Joe & Sue's Travels

Homeward bound! Part 1 of 2(Bogota again)

2008-10-22T15:40:00.000-07:00

So back to Bogota and decided to leave our big bags holidaying across the town and we stayed in the city centre. We went to see a few collections of art including a wonderful Botero exhibition. We also had a fun day out in a huge mall in the suburbs where we shopped for clothes that fitted us, ate noodles, went to the cinema AND played ten pin bowling ( yes Sue came home the champ!).

We collected our bags and packed them for the journey. Old clothes out and new ones in. Lovely to get rid of some of them. Even better to have nice new colours to wear...its the simple things you miss. SO after a bit of squeezing and a taxi to the airport we got on our first plane east. Well actually it was south, to Lima, a second flight taking us on to Sao Paulo which was at least in the right direction.

Taganga & more beaches!

2008-10-22T14:59:00.000-07:00

We took a bus from Cartegena on North to Barnaquilla and then down the coast slightly, to Santa Marta. It being late in the evening, we took a taxi the short distance over the hills to Taganga. With no bookings we asked the driver to take us to a hostal and we checked in not realising that Brid & James, having also travelled north were our next door neighbours. Taganga is a small town which although it has a strong tourist population it doesn't have a bank machine. The main strip is along the sea front and is dotted with restaurants (some of which are Israeli, complete with Hebrew only menus) , dive centres and juice bars. We did not however come to see Taganga. We wanted to travel to the nearby national park, spend some time diving and swinging on hammocks and 'chilling to the max' before our return to Dublin. By the coast and away from the built up surroundings of Santa Marta, the temperature was much more comfortable, but the shade was still the only place to be between 12 and 2. The drinking of beer seems to be a big theme in Taganga and as we walked the strip in the morning 'en route' for a juice and a tinto ( extra sweet and scalding hot, very strong coffee, which seems to keep the whole of Colombia going in the heat) the locals would already be out chatting and swigging a cold beer or two. By following the coast line north out of town it was possible to walk over the hills and visit numerous big and small beaches. As a holiday spot, most of the beaches had people on them, splashing in the water, lounging in the sun(foreigners only) and being served by many ice cream, nougat, tinto and soft drinks sellers.
Joe & I had signed up to 3 days of diving in the national park. We travelled by boat for about an hour to a small beach where we slept in hammocks and spent our days diving in the surrounding bay. We also returned to this beach by oursleves where we rented a small house for a few days. No diving this time but morning fruit salads followed by a swim and a hammock swing. Joe chased fish while snorkelling and I got lost in a Ruth Rendall 'whodunnit' novel. Further down the beach there were a few people with the dive centre and another unoccupied small house. Pelicans and vultures visited the beach and we were entertained most evenings by wonderful lightening storms, striking in the mountains nearby to Santa Marta. Altogether a very pleasant way to spend a week. When the time came we left the wilderness of the beach and headed back to Bogota, through Santa Marta once again by bus. The Colombians really need to do their homework when it comes to buses. Unlike Peru, we got no blankets, pillows or snacks, the bus temperature was unbearable, due to excessive air conditioning,rather than altitude and although I do prefer Salsa to Peruvian wailing accompanied by pan pipes, the volume was enough to make our eardrums over flex! I know Columbians like to party but at 4am when your swinging around corners on an all too narrow main road and and the tunes are pumping out I a'int in the mood to party!

Cartagena

2008-09-02T15:24:00.000-07:00

Next on the cards was a long bus journey from Bogota to Cartagena, 20 hours roughly. I am curious to total up the amount of nights we have spent on buses since we left Ireland, or even the amount of kilometers travelled in them! In South America alone we have travelled by bus well more than 62 degrees of latitude, this figure obviously takes no account of any east/west travel.

Anyway we arrived in Cartagena tired and with sore bums! The first thing that we noticed was the heat! Even though Ecuador is on the equator we experienced nothing different from a hot Irish summers day but Cartagena is different. Within seconds of stepping off the bus I was dripping with sweat! Its like Malaysia all over!

We established ourselves in a hostel with a ceiling fan over the bed and set out to explore the city which is amazing. Cartagena is an old walled port city, which has a wonderfully coloured history full of pirates, sackings, slaves and rum! Walking the walls in the midday sun would be just the ticket we thought. The street sellers, hiding in shady nooks and crannies, kept us alive with iced cold plastic bags of mineral water which they produced from their cooler boxes. By the time three o'clock came we were fit for bed. We agreed that the next day we would get up early and siesta during the midday heat!

We spent a few days wandering round old Cartagena visiting the sites. There is a wonderful old fort called Castillo San Filipede Barajas. In case of attack, this castle had its own underground

reservoir and a labyrinth of unlit underground passages which steeply fall or rise from the depths of the earth. Often they are half full of water and I began to wonder if we'd ever find our way out! The passages provide emergency escape routes out, as well as a means to move troops from one area of the castle to another. The passages are riddled with nooks and crannies in which we half expected to find old Black Beard himself, jumping out with muskets blazing! The castle has only fallen once and this was before it was fully built. A French pirate called Baron de Pontis gathered together an army of 10,000 buccaneers who he cheated out of their cut of the immense loot. He sailed back to Paris with the loot as quickly as he could while the pirates, understandable annoyed, killed, raped and pillaged the remains of Cartagena. Since then the finished castle held out for 56 days with 27,000 angry men outside, its defense was led by a one eyed, one armed, one legged hero called Bals de Lezo who is commemorated with a statue at the entrance to the fort.

The stories of pirates go on and on in Cartagena's history. The walls and castles bristle with cannons, there are so many cannons in town they use them as street bollards, turned nuzzle down and set in the concrete. In fact any descent Caribbean pirate worth his shivering timbers seemed to have spent time either defending or attacking this city.

We frequented a local cafe/restaurant every day for a set lunch. A communal seating policy leaves one elbowing for space amongst the street sellers around a small table. There's half a dozen large fans that spin lazily suspended from the ceiling, the walls are decorated with mounted stuffed fish and turtles as well as box of chocolate style pictures of alpine lakes, pine trees and scenes from more temperate climes. The set lunch is a filling bowl of soup with barley grain, potatoes and a chunk of gristle. This is followed by fish or meat (both unspecified) and a double serving of carbohydrates; spuds and rice. Its all washed down with what they call a refresco, a sweet warm cordial. After this heavy meal and a morning in the sun all we are fit for is a siesta under a squeaky fan.

In the evening there is a street bar in which we enjoy a few beers, they belt out the salsa, rumba and mambo at full volume. This goes down great with the Colombians who need no excuse to dance, especially when on holiday. There is a lottery ticket man who has a little street side stall just by the bar, people que to buy their tickets, but in the middle of filling out the forms the bar plays his favorite tune. He slaps down his open palm on the table and upsets the neatly stacked piles of coins he has ready for change, the queue of people wait patiently while he dances up and down the street, punching the air for joy. This seems to be normal behaviour and who are we to come between a man and his music.

We spend a couple of indulgent days scuba diving, near to the local Islas del Rosario. It is beautiful with all sorts of wonderful fish, sunken wrecks and lobsters for lunch!

A lovely day out in Bogota

2008-08-31T15:25:00.000-07:00

We travelled by bus from Puerto Lopez, in Ecuador, to Bogota, in Colombia. It was long, but with the assistance of some loud Colombian music, we made it. Puerto Lopez to Quito, then on to Tulcans, where we crossed the border into Colombia at Ipiales and straight to Bogota from there. We settled in a nice colonial house in the embassy district of town. The first picture is taken in Quito. The angel adorns the hill over looking the city.

We discovered that a trip on a steam train was available, so we wandered the city trying to get more info. It ran on Sunday....about 8ish....the office opens at 7am.....on Sunday?? So at 6.30am we climbed out of bed and wander through the streets of a Sunday morning Bogota. We arrived at the very run down pillared train station and went in the side door. A ticket counter and many colombians drinking coffee. Being the only true stangers there, we had discovered a wonder of Bogota. So, we bought tickets, had a coffee and TOOOOOOOTT , went our train outside. So we all squeezed out the door and found our carriage

and got comfortable in our seats. TOOT TOOOOTT went the engine and we slowly chugged out of the station. We started to pick up speed and crossed many road junctions. All the shops are closed on Sundays, so Bogatonians are heading to the park, kite ander arm or cycling or walking the dog or enjoying beers by the moring sun. Us, as passangers, were kept quite busy, dutifully waving at all the passers by. We were also entertained by a small jazz ense,ble. This meant they had to turn down the other music that was blaring on the train. All part of the colombian travel experience!

Our destination was Zipaquira a town which is home to a huge salt mine. Beneath the mountian in the salt mine is a huge cathedral. Well a huge labarintyh of passageways and large rooms. It is all lit by coloured lights and rammed with tourists wandering in the dark. We stayed a while and wandered about before getting back on our train.

Train entertainment!

2008-08-31T15:14:00.000-07:00

Puerto Lopez

2008-08-31T14:56:00.000-07:00

We made our way to Puerto Lopez which is on the Pacific coast of Ecuador, for a couple of reasons. The first being that you can take whale watching tours from here, the second was that there is meant to be some good diving around Machalilla National Park with the possibility of seeing Manta Rays (giant rays that grow up to a 6m wing span). With giant animals on our minds it took us a day of bus journeys to get from Cuenca to Guayaquil.

We spent two days diving and another walking the long beech that fronts the town. The diving was great, fully suited up in thick wetsuits, balaclavas, booties etc I could hardly move but I managed to stay warm in the cooler Pacific! It´s not that cold really, I reckon the Ecuadorians have gone a bit soft under the hot sun! We dived in four different locations but we unfortunately didn´t get to see Mantas! While we were eating our sandwiches on our dive boat the second day, we chatted to a couple of marine biologists who had seen the rays just beneath the boat not 20 minutes previous. I put on a mask and fins and jumped in for a snorkel, but alas none to be found!

We did get to see lots of hump back whales though on the boat trip out to Isla del Plata, I have posted a short video below. Isla del Plata so called because Francis Drake used to stow his silver there, treasure that he nicked off the Spanish who had in turned nicked it off the Bolivians. Legend has it there are chests of treasure still to be found on the island!

Joe and Sue go treasure hunting under the sea

2008-08-17T11:12:00.000-07:00

A Humpback Whale

2008-08-17T11:00:00.000-07:00

Cathedral in Cuenca

2008-08-17T10:59:00.000-07:00

Just thought I¨d put up a few pictures of one of the fabulous Cathedrals in Cuenca. Also, at the side, there is a line of flowers sellers with a wonderful array of flowers. Can you find the lady snoozing? If you click on the photos it makes them bigger to help the search!

Cajas National Park, Ecuador!

2008-08-17T10:10:00.000-07:00

Cajas National Park is situated close to the city of Cuenca, Ecuador. We travelled by bus from Huanchaco, back to Trujillo, to Piura, across the Ecuadorian border to Loja and finally to Cuenca. A beautifull colonial city enclosed by 3 rivers, peppered with wonderful churches and very different from Peru; fine filtered coffee, high speed internet with wide screen monitors and streets full of fashion (victims!) We took an early morning bus to the national park. With hundreds of lakes it is a very popular fishing location for the locals. We had our first encounter with some Ecuadorians who insisted we join them for a gin and coke to welcome us to their lovely country. It was 9am, they had a long drive ahead of them and we were going for a long walk, so why not!

Off we went into the park, back at altitude and recently refreshed. We wandered on through the park for our three day, two night hike, bags on bags with equipment and usual supplies. The terrain was quite similar to home and as the fog closed in and the soft rain fell we could have been in Ireland. In fact, I can offically report that the rain was more like an Irish experience than a New Zealand one. As I retrived my sodden boots from yet another deep squelchy muddy hole I thought, yes, just like connemara on a grand soft day.

So with our love of hiking high on our minds we passed three fine days in the hills. We saw some lovely flowers and some little scorpians, ate some fine sandwiches and got quizzed by some locals who wondered what the hell we were doing in the rain and mud when we should be down town on a tourist bus, or visiting a cathedral. We were greatly rewarded however and having managed to keep the huge fold out pictures of park birds dry, we identified four beautiful grey breasted toucans flying above our heads and sitting in a nearby tree.

Huanchaco and Chicama Surf

2008-08-14T11:55:00.000-07:00

We returned to Trujillo and travelled just out of town to a town called Huanchaco. Huanchcao is on the coast and it was here that we met up with our Irish friends who had arrived out for a bit of surfing. We spent the guts of ten days surfing and eating sea food in the various forms that the Peruvians had come with! (raw with lime juice and onion, grilled, soups, cooked with milk, etc, etc).

Huanchaco has a long history of surfing on the reed boats you can see in the picture, these are used for fishing and can handle really big waves with relative ease. You sit or kneel on the boat, paddle with a split piece of bamboo and put your net and catch of fish in the bath shaped hole at the back.

There is several good waves in Huanchaco which we could easily walk to from the hostel. However half an hour up the road in a place called Chicama there is a world famous wave. This town isn´t nearly as nice, hence we stayed in Huanchaco. Chicama claims longest left hand wave in the world, this means that when you are standing on your surf board with the wave breaking behind you, you can surf the clean or unbroken wave towards your left for distances of up to three kilometers on a good day. We managed to catch Chicama on two "good" days and surfed waves maybe one to two kilometres long which we all pretty delighted about!

Huanchaco was great, the weather pleasant, everything was easy and we could and would have stayed there for much longer however we were keen to try to get north to Equador and Columbia. Our time in South America is now getting noticeable shorter and the list of "oh, we must go and check that out" is getting longer by the day. Sadly we moved on.

Menu del Dia

2008-08-14T11:17:00.000-07:00

After lounging in the hot baths near Cajarmarca we were a bit peckish and headed off for some lunch. We found a not too grotty restaurant, with a table of eight happily munching, a good sign. We browsed the menu to find most regular items available.Pollo (chicken) this and pollo that. A bit of res(meat) with salad and beans. No guinea pig. Not that I could bear to watch Joe eat one again. Why the serve them with their heads on and the teeth peering up at you I cant understand! Caldo de Gallina, a broth with bits of veg and pollo into. Mystery bits that is. A red meat version is also available but bits of meat are more mysterious so we usually stick with the chicken(pollo). Most restaurants have a menu of the day. Its the cheapest and you can usually decipher what your eating. It also comes with a fruit cordial to really test your stomach. We decided to splash out a bit and instead of going from the Menu del Dia , Joe had some trout and & I had a well beaten piece of beef. It went down nicely and we settled it with a cold beer. We soon became aware of a constant thumping out side the window. Like someone chopping wood with a blunt axe. It would stop occasionally only to start up again , thump, thump, thump.

We finished our lunch, paid the billl and as we left the restaurant the curious noise was explained. A young lady was outside the restaurant, preparing the meat for the menu del Dia. On the table in front of her was half the head of a llama. In one hand she held the remaining half, the other hand careful scraping out the meat with a sharp knife, before dropping the bits in a bucket. Another head sat on the table, a hatchet firmly stuck in it. Tired of chopping she was having a bit of a break..........

Glad we didnt order the menu del dia

Leymebamba

2008-08-14T09:18:00.000-07:00

Hey just wanted to let you all see the band that were waiting to greet us when we had a brief break from the bus on the way to Tingo!

Tingo, Kuelap, Chachapoyas & Chiclayo

2008-08-02T11:00:00.000-07:00

We were sorry to say goodbye to Celendin. Such an attractive small town full of friendly people with very fine hats!!Our next destination was Tingo, 10 hours away on a bus. I was lucky to be entertained most of the way by a box of chickens sitting at my feet. One passenger was complaining that the box was too small for 8 chickens and insisted that the owner open the box so they had more room. This meant that every now and again a chick did try to make a bid for freedom and was soon grabbed and tucked back into the box. All then had to be counted and given out too. The situation was eventually improved as the lady got another box in a town we passed through, transferred some chickens to provide all with more room and let the most troublesome one sit on her lap! Everyone was happy. Well apart from most of the other passengers who were busy filling plastic bags handed out by the bus man!!! A small boy sitting on his mothers lap was the first to start. Once his bag was full his mother started. She was deep green and had passed her now pale son to his father to mind. Sure enough it was daddys turn and the little boy was passed to a stranger on the bus while his parents recovered. When they weren¨t getting sick and holding their heads they were busy eating fruit and biscuits and popcorn and everything else they could buy through the bus window. An endless cycle, but seems to be what one does on a long bus journey. Joe enjoyed the view out the window and I avoided the chickens!! We stopped briefly in Leymebamba where I was greeted by a brass band as I got off the bus to strech my legs. We arrived in Tingo in time for dinner, both delightd to have another long bus journey behind us.

From Tingo we left very early in the morning to avoid the heat and had a three and a half hour walk up the hill to Kuelap (approx 3000m). Lying along the top of a mountian ridge Kuelap is a huge walled city with spectacular views across numerous valleys. It was built by the Chachapoyas culture in 800AD, occupied until about 1570 and is about 600m long and 110m wide. The outer perimeter walls are 19m and access can only be gained by 3 openings up steep steps. The dwellings inside were all circular and some have a fancy stone pattern on them. High in its jungle setting there are trees growing throughout the site now and many flowers are frequented by hummingbirds. We had a lovely wander about Kuelap and marched down to Tingo to lounge on our balcony and listen to the river.

We headed to Chachapoyas the next day and went to see the small museum on the plaza. Another colonial town all bright and painted up for July 28th , the national holiday. From there we went to Chiclayo where my mission was to see the gold from Sipan. In 1987 a wonderful discovery was made. A pyramid containg the tomb of a king was discoverd in Sipan. Looters had started digging but the authorities managed to stop them and a wonderful collection of gold items was found. They have built a special secure museum for what they found, three floors of gold and silver and wonderful artifacts. We walked around with our mouths open gaping at all the gold. No photos were allowed but I have found a good web site where you can have a look at some of the treasures. http://www.go2peru.com/cix_foto1.htm Look out for the gold spider necklace and earrings with mosaic inlay. We also went to Tucume which is the remains of a vast city. There is a ceremonial centre and 26 pyramids of various sizes. All built in adobe and boasting the largest adobe structure in the world. Another museum displays some wonderful gold pieces which were found at the site.

Quiz results answers and more

2008-07-30T18:15:00.000-07:00

Well, well, well!! The long awaited and now very late quiz results.

Results first........

Question 1. How many countries in total have Joe and Sue visited since leaving Dublin last October?
Answer 1. 10....... We changed planes in Germany, landed in Singapore, travelled in Malaysia, passing briefly through Brunei. Stayed with our friends in Australia, two weeks in the south island of New Zealand, crossed the Pacific to Chile, climbed and hiked in Argentina, travelled through Bolivia and finally ended up in Peru.

Question 2. How many shoe shops in Bolivia and Peru did Joe get laughed at, before he could find a pair of shoes big enougth to buy?
Answer 2. 12 shoe shops, I was eventually successful in Cuzco, however they only had white plimsoles that fitted!

Question 3. What is the current total weight of Joe and Sue and their rucksacks?
Answer 3. 205 Kilos, Joe and rucksacks weighs in at 113 kilos, while Sue and her bags fetches 92 kilos!

Thanks for all the responses, Barry Long was the only one to correctly get question 1 correct, while the Cillian, Tess and Oliver team were closest on questions 2 and 3. This leaves team Cillian, Tess and Oliver winners and a prize will be posted by the end of the week! (it takes three to four weeks in the post so be patient!)

Also thank you (Paddy, Lesley, Oliver, Tess and Cillian) very much for the quiz you sent us. Please find the answers below.

Q. How many pheasants has Molly caught in the fields around Woodenbridge?
A. We think 3

2. How many fat pancakes did we cook for breakfast?
A. 11

3. Who's going to win Euro 2008?
A. Sorry we´re late here but we thought Germany or Spain, this is based on World Cup performances.

4. Name 3 of Bob the Builder's friends?
A. Lofty, Roley and Scoop. Oliver might be interested in the following site? http://www.bobthebuilder.com/uk/

5. How many doors (not including cupboards / fridges / cookers etc.) are there in 36 Fitzwilliam Square (not including the stables)?
A. This was difficult......
Top floor....6
Kitchen and Guest Room....3
Return Loo.....2
Dad´s Office and meeting room........4 (we allowed 2 for the sliding dividing doors between the two rooms)
Paddy´s office......2 (double doors)
Ground Floor......4
Tooth hall.....6 (including sink double doors)
Basement flat.......6
Front and back garden........3 (coal holes and play house)
Back basement.......4
This gives a grand total of 40!!!! that is quite a few doors for one house!

And the last question....
Identify who wrote each of the above questions?
Q.1 Paddy, Q.2 Tess, Q.3 Cillian, Q.4 Oliver, Q.5 Lesley.

How many bed mattresses can you fit on a tricycle?

2008-07-30T17:59:00.000-07:00

Click on the link below to see how close you are!
http://www.box.net/shared/yppt5rpggo

Cajamarca & Celendin

2008-07-28T10:51:00.000-07:00

We left our big bags to holiday in Trujillo while we packed a few things and got on a night bus to Cajamarca. At about 2700m Cajamara is warm and sunny and remembered as the scene of the capture and execution of Antahualpa, an Inca Emperor in 1532. Antahualpa had beaten his brother in battle and before heading to Cusco to take up reign he stopped in Cajamarca to soak his wounds in a hot pool. He had 80,000 soilders with him and they were all down the town eating cake celebrating the victory. Francisco Pizarro had been marching for weeks with a bunch of soilders too (less than 200) and wanting to meet with Antahualpa, they too stopped in Cajamarca. Word was sent to Antahualpa who said goodbye to his rubber ducky and got out of the bath to go to town to meet Pizarro. The Spaniards had arrived in town first and hid themselves to ambush the inca warriors. Some sort of multi-lingual exchange occured which involed the spanish making demands and waving the bible. The Inca king, sorry that he had not got his soilders out of the bakery was captured in a bloody battle that seemed to last less than an hour but saw thousands of soilders killed. They had never seen horses, never mind fought against steel swords. Their top commanders were killed first, which left the soilders disorganised. Antahualpa tried to bargin for his release, and holding his arm aloft in the room where he was kept prisioner he marked the wall. This was to show the height of gold he would give Pizarro, and 2 rooms of silver, in exchange for his release. The Spaniards were delighted with this offer but killed Antahualpa anyway. From this day on the inca empire crumbled. We went to see the ranson room which is still standing and also bathed in the famous hot baths, but not Antahualpas one. (Looks like the water has been changed since but still a bit grotty!!)

This being a bit of a whistle stop tour, we left the next morning to travel to Celendin. Settled in a lovely hostel we wandered down town and through the market. A lovely town with very few cars and well preserved and freshly painted colonial buildings. The plaza, immaculately kept with lovely flowers and a huge catherdal fronting onto it, being enjoyed by the locals , sitting in the sun. We have seen a lot of hats on this trip and Im sorry to not have more photos of them. In this town they had wonderful sambreros. Hand made by the ladies and sold to the hat shop for finishing off. On Sunday morning everyone was in their finery and in town for the market. At 6am the livestock market starts. At 7am the hat market. It continues through the day and by the end of it the streets are full of contented shoppers cluthcing hens, dragging pigs, carrying reeds to make more hats and much more! It is so enjoyable to wander the streets and admire all the lovely fruit and vegetables, neatly arranged in piles. We went to visit more hot springs in a lovely valley nearby. The springs were at the bottom of a wonderful lush valley with the trees heaving with fruit. This time we really got stuck in and baked in the mineral enriched mud for a while before getting in with the locals for a wash! The scolding hot water bubbles up in pools beside a river. So, you can sit in the river and build a wall so that you trap sone of the hot water coming from a pool and mix it with the river water to enjoy a nice hot soak. We were very taken by Celendin. I hope to do a slide show of photos the next time I am at a computer.

North to Trujillo, Chan Chan & more

2008-07-25T12:44:00.000-07:00

With bellies full of "bomba de manzanas" we took an over night bus from Huaraz to Trujillo. We found a hostel to leave our bags in and headed down town to find a juice bar! Trujillo has a lovely large Plaza de Armas with fine colonial buildings. As with every town in Peru we have visited, digging up the road and piling up rocks and sand was the order of the day. So, instead of noisey cars the plaza was full of men in trenchs, piles of mud and stone and bits of pipe. There were in fact some of the biggest footpath holes that we have encountered and in certain places a bridge had been installed to enable pedestrians to cross with minimal peril. How thoughtful. On a lighter note we found that Cafe Ameretto had particularly fine cakes and all in generous slices!

Our hostel, Casa de Clara, is home of a tour guide and her British husband. We decided to take a tour with them to see some local ruins. These ruins however were pre-inca and made of mud not stones!!! Our first stop was Chan Chan, home to the Chimu people and the largest adobe (thats mud, to you and me) city in the world. The ruins consist of nine seperate compounds with 9m high walls covering an area of 20 kmsq. Each one with a narrow entrance, which leads along a corridor and to a maze of passageways. Inside were rows of storage rooms, administrative buildings, temples, platforms and a central plaza for flag waving and general important stuff. Each compound also housed a huge raised platform that contained the burial chamebr for the king. Many of his noble men were buried around him. This inner citadel was surrounded by living quaters of the the kings servants and important folk. It seems when the king died, he was buried in his compound and a new one was built for the new king. Thats a lot of time building sandcastles!!! We went to vist just one compound and just before they covered the original art work with fibreglass copies to preserve it.

Our next stop was the Huaca el Dragon, a small pyramid also built of adobe. The sand reliefs are in very good condition and samples can be seen in the photos.

We returned to our hostel where our guide and hostess made us a tasty lunch before driving us to Huaca del Luna (pyramid of the moon). Built by the Moche people, it is a huge construction with many different platforms and accompanined by the Huaca del Sol ( pyramid of the sun). The Moche seem to have been a very violent people and many pictures of slaves naked and with ropes around their necks adorn the walls. Also the remains of many sacrificed adults .The inner layout of the pyramid had changed a few times while in use and so many adobe walls with wonderful coloured pictures in relief have been perfectly preserved as they were hidden behind a newer wall. We also saw a collection of clay "bricks" used for construction. They are all marked with a special symbol, identifiying their maker. Archaeologists have also discovered a huge clayware workshop in the area between the two pyramids and works uncovering more still go on today.

Happy Holidays to some special blog commenters!

2008-07-24T12:25:00.000-07:00

We would like to put a special word out to Namibia, advising it to prepare for the visit of Sonja, Vasco, Cillian & Tess! We hope that you all have a wonderful journey and really look forward to hearing about your trip on your return (Cillian & Tess could keep a diary). I am sure that the animals will be on their best behaviour and Cillian & Tess aswell! Do remember that although cute, hungry tigers should not be tickled under the chin!! If you come across some cheeky monkies have your umbrellas ready!! We will not be home to see you all until September the 8th. However this will give you time, Sonja, to print some pics which we look forward to seeing. Lots of love and safe travels to the four of you!!!

Joe & Sue Welcome folk to South America!

2008-07-15T12:29:00.000-07:00

A special HELLO and Happy Holiday to Dave Long who has just enjoyed his first week of holidays in Brasil!! Hope the sun is shining on Ipanema beach!

Also a "looking forward to seeing you" goes out to Brian, Saibh, Conal & Paul; hope you bring the sunshine with you!!!!

"Happy travels!" to Eimear who is also off to see Brasil.(not sure if we will see you. Have just checked Brasil map and its very very big!!!)

Best of luck with the monkey chasing to Brid & Jim!! Hope you make it safely from the jungle back to Trujillo.

Chavin, Combis, Yungay and the Alpamayo trek

2008-07-15T00:00:00.000-07:00

I have tried to sit down and write about Chavin several times now, but I always seem to get lost looking at other things on the web! I think at this point I need to pass it and just write about more recent things, Chavin is starting to hold up the rest of the blog!

We had a fine day out at Chavin! its a complex of ruins on the east side of the Cordillera Blanca (the other side from Huaraz). The ruins (according to my book) were built roughly around 800BC and represent the oldest know civilisation in South America! It is famous for its labyrinths of dark underground passages, underground river channels, fine carvings and spooky heads as you can see in the picture. If you want to know more read it on the web! elsewhere than here!! I like http://www.stanford.edu/~johnrick/chavin_wrap/chavin/index.html

Back to Huaraz for a couple of days and there was more rain so we made the hard decision not to climb another mountain, too much snow we thought. Instead we decided to try another trek, so without further ado we brought supplies and boarded a `combi´.

A combi is usually a Toyata Hiace not to different from a painter´s or plumber´s van that we see in Dublin however they are fitted out with seats. A good Peruvian driver and conductor will squeeze up to 24 people inside one of these. Its the conductors job to open and close the door, collect the fares, tell the driver when the last person has been squeezed in and its safe to move off again and most important to call out the onward destinations of the bus. This is done rapidly and repeatedly in an incomprehensible manner. The drivers job is to overtake the next combi in front so that they can get the next passengers further down the road. I find its best not to sit too near the front of these buses for fear you might see the large amount of terror inducing near misses that happen on the bad roads on a daily basis.

After a squashed journey in our combi we jump out at old Yungay to see the memorial gardens from the 1970 earthquake. The 1970 earthquake measured 7.9 to 8.0 on the Richter scale and devastated the region around Huaraz as well as other areas. One of the worst hit towns was Yungay where a massive avalanche from Huascaran Norte (a mountain above the town) picked up speed, rocks and mud all the way to Yungay. Travelling at an estimated 100 miles per hour, 80 million cubic meters of mud hit the town burying everything on theat dreadful Sunday afternoon, killing 17,000 of the towns 17,400 residents. Remnants of a combi bus can be seen half embedded in the ground and the main squares palm trees survived as shown in the photo, behind the destroyed cathedral. They rebuilt new Yungay in a less exposed location, a kilometer or so down the valley.

From Yungay, we caught another combi to Caraz, from here we took a collectivo (communal taxi) to a town called Cashapampa and its here that our hike started.

We loaded up our rucksacks and started walking! One of the selling points of this trek for us was that there was hot springs (not the type that burn your back while your lying in bed!) but the warm geothermal water type at both the start and the finish of the walk. Much to our disappointment, it turned out that the hot springs near Cashapampa had run out of water a couple of years back for some unknown reason. It took us several hours to walk to our campsite that evening. For part of the way a local girl on her way home from school guided us through the numerous trails and fertile farms. She pointed us in the right direction and disappeared down one of the many lush and leafy side paths. We arrived in Hualcayan and pitched the tent just in time for noodles and so our hiking routine began.

The campsite was located just outside Hualcayan, a town of approx 250 people, beside the football field and below some old pre-Inca ruins that were to our eyes little more than piles of old stones at this stage. We cooked our dinner under the careful attention of the local children who were intrigued with all the weird and wonderful equipment we had, not to mention the prospect of sweets. Their older brothers played football on the adjacent field while we were treated to a beautiful sunset. A little seven year old girl walked by silhouetted against the evening sky dragging an enormous submissive bull behind her, where is the camera when you need it.

The next day we got up early to try and avoid some of the hot sun. We spent the whole day hiking up a steep hill to Laguna Cullicocha from 3100m to 4600m. There was another fine sunset but we were wrecked from the days walk and observed it from inside the tent! Morning brought another beautiful clear day and we set off over two high passes and a long steep descent into the Osoruri valley. From here we hiked up past the Ruinas Pampas (some more old stones) and pitched our tent when we really couldn´t walk anymore. The hike, although shorter than our previous hike in the Cordillera Huayhuash, is certainly tougher. By the end of the third day we were both knackered. Our conversations were generally about food; what food we had, what food was left and what food we´d like to have! All this and we still have four days left!

The next day we enjoyed a lazy day, walking only an hour or two up the valley before camping under the North West face of Alpamayo. They call it the most beautiful mountain in the world. I´m not sure if I agree, however it keeps the tourists coming. We spent the afternoon talking about food with a German couple who, complete with their chef, five donkeys and two horses, had good stories of pancakes and eggs for breakfast. This we told them didn´t really match up to our porridge!

Morning brought two more high passes, one even had quite a bit of snow on it and lead us to a place called Huillca. We passed a group of botanists from Poland on a three week trip studying plants in the high Andes. We nicknamed these guys the bottomists as they spend nearly all the time with their bottoms in the air taking photos and scribbling notes of some type of moss or other! Huillca is situated in some fine pampa which we nicknamed the Serengeti Plains due to the amount of grazing animals. There are huge herds of llama, alpaca, sheep and even a few horses. The arrival of team Germany´s donkeys upset the natural order of things and caused havoc! Soon there were massive stampedes and I feared for the safety of our tent!

Early the next morning, as we took down our tent in the heavy frost, a poncho clad man appeared out of nowhere. He wondered if we had any spare socks, I looked down at his feet, he was wearing car tyre sandals with bulbous toes sticking out the end which were obviously freezing on this cold morning. Sue had a spare pair to give and he didn´t seem too worried about the health warning normally attached to Sue´s old socks! Another high pass and a long descent down to Jancapampa. No sooner than we had finished pitching our tent here, two small boys appeared running across the swampy pampa. They were clutching bottles of beer and coke and they knew we were craving both, their prices reflected our desire but we were delighted. They waited for us to finish our drinks so they can get their bottles back and I tried to teach them how to juggle.
That evening three teenagers on foot caught a horse with a lasso on the wide pampa. It took them about half an hour but it was a masterful display and great entertainment for us.

It was a long walk down to Pomabamba, our final destination, through a very traditional valley of old Quechua houses and farms. We joined up with an aqueduct which lead us into Pomabamba. We spent the afternoon here eating fried chicken, soaking in the town´s hot springs and playing table football on a street side stall much to the entertainment of the locals. Sue came out the overall champion which makes up for her desparate recent performances at cards and dice!

A night bus and a very bumpy road brought us back over the mountains to Huaraz.

Mandarina Man

2008-07-05T16:43:00.000-07:00

Click on this link to hear the true voice of the mandarina man that Sue posted about a few days ago!
http://www.box.net/shared/76p7q4c80k

Urus and bad weather

2008-07-05T13:00:00.000-07:00

So, having just about recovered from our hiking in Huayhuash, (¨just about¨ being the words to concentrate on here!), we nursed our sore legs, blistered feet and bruised shoulders with copious amounts of juice, food, coffee and beer here in Huaraz.

We had ideas of trying to climb a mountain, so after a little bit of research we settled with the one that Paramount Pictures borrows as their logo "Artesonraju".You may know this one as it flashes up before your film with a collection of stars forming a near circle above it. We calculated the daily food and rented additional equipment needed and as one final check before we leave we drop into an old friend who runs a mountain guides shop, here in town.

Poncho tells us how he had two distressed Spanish climbers show up in his agency yesterday back from our proposed route. They had tales of waist deep snow and how they had fallen down several crevasses and this he explained with a smile was only on the glacier. They did not make it near the mountain! Hmmm. There´s only one thing to do we think.

We ran to a nearby coffee shop, ordered beers and strong coffees and figured out where else to go. Leafing through reference books the coffee shop keeps in their library, we found a nearby valley with a couple of accessible peaks. Everything is back on track! Without further ado, we organised a lift and walked for five hours with heavy bags up the Ishinca valley. Sue had climbed a peak in this valley eight years ago with a friend of ours, Donal. On that trip the only people they met were two young boys below the age of ten herding cows on the high pampa. After several hours hiking we turned the last corner into the valley, exhausted and delighted to reach the campsite. To our shock we discovered 63 tents, an "Andean climbers hut" and several plastic sheeting stalls run by campasinas selling beer and coca cola. Wow we thought, we are not the only ones who think this place is special! We retreated to our tent while the mob outside talked about their "Andean exploits" and we muttered about the good auld days! We later discovered that this has happened to two valleys in the range "to improve accessibility to some of the easier peaks" while the others have been left for the more adventurous, ie hardly anybody.

The next morning, we rose early and climbed the nearby Urus (5430m). Its a relatively easy peak and as we shared the summit with a girl from Slovenia, we wonder where the 63 tents full of people were! As we reach the edge of the moraine on the way back down we meet 30 odd people roped to their various guides all struggling horribly with the altitude. I encouraged them by saying its only an hour or two to the summit and their guide shakes his head and tells them its going to take a whole lot longer!

There was a long climb down scree to get back to the tent and we were delighted to get out of the sun by the time we get back. The afternoon is spent lounging and eating!

The next morning we had hoped to hike up to a higher camp in preparation to climb Tocllaraju, a couple of hours up the valley. By the time we had woken up most of the 63 tents were packing up and loading onto herds of donkeys; the clouds were down. Not only were the clouds down but we noticed that the snow had come down too. It had snowed heavily during the night. According to the donkey men, the weather was down for the next few days too! We certainly were not going to go up while everything else was coming down. So, we lay in bed, somewhat relieved, because the last thing we wanted to do was pack up everything and hike up another 500m of altitude. Besides, camping on the snow is never comfortable.

We waited for a few hours, thinking the weather might get better but it got progressively worse and soon it was lashing rain. We celebrated Sue´s birthday a day early, by eating her chocolate bar cake and playing endless games of dice. Our tent is too small for spending days in, waiting for better weather, so we packed everything up and headed back to Huaraz getting thoroughly soaked en route.

In Huaraz we met back up with Brid and Jim and the birthday celebrations continued in somewhat better style as the rain continued to fall for several days!

The Juice Bar

2008-07-05T12:26:00.000-07:00

The juice bar in Huaraz is a favorite old haunt of mine. Years ago, it was just a street side counter, several high chairs and a crowd of people three or four deep blocking the street. Getting a juice was similar to trying to get your order in a busy Dublin pub on a Friday night. Behind the counter there was four or five hard working Peruvians lashing out the juice, a "Surtido" was the juice of choice back then; Papaya, carrott, banana and water. My favorite however was the "especial", similar ingredients but with a raw egg, condensed milk and malt as well as some mystery black syrup poured from a labeless bottle. This would come in a litre jug with a piece of plain vanilla cake called "keke" to soak it up. However, they would blend anything you wanted from the towering crates of fruit stacked behind the counter, that threatened to avalanche pineapple, papaya and bananas ontop of the assembled crowd.
Nowadays there is a small indoor area of plastic chairs and tables, the "especial" is the drink of choice, reflecting the Huaraz citizens new found wealth. The menu also includes chicken sandwiches, tomales and empanades at knock down prices. It´s a hub of activity with loud chat, the girls shouting out orders, old ladies begging, seven or eight blenders on the go not to mention salsa music blaring out of the TV.
Oh, Tess, they make a fine bananna milk too!

Huaraz & the Huayhuash hike

2008-07-05T11:17:00.000-07:00

So, we arrived in Huaraz quite early in the morning and our first mission was to find a hostel. When we were here before we stayed in a fine and quiet house with a rather mad lady. The way to find our way home was to walk to Jesus in the main plaza and then two blocks on, turn right at the golden man. We were quite distressed to find that not only was the golden man missing but someone had removed the MASSIVE statue of Jesus. So, we settled for another odd hostel run by a guy called Even(HEHEHE). Eight years have passed since we were in Huaraz and the city has really grown. We went for a juice in our usual hang out, no longer a stall in a lane way, but a fine shop with 8 blenders on the go, crazy music blaring on the television and a steady flow of locals, guzzling fruit juices! Still the same price for a juice though, and a piece of vanilla cake.

We decided that our first trip out of Huaraz would be a bit of high altitude training. Two or so hours from Huaraz is the town of Pocpa which is the starting point for a multi-day trek around the Huayhuash range of mountains. Most of the mountains are above the 5000m metre mark, with many towering over 6000m, including Siula Grande(6344m) and Yerupaja (6617m). http://huaraz.com/map/huayhuash/

should give a bigger map.

The first part of this long journey started with us crawling out of bed at 3.50am, putting our bags on our backs and walking to the bus station. The bus finally left by 5am and we arrived in Chiquian about 7am. Joe was not feeling the best that morning and my concern was growing for him the whole journey. We were lucky to have the very back seat on the bbbuuusss and he was looking pretty green. Joe had a snooze at the side of the road in Chiquian and we soon boarded another bus to Llamac and on to Pocpa, even more bbuuummppppyas we went up and down switch backs. Amazingly, Joe picked up a bit and by 10.30am were were marching up a hill for four and a half hours to our first camp!!!

So, for the next nine days we had a job to do; walk from one camp to another with our bags on our backs and stop on the way somewhere with a very fine view to enjoy a very fine lunch!!!! Most peole who take on this challenge make it a bit easier for themselves; they hire a guide to show them the way. They also hire some donkeys to carry their equipment and food. They then need an arriero( who usually work in twos) to look after their donkeys. Their guide and arrieros need to be fed and so they also need a cook. This then means that two people heading for a walk in the hills turns into six people, five donkeys and a horse

( in case of emergency). Joe and I were just two and happy. Yes, our bags were heavy, yes, we had a porridge/ smash / pasta combo for nine days, but we were happy!!! We walked every day for between 5 and 8 hours, with about an hour plus of breaks. After getting off the bus we walked from Pocpa (3650m) to Matacancha where we had our first camp and the misfortune of having our pots stolen from our tent at night! (We managed to buy a well worn one from a local). On day two we walked to Laguna Mitacocha, over a 4685m pass. We were lucky that it was a bit over cast and so we didn´t get fried in the sun. On day three we walked over a 4650mm pass to Laguna Carhuacocha. We passed some small stone houses and locals selling cola and beer. On day four we walked to Laguna Carnicero over a 4800m pass.

The days seemed to be getting longer as we moved along, never mind the severe amount of undulating terain that we were trudging along!!!! High altitude treking is not a walk in the park!! We did however pass out all other parties during the day, as we enjoyed the stunning views around us. So, different day, different valley of mountians. Some things stayed constant and that was our eating routine......

Awake with the sun about 6am. Sit up in bed and put on a pot of tea. ( a great addition to our equipment is our thermarest seats, turning sleeping mats into seats with back support- thanks Bod & Claire). Tea is followed by porridge and then its time to get out of the sleeping bag!! Pack up bags, take down tent and put on a brew of fresh coffee to enjoy with a biscuit or some chocolate. If we managed

to leave by 8am we were doing well!! Lunch is crackers, cream cheese, salami and onion. On arrival at camp we have noodles, followed by soup. A game of cards, and its time for dinner. Pasta or smash with tuna followed by tea and a tasty treat of chocolate. Pot of water goes on again to make a hot water bottle for Joe ( to subsidise his very cold sleeping bag) and then its time for sleep before we start it all again. Creatures of habit!!One of our pleasures in the mornings was watching the arrieros trying to round up the donkeys.They would wander far from the tents up the side of the far off hills looking for that really tasty grass.

On day five we were in for a treat. It was a short day but also brought the reward of hot springs!!!! We sat in the scalding water, soothing our bodies and chatted to the peruvian porters as they tried to not drown in the pool!!( an entire nation of non - swimmers!!) I however developed a bad sore throat and had to add gargling hot salty water to my food routine!! On day six we decided to really push the boat out and climbed to a pass at 5000m then down to the valley floor and up to another pass at 5100m. The view was wonderful with deep blue lakes sitting below threatening glaciers. We climbed

steadily down to another valley floor and just had the tent up before the rain came!!! You have no idea how tasty a bowl of noodles tastes after a day of hiking like that!! Day seven saw a bit more rain and another very long days hiking, taking us past the small settlement of Huayllapa with more downhill than up!! After breakfast on day eight, we crossed Tapuish pass at 4800m , went down to the valley floor and had lunch with a view of Laguna Susucocha. We then climbed steadily up again to Yaucha pass at 4840m and arrived at Laguna Yahuacocha with aching knees and backs, eager for more noodles!! Up at 4.30am on day nine, we had our last porridge breakfast before a four and a half hour jaunt to the town of Llamac. With a certain sense of survival and relief we feasted on egg sandwiches and beer before negotiating a taxi back to Huaraz.

Sweet Oranges!!

2008-06-26T12:22:00.000-07:00

One of our fondest memories of Huaraz on our last trip here was the mandarina man. We would regularily be woken up in our hostel by this unique salesman. While others have signs and some just shout, this guy had a megaphone! His cries of ¨Mandarina, mandarina, mandarina, dos soles por kilo¨ and ¨Naranja dulce¨ could be heard about the town all day. A true entrepreneur!

I bought some mandarinas from him this morning and they sure are sweet. I asked if I could take a video of him and low and behold he was struck dumb until heckled by a passer-by!Watch the video below.

Sue Celebrates the Big 30

2008-06-24T09:47:00.000-07:00

On from Cuzco and Granville´s Mission

2008-06-17T13:11:00.000-07:00

We decided to leave the crowds of Cuzco which can get pretty hectic at times, the city has changed to say the least. I was here not so many years ago and no doubt it was a popular spot then but the change in the last few years is phenomenal. The quiet guest house I stayed in with Conor Reynolds in 2000? is now a posh restaurant that serves what they call "nuevo Andean cusine", basically the same old dishes of cuy, papas al la huancaina, etc except served in smaller quantities and carefully arranged on a large white plate with a piece of lettuce on the side. Its not bad though. Crumbling back alleys have been restored to former, or in many cases beyond former glory. Prices although have rocketed and ladies dressed in traditional garb hang around street corners with several alpacas in tow, "messter, photo, meester". All said its a fabulous old place once you can avoid the gap year students on drinking binges!

So we had decided that our next stop of any decent length would be the old hunting ground of Huaraz were we could climb and trek. But how to get there? Dad had recommended the town of Ayachucho. It is en route when you glance at the map. However, on more careful inspection you can clearly see nearly all traffic goes via Nazca and Lima, so also does the paved road. One fellow I spoke to who was planning to visit Ayacucho had booked a bus via Lima representing two sides of a triangle.

It was at this point that Granville, Sue´s very quiet teddy bear who is the official third member of this trip quipped "darkest Peru".Isn´t that were Paddington came from? Did you know that its his 50th birthday? Well there you have it, it was decided we were to travel overland through the central highlands to Huaraz and perhaps find the family home of Paddington en route. Without much further ado we booked ourselves a bus with lots of wheels that was capable of the road to Ayacucho, "18 hours no more" the lady in the kiosk said!

We boarded at 7pm and the first few hours of road were pretty good but everyone woke up when we turned off the asphalt. From that point there were three 4000m plus passes dropping down to 2000m in between, all on terribly bumpy unpaved roads. True to form, the bus with many wheels broke down and produced large amounts of smoke from some unknown point. We stood around on the side of the road giving out till a mechanic arrived over the hill at high speed. The scenery was spectacular, although sometimes I was a little spooked to look out the window for fear I might tip the balance of the bus and we´d roll down the hundreds of meters to the valley floor. I feared some of the many wheels mightn´t be on the road, but suspended over the drop due to the sharpness of some of the turns. However, we rolled in to lovely Ayacucho 24 hours later with particularly sore bums.

We spent two days in Ayacucho because its a fine city. According to our guide book it was off limits for some time as it was the home of the Sendero Luminoso, but things have quietened down these days and its more commonly known for the amount of colonial churches it has. As Barry Long pointed out, it is also deep in earthquake territory. There had been two in the last week above 5 on the Richter Scale within 100 miles of us according to my research on the web. Both quite close to the surface, however we haven´t noticed either of them.

We also took time to visit some old stones! These are the ruins of the Wari capital not too far from Ayacucho. The Wari people were knocking about here between the 6th and 12th centuries and ruled the show here in Peru for some of that. It was a nice day out, however we are a little fatigued of old stones at this stage, I think we may have overdone archeology in Cuzco!

From Ayacucho we then took an overnight bus to Huancayo were apparently my oldest brother Lewis fell into the public loo in the market when he was a wee one. We didn´t stay too long here before catching a collectivo (communal taxi) to La Oroya. We stopped here for fried egg sandwiches and coffee. You know when your getting close to La Oroya because all vegetation is dead; it has a refining plant and smelter for the surrounding mines. It has been listed as one of the worlds worst polluted places. The water for our coffee for example apparently had 50% more than the acceptable level of lead according to the World Health Organisation. More interesting I thought was that the air we breathed there had 85 times more arsenic, 41 times more cadmium and 13 times more lead than amounts considered safe. With this in mind we got another collectivo to Cerro de Pasco!

Cerro de Pasco is another mining town with a huge dirty opencast pit that you can´t see the bottom of. It also has lots of greasy chicken and chip shops where we indulged. At 4300m altitude its also the town were Peruvian football clubs play unacclimatised opponents who are much better them, in the hope of a win, much to the danger of their health! We didn´t think much of spending the night here either so took another collectivo with a crazy driver, down to 1900m in less than a 100km to the city of Huanuco. Nearly 20 hours after leaving Ayacucho we could go no further, besides, this town advertised itself as having the best climate in the world and at least there was air to breath and it smelt fresh.

We spent one day in Huanuco enjoying the city and drinking coffee. Its another fine city but I was bunged up with a cold so the day was spent pottering. The next morning we found ourselves another collectivo that took us to a place called La Union. This journey took the guts of the day, climbing up more bumpy roads in our car. We discovered in La Union they love to dig holes, see photo. The main street looked like an elephant had been practicing on his pogo stick. This town was the key to our overland travel to Huaraz, however, the road to it from Huanuco was not marked on any map we could find.

It was somewhere here that Granville had pined his hopes of finding the Paddington family, but after a bit of a search we all agreed that darkest Peru must surely mean the jungle. The landscape here was beautiful and lush and far from dark. We caught an early bus over high passes to Huaraz the next morning.

Cusco and all those Inca Constructions!!!!

2008-06-08T23:35:00.000-07:00

We arrived in Cusco about 4am and us being so clever, had a guy to meet us at the bus station and take us to a hostel with an awaiting bed!! Down town Cusco was in full swing when we finally ventured out refreshed. It being a day with an ¨a¨ it, the locals were all engaging in a bit of parading. We did the sensible thing and found a juice bar to settle in and make our plans for the next few days. Picture on the left is the road beside our hostel.

We decided to take an afternoon city tour which brought us to a few different sites including Q´enqo, Tambomachay( thought to have a religious function related to water and now sold as a fountain of youth!), Pukapukara (a complex of small buildings thought to be where the groupies stayed when the head Inca visited Tambomachay) and Saqsaywaman( a walled complex overlooking Cusco in the shape of a pumas head) . All are ruins of Inca civilizations. Their construction from tightly fitted large stones is a feat of engineering and many suggestions of how they were constructed are available. In Saqsayhaman some of the blocks are as big as a van, but have flat faces and are nestled against their neighboring rock. Pictured on the left. When we returned to town, it being May the 26th I donned my “ I danced at Joe & Sue´s wedding” badge and we went out for a nice dinner together.

Left: Zig zag wall of Saqsaywaman.

The next morning, being determined to drown ourselves in Inca ruins we visited Pisaq (a small Inca village) had lunch in a town called Urubamba and then arrived in Ollantaytambo which was the last village inhabited by the Incas as they were chased from Cusco and is shaped like a husk of corn. On the hills above Ollantaytambo the Incas built a large fort including a temple and huge agricultural terraces. On the cliffs facing there is a mans face in the cliffs, natural or formed by the rock loving Incas I do not know. We left the tour in Oyallantambo and having filled ourselves with a nice pizza we wandered the town until it was time for our train to Aguas Calientes.

Left: Face in the cliffs

The train was mainly full of gringos off to visit Machupicchu and I think we could have walked faster than it travelled. However when I saw the tracks later I was grateful that the driver had not gone faster. We arrived in Agua Calientes and were again met at the station. Sunsan being the name on the sign. They seem to find my name easier than Joe or Hoey or Yoseph! However Sunsan was a new one. We had a brief stroll in the town before heading to bed. Joe did however have a lemonade. One which would wake him in the night and churn his tummy like rolling knives for the whole of the following day!!

Above: terraces at Pisaq.

Right: Joe in his fancy shoes with some trapizoidal windows(that you cant see through!!) Below: building at Pisaq.

Well Aguas Calientes is Gringo central and at 5.30am we were joining a gang in the main square, meeting our guide for the day. We boarded a bus to take us up the endless switch backs to Machupiccu. Yes we are here to hike, but a bus ticket was included in our package! So, with hundreds of others we entered Machupiccu, our first views being on a hill above, looking down across the old settlement. During a brief talk from our guide we enjoyed the sun rise as it crept above the peak of easterly hills. Joe clenched his stomach and wondered would he make it. Macchupiccu was built in the fifteenth century and its construction was lead by Inca Pachacutec. When it was found by Hiram Bingham in 1911 it was covered in undergrowth. A massive operation has cleaned it up to what we see today. Also, I suspect, a bit of reconstruction has been carried out. However, many building are standing with all walls and odd protrusions of rock in place. Our guide offered a few suggestions as to what was what. I was very taken by the whole place, beautifully nestled in the hills. However I did begin to wonder that if the Incas were so great at working with rock why didn´t they move on to greater things! Like developing a type of writing, or inventing the wheel!!! They managed to organize thousands of people to spend years hitting rocks into nice shapes but nothing more that we see today. Perhaps their communication was all wireless, a technology we our only embracing ourselves today!! If so they were truly a great civilisation. Below Left: View across Macupiccu from the terrases. Right: Granville on Huayan Piccu with Machupiccu in the background.

Lake Titicaca and entering Peru

2008-06-06T00:00:00.000-07:00

We eventually managed to leave La Paz!! jumping onto a bus to Copacabana on the shores of Lake Titicaca, away from the madness we booked ourselves into a lovely lakeshore hotel.

Here we were treated with beautiful sunsets which were enjoyed with pisco sours. We took a trip out to Isla del Sol a two hour boat trip on a very slow boat were we enjoyed a days hiking. The island is truly beautiful (see photo below), it is apparently the birth place of the first Inca and therefore the sun. However its also over run with tourist like ourselves on day trips who have been diligently reading the recomendations in their guide books. We did manage to get truly lost! I blame the poor map we had that looked like a Bolivian school child had doodled it on the side of their maths homework! Anyway we just about made the boat back to Copacabana with much help and directions from the ever kind and patient Bolivians.

The next morning we got an early bus to across the border to Peru and Puno. Puno is also on lake Titicaca´s shore, here we booked ourselves into a grotty hotel for the night and onto a guided tour of the chullpas at Sillustani. Chullpas are traditional tombs for nobility, these date from way back to the more recent Inca constructions. The tombs are shapped farely close to a pint glass, narrower at the bottom than the top and up to 12 meters tall at this site (see picure below). The blocks used in this one are roughly shoulder high to give some scale. We also found a particularly photo friendly alpaca, see left!

After near electricution in the shower and a hollow shaped bed it was off the the Uros people who live on floating reed islands. These people seem to have been on the butt end of several aggresive neighbours and decided that safest place for them was on the lake!

They didn´t have 500 years of fore sight to envisage the boat loads of tourists coming to envade them daily. However they have developed a certain skill at the hard sell approach when it comes to the handicrafts they justifiably push! The Uros people and the trip was very interesting and rafts and their houses beautiful. The picture show their on board fish farm with a guinea pig farm behind. If a quarrel breaks out between two habitants of the same island they simple get a big saw out and cut the island in two to separate the two disputing parties! so much for boundary disputes.

Back to Puno and its an overnight bus to Cuzco.

Matterhorn

2008-06-05T12:28:00.001-07:00

The Swiss are not know for their humour but I couldn´t resist putting on a link to this one.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdlmn0WakD8
Its in German but you´ll get the jist.

Machu Pichu Video

2008-06-05T12:28:00.000-07:00

Some jokes never grow old! Sue´s wandering video of the old buildings of Machu Pichu.

Joe tries an Inca slide near Cuzco!

2008-06-01T20:08:00.000-07:00

Blog Reader Quiz

2008-05-29T22:33:00.000-07:00

Now for all you blog readers we`ve decided to hold a quiz with prize(s) to show our appreciation, and to try and get youse all to leave comments. In case you don´t know how to do this click on the comments link in blue at the bottom of each post and write away to your hearts content, we love to get messages! Special thanks to Sonja and family, Lewis and family and Mary L. who are the only regular commentors so far. Prizes for the lucky quiz winners will be sent by post. So without further ado, please find the list of questions below;

1. For all you blog swats out there, how many countries in total have Joe and Sue visited since leaving Dublin last October?

2. Joe has size 45 shoes, compared to most Bolivians and Peruvians shoes like these are only sold to circus clowns and therefore are hard to find. In how many shoe shops in Bolivia and Peru did Joe get laughed at, before he could find a pair of shoes big enougth to buy?

3. Climbing equipment is very heavy and we are carrying quite a lot of it, however we have lost some weight (personnal) since we left, to balance this off we have shed some clothes etc from our rucksacks aswell as purchased some souveniers. What is the current total weight of Joe and Sue and their rucksacks? Answers in kilos please!

To answer the questions leave a comment below with your name, winners of the competition will be announced on the blog, closing date for entries is the end of June. One entry per person, terms and conditions apply!!!

La Paz and the Cordillera Real

2008-05-29T11:31:00.000-07:00

In La Paz we stayed in a place called Hotel Republica quite close to Plaza Murillo where the presidential palace is. We kept our eyes peeled for Evo Morales the controversial Bolivian President, however I think he`s quite busy trying to keep the Santa Cruz province in check (not to mention paying the bills and part of Bolivia!). It has all the newly nationalized gas reserves, pays most of the taxes and is currently talking about autonomy!

The hotel is apparently the home of ex president General Jose Pando before he was assassinated in 1917. A very nice place with one cobbled court yard leading onto another leading onto a small back garden with yes even a couple of small trees. We enjoyed La Paz`s various markets, theatre where a fellow called Mago Bryon produced flapping chickens out of handkerchiefs and made his beautiful assistant dissapear! Not to mention wonderful restaurants and a descent political row which kept the papers selling and the suited men in the coffee shop we frequented tut tutting.

Sue, James and I took a trip to the Condoriri group, a group of mountains within the Cordillera Real about 3 hours drive north east of La Paz. The group is so called because when the principle peak is viewed from afar the principle peak with it´s left and right shoulders looks like a condor, wings half spread as it prepares for take off, see the photo below. The other particularly aesthetic peak we had our eyes on here is called Pequeno Alpamayo, see the photo above (if you look carefully you can see climbers on the ridge and near the summit).

So after organising ourselves a lift as close as we could to the mountain which involved driving across many fields through a river as well as many places that a proper jeep would fear with our driver Jamie and his Toyota Corolla. After this there was a painfull high altitude walk with heavy bags to our base camp scenically nested among the peaks with llamas, alpacas and donkeys for good company not to mention two young English climbers from Newcastle, Tom and Joe who are silhouetted in the photo. We had brought some paraffin in town for our stove which proved a disaster not only did it burn very badly but left a sticky residue on everything and quickly blocked the stove! We just about managed to cook dinner but breakfast was out of the question!

So up very early the next morning, curse several times at the stove, forget about breakie and off we go! Its a short hike up the moraine only to realise that my sun glasses are back in the tent so run back down and gasp my way back to Sue and James who are putting on crampons and roping up at the bottom of the glacier. Its a long old walk up the glacier and this altitude isn´t getting any easier, however we seem to be overtaking the other three parties who have eyes on the same peak, the ascent of Huayni Potosi must of been worth something. To climb Pequeno Alpamayo you have to climb a smaller peak en route called Diente 5200m, from here you get your first view of the spectacular Alpaymayo. We climb down the back side of Diente and up the beautiful snowy ridge of Alpamayo as shown in the first photo. Huffing and puffing we eventually reach the summit, see picture of the red faced James and Sue at 5350m.

There is a fine bum slide back down the glacier and fortunately the kind English lads gave us some fuel so dinner was back on the menu.

The next morning James and I headed off very early to try and climb the cabeza of the condor 5648m (the middle peak in the picture above), there´s a long slog up a steep loose scree slope before we reach the glacier. But this is rewarded by a fantastic arete which leads past a rock step to a knife edge summit. The only problem is that we left too early, or we climbed too fast as we top out roughly a hour before the sun got up and its way too cold to hang around for the sun rise. We troop back down and meet Sue with the now fully working stove for breakfast! We lounge around all day eating the remains of our grub and avoiding the blistering high altitude sun.

The next day its the long tramp back across the wilderness to meet Jamie, in the random field we´d agreed on three days previous. He is there waiting much to our relief and its back to La Paz for beer and food!

Take me higher!

2008-05-28T12:18:00.000-07:00

So, After a few days recovery in La Paz we planned our return to the mountains. Our goal this time was to reach the summit of Huayna Potosi which at 6088m (shown on left) was higher then any of us mountain goers had been before. We hired a driver to take us to our starting point but once again saved countless Bolivianos on donkeys by carrying our heavy bags ourselves! About three hours walk got us to our base camp , on a ridge near a hut. We pitched the tents and made ourselves comfortable. ¨Casa Purser¨ at base camp is shown on the left with the clouds filling the valley below.

The next day James took Brid out on the glaciar for her first go with crampons and he made her struggle up the hill only to slide back down and learn to break with an ice axe. Joe & I threw snow balls and ate food to ensure there was nothing let over to carry back down the hill! On Saturday 10th of May we got up about 12.30am and were rewarded with a beautifully clear night. Some cereal and a cup of tea later we struggled into thermals and raincoats and headed for the glaciar.

At the glaciar edge we roped up in twos and put our crampons on. Joe & I were the first to climb the ice that morning followed by Jim & Brid. We carefully picked our way through the crevasses, past a higher camp and on to the summit shoulder. It took us four and a half hours to get the summit with the last 150m being a 45 degree wall which we climbed on the front points of our crampons. As we passed the 6000m mark we both found this quite a struggle and very long!The sun was still lazing in bed when we got to the summit, the only sign of its arrival a red line across the sky. At 6088m it was a new height for both of us. Joe celebrated by rubbing his hands to warm them up as I sat with my feet in his arm pits!!! It was beautiful up there but cold, cold, cold. A few abseils and we were back at the base of the wall, passing Jim & Brid on their way up. The sun at this stage started to give us a bit of warmth .

Left: Joe at the base of the summit wall.

Below: Sue eagerly awaiting the sun!

It took us about three hours to get back to our base camp. We enjoyed wonderful views of beautiful mountains all around us as we descended. On our arrival at camp we collapsed into bed for a morning siesta before second breakfast. All meals took time as we took turns to collect bags of snow ( white not yellow) to melt for water. Mountain living is rewarding but it sure ain´t easy. In the afternoon Joe & I built a stone wall around our tent in preparation for a storm. As we nestled into our beds that night the sky cracked and our tent was illuminated with huge flashes of thunder. We awoke in the morning to about 4 inches of snow everywhere. We packed our bags took down the tent and descended from the ridge to meet our driver Jamie for the drive pack to Laz Paz. Below: Joe on the morning of our descent from base camp.

Bolivia, its not Chile, its freezing!!

2008-05-20T15:08:00.000-07:00

Top: View down on La Paz Below: Stone statue in Tiwanaku

In our last few days in Sucre we built a wall in the boys orphanage in town. We meet a fellow Irish man who had raised some money and just happened to need a carpenter and some muscle. His plan was to create a play room in the orphanage and it would all start with the building of a partition wall. So with the wall firmly standing we boarded an overnight bus to La Paz. We found a hostel in a nice part of town, near enough to Murillo Square, home to the goverment, so we could hear the regular protests. La Paz is at about 3600m and full of big hills. It is nestled at the base of a bowl and the red brick buildings cover the hill sides. The city is hectic, its only relief is that not a lot of people can afford private cars and so the traffic keeps moving. Police with hand guns, automatic guns, hand cuffs and tear gas stand in groups on corners and practise not smiling. There are many markets around town where one can buy anything from a bag of mystery juice to a llama foetus.

Our first trip out of La Paz was to Tiwanaku, a huge pre-columbian site that was a precursor to the inca empire. There are huge stone structures and open top temples. There is the sun gateway, which gives a calender and many large and wonderful stone statues, all carved out of single pieces of rock. Unfortunately the Bolivians thought it would be great to have one of these statues outside the main football stadium in La Paz. As a result it survived thousands of years only to be hit with bottles by angry football hooligans and damaged. They have just opened a museum in which to put these wonderful artifacts on their original site.

Top: Semi-subterranean temple wall Below: the Sun gate

Our next trip was down hill to Sorata where we overnighted and then walked up to a fine base camp before making it all the way to Laguna Glacial for a pic-nic. We spent a few night on the ridge in the hills, enjoying the amazing vistas whenever the clouds cleared. Luckily when we went to the laguna glacial the clouds lifted and we could see for miles with a wonderful view of lake Titicaca.

Top: The long walk up hill with big bags!! Below: Joe, with fashionable scarf and me!

Top: Base camp in the clouds. Below: Joe enjoys sunset from or base camp

Joe looses his moustache but gains something else!

2008-05-10T13:43:00.000-07:00

Sorry, have spent ages trying to rotate this video but with no joy! Still its this or nothing and this is worth seeing!!

Calama and onwards to Bolivia

2008-04-20T16:45:00.000-07:00

Before we left the overpriced tourist town of San Pedro de Atacama there was one thing left that we had to do, I had seen a sign down town advertising a star gazing evening and after spending evenings in Socaire holding the star chart upside down I figured a bit of education was in order. We reserved another night in our crazy campsite and booked ourselves onto an astrology tour with a french astronomer who has set himselve up with a collection of large expensive telescopes in his back garden a few kilometers just outside town. What followed was a fantastic evening peering through the scopes into infinity while he explained about star signs, planets and galaxies, it was a very informative. He was also able to point out some of the high lights of the southern hemisphere night sky such as the "jewel box" etc. I felt better equipted to deal with the night skies I was hoping to see from the high mountains of Bolivia and Peru. However it was very much a case of "the more you know the less you know". I have attached a photo of Saturn and her rings that we were able to take through on of the telescopes.

From San Pedro it was onto Calama, an industrial mining city in the north of Chile. Here we managed to get a tour around Chuquicamata (one of the worlds biggest copper mines and produces some percentage 30%? of the world´s copper) provided by the generous Chilean government/ Codelco (state mining company) free of charge for curious tourists like ourselves. The main open pit was closed as they were currently increasing its size (check this out on google earth)! However we did get to visit the mines museum, the now deserted miners village (they have since all moved to Calama due to health and safety and the proximity of the mine), the south mine, called Radomiro Tomic which is still colossal in size and some of the refining process. This pit is in the photo to the left. It was mind boggling to look down into such a massive hole and see tiny 9m wide trucks climbing slowly out of the hole on their way to the crusher.

For those that like big trucks (myself included) I managed to get a photo of a broken down one with the zoom of the camera. To give scale to the operations the little flat bed truck to the left could easily fit a JCB on its back, the repair truck tending to the big one would be a head turner in Ireland. The big truck itself full of unrefined copper has a flat tyre! quit how they fix this problem when the trucks fully loaded I do not know!

We had hoped to take the train from Calama to Uyuni in Bolivia, but on further investigation we found out the next passenger train did not leave till October! Disappointed we booked ourselves onto a bus which sevral hours out of Calama overtook the goods train which had derailed in the middle of no where above 4500m, there was a crane in attendance but judging by the people standing around scratching it wasn´t big enough to lift the engine back on the tracks. The bumpy dusty bus suddenly felt much better as raced over salt flats and around smoking snow capped volcanoes and pass the odd flamingo chased by a large cloud of dust. We spent just the one night in Uyuni before catching a further bus to Potosi.

Potosi is a beautiful city in a weird surrounding, Cerro Rico dominates the town like a giant despot statue, it was never really out of sight as we tramped breathlessly around the narrow colonial streets of peeling whitewash, cracking walls, countless churches. Someone should really make a doors of Potosi postcard or book, as far as I could make out most of them seemed to be originals, painted bright colours and made of heavy timber held together with tons of metal studs with a decorative finish, to top them off they were held shut by six or seven outrageous locks a combination of old and new. We spent a couple of days in Potosi visiting deep inside the mountain itself under the care of a rather adventurous guide who led us down rabbit warrens on our hands and knees, squeezing through tiny holes on our bellies and climbing crumbling shafts of loose rubble to meet the miners themselves scratching away at a seem of zinc with a small metal pick and filling up rucksacks full of ore. We traded jokes and the gifts of fizzy orange, coca leaves and sticks of dynamite that we´d brought in the miners market previously, they wondered who would want to visit such a mine on their holidays rather than getting drunk in Santa Cruz for a few weeks! We were all very relieved to eventually see the light of day, I was left wondering about the sweaty dust covered miners who will die long before their time from silicosis if their lucky enough to survive the regular tunnel collapses that occur. In comparison to the well managed operation down the road Chuquicamata, the free for all style mining here seemed crazy, the small workings that we visited had a communal entrance but after that it seemed to be a free for all! dig like crazy and if your hole undermined sombody elses well hard cheese.

We also visited the Casa de Monades (mint) museum where over 45,000 tons of pure silver were cast into "arrobas, ingots and coins" in the first 200 years of Spanish occupation. Very interesting with much of the old wooden mechanical machines for rolling the silver were still intact, various old treasure chest with sophisticated locking methods to keep Walter Raleigh and his pirate friends out. The photo to the left is one of the countless ornate church doors and surrounds.

From Potosi we then travelled to Sucre, here we enrolled ourselves into a week long Spanish course with a very nice Bolivian lady called Margot. We spent 4 hours a day for the next week in her front room learning verbs, structure and general conversations about Bolivia and its culture, Sonja´s Ireland playing cards came in handy as we were able to talk about Ireland (in very broken Spanish) with the help of fifty two John Hynes style postcard coloured pictures. While we were in Sucre, Brid and James met up with an Irish fellow Stephen who has spent the last half year working in an orphanage here, he needed a new wall built so James spent a few days gathering materials and tools we spent a couple of days hammering. We built a large internal wall with the help of lots of the boys, to create a games room at the end of their dinning room which is too big. The wall has since been painted with various murals and the room fitted out with a small stage and a ping pong table, a great success apparently.

San Pedro de Atacama

2008-04-01T08:59:00.000-07:00

After a 48 hour journey from Pucon travelling roughly 17 degrees of latitude north we were mighty relieved to arrive in San Pedro de Atacama in Northern Chile. James and Brid are in town and pick us up from the bus, its great to hook up with them again and after setting up camp in the local camp ground or "halting site" as Jim and Brid have dubbed it. Its Good Friday and all sorts of Chileans have arrived with arm fulls of booze and we settle in for a long night!

The next day we rent mountain bikes and explore the local fort on the hill, cycle through the Quebrada del Diablo (devil´s gorge) and back again wilting under the high altitude sun, we retreat back to the campsite for a late lunch and shade. That evening James and I head off on the bikes through the Valle de la Muerte (valley of death, pretty scary names!) and catch up with the girls at a view point overlooking the Valle de la Luna (valley of the Moon) to view an amazing sunset and enjoy some outrageous sandwiches.

We then organise ourselves to a place called Quebrada del Nacimiento a few miles outside a small town called Socaire, this was reccomended to us by a Chilean climber in Bariloche. Getting there with no car involves a late night bus bringing us deep in the desert darkness for a couple of hours, getting out in a small frontier town, hiking half an hour up the hill and pitching a tent. The next morning we hitch the remaining distance along a dirt road into the nothingness to the climbing gorge situated at 3500m above sea level. We´re giddy with excitement and altitude when we get there and the climbing looks amazing but by the time we pitch the tents and climb two easy routes we´re all suffering with sore heads from the height!

The next week is spent cooking, eating, sunset admiring, star gazing and panting our way up wonderful volcanic rock in the gorge. We had read that you could climb one of the local volcanoes in a "challenging day from the gorge", this will be great fun we thought naively! So we got up at some unreasonable hour and hiked off across the desert with a rucksak full of water and a sun hat in great hope, 5 hours later having reached over 4500m, incurred a bad headache and having got less than half way up the hill we gave up! Back to the safety of our little gorge, shade, games of chess and pasta tuna dinners we thought!

The bus leaves Socaire three times a week we were told at 6am so after 5 nights in the gorge we hike down to town on Saturday and camp on the outskirts, after a small reconnaissance in town we discover that the bus leaves at 4.30pm on Sundays. We lie in bed the next day (Sunday) and potter down to town after eating the last of our supplies and sit and wait in this little town dwarfed by the massive expanse of sand and rock that smother the cluster of houses. We wait some more, James plays cards "snap" with the local children while Brid supervises a games of draughts. Its Sunday and as the afternoon passes the local drunks have now passed the chatty stage and are wondering what were doing there and why were not from Barcelona! we pack our bags and try to move on but by this stage he's fallen asleep on the pavement. We talk to more friendly locals who tell us there's no bus till tomorrow at 6am, with no food left I begin to get worried and knock on doors and manage to buy sufficient grub for one more beautiful sunset and cold starry night.

We catch the bus the next morning, luckily for us as daylight saving has kicked in while we were away, however spring falls back here so were an hour early rather than late.

Back to San Pedro for showers (of the hygienic rather than inclement type!) and we manage to catch the last night of the circus where juggling, spinning plates, aerial acts are interspersed with a hilarious clown called Luppi.

Photos of San Pedro de Atacama and around

2008-03-31T11:40:00.000-07:00

Sue on her bike!

There was a sunset like this every night, Jim and Brid silhouetted here.

Another sunset

The hill doesn´t look that far away does it? The climbing gorge is in the fore ground.

Campfire in the gorge.

James and his friend the cliff.

Gorgeous climbing, Joe sweats his way up another classic while Jim belays below.

Walking back to Socaire after a weeks climbing, could this be the road to nowhere?

The church in Socaire

Circus fun in San Pedro, James, Brid, Sue and Joe.

Sue and Luppi the Clown

Hot springs in Pucon

2008-03-30T13:45:00.000-07:00

So delighted with our ascent of Villarica we treated our selves to some fine coffee and cake in a very obliging cafe in Pucon. We once again filled our bags with pasta and tuna and took a local bus to Huerquehue National park, about two hours out of town.This was to be a short and easy four day walk with our arrival at some hot springs on day two being the highlight. We skirted around lakes and walked through wonderful forests of araucaria trees and watched and listened to Magellanic woodpeckers tapping for their supper. We overnighted in the forest before heading on to the hot springs. Nestled at the edge of a very cold river, boiling hot water ran down the hill and a series of rock enclod}sed pools were formed, at varying temperatures. We toasted ourselves till it was time for dinner, then ate, slept and crawled straight from the tent back in first thing the next morning. The most difficult part of the hike was climbing back out to put on our rucksacks and wander back!

Joe sitting in the hot springs. He is relaxed but the look of concentration is due to the concerns raised by James Lovelock in his book "The revenge of Gaia". Apparently the world is in serious trouble.

Onwards to Pucon

2008-03-30T13:00:00.000-07:00

So, Joe has posted some photos of us climbing in Frey. We spent a week camping by the lake there, with the occasional swim, pasta and tuna as usual and some very fine climbing. We meet an American couple and a Polish couple, also climbing. We were woken one morning by a helicopter that came to collect supplies from a branch of the army that were climbing and hiking also. We were lucky to meet some Chileans who told us of the wonderful climbing in Socaire near San Pedro de Atacama, that Joe writes about above. We said goodbye to Brid & Jim and Craig as they headed off on their own adventures. Brid & Jim chose to rent bicycles and visit a few vineyards in Mendosa and Craig had a date in Brazil. We had our last tastes of Bariloche cake and steak and headed to Pucon, Chile.

Pucon is home to Villarica Volcano. This is an active volcano that gives a wonderful backdrop to the town. Joe & I packed bags with a fine lunch, for extreme picnicing, and our crampons, ice axes and wolly hats. We managed to get a lift to the base of the mountain. The only downside was that we were collected at 4am!Well 3.45am as it turned out. This proved to be a winner as daily, tour groups drag stacks of tourists up to smell the sulphar. We would avoid the crowds and have the top to ourselves.

So, with head torches to light our way we followed switch backs up the mountain until we came upon the snow and ice. The moon was helpful and with the aid of the reflective snow, we no longer needed torches as we carefully climbed up the ice cap. At this stage the sun was begining to rise and colour the sky beautifully. More difficult ground of loose scree of wonderfully formed volcanic rock lead to the edge of the crater. A cloud of stinking sulphur constantly rose from the crater and we could hear a deep grumbling from within. We fed it a bread roll, just to keep it happy, before sitting down to our own lunch. The edge of the creator was also dotted with small jets of sulphur, burping and pulsing out.

On the way down we spotted a well established ice slide. A short cut to avoid the steepest section of the downhill ice trudge. Joe, poised with ice axe, climbed in and descended the mountain at high speed. Im delighted to anounce that although I could see the spray of snow as he desperately tried to perfom an ice axe break before reaching the scree at the bottom, he made it down without a scratch. His biggest complaint being that his bottom was quite cold!!!

Joe meets a condor!

2008-03-30T12:27:00.000-07:00

While on our very long walk, in the hills above Bariloche, we were greatly rewarded. As we descended down into a valley we could see a condor perced on the cliff edge. We then noticed a second as it swooped in to try an unnerve its companion. Joe was able to get quite close before the resting bird simply "dropped" of the cliff edge, into an updraft and continued to hunt for lunch.

What happened in February??

2008-03-30T11:30:00.000-07:00

Well, I shall make an attempt to fill in the blanks. We headed north from Puerto Natales to El Cafate an onwards to El Chalten. Both towns are tourist traps with wooden chalets and expensive coffee and cakes. El Chalten is the gateway to Parque National Los Glaciers, home to Fitroy and Cerro Torre, two fine mountains. We camped in the town and got use to eating dust. The locals were busy puting in a tarmac road and pouring their first footpaths so when the wind blew we all got sand blasted and boy did it blow. We bought a stack of food and walked the 3 hours up to a high camp in the hills. A popular spot with easy access to loads of nice walks. Joe, Brid & James all decided to spend a day getting sick and I was nearly driven to writing poetry about the windy conditions. We woke up covered in dust daily and walked to some fine lakes, to see a wonderful glacier, and to climb the ridge of Cerro Madsen only 1806m but my first Patagonian peak.

Our return to town saw the start of our true fine living. The local shops were very uninspiring but they did sell chunks of red meat. So a series of barbques were lit and enjoyed and we downed chunks of meat like we had never seen before. We also experienced a day of rain followed by a day of wind and that was enough of El Chalten for all of us. I did get the scissors out on the windy day and cut Joes hair. The before and after can be seen here. He returned from the shower with a hairy molly on his lip and I nearly fell over with laughter when I saw it. The french man beside me at the time didnt know what was wrong as he was support a similar growth. All the rage down here a Joe kept it for some time!! A constant source of laughter. Also took a while for the ¨Joe, theres something on your lip¨ joke to not catch him out.

Onwards by overnight bus to Bariloche, with Jim & Brid hanging with the hippies in El bolson for a few days on the way. In Bariloche we once again camped, 3km out of town, to avoid high tourist prices and noisey hostels. Barbques were once again lit and we feasted on even larger chunks of meat and the finest of Malbec wines. Our days started with a swim in the nearby lake that Bariloches sits beside. Oh so different from when we were there on our honeymoon. The sun was splitting the rocks and rain was a thing of the past.We soon found a good coffee house with fab cakes.

You may notice I talk of food a lot. You need to understand that this is not an obsession. It mearly stems from the fact that when in the mountains we have a stable diet of porridge, pasta and tuna, packet soup and cake if we are lucky. Lunches are usually a sandwich, but after 3 days most bread is pretty lame.

So, with bags full of pasta and tuna, we decided to go for a walk. A long one. Six days in total. Not roundabout but strangely up and down. From a place called Pampa Llinda to somewhere else called Colonia Suiza, for all you budding atlas users. Undulating said the guide book. With all our gear and food it was a challenge to get up the valley sides. However, the nature of the walk meant that we camped in a new valley every night, with Mount Tronador a constant companion in the distance. Called mount thunder as ice is constantly crashing off the glacier giving a threatening noise! We had a lake at each camp and our very own valley to enjoy. The sun blazed down on us as we climbed about 500m up and 500m down each day.With quite a few kilometers in between. Sun hats were all the fashion and snow balls were thrown, pasta and tuna were eaten and glacial lakes were swum in.We treated ourselves to a cold beer on reaching a hut on the second last day.

On our return to Bariloche we met a friend of ours Craig Starkey (featuring in a photo below) in the camp site. Stories were exchanged and steak was eaten. Now our group of five headed to the hills again but this time to climb.

I need a rest, its hot here and I think Im sweating pisco sours...

A selection of photos from the last month

2008-03-10T13:29:00.000-07:00

Steak dinner last night with our U.S. climber friends Jay and Torey. Moustaches are all the rage down here!

This ones in here for those that are sick of work.

Mother spider with lots of babies, if you look closely on her back.

Sue half way up another 5 star granite crack Bariloche.

Torre Principal, near Refugio Fray, Bariloche

Elaine and Paul, Bariloche. The effects of too many months of travelling are easily seen.

Craig Starkey leads the way!

Sue gets handy with the camera, a lizard in the hills

Fitzroy in Patagonian Argentina

Evening light, camping beside a lake called C.A.B. near Bariloche, nothing to do with the criminal assests bureau unless Martin Cahill brought areas of Argentina!

Condors in action near Bariloche.

2008-03-10T13:25:00.000-07:00

Rule no. 1 Never eat anything bigger than your head!

2008-03-10T13:22:00.000-07:00

Torre Norte, Torres del Paine

2008-03-10T11:48:00.000-07:00

James summits!! It was a wee bit windy for standing up!

Eight days to bag a summit in Torres del Paine is optimistic to say the least, people come here for months and sometimes don´t even get to see the summit let alone climb one! However this was all the time, food and fuel that we had. James and I struggled getting all the appropriate pieces of paper required and lost several days between administration offices in Puerto Natales and park head quarters pleading with anyone who looked official. Everything fell into place just as we were giving up hope and wondering if you really need a permit after all, there aren´t going to be any bureaucratic park rangers half way up one of these mountains we thought. Suddenly the fax machine sprang into action and produced a stamped application form sent from Santiago
after the man with the pointy hat had jiggled the wires at the back.

With permit in hand and very heavy ruck sacks on back we stomped our way up the valley to the Japanese base camp which became our home for the next week. Here we fell quickly into the routine of the alarm clock going off every morning around 2am, pushing snooze as many times as possible before getting out and checking the weather, if this was good breakfast of porridge was scoffed down before marching further up the valley high above the tree line into the land of wind and granite. It takes four hours of hard walking up loose unstable scree and talus to get to the base of the route and its heart breaking to get half way only to have clouds appear out of no where and to feel rain, sleet, snow or some combination of the three driven on the wind.

Did I mention the wind, the first morning we hiked to the bottom of the route and we thought everything was go till we heard a gust roaring round the strangely named silent valley. I thought Ireland was a windy old spot but it doesn´t compare to here. I´m sure you´ve all tried the lean or recline back in the wind trick at some stage in Ireland, you would literally be blown away into the next valley by some of the gusts. Anyway we got all our equipment to the base of the route and looked up to the col Birch a third of the way up the tower and 150m or so up our route. The noise of the wind been squeezed through this 3m wide gap between the Central and North Towers sounded like a jumbo jet taking off! Another day we thought and tromped back down the knee twisting loose scree for another day of endless games of chess and talking about food!

We had three false starts over the six day wait and I had given up all hope, there had been quite a bit of fresh snow which would now mean ice in the cracks of the climb. However the mountain blinked and although conditions were far from perfect, we managed somehow fumble our way up the tower in all our stormy weather clothes. I was surprised to say the least, we just kept our heads down and our eyes on the weather and the next thing that happened was that we had run out of mountain! Short congratulations take a couple of photos and lets get out of here before the real weather wakes up. We down climb and abseil and our ropes didn´t blow away or get wrapped around some spike of rock out of reach despite the ever increasing gusts!

We get back to the bottom of the climb and I feel humbled and honoured. I know also that Patagonian climbing deserves its reputation.

Old beer cans from bygone climbers, these rusty Guinness treats need a tin opener to get to the elixor inside! There was a large stash of these half way up the scree slope near the Bonnington bivioac.

The Japaneese camp crew from left to right Witeck (South Africa), Dave (USA), Jonathon (Spain) and James. If its worth a mention Jonathon was the chess champion after many a day waiting!
A wide van and a narrow bridge, James walks away from the Torres, Torre Norte is the twin peaked spires above and left of the van.

A walk in the park, Torres del Paine.

2008-03-10T11:32:00.000-07:00

We flew from Santiago to Punta Arenas where we ate fine hamburgesas and walked to the sea to throw a stone in the Straights of Magallan. We had seen our first steaming volcano out the window of the plane as we flew south above the Andes. We then took a bus for a few hours north and finally arrived in Puerto Natales. Our home for the next few days, we settled in a hostel and scouted out the local bakery. Our plan was to head to Parque National Torres del Paine on Tuesday morning. Brid & I to walk what is know as the circuit, ( a 7 day circumnavigation of the towers in the park) and Joe & James, having jumped through many hoops of bureaucracy to climb Torre Norte. So with the teams decided we filled up on local treats and did a large grocery shop in town. Us girls needed to carry all our food for the 7 days as well as our tent and sleeping equipment and raincoats, hats, suncream, fuel for the stove and three quaters of a kilo of cake! Needless to say our bags were on the heavy side and we only had one outfit of clothes each. So we took a bus with Joe & James to the park entrance and wished them the best on their climb. The hardest part of our journey had arrived. We needed to put our bags on our backs and start walking!

So, day one we walked 16.5km to Puesto Seron and I ended the day by being sick and Brid had to eat dinner alone. Day two we walked 19km to a camp site by Lago Dickson having turned the corner around to the north of the park with a wonderful view accross Lago Paine. We wandered along the flood plain of the river in very hot sun with very little shade. Once we had set up camp we closely examined Brid´s feet to discover that blisters were appearing. She was suffering and we had many days of walking left to go! A chat with porters that were walking with a tour group informed us that bad weather was heading our way. We decided to rest ourselves and stay by the lake for the following day and sit out the storm. Over the next four days we walked another 42km through old burnt and new regenerating forests, though a high mountain pass and down to the edge of Glaciar Grey; 27km long and 4km wide. Huge chunks of ice fall from the end of the glaciar and float down the river. The deep blue icebergs give a vivid colour to the grey glacial melt water of the river. I crept out of the tent at night to get a wonderful view of the stars, with no light pollution from anywhere. We were also lucky enough to here the tap, tap, tap, of a woodpecker and to spot it at work, pecking for it´s dinner.

We spent an extra day lounging about at the camp site beside Lago Pehoe and spent our evening practising our spanish on locals and tasting pisco sours. We enjoyed a boat journey along Lago Pehoe before catching a bus back to Puerto Natales for pizza. We had just pampered ourselves back to full health and washed off seven days of dirt when Joe & James returned triumphant from climbing Torre Norte.

Santiago

2008-03-10T11:10:00.000-07:00

Guillermo full of fish!
Merial, and her new tree in Santiago

We arrived in Santiago to beautiful sunshine much to the delight of Sue who had just brought two new dresses leaving New Zealand (these are modelled by Brid and Sue above in the photo). We hooked up with James and Brid, met with Max´s friends Pablo and Maca from Cambridge for dinner, Mum´s friend Merial Bacigalupo who convienantly needed a tree planted in her garden upon our arrival before we guzzled her fabulous dinner. Also a glutonous meal out with Dad´s collegue Guillermo who took us to their old eat sea food till you drop haunt ¨La Tasca del Altamar¨. I should also mention the numerous coffees, strolls up Santa Lucia and Cerro San Cristobal parks in the city centre.

Time Travel

2008-03-09T18:34:00.000-07:00

Saturday the 19th January was no ordinary day for Joe & I. Early in the morning we left a hostel in Christchurch, not missing breakfast of course. We returned our rental car and headed to the airport. A short flight to Auckland, where I fought with airport security due to them seizing our fuel bottle for our pressure stove. We indulged in second breakfast and by noon we were blowing the last of our New Zealand dollars on earrings (okay I was). We then boarded another plane for Santiago Chile. I was all lined up for some grub a beer and a nights sleep on the plane but something rather strange happened.

They served us dinner. Nothing wrong there. There was talk of the clocks changing and I adjusted my watch. After dinner we got coffee. With the adjusted time it was coming up to 1am. Quantas served us ice cream. Ice cream. 1am. A beer to clear the palate. Another film. Think I might have snoozed a bit but nothing substantial. After a bit of turbulence we arrived in Santiago, Chile, and then they made the announcement. ¨Ladies & Gentlemen, welcome to Chile. The time is now 9am on Saturday 19th January¨. Strange, I thought. How did we do that? As we waited for our luggage I begin to doubt we had moved at all. Different place, same day? Breakfast I suppose. Time for a cafe con leche.

Saturday the 19th of January was no ordinary day for Joe & I. Early in the morning we ARRIVED at a hostel in Santiago, not missing breakfast of course.

Sydney To South Island, New Zealand

2008-02-07T14:30:00.000-08:00

Above: Mount Rolleston from across the valley Joe & Sue at the Wamikari river

The ridge up to Lows Peak

Joe had a great idea while in Sydney; car rental!!! Within two hours of arriving in Christchurch we had spilled all fifty five kilos plus of our gear into the back seat and boot of a one litre Toyota starlet and were on our way to Arthurs pass!! She may be small but once we learnt what the 2 and L meant on the automatic gear box we were cruising along nicely. We rented a map and headed up Con's track to the summit of Mount Cassidy. From there we had a wonderful view of the surrounding South Alps. It was the perfect location for a fine picnic.

Our next destination was in the north of the south island, Takaka. We drove for about six hours with the ipod playing in the car as we gave some time to our spanish lessons. We were heading to ´Hang Dog´ Camp site. Set up by a local climber it provides camping at a cheap price, right beside Paynes Ford Park. The park is home to a lovely line of rock faces which are frequented by sport climbers. ( Unlike in Ireland, where permanent fixtures are not allowed, all the routes have bolts. Instead of the leader placeing small wedges in the cracks for protection, traditional climbing, they simply clip a fixed bolt, sport climbing). It didn´t take long for our arms to ache and our finger tips to weep. We spent about a week up north, climbing in Paynes Ford & Pohara , swimming in the many swimming holes and wandering in the national parks. The weather was extremely similar to Ireland and our rain costs got quite a bit of use. We went for a wander at the farewell spit but the heavy rain & mist prevented us seeing across to the north island.

We camped for the whole two weeks in our fine new tent. We cooked on the stove and sat out in the evenings under a wonderful bright sky, bulging with stars. Orion and the southern cross in view. On our return journey to Christchurch we stopped again in Arthurs Pass and waited for a fine settled day. We chose to Climb the ridge of Low´s Peak and then carry on to the summit of Rolleston. We started at 8 am and got back to the car at 8pm, so a long day. It started with a hike as we came through a lovely forest being followed by small birds, calling to us on our way. As we rose above the trees we moved on to steeper terrain where we scrambled up the ridge to the top of Low´s peak. Time was against us so we didn´t climb the last ridge to the top of Rolleston. We instead started our descent. Absailing first to a snow field and then glissading down it, to walk out through numerous scree fields. On discovering that we had missed the shop we treated oursleves to a hot dinner in a restaurant and a fine cold beer, or two.

We overnighted in Christchurch, giving us time to spill the contents of the car into a car park and coax it back into our bags. An early start on Saturday 19th January and we were in the airport waiting for a flight to Auckland for an onward flight to Santiago, Chile.

KL to Down Under

2008-01-14T19:48:00.000-08:00

Joe trying Victors new boat

Right so, lets get you all even more up to date.

After the Christmas cheer had passed we planned our departure form KL. The grueling job of packing our rucksacks was eased with some cold beers and a small box of somethings being left behind.I was entrusted with the purchasing of the bus tickets for Singapore. This resulted in us having to be up about 5.30am ish Fri 28th to grab our bags wave goodbye to the luxury of Max & Joanie's apartment and hop in a taxi for the bus station down town. Six hours of a journey brought us across the strait of Johor and into the heart of Singapore. We had a few hours to kill in the airport and then were greeted by Victor in Sydney airport at 7.30am Sat 29th. We were truely grateful to be collected especially at such an early hour in the middle of Victors holidays. We dropped our bags in Victor & Craig's apartment in the centre of Sydney, grabbed a cup of tea and flushed the toilet to check the direction of flow. Tests are continuing.... The beach was next on the agenda and a short drive brought us to one of Sydney's lovely beaches for a swim in the South Pacific. At this stage we did begin to feel we were squeezing a bit too much into the last few days of 2007!

We stayed a week in Sydney in total. Our days were packed with regular swims on the many beaches and a few boat trips. We went for an afternoon of kayaking in Royal National Park which was followed by some rather tasty apple pie with ice cream. Another day we rented boats and paddled out from Rose Bay into Sydney harbour to Shark Island which we carefully circumnavigated. Joe, being the better at steering a kayak, took the rear seat. This also meant I couldn't take too many rests!! Our efforts were rewarded with a fine lunch of fish and chips from a nearby shop. Our lack of seagull spray meant we had to be extra vigilant.

One morning Joe tucked Victor's surfboard under his arm & I grabbed my bikini and we got a ferry out to Manly Head, across the harbour. There was a massive swell and Joe braved the waves to catch some surf. Most of the other people surfing were about a third of his age and ripping it up, but I can safely say he did Ireland proud!! We went to a selection of fine restaurants in the city and got a small taste of what it has to offer. There are plenty of parks to wander about in and enjoy the shade from the trees, while spotting fruit bats dangling from their feet and beating their wings gently to stay cool. The waterfront is lined with beaches or harbours and public walkways, with plenty of opportunity for coffees, pies or ice-cream.

For New Years Eve we were generously treated. Victor & Craig got us tickets to access a park with a full view of the opera house and Sydney Harbour bridge. We had a fine picnic dinner with a group of their friends and then sat back to watch the fabulous fireworks ringing in the new year!!! There were two fine shows of pyrotechnics; a short display for the youngsters at 9pm ( which had everyone ohhing and ahhing!) and a huge display, launched from the bridge, a few high rise buildings and many boats in the harbour for midnight. It was all arranged to music and had us all upstanding and gobsmacked.

For our last day in Sydney we took a tour of the art gallery and the Opera house. It was lovely to see inside the opera house's different concert rooms and also to appreciate the massive job which its construction presented (even on holiday were still engineers!!!).

The evening of Jan 4th once again found us packing. Now with a two man tent to fit in my rucksack, I said goodbye to a few more clothes. Joe chose to wear his new boots on the plane and squeeze his new sleeping bag into his hand luggage.

AT 6.30am Jan 5th we bailed into another taxi, waved goodbye to a very tolerant and kind Victor & Craig and headed to the airport. Sparing a thought of course for my brother, David, who climbed even closer to middle age!! We blew our last few Australian dollars on a noodle breakfast and headed to Christchurch, New Zealand.

Christmas In Kuala Lumpar

2008-01-13T15:57:00.001-08:00

Sue meets that special man...

A glimpse of the desert buffet

The challenged diners!

Questions answered

2008-01-13T15:31:00.000-08:00

Dear all , thanks for the comments on the previous post, Sue is currently typing like crazy so we could nearly be up to date soon. Anyway questions posted....its is great to get them.

1.Have we tried the birds nest soup? No, this soup is very expensive and generally not even eaten locally. The soup however is meant to have many powerful properties genuine or not I cannot tell, among this impressive list is that it can help with asthma, impotence, provide general longevity and health. However going by the market price it is certainly not good for your wallet!

2.Cheeky Monkeys, tell Sean, Adrain and Iseult that the best way the best way to frighten off a cheeky monkey is to open and shut an umbrella in there direction, it was are only effective defense. There were people sitting around the cafe at breakfast time who had their boiled eggs stolen off the plate in front of them while they were not watching! One the monkey has stolen the food he then has to protect it from the other monkeys who want to steal it from him!! an aggressive chase begins that goes up and down trees, along electric wires and crashing through the bushes at great speed with lots of screeching.

3. The mangrove crabs are very small, a big one complete with claw is about the size of a two euro coin.

4. Right now, we are sitting in an Internet cafe in a town called Takaka, Golden bay, the north end of the south Island, New Zealand. It should be on an atlas or Google World. Today we are driving back south to Arthurs Pass (east of Christchurch) to do another climb or two in the alps.

Thanks Sonja, Vasco, Cillian and Tess for the cards and parcel at Christmas.

Love to you all and thanks for the comments,

Joe

Back to KK by boat and onwards to KL

2008-01-13T15:26:00.000-08:00

After Niah caves the weather sort of gave up. Faced with a few days of rain we made the best of a Mr Purser Christmas gift, with two night in a fancy hotel. We fine tuned our buffet skills and dipped in the pool. After a few days we headed on by boat to Brunei. Unfortunately our people did not inform the Sultan's people that we were on our way. He wasn't home. We changed boat and visited Lebaun a small island ( Sabah) where the Japanese finally surrendered. We charged back to Kota Kinabulu and managed to squeeze in two more scuba dives on the beautiful Palau Gaya before flying back to KL.

Christmas was all in the streets and every time we went into a coffee shop the staff would root out and put on some Christmas jingles just for us!! KL was a blaze of light and we were very cosy in Max & Joanie's apartment again. They had left us some tasty Christmas treats to ease the jingle. So, time to think of the ending year and of folk back home and search the Internet for cocktail recipes or who from the family is on line for a chat. And think what the new year will bring.

On Christmas morning we went for a fine swim in the pool before heading into town to the Westin Hotel. Courtesy of M & J we joined a large lunch do in a lovely hotel. Christmas Buffet with lashings of bubbles! Every bit of fine food you could think of and about 12 different salads, The barbeque had a whole lamb turning on a spit above it! We were even lucky enough to meet Father Christmas and some of his helpers. It was lovely to chat to family at home on line and lounge about digesting. The building site next door was still building away and KL was still in full swing. But in our little corner it was Christmas, with tree and cake and pudding and mince pies...........

Niah Caves

2008-01-07T21:10:00.000-08:00

The mouth and main entrance to Niah Cave, a settlement for early man. The roof is also a hunting ground for the swift nest picking locals.

Gunong Santobong

2008-01-07T21:06:00.000-08:00

We climbed this mountain opposite via a series on Indiana Jones style ladders followed by a swim on the famous Damai beach

Bako Pitcher Plant

2008-01-07T21:04:00.000-08:00

There were lots of these in Bako, different varieties and sizes too

December Sandy Bays

2008-01-07T21:01:00.000-08:00

2008-01-07T20:33:00.000-08:00

Sarawak and beyond,

Its over a month since we last updated this blog, trying to go back that long in a diary is easy, you just give a list of places you went to and things that you saw. This online blog is more difficult than that people might read it and will not be able to fill in the gaps that my memory does once jolted with a few choice bits of information.

Maybe I'll just talk about a couple of days that stand out and add a couple of photos to make you all jealous back home. It seems a whole lot easier than trying to tell an exciting story about travelling on a boat, a local bus, a national bus and then a night in a grungy hotel/ guest house where the brothel next door payed music till late a night. This is then followed by getting back on more buses and taxis the next day fitted with high pitched alarms that sounded whenever the driver topped the speed limit (most of the time). These left us in the middle of jungle nowhere and late a night, where we are left to rely on a drunk local who I trek off through the bush with to wake up his brother to help us find accommodation as the thunder deafenly cracks and the tropical rain starts. Sue sits quietly under a shelter wondering what step it was exactly that led her off on this random tangent in life!

The bits about back packing that no one wants to hear (maybe they do? leave a note at the bottom and let us know) and no one tells you about! So without further ado here's some stories and pictures of adventure, dare and do, fantastic scenery, amazing places that were enjoyed in between the bits where you were wondering whether the next meal would leave you crippled over the loo for a week and if you fell asleep in the bus station whether you'd wake up in just your pants wondering where all your stuff had gone!

Bako National Park, we spent a few days here near Kuching in Sarawak, Borneo and although the accommodation and the food here was grotty (dinner smelt a bit like Mum's hen food that would be left to stew overnight) the park itself still stands out as a highlight. The weather was wonderful it had been the first few really good days that we'd had for a week or so. We spent several days using the park headquarters as a base, these are accessed by boat and from here one can sweat your way to beautiful beaches through various types of forest, peat bog and mangrove with plenty of wildlife thrown in to boot. Proboscis monkeys, cheeky macaque monkeys who can steal your lunch quicker than lightning and get upset when you try and stop them! Snakes who one had to be always conscious of that you don't stand on them, adders, cobras and the like mot to mention the mangrove crabs with the long one claw roughly the same size as the body for fighting off rivals and attracting a mate by waving it in the air.

All of the beaches we visited were completely empty picture postcard affairs were we eat sandy sandwiches in the shade and swam in the murky brown water carrying in it the silt from the jugle rivers. Sue picked up a nasty sting on one beach and because the water was so brown we had no idea whether it was a jelly fish or some type of nasty poisonous fish.

Niah Caves was another visit that stood out, these massive limestone caves are impressive to say the least no just because of there size, you could easily fit the Red Cow junction, Luas and all inside the main entrance with traffic tail backs to boot. We treked deep inside these past the point of pitch black and through the mountains of bat poo to a huge sunlit chamber a vast hall with holes in the roof where shafts of tropical sunlight shine through. Looking up at these blinded by the bright lights one can make out the lengths of timber coupled together with timber pegs from which the specialist locals use to gather the valuable birds nests for the famous soup. Even as a rock climber I cannot fail to be impressed, shunting up and down these poles, 100m up and scrambling around the guano covered ledges in the cave roof, dripping with sweat and no doubt been atacked by birds and bats with not a safety rope to be seen seems like pretty serious buisness to me. We sit by the cave mouth as the sun sets and watch the swifts fly into the cave mouth for their evenings rest while avoiding the outgoing bats.

One man and his door went to climb a mountain

2007-12-07T17:15:00.001-08:00

This man carries a hardwood door (45Kg) up 3000m of altitude in the tropical heat and rain.

Semporna to Sandakan & back again

2007-12-07T00:48:00.000-08:00

Well, we headed to near Ranau, the start of the trail to the summit of Mount Kinabulu but alas the rain that fell in KK continued to fall. We decided to head on and after the exchange of much information and many bits of paper secured our guide for the journey. The walk to the huts at 3300m took us just over 3 hours to complete and it was a sweaty rainy uphill affair, (with the occasional stop for cheese and crackers). We passed the evening cooking noodles and watching squirrels run about outside the window of our hut. We got up at 2.30am, expecting the return of our guide at 3am to head for the summit. The rain however had a different idea and along with the wind it would have made a miserable accent. Our guide never showed and we returned to bed. Our guide returned in the morning and shared our disappointment and apologised profusely. At this altitude we are above the tree line with no wind shelter and so walking up a granite face with monsoon rain pouring down it is not really the most sensible approach. No one climbed the mountain that day!! We walked back to the park head quarters where Joe sweated through a particularly hot Tom Yam soup see picture!

Next we flew to Tawau and were collected at the airport for a transfer to Semporna (hope you all have an atlas!) From there we got a boat for a 1hour trip put to an old oil rig, located near to Mabul Island. The rig was used for drilling in Panama before being moved to Singapore and then to Labuan where it was refitted to accommodate a tourist fishing village. Then some smart person moved it to its current location and opened it to divers enabling access to a number of world class dive spots at reasonable prices. ( http://seaventuresdive.com/ if any one fancies a read) With our own en suite room, five meals a day and four dives a day, at different locations, we have been spoilt. We had early morning boat trips to Sipidan with flying fish whooshing past and schools of dolphins and large tuna breaching the water. Sipidan is now a military base with no one allowed to over night. It was once a hutted resort but the kidnapping of tourists by pirate Filipinos put an end to that!! Luckily its reefs are still open to 120 divers a day max and you are allowed to enjoy the beach while having a picnic lunch. The island is surrounded by a wonderful reef which is a snorkellors delight. However, a few meters from the shore there is a drop of 600m to the sea floor and an entire new world to explore!! We had the pleasure of diving along side fish of wonderful colours, green turtles, hawkbill turtles, huge schools of barracuda and jack fish, moray eels, white tip sharks, grey reef sharks, cuttlefish, crabs, and an array of coral reef life!!!

When we returned to Sempora we traveled by bus (6 hours!) to near Sandakan where we joined up with a tour guide and headed for a 1 hour boat trip along the Kinabatangan river. We saw an orangutan and its baby lunching in a tree and a few proboscis monkeys and many macque monkeys jumping about. We stayed in small huts with mosquito nets and were taken on night treks into the jungle and along the river. There were more mosquitos then I could ever imagine but it was worth it. I got some lovely photos of kingfishers (saw three types!) frogs and even a crocodile!!! It was wonderful to see all these creatures in their natural habitat, one of the areas in Borneo that has not been completely cleared to enable the planting of palm oil.

While in Sandakan, we also spent some time wandering around a memorial park, which occupies the location of a once prisoner of war camp. The Japanese kept British and Australian men prisoner here and it is the starting point of the dreadful death marches to Ranau. Of all those held and marched only 6 survived to tell the world what went on. We also visited the house of American author Agnes Keith who was also taken prisoner. She lived in the expatriate area of Sandakan, on a hill above the town. We had a fine three course lunch in the English tea house & restaurant next door to her house and watched the sun set across the town.
A bus journey west of Sandakan brought us to Sepilok, home to an Orangutan rehabilitation centre. This enclosed jungle are is home to about 30 monkeys preparing themselves to get back to the wild. We watched as the keeper delivered bunches of bananas to the feeding platform and they all had a good munch. Many sat in the platform while others swung from ropes with their feet while peeling bananas with their feet!!! The macque monkeys are also inhabitants there and tidy up after the orangutans.

Before returning to Kota Kinabulu we decided to have another stay on the oil rig and enjoyed four more fabulous days of full time diving!! A total indulgence but an unforgettable experience. We also went for two nights dives, underneath the rig, where an artificial rig has been set up. It's a different world at night with just our torch lights to lead us. We managed to get back safely to the rig lift where, as Joe clambered out there was a scream of "SEA SNAKE!", which sent us into a panic. He managed to scramble to his flippered feet and we soon discovered it was a moray eel!!! Phew. If the sharks didn't get us we weren't going to be bitten by snakes!!

Tomorrow we fly to Kuching in Sarawak. We hope to visit a few national parks and check out the beaches. The Christmas decorations are up in Kota Kinabulu and my skin is peeling from the sun!!! I can confidently state that we have fully adusted to 24/7 holiday mode and look forward to whatever adventures the next few weeks will bring.

Hello to all in Baile Ath Cliath and beyond!!

Kuala Lumpur with Max and Joanie

2007-11-18T00:14:00.000-08:00

Whats happened since............. well there has been a couple of developments, a trip to Max's sports club established Sue as 10 pin bowling champion despite the best efforts of Max and myself she came out clear winner in a best of three, we will have to schedule a return trip here before we leave KL to sort this out.

We also took a trip down to see the fire flies close to Kuala Selangor, this involved a short boat trip on the river to see thousands of flies light up the bushes overhanging the water like Christmas trees, not only this but the flies somehow managed to coordinate their lights so they flashed on and off at the same time. The motor on the boat was electric so we drifted down stream in near silence broken only by the ominous cracks of thunder of the approaching storm and the various jungle bug noises that provided the ever constant background hum.

Thursday was the start of Dewali so a national holiday here, it started with a lazy morning which like all good lazy mornings involves a large slow breakfast, this was followed by a swim before packing the car for the long weekend. Max an Joanie have taken Friday off so we headed north east to Teman Negara national park a massive area (4000 kilometers sq) of dense rain forest in the Malay peninsular interior. The idea was to do a bit of jungle hiking and spend a bit of time out of the city, the first night there was torrential rain which clattered down onto the roof of our little chalet. The next day was dryer and we decide to hike to a small waterfall called Lata Berkoh where we could swim, we booked a return long boat to pick us up for the return journey. Four hours they told us at the information office, this couldn't be too bad we thought and packed three litres of water between the four of us and set off following the narrow muddy trail through the thick bush. It didn't take long before we began to get an impression of what we were really in for, soaked in sweat and then the leeches hit, no sooner than you stopped to remove the three crawling up you socks than there would be another six on your shoe! We have since learnt that if you can avoid the jungle the day after heavy rain, wear heavy dernier ladies stockings tucked into you
long trousers and gaiters if you handle the heat you stand a better chance against these parasites. Leeches detect there prey by heat so the more things you can wrap around your legs to prevent them radiating heat the better. We sang all the jungle songs and told as many jungle jokes as we could think of, the highlight of the walk had to be seeing the monkeys leaping down over 20ft from one high tree to another. Anyway after the 16th leech was removed from Max and we managed to find the waterfall we were much relieved to take the long boat back down stream to where our chalet was. The river was in spate after the heavy rain and swimming seamed like too risky an operation.

The next day we followed a much more popular hike (less leeches for some reason) up a nearby hill called Teresek where we managed to see out through the dense jungle for a brief moment to the vast expanse of rolling rain forest which seemed to go on and on for ever, three black winged hornbill birds flew by and I thought I saw an elephant but couldn't say for sure. As the saying goes you couldn't see the elephants for the trees! From here strolled down to the canopy walkway where Joanie who is afraid of heights stunned us all as she strode confidently along a swaying rope bridge 45m above the ground suspended from tree to tree.

On Sunday we drove back to KL just in time for a bowling rematch however Sue won the best of three again this time scoring over 150 points!. Monday morning and its time to say goodbye to Max, Joanie and the comforts of their KL apartment and swimming pool! Today we fly to Kota Kinabalu in Eastern Malaysia at the north end of the island of Borneo.

Since we have arrived here, Sue has completed her scuba diving course, I went along as a refresher, its been a few years since my training in Australia. One day in a class room followed by two days diving around the islands just off Kota Kinabalu; Pulau Gaya and Pulau Sapi. This was great fun with lots to see, large fan corals, corals shaped like huge urns, a green turtle and a couple of colour changing cuttlefish right in front of my nose. Now that we are both qualified we have booked a flight for Friday to Tawau on the east coast and we hope to spend a few days diving around Pulau Sipadan next weekend. No sharks yet but there should be plenty there however although dangerous they are not aggressive and it is a very popular place for divers from the world over. This week we plan to climb Mt Kinabalu which lies not far from here, all going well we should reach the top in order to see the sun rise on Wednesday morning.

What else have we been up to, the food here is sumptuous. We have been eating wonderful meals in street side 'hawker' cafes. Generally they occupy a open fronted street side shop and the plastic tables and chairs spill out onto the pavement outside, at the back of the premises there will be a couple of hard working very sweaty chefs with towels wrapped around their heads to stop their sweat seasoning the woks below. They churn out at high speed delicious meals of noodles, soups, sweat and sour, seafood porridge, laksas and all sorts of other things that we haven't been brave enough to try. These are washed down with Chinese tea (hot or cold), barley water or some other mysterious drinks with a red jelly like substance made from berries suspended in fluid at the bottom of the plastic cup.

That's all for now, hello to you all.

Take off and Landing

2007-11-05T06:04:00.000-08:00

As we squeezed the last few items into the storage boxes and tested the weight of the bags it hit us. ' We are leaving our cosy home in the basement in Fitzwilliam Square! We are now folk of no fixed abode!'

Coffee and cake were the order of the day. Ma Long's suggestion of last nibbles in the Boulevard Cafe was the plan. Just like any other Baggot Street munching, but as we wandered back to the flat I did feel the tears. The flat was still quite complete, ready for our friend Ruairi to move in, but the enormity of the whole situation was hard to get our heads around. Last dash upstairs to say goodbye to Vasco & Sonja, Cillian & Tess, now the only Purser Fitzwilliam Square dwellers. Bags on backs, we left all our keys on the hooks and marched down to the bus stop. Ma Long waved us off and Barry Long photographed us; worlds on our backs.....Farewell Baile Ath Cliath.

A short flight to Germany later, we feasted on Burgers and beers before the 8 hours to Singapore. Taxi to the hotel and then....oh surely its breakfast time now....oh, what we're going to a Japanese restaurant for dinner?....but I want scrambled eggs on toast... oh ....noodles will be fine...isn't it breakfast time?........oh 7pm ......already?????

Singapore was hot hot hot. English spoken everywhere and we managed to get a taxi to a bus depot, buy tickets and get a fancy bus to Kuala Lumpur. I think I watched my film allocation for the whole of '07 over the last few days!! Max, Joe's brother, was waiting patiently at the bus station for us in his car. A quick journey on the crazy roads and we were behind the locked gates of Max & Joanies apartment in the embassy district, close to the centre of Kuala Lumpur.

Friday 2nd November and we were left to our own devices in KL. Taxi down town, where high rise buildings tower above the streets and road crossing is only for true dare devils. ' Yes Sir, This way Sir, ' everyone so eager to help. Fashion is important and only the holiday maker is seen wearing flat shoes. Everyone has a phone/ palm top. Strange how we just don't miss them at all......Subway, monorail, light rail, shopping mall. Outside super hot, inside air conditioning, jumper on, jumper off. Umbrella???? Ah to deflect the heat...it is monsoon though....rain....never.

KLCC is a huge development in the centre of Kuala Lumpur. Home to the Petronas Towers standing 452m high and linked by a bridge at the 41st and 42nd floor (88 in total..auspicious number to the Chinese). Petronas is the state owned oil company which spent US$2 Billion on this development!! One tower built by a Japanese firm the other by a Korean firm. The Japanese topped out first but the Koreans built the bridge.....The cross-section of the towers is an eight-pointed star (Islamic art) and the facade is made of stainless steel. It is all lit up at night and helpful to wandering travellers, who have stopped for cocktails and then gone on a random trip on the Monorail (Sue's first) , to find their bearings again.

20km from the city centre we wandered into the jungle. Massive vines and trees and all the world of creepy crawleys. Such a pleasant wander we were having..until...the sky darkened..and then opened. Monsoon season is upon us and discovering that we had walked off our map and that shelter was not forth coming, we scrambled into the bush to look for those big leaves that David Attenborough always found so helpful. Not a hope in hell in finding them, we huddled under the best cover we could find and waited. 40 minutes of downpour later it stopped. We scrambled from the bushes and brushed ourselves down. I had encountered my first leech. A small one but none the less attached to my leg. 2 days later and its still a open wound! Now we understood the umbrellas. Definition of Monsoon: violent and prolonged downpours of the wet stuff!!!!!

China Town deserved a visit and we wandered through the market and resisted all the sellers chants. Spent our afternoon in the gardens by the government buildings which house an orchid and Butterfly park. Sushi is our fave fodder at the moment, and boy am I glad I can manage chopsticks. Noodles with what ever your having yourself are also going down well, not to mention Joanies fabulous home cooking.

Last few days in KL for the moment and a few things planned. Thursday sees the start of Dewali, the Hindu festival so Max & Joanie are off work. We travel to Taman Negara national park for a few days with them and then we say goodbye and fly on to Sabah (on a separate island) until December 23rd when we return to KL for Christmas.

27 to 30 degrees C is where it is at these days and I admit to a small fear of getting struck by lightening when using an umbrella. I think I am winning the 'most swollen mosquito bites' competition but final tallies will be assessed on leaving Malysia. Mental preparation for bugs has begun and once I don't encounter any stag beetles I think I'll be content. Also monkeys, not too fond of them , and that grass hopper thingy that landed on me last night....and there was quite a few bugs on display in the butterfly park. I'm hoping they are all extinct. And leaches, they leave a perfectly circular mark, but not really my thing. Spiders? erm, haven't seen any, maybe I'm not looking close enough... oh they could be anywhere!!! What about those juggernaut bumble bee things that I heard crashing into the side of the vine....! Do you think they sting??? or bite??? " Joe.....Joe...did you check for bugs?" ....." All bugs of course!!!! " Wheres that Deet spray??????"

Itinerary

2007-10-24T03:45:00.000-07:00

Welcome to Joe & Sue's Blog Spot!!
Hope to have time to update this as we meander about.
Heading off on Tuesday October 30th, on a 4.30pm flight.
Basement flat all packed up, car sold and our possessions for the next year on our backs.

Itinerary as follows:

Tue 30th Oct ; Dublin via Franfurt to Singapore and stay the night.
Wed 31st Oct; We travel on to Max & Joanies in Kuala Lumpur.
Nov & Dec in Malaysia & Brunei.
Friday 28th Dec; Singapore to Sydney
Saturday 5th Jan; Sydney to Christchurch
Saturday 19th Jan; Christchurch to Santiago, Chile via Auckland
Return September '08........