Climbing Shoes

Yey! I finally got myself a pair of climbing shoes. I have been holding off until I got to LA to look for them. These babies that I bought are La Sportiva Cliff (http://www.sportiva.com/products/prod/996). Not the hottest looking thing out there but since when did climbers ever care about fashion ;) and they were cheap! At 60USD it is a bargin!

For the outdoor enthusaistics out there I purchased my babies from REI Sport (http://www.rei.com/). One of the biggest outdoor store in the States. They have everything here! All, except for my beloved NZ brands like Macpac, Fairydown and Ice Breakers.

U S A

Guess what, I am in LA now. Yes LA! The city of Angels. Home of Hollywood, plastic surgery, Venus Beach, In And Out Burgers, Bay Watch and the OC. I am having a great time so far. The weather is beautiful, sunny and a constant light sea breeze to stay cool, and at night it is warm enough to go out without a jacket.

I came here to see a good mate, Derek and his gf Cynthia. I came to celebrate his birthday and to take a break from travelling through South America. But what a big contrast it has been compare to the third world countries that I have been travelling through in the last 3 months. From driving through Hollywood Boulevard last night, setting sail on a boat in Orange County during the day and to see all those beautiful mansions with their meticulously kept garden, big name brand shops, fancy cars and boats, well maintain boulevards with palm trees lining both sides of the street. This is LA alright!

It was great to see Derek and Cynthia. They live in a pretty nice pad in Brentwood. According to Derek this is the Chelsea of London, or Parnell of Auckland. Everybody here looks good, drives nice car and owns a dog. Derek and Cynthia owns a cute little puddle name Holly. She is only 6 months old, has big floppy ears and is very adorable. She seems a little spoilt though and shares their bed at night. Awwweee!

First impression of USA is that they are a patriotic bunch! American flags abound and many houses have a flag pole out front, factories would have a big American flag painted on their walls, and even car yards have mascot cars painted with the stars and stripes.

Quito in one day...

I arrive in Quito from Cuenca this morning. I survive another night bus thanks to my trusty pill - Diazepam. :)

 

Anyway, I check myself into a lovely hostel call "The Secret Garden". It is beautifully decorated and has a beautiful terrace which overlooks Quito´s old town. After dumping my backpack and having a quick shower I took off eagerly to explore the UNESCO old town. But upon walking out the hostel and turning round the first corner, I came across a dead body! It was a shock, but seemed more surreal then scary. This man, who can´t be over 35, was lying face up on the steps of a building, eyes and mouth wide open, and arms and legs splay out. Surrounding him at a fair distance were some locals and 3 policemen. I ask one of them "Esta muerte?" (Is he dead?) and she confirm it. As to why she couldn´t say... It felt so weird as no one bother to cover his body or even his face up.

 

So five minutes later, after walking past more drunks and druggie looking guys, I saw two policemen walking their big black brute of a dog, so I approach them to take a photo. And what do you know, they both got their dogs to stand on their hind legs to pose for me. It was hilarious, these big black brutes, looking so very ugly and mean, and whom could probably eat me up at the slightest provocation, doing circus tricks. LOL!

 

I feel Quito is an edgy city, with it´s "nice" side and it´s "dark" side. Like the druggies and drunks just around the corner. And being warn of the "bad" Colombians and Peruvians whom came here to steal and rob. But you know what? I kinda like it, as it feels like a real city. That it is dodgy and all, I mean which city hasn´t got it´s dodgy areas?

 

But walking around the old city was a wonderful feeling. It felt like walking through certain European city, with streets after streets of beautiful colonial architecture, all pretty much in a good state. There are big plazas with beautiful statues. And I tell you what, Cuenca (the other UNESCO city in Ecuador) cannot compare to Quito´s old city.

 

Later I came across the most beautiful church I have seen so far in South America: The Church of the Society of Jesus of Quito (La Compania), built in 1765 (after 160 years!) the entire interior is covered in gold leaf. Rumours has it that 2 tons of gold were used but my guide reckon it is more like 50 kgs. Still, it did not fail to impress. Everything was shinny and in true Baroque style everything was symmetrical. Right down to the fake stair well which was painted in, to match the real thing beside it! I also love the religious paintings, from the Quito school of art, as they seem more realistic then the Cuzco school of art (where there is a real competition) in Peru. I sat in the church for ages gazing in wonder.

 

Oh and finally, I got to check out Andy Warhol´s exhibition! It was great to see this great artist´s work, even if the explanation and guides were all in Spanish! :)

Cuy

Looks good innit? This is a "Cuy" slow roasting under charcoal fire. It´s skin popping and crackling with a layer of hot oil brushed upon.

I tell you what, the "cuy", or guinea pig is one dish I have been looking forward to tasting, as I have seen it all over Peru, and have heard about it from other traveller´s experience.

Though most of my fellow travellers whom have tried it found it disgusting. But I was willing to give it a go to find out for myself what it taste like.

To be fair, most travellers found it disgusting because of the way the cuy was served. Everything is intact, including the head, it´s little feet with bits of hair stuck to it (as you can see on this photo - how cute!!!!), and all it´s intestine.

It was fascinating to watch the cooking process. I could smell the suckling crackling aroma (which reminded me very much of Chinese style roast pork), and choke on the smoke which fires out when the cook applied more oil.

The cuy was served after 30 minutes of slow roasting. The cook cut mine into half as I could only afford to eat half a cuy. Plus, the whole thing looks too big to consume for lunch! It was served on a plate of roast potatoes and half an egg. The sides were salsa sauce and boiled corn.

And what about the taste? Well the skin was beautiful! It tasted almost like roast pork, but less fatty, thinner and crispier. The meat was interesting. I can´t say I have tasted anything quite like it. It is white meat, taste sort of sweet and doesn´t taste fatty at all. A lady in Huaraz once boast to me that cuy has zero cholesterol so maybe that´s the reason. I must say though there were less meat in my cuy then I expected. I wanted to try it´s little feet but there was hair on it. Yuck! I also tried a little bit of the black stuff inside - either the kidney or the heart, I wasn´t sure, but that was very GROSS! Did manage to mouth it down with a bit of Fanta though!

Now that I have tried cuy I don´t know if I want to experience it again. I mean, it wasn´t disgusting, but the meat really is an aquired taste. I also think seeing those cute guinee pig throughout my trip so far has effected my taste bud. And today, having seen it prepared and served with everything intake has made it slightly harder to eat, like I had to turn the head over before starting to eat.

Maybe they should start looking at packaging cuy fillet? ;)

Hello Ecuador

I have arrived in Ecuador! Cross the border yesterday (Sunday), after a gruelling 3 days bus journey.

I left Huaraz on Friday, caught a night bus to Trujillo, followed by another night bus to Piulla. Then on Sunday morning I caught an 8 hours bus across the border to Ecuador and onwards to Loja. And today, I caught another bus north to Cuenca, a pretty little colonial city, recognize by UNESCO for it´s beautiful buildings.

What a journey! I am shagged, and need a good bed to sleep. The reason I travel so rapidly north is due to the fact that I have a flight to catch from Quito on Friday. I do regret not seeing more of Northern Peru though, as there are some pretty chill out places and interesting ruins to see. Oh well...

Butt ugly Peruvian dog

This, everybody is the hairless Peruvian dog. Butt ugly at first sight, butt ugly always.... Especially this one, found in Trujillo, northern Peru. I don´t know why it´s got some hair on it´s head, other then to speculate that it is an old bastard.

I´ve been told that because these dogs are hairless, they absorb heat well. And that Peruvians use them as a hugging toy, believing that it would help with relieving stomach pain and in keeping warm!

But I just wiki this and apparently it is a myth.

The one and only - Inca Kola!

This is Inca Kola, the biggest selling soft drink in Peru. Bigger then, believe it or not - Coca-Cola! Yes it´s true, every local you speak to will tell you so.

The colour is yellow (nice urine colour), and the taste is very bubble gummy. A bit of an acquired taste I say, but it does go down well with a meal. And it is a nice refreshing alternative to the Coke monster. To find out more visit their website (in Spanish)!

Incidentally, did you know Coca-Cola still purchase 115 tons of coca leaf from Peru and 105 tons of coca leaf from Bolivia yearly. However it is only used for the flavouring ingredient as part of the Coke formula. I found this interesting information out from the Coca Museum back in La Paz, Bolivia. :)

Preparing San Pedro Cactus!

Here you have stage one of preparing the San Pedro cactus. We had to cut them up to pieces, remove the sharp thorns on the bark, before separating the bark from the flesh. You can see James and Laird hard at work here, and you can see there are a lot more to do in the big pot below.

Stage two, after boiling the San Pedro cactus for 1 1/2 days, we remove the bark and seperate the soft flesh beneath. Afterwards we had to chop it all up to ensure that it is nice and gooey. Here you see Laird not having the patience for the next stage and wanting his mouthfull NOW. :b

And here you have Peter pouring the final product into our mugs for consumption. This final stage took about 2 days to prepare, as boiling up the bark to soften and release it´s chemical was one long process. I can tell you drinking the juice of the cactus is a mission. I have never tasted anything worst... except deep fried cockroach! :b

I took this picture of Alex, the owner at "The Away Inn Lodge" as he was about to drink his San Pedro. He seem like he was in a trance, or saying a silent prayer before drinking. It was hilarious watching his reaction afterwards, as like I said before, this green goo is the most disgusting thing I have ever tasted!

And this is me, lying down outside of the lodge. I must have been in the same position for 2 hours, waiting for the San Pedro effects to kick in, recording the feelings on my journal, and to prevent myself from throwing up. I had my shades on, my Sigor Ros playing on the iPod, and my tiger balm handy to sniff on whenever I felt like chugging!

"The Way Inn" Lodge

Evening at The Way Inn Lodge.

I spent the last 4 days staying at the best guesthouse so far in my trip. The place was call "The Way Inn Lodge", and it is located 3,700 metres high, nearest town is Huaraz to the East. The lodge is set in a magnificent location. It is owned by an Englishman name Alex, whom hires a bunch of locals and foreigners to work for him.

When I was there, the manager was a 25 year old kiwi name Peter. And there was also a German, an Aussie and an American working. Up on the lodge you pay 28 sols (approx $8.50USD) for a dorm bed in a "cave", basically a room built into a rock with a very comfy bed, and breakfast.

I spent my days reading in the hammock, hiking up the mountains, bouldering on the many big rocks around the guesthouse, climbing on the artificial wall and on our last day. We tried something very cool call the San Pedro cactus. San Pedro cactus is an interesting hallucinogenic drug. It comes from the bark of this particular cactus, and is sold legally around town. Apparently the shamans in Peru uses it to induce their patients into a trance. But the group of us did it yesterday for fun and to discover it´s potent effect. Prior to consuming this we spent 2 nights preparing the plant, starting off with chopping up the bark, peeling the flesh from the bark, then boiling the bark for 24 hours, before separating more flesh from the bark, and re-boiling the lot for another 12 hours.

It was finally prepared yesterday afternoon, the substances remain from it is a nasty looking smelly sticky greenish goo. And man can I say this is the most disgusting thing I have ever tried in my life! Just sipping the goo made me want to throw up. And after drinking the content I had to lie down for 2 hours, listening to music and sniffing my tiger balm to stop me from wanting to throw up. Some other guest did threw up, but we were told the effects would be weaker. Within an hour the hallucination started. It came on pretty strong and I was seeing all kind´s of pictures with my eyes.

The colours were vivid, everything was rich with texture and swivelling in my head, kind of like looking at a magic eye. Other effects were talking nonsense and laughing at the tinniest thing. So as expected, everybody had a grand time! :) Peter and Alex were out on the field throwing javelins at each other and doing all sort of kong fu moves. An Alaskan couple checked out the hot sauna, whilst Laird and I went hiking around the bush for the beautiful scenery. I also tried noting down the experience into my journal, on an hourly basis. But I only manage to get up to the third hour before needing to stop, as by then I was having trouble trying to write in a straight line, the letters and the page were all jumping out at me! Heheheh it was all very funny indeed.

The trip lasted till night time, and I must say the sun set yesterday was one of the most impressive I have seen. The colours on the skies kept changing colours, the snow cap peaks grew pink, and the city lights in the valley below lit up like a dancing with lights seen from shore. We started a fire and basically chatted until the effects went off. In the end he trip lasted almost 10 hours. What an amazing experience it all was!

10 "Most Polluted Places" named

This interesting article from the BBC list the "10 most polluted places in the world". For me they are places to avoid whilst travelling! :)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6995621.stm

Earthquake in Colombia

A 6.2 magnitude earthquake hit the South West region of Colombia, causing some damage but no reported lost of lives. Lets hope that is the last of the earthquakes in this region.

I am in Huaraz now, another region known for it´s deadly earthquakes. The last one in the 1970´s killed half of this town´s residents and caused massive damage to both the city and the landscape.

The newspaper article from The Age sent to me from my sister.

http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/strong-earthquake-rocks-colombia/2007/09/10/1189276612881.html

Lima´s China Town

I am in Lima now, the capital of Peru. I spent yesterday walking the central, and covered only a little bit of it. Lima is one big spread out city. You need a bus or taxi just to get anywhere.

It is also constantly covered under a thick sea fog between May and November, therefore giving it a real grey and drab look. However Lima is also one happening place, with a population of 7 million there are people everywhere, young and old, shouting their warez, shopping, hanging out, enjoying their weekend...

The highlight for me (as in most cities) was the central market. I love wondering through looking at the shoppers and seeing the warez for sale, especially fresh produce like fruits, veges, meat and seafood. And the lovely seafood!!! Lima is a coastal city like Auckland, so the seafood are very fresh and very cheap. My mouth was watering as I walked outta there...

And guess what was next to the central market? Lima´s massive China town! Yes they call it Bario China here. And the entrance comes complete with a big arch. Donated by the Chinese government back in 1997. According to my guide book back in the 1800´s around 200,000 Chinese from Canton and Fujian province migrated to Lima, and currently there are around 1 million Chinese decedents living in Lima. Incredible aye? So walking through China town I can hear Cantonese being spoken everywhere, and see yummy Chinese food on the windows of the restaurants, such as roast duck, BBQ pork, pastries of every kind and dim sums!

Yes hot yummy dim sum! Within minutes I found myself seated inside "Salon Capon", the biggest and fanciest looking Chinese restaurant in town. Inside they had more waiters then lunchers. And I sat down to order my dim sum. I ate Siew Mai, Har Kao and Chechong-fun. The Har Kao was a real delight, the prawn inside was both huge and super fresh!

Wow! I haven´t had yum char since... KK in Elleslie over 10 weeks ago! So this was pure bliss... I ended up in the restaurant for 2 hours, reading my book, drinking endless cups of tea and eating my 3 dishes. hahahahahah!

Pisco after the earthquake...

I visited Ica the other day, one of the places effected by the massive earthquake 2 weeks ago. Ica seem normal to me, with only slight visible damage such as a crack wall here and there.

But the following day I went through Pisco, on my way north to Lima. And the first thing that I encounter were a bunch of kids sticking up a big long wooden stick with half a plastic bottle cut out to collect donations from the passengers. The scene in the city was devastating. Big 4 stories houses crumbled to the floor, debris everywhere, bridge damaged, cracks on road surface and power pylons fallen.

However I can see that people are trying to get their lives back in order. The electricity is up, water is running, public transport are moving about, people have been organize into work groups, collecting debris into one pile, lots of building being repaired and lots more colourful tents sitting outside their properties.

On my bus I was seated beside a man from Pisco, who left with his family to Ica after the earthquake. He show me photos of Pisco on his PDA of the destruction, and as we flick through them a photo of his dead mum was shown. I was pretty shock, as this guy who seem quite relax and happy to talk to me and show me the photos seem to have not just got over the destruction of his house, but also the death of his mother. I guess people here just want to move on and rebuild their lives.

Israelis

Who likes them? Was woken up by loud music this morning coming next door, and guess who? Bloody Israelis who had no concern for others...

Seriously, I try and avoid staying at backpackers full of Israelis, but sometimes it just turn out that way. Like at this current place in Lima, "The Lex Luthor´s House", it´s a wicked hostel except I am the only non-Israeli here. I am not bagging all of them but sometimes, when I wake up in morning like this to their noise it drives me insane!

More rant to come...

Cost... for the first 7 weeks...

Oh goodie, how much have I been spending so far? I had to dig deep into my journal to check the last time I did a calculation, and that was till Week 7.

So here goes:

Week 1 = 225.05 USD = 32.15 USD / day
Week 2 = 204.89 USD = 29.27 USD / day
Week 3 = 208.46 USD = 29.78 USD / day
Week 4 = 87.57 USD = 12.51 USD / day
Week 5 = 163.73 USD = 23.39 USD / day
Week 6 = 83.93 USD = 11.99 USD / day
Week 7 = 186.83 USD = 26.69 USD / day

So, the grand total after 7 weeks came to 1160.46 USD, or 23.68 USD per day! :)

I was stoke to find that out to be honest, coz trying to follow a budget has been ****** hard!

Still, those 7 weeks didn´t include the last 3 weeks, as since arriving in Peru I have been spending shit loads, not deliberately either. It´s just that tourist attraction in Peru are a rip off for foreigners, as you shall see once I tally up the remaining time. :(

Chauchilla Cemetery

I visited the Chauchilla Cemetery whilst in Nazca. This cemetery was looted by grave robbers of it's treasures, leaving the mummies to hang about. As you can see in the photo the mummies are all place in a fetal position in a shallow grave. There are also fragments of bones, human hair and broken pieces of pottery to around. The mummies have been dated back to 1000 AD!

The whole area is pretty desolated, as the landscape is desert like, with high sand dunes and very little vegetation. How the grave robbers found this site is a mystery to me. It all look a bit morbid to our little group (2 English, 2 Dutch and me) of backpackers.

Barf bag!

That´s me and my pilot straight after my fourth barf. Yup, that brown stuff in the plastic bag was all me! And I am proud to say that I am the only one out of six to have done this. I felt sorry for my co-passengers but I can explain!

I just got out of a 9 hours overnight bus ride this morning with little sleep, and ate breakfast just before boarding the flight at 8am. It was one of those things, I plan to do the flight tomorrow morning but got a great deal at the hostel (40USD instead of 55USD) so I jumped and suffered the consequences! :o)

Nazca Lines

Look closely at this picture and you will see the drawing of a monkey with a long curling tail. The second drawing shows a humming bird facing upwards.

This is the famous Nazca lines which I flew over this morning on a little Cessna 6 seater plane. We saw a number of drawings including a whale, triangles, trapezoid, astronaut, a pair of hands, dog, monkey, condor, tree, spider, humming bird, Alcatraz and parrot.

All these patterns can only be seen from above, and yet they were made by Pre Inca Nazca culture between 300 BC and 700 AD. Amazing huh?

Apparently scientist are still studying the drawings and coming to their own conclusion. We saw a video which portrays the lines as a way in appeasing the Gods to rain on the region, as Nazca is an arid, dry and desolated area full of sand dunes. In fact, the highest sand dune in the world is here, sitting at 2078 metres!

I thought it would never happen to me!

You won´t believe this, but last night I was trying to get some sleep in my dorm. When a couple came into the room, and shagged. It was horrid! I mean, I have heard these stories from fellow travellers, but I never thought it would bloody happen to me! Here I was, trying to get some sleep for this morning´s rock climbing, and these 2 drunken couple wants it hard. How can they even concentrate with others around? GRRRRRRR and they could so easily have done it elsewhere... Like in the bathroom or something! :b

Rock Climbing!!!

OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG! I finally got to climb, after a massive 2 months absence I am back!!!! And today, me and my guide German (pronounced "Herman"), checked out a local canyon at a district name Calambucos, about 20 minutes away from Arequipa.

At first sight the canyon looks amazing, it is high and steep, at up to 80 metres from the ground up. But we approach it from above, so we found a lower spot and had to abseil (aka rappelling) 60 metres to touch the bottom. We did this over three stages which was pretty thrilling.

But disaster struck as soon as I made my first abseil (and waving to the camera for the above photo!). My bloody daisy chain broke!!!!!!! It was hook to my bina and to the belay rope, and I still had 15 metres to go so it was a very tense moment. I manage to get down ok after literally lowering myself down the rope! On the second photo you can see German abseiling down the steep face.

But we recovered, and carry on with our climb once we reach the valley below. I only did 2 climbs today, the first climb was called "Cho Cho Loco" which literally mean "Crazy Cho", somebody´s name I guess! It is a 6A climb and is 25 metres. There were enough holds for me so it wasn´t too bad, but the granite wall was slippery as hell so I had to be very careful with my feet. The second climb was a goodie! It is call "La Calavera", and German mumble something about it name after a human skull. Yicks! It is a 6 climb and is 50 metres high, therefore it is a multi pitch climb. THIS IS MY VERY FIRST MULTI PITCH CLIMB AND I WAS EXCITED AS HELL!!!! For those who don´t know what that is, it means you climb up halfway, gather your ropes and continue with the rest of the climb whilst your partner belays you from the halfway point.

I didn´t fall off once, but then again German did the lead since I need to learn how to belay from above. But man oh man, the second disaster struck after we got to the top. We could not get back down!!!! German only had a 50 metres rope and it wasn´t touching the ground like we wanted. So we had to climb up the canyon and find an alternative route down. It was one of the shittiest walk I had to do as I was wearing my climbing shoes, by the time we got back down (it took just as long to go down as to go up!) my toes were all blistered and bloodied from the shoes.

Never mind, it was a good day for me. I really enjoy getting outside and practising my hobby! And as we were so high up, the view from above was fantastic! The last photo shows the perfect cone shape volcano Mount Misti (5822 metres) in the background. Followed by our canyon in the middle and yours truly posing with way too much sun block and Snickers chocolate stain in my teeth, along with German.

On a side note, German is only the second person I know who was born on the same day, month and year as me!!! The difference is he is married with 10 kids... :p

Who has the world´s deepest canyon?

I´ve seen many claims in my travels, it usually goes something like we got the biggest cave, the tallest tower, the biggest city, the longest river, the highest lake, and the deepest canyon. I am in Arequipa now, a beautiful town surrounded by 5000-6000 metres mountains and volcanoes, some of them snow capped. Anyway on Sunday I went to visit the Colca Canyon, 160km northwest of Arequipa and touted as the deepest canyon in the world.

I was a little sceptical by that claim as I have visited other canyons which claim to be the deepest (Kali Gandaki Gorge in Nepal and the Tiger Leaping Gorge in China springs to mind). So before visiting it I did a quick Wiki for answers. And guess what? The deepest canyon in the world is located in Tibet, known as the Yarlung Tsangpo Canyon, followed by the Kali Gandaki Gorge in second place!

Still, I was pretty impress by Colca Canyon, as it has snow cap peaks above, and pre-inca steeped terraces down below. All in all the height from top to bottom is at 3,269 metres. And you can see all of it standing on the edge!

The other amazing thing to watch at the Colca Canyon are the Andean Condors, which soars up during the morning following the rising warm air. These amazingly birds with their massive wingspan flew so close to us as they follow the thermals that I reckon they are checking the visitors out as much as us looking on in awe.

A monkey stole my camera...

This is a true story. I bump into Lucas Young from the animal sanctuary (Bolivia) here in Arequipa. And he told me that after I left, he was walking to work in the sanctuary as usual when all of a sudden a capuchin monkey leap on him, tore into his daypack, pulled his digital camera out and took off. Lucas was stunned but took chase, however the monkey was gone. He manage to find the camera case in the bush, and just as he was about to give up, another monkey park staff approach to hand him his camera after encountering and frightening the monkey to drop the camera.

Now the most amazing thing is this, he showed me the scratch digital camera and the 9 photos which taken by the monkey!!!!!!!! No shit! I saw it, the photos were a tad blurred, but you can make out pictures of tree branches, leaves, furry fingers, and the sky.

OMG!!! So after nicking the camera the monkey figured out how to turn the damn thing on, and to press firmly on the trigger button to capture those photos. They are so bloody intelligent! They obviously observe the thongs of tourist who visit the sanctuary with their camera and figure how to operate them.

I have had other capuchin monkey experience at the sanctuary too! Such as on my very first day when a monkey manage to enter our locked cage (which doubles as our office) and stole a machete. I had to chase after her and manage to frighten her to drop the machete (whilst she was climbing up the tree). I have also been told that one of the staff have given the monkey a key and a lock to see if they could figure out how to use it. It didn´t take them long. Incredible!

Amended

Here is a reply from Lucas about his stolen camera after reading my blog...

Hey matey, the blog on the stolen camera was pretty spot on, expect it was 11 photos taken by Budi, the monkey.

Peruvian Seafood

This is a serve at a restaurant with the sign "Mariscos" outside, pretty much meaning seafood. Any kind of seafood! I have been dying for decent seafood after being in high altitude for so long.

For this dish I was served prawn, fish, octopus, squid and shellfish. It was massive, delicious and cost all of 5USD!!! Yummy!

Only complain I have is the bland salad side and why does everything comes with fries?

Sick!!!

It has to happen to me every trip. However this time it is more annoying then anything else. I have been carrying a flu like symptom for over a week. You know the sort; cough, snort, sore throat. And at times it gets worst, like last night when I woke up with chest pains. I am taking these special "anti gripe" (anti flu) panadols, but I think the flu has followed me around because I have been pushing my body, from climbing up Machu Picchu, walking great lengths to check out ruins, not eating well, not sleeping enough and doing all nighter bus journeys.

So I am gonna have an easy week, eat well and give my body time to recover. I am staying at a great little hostel in Arequipa right now call Bothy´s. It has a movie room, hammocks on rooftop, free Internet and free breakfast. It is just a little quiet here as this place is not on the bible. Not complaining though as there are only 2 of us in my dorm of 6. :)

Roast Cuy anyone?

Guinea pig (aka "cuy" in Spanish), roasted and found on the streets of Urubamba.

I visited the main Cathedral in Cuzco today, and saw a painting of the last supper, with the main dish being the "cuy"!

Tourist or Traveller?

This was forwarded to me from Cynthia, a fellow "traveller" from Sydney. :)

Do you endure glares from fire twirling neo hippies types as you pick up your latest LV embossed luggage from the carousel and revel in the fact that you are going to the presidential suite at the Marriott as opposed to Khao San Road in Bangkok?? Or do you get a buzz out of only paying US$0.50 to sleep in a broom closest in Jaisalmer, Rajastan despite the cockroaches running over your legs?

Which type are you?? Tourist or Traveller....take the quiz and find out!

http://blogs.smh.com.au/travel/archives/2007/08/tourist_or_traveller_which_one.html