Nicaragua

The bus ride from San Jose, Costa Rica to Granada, Nicaragua took about 8 hours. Translated into English, Nicaragua means near water. On our second day here we went on a boat tour of Lake Nicaragua, which is a huge and full of fresh water. Interestingly, it is the only place in the world that has fresh water sharks. On the boat tour we saw some local people on the lake's islands going about their every day duties like fishing and washing clothes. These islands were formed by a huge volcanic explosion that blew about 1/3 of a mountain to bits, some of which ended up in the lake. Today these islands are forested, and some have houses on them. The lake has the look and feel of a tropical paradise. We also saw and heard some howler monkeys in the tree tops. There are plenty of birds here too. In the afternoon we got a taxi to the top of an active volcano.

From a distance, as you approach the summit, the volcano looks like a bushfire burning, with light grey smoke coming from the top of the hill. At the summit are a couple of huge, deep craters. The smoke is so thick that you can't the bottom of the craters. The smoke smells sulphury and occasionally you get to taste the sulphur in your throat. The signage warns you to park your car facing the exit, no doubt to help you get away fast, as well as to hide under your car if rocks start hailing down on you. Thankfully, there was no real action when we were here.

We stayed in Granada, which is a beautiful, historic city of about 150 000 people. Most of the buildings are pretty old and painted in contrasting colours which look really good. The streets are narrow and horses and carriages cart tourists around. It reminded us of Cartagena in Colombia.

Granada used to be one of the biggest cities in Central America, because it was once a major stop-over on a freight route through Lake Nicaragua in transit from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean. This is how freight was moved before the Panamá Canal opened. There are many American tourists here too, some of which are looking to buy properties to retire in.

We went out a few times and had our meals in a street dining restaurants. While eating you get approached by people trying to sell you stuff. We have been looking for hammocks for a while and one night we were approached by a bloke selling hammocks for about $7. He was a nice bloke so we ended buying two for $10. Later he came back and showed us his deluxe model, which was more like solid material than stringy like the ones we already had. So we reluctantly bought a third hammock. I offered to buy him a beer and he sat with us for a while. He said that he made the hammocks himself and it was his only job. Later in the night another bloke came along selling hammocks only these were much stronger looking than the stringy ones we had purchased. We ended up buying one of these as well, so that now meant we now had four hammocks. Next thing the first bloke came back and offered us one of the stronger hammocks. We told him that five hammocks would really be overdoing it but he persisted. Finally I made a deal with him to swap his deluxe model with one of the stronger stringy ones. So in the end we went came home with four hammocks, more than enough. It is so hard to say no to people sometimes.

After Granada we headed to an large island in Lake Nicaragua called Ometepe. Ometepe is big enough to support a population of 40 000 people and has two volcanoes on it, one of them is active. Even though there are so many people living there it still feels pretty rural and small, so the island is pretty big. That puts the size of the lake into some perspective.

When we arrived at the wharf where the ferries were, it appeared that we would have to wait for a few hours for the next boat, or chance taking an old wooden hulk across the lake to the island. With all our luggage and the heat it wasn't worth waiting so we got on the old boat. That was a bit of an experience. As the boat lurched through the waves water was coming inside and splashing up on our legs. Kim and Mikayla were not that impressed.

When we arrived at the island we were hounded by people wanting us to get a taxi and we kept telling them that we were OK, but one of these people persisted and kept following us and talking to us. He turned out to be a self-employed tourist operator and was really helpful. We had to use his phone to contact our accommodation that somehow had lost our booking, so our new friend recommended another place which was really good, drove us there, carried our bags and was really nice to us. I thought at first that this might have been a scam of some sort, but it turns out his only hidden agenda was that he did tours for $50 US so we took him up on it the next day. The tour itself was pretty average, visiting a pretty dodgy museum, a swimming pool built into a river and a restaurant on a beach. We drove around in his old, beaten up 4 wd over some really rough roads, but still, it was an interesting experience.

After 3 days we headed back to the 'mainland'. I went back to Granada and Kim and Mikayla went to San Juan del Sur. In Granada I managed to go on one of those horse-driven coach tours and took a few photos.

Nicaragua has had some issues with political instability, and these continue today. Possibly you might remember hearing of the Sandanistas and the Contra Rebels from news stories back in the 1980s. Even while were we here there were massive protests in Managua the capital city (we weren't there). The protests are basically the about the old communist-capitalist debate, where both sides hold very strong views. There was a civil war in Nicaragua over these issues in the 1980s and many people died defending these views. Today, other than the protests and some graffiti, there aren't any obvious signs of this conflict and Nicaragua feels like a safe place, if not, a tropical paradise.

Cruising

We have been on our cruise around the south of South America for about 8 days now, still with another week to go. We saw some fantastic glaciers yesterday, and went around Cape Horn the day before. Got some great photos too.

The Internet on the boat is ridiculously expensive (40-70 cents per minute) as well as ridiculously slow. Just to load the gmail inbox takes about two minutes then another two just to open one email.

So the updates have been almost impossible.

But we are going well. We have a great cabin (stateroom :-) ) and there is plenty to do on the boat, and probably too much to eat.

We'll be home in about 3 weeks now, unbelievable how fast the time has gone looking back.

Costa Rica

We caught the bus out of Panama and into Costa Rica. At the border was a big bridge going across a river. Up until the border, the bus had been travelling along a sealed road, when suddenly it climbed up a hill and onto a dirt road. The bus struggled with the ups and downs of the dirt road then stopped just before the bridge where we all had to get off and walk across. The one lane bridge was in a similar condition to the road, greatly in need of some form of maintenance. On the bridge we were met by a few beggars asking for money. On the other side was the immigration office where we had to get our passports stamped. After that, back on the bus and along a dodgy road with sealed sections separated by rough potholed bits causing us to slow down to about 7 kmh. The contrast between the 1st/2nd world and the 3rd world couldn't have been any more stark.

We got to San Jose, the capital of Costa Rica, in the late afternoon then had to catch another bus to Las Juntas where Mikayla has been living. So after a few more hours we were at our destination, a small country town, then had to wheel our luggage about 1/2 a kilometer through the street to get to where we were staying. The room was a small 'dog box' with bunk beds. It was really hot and humid, the bedding felt damp and there was no air conditioning, just a fan, also no TV or Internet. But it was better than sleeping outside .. I suppose. The next day the owners of the accommodation offered us a bigger, better room with air conditioning and TV for just another $3. At $15 per night instead of $12 it was hard to resist.

While we were here Mikayla turned 18. Kim bought her an iPod touch and I bought her an electronic photo frame. The iPod has been getting a good hard workout ever since. On the night of Mikayla's 18th, after we had tea together, she went out with her friends and had a big night out. A couple of nights later we went out for tea with her host family from Costa Rica. The highlight of the night was Mikayla getting her face pushed into a cake, which apparently is a big tradition in Costa Rica. Another tradition apparently is getting pelted with eggs!!

I sat next to the host father, and managed to have a reasonable conversation with him in Spanish. Among other things, we discussed the temperature, the price of fuel, I found out that he had lived his whole life in Las Juntas. Pretty basic I know, but last time I was in South America all I could say was yes, no and thank you in Spanish.

We spent a few days in Las Juntas before heading off to Manuel Antonio which is a more tropical location near the sea. Our accommodation was owned and managed by an expat Polish-American. His name was Andy, he was an alcoholic and proud of it and he had very strong right-wing political views. He thought that Barack Obama was a socialist and that all socialists were stupid. Kim and I had a few drinks with him the first night we were there. I asked him if he thought the Scandinavian counties were dumb given their socialist systems and high standards of living. This is not a political statement, just an observation, particularly when capitalism, especially in the USA, seems to be going so badly at the moment anyway.

While we were here Kim celebrated her 40th birthday. Kim got some silver jewelry that we picked up in Bolivia, some really nice Costa Rican timber (rainforest) jewelry boxes and got shouted out for tea.

During the day we went out to one of the local beaches, where we were treated to drinks service on the beach by a local person that bordered on having a manic personality disorder. He kept referring to Skippy when talking to us, so at least he knew something about Australia. While on the beach we were constantly being asked to buy things like drinks, ceramics and towels. The towel bloke would have asked us at least four times, on different occasions, each time getting the same answer.

After Manuel Antonio we headed back to San Jose on our way to Nicaragua. We had to stay one night at the bus terminal which was excellent accommodation and good value. While here we went for a walk up into the San Jose shopping district. Here we discovered bingo machines which are a bit like poker machines, only better. Kim went really well and won some money while Mikayla and I probably lost a couple of dollars each. It filled in some time for us while we waited for our next bus to Nicaragua.

Panamá

After Colombia almost anywhere would have been a bit of a let down. So no surprises, Panamá was pretty ordinary.

Panamá is famous for the Panamá canal, a narrow stretch of water cut through the isthmus between North and South America to connect the Atlantic with the Pacific ocean. It was built around 1914 by engineers from the United States and imported labour other countries. Today it carries about 5% of the world's shipping and about 20% of the sea freight to the United States. What you see as you fly in is about 100 ships anchored in the bay waiting to come through the canal. The bay has skyscrapers built right to the water's edge. At the canal, acres of containers are stacked up about 4 or 5 high with massive cranes for loading these onto the ships. The Panamá canal area was leased to the United States for about 90 years. The USA invaded here militarily in 1989 to protect its own interests.

Panama used to be a part of Colombia and when we were here they were celebrating their independence day. The price of independence from Colombia was paid for by a new dependence on the United States it seems.

Panamanians are a very relaxed bunch of people. Nothing seems to matter much to them. When we arrived at the airport we were told that we could not go through immigration because we needed to fill out another form. So we asked where the forms were and were told "over there". So we went around looking for the forms, up some stairs, and still had no idea. A couple of other tourists we met got the same treatment. After about 10 minutes of unproductive searching I went back and asked again, only to be told again that they were "over there". Welcome to Panamá!

Eventually someone came and helped us out so we got through and got a taxi to our accommodation. It was in a 5 storey building and the reception was on the top floor. The lift was out so we had to lug our 21 kg packs all the way up the stairs. The temperature would have been about 30 degrees and the humidity probably about 95%. It was pouring with rain outside. Welcome to Panamá!

While here we met another Tasmanian (from Launceston) who was on one year's leave from the Army, on a $5000 round-the-world airfare that gave him 20 stopovers ... not bad. He had been serving in Afganistan in infantry. He seemed like a good bloke but bragged a bit about all the blinders he'd been on. You get that I suppose if you have served in a war.

After a day or so we headed out of the capital city, into the countryside, to an area called El Valle (the valley). El Valle is a small village sitting inside an extinct volcano. It is surrounded by steep sided mountains covered in tropical forest. Many wealthy Panamanians come here for their holidays. We got off the bus where we were supposed to stop and tried ringing our accommodation from the public phone but it wasn't working. So we felt a bit stuck. In the end we went into a nearby restaurant and paid them $1 and got through, and were then picked up and taken to our room. The place we stayed at was called the Golden Frog named after the local amphibian species. It was really nice, good rooms, great garden, good service, no complaints really, except that it was about 3 km out of town, and they didn't serve meals, only breakfast.

In Panamá, at this time of the year it rains heavily each day. One day we went and visited a serpentarium (snake enclosure) that was only about 1 km from where we were staying. Unfortunately we got lost walking back and caught in the rain. It *really* poured and we got so wet so quickly that it wasn't worth trying to shelter in the end. We ended up walking past a bunch of locals in a bus shelter 3 times and I can only guess how stupid they must of thought we were. In the end we paid them $1 to use their phone to ring the people at our accommodation to come and get us.

We also went on a canopy tour in the forest that involved a guided walk up a steep hill on a muddy track in very humid weather then coming back down on a series of flying foxes. This was pretty good but expensive, just over $US50 each for about an hour.

After a few days we headed back to Panamá City to our dodgy hostel. There was no evidence that it had ever been cleaned at least when we were there. One good thing though it had air conditioning. Here we met up with Mikayla who arrived about 4 hours late from Costa Rica. Kim was getting a bit worried.

Our next destination in Panamá was Bocas del Toro (Mouths of Bull) which involved staying on a remote tropical island. We had to catch a bus at night and arrived a our destination feeling a little delirious at about 6 am. The air conditioner on the bus was going flat out all night and it ended up feeling really cold on the bus. It isn't normal to feel cold here.

After we arrived we were whisked off in a taxi to where the boat left from. Then we had about a half hour boat trip to the island followed by another taxi ride on a very rough and wet, muddy road to our accommodation. We were lucky to make it, the road was that bad. Apparently the taxi got stuck heading back. We had cabins built into the hill right beside and above the beach. It was quite hot here most of the time and even more humid. Everything felt damp from the humidity. Interestingly, there were hardly any mosquitoes.

While we were here we went snorkeling. You could see some small colourful fish swimming around the rocks. Its a long time since I've been snorkeling, it was great, it made me think about getting a diver's license when I get back. The thought of sharks did enter my mind a few times. Another time I did a short walk through the bush here. About four dogs followed me. The bush was really tropical with bananas and coconuts growing wild.

We saw a family of locals, possibly indigenous people, arrive on the beach to harvest a heap of coconuts and some bananas. One bloke sat out in a long skinny boat while the rest of the family were on shore. One of the girls would swim out with bags of the coconuts. The kids were having fun playing on the beach. An idyllic setting really, at least until they chucked their plastic coke bottle into the water as they left.

Before we left we did a tour of the Panamá Canal interpretation centre and watched some ships coming through. The water is on different levels and you see large doors opening after the sections are filled or emptied. The whole system is gravity fed and works really quickly.

Another highlight was a visit to a huge shopping mall near the bus terminal. It was absolutely massive and would take more than a day to see it all. We both lashed out a bit here and knocked the budget around a bit, but oh well. This photo is of just a part of the food court section.

Catching up from Nicaragua

Since the last post we have travelled through Panama and Costa Rica. We are now in Nicaragua. This place is amazing - huge inland freshwater lakes and active volcanoes. It has been hard to get near a fast and reliable Internet connection for a couple of weeks now, so it is difficult to update the blog. But I will get around to it. We are still alive and well. It is very hot and I am even getting a suntan. I reluctantly admit that I have had to wear shorts for the first time in years!!!!

Colombia

When we were planning this holiday, much of the research we did depicted Colombia as being very dangerous, so we didn't plan to come here originally. Fearing kidnapping, corrupt military, drug lords, thieves, plagues and pestilence, we thought it would be better to be safe than sorry and stay away. However, after we arrived in South America, we spoke to quite a few tourists that had been through Colombia and every one of them spoke so highly of the place that we began to change our minds. Other than that, almost every day on the television, we saw advertisements for Colombia showing beautiful photos and ending with the slogans, "The biggest risk you will take, is not wanting to leave", and "The biggest risk you will take is falling in love". A final factor was making a mistake with our travel plans in Chile, which meant that we bypassed the top of Argentina and the salt pans of Bolivia, that we originally planned to visit, meaning that we had another week or so up our sleeves to spend some time checking out Colombia.

We arrived at the airport about 8 pm and saw heaps of police and military types. People were being checked, searched and sniffed by the drug dog as they were arriving. We knew to catch the authorised taxi to our accommodation in Bogotá and this all happened very smoothly. The next day at breakfast, we met some European tourists that knew a bit about Colombia and spoke Spanish pretty well. They were friendly and helped interpret the breakfast menu. Also they had been to Ecuador and shared our opinions about how it wasn't all it was cracked up to be. While discussing Bogotá they told us about an area called Zona Rosa, which had lots of restaurants, was pretty safe for tourists and worth a visit.

Zona Rosa was great with street dining, markets, different types of restaurants including Middle-Eastern and Mexican, shopping malls, the usual people on the street selling cheap Rolex watches, sunglasses, mobile phone covers and other stuff that you never ever want to buy. We also visited a part of the old city in Bogotá that has a large museum full of artifacts that date back to pre-Columbian civilisations. Most of the tings on display were made from gold and some date back as much as 2000 years. Gold was highly valued by these people because it did not tarnish and reflected the sun. As these people worshipped the sun, having gold was like having a small part of the sun that could be carried around.

After Bogota we went to Cartagena (pronounced 'Carta-henya'). Cartagena is a bit like Surfers Paradise, but on the Caribbean coast. This was probably the best experience of the trip so far. Imagine crossing Spain with Africa and you pretty much have it. Black African-looking people dancing on the streets

to the sound of drums and their own singing. The streets are very narrow and the buildings are of a Spanish style with small balconies facing the street on the first floor. It was really hot and humid most of the time we were here. Cartagena has a pretty interesting history dating back to the 1500's involving conflict between the Spanish and the English, looting by pirates, even Sir Frances Drake got into the act. These wars and raids caused the Spanish to build a huge wall around the city which still exists today.

While in Cartagena we stayed on an island about 2kms off the coast of the main city at a resort. Most of the time we were here we had the entire resort to ourselves. I read the guest book back for about 10-15 pages and didn't see one Australian entry. However on the second day we were here a couple of Australians from Sydney turned up. The female Australian asked me where we were from and when I said we were from Tasmania, she said "well you can't help bad luck I suppose". Thankfully I managed to get in a small dig. I quickly said to her, "well, I used to like Sydney too". Then the bloke asks "what do you mean used to like Sydney?" my kind nature kicked in and I kept my mouth shut, rather than saying "that is until I met you two". When you are overseas generally speaking people are fascinated by Tasmania and know something about it, especially the Tasmanian Devil. Australian mainlanders however pity us, and from my perspective the feeling is mutual. Try going overseas and saying that you are from Victoria, Queensland or New South Wales then expect the next question to be "where's that?".

While we were on the island we met some of the locals. The lady that ran the resort was really friendly towards us and so too was the security guard that worked there. These were the first people that I managed to actually converse with in Spanish, however, the conversations were pretty basic. Much of the time I was comparing my suntan with the lady, as she was pretty dark skinned, and I am so white, it became a bit of a joke between us. I kept saying that I would become 'bronseado' today which means suntanned. She didn't like having to look after too many guests and didn't go much on Americans ... I wonder why? The security guard had a really easy job, just sitting around most of the night and occasionally shining his torch near the pool. We were shouting him beers and he was pretty keen to drink them, despite having to carry a .38 calibre pistol as part of his job. He even invited us to his house, not far from where we stayed, and we met his wife and children. The whole time we were there we had to rely on our Spanish to communicate so it was pretty challenging.

We got into a bit of a routine on the island. Sleeping in until about 9 o'clock, then breakfast, Kim would swim in the pool in the morning but I retired to the air conditioned room and catch up with writing the blog, mainly because the sun would be out in the morning and it was very hot, probably about 36-37 degrees. After lunch, sometimes I would have a quick siesta then go for a swim in the pool. I ended up swimming about 60 laps on one day without stopping, which would be almost a kilometer ... not too bad for an old bloke :). I also was teaching Kim a bit more about swimming.

(I´ll fix this photo later)

After about five days of this we returned to Cartagena and spent some time walking around the city. One cultural difference that was hard not to notice was the different attitude towards alcohol. Near where we stayed there are open plazas where people congregate surrounded by shops. Some of the shops are like milk bars back home that also sell alcohol. Heaps of young people were going in and buying beers and spirits. They even open the beers up for you. Then people would go out onto the street or into the plaza and drink. The police were present the whole time either in a van, or on motorbikes or just on foot. The strange thing was that there was no yelling, no fighting, no glass breaking, just the gentle buzz of conversation, despite heaps of young people drinking straight spirits. Maybe Australians could learn from this. It also seemed like a good way for the police to improve their image with young people, just by being there and talking to them while they are having fun.

While in Cartagena we walked around in the warm nights, through the historic and narrow streets and not once did we ever feel in the slightest bit of danger. People were getting driven around in horse-drawn carriages and there were almost no cars on the streets. Almost everyone we met was friendly and wanted to help us. You could really start to get used to this place. The advertisement was ringing true, we weren't that keen on leaving.

Finally we headed back to Bogotá and did a couple more trips to Zona Rosa and the old city. We visited the old city and walked past the highly guarded presidential palace. We also visited the local art gallery which featured original works from Picasso, Monet, Salvador Dali, Renoir, Chigall and Colombia's home grown artist Fernando Botero.

I would love to come back to Colombia one day ... on a scale of 1 to 10 it gets an 11.

Guayaquil <-> Puerto Lopez

Our next destination was Guayaquil, (pronounced 'why-a-kill'). Guayaquil is nearer the south of Ecuador, beside a large estuary and is heaps hotter than Quito.

While here we stayed in a hostel, which although it had pretty good reviews, was fairly ordinary.

When we got there, again at night, we were greeted by an ugly dog that sounded like it wanted to kill us. We rang the bell a few times and like some dog owners do, they just beckoned us to walk past this thing. In the end they came and got the dog so we could walk past it.

Then we got to our room and it was about 30C with not much air circulation. After the cold of Quito, the air in Guayaquil felt really hot and humid. So we dumped our stuff in the room and went out for a cold beer and something to eat. The beer was really cold and tasted pretty good. Kim had a 'Shawarma' to eat, which is a bit like a souvlaki only made from chicken. The chicken is cooked vertically, rotated in front of a gas-heated grill. The bloke who was grilling the chicken's name was Antonio so he must have been a good bloke. He didn't leave the grill for the hour or so that we were there. He tended it almost obsessively, turning it a bit, cutting off a few small burnt bits. It was almost tiring just watching him.

After that it was time to hit the sack and try to sleep in the sweltering heat. Outside there were alarms going off and inside there were mosquitoes buzzing around our ears for most of the night, apart from when they were biting us. While we were here the charger for the laptop decided to pack it in. But apart from the accommodation, Guayaquil was quite nice.

Kim organised our trip to another place called Puerto Lopez. The trip to Puerto Lopex was on a bus driven by a maniacal, if not suicidal bus driver. Lots of the travel reviews for Ecuador speak of the maniac bus drivers, none of these are exaggerated. Buses seem to race each other, overtake on crests of hills, and seem to go even faster once one side of the bus leaves the road. People get on and off the bus while it is still moving. Some of the people that get on and off try to sell stuff, like coconut water, cakes and drinks.

There is a bloke up the front of the bus that helps to throw the kids out the door as the bus moves. Somehow everyone accepts this as normal. On the side of the road is heaps of rubbish, nothing like you could imagine back home. By heaps I mean that in some places you can barely see a patch of dirt in between bits of plastic, paper and glass. There is rubbish everywhere on the side of the road, it just varies from lots of rubbish to total rubbish. People on the bus were throwing their plastic bottles and papers out the window, as if it was completely normal to do so. Bits of rubbish were blowing around the floor of the bus and would eventually get sucked out the door. People didn't even look at it as it went past. So much for the tropical paradise.

After four or more hours of this, we arrived at Puerto Lopez, which is a small village on the coast with a distinctly 3rd world look and feel to it. We got in a rickshaw and it took us to our accommodation which had the look and feel of a resort on the coast.

The gardens were immaculately tended and full of tropical plants. Out the front were coconut palms and small shelters where you could relax in the shade. However, we never did see the sun the whole time we were here. It was overcast and occasionally we had misty rain, but it was still nice.

Much of our time here was spent relaxing. Sleeping in until about 9:30 became a priority, fruit salad and eggs for breakfast, a bit more relaxing, then a walk along the beach up to the village, sitting beside the beach drinking beer or fresh juice, walking back to the hostel, the evening meal, then a few games of cards became the ritual of the day. It's a hard life, but someone has to do it. All this with meals and drinks included cost us about $AU190 for four nights.

The walk along the beach was both interesting and disappointing. Each day large open boats would come ashore and blokes would run out and carry back crates of fish and prawns. This would attracts hundreds of birds. Some of the birds would swoop down and steal fish from the crates as they were being carried. Occasionally the birds would drop the fish and pelicans would be standing underneath waiting to grab anything that was dropped. Sometimes the pelicans would fight over these fish and you would see them having a tug-o-war. A third type of bird that looked a bit like a vulture stood around the outside waiting for any left-overs.

Once again the disappointing thing was the rubbish. Bits of plastic, rope, bottles forming a big line along the high-tide mark - a pretty big contrast to Tasmanian beaches. I guess all that having to pick up papers in the playground in primary school has had some impact on our culture back home.

Ecuador has lots of potential but the glossy magazines do tell a lie.

Click here to see Guayaquil

Click here to see Puerto Lopez

The middle of the world

After spending many often harrowing hours on buses we decided to increase our carbon footprint and take a plane to our next destination, Quito, Ecuador.

On the plane there are the usual in-flight magazines and they have a way of presenting everything with hyper-real photos with super-saturated colours, everyone is smiling with ultra-white teeth, even the exotic animals look happy. Ecuador is billed in these magazines as one of the most bio-diverse countries on Earth so you get the impression that you are coming into some kind of tropical paradise. After the deserts and the dust of Chile and Peru it makes a nice change.

So we arrive in Quito airport in the dark and go looking for an automatic teller machine. On the way we walk past a few military or police that have machine guns. Somehow the sight of these guns makes you think about what it would be like if they opened up on you - not a good thought. The other aspect is that you can feel safer around these people, because if they are on your side then anyone out to get you probably doesn't have much hope. Then we get some money out of the ATM and to our surprise it is all US currency. Ecuador doesn't have its own dollar but it does mint some of its own coins, just not the notes.

Our accommodation was really good and the people that ran it were friendly and helpful. Quito is spoken of in two parts, the old city and the new city. We were in the new city, which is meant to be safer. However the people that ran the accommodation were advising us to get taxis at night even if it was just for two blocks.

The suburb, or district, where we stayed was called the Mariscal, otherwise known as 'gringo central'. Gringo is a latin-american term for a white person, usually referring to people from the USA. This area has narrow streets, heaps of small eating places, night clubs and discos and there are hundreds of people out on the streets. We were about four blocks from gringo central and decided to take the risk and walk.

One night we went out to an Indian restaurant that was packed with locals watching a soccer match. You could get three large bottles of beer for $US2.50, probably $AU2.80 as the current exchange rate. It was worth watching to see how excited the people get. Most people were wearing their national colour, yellow, and when a goal was scored everyone jumps around. One of the waiters got showered in beer but he seemed to enjoy it. The waiter was also selling people cigarettes, individually from his packet, which was a bit unusual by AU standards. After the game we stayed and had a curry which cost about $3 each for two curries with rice and naan, as well as pakoras for entree.

Quito is a fairly large city that is surrounded by mountains. It is a fairly high altitude, enough to cause a bit of breathlessness. However, I must be getting more used to altitude now because I don't get the headaches that I used to anymore. The other thing is that it is close to the equator (hence the name ''ecuador"). So that means it is reasonably cool, sometimes cold, because of the height, but still with monsoonal rains. The days start off fine and the clouds build up through the day. One day it rained extra hard and there was a huge deluge. It bucketed down for about half an hour. We were at an indoor market at the time and were trapped there for a while.

One day we went and visited the actual equator. I thought it would be an ultra-kitch thing to have a photo of stepping across the line. The strange thing though it seems is that there is more than one equator. Apparently in the 1800s the French came here with the best instruments they had at the time and determined that the equator was about half a kilometer from where it actually is.

A huge monument was built on the pseudo-equator with a park and shops surrounding it, a line on the ground was made with bricks. All of this still exists and people still come here and get their photos taken stepping across or standing on the line, which isn't really anything. You even have to pay to get in to participate in this farce. Apparently the natives had a much better idea of where the real equator was.

There is another spot that you can go to where the real equator is, also with a line on the ground made with bricks. This site has several gimmicky things set up on it, like sundials and water troughs. Most people know that water spirals in an anti-clockwise direction in the Southern Hemisphere when running out of a trough, and the opposite in the Northern Hemisphere. At the 'real' equator this was demonstrated to us. Surprisingly the trough only had to be about two meters from the line for this phenomenon to occur. Right where the equator is, there was no spiraling at all.

I'm not sure why, but apparently it is easier to balance an egg on a nail head right on the equator than it is elsewhere. People were given the opportunity to do this and most failed. I got it on my second attempt and was awarded a certificate for doing so. Something I can be eternally proud of I suppose.

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Lima

The trip to Lima was highlighted by an adjacent passenger coughing almost continually for the entire trip of maybe four hours. There has been some publicity posters here on buses advising people of precautions not to spread the H1N1 or swine flu virus, so having a bloke coughing each and every 60 seconds was somewhat unsettling. We travelled in the downstairs section of the bus, which is the luxury section and were given blankets and pillows to make the journey more comfortable. At first I tried pulling my T shirt up over my mouth and eventually I used the blanket and kept my mouth and nose covered for most of the journey. It was unbelievable really, I didn't know who to feel sorrier for, me or the bloke coughing.

We arrived in Lima in the dark and got a taxi to our accommodation then went out for a walk. We found a good coffee shop called Chef's Cafe. I ended up having spinach pie for tea and Kim had a grilled chicken sandwich. All good really, I was getting over a spate of diahhorrea and starting to feel better. Kim was getting psyched up for a job interview.

Lima is now the capital of Peru but it has only been the capital since the Spanish conquered the area around 1535. Before that, the capital was Cusco, that was when the Incas ran the show. Lima is the third largest city in South and Central America, after Mexico City And Sao Paulo.

This was our second visit to Lima. On the first visit we arrived late at night, got a taxi through the seediest part of the city and didn't see that much. This time we arrived through the newer part of the city and got to the coast and went to some good restaurants and that made the whole place feel much better and safer.

While we were here we went to a casino and I introduced Kim to blackjack. She really liked it and won about 10 dollars. I won about $30 so it was necessary to go back there the next night as well. Kim had her job interview that night and we tried to get Pennytel web callback working, but for some reason it didn't work. In the end we had to condescend to using Skype which worked quite well albeit more expensive. Now that it is "official", Kim can be congratulated on her successful application - great work Kim :-)

We didn't do that much in Lima worth writing about, just looking around the city, eating out, playing blackjack and relaxing.

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(11 photos)

Laptop charger is dead

Last night I discovered that the laptop charger has died. Now I have to find a new one which I suspect will not be too easy. If we go a bit quiet online for a while then that is why. By the way the weather is great here, mid twenties to low thirties, sunny and hot. A cold beer is required from time to time to assist with cooling down. We hope to be back online soon.

Pisco - Paracas

After Nazca we headed up the coast to a small fishing town called San Andres, which is near between a tourist resort called Paracas and another larger town called Pisco. Pisco is famous because of the Peruvian drink, that shares its name. Most tourists in Peru get offered a free Pisco sour as an enticement to enter a restaurant. Paracas is like the Strahan of the central-southern Peruvian coast and its sole reason for being it seems is to cater to tourists. This area has been subjected to a massive earthquake and tsunami in back 2007. Putting it in perspective, it was about a magnitude 8 on the Richter scale, about 500 people were killed and these pictures tell the story of the devastation. Today you see many broken or half fixed buildings and long lines of rubble and bricks beside the road where they carted most of the wreckage.

We travelled once again in a fairly luxurious bus from Nazca and arrived in Paracas on a fairly hot afternoon. Our hotel was in the next town so we needed transport and sure enough someone was there to offer us a lift. He wanted to charge us 20 soles, which is fairly steep in local terms but we didn't have much choice and accepted. After we headed towards our destination in San Andres the driver started to tell us that our hotel had been destroyed by a tsunami and there wasn't much to go to as everything was under construction.

Kim had read about scammers making similar claims in the Lonely Planet guide, and we told him that we had made a booking, and he didn't really want to accept what we were saying. He insisted that there our hotel was under construction. He was probably wanting us to stay in Paracas instead, presumably because there might have been some sort of commission involved. He nearly had us sucked in but I asked if we could ring our hotel first and he stopped by one of his friends on the side of the road that had a mobile phone. We called the hotel and the lady that worked there asked to talk to the driver. Sure enough, everything at the hotel was fine and the bloke ended up taking us there. Over here it seems, it pays to be more cautious with people that want to help you the most.

In the end our hotel was excellent and the people that ran it were very friendly and nice. It was right on the waterfront. You could see hundreds of birds in and around the water, occasional dolphins, islands on the horizon and fishing boats moored close to the shore.

It was really peaceful and scenic so we walked up the road and had a cold beer or two and took it all in as the sun set on the horizon. The intention was to come back for tea. However, when we did come back, everything was closed; at around 7:00 pm on a Saturday it was a bit surprising. So we tried to get transport into Pisco in these little vehicles that are best described as motorised rickshaws, driven frantically by blokes that look about 12 years old (seriously), but no one would take us after dark. In the end we found a taxi that would take us to Pisco, and when we got in, there were two other passengers in there also going to Pisco. It seems the taxi has to fill up before the trip got under way.

We asked the driver if he would recommend a restaurant to us, which he did. Once at the restaurant we also asked for a recommendation as to what to have for tea. What we got was something like squid stuffed with prawns, but it didn't really smell right. Both Kim and I tried some of the prawns, but we could both probably only chew the prawn twice before having to spit it out. It tasted like it had been off for days. After that the smell just wafted up from the plates making us feel more and more crook. We had to apologise to the waitress as both of us could not eat anything but the chips that came with it. She was OK about it and didn't charge us for the main meal, which was great of her under the circumstances. I'm not really sure if the prawns were off or not because anyone who has smelled fish sauce, a common ingredient in Asian cooking, might know what the smell was like. However, I was fairly crook for the next couple of days anyway, not so much in the guts, but with plenty of activity around the back door, if I might euphemistically say so. Kim was fine, but she is suffering a bit today.

The next day we took the boat tour out to the Ballestas Islands. On the first stop we saw El Cadelabro, which in English means the candelabra, another huge geoglyph carved into the ground by an ancient civilisation, the Paracas, about 2000 years ago. Once again mystery surrounds this 183 m high carving, but one theory is that it represents the San Pedro cactus, which is used even today by Shaman to induce a mystical experience in religious rituals.

After that we visited more islands where thousands of birds live. In addition you get to see a fair few seals, which the guide refers to as sea lions - I can't tell the difference. There are so many birds living here that they actually mine the 'guano' or poo. You can see loading decks and sheds on the islands that are almost white from the poo.

The islands are pretty spectacular with rock arches and jagged formations poking out of the sea.

In the afternoon we went on another tour, saw some fossils and got a bit of a spiel about how the earthquake had changed the coastline here. The guide seemed to know his stuff but had a strange accent which was somewhat amusing.

Finally we were shown some pretty spectacular coastline and cliffs before stopping for lunch.

Our taxi back to the bus station only cost us 12 soles, despite it being booked first - a 40% saving on our entrepreneurial friend that picked us up on the first day.

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Nazca

After Arequipa we headed up the coast, this time on a much more luxurious bus. We stayed one night in a place called Ica and two nights in Nazca (Nasca). Nazca is famous for large lines and drawings on the ground that are so large that they can only be seen in entirety from the air. There are unanswered questions about these lines and figures, for example, why draw something so large that it can only be seen from the air when it is not possible to fly to see them? what purpose did the lines serve? Erich von Daniken, in Chariots of the Gods, proposed that these lines and figures were evidence of contact with extra-terrestrial intelligence.

However, the proposed explanations seem much less bizarre than that. But, it is interesting that one of the geoglyphs is named 'astronaut'.

While we were here we took a short flight over the Nazca lines and got a bit of a information about them, as you do when you're a tourist. The lines and figures were created by the Nazcas just by picking up the rocks and putting them to the side. The rocks are a dark reddish-brown and the sand underneath is light grey, so removing the rocks leaves behind a light patch relative to the surrounding area. If you wanted to make a long straight line then simply using 3 sticks and lining them up will allow you to do that pretty easily. Perhaps a long bit of string between the sticks to assist with where to pick up the rocks. It turns out that many of these lines align with the sunrise at the winter solstice. Others point to water sources, while others may have just been ancient footpaths across the desert. The lines are between 1500 and 2000 years old. What they do reflect is the intelligence and advanced thinking of people that had a pretty hard life in one of the driest parts of the world.

The other remarkable thing about this place are the mummies. It is possible here to drive to a place where you see human bones piled up on the dirt. While here we did a tour to Chauchilla, an ancient Nazca burial ground. However, in typical display of human red-necked greed, much of this area has been plundered by grave robbers and was only protected 15 years ago. People would dig up the graves, steal a bit of gold or ceramics, and sell them to museums and collectors around the world. Even when we were there we saw European tourists walking off the formed pathways, no doubt, crunching up human bones under their feet.

Some of the mummies are remarkably well preserved. You can see remains of skin, hair and fingernails. Our guide explained how the process worked.

Apparently they used to drain all the fluids out of the bodies, then sit them near the fire for a while to start the process off. After that they treated the skin with 'salts and peppers' to preserve the skin. After that the climate did the rest. It is very, very dry here, almost nothing grows.

The dryness and placing the bodies inside pits in the ground made a stable environment that allowed the preservation to work.

To view the slideshow please click here.

Catching up with the photos

We've spent a bit of time travelling lately in parts of Chile and Peru without Internet connections that we would brag about back home. Now we are in Lima, we have 1.5 Mb download and about .5 Mb upload speed, so I have spent some time catching up with the photos.

So if you have a bit of time on your hands check out these slideshows

The Atacama Desert (94 photos) click here

La Paz, Bolivia (56 photos) click here

Arequipa (51 photos) click here

Nazca (106 photos) click here

Happy viewing :-)

The White City

We arrived in Arequipa after a very long and harrowing bus ride from La Paz. The journey was highlighted by a maniacal bus driver going way too fast. At one stage most of the passengers were airborne after we hit a bump in the road. Also, we had to sit right at the back of the bus where the toilets were. The toilets smelled like they had never been cleaned - ever - and every time someone opened the door you had to hold your breath for a while or risk dry reaching. A little girl on the bus befriended us and Kim gave her some chewing gum. From then on she just stood next to us the whole way just smiling and blowing bubbles. We probably encouraged her by blowing a few back.

Arequipa had a bit of a reputation as there was a documentary on TV earlier in the year where tourists had been kidnapped there in a taxi, and the people were tortured and made to give up their ATM cards and PINs. So we were a little nervous getting into taxis. However, the taxi driver was friendly and helpful and made sure he got us exactly to our hostel entrance. In fact all the taxis were good. The most we ever got charged was about 4 soles - $2 AU - so I tipped most of them a few extra soles. The trick is to use the official taxis, those with ID numbers, lights on top and stickers. The tourists that got kidnapped just accepted a ride from people with the word taxi scrawled on a beer carton on the dash apparently.

Arequipa is the second largest city in Peru, after Lima. There are about a million people living here. It is really spread out and looks huge, probably about Melbourne size, maybe a bit smaller. Arequipa is known as the 'white city' because of the Spanish buildings surrounding the central Plaza de Armas. Many of these building date back to the time the Spanish ruled here, maybe 400-500 years.

Recent earthquakes have done a bit of damage to the spires on the church but these have been rebuilt. Earthquakes are pretty common here - so too are volcanoes.

In the distance it is quite easy to see the huge volcano, El Misti, which means The Lord, in the indigenous peoples' language, Quechuan.

We did a fair bit of relaxing in Arequipa and didn't get out much, except to the restaurants. Although I did get my hair cut while I was here. The hair dresser only wanted to charge me 3 Soles ($1.50 AU) but she did an excellent job and didn't get much hair down my back, so I paid her 10 Soles and she was very happy.

We did a guided tour of the city before we left and visited most of the touristy places, including La Mansion Del Fundador, built by the Spanish Conquistadors, dating back to about 1540. Of interest in this picture is that the Roman soldiers that crucified Christ are depicted as Spanish Conquistadors, perhaps an early attempt at self-deprecating humour.

To view the slideshow please click here.

The highest capital city on Earth

La Paz, Bolivia is one of those places that conjures up images of extreme poverty, lawlessness, civil disobedience and other forms of plague and pestilence. While we did see a fair bit of poverty, we were met with probably the most friendly people of the journey so far.

La Paz is the highest capital city on Earth, at 3660 meters it is certainly up there. We got to about 4000 meters at least once on the way here and I was starting to feel out of breath from just from sitting on the bus. However, having had altitude sickness a number of times now, I am starting to work out how to handle it. My strategy is to not eat much and get plenty of rest on the first day. That is pretty easy as I don't mind the occasional siesta and have had almost no appetite since I have been here. Kim seems to have some superhuman resistance to it, but that's the way it goes apparently, some get it, some don't.

So the first day was a bit of a write-off for me but on the second day I felt fine even walking up hills. We went on a tour around the city and got to find out a bit about the history. It seems that Bolivia is suffering the death of 1000 cuts, once a much larger country it has lost a series of wars with its neighboring countries, and with that lost its access to the sea and much of its natural resources. People here are pretty poor, but there government still provides free education and free medical care for children and people over 65. Bolivia has the highest birth rate in South America with an average of five children per mother. A large percentage of its population are under 25. The retirement age is 65, but life expectancy for men is 60 and for women its 63.

Hardly anyone speaks English here, so Spanish is pretty much essential for most things. People find our accents a little hard to understand. For example, even though the word 'menu' is the same in both English and Spanish, you just can't say 'men you' like you do at home or in other parts of South America. Eventually one of the people I was speaking with got what I was saying and said 'men oo' (like oo in cool) and it was OK. Amazing how much a subtle pronunciation difference like that can make.

Anyway, given our interests in all things culinary, we went out for a curry somewhere in the city. That was OK, but nothing like curries that I am used to. More like an Indian-Chinese fusion dish, it was even served up with chopsticks. Anyway, we had 2 courses and 2 beers each and that cost $120 Bolivian, which is about $20 Australian. After that we went and bought a heap of silver stuff, some for Kim's upcoming 40th birthday, and a silver spoon for work. There are some big silver mines near here at Potosi.

After that we were walking down the street and we saw this European (Polish) couple struggling up the hill. The bloke appeared to be half carrying and half dragging his girlfriend and then he sat her down near a wall. We went over and offered some help. I ended up having to help carry the girl up to her room, further up the hill. Apparently, according to the bloke she just has funny turns and loses her sight and her balance. I must say I've never heard of that before. They didn't appear to be affected by alcohol or drugs. She was crying quietly and I was struggling a bit myself with a residual leg injury and still some high altitude breathlessness. Anyway, my good deed for the day I suppose. The bloke was really grateful that I helped them.

Then the next day we caught a bus out of Bolivia on our way to Peru. There are hundreds of buses in Bolivia, and maybe 10-20 different bus companies operating here. When we got on the bus, someone had taken our seats, that in itself isn't that unusual. I thought I recognised the people that had our seats, it turns out it was the same Polish couple that we had helped the night before. I asked them if we had helped them last night to confirm what I thought. It was bizarre enough them being on the same bus, without adding to the coincidence of them somehow being allocated the same seats as us.

Here is an interactive panorama from the top of La Paz. The image will rotate by itself, but if you click on it and hold the mouse button down you can control where it goes. Also notice the + and - buttons on the bottom left hand side if you want to zoom in or out. Try tilting the image up then zooming in and around the skyline. Good luck!!

To view the slideshow please click here.