Buenos Aires here I come!

So my last day with my group involved White Water Rafting... I loved the rafting, the bit where our guide decided to topple as many of us as possible into the river right in the middle of a rapid, not so much. Picture 4 of us flying down the river with the currents shouting backwards for someone to get us back in the raft, elegant we weren´t, pretty funny it was.

The others left for Lima on Weds and I took a day for a bit of a breather, to regain energy and get rid of some more tummy fun, I´m lucky like that. I flew to Arequipa on the Thurs and spent all of Fri looking around. It´s bigger than Cusco, with a beautiful backdrop of the El Misti volcano towering behind it. It´s all made of white sillar stone and has many religious buildings, including the most important in Peru, the Monasterio Santa Catalina. Spent some good hours wandering around this colourful and serene citadel, v impressive. I had forgotten that Arequipa is the home of Mario Vargas Llosa, one of my favourite S.American authors, whose latest book I have signed by him. He is quite a guy, having stood to be president of Peru, he got beaten sadly by the murderous dictator Fujimori but there we go.

The other highlight of Arequipa was seeing Juanita. She was a body discovered at the top of one of the nearby mountains, frozen in the glacier. She is important because she was one of 4 bodies found which show that the Incas used to smack young pure noble girls over the head with a 5 pronged mace and bury them along with offerings to the Mountain gods called Apus. These girls had also marched for days from Cusco to these mountains in a big festival and had voluntarily given their lives, it was a great honour.

Juanita was a bit freaky really, she still had her hair and teeth. It´s going to take me a while to shake off her image but she was fascinating nonetheless. Have grown quite fond of these Incas in the last 6 weeks. They were amazingly advanced and had an interesting set of beliefs, worshipping PachaMama (Mother Earth) and the God Inti Sol (the Sun God) and the Apu mountain gods too. The ruins left behind are incredible and it makes me sad to think how much the Spaniards destroyed...

Am currently, after a 6 hour bus trip, in Puno which is the town by the side of Lake Titicaca the highest lake in the world. Tomorrow am doing a trip to see the Uros islands made of Tortora reeds. The locals make the island they live on and each time it rots away they replace the reeds. Am intrigued to see them before I take another long bus trip to La Paz and my first steps into Bolivia.

Overwhelmed by Machu Picchu

I´m very happy to say that I have finally been able to see Machu Picchu and it only took 3 years or more of waiting...

Thankfully it didn´t disappoint. Particularly as we had to do a 9 day trek to get there which apparently was 4x harder than the Inca trail and one of the hardest treks in Peru (quite glad I didn´t know this before I set off). The first few days involved trekking up to and away from Choquequirao another mountain-top set of ruins set in beautiful surroundings. Day 4 after this was the worst, a 14hour hike 10 hours of which were uphill to 4,600m, starting at 5.30am and getting to the next site to camp at 8pm... Hardcore is indeed my middle name. Seriously, I loved the trek and am glad I did it, it was really hard but the scenery was some of the most beautiful I´ve seen in my life. The only slight downside was on the eve of day 8, 6 girls out of our 8 person group got really ill and puked out of their tents all night (I like to be graphic). So instead of hiking on Day 8 we had to rush by bus then train to the doctor in Aguas Calientes right by Machu Picchu where much interpreting of symptoms was needed! On Saturday, we went to Machu Picchu at the break of dawn and I was completely blown away. It´s a shame it will be taken over by tourists quite soon but I can see why it was voted a wonder of the world, it was beautiful. I only wished I could have seen it when it was full of Incas but I gave it my best shot at imagining it...

After a day of recovery in Cusco we have just been horse riding around the sacred valley courtesy of a random guy called Cesar who gave us a taxi ride a month ago and also owns a farm of horses, fortunately it all turned out well and wasn´t at all dodgy! Tomorrow we go white water rafting before I head off alone to the south of Peru and towards Bolivia on Wednesday while the others head to Lima. Am sad that the Peru stage is almost over but the rest of the continent awaits... as one great house mate suggested, I will try not to shake the rest of the world by my travels, one earthquake and plane crash is probably enough.

Over and out, xxxx

Check out this link for Rio photos!

La vida cusquena

Time has passed scarily fast. The two weeks in Cusco were brilliant, living with Lourdes and Darwin and their lovely Peruvian family in a suburb called La Florida. The middle weekend of the 2 week language course gave us the chance to head off into the Sacred valley to visit Ollayantambo and its ruins and then a beautiful colonial church in Chinchero, an old greenhouse style Inca ruin in Moray and some beautiful salt pans cut into the side of a hill in Salinas. After this we headed to Pisac a cool market town to see yes more ruins on the Sunday and to hit a massive Peruvian market: ponchos and crazy alpaca hats galore.

The weekdays consisted of going on a ´real city tour´, seeing more of the real Cusco, seeing the Inca museum and art galleries, enjoying the cuisine and nightlife and many markets and generally getting to feel really at home in Cusco, a stunning town surrounded by the Andes. Quechua was challenging but fun. I had a little Incan lady called Lourdes as a teacher, who was also an Andean medical practitioner, a really interesting lady. For the second weekend we saw the ruins just up on the hill on the side of Cusco and got to have some awesome trout. At the nearest ruin, Sacsaywaman (SEXY WOMAAAAN in slight Jamaican accent) the locals have a big festival there called Inti Raymi in June where they sacrifice a llama and eat its blood and hope to forecast the coming year.

After this all took a turn for the worse as I ended up after a night out rather ill (yes both ends) with salmonella and once I was hospitalised, it also turned out I had a urinary infection and a parasite. While the rest of the group headed off into the mountains I recovered with a drip. Last Wednesday I took a 12 hour journey (4hrs of which were walking uphill) to the community of Cuncani. There we helped build a big salon comunal. I got to practice Quechua and we got to have a big party at the end to celebrate the end of the project. We also squeezed in some teaching of the local kids (lots of gesturing and fun games) and hiking up to the beautiful lakes nearby where wild chinchilla style rabbits run around. The mountain experience was topped off by a trip to some natural hot thermal baths. Now we are back in Cusco and recuperating ready for the 9 day pilgrimage to Choequequirao and Machu Picchu at the end... the climax of the Peru trip before I head off across the continent to join Em in Buenos Aires...

All for now, much love xx

Ciao a Brasil!

So lots has happened since my last entry. I have been to the famous Cristo Redentor (the biggest art decor sculpture in the world) to see the views of Rio and been up on a v dodgy old school tram up to Santa Teresa, a beautiful old colonial part of Rio. That day was topped off by sunset at the Pao de Azucar (sugar loaf mountain) to see more breathtaking views. Oh and made even better by an all you can eat Brazilian tapas with hostel buddies, led by Haroldo who works at the hostel.

Other highlights include hanging out on Ipanema beach with the locals, going hang gliding onto one of the bays (great fun, felt like a bird, don´t think I was nearly so graceful though sadly), going on a favela tour and to Lapa to a samba club which was a brilliant night out. The favela was really interesting and despite fears of it being voyeuristic was really worth seeing, we saw Rocinha the biggest favela in Latin America run by a 24 year old drug baron who earns 1.25million a month (I think?) but can never leave the favela as he will be arrested or shot.. he probably won´t live to beyond 35 at the most..

On a more cheerful note, Jax and I went to a big samba display to get a taste of carnival last Saturday and then headed to Ihla Grande on the Sunday, a beautiful island with one of the 4 most beautiful beaches in the world on it called Lopes Mendes. The weather wasn´t brilliant but we had an awesome time regardless. Back to Rio after and shopping, museum/churches in the centre and a trip to see Brasil´s female football team somewhat thrash the Canadian team (sadly) at Brasil´s main Maracana football stadium for the Pan American Games being held in Rio at the moment, the atmosphere was awesome, those Brazilians certainly know how to support a team.

Feeling really sad to leave, flew to Sao Paolo (only slightly nervously after the devastating plane crash which killed 186 there on Tuesday), arrived in Lima Saturday for a little bit of exhausted exploration and am now in Cusco with my VentureCo group of 6 Brit girls. I meet the Peruvian family I am staying with tomorrow and start my Quechua lessons... v exciting if not surreal. Cusco is brilliant and beautiful with the Andes surrounding it - am just adapting to the altitude which is having a crazy effect on everyone.

Adios for now and mucho amor for one and all. xxx

BRASIL UM PAIS TROPICAO!

So Jax and I finished off our week in Washington. After the fireworks and bbq of 4th July I spent the next day with Wing (some of you have met her when she came to the UK - my roommate from the conference in Washington in 2000). We ate an all american breakfast in a diner (I'd forgotten how much the yanks eat - huge everywhere) and a trip to Washington zoo to see the pandas - never saw these in China kind of weird to see them there! They're v cute though! Then we munched through some traditional southern cooking of stuffed cabbage (was delicious despite its description) made by Wing's boyfriend's mum visiting from Oklahoma!

Friday was spent packing and flying to Miami to arrive in Rio Sat am (and buying video camera batteries M&D!). Jax was supposed to be on the same flight but she wasnt able to get her flight as the first one was delayed so we met at the Lighthouse hostel in Ipanema, tired & just in time for the LiveEarth concert with Macy Gray, some cool Brazilians and Lenny Kravitz headlining on Copacabana beach - how kind of them to put that on for us! Since then we've been the girls from Ipanema on the beach and walked around the lake and the botanical gardens (got some photos for your portfolio Mum!) and got v drunk on Caiprinhas (cachasa is vicious) with the people from our alley of hostels. We had 15 nationalities drinking together around one table. We won as the British obviously.

Tomorrow we are going up to see the big famous Christ. We havent started a course in Portuguese and am not sure we will now, I seem to be mangling my Spanish with a few portuguese words - its working fine! 2 more weeks in Rio and the surrounding beautiful country and then on to Peru for the project.

Com amor, buena noite x

Dude I'm in DC!

So I finally arrived in DC after a somewhat troublesome start. BA wouldn't let me on my flight as it was overbooked (all airlines do it don't you know, like I care) did get upgraded to WorldTraveller/clubish class though so wasn't too bad. However, wasn't best pleased at being in a US immigration queue (or should I say line, am down with the lingo) for nearly 3 hours till 3am (8am in my head) when the computers went down.

Anyway since being here, have caught up with friends, been to Georgetown, the National Portrait and Art Gallery, the Natural History Museum (think Titanic heart of the ocean = Hope Diamond meets Night at the Museum with the T-Rexes), all the many memorials and one monument and been out and about with the horrifically patriotic today for the 4th July. The people in their red, white and blue made me quite glad we handed over their independence quite frankly (yes handed over hmm). We got to have a bbq with Jax's boyfriend and his mates and watch the fireworks so all in all a v good day. Particularly after quite a heavy night drinking lots of liquor with said boyfriend and friends at the Wonderland Ballroom. Wonderland it was.

Just a couple more days of sightseeing before the long flight to Rio on Friday!
Hope y'all are just swell. (Get me out of here)
Ta ra for now xx