Peru!

Sorry its been a while. I´m now going to attempt to do my best to update you on a very busy 3 weeks.
In Lima me and Sam started a 21 day tour through Peru and then into La Paz in Bolivia.
Our first stop was in the town of Pisco, which is also the name of the local drink, which is pretty nasty, but can be mixed with lemons and egg white to make something even nastier. Pisco was a pretty poor city which was 90% flattened by a massive earthquake in 2007. Pretty much everyone in the city knew someone who died in it, our taxi driver was telling us he lost his wife and 4 children in the Cathedral when it collapsed during Mass, the road was still full of holes where water pipes burst and most of the streets were still lined with parts of buildings that hadn´t been cleaned up yet. And the day after that we walked around the coastline and found amongst the rubble a lovely brand new Hilton Hotel being built. Was a bizzare place to be and within seconds we had a man in tracky b´s and a Kappa jacket running towards us waving a pistol. Turns out he was the ´security guard´and offered to give us a tour of the building sight if we paid him. We said thank you, declined, and moved on.
After this we went to the town of Nasca, home to some pre-Incan burial sights and mountain engravings called the ´Nasca Lines´which apparently feature in the new Indiana Jones film if anyones been so lucky to see it. There was the option of flying over the lines in a light aircraft, most of the group did but I was feeling a bit tight on that day and declined the cost, but most people said it was a bit average so I wasn´t too upset.
After this was a bus ride to Arequipa, Peru´s second most important city, but much cleaner and better organsied than Lima, fewer Hotel-Casinos and generally much nicer. Not staying long here, just a quick look at an old Catholic monastery and a frozen girl called ´Juanita´(she´s famous) we then headed off to the Colca Canyon.
The bus journey to the Canyon stopped plenty of times for us to buy things from locals, whether we wanted to or not, and also at the highest point on our trip at 5000m above sea-level, where it is nearly impossible to walk up 5 steps unless you have a little while to aclimatise, but all the wild Llamas and Alpacas seemed to be doing just fine. That night we stayed in a tiny little town called Chivay, just outside the Colca Canyon, which didn´t even have roads, but still managed to have broadband internet. Here we went on a tiny little practice hike before Machu Pichu to try and get used to walking up hills at altitude. We walked for about an hour to find at the top of this valley an old Incan cemetery complete with skulls littered all about the mountain side and various bones underfoot as it had been raided a few decades earlier by locals who wanted to sell the artefacts they found.
A couple of days after this was the Inca Trail. 4 days of walking, around 40km in total, beautiful scenery, burning hot sunshine, a whole day of drizzle, and for the final day, a perfect view of Machu Pichu at sunrise. All the boxes ticked.
After the Inca Trail we went to a town called Aguascalientes (sp) which is the owner of the worlds most disgusting hot springs, complete with fat locals washing their bits in them, pubic hair and toe-nail clippings, me and a few others braved it for about 20 minutes but then left in fear of many diseases.
After the hiking we had 4 days of leasure in Cusco, the old Incan capital city, some amazing archetecture, but nearly all Spanish, as one of the first things they did when they arrived as pull down the Incan Temples and build Cathedrals on top.
To round off the 21 day trip, bringing me pretty much up to present day, we had an overnight homestay with an island family on Amantani Island in the middle of Lake Titicaca. The people there speak very little Spanish, so it was pretty hard to get by. The speak the Incan language Kechuan, which we were taught a few words of but soon forgot. We played 5-a-side football against the local team, which at 4000m above sea-level is a different game entirely, managed to beat the local team, just, then nearly collapsed from lack of oxygen, then had to do an hour and a half of dancing whilst wearing a poncho and a hat. All slightly bizzare but very entertaining.
And thats more or less it up until today, where I am in an internet cafe in La Paz, Bolivia, paying about 30p an hour to be on the computer. Fantastic!

Santiago and Lima

After about 3 days of travelling, we ended up in Santiago, which wasn´t originally on the cards when we booked all our flights, but somewhere we had to go to to get from Hong Kong to Lima.
We only initially planned on staying in Santiago for a couple of nights, this gave us time to find the bus station, book the tickets (we couldn´t do it online because we couldn´t read spanish) and then manage to leave. It turns out we had as much chance of doing it online as none of the people at the bus company could speak english, so we did a lot of charades and pointing at calenders, and we eventually got the result we wanted, a cheap bus (55,000 Peso, about 60 GBP) to Lima.
After booking the bus, which only leaves on Tuesdays, we found out we had a bit more time to kill in Santiago, so we got talking to someone who worked at the hostel who then showed us around the city, and got a bit of a taste for the Chilean night life, which doesn´t really start until about 1am, and goes right on through until about 9 the next morning.
So after this night out, we had a quiet day the next, then had a 2 day long bus journey to look forward to.
We got to the bus station with plenty of time, about 45 minutes until the bus left, but the bus hadn´t even arrived yet. Half an hour later it turns up, we can start loading our luggage on, confirming our tickets etc. But then it turns out our tickets aren´t valid as we didn´t have our passports with us when we booked them, so we had to go back to the place we bought them...about 2 tube stations away... and register them with our passports. We didn´t understand because he was talking in Spanish, all we knew was that we couldn´t get on the bus. Eventually, with about 2 minutes to spare and after 10 minutes of running, finding someone who can translate, and then 10 minutes of more running, we found out that we could get on the bus after all, and only had to supply the bus driver with our passport numbers, the other man got it wrong. Panic over.
The next two days are easy to explain. 56 hours on a bus, 50 of them with just desert to look at, a few burned out, battered car wrecks that had tumbled down ravines, 3 stops of about 2 hours in total, a stolen i-pod, and on the last day, only having half a pack of biscuits to get me through until dinner

Leaving Hong Kong

After 17 nights in Hong Kong, it was time to say good bye to Yo, who had managed to stick out the 2 and a bit weeks without going killing one of us. THANKS YO! Our intended destination is Lima, but we have to get there via Sydney, Auckland, Santiago, Arica and then Arequipa (both by bus,) which in total is going to take about 9-10 days. Woo. The flight out of Hong Kong was at 9.30pm local time, with 9 hours flight and 2 hours time difference from Sydney where we were off to next, where we thought we had a 27 hour wait at the airport before then going on to New Zealand, turns out we read our itinerary completley wrong and only had to wait for three. Magic! However, after being told we'd have transit accommodation for New Zealand, there was none, so we are currently in the 20th hour of a 24 hour stretch of kicking our heels around Auckland airport. We found a nice sofa to sleep on, the only thing that turned out to be 24 hour was a vending machine, and also the cleaners, who managed to keep their hoovers and floor polishers going right the way through the night. We met a French girl travelling to Hong Kong, so showing off our knowledge made us feel very important. She also had a guitar, and as I havn't managed to pick one up since I've been home, I was entertained for at least an hour.
We're about to start a 12 and a bit hour flight over the Pacific, where, due to time differences, we actually arrive in Santiago a good 4 and a bit hours before we leave Auckland. So that should be entertaining. All is well, and we are near the check in for our flight.
I'm not entirely sure when I'll get a chance to do the next blog, it may not be for a little while as there is lots of moving about to be done in the next week or so, but I'll try.

Australia is funny.

Football and Feasting

Coming to the end of our stay in Hong Kong, as i'm typing, one of the biggest thunder storms I have probably ever seen is well established outside, putting a dent in our plans to go to the horse races today, and probably the theme park tomorrow, which is a bit of a downer!
On thursday we went to the Hong Kong Stadium to watch Man City get beaten by an invitation team, it was 3-1 in the end, and after that, South China FC played Juventus and won 2-1. Not through lack of trying on the Italians part as they were going all out by the end, nearly getting a couple sent off. The stadium wasn't exactly full, I think I heard it has about 40,000 capacity and it was around about half way there, so there was plenty of chanting and the like.
Yesterdat we went to a feast in a small village where some of Yo's family live. There were about 9 tables dotted around outside the village hall each with a massive bowl, more like a vat, of cooked meats which everyone just piled into and helped them selves. I'd like to think I was quite adventurous when trying out the local cuisine, but whole chicken heads (beaks, eyeballs and the little flappy bits on top of their heads still intact) is where I tend to draw the line.
We're leaving Hong Kong on tuesday to get on an 8 hour flight to Sydney, where we stay for 24 hours, then fly to Auckland to do the same for a whole day, then eventually after two days of kicking our heels we're going to be heading to South America where the majority of our trip will be taking place.

Hong Kong

After our 30 odd ours of traveling and waiting and transiting and sitting to get from Goa to Hong Kong, we finally touched down at about 5pm local time. First point of call was that we needed to find Yo, my friend in Hong Kong, who was at work the other side of the city. Got on the airport shuttle train and managed to get the underground, which is so much cheaper, cleaner, faster and more modern than the london underground, to meet up with Yo in the centre. We went for a Korean meal, compete with tentacles and other various insides, which surprisingly, was very nice.
Our first few days here Yo had work, so we entertained ourselves by roaming the city, doing the odd touristy thing. We went up the 'Peak Tram' which takes you up one of the many mountains dotted all about the city to a viewing gallery from which you can see the bay, the IFC Tower (Chinas 2nd tallest building, the worlds 7th,) and all of the most impressive skyscrapers. The following day we went to a little village called Ngong Ping, which happens to host one of the worlds largest statues of Buddha. We've managed to locate, with Yo's help, some nice drinking spots, where you can pay anything from about 80p for a pint to about 4pounds for a bottle if you stumble into a yuppy bar in the business district. We found out the other day that both Manchester City and Juventus are coming to Hong Kong to play the Chinese treble winners South China FC. They're both playing South China on the same day in the same stadium, both matches back to back, all for about 12pounds. So we got tickets for that and just need to find something to entertain ourselves with for the next few weeks. If we were millionaires it would be easy. Every other shop is a major designer label. I've seen four different Chanel shops just in the central area, and there's a shopping mall under the IFC Tower which every single shop has some sort of label on it, so if you're minted, this is the place to be right now. There's also a theme park we want to go to, a Disneyland we want to avoid and Sam wants to stay up until 4am to watch the Champions League final, so all in all, lots to do.

Leaving India

If I'm perfectly honest, the last week in India has not really been very news-worthy from a people-at-home point of view. Eating alot, spending entire days bumming around beaches, roaming around on mopeds that do about 5metres to the gallon. Its fun to do, but not really too entertaining to read about. You have better things to read i'm sure.
One very eventful day today however.
Sam and I thought we'd be 'smart' and save on a nights accommodation by heading to the airport nice and early. We arrived about 8 hours before our 8.30 am transit to Sri Lanka. Never having seen Dabolim, the airport in Goa, we didn't know what to expect, we didn't expect it to be shut however. The guard on duty said that we would have to wait for it to open...at 5am. So our grand plan of saving on a night of accommodation resulted in slumming it, finding a nice patch of grass to sleep amongst the locals, who happened to be a friendly gang of stray dogs, and put our bags to use as pillows.
Eventually on getting to Sri Lanka, and thinking we now had to wait 21 hours in the airport for our next flight, we get directed into a queue, get a FREE taxi to a FREE luxury hotel with FREE meals. And if that wasn't enough, it had a comfy bed, tele and air conditioning! things that have been well above our price range for the duration of this trip. So that's all a bit of a surprise. Downside is our taxi back to the airport is at 4am tomorrow, then a 7 hour flight to Hong Kong, but still, can't complain.

Candolim

After the relaxing week in Benaulim, which invloved nothing more strenuous than kicking a football about on the beach or helping a couple of fishermen stand their boat upright, we decided on another move. We've moved about 10 miles north of Benaulim, to a town called Candolim, slightly busier than where we were before and right next to an old early 17th Century Portuguese fort called 'Fort Aguada' (I think that's the spelling.) We went up and gave it a little visit today. Rented some more mopeds, for 5 days this time, and only 100 rupees a day, so we're probably going to head a few towns up and meet a friend from Benaulim tomorrow, he ran the beach-shack we went to most frequently, but has since packed up and moved to where the most fun is at the end of the Indian tourist season, which is why we are following!
Just off the shore in Candolim is an old wreckage, an oil tanker called River Princess, which has been there for about 9 years, right on the shoreline, and only now are they towing it away to break up for scrap, but a little to late to salvage the engines, boilers, generators etc. that were on board as the local people had it stripped of anything useable in about 2 months.
Now I have finally recovered from 10 days of dysentery and now I'm off the antibiotics, we're just taking advantage of the cheap food, cheap beer, cheap everything. We both had a Vindaloo last night, which is a dish from Goa. Vind-aloo is from the Portuguese words for wine and garlic, which is what the curry sauce is made out of. Now don't say this trip isn't educational.

Benaulim

After spending about 5 nights in Colva, our first stop in Goa, we have moved about 2 miles down the road to a much smaller, less touristy village called Benaulim. Colva turned out to be not much more than a coach-stop for package tourists, allowing them a quick paddle in the beach before they went back to their hotel. We found ourselves strolling 20 minutes up the beach everyday to get to Benaulim anyway, so we though we might as well find accommodation there. We're staying at a place called 'Heaven Goa,' which is a very basic room, comfy beds, much cooler inside than in the hotel in Colva and our little balcony is almost constantly in the sunshine overlooking some palm trees and a couple of paddy fields full of pigs constantly being chased by packs of stray dogs. There seems to be a family of eagley/falcony things next to us which I've had a couple of good photos of, which is all very interesting.
In the next couple of days we're planning on moving a little bit further to the north, where most of the cities in the area are, but then, we could head south down to Palolem beach, which is meant to be extremely idyllic with its palm trees and beach huts. Last night we met the production manager from the Bourne Supremacy who set up all the shots for the film on Palolem beach, and also his Portuguese friend, who'd had a little bit too much Goan culture and liked to talk about the cosmos. With these people we tried a seasonal local spirit made out of fermented cashew nuts which is a bit too nice with some lime in it. They call it either 'Goan Moonshine' or 'Sunshine,' depending on who's drinking it and its only available for about a month every year as it is purely seasonal, so we came at the right time!

Goa

When off the train in Goa, we took two steps out of the station and were spotted straight away by the local taxi drivers. Young people, big bags, need to get somewhere... "TAXI?" For some reason, two taxi drivers came up to us, even though we said we were going to the same place, they said 50 rupees each, so we followed them. Turns out these 'taxis' were just these two blokes old Enfield Bullet motorbikes, slung the massive 60 litre back packs on the front, us on the back, helmets weren't even mentioned, and we shot off down the road to Colva, where we had a hotel booked. Sam wasn't put off by the experience, because as soon as we put our bags in the room, he went off for about 10 minutes, came back and said for about 2 pounds each a day, he'd rented us two mopeds for the next day, one of which he then nearly sent into a parked car after claiming to the rental man he'd driven one before, and showed his UK Driving Licence to prove it. They were pretty easy to get the hang of though and the next day we went exploring, found an amazing little village about 2 miles away from where we are staying called Benaulim, with beach-hut bars, nice sandy beaches and best of all, a pool table! so we've spent the last 2 days down there, probably going to go back this evening. But it's quite quiet here at the moment, the main tourist season being between November and Feb when it is cooler and less humid. The heat being very uncomfortable here, especially at night when it rarely goes below 30 degrees celcius.

Leaving Mumbai

After a good 48 hours, with nothing to eat except half a pizza and a mars bar (due to very dodgy stomach,) I was not really feeling at the top of my game. The lack of sleep was a factor too, only managing two hours at a time, but at 3am we had to get up to be able to catch the train at 5.30am. We didn't have a ticket when we got to the train station, and while I was lying down on the platform trying to get some sleep, getting up every now and then to be sick in a corner, Sam met a couple of lads from Kuwait, one also called Sam, and the other Slim. They were alot more experienced at getting trains in India, and they spoke perfect English and Arabic, so were a great go between with us and the locals. So we got the train with them, turns out the best way for non-locals to catch a train in Mumbai is not get a ticket, but bribe the guard when you're on there. So half an hour and 800 rupees (10 pounds) later we had our route secured all the way to Margoa, where the train terminated. It was everything we expected from an Indian train ride. It was so hot and humid that all the doors and windows on the train were open, whenever we stopped, locals would jump on and run through the train selling food and drink, then quickly jump off again just before the train picked up too much speed when leaving. The advertised 'express route' was only meant to take 8 and a half hours, but express obviously means 'only a little bit quicker than walking' as 11 hours later we arrived at our stop, covered in diesel fumes, as whenever the train went in a tunnel, with all the windows and doors open, the exhaust just filled all the cabins, so by the end of it all, sams white shorts were no longer white, and the smell wasn't too great either.

Mumbai

We arrived at about 1am local time (about 7.30pm back home) and decided to take part in a local tradition called 'scam the tourist.' we were the tourists, we got scammed. the taxi ride to the hotel from the airport took about 20 minutes, cost 2000 rupees (about 25 pounds.) The taxi ride to where we are today (the banking district in mumbai) took nearly an hour and a half, it cost 300 rupees.
The food here is brilliant. We're trying hard to eat authentic, but only in places where it is busy, as that meant it was good food and hopefully not dodgy stomach inducing, but sadly our cautiousness has not paid off as my first two immodium tablets were used this morning, but I am fine now and Sam has had no problems with anything like that. There are cows everywhere here but on the menu, as they're a sacred animal etc etc. which also means no McDonalds! I'm sure we'll live. We did see a Subway though, and a Wimpy, but didn't go in to explore further into the menu variation from the British branches.
We had a massive meal last night, nice and spicy, a couple of pints of beer, and the bill came to a grand total of about 5pounds so we have no budgeting worries for the next month or so, i doubt we can spend 20pounds a day here, it's nearly impossible. I've been in this internet cafe for an hour and it's costed me less than 50p!
Anyway, I'm off now, going to go back to the room, some photos of Mumbai will follow in a little while!