All Quito ed Out

Its now my 3rd day in Quito and I´m ready to move onto the next place. I have a meeting tonight to discuss the details of the Galapogos trip which I fly off to tomorrow morning early for the next 9 days.

I´ve just uploaded some photos from around the old quarter of Quito, its quite pretty with lots of spanish influences in the architecture. I found its very easy to get lost in Quito, the streets seem to wind all over the place!

I went into a dive shop today and made some enquiries about diving on the islands, sounds like it should be pretty straight forward to organise when I get there. I´m pleased to say that my cold is finally starting to clear up.

I share my room tonight with a fellow gap tour member, it´ll be nice to meet some new people. Hopefully they are nice and we all get on well.

Well I think its almost beer o clock.

Hasta Luego Amigos
Craig

Galapogos Weather

The 10 day weather forecast looks pretty good for the the Galapogos, fingers crossed it stays good.

Slight Change of Plan

Some of you guys might have heard that Im coming back to Australia a little sooner that I originally planned,  everything is fine so please dont worry.

Theres a few reasons why Im coming home early, firstly im keen to see Erin and all you guys, and I also need to start putting some cash away for the future.

So Ill be kicking around perth as of the 8th of November, about 3 weeks away.

Not feeling the best

After returning back from the salt desert I haven't been able to shake this damn headache.

While in Salar De Uyuni I think my eyes over exposed my brain and as a result got 2 migraines. After 4 quick panadol I was back on the road. But those panadol in quick succession made me a bit sick that night.

I also popped a couple of imodium, I didn't want anything shaking loose on the bumpy 12 hr bus ride back to la paz. Worst bus ride I've experienced without a doubt. Without having using imodium before I wasn't real sure how many to take, so I figured id er on the side of caution and had 3 of the lil tablets... I think that was probably too much. I've been back in la paz for almost 12 hrs and things are working again. Amazing lil drugs.

I'm back in la Paz with all its modern conviences like toilets and showers, aghh the creature comforts. I've just been down the witches market and got a few lil things, space in my pack is becoming a bit of an issue...

Tomorrow Im off on a tour of La Paz and then onto the airport for my flight to Lima and then quito, equador and my galapogos adventure. I've still got this blasted cold so probably won't be able to do any diving but it'll be great just to be in the water.

All the best
Craig

Relaxing Copacobana and lively La Paz

I spent 2 days in copa copacabana, sleepy lil lakeside town. The bus from puno to copacobana was only 3 hrs so pretty good. All except I was seated next to a chick with food poisoning, so she was throwing up most of the way... Let's just say it wasn't the nicest smelling bus trips I've taken...

Crossed the border from Peru into Bolivia around 1000. It was an interesting experience, the military officials seemed to like australians and immediately lightened up when finding out I was Australian.
After a few stamps I walked across the border and got my boliviano paper work authorised. Finally Bolivia here I am!

I arrived into copocabana late in the morning on Sunday 9/10. And settled into to my accomodation which looked out over lake titicaca, sweet!

I jumped on a tour to Sun island in the afternoon. The island was great, touted as having the fountain of youth. I didn't try the water, but many tourists did. The island was a previously a pilgrimage site for incans chasing good health and youth.

After returning from the island around 1800 I was feeling a lil sleepy so had a doze. When I awoke I saw an awesome sunset over lake titicaca with a storm front coming in with lightning and thunder. Beautiful to watch from my bed.

Monday I jumped on another bus bound for La Paz. Luckily this time without any spewing neiggbours.

Yesterday late in the afternoon I arrived into La Paz and was pleasantly greeted by my guide Edwin at the bus stop.

I had a bit of an explore round the main tourist drag and found nice lil cafe called sol and Luna and had an awesome French inspired chicken dish with a few glasses of red. I still cant get over the cheap prices here, last nights meal cost me $12 for a restaurant quality meal, bargain!

Today I visited the san Pedro prison which I have been reading about in "marching powder". I only visited the outside, wasn't brave enough to go inside and do a tour. I'm pretty sure the tours were canned a few years ago.

Anyways I also visited the witches markets and talked with the shop owners. Found some interesting stuff, dried llyama foetuses for sale to be used in offerings. Don't worry lyn I picked you one up for the coffee table... :)

This afternoon I've been hanging out in a funky lil Mexican bar / restaurant.

Tonight I'm off to uyuni on a 10hr night bus to start my solar de uyuni tour for the next 3 days visiting the salt flats.

I hope everyone back home is doing well. My next entry won't be for a few days time.

Huesto luego
Craig
Ps ohh I'm a bit behind uploading photos as none of my recent accommodation has had computers.

Home stay on lake titicaca island

I've just returned from two days I'm lake titicaca.

I set off early on Friday morning with a group of about 15 tourists in a 15m ferry to get to the reed islands. The floating islands were literally build ontop of the buoyant root mass of the reeds. The root mass was then over layed with fresh reeds about 1m long in a criss cross pattern about 60cm in depth. The final result was a floating island which people could build reed huts and live upon.

I stayed with a local family on Amantani island. The family were soo warm and generous. They had such a tight family unit, there were 3 generations all living and working in the same house. The family were farmers who primarily grew potatoes. They produced approximately 150 kg of various spuds / year, which was enough to feed the family and trade some for other items such as oil, fish, and other vegetables.

There were 3 of use solo tourists allocated to the family. Luckily one of the tourists, Clare could speak great Spanish so she was our interpreter. The grandmother only spoke ketchawan and no Spanish so it was manly charades with her to communicate. There were 2x boys aged maybe 12 and 10 and a lil girl aged 4. The lil girl wore traditional dress the whole time and was soo adorable. The tradition on the island is that girls wear brightly coloured clothing while the men dress quite plainly.

That evening the island put on a fiesta for the tourists and we all got dressed in traditional clothing and danced around like idiots being lead by the older woman from the community.

I wore a plain grey poncho which was quite heavy and warm, while Clare got dressed in a bright skirt, colourful top and wore a veil / shawl that the men make for their wives with quite colourful and detailed embroidery.

The family cooked breakfast, lunch and dinner for us on an open fire in the kitchen / eating hut. The mother did all the cooking and was the last to eat. The food was primarily vegetarian with lots of different  potatos in both soup and main form. The food was jummy and very healthy.

The next day we left the island and our home stay famalies quite early at 8am. From the amantani we visited another island which was notorious for having the best male knitters in the world. This is primarily as the male is required to make the brides dress, so the better a guy was at sewing the better chicka he could attract.

The boat ride home was slow and we eventually pulled into dock at 1730. I had a relatively quiet night, dinner with a few people from the tour, then an early night.

I would really recommend the link lake titicaca home stay, it was a fantastic experience.

Craig out.

First Day in Puno

Well I´ve been potering around in Puno today, theres not a real lot to do here I´ve found. I wandered into the main square and had a bit of a poke around the shops. Nothing I hadnt already seen...

I am running out of clean clothes so everything went to the laundry today and i bought a new shirt, an "Inca Cola" t-shirt, it had to be done. Inca Cola is an iconic drink that was produced in Peru which the locals absolutely love. Coca Cola came in and couldnt compete with the local drink so they bought it out. The drink itself is a radioactive yellow with a taste similar to creaming soda, very sweet. The peruvians definately have a sweet tooth!!

Tomorrow (Friday 7/10) I´m off to visit the reed islands on Lake Titicaca and I will be staying overnight on one of the islands with a local family. So my spanish will be put to the test..... I´ve been running around also today getting a few supplies like water and snacks in preparation for the 2 day visit to the Lake Titicaca islands.

So I will return back to Puno on Saturday 8/10 and maybe check out the local museum, I missed it today due to a mid afternoon siesta....

Anyways I´m uploading a few more photos from the Amazon, and I will also upload photos from the Colca Canyon and the Condors we spyed.

Ohh by the way for those who I said I will send postcards too, well I´m finding the postal service a lil tricky over here so dont hold your breath for postcards....

Hasta Luego Amigos
Craig