New Zealand 21st-26th April Christchurch, Canterbury and Campervans.

We flew into Auckland, onto Christchurch and were met by Mike Taylor, a friend of the Taylor family. Somewhere along the way we had lost a day, never having lived the 20th April 2007.  Mike and his wife Alison very kindly put us up for 3 nights whilst we got ourselves sorted. They were like surrogate parents to us and we were spoilt. Travelling through South America has taught us to appreciate simple things, such as tea and toast. This was our welcome at the Taylor’s and it was unbelievably good. We suffered from airplane hangover (as Jonty kept calling it!), or as most people call it, jetlag, slightly more than we thought we would but the Taylors eased us into NZ and showed us around the pleasant town of Christchurch.

We spent a whole day hunting for a campervan-it was great fun. We eventually found Kiwi Campers from who we hired a 2 berth camper. In the campervan we have a 2 hob stove, fridge, sink with hot/cold water, microwave, table, and seats that turn into a bed at night time. We managed to get it at last season’s off peak prices also with some camper chairs for outside if the weather decides to turn nice again! It is tall enough for Jonty to stand up and long enough for Jonty to lay down!! He still manages to hit his head on the cupboards and knees on the table!! We have had 3 nights in it so far and love free camping (parking in a random spot, off the road with no-one else around for miles). Cooking has been successful, but the more recipe ideas people want to offer for a 2 hob stove, the better, post your ideas on the comments page here-best one gets a postcard!!

Once sorted, we left the comfort of the Taylors and headed for the Banks Peninsula. Here we visited Akaroa, on Anzac Day. The Banks P. is very scenic, rolling hills and bays at every turn. The drive round was windy and thoroughly enjoyable, plenty of panoramic views to be seen. Had some brilliant NZ fish and chips, they love it more than the Brits. We then passed back through Christchurch before heading off to explore the rest of NZ.

Next up, White Water Rafting down the Rangitata River.

Chile: Santiago and Pucon. April 15th-19th

Chile is not chilly in Santiago (25.C) but Chile is chilly (in fact, non-stop raining for 12 hours) in Pucon! Spent a day in Santiago before catching the night bus down to Pucon. Santiago is the most modern capital we have experienced in South America. In fact, Chile is the most westernised country we have visited. However, there is little to do in Santiago, we spent the day wandering in the sunshine, found a park, read and played cards.  The park was based on a hill with a convent and church on the top. We climbed the many stone staircases, past the fountains and statues to where we thought we would find an impressive view of Santiago and surrounding mountains. The view should have been really nice, but was concealed by thick smog laying over the city.

Pucon was going to be our last adventure in South America. We went there to climb Villarica, the active volcano there. So when we arrived in sunshine our hopes were high, but then instantly squashed by the lady in our hostel who told us that climbing the volcano would not be possible due to the storms coming in. But that yesterday was perfect conditions for climbing!! Thanks a bunch! It rained solidly for the next 3 days! Our worst weather so far and our first real disappointment in South America.

We decided to make the best of a bad situation and went white water rafting in the wind and rain. This was quality! For some reason, Lou was put at the front of the boat and got the rapids head on. This was our first experience of white water rafting, there was a definite buzz as we manically paddled down the rapids. At one point we had to get out of the boat and jump off the rocks into the rapids below-brilliant! We will definitely be doing it again sometime.

We spent some relaxing time in our hostel, it had lots of film channels and an open fire. We even managed to find some Twinings English Breakfast Tea!! We spent one morning walking along a volcanic beach, it had black sand and it was pouring, luckily we have brilliant waterproofs.

We caught the night bus back to Santiago, where Jonty’s grin reappeared as he munched his way through his first bacon sandwich for 2 months, and spent one final day there before boarding the 2 planes to get us initially to Auckland, NZ, then on to Christchurch (the south island.) End of leg 1.

South America…has exceeded our expectations and we are already looking forward to returning, particularly to explore Argentina and Chile in more depth. Our two months here have been amazing. It is a fascinating and exciting continent with so much to see and do. We have lots of brilliant memories to look back on.

Cusco and the Inca Trail 1st – 14th April

Cusco. It is full of tourists and people offering you massages, finger puppets, postcards and paintings. Despite this it is quite a cool city and a good place to chill out in. The buildings are colonial and the views from our hostel overlook the city. We relaxed spent two days wandering the city before heading further into the mountains to start our Inca Trail.

On the morning of the 4th April we met our group at 06:20 and jumped on the bus. We travelled for about an hour before stopping at a town called Olyantambo-here there were women everywhere trying to sell you walking sticks and coca leaves. (At least it made a change from finger puppets!) It also had an impressive Inca Ruin.  From here we travelled a further hour along windy roads next to a ferocious river until we reached Km 81. We had to walk the Km to Km82 which is the more famous start of the Inca Trail. (The distance is measured from Cusco City.) Here we had our first check point and received stamps in our passport. We crossed the bridge and started our trail.

Before we started we had to perform a weird coca leaf ritual by holding them up to various directions, chanting and blowing on them, before hiding them under a stone and making a wish-very odd! The walk was mainly flat, but with some incline, the views were already starting to impress us. On route we had to pause and wait for our porters to get through the check point, each has to be weighed to make sure that they are not carrying too much (20kgs max). During our wait we tried some prickly pear that grew on the cactus’, it tasted a lot like pomegranate. We walked for about an hour and a half until we stopped for our first lunch. The porters had caught and overtaken us and had erected tents and started cooking by the time we arrived at the camp. The food was good. We were impressed by the fact that we had a special eating tent with tables, tablecloths and stools. This impressiveness was beaten when we saw the chef wearing his white outfit with chef’s hat!!

After lunch we had another short walk (1 1/2 hrs) to our overnight camp. Again, the tents were already set up when we arrived complete with bowl of hot water for us to wash with. Our routine was to become an evening tea consisting of hot drinks (including coca tea) popcorn, crackers and biscuits at 5pm. Then dinner at 7 followed by an early bed time of 8-9pm. That night dinner was abruptly ended by the arrival of a tarantula at the end of the dinner tent, the biggest we have ever seen and only the second our guide (Ruben) had seen in his 8 years. Everyone had a thorough search of their tents before bed!

Day 2. An early wake up call from the porters tapping on the tent, saying “buenos dias” and asking if we wanted tea, coffee or coca tea, which they brought us along with a bowl of hot water for our morning’s wash. This was to become the norm, a nice way to wake up when it has to be at 4 or 5 in the morning! We had good breakfasts all the way throught the trail, eggie bread, omlette and pancakes. This was potentially our hardest day, 9km climb straight up and 3km straight down. At one stage the massive steps were relentless, however, we made sure that we enjoyed the views. It was hard work, but not as hard as we had anticipated. The only part we struggled with was the last 10 mins of the ascent where we were mainly just fed up with the climb and made ourselves an incentive of eating everything we had with us when we reached the top. (4200m – dead woman’s pass). Needless to say, we made it relatively quickly after that! We were then confronted by an army of llamas who were charging over the mountain making all those who stood in their way throw themselves against the protection of the mountain. The other side of the pass was freezing and we had to wear everything we had with us for the first 20 minutes of the descent until we were below cloud level, at which point we were boiling hot again. We were surprised at having the whole inca trail to ourselves, not another person in sight-it was great. 3km down (some ridiculously sized steps-how did the little legged incas do it?), we arrived at our camp site. This was arguably the most scenic camp site we had ever been to, a waterfall behind and a valley in front. Our tent was right on the edge of the cliff, 2 steps too many in the night and you were a gonner! We relaxed for the remainder of the afternoon and evening and fell asleep to the sound of a hundred frogs!

Day 3. A climb straight up to start the day! Lou was convinced she was having a heart attack! It wasn’t hard but her heart was punching the inside of her chest! (Give me cross country any day!) Once we reached the top it was downhill for the rest of the day, (not as easy as it sounds, knees were straining and legs shaking). It threw it down all morning and we were very grateful for our waterproofs. This did not spoil the fact that today was the most beautiful day. We saw several ruins and had a very interesting history lesson from our guide. The afternoon’s weather was much better allowing for everything to dry. The afternoon was the most enjoyable hike so far. The Incas had built the paths up to 6ft above the ground. Our camp site was again impressive, with snow capped mountains in the distance. (It also sold beer!) A 10 min walk from the camp took us to some Inca ruins called Winyawayna. Jonty ran around these like a little kid exploring new territory. He loved the water systems here that circum-navigated the ruins.

Day 4 – Machu Picchu. Our earliest start yet. We queued to get through our penultimate check point, which opened at 05:30. After crossing this we walked, nearly running to get to the sun gate. It seems that there was a Japenese man who thought that his need was greater than others and he ran past pushing everyone in his way. As he sped off into the distance we could see his yellow coat bobbing and people being sent flying left, right and centre! We passed him later, pausing to take many photos!! and the same thought crossed everyone’s mind (Just a little nudge!). We got to the sun gate at 06:45, unfortunately the view of Machu Picchu was partially covered by cloud. As we sat and recovered from our morning’s jog however, the cloud lifted and the sun came out-it was an awesome sight. We walked down to the Inca city and through our final control point. Here we received our best passport stamp yet, an image of Machu Picchu. We then had a 2 hour tour conducted by Ruben, it was really informative and we enjoyed it. After this we had time to explore and bizarrely decided to climb the mountain that overlooks MP. It was to take an hour to climb up, but we stormed it in half an hour and arrived shattered! But the views from the top were well worth it and the actual summit was like an adventure playground. It had steep slopes to climb up and slide down, tunnels, caves and was our hardest, yet most enjoyable climb yet.

Machu Picchu and the Inca Trail had been one of the things we were most looking forward to and it did not disappoint. It exceeded our expectations. It is hard to put into words exactly how we felt, we are grateful that we have experienced it.

On the coach down from the site to the bus station, you have to descend a steep hill. The coach makes long slow turns. A local boy in traditional dress ran down the middle of the slope and paused to wave at the coach as it crossed each section. He must have ran about 1000m down, racing the coach and arrived at the bottom at the same time we did. He then jumped on board to shout “GOOOOODBYEE! ADDIOSSS” A tourist gimmic, but a good feat none the less. We gave him 2soles for the effort!

The train ride home took 3 hours-longer than the bus there! We were hoping for some much needed sleep, but instead were treated to some traditional dancing and a fashion show, both to loud traditional music and performed up and down the aisle by the carriage staff-very bizarre and a bit annoying to be honest! The train also had to descend into Cusco and did this via some traversing across the hill by going forwards and then reversing-it took forever! We had a great night’s sleep that night back in a bed.

Our final few days in Cusco were spent relaxing, touring the surrounding ruins and sights. None of these really compare to MP. We are looking forward to our final adventure in South America-climbing a volcano in Pucon, Chile.

Lake Titicaca 26th-31st March

We caught a bus from our hostel to Copacabana. On route we had to disembark and get on a boat to cross part of the lake, the bus tool a boat of its own across. The water was clear and very blue.  A good introduction to the lake.

We arrived in Copacabana, it was a very sleepy town on the shore of the lake. We climbed a mountain in the evening to see the sunset. It was not a good one! Still, we enjoyed the view.

Next morning we caught a boat to Isla do Sol (Island of the sun) Apparently this is the birth place of the Incas. The hour journey was calm and when we got there we climbed an inca stairway, washed our faces in some water that would make us look 2 years younger and got back on the boat again!  It was a good trip! Apart from this there was little else to do in the sleepy hollow so we got a bus to Puno (Peru).

Puno is not the nicest of towns, but its from here that we were able to organise some island hopping. We were met by a mate who had a hostel and with our “special price” we got in a taxi. Four of us, our luggage and matey squashed in the boot. He did us another “special price” and so the next day we went to visit the floating islands of the Uros. 

These are islands made of reeds and they float on the lake. Originally they were made by the people of Uros to escape the hostile Incas. 500 years later, people still live on them. They are still able to up sticks and move their islands too if they fall out with their neighbours!! All of their dwellings are made out of the reeds and they can pick up their houses and put them on the back of a reed boat if they want to move. The islands were very hard to walk on. We were very impressed with the infrastructure.

We boarded a reed boat to sail to the capital of the Uros islands (200m away!) Jonts had a go at steering/paddling but we ended up off course, nearly 300m away! The locals however,  made it look easy.

From the islands, we reboarded our boat and travelled for a further 3 hours (Lake Titicaca is massive!) to Amantani Island. Here we were met by our local family who were to take us in for the night. Flora was a strong girl! We were shown to our very quaint lodgings, where we had a little room/annex to ourselves. It had an amazing view. We then had an hour whilst the family rustled up dinner. We sat on a stone wall and watched the locals walk past with their sheep, donkeys and bulls, all saying “buenos tardes” with a smile. We felt very welcomed.  Lunch was potato soup followed by a meal of potatoes and halloumi style cheese. All of which were home grown/made. We were impressed and surprised by the flavours. It was the first time we had had purple potatoes!

After lunch we walked up a mountain to a temple called Pacha Papa (Father of the Universe!) It was a steep incline, good practice for the Inca Trail. Then , back home for a candlelit dinner!… More potatoes and some rice. We were then invited to a local fiesta. We were given some traditional clothes to wear. Jonty had a poncho and silly pointy hat and Lou had a bright red woollen skirt, flowery blouse and a corset that stopped her from breathing. Flora was extremely excited about the hueilo (dancing).

We went to the village hut, we had arrived 30mins earlier than everyone else because Flora was so excited! When we bought her a large bottle of coke she had a huge grin and giggled every time she took a sip. Coca cola seemed to be a real treat for all the locals and everytime one of us went to refill our glasses there was a queue of locals after a drink and they downed their glasses and waited for the next gringo to come along and refill them.

The band consisted of 3 locals who played a variety of tunes that always started slow and sped up.  Each dance had the same steps. Flora was always the first to the dance floor,  she was extremely strong and threw the both of us around. We danced for an hour and a half and then headed back to our homes. The locals were buzzing all the way home – too much coca cola!!

Overnight the weather was extremely changeable. It started raining, then it got louder, then we had thunder and lightning, then it turned to hail. (This was all made louder by the fact that our bedroom roof was corregated iron) By the morning the whole island was covered in hail and it looked like it had been snowing! It was the loudest thunderstorm we have ever witnessed – brilliant!

The next morning we caught a boat back to Puno, it was extremely choppy! We stayed one more night in Puno before catching a bus to Cusco.

Our coach journey was prolonged by a burst tyre on route. We arrived after 7 hours and were met by a placard reading “Jon Taylor” to transfer us to our hostel. We spent one night in hostel, having cooked dinner in their kitchen, before moving to our hotel that came as part of our package deal with the Inca Trail. (I think they forgot to put the ’s’ in hotel as on the sign it says hostel!) We will be there for two nights before starting our Inca trail.