Salkantay Trek

Jessica, Erik, Heather and I headed out on a 5 day Salkantay trek at 4.30am on Wednesday morning. It was a cold morning in Cusco. We walked 21km the first day to a height of 4300m. We camped in cold tents at minus 5 degrees but the view of the Salkantay mountain (the snow capped one above) made up for it. The next day was the toughest. 21km hike up to 4900m altitude. The long steep climb to the peak saw the best of us out of breath and the worst hyperventilating. It was a triumph to get to the top, but it was freezing.

The decent was pretty tough on the knees for me and we were going at such a speed that we arrived 1 1/2 hrs early. The guides said we made it in record time. I was exhausted.

The next two days are a bit of a blur. Lower, warmer, shorter. Then the fourth night we stayed in a hostel. It felt like luxury to have a shower and a bed but the 4am start wasn't so luxurious.

In order to get a pass to be able to climb Wainu Pichu - the tallest mountain at Machu Pichu - you need to ensure you're in the first 400 people to get to the entrance. This means climbing the 2000 steps to the entrance at speed at 5am. Not fun! WP was def. worth it though. The views were just spectacular. Hope the pic uploads this time!

Cusco and the Sacred Valley

I flew into Cusco on 11 November. An early start in Santa Cruz thanks to a kind German girls mobile phone as all my options for an alarm clock seemed to fail on me saw me with a horrible cold and sore throat. The stopover in La Paz was pretty terrible. It was freezing outside and the airport seemed to be outside. By the time I arrived in Cusco I just wanted to sleep. Jessica arrived a few hours after me and was just as ill so we spent the first couple of days in bed. It's a beautiful city albeit very touristy, and full of a lot of unsavoury tourists too. Thankfully Heather and Erik (from Panama, Colombia) arrived and the four of us did the Salkantay trek together. Cusco has the worst collection of museums known to mankind, but also the best set of ruins....all entered on the same ticket. I guess, otherwise, who on earth would even step foot in the museums. Here are some pics from around the "Sacred Valley" - basically where all the Inca ruins are.

Pantanal, Brazil - more pics

Pantanal - Brazil

From Bonito I went to a place called buraco das piranhas - almost as bad as el triangulo - but this time I was alone. Thankfully Santa Clara did come and pick me up after not too long. It was very nice to be constantly told how good my portuguese was too. The Pantanal was amazing. Stifling hot but cooled at least a little at night. The first day we went on a Safari and saw a Jaguar (no picture as it was just too quick). The second day horse riding (I hated it as much as I did in Wales and got off after about 500m - at least I tried....) and piranha fishing in the afternoon - I caught some this time. Also saw some Giant River Otters playing just outside our campsite in the river one morning. That was pretty special. Tucans and macaws were amazing colorful too. You can see in the pics.

Rio - take two

We left Ilha Grande on Friday morning. The boat in was full of hoards of Brazilian tourists determined to get away from Rio for the 4 day weekend. I am assuming they are all illegal cariocas or don't vote out of choice because everyone else had to stay in their home town until Sunday for the second round of voting.

I just have to interupt Rio take two with my Idiot American story. So, this very childlike thing decides to come and join me for dinner. The two girls I was with move swiftly away. I'd had too many caipirinhas (see a theme) to notice straight away. The little boy (25 yrs old I later found out) is from North Carolina and is an undergraduate in Economics. So already we had little in common - but nevermind, I can be open minded.....

Instantly he starts complaining about the low standards of education in Brazil. When I asked him "compared to where?" he could only answer "The USA of course" - like that was the only other place in the world. When I pointed out that education levels here are far higher than many other South American countries he continued his rant mainly with regards to tourism standards. I commented that I thought the problem was that the real (Brazilian currency) was overvalued and that they needed to devalue it back to 2009 levels so it's cheaper for foreigners again to boost tourism and he said "but then wouldn't they lose so many jobs as they wouldn't be able to export their goods such as coffee any more". Hummm - economics student I asked???? Brazil has poor education standards??? Oh, and he doesn't vote, as why would he do that? And who is Dilma? And he's lived here for 8 months. Bring back the Kiwis!!!!!!!!!!!!!! At least the only complaint there was Dilma sounding like a man.

Back to Rio. We had a really fun night out in Lapa starting at Sams friends friends flat for drinks and ending in a very dodgy bar around 4am. A day on Ipanema beach where we witnessed a few helicopter rescues - someone drowned (we later heard) - not a good day. And the day before halloween we had a party. "Carnage" is all I can say and you can see photos above. And then I went embora off to airport, for a terrible journey - two flights and a bus to get to Bonito, which is, thankfully, quite bonito - albeit with awful tourism staff.....

Ilha Grande, Brazil

On some day morning - the day I can't remember as that's what happens when every day becomes a weekend, Rich left for Campo Grande - far too early for me to get out of bed to bid farewell - although I think I did take off my eye cover and maybe release one ear plug to say "see ya"....not sure. A bit later Bryce and I made our way (incredibly slowly for an expensive "direct" transfer) to Ilha Grande to meet up with Katelyn. It rained lots. And it was a slow journey. And I was tired and obviously hungover, as it was Rio I was leaving. However, Ilha Grande is a beautiful place. A bit like Bocas del Toro in Panama. Lots of treks to secluded beaches (where only locals are allowed on the bus!) and a really nice hostel. It was lovely to see Katelyn again and chill out a bit before back to RIO!!!!!!!!!!

RIO - take one

Pics are: Bryce, Rich and I having cachacha shots before Lapa, the Flamengo supporters at the footie, and views from the hill up to Cristo - obviously it was a bit cloudy that day!

Rich and I arrived in Rio on a Saturday morning having had a little sleep on the nightbus from Vitoria. We checked into the funnily named Stone of a Beach - the name being the only good thing about it. It was, as is the rest of Rio, expensive. It was also dirty and had moronic staff. Bryce (American from my language course) met us there later that afternoon. We had a walk down Copacabana beach up to Ipanema to meet up with Nicola and Dan again. It almost felt like home. We left them, had a good afternoons sleep and went to hit LAPA.

Rio has an amazing party scene and I honestly felt I couldn't keep up! Sunday I was a shell of my normal self, but did manage to attend a RIO derby. It was quite weird explaining the offside rules to a bunch of guys - admittedly Canadian and American - but STILL. I mean, I know the rules of American Football.....

Monday I met up with Claudia (friend from London who is from Rio and was there on a work trip) which was really nice and Sam (kiwi) came out with us too - another late and drunken night.

Tuesday Bryce and I headed to Ilha Grande - a lovely big island (who would have thought - the Brazilians are very literal after all) south of Rio to meet up with Katelyn (Aussie chick from the boat, Salvador etc). I really was beginning to feel like I lived in Brazil.

Domingos Martins and A Pedra Azul

Rich (the second Kiwi) and I left Itacare destino a Domingos Martins - a cool (temperature) mountainous German town half way to Rio. We had to go via Ilheus and then get an overnight bus to Vitoria and a connection 1 1/2 later - so we thought. When we arrived (1 hour early I thought) we got ourselves settled, and got in breakfast and Rich guarded our belongings while I investigated bus times to Rio a couple of days later. Little did we know we'd become victims of daylight savings. Rich realised that the time was one hour ahead about 5 mins before our bus was due to leave. Not a problem as ALL buses leave late in Brazil. Not this one.

Anyway, the nice man at the desk gave us new tickets for free. Good job that kiwi's seem to be very relaxed about my apparent inability to navigate this country without a few f**k- ups.

We met a guy called Joel at the tourist information office who hooked us up with his daughter who owned a pousada and he even invited us to his house for dinner. It was probably the nicest meal that I've eaten in Brazil.

The Pedra Azul was really beautiful but we couldn't climb up it as there had been some issues with rain. So we had a few relaxed days before hitting Rio. Good job really....