Jungle Fun

So, we've just returned from the Galapagos, and it was incredible. However, before that we went to the jungle and had an awesome time there as well. I'm a bit tired though, and it seems so long ago that I'll just give you a quick overview of some of the highlights there.
We caught a hideous bus ride from Quito to Cuybeno. From there we took a motorised canoe to our camp a couple hours down the river to our lodge. We then went on various trips and saw 4 types of monkeys, piranhas, alligators, a tarantula, a couple of snakes, a catfish, some huge pikes, hundreds of cool birds, frogs, and too many mosquitos.
We went piranha fishing, Ness caught one, but Sarah and I didn't. I did catch a pretty big catfish though. We went swimming with the alligators and piranhas. The food was great, the other people in the group were not so great, and our guide didn't like wearing shirts but was otherwise fine.
Alright, I'll leave it at that and record a really decent blog for the Galapagos soon.
Till then,
Chuckles

The Quilatoa Loop

After our brief stay in Baños we decided to head to Latacunga, from where we would base ourselves to do a tour of the Quilatoa Loop. The loop has been described as one of the most spectacular tours you can do in Ecuador. However, on reflection most tours just about anywhere make similar claims. Despite this it was a most incredible part of the country.
The loop itself is settled mostly by farming communities connected by several small villages. The landscape is diverse, and it is easy to see how many travellers can spend weeks completing the loop. You could spend an age exploring the deep, lush valleys and canyons, a particularly large inactive volcano, a cloud forrest, many quaint towns, and even a cheese factory. However, on our increasingly strict schedule, we only had two days to explore the area.
We booked two nights in a small village called Chugchillan (where there´s not much chugin but plenty if chillin... sorry that was incredibly lame), at hostel Cloud Forrest, and proceeded to make plans for the following day´s activities. With a bunch of other tourists we were able to hire a milk truck to drive us to the volcano, from where we would explore a section of the rim and then make a b-line back to our hostel, which would allow us to explore a few of the larger canyons and a valley, all up it was to take us about 5 hours.
The morning of the trip Sarah woke up feeling incredibly ill. You could tell she was torn, and I know exactly how she felt due to my Inca Trail experience, so I wasn´t incredibly surprised when she decided to push on regardless. I was most concerned that sitting in the back of a milk truck was going to push Sarah´s nausea over the edge into full a fledged fit of vommitting. I needn´t have been concerned however, as for some reason, the shaky dusty ride was enough to encourage an almost full recovery, and apart for the occassional coughing fit she fared well for the remainder of the day. I found the truck ride most enjoyable, standing high on the tray holding fimly on to the cab in front of me. The view was incredible, and at some moments mildly upsetting as the road narrowed and dropped away on one side to the greatest of depths.
We were also reminded that Carnival was fast approaching as at one point our truck was bombarded with water bombs thrown by the local kids, it would not be the last time that day we would be met with such an attack.
After an hour in the truck we arrived at the Quilatoa volcano. I hadn´t really heard anything about it, so I was suprised to see just how big it was, and even more surprised to find the crater filled with a magnificent blue lake. We climbed about a third of the rim before descending down the volcano, and before long we came across a small town. The girls decided we would have a luch break here despite the alarmingly high presence of sinister looking children armed with water bottels and water balloons. I had no particular desire to be drenched for the remainder of the day, so found myself a little apprhensive. As we were slowly surrounded I went so far as to get out my water bottle in such a way to make sure that it be known that there would be repurcussions for the child actually bold enough to dare get me wet. For a time it worked, whether deterrence was due to a fear of getting wet or the fact I was about five times bigger than most of them shall remain a mystery. However, after a time, the children´s numbers grew larger, and they did in fact grow bolder, and the occassional water bomb would whistle past us. At this time I realised things weren´t heading in a desirable direction, so I hastened the girls to finish their lunch, and we hit the road again only having to growl at them once to get enough distance between us to be safe from further attack.
The remainder of the walk was incredible, the descent in to the valley was spectacular, if slightly perilous. At times we truly thought we had gone the wrong way, due to the difficulty of the track, but soon found out that in fact we hadn´t. The final ascent up the other side of the valley was a particularly long and hard climb. Once I started I didn´t want to stop for fear of not being able to begin again, and thus left the girls behind to climb the valley at their own pace. Close to the top I had to pass through a small village, and began to feel goosebumps up the back of my neck as I came across evidence of a bloody water bomb battle whereby some poor tourist had clearly not come out on top. Bits of broken balloon were sprayed all over the place, and large damp patches that clearly showed where someone had been hit were far too frequent for my liking. It was a truly horrifying scene. Before long I became acutely aware of the presence of others. Charlie was in the trees, behind bushes, and peeking around corners. I was surrounded and sure of my fate, so I stopped in the middle of the track knowing not what else to do. The tension was thick in the air, you could feel the excitement of the little bastards rising as they knew their moment of glory drew closer. Although I didn´t want to get wet, it was the waiting for it to happen that I couldn´t stand, and thus the moment of calm before the storm seemed to last an eternity. Then it happened, one jumped out from behind his bush flinging his water bomb wildly, it missed badly, but set off a rapid release of other children´s bombs headed in my direction. I did a little uncoordinated dance dodging those that fell at my feet, and turned behind me in time to see a bomb flying straight for my face. I ducked in time, and looked ahead of me to see it scone another child square in his face. This gave me enough time to pass him without him getting a chance to offload one of his bombs, and was able to duck into a little nook in the cliff face on the side of the track to get momentarily out of range. I knew the children would not approach me directly as I had my large water bottle out again, and such daring would surely end in their drenching. I peeked out to check out the situation, but quickly ducked back in as 5 water balloons were hurled in my direction.
I realised quickly that there were surely no more than 12 of them, and some of them were holding water bottles, meaning only about 6 of them could possibly be holding two bombs, I thought I had at least 15 thrown at me, meaning that with no time to get refills there could surely at best be only 3 bombs left. Suddenly I begun to like my chances, I ducked out again and two more bombs came hurtling at me with no chance of hitting me, so that left only one. I decided to step out and face the last armed bandit, but found I had miscalculated, as three more bombs came at me again and luckily still missed. For country kids these guys had crap aim. I saw one last child holding a bomb, he couldn´t have been more than five, so I just stood there and let him hurl it. It missed by a mile, I smiled turned my back and walked slowly away in mockery, until I was out of sight whereby I hastened my pace to be sure not to be caught up with. I thought briefly about the girls, but figured they could cross that bridge when they came to it. However, upon questioning I found that they met no such ordeal. Humiliated, the kids were probably crying themselves to sleep. Suckers.
Anyway it was a great walk, and it would have been nice to explore the loop further, but with time as short as it was we had to head to Quito today, where we have arranged a great looking jungle tour for only $200 US everything included for 4 days. We head off tomorrow, and for that I am quite excited.
So until then,
watch out for little bastards with water balloons.
Regards,
Dylan
P.S. I´m not really that much of a stooge, it was all in good fun!

Our first few days in Ecuador

So we are now well and truly in Ecuador, and it`s a big call but I reckon it`d be about the most stunning country we`ve been to so far. In terms of it being very green and quite tropical.
Our time here thus far has been eventful, and reignited our passion for travelling after the tour through Peru.
Our first couple of days we spent in Cuenca, which in my eyes was not nuch of a city, except that it had Cajas National Park a short bus ride away from it. This national park was stunning. Lush green hills, clear blue lakes, and creepy ass woods straight out of a Tim Burton film. We took a day trip out there, and were directed on a four hour hike. Like most things in South America the track was poorly sign posted, and although we were having an awesome time, it was not long before we were unsure of which way to travel, and not long after that until we found we had lost the trail altogether. We sat down with the map out and managed to work out where we were using the hills and lakes around us. The whole day was quite an adventure, and exactly the change in pace we were looking for.
After Cuenca we took a short bus ride to Alausi. The bus didn`t exactly drop us off in Alausi, but rather up a hill near Alausi in the middle of the night. A little dazed from the trip, with no idea where we were seeing as the lonely planet didn`t have a map of this small city, all we could do was laugh. And with our heavy packs we marched towards the distant lights of the city. Aimlessly wandering the streets we were lucky enough to run into an old woman who kindly directed us to the closest hotel where we dumped our stuff, checked in, and fell asleep almost instantly.
The following morning we caught the Devil`s Nose Train. A 1 and a half hour train trip down a steep hill and back up again, the twist being that you sit on the roof. In all honesty I wasn`t entirely impressed with it. It was very touristy, so the train was packed, and you could hardly enjoy the few glimpses of the view you got. However, we took the same train for the less touristy part of the track, a three hour trip from Alausi to Riobamba. This time there were only five of us on the roof, and the trip, although cold, was thoroughly enjoyable. We passed many lush farms, and at almost every one of them the dog belonging to that property chased the train enthusiastically for much further than you thought possible. It was in fact, very amusing.
We spent no time in Riobamba, as we jumped onto the first train to Baños, a small city named after the many hot springs it has to offer. It is an incredibly beautiful city as it is surrounded by huge mountains (and a volcano) all covered in amazing tropical flora. The clouds that hang around the mountains only add to the mysticism of the city.
This morning we got up relatively early and headed to one of the hot springs, we didn`t see the pay booth so we somehow ended up going for free. We were under the impression that it was a very touristy thing to do, do were surprised by the lack of any other tourists. The only downfall was the presence of way too much old woman boob, showed off by the older woman in the open showers whose shame obviously had left them after they gavin birth earlier in their life. Other than that it was a pleasant experience.
After the baths we hired some bikes and embarked on a 22km downhill bike ride. It was the best we had encountered yet. The scenery needless to say was spectacular, and the route had us pass many extravagent waterfalls.
About half way through the trip we came across a swing jumping sight. The concept is very similar to bungee jumping, except that the cord is not elastic, it`s just a rope, and it is connected to the other side of the bridge that you jump from so that after falling 20m you swing like a pendulum for a few minutes. Needless to say I was keen to do it.
There were two jumps to choose from, the small jump that everyone was doing, which was basically just like a swing rope. And the big jump, from the higher bridge whereby you climb on to the top of the railing on the bridge a dive head first before being flipped the right way up and swinging. It was thirty metres to the rocky waters below. Noone was doing the big jump except the demonstrator. The girls refused to do either jump outright, but insisted I give it a go. I really wanted to, but didn`t at the same time. In the end I figured I had to. As soon as I got to the bridge I regretted my decision... It was just so high, and I was about to jump head first off this bridge? That just sounded like stupidity to me. I was harnesed up and not feeling the happiest in the world, but before I knew it I was standing on the ledge with nothing infront of me but a thirty metre jump. The guy counted to three and I jumped, knowing that if I didn`t then I never would. Then as I started to fall, I decided I`d done a very dumb thing, and had a minor freak out, which was aided by the screams of everyone watching. But as soon as I was flipped the right way up I was fine, and enjoyed the swinging. Sarah caught the whole thing on video and I hope to post it soon. It was certainly a thrill, and I am very glad I did it.
The remainder of the bike ride was pleasant, and when we got to our destination we were able to chuck our bikes in the back of a small truck and hitch a ride back to town. It was a very fun day.
And that about brings us up to date, so I`ll see you later!
Dylan

click below for the video of me doing something stupid (it`s sideways but I can`t help that).

http://s125.photobucket.com/albums/p70/alex0080/?action=view&current=DSCN1483.flv

Beaches, Borders, and Brutality

Today we arrived in the final country we shall be visiting during this trip, Ecuador. However, prior to this we spent 4 days at two beaches along the Northern Coast of Peru. It was a welcomed change of pace. The first two days we spent at a beach near Trujillo called Huanaco, the atmosphere was very relaxed, and tourists were few. It was the perfect setting to swim, unwind, eat, and drink. Although the beach itself was not as nice as anything we have at home, save perhaps Glenelg, we had a very pleasant time doing very little at all.

From here we headed to the surf beach Mancora. It was an eight hour bus trip at night, and we were awoken early in the morning tired and disoriented upon arrival. It was still dark, but we were immediately inundated by copious amounts of taxi drivers offering us a lift to our hostel. We chose one at random, really quite overwhelmed by the whole ordeal, as we were still half asleep. He took us to his taxi, and we realised it was nothing more than a took took. A motorcycle with a tiny carriage dragged behind it. A little unsure of how we were all going to fit with our luggage, our driver took care of everything, and before we knew it we were speeding along into the sunrise. Our hostel was situated right on the beach front and being a Sunday morning, music from Saturday night partying was still pumping loudly. This, along with the rising sun, and the drive along the shoreline with the crashing ocean metres away, made for a most surreal experience in our sleepy daze.

Mancora was a very nice beach, but much more of a touristy destination. We made the most of our time there by hanging out with a friend from our GAP tour, working on our sunburns, swimming, drinking, eating hamburgers, drinking some more on the beach, and sleeping a lot. We took it so easy that none of us could even be bothered taking a single photo, so you´ll have to take my word for it that it was a nice place.

This morning we sadly farewelled our friend from the GAP tour, and jumped on a bus to head to Ecuador. By pure chance we got on the same bus as another GAP group we had met earlier, and had come to know quite well. As such we gained the benefits of being in a GAP tour without paying for it. Which proved to be quite fruitful for us seeing as crossing the border between Peru and Ecuador turned out to be most trecherous. As our bus approached the border we all got our passports and papers ready, and as we stepped off the bus all these official looking men were demanding us our passports. A little dazed by it all I obliged immediately. Luckily for me the GAP leader snatched it from his hands, and then proceeded to do the same for almost half the group as they made the same mistake I had, some passports had to be chased down, but luckily all were recovered. We were all then sternly told not to give our passports to anybody, excpet those actually inside the immigration booths. It was yet another close call that turned out well for me.

The bus trip into Ecuador was spectacular, the scenery was notcibly greener, lusher, and basically more tropical. We arrived at Cuenca many hours later, and have only just now booked into a really cosy hostel in the centre of the city. Quite tired, the three of us have thus far struggled to get our heads around the new currency, which is in fact US dollars. It´s strange changing to a currency that is actually worth something, especially when the country using it is relatively poor. You end up paying $2 US for a large meal, but are still unsure as to whether that´s a good deal comparitively to other countries we have been to. However, I am sure we shall soon adjust.

I´d now like to finish this entry on a spectacularly horrifying note. This actually took place on the bus trip between Pisco and Lima, but it was so disturbing that it had been deeply repressed at the time of the last entry. The bus trip in question shall be dubbed the bus trip of death, for which I, sitting in the frontmost seat, had the best view for. Some time into this relativley lenghty journey, we unexpectedly hit three birds flying in formation. It was a shock, as hitting birds always is, but hitting three was expectedly somewhat more disturbing than hitting one bird. Especially as I saw that at least two of them met a most gruesome, although admittedly sudden death. So yes it was a shock, but as I am sure you are all thinking, it was also something that you get over relatively quickly. However, this was only to be an appetiser to what would become the main course of disturbingness I would witness on this journey. For roughly one hour later I watched happily as two beautiful black sheep dogs, no more than two years of age frolicked gleefully together as they played some yards ahead of the bus. As one gave chase to the other, the pup playing the evader darted unexpectedly out on to the road, directly in front of a double decker bus travelling at at least 100km an hour.

Watching a dog get hit by a bus travelling at that speed is a somewhat sobering experience to say the least. It certainly gave me a reality check, for I realised that if it were me getting hit by that bus at that speed, I would not stand a chance of surviving, and those with a weak stomach or a particular fondness for dogs may be well advised to stop reading and see me at the next entry. At the moment that dog was hit by that bus, it ceased to be a dog, and instead became nothing more than flesh and entrails flying in every direction. To do no more than retell exactly what I recall seeing, for one brief moment I swear I saw a large proportion of the dogs insides escape out of its mouth. Some parts of the dog flew clear of the bus, a much larger part got tangled up in the wheels, and afterwards what was left behind was a five metre blast radius of what was moments before a seemingly untroubled dog.

Everyone in the bus witnessed the aftermath, I was the only one who caught the whole horrific ordeal in its gruesome entirety. And many of those who witnessed the aftermath went as far to say, what in God´s name did that used to be. For me though, the most hearbreaking moment of the entire ordeal was watching this pup´s playmate nudge a larger portion of the carcas, whilst looking noticibly distressed at the loss of his friend. Either that or he was hungry.

The whole thing was of course over in seconds. Yet needless to say I was mortified, and remained somewhat quieter for the remainder of the journey. So, sorry to put you all through that, but it was somewhat cathartic for me. If it bothered you in any meaningful way, maybe retelling the story and disturbing a bunch of other people could be as helpful to you as it was for me in moving on from it all. If not, tough nuts!

Till next time,

Chuckles Mc Chuckleton

Finishing the tour

Hey all,
I know it´s been awhile, but there have been some serever problems with blogger. Also although we have done a lot since the Inca Trail, many of which have been cool, none alone have seemed to deserve a blog entry to themselves. I guess after you´ve been travelling for awhile you become harder to impress.

Anyway after the Inca trail we got on a plane to Arequìpa. It is a city much a kin to most others you will find in South America, however, this one is in a desert near a bunch of volcanoes. Due to this many of the buildings have been built out of white volcanic rock, making the city look suitably arid and kinda cool. A part from that it´s just your average run of the mill city. From there we visited Colca canyon, the world´s deepest canyon. It was alright, but not terribly impressive, probably because we didn´t visit it´s deepest part. We went there mainly to check out the condors, one of the world´s biggest birds, but we only saw 4 in the distance and they weren´t very impressive either. After that we visited a hot spring, and that was about as nice as taking a communal bath can be. Which is in fact relatively nice.

From there we headed back to Arequipa for a day, and then set off to Nazca. I saw the Nazca lines from a small plane, they were pretty cool, seeing as they are thousands of years old. I found the monkey especially impressive, as the Nazcans were located in the middle of the desert, and conversley monkeys are generally situated about as far away as you can get from the desert. So it was most puzzling indeed. After this we checked out some ancient Nazcan cemetries and saw some mummies, it was cool if a little morbid. Sarah wasn´t terribly impressed by the constancy of Ness´and my jokes that were admittedly in pretty bad taste.

That night we drank out of pineapples next to the swimming pool at our hotel and had a generally pleasant evening. From Nazca we headed to the coast to Pisco, the inventors of the Pisco sour, a tasty drink indeed. On the way though we sopped at the worlds biggest sand dunes and went dune buggying and sand boarding. This was incredibly cool. The dune buggies were crazy. Better than any roller coaster I have been on, climbing up and down the steepest dunes at the most incredibly speeds. The boarding was cool as well, we all ended up with sand in every crevice imaginable, but incredibly exhilarated... In retrospect I am sure the sandy cracks were at least partly responsible for said exhilaration.

Upon reaching Pisco we found it was a dank hole. Also quite dangerous. So we mainly kept to our Hotel. One of the very friendly but incredibly clueless and painfully annoying members of our group got his camera bag stolen at the bus station, in total losing his camera, three credit cards, ipod, passport, 1000 soles cash, and his entire trip´s worth of photos. It was heart breaking but dumb. Some guy came over to him and started joking around with him. And as he sees himself as a bit of a joker he joked around back and whilst he thought he had this guy as his audience, someone else took his camera bag... So that´s where attentin seeking behaviour can get you. It was a massive hassle for him though, but our tour guide helped him out and got just about everything sorted so the only real loss would be his photos. You may recall a similar scam was played on us, but we were far too savvy to be fooled by such trickery... Some would say lucky, but I think savvy is a much more apt term.

In Pisco we headed to the Bastille Islands to see the penguin, sealion, and other bird colonies. It was pretty incredible, we got much closer to the wildlife than we did in Argentina, and there was lots of it. We also saw the mysterious ancient candleabrah (clearly that´s not how you spell it but I don´t even know where to begin to fix it up, and I´m way too lazy for spell checker, as you may have picked up with previous spellings of Machu Picchu...) inscribed in the side of a sand dune. Noone really knows what it is, why it´s there, or how it got there, so that´s pretty cool.

From Pisco we headed to Lima for the conclusion of the tour. It was a relief, although we had come to like many of the tour members, many had thoroughly shit us. The eldest member of the group was easily the most childish and selfish. It was no wonder she was alone. Another member of the group did nothing to break down the stereotypes that Germans are austere, easily dissatisfied, and generally unpleasant. Although it must be said that many other Germans we´ve met have. Mainly though, it´s just good to be doing are own thing again.

In Lima I was met by a man´s worst nightmare. Walking with the girls, slightly ahead as I sometimes do, I spotted to my dismay a huge clothes shop that was advertising tshirts for 5 soles... so very cheap. This was made worse by the fact that the clothes were displayed in 12 massive piles 1and a half metres inheight, 2 in lenght and 1 and a half in width. I knew this spelt trouble. No one can navigate through that amount of clothing in a relatively short period of time. especially when displayed in such a ridiculous manor. I tried not to notice and continue walking, but the girls surely saw it and freaked out. We were there for an incredibly painful hour and a half. I couldn´t really do my own thing either as we had just arrived in Lima, and it is a notoriously dodgy city. I tried waiting outside for a moment but was offered drugs twice in a two minute period, with one man urging me to come with him. So with little other option I sat through the horrifying ordeal.

Currently we are at Trujillo, a beach town that is very nice. We certainly have seen some diverse terrain on this trip, and we still have jungle and the Galapagos to go.

Anyway best be off.

Regards,

Chuckles