). We stopped on Anaconda lodge which was basically an island with a few huts that we stopped in, although they had showers (cold of course) but it we used candles in the rooms and it was quite romantic. There is a big boa constrictor in a cage and a couple of very, very small rabbits in as food. Most of the girls in the group started looking distressed and in short the baby rabbits were taken out of the cage. There are some really dodgy looking bugs and stuff on our island and monkeys harassing us whenever we walked pass them.
19/6/07 - Went on the jungle walk with our guide Fausto. This was a brilliant day, I ate ants from a lemon tree (they tasted salty) and then finished up with a trek down a river, (Fausto assured us there were no leaches or Cayman nearby) everyone got soaked and had a brilliant time. We saw some weird and wonderful stuff, big colourful caterpillar, tree frog, scary water spiders and Fausto explained about loads of different types of plantlife. We then went to a local village and Fausto explained about the different traps to catch animals and we all had a go with the blowpipe - I hit the target!! Later on that evening the Shayman came to our island and washed away the evil spirits of five of our group. He basically sang and hummed, whilst brushing our heads with some leaves and then spitting alcohol over us whilst brushing us with the leaves, it did leave us all nice and relaxed though. Best day of the trip so far.
20/6/07 - Went to a local primary school and played football and lost against the girls. We then made a two rafts and each group raced back down river to our island over a few rapids etc. We then went to watch some locals make pottery from clay and crafts from balsa wood. A small group of us purchased a couple of chicks to put in with the snake but all it did was bite them when they walked over it - pretty surreal moment a small chick standing on a big boa chirping like its conquered everest. It rained hard that night.
21/6/07 - Both chicks dronwed so we got the locals to remove them so the rest of our group didn´t turn on us. We left pretty early and there were loads of landslides on the way to Banos. One landslide cut off the water so most of us didn´t get a shower.
22/6/07 - Anna´s 21st some most of us got wasted (chan didn´t and susequently fell out with me). After playing some good drinking games we went ona beer hunt. It was raining, there had been countless landslides and our campsite was perched on the side of a mountain. We ended up trekking along a smallish path to the next village (rio verde) where we found a local type bar open whith middle aged local men playing pool and a load of young lads outside. Our 15 strong drinking army purchased bottles of vodka and sprite and after a while ended up trying moonshine that the locals gave us (it was the worst drink i´ve ever tasted). I was convinced the youngster outside were going to mug us but it all remained pretty jovial. On the way back our drinking guru Drew was taking a p*ss and fell down a mini landslide, by all accounts he was very lucky as he only fell 15-20ft and the drop down to the river was some 40odd meters. He did injure his knee in the process though. In the daytime we´d gotten the bus into Banos from our campsite and went to the natural sping baths which were absolutely brilliant for an unclean lot. The bus back stunk of p*ss. People in Banos were talking about the landslides.
23/6/07 - We moved to a hostel in Banos to prevent being totally cut off when further lanslides hit. Feeling really rough from last night and Chan still being funny with me, although she was ok after we did a salsa class in the evening. Banos is a lovely little town with seemingly friendly locals. Apparently the President of Ecuador closed the road we were meant to take so we think we´ll have to return via Quito to carry on the trip.
24/6/07 - Banos - Tena, 9-5 on Trevor. We are having to re-trace our path and go back to Quito to carry on with our joruney. This means we´ll end up missing out on Cuenca. Apparently people are dying in Cuenca because of the floods; the only place I wanted to go in Cuence was the shrunken head museum. Not that bothered about the panama hat factory.
25/6/07 - Tena - Machala, 5am-1am on Trevor, what a day. Drew our driver carried on despite his landslide damaged knee - respect. Drunken Police officers tried to fine us for using the toilets at the service station when the shop was closed. The place we ended up stopping in was crap with cockerils doing their loudest at 2am what seemed like right outside our crap window. I would kill for a hot shower.
26/6/07 - Machala (Ecuador) - Mancor (Peru). Went to the market in Machala for a fruit breakfast which was great. The border crossing was pretty uneventful even though it seemed to take an age. |
|
|
