Where has the time gone?!

Hola! We haven't written on this blog for a long time and with travels ending almost 8 months ago, we are busy with other things (Josh is studying a masters & Georgie is working in London) but we both don't want these memories to disappear!

So we are going to try to make an effort to finish our online travel diary so we have somewhere to store all our memories for years to come. And then maybe we can write about our less fun, more work lives happening right now!

Oh, to be laying on Copacabana beach sipping on a coconut instead of typing away at the computer this monday morning!

Spanish school in Ecuador

Our first stop in the next country on our route was Quito in Ecuador. This was where we stayed with a local family for the a week and had Spanish school to try to acquire some more of the language. We landed on the Sunday night, getting to the home at around 1am meaning all we had time for was too say hello and go straight to bed. The next day we met the family - The grandparents; Arnoldo, the man of the house who always wore a shirt and straw hat but almost never left the house. The grandmother, who I'm afraid we didn't catch the name of as she was always cooking but never sat with us to eat meaning we rarely saw her. But the food was amazing and home-cooked meals half way through the trip were very welcome. Then there were the 2 brothers; Diego, the English speaker who looked after us and helped all the students staying in the house (there was us, a South Korean student and a Swiss student) and Gustavo, who was mostly working during the week. Then Gustavos children; Santiago, who was our age and had just started working with Diego and his sister, who we didn't catch the name of as she was at school and doing chores most of the time we were there. 

It was a big family. And with at least 3 guests  all studying Spanish at one time, the house was always busy which was good practise for us! The family were lovely and helped us no end, with them asking us questions about England - Manchester United and and football hooliganism in England were common themes, while we also treated them to some proper English tea (with milk - which was met with much confusion) as we all conversed in Spanish, helping us with language practise. 

The school started on the Monday morning were we were put into a class with a girl from Germany, Yvonne and got straight to it. The classes were intense and tough, but by the end of it we definitely came out with a better knowledge of the Spanish language. The school organised tours and trips that allowed us to see different parts of Quito. Our first outing with the school was Telefonica, a cable car reaching xx with overviews of the city. The weather wasn't too great, so when we reached the top all we saw was fog and more fog so we decided to warm up with a coffee. Luckily, by the time we had our last sips the cloud had cleared up and we got an overall view of Quito, mountains, stadia and all.

We also visited the equator line, well two of them actually. There is a fake 'middle of the world' - this was discovered and corrected by scientists a few years ago, so we visited both, seeing where the middle of the world was thought to be and where it actually was! We did the trick of seeing which way the water swirls depended on if we were Northern or Southern Hemisphere and to our delight this actually worked! Also, on the Ecuador line is the only place you can balance an egg on its end, and Josh spent a good 20 minutes proving this fact (then another 20 minutes being mad because I missed it with the camera). 

On another day, after class, we learned how to make fresh guacamole (which was delicious!) and cheesy tortillas, so let us know if you want us to cook you some Ecuadorian treats as we are now experts! 

One of the teachers in our school, was a huge Salsa fan and ran a lesson on afternoon after school to teach us salsa. We learnt a few steps and after cracking up at each other and tripping over our collective four left feet, we managed to get some moves down. We were then invited to an actual Salsa club later in the week, which we were happy to go to enjoy a drink and watch the professionals. We ended up dancing and being the worst couple there, throwing in our own moves when everything went wrong, but it was interesting to see people with years if practice and passion at it, flipping and sliding this way and that, whilst we sat in the corner admitting defeat, but hey, we had to try! 

Spanish school was a short, and we wish we could have stayed longer to learn more and brush up on our language, but on our pre-trip research, Josh had discovered that right by where we were staying, Quito made custom shoes tailored to your feet and decided that's what his birthday present would be. So we hunted down the small store full of around 500 pairs of shoes, boots, heels, flats all different colours and sizes and with our newly aqired Spanish language, managed to order a pair of shoes. After Josh's feet had been measured up and he'd picked the style and colour of leather he wanted, we were told we would have to wait a week for the shoes to be made, which was luckily slightly shorter than the time we would spend away from Quito before coming back for our flight to Mexico, so we made our order knowing we would be back.

Last pieces of Peru..

After our Canyon trek we had a quick-stop tour journeying towards the end of Peru as we were heading up to Ecuador. The first of these stops was Nazca, and after hearing that there wasnt really much to do in Nazca apart from, well, the lines we just opted to spend a few hours there before catching our next bus. So after our last (yay!) overnight bus from Arequipa, we arrived in Nazca and hunted down a deal so we could see the lines as quickly as possible- flying over wasnt an option as we had heard about to many crashes much too recently and for a half hour flight, it was cheaper to fly to Europe on Easyjet for the weekend..
So we opted for a lovely taxi driver who took us two see two of the Nazca lines. He drove us out of the town and to an observation tower where we we able to see the lines from a height. The lines were impressive and visually interesting, especially the mystery behind why they were there, but anything extra (like the museum we got taken to and a few extra hills) were pointless. The Nazca lines weren't too different to what you'd see on google. We were glad we only planned to stay for a half day, and after an overnight bus and a pretty boiling hot day, we were ready to move on. 

The next stop was Huchachina, a small town/village in the middle of sand dunes, where we would spend the next few days. The places was tiny, tranquil and entirely surrounded by mountains of sand. Sand we were later going to sandboard. We settled here for a few nights, taking part in a morning wine/pisco tasting, which was probably not the best time of day to drink and resulted in 3 bottles now wrapped and stuffed in our backpacks and also the main highlight there, the sandboarding. Sandboarding is basically surf boards on sand going down big hills.. and it was awesome! The trip started in sand buggy's, which, in parts was pretty terrifying, with the driver finding it hilarious whenever he'd take sharp turns down sand hills making all the girls (and sometimes Josh) scream. And somehow, we'd happened to be in the front seat. We sandboarded various hills, speeding down and once Josh did a spectular K.O, flipping off his board with them both rolling down the hill at some pace. A few sand burns and cuts later, we watched the sunset at the top of the sand dunes and that was Huchachina. 

Almost at the end of our time in Peru, we then went to Paracas, a national park reserve where we took a boat out to an island full of various sealife. We saw seals, penguins and lots of birds that helped make up the island, which was around 75% bird poop built up over the years. We weren't aloud to get off the boat which we were a little relieved at knowing it would just be a whole lot of dodging bird poop, and spent the afternoon watching seals fighting and flopping each other into the sea, which was somewhat like the game in Gladiators. That night we stayed in of out favourite hostels of the trip, mostly because it had a swimming pool, and had around 2 pounds of fresh calamari, before heading off to our last Peruvian stop, Lima. 

Lima was a fairly busy place, but we didn't really have anything planned to do. We missed a beer tasting event at our hostel, so ended up paying a ridiculous amount to try a bottle of their 'hostel homebrew' which was horrendous. We then moved hostels and after a night of flip-cup-beer-pong (yup, they combined both games) we had an early start for a surf lesson.. my very first one. Trying not to throw up in the van, we were told that the water was 'pretty cold' today and the waves wouldn't be too great, which was just what we wanted to know when we'd rather have our heads in a freezer. But it turned out pretty well, with me catching a wave on my first lesson and Josh just brushing up on practise. It wasn't helping that our instructor was telling us to 'be the wave' or 'be at one with the ocean'. Just tell me where to put my feet so I can actually stand up, mate. 

There wasn't too much to say about Lima, as we didn't visit anything really related to the place, more just took part in activities we could do anywhere else. We did however go to a water fountain park, where they had around 30 different fountains- some shows, some interactive and some.. just well.. water to watch. It was basically a night of 'can I run fast enough away before this fountain shoots water at me'. I won. Georgie 0, Josh 1.

Next stop, spanish school. 

Cusco & Colca Canyon

This part of the trip wasn't too fun for us both and (touch wood) it was the only part that went wrong. Touching down from Puerto Maldonado heading back to Cusco, I took a turn for the worse on our flight and just before landing suffered from a convulsion. This set us back by a few days and after a few days of resting, filling in numerous forms, skyping home and being in hospital I began to feel much better. 

We hadn't really written about Cusco yet, but we were there before the Inca Trail and the Amazon so we had seen the little city inside out! It was a lovely place, with many squares (plazas) to watch the world go around with a coffee and see the beautiful architecture it had to offer. It had a chocolate museum, Inca museums (we will let you guess which we thought was better), a Peruvian version of Christ the Redeemer (which was smaller and white), many restaurants, many hostels and a few Peruvian children with sheep that you could have your picture with. Oh and a 8 cornered or sided or something rock. Something that seemed to be a big deal, but really, really wasn't. We also saw my friend from college, Louise and her boyfriend Darren and did a bit of Alpaca shopping.. Not the animals, things made from the fur. It was a nice middle stop between all our bigger adventures. 

Not wanting this to ruining the trip, after a few extra days spent in Cusco to rest up, we made our way by an 11 hour bus to Arequipa. It was here that we went on our second trek, this on to the Colca Canyon. This was the home of many condors, the biggest flying bird in the world. The trek was over three days and we had another wonderful group who we trekked with. The trek began with an early 3am (3.30am Peruvian time) pick up to see the condors move from the morning and migrate. These birds were absolutely huge and were a little terrifying to watch circle over us, but after being informed that they were scavengers and only fed on already dead animals, we were okay. 

The start of the trek was a downhill walk right into the canyon, along the way we were greeted by the sounds of the river and a small waterfall and we had spectacular views throughout the trek. We got to a cute little village that was really only made up of the hostel that we were staying in and a couple similar occupancies, here we were told that was all the walking for the day. We enjoyed a delicious lunch, possibly a small nap and then dinner before going back to bed. That day was pretty wild. 

The first day had been a tough walk for me coming out of hospital only a few days earlier but the second day was our favourite. This was through the bottom of the canyon so no tough climbing or knee burning descents, just really walking along the river, ending in the next hostel after a few hours. Once there the boys were challenged to a 'Rest of the World' vs. Peru football match by some of the locals, suffering a highly contentious loss of 9-10 before a dip in the pool and a traditional (and unusual) Easter weekend Peruvian dinner of fish egg soup, which wasn't our favourite dinner and was probably the worst dinner we had have all trip! The only option was to take advantage of happy hour ($1.50 mojitos) and learn a new Islamic card game called Cambio before bed, ready for the hardest day of trekking. 

The last day was all up hill back to the top of the Canyon, which was a tough hike starting at 5am. With the promise of breakfast at the top and hot springs to relax in after, we had something good to aim for! The walk was hard but the view was amazing, going further up the canyon meant we could see all the way down into it from the top and watch the condors circle looking for meat. Determined not to take a donkey up to the top, which was an option for people who didn't fancy the rest of the trek we made it to the end with team condor - the rest of our group and we had never been so happy to see scrambled eggs and toast!

After munching away breakfast, we ended our trek in the hot springs, which were in the middle of the valley, creating a spectacular background whilst in the water. With the sun itself almost being as hot as the springs, a run to the river to cool down before dipping into the springs was needed. We then all hopped into the mini bus, ready to get back to our beds before our next adventure, as we neared the end of our time in Peru. 

The Amazon Jungle

Puerto Maldonado, Peru

Our plane touched down in Puerto Maldonado to chaos. The port way to our Amazon adventure was a small town which had been rioting for a few days. Walking out of the airport we hopped in a tuk-tuk to go to our hostel and a little way down the road our driver turned around to take a longer route after seeing hundreds of people lining the street we needed to take, Georgie and I looked at each other, wondering what we had let ourselves in for. We got to the hostel with little hassle though and things could have been far worse, a couple who arrived there shortly after we did had to deal with their driver demanding double the previously agreed fee after also taking the long way around. Talk about extortion. Unable to speak adequate Spanish to confidently diffuse the situation, they turned to the hostel owner behind the check-in desk who shrugged and said "well with the riots I can understand it, it is a dangerous time for them, they shouldn't really be working."

 I'm sure Puerto Maldonado is a very nice town normally, primarily used as a gateway to the Amazon by fellow travellers, the scenery and weather were fantastic but, unfortunately we arrived at a time when most of the locals were protesting new laws that the Peruvian government had put in place -whereby everyone who mines in the Amazon would need to be registered. For this they have to pay a large amount and their argument is that if they can't afford to register they will be out of work. The sad thing is that the sheer amount of illegal mining going on is destroying parts of the jungle. Once checked in we grabbed a quick lunch in the only restaurant around us that was open because of the riots of Chicken, cooked with Passion Fruit sauce for Georgie and coconut husk sauce for me. Different, but both very nice. With no shops or tour operators open and the two of us needing to while a day away before our pre-booked trip in to the rainforest, the rest of the day was spent in hammocks. Oh the joys of travelling.

Wildlife watch day 1: bugs, tons and tons of bugs. I also spotted a humming bird while G was resting in her hammock.

The next day we were off in to the rainforest. A 20 minute boat trip down river led us to our getaway for the next few days, Inkaterra, a beautiful ecolodge, with amazing butler service and anything you needed plus a pet baby piglet! Also where we were told Mick Jagger had stayed last year (and that his girlfriend had ordered no females could work for the duration of their stay -this is what we were told, anyway). Upon our arrival we were treated to a welcome drink of refreshing lemonade (the lemons for which were grown on site) and briefed about the excursions we'd get to enjoy during our stay. After this we went on a short walk through the rainforest and were shown what to touch and what not to touch, the list for the latter was considerably longer. Here we saw fire ants, birds and lots of various plants. That night we had a pisco sour on the house before getting on to a boat to do a night time wildlife watch. On this little trip we saw caymans, heron and a night bird that was trying to sleep that our tour guide woke up pointing a huge light at for five minutes. The bird was not happy and soon flew off for some peace and quiet. On our walk back to the lodge we spotted a snake cross our path. With our tour guide nowhere in sight we took a photo and later asked him what it was. "Poisonous." He replied.
We then enjoyed a delicious steak before heading to an early bed for an early rise.

Wildlife watch day 2: fire ants, cayman, heron, deadly snake and angry sleepy bird.

Day 3 was started with a 5AM wake up call. We were then served a buffet breakfast and I feel we need to mention that there was bacon - something we had both been craving since leaving England. For us, this was a big deal.
While we were eating our breakfast a group of monkeys swung past the window.
So after almost all the bacon on the buffet had been consumed we headed out for our morning excursion to Lake Sandoval. Here we had to hike an hour through a nature reserve where we saw squirrels, howler monkeys, squirrel monkeys, a tarantula and one of the most dangerous animals you are ever likely to come across in the wild, the bullet ant. You may read this and think I'm kidding and ask "how dangerous can an ant be?", well the bullet ant is named such because being bitten by one has been likened to getting shot, that's how much it hurts.
After the hike we hopped in a canoe and went out on Lake Sandoval where we saw bats climbing trees and more birds, monkeys and cayman. After this we headed back to the lodge for lunch before heading up to the treetops for a canopy walk. The idea was to enable us to see the wildlife that lives higher up than is possible to see from just walking through the base of the rainforest. We, however, saw squat.
The rickety walkways made the event more of a challenge to just get across and we were only allowed to go one at a time as they were so weak so we were pretty scared. We were shown a room that is available to rent out up there though that costs $1000 a night and you get butler service and dinner in the treetops. All very nice but Georgie and I both agreed that we wouldn't be able to sleep as we'd be too scared of the floor giving way in the middle of the night!
Afterwards we headed back to the lodge where our evening activity was a night walk through the rainforest. Here we saw loads of creepie-crawlies. Loads of poisonous spiders, more birds, bullet ants and bats. This was when we had to be most careful of where we were treading as all sorts of dangers could have been lurking underfoot.

Wildlife watch day 3: monkeys, squirrels, monkeys, tarantula, bullet ants, birds, monkeys and cayman.

And with that, our final excursion in to the rainforest was done, we got up the next morning and took the 20 minute boat ride back up the river to Puerto Maldonado where we were dumped back in to the chaos by our tour company. This is where I have my only complaint of the whole experience. We had no idea what we were coming back to, no shops or restaurants were open and no taxis were running services to or from the airport. While the rest of our group went straight to the airport in transport organised by Inkaterra but our flight not until the next day we were left to fend for ourselves. Luckily our hostel found us an open cafe to eat at and this was quite an experience. The sort of place the locals go where no English is spoken, we just pointed at other peoples food to order and hoped we were understood. On our walk back to the hostel we saw loads of protesters setting fire to things and turning tuk-tuks on their sides.
We then spent the night in the hostel too scared to venture out, hoping things would be calmer by the morning. Sadly they weren't and after the hostel rang three taxi companies to try and get us to the airport we finally got a lift. Only instead of a taxi turning up to collect us, a couple on scooters did and we had another adventure in store. Winding down side roads and avoiding the crowds of protesters, we frequently had to turn back to find another way around for the the swathes of people or fallen telephone poles. It was a challenging journey for all as we had to keep our big rucksacks on our backs which meant my abs got a work out every time we accelerated as I tried to keep my body upright. We arrived at the airport and I felt I'd done a gym workout, but we were there and our Amazon adventure was over.

The Inca Trail

Inca Trail, Peru 

After the home stay experience, we had around a day to recover before one of the most exciting things planned on our trip. The Inca Trail. With the Inca Trail having to be planned around 6 months in advance in order to get a space, we had basically planned our whole South American trip around this. Getting to our hotel for the night, we met our team and were informed that we had to get everything packed that we wanted to bring down to a weight of just 2.5kg each for the whole trek. So saying goodbye to luxuries (bye shampoo!), having a carb-heavy dinner and early night, before we knew it we were heading to the start of the trail. 

We did our tour with G Adventures. A company we cannot recommend enough if you are planning on doing the same tour. The nice aspect of booking with them is that a part of the money you spend on the tour is put towards community projects in the local area you are visiting. This was made clear to us as we began our tou, with an amazing 5- course gourmet lunch in the newly built G-Adventures restaurant near the Sacred Valley. Built and run by locals, G Adventures backed the project financially and committed to training each employee to exceptionally high standards. It was easily one of the best meals we have had on our whole trip! 

After a couple more stops and an overnight stay in a local town called Ollantaytambo and a good breakfast, we came to the entrance of the Inca Trail. Through passport control and security (they only let 500 people on the trail each day and this is including tour guides and porters), the first day was a fairly straight walk of around 5 hours. The walk began through the valley of the mountains and was a good opportunity to get used to the pace and terrain we had to face for the next few days. The walk ended at lunchtime where we were greeted by our porters and sat down to another amazing lunch. The job the porters do on the Inca Trail is absolutely incredible, they each carry around 25kg through-out the trek, make it to the campsites around 2 hours before us mere walkers and set up our tents, beds, dining tents and cook a 3 course meal all before we make it to the camp! The fact that the porters clapped us every time we made it to a camp was crazy... And did I mention they also made us 3 courses every meal time and a huge cake on a camp stove on our last day?! They did an amazing job, I mean, carrying my small backpack all 4 days felt like hard work! 

The second day was by far the hardest. We walked to the highest point of the trail, 4,215m above sea level, which included around 4 hours of relentless, up-hill climbing and a few hours after walking down. The views were spectacular and definitely made the climb that much easier. The sense of team spirit really became apparent at times like this and we were lucky enough to have a really good group of 6 all spurring each other on and helping to make the gruelling parts that much more bearable. The celebratory rum shot once we made it up to the top was definitely needed. 

We then climbed down and ended the second day camping by a waterfall before the third and longest day on the trail. The third day was a full day of walking in order to get as close to the checkpoint for Machu Picchu as possible ready for the next day. Parts were tough and the terrain was varied, but we were just grateful it was nothing like the climb of the second day. 

The final fourth day was tiring but our favourite day of our trip. The night before we were faced with the option of what time we wanted to wake up in accordance to what position we wanted to be in the queue for the gate into the national park that lead us to Machu Picchu. We were quick to realise that there was fierce competition between the trekking groups who are all keen to be first in line and grab one of only 50 seating spaces available (reminder - 500 people are let on the trail each day). We ended up getting to the gate at 3am and to our utter dismay, discovered we were second in the queue (out of all of the losers, we were the BEST losers) and had to sit and wait until it opened at 5.30am. At that time in the morning, we grateful for somewhere to sit and ultimately were happy with second place. After a couple of hours of sitting up dozing, we began the walk through the park to the sungate. The walk was 45 minutes and it must have been the quickest pace we had through-out the whole trek, with the reality of the end in sight, everyone seemed to want to get there as quick as possible. After climbing the 'monkey steps' - vertical steps which you need to climb on your hands and knees and watching someone snap their walking stick in half stopping themselves from almost falling over the edge, we made it to the sungate. The first glimpse of Machu Picchu below at the bottom of the mountain. We had made it. The sun was rising and we didn't stop for too long as each group wanted to make it to Machu Picchu before it got too busy. The walk down the mountain was exciting, with adrenaline kicking in that after 4 days of walking we had made it and that the end was in sight.

Machu Picchu in reality is even better than the pictures. The site itself is huge and worth trekking for 4 days straight. It's an incredible sight with lots of history that luckily our tour guide informed us all about. Before doing the trail, I was skeptical about how underwhelming the sight could be after having to trek for that long and expecting so much, but I'm happy to say I was absolutely blown away and was one of the best things I have ever done. If you are even thinking about doing it, do it (like right now). If you're not, you should. 

Amantani homestay

Lake Titikaka, Peru

We've got a little behind on these little blog updates but after almost 4 weeks here, here's our first post in Peru (no sightings of Paddington Bear just yet).

Our first taste of Peruvian life led us to the highest lake in the world, Lake Titikaka to visit the island of Amantani and stay with a local family.

Our journey started nice and early as we were picked up from our hostel in Puno and transported down to the lake. After buying some presents (rice, apples and a colouring book) for our host family, we were led on to our boat and serenaded by the soothing tones of the Beatles, as played on panpipes.
We were then introduced to our tour guide, who referred to himself only as 'Bruno from Puno'. As you can imagine he was quite the character.

A short boat trip led us to the floating islands. These are a set of islands made out of reeds, created to evade the attacks of the Incas and still house large communities even to this day.
We were shown how the islands are made from blocks of reed roots which are fastened together and covered in reeds before being anchored down. If these folk fall out with the neighbours, the good news is they can just upsticks and float a little further downstream.

The reeds really are a huge resource for these people, not only do they live on them, they eat them too (if you take the very base of one and unravel it it can also be a particularly effective hangover cure if then placed on your forehead!). After tasting some reeds- which i guess tastes like celery(?!), we were given a ride on a local water taxi to the nearest floating island to see how the locals get about, before heading off to Amantani.

Once there we met our host for the night, a single Mum called Sofia. She had a crazy four year old son who we first thought was called Pedro, but later discovered to be called Juan Sebastian. Yep, our Spanish still needs some work. After letting him pelt a football at me for an hour (this kid didnt understand a game of passing) we regrouped with everyone from our boat and hiked up to the island's highest point to watch  the sunset. This gave us our first bit of training for Machu Piccu as the hike was pretty steep and tough going, but luckily only short in duration and the beauty of the sunset made it totally worth the effort.

Once we had descended we headed back for some dinner before going out for the evening's main event, a dance at the local village hall. Decked out in local attire, a poncho and hat for me and a very tight fitting dress and scarf for Georgie, we headed out. A short, but tricky to navigate in the dark, walk later we made it to the hall.. and we were the first ones there! We sat there quietly hoping others would show up as 3 Peruvians working the bar and the band sat and stared back at us in silence. This was awkward to the extreme.

It seemed like hours passed (in reality it was more like 10-15 minutes) before, luckily for us, other fellow tourists started making their way through the doors and the party started.
Although we were all completely unaccustomed to the music, our hosts soon showed is the appropriate dance moves (no robot or moonwalk necessary here) and Sofia was always the first off her seat which meant I was always the lucky first tourist having a go at each dance! We were also lucky enough to bump in to some of the friends we made on our Slat Flats trip so together with them, we merrily danced the night away!

The next morning was started with pancakes for breakfast (my favourite!) before saying our goodbyes to our host family. Pedro kept things formal, offering us a handshake each.
After a short boat ride we then hiked another island and got to know some of the other tourists a bit better, where we made plans to meet for dinner that evening.

Another boat ride led us back to Puno where we had the best steak, called lomo, we've ever had in our lives and after a few beers our wonderful trip was over.