Machu Picchu
Topic: Peru
I am writing this in a little tourist town full of pizza restaurants and postcard shops called Aguas Calientes. What am I doing here? It's the town nearest to Machu Picchu. We did it. We finished the Inca Trail and had a really wonderful time.

Here are some highlights:

- The beautiful trails through cloud forests and rain forests, up high peaks and into fertile valleys.

- The food. A team of staff carried tents, cooking equipment and food and created the most amazing meals three times a day. It really was posh camping.

- Morning tea delivered to our tent as a wake up call each morning at 6am along with a bowl of hot water for washing!

- Our fellow trekkers. A really nice, fun and supportive group all around our age. It helped that we all had a similar hiking ability and we never had to wait more than 5 minutes for everyone to finish a stretch.

- Our guide Aly. Very relaxed yet encouraging and professional.

- Our crew of cooks and porters. We wouldn't have been able to do it without them.

- The weather. Even though it was the wet season, we had very little rain.

- The birds, butterflies and flowers. Beautiful beautiful, beautiful!

- The single beer we each carried for 8 hours, 12km and up to over 4000m high and down to the camp so that we could celebrate our success of day 2 - the most difficult day. We were very restrained and chilled the bottles in the river first!

- The first glimpse of Machu Picchu at sunrise as the mist cleared. Breath-taking.

- Wandering around the ruins on day 5 and climbing up to the mountain overlooking the city in search of the perfect photograph.

So what's next? Back to Cusco for a couple of days and then into the Amazon forest for 8 days. See you when we get back!

Inca Trail
Topic: Peru
Well, after years of dreaming and planning, tomorrow is when we start the Inca Trail walk. 4 days, 46km up to 4000m through the mountains to Machu Picchu. There is a thunder storm in Cusco right now...I hope it clears a bit but just in case, I have bought a beautiful orange plastic poncho to cover everything. At 6.30 tonight we have a briefing meeting where we meet our guide and the other people in our group. 2 Australians, 2 Germans and a Spanish guy. I am relieved that I am not the oldest, but I am worried whether I am fit enough...we will see. Here's our itinerary if you are interested: Itinerary

See you in 4 or 5 days...

Isla del sol
Topic: Bolivia
A key spiritual place for the Incas was an island inside Lake Titicaca. We took a slowboat full of backpackers over to it. I cringed at all the exposed white skin in the harsh high altitude sun.

The island looks like a Greek island surrounded by beautiful blue water. 3000 people live there in 3 urban settlements. they keep pigs, sheep and llamas and tend coca and potato crops on the ancient terraces originally used by pre-Inca civilizations (Tiwanaku), we visited a small museum showing pottery and gold belonging to the Tiwanaku civilization which is now underwater. we walked for about 45 minutes to the north of the island to see ruins including a creepy sacrificial alter. We then had a lovely hike for about 2 hours back to the south of the island along a high path - 4000m above sea level where the boat would pick us up again. Good practice for the Inca trail on the 8th...just multiply it by about 12.

Copacabana, Lake Titicaca
Topic: Bolivia
Even though we had booked a bus ticket in advance with a decent company, the agent messed up and had to put us on public transport. This meant luggage on the roof, black fumes coming in through the open windows, sacks of groceries in the aisles and people crammed in standing for 4 hours on the journey from La Paz to Copacabana.

When we reached the straights we caught a motor boat - again crammed beyond safe - while our bus went across on a raft. We thought it was going to sink, but it made it.

The peninsular is quite bleak and scrubby but the colour of lake Titicaca lake is a beautiful deep blue. Our hostel was at the top of the hill with a fabulous view over the lake and Copacabana beach.

We went for a walk down to the beach lined with places selling drinks and grilled lake trout. An ancient, deaf bowler-hatted old lady in black dragged us into her cafe where we sat for a while having a drink and looking at the lake while she took out her teeth and played with them.

Copacabana town is tiny but quite interesting. The cathedral looks like a mosque.How did that happen? the restaurants are fabulous, selling very inventive, healthy food in rustic courtyards.
Sunset over the lake was one of the best I have ever seen. All in all we passed a pleasant mellow few days in this town.

Exploring La Paz
Topic: Bolivia
We are staying right in the middle of the witchcraft market area in La Paz. The first thing we see when we come out of the hotel is a stand full of dried whole goats and bats and a lady in a bowler hat selling spells and potions. It is a lovely part of town however, hilly and cobbled. We have spent the last couple of days exploring the city and the museums - it is so interesting.

The first museum we went into was the Coca Museum. Chewing coca does release cocaine but having coca tea does not. For 20 years in the early days of Coca Cola, the drink contained cocaine! It doesn't now of course but they still use Bolivian coca leaves for flavouring.

The buildings of Plaza Murillo are especially impressive. 16 year old soldiers guard them with their fingers on the triggers of their machine guns. This makes me slightly nervous in case they sneeze and accidentally shoot!

Market stalls sell all sorts of things from DVDs to Toblerone to slippers to bandages. A lovely narrow windy cobbled street called Jaen has beautiful colonial houses. Some of which are now museums.

The contemporary art gallery is housed in beautiful European-style 19th century building. Most of the others on the same street have unfortunately been replaced with 1970s concrete buildings.

It feels like everyone is in fancy dress in certain parts of town. The shoe shine guys wear baseball caps covered with balaclavas so that you can barely see their eyes. This helps them to avoid breathing in car fumes I am guessing. They often wear khaki. David says it's like Derry circa 1985. You want to say to them "ok ok, shine my shoes but don't kneecap me".

In the business district however, people are dressed in suits and very sassy. It is clearly a two-tiered kind of society.

The food hasn't greatly inspired me so far. Meat and fried potatoes pretty much. I eat each meal thinking "is this the one that is going to make me sick?". So far so good though.

Train and bus to la Paz
Topic: Bolivia
Our carriage on the train bound for Oruro was only partially occupied - some locals, some Canadians and us. the Canadians and I swapped photography tips and took it in turns to sit at the open window to get the best shots of the incredible scenery outside - massive gorges, fertile planes and tiny villages. The rest of the passengers preferred to sit with their shutters closed watching Pirates of the Caribbean followed by Dr Doolittle on the TV. Even when it went dark, I enjoyed looking at the gorges illuminated by the full moon. I didn't get much sleep. I kept wriggling about and snuffling (the effects of the Yellow fever jab I suspect). The sun rose about 6am and the scenery had changed dramatically. It was now hills, green-tinted salt lakes and hundreds of improbably pink flamingos reflected in the lake. Many of the other passengers watched Bolivian folk videos in the dark.

The train arrived in Oruro 15 and a half hours after leaving Villazon. We bought tickets for the bus to La Paz and had time for a quick cup of coca tea before we left.

One of the Canadians got his wallet stolen from a vendor on the bus. he called for the police who weren't at all helpful so in the end he just gave up and got back on the bus. I felt really sorry for him and the other Bolivian passengers were really embarrassed and sympathetic. We reviewed our security practices - it could easily have been us.

The bus journey was 4 hours through the Alti Plano including a stop to change the flat tyre about halfway there. The villages along the way looked very poor and people seemed to have nothing to do except sit on big piles of rubble watching the buses and trucks go by. We tried not to fall asleep even though we were so tired. We played a game we had invented in Sri Lanka where you have to spot things (remember that 1970s game? you tick off things like humpbacked bridge and level crossing?). Our Bolivian version included the following:

- Woman in a bowler hat hundreds)
- Llama (none as it turned out)
- Load of lads in a back of a truck (a few)
- Live sheep strapped on a roof rack of a bus (2)
- An abandoned adobe house (loads)
- An adobe house with a tin roof held on with rocks (loads)
- A donkey (loads)
- A car (one or two)
- A thatched roof (a few)
- Political graffiti (loads)
- A political demo (3 - the elections are on the 15th)
- Women playing soccer (1 game - classic! They play dressed in their massive petticoats and are pretty skillful)

When we weren't playing that, we watched a made-for-TV movie called "Substitute Assassins" dubbed in Spanish or listened to one of our fellow passengers give a sales pitch. One started "Your health is the most important thing. Now I have your attention...." and went on to explain how her teas could cure everything from cancer to AIDS because they purify the liver. It was a pretty successful presentation as lots of passengers bought some.

Finally, we approached El Alto region of La Paz (a fast growing city in its own right) and then descended 500m into La Paz which occupies a giant crater. Home for the next 4 days.

Happy Birthday Dad!
Happy Birthday Dad!

Border crossing to Villazon
Topic: Bolivia
As we were leaving the hostel in La Quiaca, Argentina, the manager gave us some advice about our trip to Bolivia: "Don't drink the water. Don't eat the meat. Don't touch the vegetables". I asked him what was safe to eat. He thought for a while and finally came up with "galletas" (biscuits).

Coming out of the hostel I almost bumped into my first sighting of a woman wearing a bowler hat. We were close to Bolivia now.

The Argentine section of the crossing was straightforward and took 30 seconds. The Bolivian side was longer as we had timed it so we were behind a bus load of Bolivians en route to Buenos Aires. We knew there were 50 of them because they held numbers and were put in order. While we waited in the hot sun, we stood on the bridge looking over at the trickle of water in the dusty river bed below. three men carrying bundles were legging it across. A pack of dogs ran the length of the left bank, a pig the size of a donkey sniffed at something on the ground. A 7 year old urchin tried to help us fill in the green forms and offered to be our guide to the train station. We ignored him and he latched onto 2 French girls instead. Finally we got to the front of the queue and were both given a 30 day stamp.

After getting our train ticket for the 3.30pm to Oruro, we went to explore the town starting with a quick stop for coca tea. The marketplace was bustling and selling all sorts of delicacies - empanadas, noodles, chicken, bread etc. We bought some snacks for our trip including some roasted beans which tasted like chestnuts. In the central covered market, merchants sold spices, toiletries and basket ware. A man slept face down behind his stall while a 3 year old played with a pile of beans. Another woman slept seated with her face squashed against a flour bag.

We sat in the church square for a while people watching. Quite an assortment of hats went by - bowlers, felt hats, cloth hats, straw hats with elaborate ribbons. The bowlers are my favourite. The women are very proud of their hats and have owned them their whole lives. They perch with dignity on top of their heads offering no protection from the sun. When it rains, they are covered with plastic bags but not taken off. A popular way of carrying anything from boxes of fruit to sacks of potatoes to children is in the slack of a large piece of colourful cloth which is tied at the front. The younger women and girls often do not follow this tradition and favour sweat pants instead of petticoats and baseball caps in place of the bowlers.

It is difficult to blend in at all here like we did in Argentina as there are vey few peple of European origin. Even if I got myself a bowler hat, I'd stand out. Talking of hats, we finally found one that fitted David. He is now proudly wearing a khaki green one which makes him look like he's with the highway police. He throws in a "could you step out of your vehicle please mam" and "can I see your licence and registration please mam" in a creepy Southern accent to complete the part. It's pretty funny.

North from Salta
Topic: Salta
We knew we had been in Salta long enough when we had been to each of the cafes on the plaza at least once and were on first name terms with some of the street vendors, urchins and shoe shine boys. We had become friends with 15 year old Marcelo who shines shoes on the Cafe Van Gogh corner of the plaza after school each day. It helps his family with the expenses of bringing up 8 children (he's the oldest). He asked us whether is was true that people in Europe only have one or two children. He thought this was very funny. When he learned we were English teachers he proudly showed off his only phrase: "Shoeshinewhereyoufrong?". We tried to teach him a few more key phrases but didn't get too far.

So, we left the sticky heat of Salta on a beautiful air conditioned bus bound for La Quiaca on the border with Bolivia. the trip took 8 hours and we stopped at Jujuy and every one llama town and a few choice locations in the middle of nowhere. It was really quite an interesting trip because of the scenery, massive multi-coloured rock formations dotted with man-sized cartoon cacti.



As we got closer to the Bolivian border, towns grew smaller and the people more interestingly dressed. Women in hats and layers of petticoats, entire families with dark, serious faces and felt hats sat in doorways watching the bus. Llamas, sheep, goats and chickens ran wild. The sun was strong but people were wearing jumpers and shawls. Our ears started to pop and we were really thirsty. Then it dawned on us that we were climbing. We looked at the map and realised that we were 3400m above sea level.

We felt the altitude when we got off the bus. All we did was put our backpacks in the back of a taxi and we were puffing and panting like old people. All we had the energy to do that night was take a slow walk in search of food and back again in time to catch a program about local buses on canal La Quiaca on our telly in the .

We had a flick through our guidebook looking for tips on the border crossing for the following day. We noticed a small section which said "Visitors from Ireland should check the government website before attempting to enter Bolivia as they might need visas which can only be obtained in major cities". La Quiaca is not what you would call a major city. We thought we would just chance it anyway, we'd come this far. We'd find out in the morning....

Rocks and Bodegas
Topic: Salta
A town called Cafayate a few hours south of Salta is famous for wine so we thought we'd pay it a visit. The easiest way of getting there would be to go on a tour. You know how I feel about tours, but there were no other real options so we had a chat with our friend Lucia at the tour agency and arranged it.

Bright and early the following day we were picked up at our hostel and squeezed into an already full van. There were 14 of us including Sixto our driver and Yanine our guide. 4 chain smoking Italians with 2 teenagers, 3 loud middle-aged women from Chubut, Sophie, a skinny French flight attendant living in California, and us.

Yanine was great. She was young, laid back and informative without being a relentless commentator. As we drove through the city limits and into Salta province, we learned that tobacco was one of the main crops - there are fields and fields of the stuff (peddlers of death!). 80% of it gets exported. It's pretty fertile around Salta which explains why the fruit and veg we have been eating lately is so good and so cheap.

Sixto drove us through a stunning area of scenery called Quebrada de las Conchas (Ravine of shells) so named as at one time it was under water and may shells and fossils have been found there. We made a number of stops along the road to have a closer look at the natural rock formations of different colours. !!Travel bore alert!! It was a bit like the scenery heading out of Marrakesh into the Atlas mountains and in some ways like Petra. It was the pink rock that made it so stunning. Parts have been given names such as "China Town", "The Castles", "The Frog", "The Windows", "The Devil's Throat" and "The Amphitheater". We saw plenty of cartoon cacti, llamas and goats too in this hot dusty place.

In Cafayate we visited 2 bodegas - Hermanos Domingo and Vasija Secreta. There are other famous ones there which we didn't go to but are sure we have tried in the UK or Ireland - Etchart and Michel Torino. The most famous wine of the region is a fruity white called Torrontes (pronounced locally Toshontays). We bought 2 cheap bottles and one expensive one (a 2000 Malbec). We also bought some goats cheese. No one else bought anything but made up for it at the roadside pottery stands on the way home. We can only ever buy consumables because we can't carry anything else!

After a lunch stop at a tiny place on the square called Las Dos Marias, we made our way back to Salta in the hot van with no AC. We made a few stops and fortunately the Chubut ladies were quiet all the way home. A good day out all in all. I'm still not sold on tours but I'm so glad we went.