Peru - sin fotos!

Hola!

So began today by taking a early am walk along the Huanchaco beach with the Pacifico Oceano crashing in. Love walking along the beach early in the morning, that fresh salty air smelt so sweet...Opted out of a swim as the water was freezing! A shame, would have been nice.. Did have a chat with some fisher dudes and got offered some extremely potent moonshine they called 'Vitamin C'! Stuff was rocket fuel.. Also checked out the one man Torta fishing boats lined up on the beach. The boats are made out of the torta weed and have been made the same way for 2500 years! True...They actually paddle them out through the breakers, catch the fish and then surf them back in making them the oldest surfers.

As i mentioned im in Huanchaco, which is just outside Trujillo which is halft down the peru coast, 8 hours noth of Lima..Its been a made couple of days with many, many bus ks under my belt..Note i must work out how many solid weeks i've spent in buses in SA...I reckon its at least two!

Ok a quick run down:

From the Galapagos i jetted in to Guyaquil, ecuador with new swiss friends Karine and Seb. We had the best sushi i've ever had in Guyaquil (the main reason for going there) before busing up to the southern highland town of Cuenca. Cuenca was a cool colonial town with funky bars, great gringo restaurants and huge shopping malls with multi-cinema complexes! That would put Indooroopilly to shame back home.. Total indulgence...Went and saw the quirky 'Little miss sunshine' and ´The illusionist' both in english with spanish subtitiles.

From Cuenca it was down to Vilicamba, a tiny town in the southern highlands, close to the peruvian border. In Vilicamba we stayed at this great German run traveller resort with swimming pool, bar, cafe with great views of the surrounding mountains and valleys for 8 usd a night including breakfast with fresh fruit, yogurt, homemade bread, and eggs and bacon! Sometimes its good to live it up and go gringo! While here we did a horse trek up into the mountains with a kiwi guy, Gavin that runs overnight trail rides to his cabin in the mountains..It was a top trip, my horse was big mountain beast and powered up the hills..Gavin put on a great spread including cocktails...He seems to like a drink or two as we counted no less than 300 vodka bottles stacked up on the side of the cabin. He is planning to build a cabin with them.

Also caught a funky colombian band playing at one of the cafes in Vilicamba. I was relieved to see that they had no pan pipes. Apologies to those pan pipe fans out there but i've been over dosed on pan pipes!

So after 5 days that was only suppose to be two i finally left the German resort with the swissies and caught a overnight bus to peru with a 3am Border crossing! Something different. On the ecuadorian side we had to wait for an hour in the rain and mossies for the police guy to get his computer working then we had to wake up the Peruvian guy. He didn't seem so impressed but let us come in to his country anyway.

So almost there. Arrived at the coastal town of Pirua, said goodbye to the swissies who opted for a flight to lima and then cuzco..Not bus fans like me. Smart.. Then i bused on down to Chacalayo, which has some impressive pre-inca ruins one of which is the famous king of Sipan's tomb that was only discovered in 1987. Went to a impressive museum and checked out the huge find of jewellery, weapons and other aterfacts. There was even dressed up robot indian manicans playing instruments!

Finally today i went and saw the mud city of Chan Chan, a huge 40 sqm site with huge crumbing mud walls, that once contained 10000 structures from huge walk-in wells, canals and temple pyramids to royal places lined with precious metals. Sounds impressive, it was!
Tonight guess what? I'm catching another overnight bus to Hurraz, in the mountains home to some of the best trekking and mtbing in Peru! Then Lima and cusco to some place called Macchu Picchu..

I fly back to Greece on the 18th where i have a skippering job with a Canadian adventure tour company waiting! See www.gapadventures.com should be able to get a mates rate if anyone wants come! Meet the GAP guys last year when i was working for FYLY and got offered a job a couple of weeks ago. Always nice when the work finds u! Actually as much as i'm looking forward to seeing Southern Peru i can't wait to work again and nor can my bank balance!

Ok so that's it...until next time..hasta luego!

Meetings with Iguanas and other Galpagos locals!!

Hi there, just got back from the Galapagos Isls. It was incredible!! A wildlife experience of a life time. Worth every cent. The islands were teaming with wildlife including, sea lions, land and sea iguanas, lava lizards and many different species of nesting sea birds. We snorkeled with sharks, eagle rays, sea turtles and penguins as well as huge schools of fish. Though at times it felt like we were on a tourist conveyor belt with dozens of other boats all landing their passengers on the same islands. The islands are quite well managed with designated paths and in some cases landing jetties (dry landings) otherwise it was beach landings( wet landings) with the boats dinghy. The islands vary from barren less but weirdly shaped volcanic lava to scrubby and sandy with brilliant white beaches set against the back drop of turquoise sea.

Prior to going I trawled through the 100s of travel agents in Quito, checking out the mind-boggling number of tours on offer before finally deciding on a 8 day tour with the ‘Friendship’. Tacky name I know! The ‘Friendship’ is at the budget end (800 usd ) of the scale but what it lacks in flashiness it makes up for in character. She is made of wood and has loads of space for 18 passengers including a great top deck for watching the islands slip by with a pilsener or two.

The trip began when we landed at the tiny but jam packed with US tourists Baltra airport on the main Island, Puerto Aoyra. Walking off the plane and onto the hot tarmac it was obvious the next 8 days were going to be shorts and t-shirts gab. A nice change after the cool and rainy weather in Quito.

After handing over our 100 usd park entrance fee (this trip is not cheap and cost just under 1200 usd!!) we were meet by our the sprightly 69 year old English speaking guide, Cesar before being whisked off to the boat.

Cesar is a Galapagos local and has been guiding on the islands for 28 years so he knows his stuff and also speaks English. His jokes were pretty funny too. He was on board with us for the whole week except for the night we were in Puerto Auyora when he stayed with his 50 year old girlfriend!

The crew of the trusty ‘Friendship’ were brilliant and the food was the best I’ve had in Ecuador, with loads of fresh veggies and salad. Every meal has been different and we’ve even had pizza!

The cabins were basic but comfy enough with aircod and ensuites . A lot of travel between the islands was done at night which made for great sleeping with the roll of the boat. It reminded me of my Greek island touring though instead of 1000s of people on the islands there were 1000s of animal and mammals including birds, iguanas, sea lions and red rock crabs. I shared a cabin with Katrin from Germany. Other, mostly young passengers were from Canada, Germany, Switzerland, Finland and there was even a fellow Aussie in there. Halfway through the trip we had a change of passengers when we called in at Puerto Auyora, a chilled fishing town on the main island.

The days began at 7am with breakfast and then usually a walk or snorkel around the islands observing and photographing the very photogenic inhabitants. One of the greatest things about the islands is the complete lack of fear the wildlife has humans. It’s like we were invisible or at other times we were objects of curiosity for the sea lions, blue footed boobies, land iguanas, sea iguanas, lava lizards and sea turtles. The amount of wildlife we saw was simply unbelievable. It really is a wildlife trip of a life time. The islands, although some very barren were literally teaming with wildlife. Cameras worked overtime. Mine finally died but thanks to my crew mates and the fact that i'm now travelling with a second hand laptop i picked up in Quito, I have loads of pics. After our mornings exploring it was back to the boat for lunch and a very civilised siesta. Most days were around 32deg and as a lot of the islands were volcanic rock it got pretty damn hot at times.

In the afternoon there would be more walking\snorkeling. One of the greatest snorkeling trips we did was off a group of rocks a mile or so off island. The sea was literally teaming with fish. Not only did we see schools of colorful fish we also swam with white tipped reef sharks, eagle rays, sea turtles, curious seals and even penguins! We were all blown away. It was definitely one of the highlights of the trip.

Another highlight was just sitting on the many pristine white sand beaches while the baby seal pups waddling up to sniff us and check us out. Priceless. On a sad note 10% of pups are abandoned and left to die by their mothers due to lack of food and humans touching the pups. Luckily you can’t go on the islands without a guide and part of their role is to ensure that u don’t get too close. On some beaches there were quite huge and territorial males that were quite keen to let us know that this was their beach!

In Pueto Auyora we also went to the brilliant Charles Darwin Research Station (www.darwinfoundation.org) and checked out there great land turtle and iguana breeding program. A lot of land turlte and iguana populations were decimiated on a lot of the islands due to introduced species such as cats and dogs as well as poaching.As well as some new turtle arrivals they also have some oldies including lonesome George who is the last of his species and unfortunately won’t breed with any females that are closely related. He is 150 years old and is expected too live to 200 and weighs 170kgs! Also while in Puerto Auyora we took a bus up to the highlands and saw some impressive extinct volcanoes and had thee best chocolate brownies with ice-cream at a café!

Phew so that’s how I’ve been spending my last 8 days. I’m going to brave some crazy city traffic to go and post this. From Guayaquil, I’ll head down to Peru possibly stopping at another Ecuadorian highland town called Cuenca en route.

Volcanos, markets, bicycles and pigs...

Phew another busy adventure week gone by. Bused it a few hours north from Quito to the highland town of Otavalo. It is very much on the gringo trail thanks to its huge Saturday indigenous market dating back to pre-inca times. Its damn touristy but great for people watching. The Otavalenos still wear their traditional colourful garb and both the men and women look stunning. Can´t say i actually bought much but there were tons of of tourist orientated crafts, shawls, jackets etc for sale. Made for interesting wanderings as the streets are jam packed with stalls.

The market takes over pretty much the whole town. For me what was interesting was the huge food market that is jam packed with stalls selling the most bizarre looking fruits, others were selling unidentifiable animal parts (not for vegos) not to mention all the people and dogs milling around. There are also lunch stalls selling cheap meals for 1$ or less. The most interesting was the pork one. The front half of a bbq'd pig is displayed in a tray. The head faces the front allowing the attendant to scoop out the meat with her hands and then place it the bubbling juices warmed up at the back end of the tray that is over a flame. Hmm sounds good eh? It´s served on a plate with some maize and salad. So what it means is as u walk along the aisle have 10 or so piggy faces staring out. A bit like those clowns at sideshow alley. Truly macabre. Is a reason go to vegie here...Bummer was having camera hassles so couldn't get a pic of the pigs..

Having survived the markets, the next day i hired a mtb with some newly meet Czech and Slovakian friends to do a ride around the lagunas de Mojanda (lakes of Mojanda) which are in a huge volcano crater at 3700m. We decided not to ride the up the 2000 mtrs to the volcano crater and instead caught a kind of ute taxi! It turned out to be a brilliant day even though it was freezing and overcast up there. Got some great riding in and chatted to some friendly locals on horseback. Coming down the 17ks of crappy, rough as hell cobblestone road i lost it and hit the deck pretty hard and fast! No bones broken but it hurt like hell and lost a bit of skin..was worth it though.

Having made it back to Otavalo on the bike we jumped in a bus and headed to back to Quito. I said good by to my new friends and bused it south to Banos. Banos is another highland town in the middle of the country that is under the shadow of Volcan Tunguracha. In 2000 the volcano was given a red alert meaning that an eruption was imminent and the town evacuated. Nothing eventuated and it was downgraded and everyone returned. Last year there was also an eruption warning but once again nothing happened. Seems like Tunguracha is playing games...Haven't been able to catch a glimpse of this monster as the weather has been overcast and rainy...But being a thermal region there are some great thermal pools in town that i've made use of...

Back on the bike yesterday and did a 60k decent following an stunning gorge down to the amazonian town of Puyro. The views were damn impressive with 200ft drops at some points. A cycleway has been constructed that skirts along the gorge. Also took a motorised firefox type cage suspended by cables across the canyon to the other side and back for the grand sum of 1 buc. Once again camera hassles so no pix..Puyro is a rickety and not that attractive looking jungle town. Was def about the journey and not the destination. The best part of the trip is u don't have to ride back up the 1700 mts or so of hills - u simply throw the bike on top of a bus and watch the hills roll by from the window eating hot chips sold by vendors that do their rounds through the bus!

Tomorrow am making my back to Quito town before i fly out to hang out with some iguanas, turtles, sharks and blue footed boobies on the Galapagos isls! Ended up booking a 8 day cruise on the 'friendship', a small motor boat that takes 18 or so...until next time..hasta luego...