The Bish Krew on Tour

Quito 2/8/06

2006-08-02T17:43:00.000+01:00

So, last one then.

After a huge good bye party in Atacames with the other volunteers I rolled back to Quito ready to get prepared for the madness of Colombia. Everything I had heard had led me to believe I was going to a land of ridiculously beautiful women and was going to get kiddnapped. Had to be done then.

From Cali airport the minibuses wind their way through sugar plantations in ridiculous (40 degree) heat towards Colombia's third largest city. As you enter city limits a sign welcomes you to "Cali, the home of South Americas most beautiful women". No seriously they have the sign!

I rolled up to the plush hostal Iguana and quickly went hunting for some food at a local supermarket where the disadvantages of stupidly hot women everywhere became evident. Firstly, the beauty section was about a third of the shop! Secondly and probably more importantly the staff kept trying to help me and I kept knocking things over! Apparently I am still scared of girls. Escaping with some basic provisions (aguadiente, juice, coffee and bread). I rolled back into the dorm to discover my new roomates in the middle of a flowing hebrew argument. After introducing myself and breaking up the near conflict between Tal, Shai and stoned Israeli kid (never did learn his name) we decided to hit the nightlife for which Cali is famous. It was pretty damn good for a Wednesday, though I really can't salsa and we only seemed to be able to attract the attentions of guys from Cali, who bought us copious amounts of alcohol, and girls from Mexico (I was told one of them had beautiful eyes, I mean who says that?).

A next day and feeling a little the worse for wear we woke early and headed for the nearby village of San Cipreano in the jungle. Colombian bus stations are really nice, Colombian buses are horrific. As we weaved along bumpy roads, through stunning jungles and past tanks, soldiers and seemingly limitless road blocks, assorted Colombians decided to amuse us with the contents of their stomachs. Me and Shai appeared to be the only people not getting sick and so traded stories from when we were 18, him blowing holes in people/houses in the West Bank during 2 compulsory years in the Israeli army while I blew up 3000 balloons in my school at 3am. Different world. On arrival in Cordoba we rocked onto the craziest train I had ever seen. It was a motor bike attached to the rails with wooden planks where the sidecar would be. We then rocketed through stunning jungle all holding on for dear life while the driver just laughed and went faster. On arrival in San Cipreano we headed straight for the River where we swam, tubed skimmed stones and generally wasted an afternoon. The way back on the train it was rainingand I was pretty sure we were close to derailing on every curve!

On arrival in Cali we where informed that it was the 472nd birthday of Cali and that there was a gigantic beer and salsa festival to celebrate. We hit the beer festival hard for $5 all you can drink! Then we headed to "Blues Brothers" for live Salsa and weren't disappointed either by the Caleñas or the band. Following this epic night we grabbed savory churros (absolutely gorgeous) and staggered to bed.

Friday I realised signalled 5 months away and as a result I felt spontaneous so headed to Medellin for the flower festival. So Medellin has a bit of a bad reputation on account of previously having the worlds highest murder rate in the early nineties while some guy called Pablo Escobar ran the infamous Medellin cartel exporting the white stuff. If you can find it watch Rosario Tijeras, which is probably the greatest film I've ever seen, but I fear you cannot get in English subtitles.

The drive was stunning as we saw huge coffee plantations, jungle and the mighty andes all in one fail swoop. Arriving in Medellin I was disturbed to discover Casa Kiwi - the place to be - was filled with English people and that I would be sleeping in the TV room, allbeit at knockdown rates.

Having chatted to some lads from London and Sheffield it appeared Friday was gonna be pretty big so we headed out into El Poblado, Medellin's zona rosa. So basically this is the first time I say this, but it wont be the last and I probably will be going on about it all summer; the girls in Medellin are the hottest in South America (maybe the world), nothing else even comes close, I have honestly never seen anything like it. This said unlike Buenos Aires they are really really friendly and almost everyone goes out of their way to make you feel welcome.

OK back to the night fastforward a couple of hours of reggaeton (thank god) and we got thrown out, not sure what for, I think for drinking someone elses drink but I don't know and walk out into a massive fight. The scrap was very brief as we quickly find ourselves staring down the wrong end of 2 soldiers Kaleshnikovs. We were informed that in order to avoid arrest we would have to pay them 20,000 pesos (US$8) and that they wanted one of the other guys green hat ("it looks military"). Following a lot of swearing and threats (in english) we paid and wandered back to the hostel. Someone wanted to watch City of God which was fine by me but I got almost no sleep.

The next morning I was up bright and breezy to do Medellin's sights. Having jumped on the metro I began to work out a plan. As the birthplace of Santiago Botero, Medellin has the largest collection of his works anywhere in the (free!) modern art museum and also has loads of statues in the Plaza de Botero. I started with the museum of modern art and was again distracted by the ridiculous amount of beautiful assistants all of whom wanted to show me around. The museum is really cool and the Botero section is amazing, though you can't take any pictures. Having wandered around the square checking out the crazy statues I headed for the, again free, cable car which gives stunning views over Medellin. I then grabbed an awesome strawberry batido at the botanical gardens before heading back to the hostel to meet the guys and do the flower festival. The flower festival was kinda crazy, basically a massive advertising parade with a few horses (no flowers) and I'm not really sad I forgot my camera.

Following another crazy night out, I headed back to Cali for my flight the next day. I was sorry to leave Colombia and definately want to go back to do the whole country properly. Though I did nearly miss the flight on account of being searched 4 times and xrayed twice before questioning about my colombian family(!?) and job description.

Anyway, Dad I'll see you tomorrow, everyone else see you Saturday!

LOL Jx

Ecuador and Colombia Pics

2006-08-02T17:41:00.000+01:00

Medellin. 5 Months and I can sure time a photo. (they were 17 seconds apart)

Colombians write meaningful stuff. Me I jus graff the place up.

Botero; Legend or Nutter?

Cali - Is that someone playing the jazz flute? He dabbled.

Wacky Colombian transport system.

Atacames, last night of work.

Cacao harvesting. That is my Mancora 'beater by the way! Never go to a Quito Laundry.

Congal biomarine station. Artsy

Ecuador Pics

2006-07-24T17:05:00.000+01:00

Spring Break!!

Cuenca. Night. Nothing amusing.

Wheeeeeeee!

The Devil's nose.

Baños Baby!

Cuenca 3am. God i'm such a 'baller.

So you walk down these stairs....

... and come out looking like this.

(Waterproof clothes!?! How do the people at Rohan sleep at night?)

Howler monkeys in there somewhere - God I miss Bosley!

Working hard.

They jumped me.

Isla Margarita

2006-07-18T18:54:00.000+01:00

Dear All,

Slightly apprehensive due to all the dangerous stories we heard, we landed in Caracas airport and headed over to the domestic terminal. Here came mistake number one. We had turned up with NO money, not a dime between us and you guessed it, our cards didn`t work. Some "friendly lads" took us on a 2 hour tour of the airport looking for banks until we were saved when Laurie was able to withdraw enough to pay for our departure tax out of the boiling hot hell-hole. Our new found friends then decided we owed them nearly 20 quid for following us around the airport offering comiserations! After a "&$*k that" and a very generous on our behalf, 5 pound tip, we ran into the departure lounge followed by howls of abuse.

We touched down in Isla de margarita looking forward to tanning our white bodies ready for England. We kicked things off to a good start by immediately befriending some pizza guys and a self-confessed local stud!! The beach, called Playa el Agua was fantastic, a back drop of palm trees, white sand and bath temperature water where we could play bat and ball to our hearts content.

The structure of our days in Margarita was simple. We got up early, ate as much complimentary breakfast buffet as possible, then retired again to our room for another couple more hours sleep. Then, at around 1pm, we made our way to the beach, packing the `Geek Bag` with the essential items: sun cream, sunglasses, bat and ball and the football. 4 or 5 hours later after various sessions of keepy-uppy and bat and ball ( Kieran and Tom`s 1200 record from Barca remained intact) and a daily dip in the crystal waters we would head, perhaps slightly `rougier`, to Miragua Cafe for our daily Cocada ( a beautiful coconut smoothie thing). Now, at about 6pm, we would head back to our air conditioned hotel room and cool down, watching the Film Zone or CNN before heading to Kalimbas for our routine evening pizza. A Palmera for Teo, Salvaje for Laurie and a Jardin for Tom. After some banter and beers with Luis and Hector we made our way to Woody`s in the vain hope that that night would be different. It never was. So we returned to the hotel room, Tom and Laurie fought over the little space their measly double bed offered, and we went to sleep.

Woody`s: We strolled into this much recommended establishment...confident that we could aquaint ourselves with some of the local ladies with our honed spanish abilities. Our dreams were promptly shattered when every girl turned out to be a prostitute or under 16 and german. The blokes were all capped gangsters that thought dancing involved bobbing your head on the dance floor with a drink in hand and looking as menacing as possible!!! Thus, we contented ourselves with being the crazy dancing englishmen. Over our 10 days we hoped this would change.

Our time in the Carribean Paradise did have some quirks to the firmly established lifestyle that we had adopted from the word go:

One change of hotel from Posada las Ross to Hotel Costa Linda Beach ( too far to walk and we wanted our free buffet breakfast).
Whilst walking down the waterfront boulevard we would occasionaly be hailed by our young 16 year old (self confessed stud) Leo. The proceeding 30 minutes would be full of his conquests over the female tourist population of Margarita or his apparent near signing with the Brazilian national football team. A friendly chap none the less.
Various new records were set in the pool and on the beach. 46 water based headers, 23 sand based keepy-uppy aerial exchanges and of course the eight consectutive pizza nights.
A days snorkelling around the coral archipeligos of Los Frailes. This included unlimited Polar Ice, our cerveza of choice. A huge amount of parrot fish and some embarassing boat side backflip attempts.
One day trip to the Angel Falls by Teo leaving Tom and Laurie with some peace at last!

All in all its been a fantastically relaxing ten days and an incredible six months. We look forward to seeing you all in a matter of hours and boring you with our tales.

Lots of Love,

Teo `The Battery` Lopez Bernal,

Thomas ´The Dart` Fleming,

Lawrence `The Hooligan` Howell.

Quito to the Carribean (photos)

2006-07-18T18:42:00.000+01:00

Beauties and the Beast.

The `Heroes`.

Supper.

Humpback Whale.

Parrot Love.

Papallacta..... sublime!

Playa el Agua, Carribean Paradise.

We do apologise for the quotes.

Bristol 18/07/07

2006-07-18T15:31:00.000+01:00

OROIGHT MOIY LUVURRR!!!

Well, having been silent for quite a while now, KT have decided that it's high time we updated the readers on our globetrotting voyage. On Friday the 30th of June at roughly 9:30am we came to a bumpy landing at Heathrow airport, prepared for the most intense culture shock of our travels. Shortly after picking up our luggage we were zooming across the British countryside in a monstrous, fuel guzzling 4x4 vehicle, packed in tightly amongst extremely creepy and over familiar passengers. Fortunately we both had our i-pods at hand and, having plugged ourselves in, feigned sleep for the entire duration of the journey to Bristol.

Upon arrival we were devastated to discover that, due to booking complications, we would be forced to stay in separate hostels. Fortunately they are within minutes of one another and are both of a fairly decent standard. We've both found the beds to be reasonably comfy, the other guests tolerable and the food regular, if basic. There have been times when we've both felt compulsions in the early hours to visit "arches" - a local chippy which seems to have become one of our haunts since we arrived. In the evenings we have frequented a number of fantastic venues. The Lizard Lounge, an extremely sweaty underground grotto guarded by vicious brutes, has consistently impressed us with its heroic and apparently unchanging playlist whilst the Berkely, a fairly basic, bustling bar, has had us gaping in wonder at just how small the world seems whilst travelling. Also guys, when you arrive you should really look out for a club called OCEANA – multiple floors/rooms/bars/music styles and we’re pretty certain that it’s the only one in the entire world.

Life’s pretty sweet in Bristol and we’re actually considering sticking around until well into September at which point we may split up and start travelling alone for three years or so.

Look forward to seeing LTT tomorrow, you’ll love it here lads.

KT

P.S: We didn’t actually blog our insane adventures in New York and Washington, but if there’s enough demand we may hold a seminar in the near future.

Muisne, 15/7/06

2006-07-15T23:12:00.000+01:00

Holas,

After leaving the boys looking somewhat tearful in Puerto Lopez I bused down to the chilled out surf resort of Montañita. Here I checked into the cheapest dorm accomodation ever - $2 per night but bats may land on you - and quickly established I was indeed the only person in the place! The owner was a legend however and after a few beers promised to take me out surfing in the morning. It was great fun 3 metre waves are a little large for me at the momment.

On a whim I decided to go to Guyaquil that night and arrived at the absurd (small international airport) sized bus terminal at 11pm. The rough guide describes Guyaquil terrestre as very dangerous with petty theft a common occurance and suggests that on no account should you go there at night! I have to agree although it was pretty fun making myself look as angry as possible and then swaggering arond the underground walkways surrounded by shady characters. Feeling slightly threatened I decided the best move was to jump on the next bus to Cuenca. Sadly it arrived there at 3am.

Cuenca is a beautiful colonial city. The bus station is terrible. Having tried to snatch a few hours of sleep cruelly disturbed by geese carrying peasants (too stingy to fork out for a hostel I know) I took the only course of action, drank 7 cups of coffee and played hacky sack until dawn finally broke. Feeling pretty wired I hit the old town and wandered around the deserted streets looking at the beautiful Spanish architecture and checking out the small saturday market. I then discovered my first choice hostel had shut down but (thanks to the help of my lovely mother) I quickly found another and crashed out for some well deserved rest. Awakened by the guys next door aka the "cronwell rd massive" (bloody Bristol uni students) we hit the bar for breakfast and to watch England lose. More sleep. We then watched Brazil lose. More sleep. Crap day.

In the evening following a quickly grabbed snack overlooking the beautifully lit up skyline we hit "Roca" one of Cuencas biggest salsatecas to celebrate Canada day big time! A good time was had by all and I was sorry to leave at 4am to catch the bus to Alausi. A little innebriated me and the friendly conductor quickly established (in flowing spanish no less) that I had indeed lost my ticket. He let me stay and I am eternally greatfull. I was on the 4am bus on account of the hostel owner telling me the train leaves at 8.30 sharp. It leaves at 11. Luckily 4 other gringas had heard the same and we hung out on the freezing platform.

The devil's nose is awesome! You sit on top of a train zooming down the Andes at ridiculous speeds with dizzying drops and then every so often you have to take the switchbacks and the train de-rails! It was great fun! Having fallen asleep on the Canadian member of the group on the way back (she had obviously been celebrating heavily) I was quickly persuaded that going back to volunteer work was a stupid idea and that I really needed to see Baños.

Baños is awesome! Having found a four person room, meaning I would be sleeping on the floor (I suggested rock, paper, scissors to the girls, but they where having none of it), we went for a meal at Casa Hood, a backpacker institution, for an awesome thai curry followed by "Soy Cuba" some Russian propaganda movie which is aparently a "classic" but is really too intellectual and too artsy for the likes of me. The next day the girls went for massages followed by facials while I grabbed a mountain bike and headed down 22km through the cloud forest. On the way I saw loads of stunning waterfalls, took a cable car and even a $10 dollar bungy jump which looked really good but I was puished for time. The highlight however was going down into the Panillo del diablo, a 50 foot waterfall with a stairway through the jungle into the falls and got soaked. On arrival back in Baños we hit one of the thermal baths from which the town gets its name for a refreshing soak before going up the active volcano Tungurahua. The cloud was so thick that you couldn't see the top from our vantage point but the noises where amazing and it was a great experience.

The next day I attempted to return to work in Muisne at the far end of Ecuador from Baños but after sleeping a little too late I found myself stuck in Esmeraldas City at 11pm. Small children attempted to steal the shoes tied to my bag. Feeling a little sketched out I found a hotel room and hid for the evening. The next day I finally got back to work 12 days later than had been promised and was quickly filled in with the latest gossip. It's better than a soap opera round here!

Work is still pretty fun. We do a lot of the routine stuff on our own now - monitoring shrimp, clearing trails, replanting mangroves but at the same time we also do some cool stuff on the reserve with the definate highlight this week of watching a fisherman reel in a 5foot hammerhead shark with a day working with the local school kids cleaning the village a close second. We also have spent more than a few hours on some great beaches and had a couple of fun nights out in Atacames.

LOL Jx

Quito, and back, then back again, then back again again!

2006-07-12T22:38:00.000+01:00

With James now on board we happily collapsed into his plush Quito appartment after another routine night bus, this time from the hairising border crossing of Huaqillas. Not much was done on the thursday we arrived except for lounging around in our new home and as the day drew to a close we had the dilemna of deciding who slept with James. After many games of rock, paper, scissors it ended up with Teo having to put up with 6 nights of rompous snoring! Anyway moving on.
Friday was spent going up the scenic TeleferiQo, getting the material and fittings for our suits, and sampling the Quito night life. After an eventful night out we returned to our apartment for our three hours of sleep before getting up at 6 to leave for the Otavalo. In a bleary eyed, hungover haze, we slumbered slowly around this huge street market, purchasing gifts and other market paraphanaelia including sunglasses, bracelets, hats, mats, and most notably two huge wooden ??????! Don´t ask me why. We returned soon after lunch to catch the Brazil match and that evening, after one of James´ much hyped Hotdog´s ( they´re lush!), we headed for another night on the town. Slightly less rowdy than Friday we headed again to the infamous No Bar, where James would meet a Colombian with a withered arm and we (as a whole) would meet some strange, high-pitched, squeaky American girls who saw Tom as a potential rapist and who were reluctant to enter the basement of a perfectly normal bar because it apparently looked ´sketchy´.
Overall, however, the night was a success and the following day England took on Ecuador in what proved to be a bit of an anticlimactic match that we ended up watching in the apartment, for fear of being killed. Later that day England again took on Ecuador in El Parque Carolinas, this time the result was reversed, we blamed it on the altitude.
The highlight of Monday saw two heroes undertake one of the most courageous and manly of challenges. Eating the whole menu of the Hot Dog stand. This included a double hot dog con todo, a single hot dog con todo, a double burger con todo, a single burger con todo, and a beverage. The two heroes, better known as Tom and Teo, completed the task with aplomb only to be left for the rest of that evening groaning and clenching their stomachs! Don´t try this at home.
On Tuesday Teo witnessed the dumping of Spain out of the World Cup at the hands of France ( a la bimbon, bimbon, bimbo, a la bimbon, bimbon ba, España, España no vale na!) and the rest of the day was probably spent in Papaya.Net, our regular Internat Cafe.
That night we decided to leave our beloved Quito and head to Puerto Lopez in the hope of seeing some whales and catching some fish. We did both, count it! Again we arrived in the early hours of the morning and were forced to catch up on sleep, this time in Hostal Fragata. We got up at about 11.30am, quickly organised for Paco to take us out in his boat and soon began our quest into the Pacfic Ocean. After seeing some blue footed boobies (who needs the Galapagos?), we cast our rods and hoped for the best. A few seconds later and the first fish was reeled in, it was a strange little brown fish that would prove reluctant to die. As the day wore on and the fish count increased, we were soon rewarded with an amazing ceviche (raw fish dish) made by Paco with one of the fish Laurie had caught. And so there we sat, in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, the sun reflecting off the waves, eating sublime ceviche and sipping ice cold coke... until out of nowhere we heard the shout of WHALE! WHALE!coming from Toms mouth. Without a moment to loose Paco revved up the engine and headed towards the beast and soon enough we were to witness one of natures many wonders. A Humpback Whale fully emmersing itself from the depths of the sea...spectacular!
However the day was not over, we still had time for another half an hour of fishing. Just enough time for Laurie to battle against and eventually to reel in a humungous Sierra. This particular Sierra turned out to be perhaps our best ever evening meal and this day perhaps one of the finest experienced on our travels.
The next day was spent snorkelling in a nearby bay, and more importantly saying goodbye to James, who now had to part ways.
We love you James! TLT
(P.S. James owes Teo 5 dollars and Teo wont forget! Nor will the blog!)

2006-07-12T22:37:00.000+01:00

As we got off the bus from Puerto Lopez we were only a little bit less tired than our previous eleven hour journey of hell along the same road, we had nowhere to stay this time. We grabbed a taxi and headed for the centre of Quito and the Mariscal. We wandered around the tourist centre at 5 in the morning for hours but there was no room at the inn. Desperate for a place to stay we finally set eyes upon the 1950´s edifice infront of us. We pressed the buzzer and checked into the sterile but beautiful HI hostal and crashed out til the afternoon. That day we slept and ate and prepared ourselves for the night to come.

That evening we grabbed a mexican (´dunno what came over us we just grabbed the bugger´token), and set off for Level night club. It turned out to be exactly like it´s Bristol counterpart, however we just partied in ignorant bliss as we had little idea as to what was being hollared at us. With both Teo and Tom enjoying the forwardness of the local chicas Laurie took it upon himself to drink some beers with a particularly large and intimidating gangster. After a few hours a scene change was needed and we went to No Bar for the remainder. That is all we shall say but the night was quality and we resided to our NHS wipe clean hostal beds to get some kip.
The next day was the England vs Portugal game. Nothing more to say on that apart from, if C. Ronaldo happened to get hit by a First bus whilst walking down Gloucester road and we were a meter away we might just be forced a blink. Our anger and hurt was so great we forgot to pay at the bar we watched the game, after this moment of madness and illegality we decided to run away to the jungle.

Having heard bad things from James about the bus journey to Tena, we were expecting the worst. However our driver who was no doubt a legend threw the bus around the corners with an elegance similar to that of an Ecuadorian figure skater, we arrived in Tena that evening with not so much as a scratch on our hardened skin. We checked into the Travellers lodge, and got a good room with a fan thanks to Tom´s visit two years previous. This was not before asking ´did you see three lads here about 3 months ago´. This became quite a frequent question and came with the remarkable answer of ´yeh, good kids´amongst other less patronising answers. We adjusted to the humidity over an Italian and resided to our beds for our first jungle night.
The next morning we were fitted for the black rubber boots (wellies) that this part of the jungle is famous for and jumped in the back of a pickup. We were taken to Shangri-la. We checked into the cliff side jungle hotel and after about an hour of indecision decided to the take the less tiring option of floating down the river on a tractor innertube. With our guide who also knew KJT we ´went extacurricular´ and trekked up the river napo on foot to indulge in a spot of uninsured mental rapid tubing, this was so good it left a taste for more white water in our insect filled mouths. Our first day was awesome and it was a great introduction to the jungle. After chilling that evening in the hammock garden, playing hammock ball, talking with an over exubarent american lady and destroying the double bed in our room we got down for a night of sleep. The next day we got an early morning transfer to the Amorangachi huts.
Here we played with the very same parrot as Tommy before donning our boots and heading for the Cascades. We were surprised to meet a group of Christian Missionaries in the gorge and even more surprised by there lack of adventure. Our crazy guide was eager to get wet so without further a do we passed them and threw ourselves up and around the huge cascades without ropes (mothers) and generally soaked and bruised ouselves . After the last cascade we truged back to the huts and consumed a whole meal of food. That afternoon we took the medicinal plants walk where we learnt about the ways of the jungle and became one with the plants and fruit. The entire time we were keeping an eye on the now record flood that was lapping against the shores of the river Napo. We were told that we could not go rafting tommorow. In dismay we had no choice but to reside to our hammocks for the night, here we smoked jungle pipes, ate parrots and amazed our new missionary Deciples with tales of old and tales of our spitual journey.

2006-07-12T22:36:00.000+01:00

Our jungle experience was completed with a days white water rafting. It began with some obligatory form signing and we immediately made ourselves popular with the "captain" of the rafts, by crossing out "we denounce all responsibility to press charges even if it is the fault of the company" or something along those lines, before we would sign it! (don't worry mum's we are taking care)
This was followed by half an hour of safety talks, much of which was spent swatting the various species of biting insects, only then were we allowed near the raft. As we set off our guide informed us that the day before our river had flooded to it's highest level in 4 years, and thus we were rafting with the best conditions that year.

After a hard half-days rafing we paused for a beach-football match against our fellow "rafters." We bet one of our 2 lunch time burritos on the match, which we then proceeded to lose!! (However we did the polite thing and ate it anyway when they weren't looking)

Later, we displayed our rafting skill, or lack thereof, by managing to be the only raft to tip ourselves fully over. Our guide may have been partly to blame, due to him being the biggest (literally) nutter on the river. The day was finished by everyone else deflating our raft (see photos), in retaliation to the consistent spalshing we subjected them to throughout the trip.

The hot springs of Papallacta had been recommended to us, so as it was getting dark, we headed off on a bus with no idea what was ahead of us. 5 hours later the bus conductor unceremoniously woke us up and turfed us out, seemingly in the middle of no-where, surrounded by clouds and mountains. This was then compounded by a 20 minute walk at 3700m to the springs, opposite which was meant to be a cheap hostel. This wasn't in existance so we were forced to stay at the papallacta springs hotel. Small consolations include a double bed, en-suite complete with our own private hot springs...oh yes!! Teo and Tom thought that this wasn't luxury enough and decided that full body massages would be more appropriate. We got onto the bus, fully lubed up and smelling of lavander from the massages, worrying that we might give some locals the wrong idea. It turned out to be the last bus of our travels (I can't tell you how good that feels, we have crossed the 100 hour barrier in Peru and Ecuador alone!!).

We made it safely to the internet cafe in Quito, where we bumped into none other than our old chum George Garrad, and friends. After some banter and MANY travel stories, we decided to celebrate the occasion by going out British style. The next day heads hurting we collected our much anticipated suits, and keeping true to lazy teenager tradition decided to pay for, and confirm that we had infact changed our flights for early the next morning and not 2 weeks ago! A much needed early night was followed by getting up at 4.30 in the morning for Venezuela...but that is for next time!!!

We are writing now from Isla de Margarita - fantastic, with its amazingly expensive internet facitlities. Photos will be posted in a couple of days, when we have saved up enough money by missing a few meals/begging etc...

Some New York and Toronto pics

2006-06-29T01:10:00.000+01:00

Look at these gayboys we snapped by the water.

Had to swim out a while to get this one.

www.proannie.com

Time square.

It was gift from the french to signify friendship. They accepted it before making it their own symbol for freedom. Uhhh... what?

Manhattan syline from Liberty island.

Sorry.

Kieran held the camera whilst Jesus gave Tommy a piggyback... /several gruelling hours and 17 attempts with the timer.

The thee-enn tower wath MATHIFF!!

Dickie put us up in a quaint little outhouse tucked behind the main palace.

Here we learnt to appreciate the finer things in life...

... like getting sh**faced.

Tommy & Kieran homecoming!

2006-06-28T21:28:00.000+01:00

12" Pizza and portion of chips for £5 -bet you can't wait to get home!

Party Up the Panamerican. (photos)

2006-06-27T22:37:00.000+01:00

Our Huachachina heaven for 48hrs...oh yes!!

Bad Boys in the back.

Shockwaves...peruvian gel...nuff said.

Before....

...and after.

The wind changed.

Milky Joes , Green Eggs and Ham.

Mancorian Sunset.

Morning all.

Spot the gangster.

Partying up the Panamerican

2006-06-27T01:12:00.000+01:00

After a couple more amusing nights in the crazy cusco night clubs we jumped on a 16 hr night bus to the oasis of Huacachina on the south western coast of Peru. We arrived at the unearthly hour of 6am and booked into the gringo ridden Casa de Arena hostal. Our time was to be short here but we still manged to fit in three world cup games, a sand boarding and dune buggy tour, a BBQ, a dip in the pool and an evenings banter with Jake, a legendary American. The highlight was undoubtedly the dune buggy tour which proved to be an unforgettable experience. We set off from the hostal in what looked more like a cage on wheels than a dune buggy and headed for the surrounding dunes. Little did we now our driver was to be an absolute nutter who repeatedly tried to eject us from our seats by flying vertically down or up dunes and at times driving almost horizontally along the face of the dunes. Every so often he would stop to let us bomb down the dunes on waxed up 'sand boards', more like planks of wood. We started by attempting to do it standing up, but with Laurie being the only one with any sort of sand boarding talent we decided to race down on our fronts. This technique proved unwise as we reached the bottom of the dune with pain in most parts of our body and with Americans laughing at us. Nevertheless we trekked it back up the 30m dune, bad call, and threw ourselves down again!
Huacachina was definitely a worthwhile stopover and a perfect change of scene in between Cusco and Lima. Most of our time in Lima was spent organising our flight to Venezuela and what we were going to there, so there is not much to say. Its not the most inspiring place although the Miraflores area was nice and after missing out on saturday night we tried to make a night of it on Sunday. It didn't really work and after getting too much unwanted attention from various annoying Peruanas trying to get us into empty bars, we headed to the famed Lima casinos. Sorry parents. It ended up being probably the worst decision we've made during our travels, with the only thing gained from the night being- NEVER GO TO A CASINO! We had to get out of this place as soon as possible and so after toying between going to Trujillo or Huaraz we eventually decided to head for the picturesque town in the centre of the Peruvian Cordillera Blanca (Huaraz). We picked up a chinese and headed to the bus station for yet another night bus.

2006-06-27T00:48:00.000+01:00

We rolled up at the Cruz del Sur bus station in Lima for our impending night bus, excited at the prospect of travelling on the best company in Peru. This journey varied little from our other night-buses....it was freezing, Laurie and Tom would sit freezing wearing 2 jumpers, hat, gloves, and curled up in a ball trying to get whatever sleep possible. Meanwhile, Teo "the battery" Lopez-Bernal would somehow recline in just a t-shirt, radiating heat to all those around him!!

At first Huaraz didn´t meet our expectations, our bed´s had close to a wigs worth of hair in, and Tom´s had what we swear were blood stains. However things looked up when we switched rooms, and ate our memorable yoghurt breakfast. Teo and Tom thought it would be a bright idea to buy a large milkshake, a large yoghurt and some chocolate milk... each. This error was compounded by the windy taxi ride to the top of a nearby mountain, where we disembarcked feeling remarkably peeky. We balanced the small girl´s bike-helmets on our heads, took a few token poser photos and set off on our 30km trip downhill. Highlights include Tom and Laurie somehow both going over their handlebars at slow speed and an epic no pedalling race, periodically broken up by various lorrys (of the mechanical variety, not our fellow bishcrew member) going in the opposite direction.

We tumbled into a restaurant, cut, bruised, tired and fired up for the much needed meal (we hadn´t eaten since the chinese the night before). Afterwards following the spanish tradition by retiering for a siesta that afternoon. Our day was completed by an eveining of table tennis where Lauire beat Teo...will Teo ever hear the end of this, although it can be called revenge for when Teo beat Laurie at pool (both claim to be superior at the respective sports).

We were up early the next morning to visit a glacier at 5000 and something meters. The tour company drove us from Huaraz to 1km away from the glacier, stopping off at gripping sights such as a blue pond and some natrual fizzy water which tasted like metal. We surprised ourselves, being so acclimatised to the altitude that we were able to have a 5000m snowball fight, much to the annoyance of the other "glacier goers." Back in Huaraz the idea of a warm, virtually equatorial beach where we could surf and sun ourselves sounded appealing. Tom and Teo thought they would get into the world-cup, English hooligan spirit before the nightbus, by shaving their heads. Teo removed his swarve 70´s style locks for a number 3, while Tom thought he would inflict a mowhawk onto the innocent peruvian public.

The three musketeers racked up in the beachside "resort" of Huanchaco, to be met by so much fog around us that the sea was hardly visible from the beach and the only good hostel full. The other alternative in the guide book turned out to have not had a visitor for nearly 2 weeks and the beds appeared to be made of a 6 by 4 plank of wood! Our misery was compounded when we were informed that we hadn´t arrived on an unlucky day and that the weather really was always this bad. After watching England scrape through AGAIN, against Trinidad and Tobago, we thought our footballing talents would be better, and embarked on an expedition to buy a ball. The bus back from the shop proved to be the highlight of the day when Laurie pointed out the the man sitting opposite was infact a carbon copy of Tommy in 70 years time. The looks from the other passengers at our mirth made us think that maybe we had insulted a village elder...

Maybe travelling had turned us into masocists but we thought that Huanchaco was such a dump and we couldn´t bear to stay any longer. Despite our sleep induced state, we had the intelligance to take our 3rd night bus in 4 days. No good bus companies went the route we wanted, so we settled for a second rate bus where the conductor gave out free English toffee. Afterwards, he kindly informed us that we had to pay for it. He then proceded to talk animatedley to everyone about fathers day and played what appeared to be a toilet roll wrapped in silver foil with a straw in for a good 10 minutes, much to the laughter of all the passengers. The only downside to this experience/journey was the constant battle of the Peruvian passengers over Tom´s window, whether it should be opened or closed, whether Tom and Teo wanted it open or closed was besides the point....to this day we can´t work out what was so special about that particular window.

2006-06-27T00:47:00.000+01:00

We got off the bus in Mancora, sleep thick in our eyes but looking as good as ever. A man came from the shadows and put our bags on his infeasably small trike. We piled in and shouted "to the beach", we promptly pulled up at the gated compound that was Sol y Mar hostal located approxiametly 0.5m from the golden sand that makes up on of best surf beaches in the world. After crashing out, following our horrific bus journey, we woke to see the sun, the sea and the surf. We promptly lubed up with factor 40 and exposed our so far mountain carcasses to the equatorial rays. This became a fairly common occurance, and we like to think we have taken the edge of the moon tan (josh tribute). By sheer luck our room turned out to be one of only a few penthouse batchelor suites in Mancora: TV, En Suite, Electricity,Sheets and an amazing view of the beach and bay. Our first night saw our livers beginning to absorb the Mancora culture at 6pm that night: consequence being NWA sung at top volume on the PanAmerican highway and bed by 11pm.

The next day we awoke and hit the beach. We played football against some mildy phsycopathic locals, sunned ourselves further and sat watching the surf, plucking up the courage to join the surf dudes in the outrageously powerful waves. That evening and following a quality curry by an ex-pat bar owner we had a couple of beers and prepared for a big one. It turned out to be a ghost town so we returned and went to our beds. Tom did not and went to the reception to investigate the apparent burglary and theft of 300 soles ( fifty quid), he did not return for a good hour, having evidently become distracted. Teo went to investigate. Ten minutes later we were all assembled in the foyer at midnight ready to start saturday night again. This time it was made easier by a dozen Irish lads and a handful of gap year girls and what appeared to be 50 bottles of the finest rum. Round two was a success and we ended up on the beach at 5am with clothes being ripped off and with our fellow gap yearers we ran starkers into the still intimidating surf. After returning to see our sandals of all things stolen, the camp fire was lit and tales we shared until the sun rose. The bed was now beckoning and we spent sunday relaxing/recovering on the beach. Our peace was rudely broken by a very familiar face jumping from behind going ¨you didn´t see this coming", it was the hardened ecuadorian traveller, Jimmy ´skew. From this point he features in all our adventures.

The next few days; we sunned ourselves more, relaxed in the leather sofas of Milky Joés watching the football with our new gap year buddies Gudrun (Teo*) and Laura, not before a touch of brekky at Green Eggs and Ham. There was more blood spilt in beach footy with locals and we finally took the boards to the waves (no success as we just ended up a good 500m down beach due to the rip, much to the amusement of the locals). We socaliased more and love was poised to flourish (see above*), until we promtly left realising that the border into Ecuador might infact have opening hours.

We took a two hour bus ride to Tumbes and were instantly put into a taxi with two friendly looking Peruvian chaps, and were then subject to a clearly pre-planned taxi scam. Having ripped us off with a blatant display of dishonesty they promised to escort us through the border crossing, so with no choice all six of us remained in their taxi. We assured ourselves that despite their gun four of us would still hijack their taxi and drive to the border ourselves. On the other hand, given that this crossing was highlighted as extremely dangerous by both our guides and the guides we were glad for the company. This is mainly because the hundreds of police present at 5.59pm are absent at 6.01pm. Cleverly we arrived at 8pm in Aguas Verdes in Peru and scurried across the packed footbridge across the border into Huaquillas, with cries of ´your dead´ echoing through the lethal streets surrounding us. This was not helped by the fact that we we were still in full beach attire including party shorts. Here we jumped on the bus at 9pm and at 6am the next morning we arrived in Quito.

Ecuador Pictures

2006-06-22T18:09:00.000+01:00

My current home.

I never really knew that she could dance like this, She makes a man wants to speak Spanish... (shameless quote fest this blog...)

Local politics.

Most of the international volunteer team on our beach... crap weather though...

Guapulo. Count it.

"Whadya mean I need to pass more?" Bloody kids!

Totally worth the 21 hours of buses just to run on to a crowded beach and scare the crap outta Teo.

I may be a midget but watch out for the guns they'll get ya and it is a lovely tan... (...told you so)

2006-06-18T23:57:00.000+01:00

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY!!!

And with 5 minutes to spare. That's showmanship for you. Thanks for bringing us up and stuff guys.

Sorry it hasn't come above as usual, but a new blog is below.

KT

2006-06-16T23:51:00.000+01:00

Hello,

Apologies if this blog appears somewhat hurried/of poor quality, we are currently exploiting the free internet provided by the display models in an apple store and the attendents here are like hawks.

San Francisco (1st - 6th June)
On the morning of June the 1st, we parted ways with our recently aquired "homies" in Miami and boarded our plane bound for San Francisco, excited to be checking into one of the world's top 10 hostels upon arrival. The Adelaide hostel is located just one block from union square, a perfect position from which to launch our assault on the city. On our first day we leapt aboard one of SF's historic streetcars and headed down to Fisherman's Wharf. Here we were ferried accross to the island of Alcatraz where we enjoyed a fantastically informative prison tour along with a several hour lecture regarding why we shouldn't approach the birds. Once we'd returned to mainland, we indulged in a delicious meal of cisco's famous dish; clam chowder. Lovely. The following day we went shopping. Not much to report except that we are currently looking into purchasing an extra kit bag to accomodate our new garments. That evening we shared an enourmous 18" pizza. Again, not miuch to report, except that Tommy spent the rest of the evening curled into the fetal position, cradling his stretched stomache. That's the way to do it!

The next day it was back to business as we embarked upon a bus tour around the city (naturally led by an overweight homosexual). This included a quick look at the golden gate bridge, union square, the painted ladies, haight street (the hub of the hippy/tax dodging movement back in the day) and some ruins that we didn't even know existed, which was a nice bonus. That evening went for a chinese.. we don't know what came over us, we just went for him. Seriously though, he's stable now. We then hit the second largest chinatown in america for a delicious meal and BEER, the stupid hussy.

On our last full day we returned to the Wharf where we rented a tandem bicycle. On this scorching day, we had a fantastic ride accross the golden gate bridge into the marvellously quaint, Sausalito. A beautiful day, despite the numerous calls of "good for you guys" from the locals. The french kissing probably didn't help. That evening we made our way to the AC & T baseball park to watch the San Francisco Giants slaughter the Florida Marlins. Thia game included a trademark homer from the legendary, pumpkin headed, drug abusing Barry Bonds (now second on the all time biggest hitters list). Despite popular opinion, baseball (for us) is actually a fantastic sport to watch and we drifted home determined to attend a game in L.A.

Los Angeles (6th- 9th June)
Fortunately, on the day we arrived (06/06/06) the remake of the classic film, "The Omen" had just been released into American cinemas, providing us with some entertainment for the evening. This theater was like nothing we've ever attended. Full to the brim with large, black women who would have probably been well advised to buy two tickets, shrieking, laughing and yelling advice at the screen. Literally top volume. Literally the entire length of the film. One of them was called "January". FFFFFFFFFlipping hell. The next day was spend exploring Santa Monica, including Muscle Beach, Venice Beach and that peer what Forest Gump runs down in the film, "Forest Gump". Basically, we bought enourmous sandwiches along with a bag full of fruit each and wondered about. That evening saw us attending yet another baseball game and this time it was to be the L.A Dodgers taking on the New York Mets. Awesome!

On the final day, we donned our string vests, our trucker caps and most importantly, our false mustaches to venture into the highly glamerous Beverly Hills. An equadorian man named Pedro was kind enough to take us along with several other women (who again, probably should have forked out for more tickets) on tour of various celebrity homes. The only house that really sticks in our minds at the moment is that of BIYYAOW CYAOWWZZBEH (Bill Cosby). Minly because once he'd spotted the bus out side, he sprinted accross his front lawn to inform us that (what with being kids), we didn't "understand about the jazz". Nice bloke. To be honest, L.A wasn't really our scene. Whilst we had a good time marvelling at the proportions of some of its inhabitants, we were keen to move on to Toronto.

Toronto (9th - 17th June)
On the evening of the 9th, we were lucky enough to arrive at Dickie's incredeble compound when a traditional family party was taking place. Whilst to Paul, this meant turning 40, a significant landmark in any man's life, to us it meant being fed and watered properly for the first time in months! We absolutely stuffed ourselves with an amazing range of succulant BBQ meat, knocked back a few ice cold beers and of course nibbled some sides of caviar, pretending that we, like everyone else, loved its delicate taste. After escalating out of control, the evening eventually died down with a 3am "hot tub sesh".

The next morning we took take a trip on Dicky's new toy; a 23 foot, leather seated, luxury speed boat. Obviously. Cruising accross Lake Ontario in the blazing heat was a great way to start the day and we could tell that life in Toronto was going to be sweet. That evening, Franka, Paul and Ali were kind enough to burden themselves with our company and we all took a trip to their local pub, The King's Arms. Good times.

Bright and early the following Sunday, a slightly hung over Franka drove a slightly hung over Paul along with the deliciously awake KT and Fiona, to the jewel of North American theme parks, Canada Wonderland. Here. We. Had. An. AHHHSUM TIME!! The next few days were spent perfecting our backflips on the outdoor diving board, consuming numerous BBQs/beers and scampering excitedly around the aisles of the local supermarket having been told we could buy "whatever we want". Sorry Franka, but we also had a party. Don't worry Dickie, it wasn't that big, that's a big part of why we were so shocked when all the furniture went missing.

On Thursday we visited the Toronto apartment of the newly engaged couple, Fiona & "Jeffy"<--our christening. Congratulations guys. After a lovely pizza at the pad, we visited what we had heard described as their local "undercover meat market". It was a confusing yet fascinating, multi-story labyrinth of bars and bustling customers. After several rounds of drinks the happy couple stumbled home. They were pretty gone, but we kept an eye on them and saw them to bed. On Friday morning, having twigged onto a certain sensitive issue regarding a picture the previous evening, we rearranged some things and fear we may have sparked the couples' first serious domestic dispute. Sorry guys. We then headed home for more backflips and swimming before heading out for our final meal. Everything about this evening was wonderful and the fact that Dicky scored us some free champagne and pudding by pretending there was a birthday girl at the table (Franka) was almost too much for us. Thankyou very much for the hospitality guys. You have been very generous.

The following morning we flew to New York and this is where we finish. We've been doing shifts battling off the apparently marshal arts trained staff here and we're both pretty beat up.

Out.

KT

California 2006

2006-06-12T04:09:00.000+01:00

California.

Highlight of the entire trip. No contest. Reprasent.

"Now Kieran, this is a shot in front of the Hollywood sign which means it's DEFINITELY going on the blog so try not to embarass yourself, okay?"

They're like ants down there aren't they? Seriously, if you think that you're on crack, they're just far away. What a ridiculous thing to say.

Luckily, homosexuals (and tandem bike owners at that) are extremely easy to overpower.

San Francisco is famous for its enchanting mist. A dense fog that shrouds the city's landmarks, cloaking them in a magnificant veil of mystery and intrigue making for the shittest photos.

Lombard street. In the photo above.

On our first full day in the city, we tried to immerse ourselves in the culture by riding their famous streetcars... like benders

Kieran's incessant questions regarding the lizard population of Alcatraz landed him in the hole.

Tommy takes a deep breath and plunges down for the pose - completely filled with water!!

Drink it in... it always goes down smooth.

Atacames, 11th June

2006-06-11T16:45:00.000+01:00

Hola,

Ok i'm no less exhausted than yesterday so bear with me as I recount my various adventures in deepest ecuador. Firstly complaints. Mosquitos/Sand flies/Ticks have all established what many people already know, I taste really good! I have more bites than the rest of the volunteers put together. The heat, it's really really hot, 30 degrees and 85% humidity, and I tend not to thrive in warm countries!

Thats my griping over. I set off for Musine in the Ecuadorian province of Esmeraldas not really knowing quite what to expect. 9 Hours later I arrived pretty much drenched from the absurd humidity, and was quickly introduced to the international team of volunteers and our spacious if basic volunteer home. The team consists of 3 Canadians, 3 Ecuadorians (not including me), 1 Swiss, 1 American and 2 English (including me). Naturally, Tom is from Bristol.

The next day was my first day of working, in a typical day we will do one manual task and one conservation or community task. For example my first day featured 4 hours of hacking at a rainforest trail with machettes in the morning and turtle monitoring out on the ocean in the afternoon. In the following days we have done a lot of machette work, built roofs, made trails, stocked shrimp ponds, monitored the rock pools and generally wondered around Congal Island itself harvesting pinapples, lemons, corn as well as rubbish clearing on the beaches. It's all really hard work, but really satisfying and we definately pack a lot into each day.

My favourite part of the course so far however has to be the community work. We are based 5 minutes walk from a tiny village called Bunche where we spend a lot of time. 2 volunteers teach English every morning and while the kids are ridiculously rowdy, it is really fun both for us and for them I hope. We also help the village president with the running of the village which has included repainting and cleaning the health centre, laying a floor in the nursery and my own personal favourite playing football against the villagers. This next week we are going to spend 2 nights on Congal island for Marine conservation clases and the whale season started last week so pretty soon we should start heading out on the boats after them!

Our free time is slightly limited by exhaustion and sickness, but most mornings everyone gets up at 6 piles into a 4x4 and races the 30 seconds to our own private beach for surfing and body boarding. We also have enjoyed the hospitality of the Bunche government, (who all seem to be around the same age as us!) and there culture of all night drinking sessions featuring home-brewed liquor retailing at $2 for 4 gallons has definately kept spirits up in the evenings.

The main events however have been our free weekends and this one has been pretty epic to say the least. Following the game on Friday partying hit the streets of every town around Ecuador and we definately enjoyed ourselves! Heavily hung over we hit Atacames, the party capital of Ecuador for a mad weekend. The ultimate hangover cure of 24 Ecuadorian girls school leavers in your hotel seemed to work pretty well and while they didn't seem to understand my invitation for me to be Charlie and them to be angels I felt it would be rude not to join them on a night out. Things got out of hand pretty quickly as within 20 minutes i found myself dancing salsa, merengue and of course reggaeton in a competition, for "chicos y chicas sexy", which took place on the bar itself. I'm not sure whether it was the thought of wining four pitchers of caipriña for the girls or just my natural dancing talent coming through but somehow me and my partner, a lovely quiteña called caroline, swept all before us and won!! I quickly became very popular and the girls are all looking forward to meeting Teo and Tom next weekend!

I haven't quite managed to make it to bed yet and the thought of Iran Mexico is calling so i'm gonna press on...

LOL charlie

Ecuador 2 - Polonia 0

2006-06-10T17:36:00.001+01:00

C. Tenorio 24
Delgado 80

Enough said.... We partied big time last night... Sadly someone took out the power for the entire province and as a result i missed Englands victory! Will post a real blog when i've had some sleep and am less hung over! Saturday 21st... England vs Ecuador in Munich... LOL Jx

Power to the Picchu

2006-06-06T17:21:00.000+01:00

Pants down in Peru! (Tom joins the club)

One for the Mums.

It´s behiiiiiiiind you.

Machu Picchu

A room with a view (Cusco).

´English explorers save tiny people´s straw boat.´

The Three Musketeers on the Islas Flotantes.

Lake Titicaca, Cusco and Machu Picchu

2006-06-06T17:20:00.003+01:00

Soon after meeting in Arequipa we three Bristolian gentleman left Peru´s second city with stomachs full of alpaca and minds full of anticipation about the adventures that were spread out infront of us. The first of these being a six hour bus journey, landing us in the small town Puno. Puno is at a height of 3800m and falls into the deep waters of Lake Titicaca the largest lake in South America. We immediately checked into Hostal Virgen de Copacapana, a quiet, old building with what we gathered from the guide book had the best bathroom for miles....it didnt. Washing aside we ate yet more alpaca and drank the night away next to the typical cauldrons in most Punoian* bars knowing that the next day brought a horrifically early start. We woke up the next day at the unsaintly hour of 6:40am to the beeps of the bike powered rickshaws tootaling along below our window, minutes later and we were chugging out into Lake Titicaca on the slowest boat in the world.
*not sure.
An hour later and we stepped out onto one of the Islas de Flotatantes, made entirely from reeds, a mean feat we should say. We all agreed that it was abit like a human zoo with rich americans poking and photographing the local Quechuan people, but we could see nothing else to do and subsequently chose three particularly vicious looking reed poles. Once the main culprits had left on an overpriced boat journey to another island we finally got down to business with the locals asking us remaining immensly strong hulks to help them launch their newest boat the Reedmaster 2009. Further island hopping and we finally left the locals in peace and chugged for a further two hours to the third biggest island in the middle of the lake where another indigineuos people awaited. We strolled and panted with the altitude and evenually settled down to eat some fish from the lake..delicious. We returned to the boat on the other side of the island after purchasing some wristbands from a little girl who displayed the indiginious selling technique of absolute silence but pesistent pointing. Three hours of what felt like we were reversing across the lake and we were on terra firma.
The next day we left the delightful lakeside resort and took the incredible beast that was the Pony Express bus to the city of Cusco in the Peruvian Andes. By incredible we mean aweful and by Express they clearly meant the slowest bus on earth. It was made worse by the fact that the bus was bright pink and the driver obviously had a vendetta against any peruvian that was remotely near the road by beeping his horn and refusing to budge his bus an inch, thus forcing cyclists to swerve off into ditches etc.

We had heard that Cusco was the city of dreams and that we would never want to leave!! The drive in suggested otherwise; however the centre was rammed with restaurants, bars and overshadowed by majestic Cathderals. Our plan to have an epic saturday night-out, to so-call christen our travels together, was somewhat scuppered by the Peruvian elections (there was a countrywide alcohol ban.) Having been tipped off about a party in a youth hostel, we intrepid young gentlemen taxied it there to be met by two men with guns wearing balaclavas. This was made worse by the S.S. badges they wore on their arms, and the angry looks on their faces. Deciding that maybe this wasn´t going to be the best party, we elected to return to the centre; however for some strange reason it took a while to persuade our taxi driver to budge from the hostel. We slept off our traumatic experiences, before heading off to Machu Picchu on the Sunday morning. The cheapest way to do this was to take a chicken bus, followed by a collectivo, and then a train - a monumentous undertaking. Particularly as the man sitting next to us not only smelt of alcohol every time he breathed, but also smelt distinctly like the Elephant house at Bristol Zoo!!!

We trawled into Machu Picchu village at 10pm after a days travelling, before being hustled into what we thought was a bargain hostel, for 2 and a bit dollars!! Our lack of sleep, and incistance that we were flea ridden made us feel that maybe it hadn´t been a great choice.

The three musketeers had an unusual flash of organization, and managed to be up at 4.45am to catch the first bus to Machu Picchu. It proved to be a wise move as we were among the first few people in, to see the sunrise and experience a stunning and empty Machu Picchu. Our tranquil moment was sadly spoilt by some american "hippies" who said that our heathly debate about camera batteries, or lack of, was ruining their auror and experience!! Ignoring the pansies we continued to take novelty photos, and as the sun rose and lit up the famous sun temple we were left in ore at this incredible sight.
Trying to live up to the hardcoreness of our musketeer namesakes we soon decided to climb the mountain behind Machu Picchu, Waynupicchu. However, the fact that we had had 5hrs sleep, no food, no water and a 500m vertical climb to undertake didn´t really help our cause. Nonetheless we couldn´t undermine our now fierce reputation and so we began the supposed 1hr vertical climb. Half an hour later, and after shouts from passers-by of ´look at those lamas go´ and ´what a packhorse´, we were at the top, hardly out of breath and ready to continue with the novelty photo theme-HARDCORE! Soon enough we ran back down, in an attempt to catch Laurie who had sadly, for him, been ´door-knobbed´ at the top! Finally out of breath and in need of rehydration we chilled out and took in the beauty of this famous Inca ruin.

The rest of the day was spent in Machu Picchu Village, aka Aguas Calientes, where we indulged in some nice meals and a nap before heading to the thermal baths just outside the village. Much to our dissappointed the baths turned out to be Israeli full, murky coloured, urine smelling dirt pools. After a brief ´get your moneys worth´ half an hour in the so called medicinal baths we returned to try and get some sleep before the 5.15 rise the next morning. Soon enough we were abruptly awoken by Laurie´s shout of ´the train leaves in 5mins´ and so at lightning pace we headed for the train jumping on just as the departure whistle was sounding- perfect timing!

We are now back in the beautiful Cusco, and after an earlier game of our now regular darts and pool at Nortons, we are getting ready to take part in some of the cities well-known night life. Tomorrow we head to the oasis of Huacachina.

Miami 01/06/06

2006-06-02T04:54:00.000+01:00

Greetings,

It was in the summer of 1999 that Will Smith graced Bristish charts with the hit single, "Miami" - an infectiously groovey club tune that promised prospective visitors, a "party in the city where the heat is on" and even the opportunity to "lie on the beach untill the break of dawn". What a fantastic track that was. His equally impressive earlier work includes several timeless chart toppers, such as "summertime" and the ruthlessly hip, "boom shake the room". Finally, it would be blasphemy to even begin talking about Will's achievments without giving due acknowledgment to the hilarious T.V series, "The Fresh Prince of Bel Air" in which his mischievous yet endearing antics would invariabley send poor uncle Phil round the bend. Classic stuff. Thanks Will.

On the 27th of May, after a brief exchange of cuddles and condolences, KT finally parted with the Jim-meister outside Quito airport and boarded their plane bound for the sunshine state. It is at this point that we would like to apologize profusely for our previous cynicism with regards to american flight schedules; we simply did not understand that such precision was possible. Our flight was scheduled to take off at 08:26 and, sure enough, we were soaring up into the couds at 08:26 and 13 seconds. What is that?
Anyway, we arrived in Miami that afternoon to find, debatably, the biggest culture shock of our entire trip, bar India. It turned out, after a small amount of investigation, that we had arrived during "Black Beach Week" - an annual hip hop festival featuring the performances from the likes of P Diddy, DMX, Nelly, Fat Joe, LL Cool J and several other artists of whom we'd never heard, plus numerous afterparties hosted by today's NBA stars. So, as you would imagine, the streets were completely swamped with the standard bandana wearing, gun slinging, ho pimping, drug pedelling gentlemen that one would expect to find at such an event (350'000 of them). Insanity.

On the first evening, perhaps slightly intimidated by the circumstances, we made a point of burying ourselves down in our hostel's T.V basement, where we enjoyed one of Vince Vaughn's earlier films. Thanks Vince. It was only when we re-emerged however, that we were informed that the police had come by and forcibley removed two drug dealers from the premises. Lovely.

Just two nights were spent in Miami Beach International Traveller's Hostel, before we gathered our belongings and moved onto a far nicer placed called, Clay. It was here that we shared a dorm with Marcus, a Yugoslavian Drum n' Bass fanatic who claimed he used to make a living driving limosines for the stars in Los Angeles, his client list supposedly including big names like Robert Deniro, Harrison Ford, Joe Strummer, Axel Rose, the Cypress Hill group and several other names that escape us at the moment. Having previously spent few years in Miami, Marcus had grown accustomed to "Black Beach Week" and seemed to take a perverse pleasure out of filling us in on the blood soaked tales from past festivals. Despite being a complete legend, we only learnt his name at 05:30 on our final morning in Miami from his derranged stalker who happened to be lurking in the hallway (up to this point, due to his nationality, he had only been referred to as "Yugi").

During long, scorching days between the 27th and the 31st, KT could typically be found lounging on Southbeach or jostling through the pandamonium of Miami's busy streets. Mingling amongst the visiting gangsters and the wildly amusing, native eccentrics was entertaining to say the least and when lacking the energy to mingle, grabbing a coffee on an outdoor terrace and just "people watching" was always an option. In the evenings, searching for somewhere to eat was a pleasant affair, although unfortunately clarity of mind and coherant conversation were both inescapable due to the outrageous/perhaps rather sensible drinking laws.

Once our fear of a premature death by drive by shooting had been overcome, Miami became a great chapter in our travels and certainly added to our excitement regarding the rest of the States. We arrived in here San Francisco yesterday and what a beautiful city it is! But that readers, is for another blog.

Anyways, we out y'all. REPRASENT! RICE AND PEA!!

KT

P.S: We've only just gotten used to the absence of camera happy James. Sorry. We promise we'll feature in the S.F pics.

P.P.S: The Da Vinci Code is blood boilingly awful. Don't go and see it.