Dan & Rach's World Trip

Got picked up from the hotel and went to the docks to get a boat out to the lake. It was a tourist boat with another 20 gringos. First stop the floating islands that are famous. To say they have been completely changed by tourism is an understatement. Although still fabulous I wouldn't be surprised if the local population is shipped out ther by boat in the morning and back in the evening when we have all gone. Great to see how they have built an island out of reeds etc, but it is really only there for tourists and the locals would have moved to dry land by now. Won't say much more, good to see but not really my cup of tea.

Went to another island in the lake to be met by a family and we stayed with them. Amazing to stay with an actual family. We ate with them etc and staying in their home. Food is good but basic, but to see the lady of the house cooking round a smoky fire was awsome. I haven't really got the words to describe this, Rach can do better. Best thing was the doors to the house, they only come up to my chest!

The evening was spent at a local dance where we dressed in the locals clothes. However the band was composed of bloody panpipes. I haven't really expressed my hatred of this instrument here, but believe me it gives me the willies so I didn't like that much. Did loads of boring dancing with our families 16 year old daughter and her friend, although it is really repetitive. I felt embarased and Rach thought it was hilarious (i made sure I held onto the camera all night sop she couldn't capture it)

Our guide for the trip was an idiot though. He made the locals demonstrate their farming techniques. This included showing us how they use a pick axe to plough the land! Big wow, hardly breaking news and it was embrassing to watch the locals having to demonstrate this just to get the tour companies to come to their village.

Next morning it was horrible weather and thwe boat to another island was rough. I made a joke about half way accross about how bad it would be if the engine died. I'm not kidding but 10 seconds later it did! The guide was down there with a screwdriver whilst the driver pured petrol neat into the carbouretter. I didn't make my knowledge of marine engines known and tried to sleep whilst all around us people were donning lifejackets. Thankfuly it started, but there was mild panic which was amuzing.

Got to the next island where we were planning to spend the night, but it was so wet and horrible we had a walk, a nice meal and went back to Puno but boat. Stayed one more night there and ate out with more locals specialities (including alpaca which tastes like a cross between lamb and beef)

We took a tourist bus this morning to the next town. Once onboard we were given a little tray of chocolates and a drink, just like on a plane. We then watched American movies, dubbed in Spanish, with subtiltles. Unfortunately we had to watch the first one for 15 minutesd with the directors comments as the subtltiles until someone worked out the Spanish to ask the driver to change the DVD

When movies finished we played bingo over the tannoy. Now my numbers in Spanish are bad enough, withoutn them being anounced over the PA with extras on the end like the SPanish version of "88 two fat ladies". Obviously one of the only 2 locals on the bus won, probably a crap prize. Got to Puno and was brave not booking a hotel ahead of time. There were touts at the station so we got the cheapest in my Spanglish with another couple and got a taxi there (with the tout lady squeezing herself in the boot to go with us). Puno is quite a nice place, though really a stop off for Lake Titicaca. Booked tickets for the tour out tomorrow and went for dinner. Unfortunately Rach suffered a bit of ALtitude sickness again so we had Pizza (Although tried one of the local specialties, food is good here). Also looks like the rainy season is coming because it absolutely blookdy poured. None of the buildings are very well constructed, in fact I think anyone can be a builder, and all the roofs leaked, including the restaurant. As there is no heating in the place they lit a burner of White Spirit near the table to keep us warm.

I'm finding it hard to make time to keep this diary up to date so am not going to write as much as last time, sorry, but hopefuly this will mean it gets updated more regularly.

We got ourselves a tour guide for a trip to the worlds deepest canyon. Fortunately this was less of an organised tour and more of a geezer who spoke spanish taking us around. He picked us up from the hostel in a taxi and then we had a bus journey on a locals bus for about 5 hours through the desert. Unfortunately the road stopped after 40 minutes so the rest of the way was over rough ground so we got shaken to death.

It took us 30 minutes to walk down the canyon by which time night was falling so we stayed in a local ladies house for the night.

Next norning we walked along the canyon bottom. Pretty amazing, think of the Grand Canyon in height but it is very narrow so the view is WOW. There is a waterfall some way along which the locals have channeled into a swimming pool, so we spent the afternon lazing around that. The only problem was the animals. Rach went to the loo and a great big Alpaca started to eat grass right outside the door trapping her in it. This thing is a cross between a Lama and a sheep, so looks like a massive sheep with a 2 foot neck. Not really dangerous (we think) but all the shooing I could manage wouldn't shift it and I was too scared to push it away. Thankfully it left on its own accord.

Got up the next morning to walk 3 hours in the dark back out of the canyon to see the Condors that circle the top at daybreak. Condors are massive massive birds and where we were they swooped down so low you could feel their wind. However it is hard to take good photos of this so they don't do it justice.

Next our guide got us on another local bus to Chivay and then haggled for cabs to take us to the hot srpring. When I think of hot springs I think of pools of water bubbling out of the ground surrounded by natural rocks etc like in Iceland. Not in Peru. The water comes out of the ground red hot from the volcano and smells of sulfer, but they have then built a 1960s butlins style resort round it. They channeld the water away into a concrete pool surrounded by changin cubicals. The pool is painted blue, but is all chipped so looks rubbish. However the water was very hot and relaxing after the walk.

Took a cab and bus back to Arequipa, tomorrow Puno and Lake Titicaca

Wow,

Since my last writing we have done so so much. What is written here after is a condensation of an email Rach has sent to everybody so if it all seems familar langauage that is why (I can´t be bothered to re-write the whole thing)

After Lima we flew to Cuzco (the gateway to the Inca Trail). Cuzco was very pretty - lots of orange roofed spanish looking buildings surrounding a gorgeous plaza with mountains surrounding it, unfortunately we didn`t get to enjoy it as this was the stage that set our first big nightmare. Cuzco is 3300m altitude and we flew in from sea level. We were warned about altitude sickness but didn`t think much of it, just walkng slowly for the first few hours to ensure we didn´t do anything too strenuous. The height of stuff didn´t really mean a lot to us until we realised that our last ski holiday with snowy mountains was only 1800m! Anyway, we hit the supermarket for some dinner and thats where Rach hit the floor! She suddenly came over all dizzy and ill feeling and had the most amazing urge to be sick. She started to run outside to be sick there when she collapsed and lost conciousness. I had the fright of my life! When she came round it was like a scene from the movies! "When the white light turned into focus I saw 5 heads peering down on me in a circle". It was horrible. So - we´ve now experienced a third world ambulance and hospital!?! Picture a romanian hospital in the 70´s and that´s what it was like! The doctors were very nice, though it was difficult to communicate with my limited Spanish medical vocab! They wanted to do blood tests but we refused when we realised we didn´t have our sterile needle kit with us! It took a fair few doctors before they actualy listened to the fact we had just flew in that day and it was altitude sickness. Anyway eventually when Rach´s fever had gone down they said we could go. Well there exact words were "It´s getting dark and this is a dangerous area of town so you should go soon!" Oh my God. We got the most official taxi we could find and clung to each other for dear life until we reached the safety of our hostel!

So....part 2 of our nightmare....the next day we had to deal with the aftermath of the incident. I left out the part that when Rach passed out she landed straight onto her teeth and smashed the front two! So we have now experienced a third world denist!! Actually in fairness it was probably the niceness denist experience she has had! It too was guess work trying to explain what had happened and what to do now and there was lots of gesturing! Anyway the result is that she now has a fixed brace to contend with at the age of 27!! She got to choose the colour though (pink) which is cool and I have a bit of paper in Spanish which I need to give to a dentist in Brasil to continue the treatment!

Part 3 our of nightmare came in the middle of the next night when I became sick with altitude sickness too! It was touch and go whether we´d be able to make our Inca Trail, which ironically we´d paid the non refundable balance for an hour before Rach collapsed!

Anyways, we managed to do the Inca Trail which was bloody hard but very cool and we´re hoping that we´ve used up all our bad luck for this trip already!

The Inca Trail had the most amazing scenery as it basically involved us climbing over a mountain a day for 4 days! The weather was beautiful. The highest peak being 4200m! It was knackering esp at that altitude as the air is really thin but we managed it. Our tour group was cool - we had 6 50 year old Americans which totally cracked me up and meant that I wasn´t the last one up the mountains everytime! We also had a couple other mid 20 Brits. The company was cool as when we got to the campsite for the night They´d already set up our tents and had dinner cooking. They welcomed us with a drink and had little bowls of water, soap and towels set up by the food tent for us to wash our hands. So sweet. The porters were amazing! We´d hear the call "porter" and everyone would move to the left only to see a small local guy with a mountain of stuff strapped to his back with a blanket (including gas cylinders etc) sprint by us! Mental!

The last day we reached Machu Picchu. After a 4am start it was like an uniffical race to get to the viewpoint at sunrise first! Only to find it was a white cloud/fog that greeted you! Funny. The cloud cleared later and Machu Picchu really was awe inspiring. I got some wicked photos.

So we are now in Arequipa (we flew here - which we´d booked in Spanish over the internet the night before!). Rach didn´t fany a 12 hour journey by bus over mountains and scary hairpin bends by crazy South American drivers! It´s a bizzare place here. It´s basically a city built in the middle of a desert which is in the middle of dusty mountains with a snow capped volcano behind us. We going on a 3 day canyon treking trip tomorrow which should be cool. We have just been enjoying chilling out here for the lat couple of days and enjoying good food and lovely beer (70p a bottle too!). We tried the local speciality today for lunch which was guinea pig - deep fried but with half it´s head still on so you got to see half its teeth! Nice but just like any bizzare meat it tasted just like chicken! (well actually crispy duck!).

Will wrtie more later

Dan

Just a quick entry,

Food is pretty damn good here. The set course meals you can get for about $2 have loads of veg and chicken so we haven't yet been tempted to go into McDonalds, even though we have found one. The golden arches can be seen from the top of the Inca Pyramid in the middle of town, so whilst learning about child sacrifices we were mentally deciding on either a Big Mac or Quarterpounder. I also haven't had a problem with my insides yet, although it can only be a metter of time. The beer is quite good, like a wheaty Budweiser and once this is finished we are off to spend the afternoon in a bar. Why I hear you ask, just because we can!

We are pretty much finished here in Lima as it is in fact a very boring city and we have done everything the guide book says to do. Best site in my opinion is the Palce of Justice which I can only assume is the Law courts, though obviously they didn't feel like letting us in to have a look at South America "Justice" in action. It looks like a building straight out of Judge Dredd as everything else around it is 1 story and it is a towering monolith of grey concrete and parapets.

Miraflores where we are staying is the sort of tourist district, whilst Lima itself feels just that bit more unsafe, although nothing really to worry about. Went into a department store there which has clothes at UK prices, however not sure who would buy them as across the road there is a clothes shop which sells pants by the kilo. You grab what you want and then weigh them and pay per pound. It also sells clothes by George at Asda; not sure if Mr Asda is aware of this, but it shows George has hit the big time when you can buy their fakes!

A grey mist hangs over the city from April to December so it is a grey place. However even though the sun doesn't come through the clouds at all, we are still properly sunburnt! We now put suncream on even though we also wear jumpers, and I have had to wear a Bandana over my shaved and pink head.

The taxi and bus situation still makes us laugh, you certainly cannot point at anything without getting a taxi swerving over to where you are, and we are haunted by the sound of their bloody horns trying to get our attention. Went on a bus today, it was just like we thought, the bus almost comes to a stop and then you jump in through the door. Only costs abour 20p per journey though so we could ride them all day (if the engine exhaust and constant use of the horn didn't drive you mad).

Went to the beach and although there were loads of surfers it was way too cold to go in (and the waves were bloody massive). Today Rach got walked into by a blind person whilst we were daydreaming in the street and I have been offered coccane for the first time. Ah South America. Cusco and Machu Picchu tomorrow