Balmy balmy Beechworth

I'd heard Beechworth was pretty, but it really is.  The town itself reminds me a little of Maffra, but a bit bigger and with more older buildings.  Our camp site was just out of town.  It was a nice spot, in the bush and there were even koalas in the trees around us.  God those things make a racket.  At night they sound like crazy bush pigs.

The koala hanging out near our camp.

Our camp was nice and with the fantastic weather it was really not fun packing up to go home.  But we had a good time.  Checked out the festival, a bit of the town and had a bit of a paddle round in some waterfalls.  But I think the consensus was that we definately have to plan another trip up here; maybe bring some bikes for the rail trails and check out more of the national parks.

Bbq-ing in our idyllic surrounds

 The Beechworth Celtic festival was a bit of fun.  There were markets, stages for music and dancing and a classically country, underwhelming street parade.  But it was good, at the end of the parade half of the pipe band hung around in the street and kept playing for the small crowd who gathered round them.  And it just happened that when they finished up we realised we were standing right next to a nice old pub.  So we went in for a beverage or two then stayed to watch the bands they had on.  It was a pretty good night, the bands were good and we walked outside after to discover the one taxi in Beechworth was free and waiting for us.

The Celtic festival street parade.

A bag pipe or two is a prerequesite for any street parade.

So my original motivation for the drive to Beechworth was to deliver a postcard that I got from the pirate's postbox in Post Office Bay in the Galapagos.  I had been carrying this postcard for siz months, intent on hand delivering this postcard as the author of the card, someone called Carly, wanted.

I also decided to add my own postcard for delivery so that if there was no-one home, they would know where the postcard came from once I'd left it in the letter box.  My postcard was from Macchu Picchu and told the story of all the places that Carly's card had travelled between leaving the Galapagos in May and arriving in Beechworth in November.

So Julie and I pulled up outside the address on the postcard and after a little confusion about the name of the street, we actually figured out we were outside the right address.  We rang the door bell and heard a voice call 'yep?' through the screen door, coming from the lounge chair a few metres away.  I spoke through the screen door asking if Mick or Bev were about.  'Yep' was the reply.  I continued speaking through the screen door, telling the Mick who was still watching the telly what I was there for. 'oh yeah?' came the reply of disinterest. 

Old Mick didn't look like getting out of his lounge chair anytime soon, so I invited myself in.  Opened the screen door, went in and gave him the card.  He was sitting in his chair with a little fluffy dog.  He had a bit of a look and gave me another 'oh yeah,' and 'yeah, we'll tell Carly when she rings.'  Mick asked what we were doing in Beechworth.  I said we thought we'd come up for the Celtic festival. 'well, you better hurry - you'll miss the parade.' he said.  So we left Mick and the little white fluffy thing that may have been the infamous 'Monster' on Carly's postcard and went off to see the parade.

So the whole postcard delivery was not as exciting as I'd hoped.  I think maybe if Bev had been there it would have been different.  I would have liked to know what Carly & Mark were doing in the Galapagos; whether they loved it as much as me and whether they'd delivered any postcards they'd found in the postbox.  But I guess it must have been a bit odd for Mick to have a couple of randoms turning up on his doorstep and talking about postcards from the other side of the world.

The postcards I had to deliver

The content of the postcards.

I heart Melbourne

I've been back in Melbourne nearly two months already!  And glad to say there's no post-holiday blues.  I've been busy catching up with everyone, getting back into work and the weekends have been jam packed. 

I got to see a whole two footy matches for the year as my beloved Saints got done by Sydney in the first week of finals which was a little disappointing.  But this year the weather held out for Derby Day.  We packed our picnic goodies and sneaky beverages to get in early and get our usual spot by the 300m marker.  As per usual I lost all my betting money, but the biggest rort of the day was $48 for a bottle of yellow.  Yes, no typo $48! 

The Sunday after Derby day there were Zombies in the city which was pretty cool.  I couldn't believed there were thousands of them.  And the effort some of them had gone to was amazing.  There were waves and waves of the undead, covered in blood and gore.  There were kiddie zombies, pirate zombies, zombies getting married, dancing, screaming and beer swilling zombies.  One really cool one was the monkey-wings zombie.

Being back in Melbourne in the Spring is great.  I've been running along the beach most mornings before work is good and although I only had 4 weeks once I got back to prepare I ran the half at the Melbourne Marathon and was pretty happy with my time.

Coming up is a trip to Tassie with the footy girls and a camping trip to Beechworth where I'm going to deliver the postcard I picked up in the Galapagos.  I hope the people who get the postcard think it's cool that it's hand delivered and don't just think I'm a freak.

Football Bolivia

Our guide Freddy was awfully excited about the football match.  His home town Sucre were playing the locals Potosi in the final.  We went along and the atmosphere was similar to a footy match at home.  People wearing their team colours, lots of families eating dodgy food and cheer squads down each end of the pitch.  Although the cheer squads in Bolivia are better than at home.  They have drums and other instruments and sing and dance in the stands, which is cool.  They also have a lot of firecrackers which they randomly through into the stands, which is not so cool.

The stadium was a little different to home.  Mainly the security; the 6ft barbed wire fences, followed by a 20m buffer zone so anything thrown over the fence wouldn't land on the pitch.  And the riot police. They had batons and shields and were lined up on both sides of the fence.  I couldn't figure out why they were on the inside of the fence - no one was going over that thing.
 

Riot police on standby

The match itself was a normal soccer match, 80 minutes of pass, pass, pass.  Stop, pass, pass.  Turnover.  Pass, pass, pass.  How is this one of the most watched sports in the world?  It bores the shit out of me.

Potosi v Sucre - Sucre are in the red.

But as is common with soccer, things actually start happening in the dying minutes.  Finally a goal was scored by Potosi - the home crowd went nuts!  The team ran around like they'd already won the match congratulating themselves for a ridiculously long time then the match restarted.  Then there was a red card for Potosi from the ref.  The crowd goes nuts, the team goes nuts.  The other team comes in and they get into a bit of a melee which is soon sorted out when the riot police step in.

The game restarts again only to have Sucre score in the 93rd minute.  Potosi fans are livid but Freddy out of his seat excited and all of a sudden there are full drinks and other shit getting thrown at us.

Riot police seperating the teams after a red card.

Potosi stadium - note 6ft fence and buffer zone.

 Turns out Sucre only need a draw in this match to take out the whole thing, so the locals are spewing.  The refs are escortted off the ground at the locals throw things like full 2lt bottles and batteries at them.  The locals then turn on anyone wearing the red and blue of Sucre (I had to hide my scarf in my bag).  They blocked all the exits and as the cheersquad tried to leave they were beating the shit out of them.  Punching and kicking into them.  The riot police had to move in and escort the fans onto the ground so the locals couldn't get to them.  The whole thing was fucking mad.

Riot police escort the unpopular refs from the ground.

All in all it was a pretty mad night.  It was definately something we wouldn't experience at home.  But something I'm glad of.  You ask the locals about it and they just excuse the behaviour as 'oh we're very passionate about our football'.  But it sounds like bullshit to me.  You can be passionate about something without being violent.

Oh Bolivia, you are fantastic!

Michael & I had a great time in our whirlwind tour of Bolivia.  We toured a working mine, visited the salt flats, a train cemetary, rode some horses and saw a mad game of soccer.  In La Paz we visited the witches markets which are full of llama fetus & statues of Pacha mama the earth goddess.  And I shopped up a storm managing to spend a couple hundred bucks in a couple of hours in one of the cheapest places on earth!

But like lots of places, it can be the people you meet that help make it.  We went for dinner with Cecilia & Patty - two Bolivian girls who Michael met travelling a few years back.  They were really cool.  Took us to dinner & out to a club where there was this Bolivian-African band with plenty of big drums and crazy instruments I've never seen before.

For our tour of Bolivia we had Freddy, also a Bolivian, as our guide and Laura & Ericka fellow tourists.  Freddy was a great guy, knew a lot about his country and was well excited when he realised we were going to be in Potosi for the football final between Potosi and Freddy's home town Sucre.  When he told us about it we were keen as mustard, so he organised tickets, I got me a Sucre scarf and off we went to the footy.

The mine tour was pretty cool.  We started with a trip to the miner's markets where we bought some presents for the miners; kind of a thank you for letting us visit and sorry for interrupting your work.  We bought cocoa leaves, fizzy drinks, cigarettes and dynamite.  Yep, that's right, anyone can buy themselves a stick of dynamite for 15 bolivianos, which is about $2!

Me and my $2 dynamite

Ready for the mine tour.

 In the mine it was hot and claustrophobic.  As we walked down the narrow tunnels we were regularly made to squash ourselves against a wall as a couple of guys pushing a one tonne cart came running past at full speed.  We also stopped by an idol of the devil, where the workers pay him respect and give him gifts, hoping in return that he will show them where the precious metals are.  They give him cocoa leaves, cigarettes and alcohol.  The alcohol is 96% and smells like metho.  Michael & I drank it and I thought I was going to choke, and was then burping up metho breath for hours - ugggh!

Ericka, Laura & I swimming at the hot springs.

Random street festival

All in all, there were so many things to see and do in Bolivia I think we could have spent a lot more time there.  We missed the Cholita wrestling, touring the prison (although I'd heard a lot of bad things so wasn't too concerned missing that), could have spent more time in the salt flats and Sucre and Michael never got to Lake Titicaca.  Ah well - next time.

Rapa Nui big heads

Easter Island is an enigma, somewhat of a mystery to historians and archeologists alike.  The experts think it was populated for around 5-8 hundred years before it was rediscovered in the 1700's.  By then the civilisation who had sailed almost 4000 k's in little canoe's from Tahiti to populate the island had all but disappeared leaving only the huge stone Maoi as testament to what had been.  But even the Maoi had all been toppled over, all but destroyed.

Now some of the Maoi have been restored to their original glory, others, all over the island, lay scattered over the cliff sides where they once stood watch over the people.  The big heads are huge, and like ancient pyramids all over the world, Stonehenge and  Machu Picchu you look at these big heads and think ,'How the hell did they do that?'

Where's Wally.

Remember the oracles?

Michael says 'pfft, my head's bigger than this.'

Looking at the giant stone faces with their blank stares, it kind of reminded me of the oracles in The Never Ending Stories.  I kept expecting them to talk to me or start crumbling at I stood there watching them.

The island itself is not so big.  It took us about half an hour to drive end to end.  On the first day we thought hiring scooters would be fun.  It was fun until we hit the first of many long gravel tracks, all rugged and bumpy.  I was wishing big time for a sports bra.  Lucky I don't have big boobies or I would have ended up with black eyes.  So the next couple of days we hired a little 4wd to get around.

As well as the big heads there was Orongo which is restored houses that sit on the edge of a huge crater.  There were some nice beaches and lots of caves sprinkled along the coast.  We crawled into one where the opening was only about a metre square and crawled and walked through about 100 metres to come out in the side of the cliff overlooking the water smashing onto the rocks.  Pretty cool.  I was all like, 'Hey check this out.  Be careful it's slippery.'  Great advice that I was giving and not actually doing because two steps later I was flat on my arse.

Pots and pans and protests

Santiago is a big city.  You can see the cloud of smog for an hour before you get there.  But it is a pretty cool city.  We found the central mercado which is a big seafood market.  As well as the seafood stalls there are also a heap of restaurants and dudes hanging out the front trying to drag you into theirs.  We found one with the most amazing and huge paella.  Michael ordered one for himself, not realising it's for 2 people, but really it could have fed 4.  From Santiago we've been to Valparaiso, Santa Cruz and Valle Nevado.

I don't know whether it's made news at home, but there have been some pretty big protests going on in Santiago.  Students protesting for free education.  A good cause but it's been getting somewhat out of control.  We've seen lots of police and armoured vehicles around and one big green robo-cop dude.  As well as the protests in the day there has been night protests which involves anyone who cares opening their window at 9pm and banging pots and pans as loud as they can for an hour.  It's pretty noisy when you're staying in the University district, that's for sure.  We also discovered that tear gas is not fun and even after lingering in the air for hours still bloody stings.

In Valle Nevado the skiing was great.  There are long wide runs, no queues for the lifts, lots of snow and sunshine and it's cheap as compared to Aussie ski prices.  I spent the whole day onthe slopes while Micheal checked out the resort and spent a bit much time sitting in the sunshine, getting a nice red tan to one side of his face :)

We spent a few days in Valparaiso which is a cool seaside town.  It's a fairly big town with lots of old buildings, some renovated and looking stunning, others left with a dilapidated charm.  One cool thing about this town it is built into some steep cliffs, so these big old mansion houses are hanging off the sides of ledges and there are 'hill elevators' sporadically placed about the town to save you walking up the long windy roads.  The hill elevators are basically little trams on really really steep tracks going up and down some of the steeper hills.

About an hour south of Santiago is Santa Cruz, a little town that reminded me a little of walking around the back streets of Maffra.  Nice, but not much to do except for one pretty cool museum and the fact it is the centre of one of Chile's best wine regions.  However the wine tours are ridiculously prices - $170 per person for 3 wineries and lunch!!  That's a lot of money for a wine tour, but that's was we were there to do, so we forked out the cash and did the tour.  And it was good - maybe not $170 good.  But we had a fun day, tested out a few wines, visited some really nice wineries, the guided tours of the wineries were great and lunch wasn't bad either.

So next off we fly out to Rapa Nui to go check out the big heads, can't wait!!

Hong Kong magic man

 Every day in San Pedro de Atacama is warm and sunny.  Every night is just bloody freezing.  But the place is great, a quaint little tourist town with a real laid back atmosphere.  So I´ll be hanging out here for the week until I catch a bus (for 24hrs) down to Santiago to meet Michael.

As well as soaking up the sunshine there is a lot to do here, I went out to the observatory to freeze my arse off for an hour so I could look at Saturn in through a telescope 7 feet long.  I hired a bike and rode through 4 creeks to visit some ruins.  By ride through 4 creeks I mean, tried riding, got stuck halfway through the first one and had soaking socks and shoes for the rest of the day.


Yesterday was the best though.  I did a sandboarding tour in Death Valley.  The sand dunes weren´t as big as the ones in Huacachina, but thank god for that because we actually had to walk up this one!  It was also real sandboarding - standing on the board, not going down on my belly.  I did ok for someone so naturally uncoordinated.  The first time down I pretty much went about 2 metres and rolled the rest of the way.  But I got better.  I did.

After the sandboarding we went out to the Valley of the Moon where we climbed a big hill to have a sneaky Pisco Sour and watch the sunset which was pretty cool.  Then in the dark we climbed back down and the guides took us through this really cool cave and then we sat and watched the stars for a bit.  The night sky in this part of the world is quite sensational.

There have also been some other random entertainments here as well.  Last night wandering through the streets we spotted two people dressed in yellow jackets racing up and down the street.  I was like, WTF, then realised they had cameras following them and they had The Amazing Race envelopes.  So they ran up and down the street a few times, then came to a door that had a sign saying that the place was closed til 10 the next morning.  They pulled the appropriate downcast faces and we laughed because it was the only place in the whole town that was closed.

The coolest thing was the other night though.  The Hong Kong magic man in the hostel.  This random guy from Hong Kong did an impromptu magic show that he´s been doing everywhere he goes.  He was pulling scarves out of empty bags, lots of cup and ball tricks and cracking jokes in English, Spanish and Cantonese.  And I was all like, this is cool, but I see you slipping those balls under the cups, I´ve got your number.  That was until he started dropping avocados out of the cups and I was like how the hell did he do that.  Kick arse Hong Kong magic man.

Straw angels

This week I left Cusco for the sunny shores of Lake Titicaca.  I travelled down to Puno with Pete, a fellow Aussie.  Puno was a pretty average town and the only thing worth doing was going out to the floating reed islands.  While there I did the best straw angel ever and ate soup with a fish head in it.  There was a guide who did a little talk about the island which included putting a stick in a hole in the island to show us how deep it was before you reached the water.  The best part of the whole thing was 5 min later when some kid ran through the middle, stepped into the hole and his entire leg disappeared.  He shit himself and started crying, everyone was sniggering and trying not to giggle too loud, gee it was funny though.

I'm doing a straw angel.

Crazy reed boat

Reed island

Pete with his arm in the hole the kid fell in

 From Puno we bussed it down to Copacabana.  On the bus we met Sol & Nic, a German & Croatian who together spoke half a dozen languages and we didn't feel inferior at all only being able to speak Australian and a spattering of Spanglish.  So the four of us got a cabin with a kitchen, visited the markets, purchased a bottle of red and had a nice home cooked meal. 

Travelling is great because you get to experience so many new and amazing things, but it also really makes you appreciate the little things like hot showers, proper cheese and a home cooked meal.

Copacabana is a little tourist town, a bit more likeable than Puno.  The days here are fine and sunny and perfect weather for taking out a Donald Duck paddle boat and trying to play dodgems with unsuspecting Bolivians.

Also on this side of Lake Titicaca is the Isle de Sol.  So we caught a slow boat out there and walked the track from North to South.  It's not the prettiest island in the world, but the walk was good and all the gum trees and dry landscape made me feel a little like I was taking a walk out the back of Briag.  That is until you hit the top of a hill and get the view out over the lake which is pretty spectacular.   

Heading out to Isle de Sol

Granny pants

Grr.  Slow internet is so frustrating.  I wanted to put a few more pics up of Machu Picchu, but to no avail.  There are a couple here.  The squirrel rabbit things are pretty cool.  I'd never even heard of them and then we saw three or four of them just hanging out on the grass between the buildings & I was like 'what the hell is that?'

Melissa & I made ourselves a lovely toilet paper and highlighter banner for 'Team Carmen', Carmen being the name of our truck we'd been spilling beer travelling on for the last few weeks.
And there is also a great picture of me in my sexy wet weather granny pants.  I know they are very giggle-worthy, but screw you all I had dry pants for three days of trekking in the rain.  Oh by the way, if anyone is looking closely enough at me in my hot granny pants to wonder about my big bulge, that's the big lens for my camera.

Go Team Carmen!

Rabbit-squirrel thing - a squibbit or a rabirrel?

Looking the goods in my granny pants

Old Penis

Apparently Machu Picchu mean Old Mountain, however, if you pronounce the Picchu wrong - as most everybody does - it means Old Penis.

Anyway, back to the story.  3.30am was the wake up call for the morning of Machu Picchu.  Being woken at 3.30 is never fun.  The rain and cold made it worse.  The pancakes and knowing we were only hours away from the Sun Gate made it better.

And yes it was still raining.

After breakfast we stumbled through the dark to the control gate where we stood in the rain and cold with the other 200 people on the trail to wait for the 5.30 opening.  Finally, the gates opened and everyone went through, we were the last.  We walked the last hour through the approaching dawn to finally crawl up the last steep staircase to come up through the Sun Gate.  But there was no sun :(  Only clouds and rain.  We didn't even have time to take photos of the clouds, let alone wait and see if there was any chance of anything appearing through the mists before our guide was 'Vamos, vamos!' and we were back on the trail and heading towards the lost city.



Machu Picchu during a brief break from cloud cover.


Barely 15 minutes later as we passed another lookout, Machu Picchu did peer through the clouds.  It was a brief glimpse before the clouds moved back in.  But it was amazing.  It was so huge.  And the way it appeared from the mists and disappeared again gave it an air of mystery which bordered on surreal.  So we entered this mysterious and ancient city, walking paths that had been laid and tred by the Incas centuries before, and beelined for the cafe and a hot choc because it was bloody freezing.

After being invigorated by a warm drink and a snack we spent the next few hours exploring the ruins, waiting patiently for the cloud cover to break so we could get pics and musing on how amazing this place would have been like in the day.

Machu Picchu arising from the mists

All day as we wandered the ruins we kept an eye out for people from our tour who had gone on a seperate trek.  We were pretty excited to see how their day had gone.  It wasn't til we got back to the little town of Aguas Calientes that we finally ran into a couple from the tour, Lawrence & Sharon, who told us the news we'd been waiting to hear.  Lawrence had manned the fuck up at Machu Picchu and dragged Sharon all the way up to the Sun Gate, where there was no sun, and proposed to her!  Everybody except Sharon had already known this was going to happen.  So we were all keen to get back to Cusco to celebrate.  However, the celebrations had to be put on hold when our bus started blowing smoke from the engine and we had to wait for 2 hours on the road for another bus!  But the wait wasn't so painful, we had a few beers with us, a guitar magically appeared and a couple of the guys, Colin & Rodney, entertained the troops til the new bus appeared.

Rain rain go away

This week we did the Inca Trail trek.  It was pretty hard at times, but the camping was totally camping in style.  The term 'glamping' was thrown around - glamour camping.  Sure we slept in tents, we survived with baby wipe baths and the toilets were beyond feral.  But the food was bloody amazing, we got woken up to a warm cup of tea in our tents and we struggled up the mountains carrying nothing more than our cameras and a bottle of water.

The porters are the toughest blokes ever - there are rules now on the trail limiting them to carrying 'only' 25 kilos - but when you see some dude running up a mountain with a gas bottle sticking out the top of a tarp tied onto their back your're like 'holy shit - these guys are amazing'.  So they race up the mountain and by the time you struggle up there, they've set up the tents, prepared you a snack and a hot drink and are halfway through getting your dinner ready.

The trek itself was pretty tough, but not as tough as I was expecting.  The second day, climbing up to 4200m was pretty hard.  The stairs climbing to the peak were large, awkward, and rocky.  The altitude was getting to all of us - we would take 10 minutes to walk 100m and then have to stop to get our breath back.  But we all made it, and our guides set a nice pace that meant within 10 minutes of the fastest people reaching the top, the slowest people also caught up to us.

Melissa and I pretty happy at reaching the 4200m marker.

Our guides had informed us that it was the dry season and we didn't have to worry about the rain.  They were right - on the first day.  Day one was brilliant and sunny, we tramped along the trail, moving aside for porters, donkeys and locals all loaded up.  We got to camp and noticed a few clouds overhead.  Nothing to worry about said the guides - it's the dry season.  An hour later it started raining.  It rained all night.  It rained on and off the next day.  It rained all the next night.  We woke to a quarter inch of water in the bottom of our tent and the mountains now had fresh snowy peaks.  Melissa's sleeping bag was soaked up to the knees, my passport and day bag were not looking to healthy and our resident American was grumpy as all hell, telling us 'I didn't sign up for this' (?then WTF did you sign up for love?)

And it continued to rain.  But we trekked on...

Snow capped peaks in the dry season?

Condors in flight.

Our latest stops on the tour have been Chivay & Racqui.  Chivay is near Colca Canyon, it's a small town with some local markets and hot springs as well as the amazing Condors flying about the canyon.

We got up early and spent an hour bumping around on the truck to get to the lookout where the Condors usually are.  We saw a heap of them flying around and landing quite close to us which was pretty cool.  The canyon is a sight in itself; huge towering mountains and terraced valleys as far as the eye can see.  After the canyon we went to some nearby hot springs.  These were much nicer than in Banos; hot hot water and few people; but still in a big complex of pools.

Condors at Colca Canyon

After Chivay we had a leisurely 12hr bus trip to Racqui where we went off in little groups to stay with the locals.  We were taken in, fed & clothed and shown a traditional ceremony giving thanks to Pachamama who is like the earth goddess.  It was great fun.  We got to wear big frumpy skirts, bright jackets, this crazy hat that didn't want to stay on my head and a blanket on my back to put my baby in.  We then danced with the locals in a big circle.  There were some real cute kids running about and Anne, one of my roomies on the tour, had this mad dancer swinging her about so much her snazzy new outfit was nearly falling off. 

Dressed to impress in the local Peruvian outfits.

Now we are in Cusco and preparing ourselves for the big trek up to Macchu Picchu.  We did some training to get used to the altitude which involved ripping it up on the dance floor in a Cusco club called Mama Africa til 6 in the morning, followed by a day of tramping about the town looking for hiking poles and new socks, then carbo loading in the evening at a local restaurant.  We are well prepared - bring it on!

Flapping about

The winner of my little comp was 'Anonymous' for 'These ain't hotsprings'.  I thought anonymous was maybe Krichelle, but she usually signs in and spells devil with a 'b', so my second guess is Nic.  Tell me if I'm wrong.

So I've now arrived in Peru and after a couple of days in Lima have begun the Lima-Cuzco Intrepid tour which has been great so far.  We've got a bit of a mixed bunch, but fun people, our 11hr day on the truck went pretty quickly.  Our designated event manager, Laurence & Sharon his 2IC made us a quiz, I know know at least three different versions of 'shithead' and on our lunch stop we made friends with some local school kids and talked them into helping us flap our dishes dry - anyone who's done an overland trip before knows about the flapping.

Huacachina was our first stop.  It was ace.  We arrived at this little oasis out in the Peruvian desert where we climbed aboard the sand buggies and took off into the desert.  The sand dunes are huge and steep.  The buggies go pretty damn quick and between your screams and giggles you're wondering how much can these things take before they roll.  When you stop it's like being somewhere where there is a rollercoaster nearby; you keep hearing these screams in the distance.

When we stop it was not just to admire the sensational view of giant sand dunes in all directions, but for sandboarding down what looked like the hugest ones they could find.  I'm quite happy to admit that I was feeling nervous wees when looking down.  But then you're on your way; it's really fast, with the wind in your hair and the sand in your eyes, mouth, nose, ears, then you hit the bottom and and jut-jut-jut-jutter over the hard sand.  It was fantastic.  The sandboarding award went to Janet though, who came off, got back on and then came down the slope in an absolute avalanche of sand.  She has an awesome purple hand so show for it.

That night we camped in the desert.  A toasty camp fire, great bbq dinner, full moon, loads of stars and just us and our sleeping bags with a few pisco & colas.  Pisco & colas taste like rum & coke, so a few of those down the hatch and night sand boarding seemed like a great idea.  Ok, so the sand dune wasn't quite as big as the ones in the day - we did have to walk up these ones - but it was a pretty cool thing to do anyway.

Huacachina desert at night

Our next big stop was Naza, for the Nazca lines.  Half a dozen of us went in the little 8-seater plane for the fly-over.  I've never been in a little plane before and it was fun, but I was feeling more than a little queasy by the time it was over.  And it was over pretty quick; we saw alot of the Nazca lines, but it was 'quick look left', 'oh it's gone', still amazing to see though.

On the way out of Nazca we stopped at the Chauchilla cemetary.  Our local guide Juan was one of those funny fellows who still loves cracking the same old jokes and thinks he's funny.  He was good value and the tour of the cemetery was pretty cool.  Lots of old tombs from a previous civilisation just sitting open in the desert - mummies, well preserved for a 1000 years, just laying there amongst the rubble.

These ain't hot springs

I thought Banos was Spanish for toilet, so I was like 'hmm doesn't sound like a nice place, why would you call a place Toilet?' (ha, says me who spent a year living in Inaloo).  So it turns out I was a little mistaken and Banos means bathroom not toilet and is named such because of the hot springs in the area.

I didn't spend much time in Banos, went for a wander about the town and visited one of the hot springs.  I'm always disappointed when I go to hot springs.  I'm all excited, then I get there and it's like 'oh, it's a heated pool'.  I don't care where the water's come from, it's still just a heated pool.  I imagine hot springs to be hot water bubbling up amongst rocky pools, or steaming lakes interspersed between mountainous regions.  Not, sitting in a small concrete pool with 100 Ecudorians who can't swim and are kicking water in your face as they dog paddle past in their blow-up swim rings.

Banos 'hot springs'

Around Banos there are a lot of cool things to do; hiking, mountain biking, canyoning, etc.  But I didn't have time for this stuff.  I misjudged how far it was from Quito to Lima so am on a bit of a mission to get there.  Pity, I wanted to do the fun stuff in Banos, check out Rio Bamba and the Devil's Nose train ride, and spend a few days in Cuenca.  Who would have thunk it, six whole months and I keep running out of time :(

Ok, so I was lacking imagation today and have no title for this post.  So comment with your ideas for a title and the winner will receive a free beverage of their choice next time I see them.  Wow, I can't wait to see the ideas rolling in!

Number 2's with a view

I've now gone fron the depths of the Amazon jungle to the high mountain ranges of Ecudor  via a 2 hr canoe ride, 2 hr bus ride, an overnight bus and finally a 2 hr trip in the back of a ute with a half-drunk yankee.  Totally worth it.  The weather has been fine and views of Volcan Cotopaxi amazing.  Especially when you can see it from everywhere in the hostel, ie: from the window when your lounging by the fire, getting out of bed, in the shower, the jacuzzi and the special number 2's toilet.

That's right.  There's a special composting toilet just for number two's and it's high up on the hill and looks out over the mountains.  Pretty cool.

The ride to Cotopaxi.

The view from the dorm window

This hostel (The Secret Garden, Cotopaxi) is definately up there as one of the best hostels in the world.  And it's not even because you can always get decent hot water!  Did I already mention the jacuzzi?  The manager Carolina is a crack up and makes a mean mulled wine.  The meals were also fantastic and I liked the whole 'everyone sits down to dinner together' thing, it was nice.  And then there were the activities, I did the climb to the waterfalls, the Cotopaxi refuge, biked down from Cotopaxi and the hike to the Pasachoa summit.  The altitude was killing me, but ah well - harden up Kelly.  The views from both mountains are just amazing.  I wish I'd had enough time for the Cotopaxi summit.  There was also a horse riding excursion, but horses don't really float my boat so I gave that one a miss. 
So 5 days there and apparently I'm part of the furniture and all the eucayplts and dairy cows make me feel right at home.  I would have been happy to stay another week - I never did make it to the trout farm, and there's a rodeo on on the weekend.  But I have a tour to meet in Lima - so onward and upward!  ... or is is downward as I'm heading south?

Hey Dad, check out the portable dairy.

Girls & Guides

So we did spot the elusive pink dolphins, but they're a little different to your average ocean dwelling dolphins.  They're quite shy and hard to spot in the black waters of the rivers and lagoons here.  They have no dorsal fin either so you can't really spot them until they surface, and they really don't surface much.  So when we did spot them we couldn't get to close because we weren't sure where they'd pop up next.  We paddled around after them for a while.  Claudia & I would have been happy to chase them around all day trying to get just one decent photo, but it wasn't to be :(

The best I could do :( sneaky dolphins.

The guides on these tours in Ecudor have been really good, except when they think it's a good idea to carry a tarantula around your small canoe.  I'd prefer a caiman any day and was pretty close to jumping in when the guide on the other canoe started dropping this huge-arse spider all over everyone.  They're usually local to the area, really well informed and seem to love their jobs.  However, they seem to have some pretty crazy schedules; things like 22 days on, 5 days off or 6 weeks on, 2 weeks off; sounds just crazy to me.

Back in Lago Agrio, after the jungle tour and waiting for the night bus, Dagma (a friend from the tour) & I were accosted by some young Spanish girls in need of some poor sucker for their english homework.  Dagma kindly offered my services.  So the three girls wanted to interview me, asking questions about where I'm from and what I've been doing in Lago Agrio in english.  And they wanted to video it - I told them not a good idea as I hadn't done my hair (for at least a week) - but they were not to be dissuaded.  So now there are these poor Ecudorian students watching a video of me and thinking they're learning English when they're really just getting some bad Australian :(

The shamen and the monkey

Today we did a village tour.  A local woman named Olga took us through the process of bread making.  First we went out to their yard and dug up what looks like a big sweet potato.  Then it was grated into a big trough.  Followed by being put onto a big weaved mat which has a loop at the top to hang it and a loop at the bottom to put a stick through so you can twist the mat up and squeeze all the water out.  Then put through a seive to make it flour-like.  The squeezed potato is put onto a big hotplate, and Olga used the bottom of a round bowl to compress the flour.  Then she waited a minute and flipped the whole lot.  Another minute and it was ready!  A hot flatbread made with nothing but a bit potato.  And it tasted good, we had jam and tuna and ate a whole lot of it. (Note; the jam and tuna were eaten seperately except for one crazy bastard)

Potato bread

While watching the bread making the village monkey came to play.  He was a baby woolley monkey and when you touched him he felt just like a lamb.  He was pretty funny, jumping all over everyones heads, stealing peoples bread and trying to eat one girls earring. 

Woolley monkey

After baking and playing with the monkey we went to visit the shamen.  It was one moment where I wished I could understand Spanish.  He was telling the story of how he became a shamen and was happened the first time he drank the hallucinagenic drink they drink.  I could understand bits and pieces, but he was having such a good time telling the story and had such a great smile - you know when you read about someones eyes twinkling, he really had that.  After talking to us he did some cleansing rituals on volunteers.  For Anna he waved some leaves around her and hummed away while he did.  For a couple of the guys he slapped them for five minutes with stinging nettles which made all their backs blister up, gee it was funny and the old shamen was having a great time.

Oh stinging nettles are fun.

Spiders, piranhas and bees, oh my!

Our first forest walk was good fun.  We stomped around the jungle in our gumboots and Jairo showed us lots of things we could eat, use as medicine and smoke.  Then we had to walk through a swamp where the mud was thick and the water higher than our gumboots in places.  I hate to admit it, but I was acting like a bit of a girl about falling in, but in my defense you all know I'm all up for getting a little wet and dirty. I was just concerned about my shocking sense of balance and my camera.

So just as we were getting towards the end of our trek something flew into my ear!  I absolutely flipped out and began turning in circles like a dog chasing it's tail trying to get it out.  I didn't realise I was in a swarm of small bees and they all started getting stuck in my hair!  So I was trying to shake them out of my hair when something started biting my legs.  I was now standing in a bloody ants nest!  So there I was standing in the forest with ants in my pants and slapping at my legs while two guys picked bees from my hair like a couple of monkeys picking for lice. 

At least the afternoon was a little more successful. We went piranha fishing and I caught the biggest one!  He had parasites though so we couldn't eat him and had to throw him back.  Piranha fishing was fun.  We had 1 1/2 metre long poles with about a metre and half of line attached.  We put some meat on the hooks and threw the line in, then we slapped at the water with our rods to make noise to attract the fish.  Within seconds we were getting bites, however it took a little longer before we actually got one in the boat.  Once we did Jairo showed us how you can use a piranha like a pair of hedge clippers which was pretty cool.

< doh, awesome piranha video should be here >

After the fishing we did a night hike to look for tarantulas and bugs.  There were some cool orb weavers out making webs, we threw a bug to one and watched him kill and wrap it up.  Jairo found a big skinny legged spider the size of your hand and one of the girls let him put it on her head!  It ran all over her face and she just stood there calmly while I was trying not to freak out!  We also a cicada the length of your hand and we found way too many huge tarantulas which the sight of made me want to vomit.

Wooley monkeys, stinky turkeys

This week I am out in the wilds of the Amazon jungle.  It was an adventure getting here; overnight bus from Quito, then another 2 hour bus, followed by a 2 hour canoe ride in the rain.  The accommodation is small huts on the river, built on stilts and connected by small wooden platforms.  There is no power, so it's dinner by candlelight, but the showers are warm - for a minute at least :(  It reminds me of when Stilly and I went to Kinabatangan River in Borneo.  Except here we get to go Piranha fishing!

The first day was pretty good.  We saw caiman crocodiles, wooley monkeys, stinky turkeys and sloths in the wild.  The sloths are much more fun in the sanctuary; in the wild they are just a big ball of hair in a tree.  The stinky turkey is a funny looking bird with a mo-hawk. The reason it's called stinky is because when you cut them open they reek because of some bacteria in one of their stomachs. That's right.  One of their stomachs.  Like cows and sloths, stinky turkeys have four stomachs.

We also went to a large lagoon where our guide Jairo informed us that the caimans, electric eels, piranhas and all other nasties like to hang out by the riverbanks so it was perfectly safe to swim.  I'm not exactly sure this is 100% true, but the water was warm so I jumped in anyway.

After our swim we went looking for caimans.  We found one pretty quick and boy was he a big one!  I, for some reason, thought caimans only grew to a metre or so, this guy was at least two metres and when the guide fed him and I got to see his big crocodile smile, he looked even bigger.  Still, it hasn't been enough to put our group off swimming.

I like the nightime here.  You can hear the forest animals.  The beds are clean and comfortable, the nights are cool enough that you can cuddle up in a blanket.  This may be a false sense of security but, with the mosquito net down and the ambience created by a single candle, I feel like I'm in a cocoon, all cosy and safe from all those nasty nighttime bugs, cockroaches and arachnids.

Caiman crocodile

Wooley monkey

Stinky turkey