Gorillas in Uganda

Hi All
Hope this post finds you well & happy :) We're in Nairobi, Kenya at the moment, after spending some time travelling over to Uganda to see the mountain Gorillas!

There were around 10 ppl on this leg of the trip. We've been living out of an overlanding truck, which has everything you could need stowed away somewhere (tents, cooking equipment, tables, chairs etc). We left Nariobi on the 12th of April & travelled to Lake Nakuru national park, where we were lucky enough to see white & black rhino's, water buffelo, giraffes, zebra, a leopard, and many other animals. We took loads of photos & Richard tried to identify everything in the bird & animal books which were very informative :) It was very exciting to see all of these animals on the first day!

After Nakuru, we travelled onto Eldorett. Eldorett is one of the towns which was affected by the political riots after the December elections, and we saw a few of the burnt out shells of houses & shops. Scary stuff. We left really early the next morning, as we were travelling across the border to Uganda and the roads were pretty bad. Stopping for lunch every day is a bit hit & miss, and that day was one of the worst for trying to find somewhere. When we stop for lunch, all 10 of us pull out tables, chairs food etc & make lunch, before cleaning everything & putting it back. The difficulty is finding somewhere to pull over & setting everything up, as people invariably want to watch the "mzungu" (white person) eat, and hope for hand outs.

So anyway, on this day we tried pulling over on the edge of a grassy field which looked perfect. It was the edge of a school however, & by the time we'd parked there were hundreds of school children who wanted to stare at us, shake our hands & say "How are you?". We were swarmed! Needless to say, we decided lunch would be impossible, & so after shaking everyones hands & saying hello, we hopped back in & continued on. Funny stuff.

Our stop for the night was Jinja, Uganda, which is where we stayed for the next 2 nights. The following day, most of the group went white water rafting down the "white Nile" (said to be the source of the Great Nile river. Richard, Tim (one of the group) & I decided to spend the day with a local charity organisation, Soft Power. We spent the morning at a school for Aids Orphans, where we were the most popular people around. All the kids wanted to hold our hands, or stroke our arms, or play with our hats etc. Richard & I sat in on a class for 4-5 year olds learning their numbers & alphabet. I had the pleasure of trying to teach the alphabet with the help of the teacher, which was pretty funny, but lots of fun. The kids are very energetic with a very short attention span & there are a lot of them in the class for the poor teacher to deal with. Pic of some of them below.

In the afternoon, we went to help paint one of the classrooms in a SoftPower school. I ended up covered in paint, but the room looked good by the time we'd finished!

The next day (Wednesday), we were back on the road to the "Hairy Lemon", which is an island on the Nile, where we spent the afternoon relaxing. Getting there & away was interesting. The roads were very muddy & at one point we all had to get out of the truck so it could slide its way over the mud without getting bogged (& so we wouldn't be in it if it slid off the road)!

Thursday we drove into Kampala (capital of Uganda), were we stayed the night, before packing up the tents and leaving at 5:30am the next morning to drive all the way to Bwindi Impenetrable forest where we were going to trek the gorillas the next day. We left the truck in a town along the way & took a local van as the roads heading up into the forest were really bad. We were bogged twice, the second time at dusk, & the car battery failed when the driver tried to rev the car out of the mud. Lucky for us, he managed to get the engine going again, so once we'd pushed the van out of the mud we were back on our bumpy ride all the way up to the community hostel where we were staying for the next 2 nights.

On Saturday, we split into 2 groups, to track 2 different gorilla families. Our group was the Rushegura group, which had 15 members, one of which was the silverback (the alpha male gorilla who leads the group). Lucky for us, our group was only a half an hour walk from the starting point. The other group was up in one of the dense areas of the mountain, which was several hours of walking, and hacking through the foliage to find them! Both groups had an amazing experience though. They are huge animals, and so human like! I've popped two photos on, one up the top & one below.

The following day (Sunday), we headed back into Kambale (4 hours drive from Bwindi), where we'd left the truck. Pic above of one of the encounters on the road. We had to wait for a while as the truck on the right was broken down and the truck on the left had tried to overtake & become jammed between the wall & the broken down truck & also bogged in the mud on the side of the road. It made it out eventually, & we continued on our way! We took another van to Lake Binyounyi, where we spent 2 nights chilling out, and getting our laundry done. Pic of Richard & I below with the lake in the background.

On Tuesday we headed back to Kampala which was another mammoth driving day, and then again on Wednesday when we drove back to Eldorett for the night. On Thursday we left again at 6am in order to get to Lake Naivasha by 3pm in time for afternoon tea!

At Lake Naivasha is a place called Elsamere, which is a colonial homestead on the lake, which is where Joy Anderson & her family lived, and which is now a museum. Joy spent a lot of her life in Kenya rehabilitating big cats (Lions in particular) & was the author of Born Free (which was later a movie). An amazing woman.

We camped the night on Lake Naivasha, up the road from Elsamere. The lake was gorgeous, and populated with hippo's which are quite dangerous... there is an electric fence between the camp site & the lake to ensure none of them wander into tents! We saw the tops of a few heads, including a mum & baby, & took lots of photos of the sunset & sunrise the next morning on the lake. Gorgeous place. Pic off the edge of the jetty below. The next day we headed back for Nairobi, which is where we are now!!!

Tomorrow we're off to the Masai Mara park for 2-3 days, followed by the Serengeti & then Zanzibar! Hopefully I'll be able to do another update in Zanzibar as apparently there are some internet cafes there.

Stay well & happy!

Love Richard & Corryn

Africa here we come!!!

Hi All

Tomorrow is our last day in India!! The time has flown by and we've had a fantastic stay here. We're definately planning another trip back someday to see more of the country - the mountainous north and the sunny south are on our list of places we'd like to visit :)

So tomorrow we're flying to Nairobi to start our epic two month overland trip through Southern Africa! We're very excited :) Not sure how accessible the internet will be though, as we'll be spending a lot of time in the national parks and on the road. So you may not hear from us for a while, but if you'd like to see what we're doing, our trip is described here: http://www.acacia-africa.com/HolidayDetails.aspx?tc=UAO58&ProductID=7 and I've popped a map of where we're going below.

Stay well & happy and think of us in Africa!!!

Lots of love

Richard & Corryn

Dehli, Taj Mahal & Rajasthan

Hi all.

With Corryn busy at work and my studies over, I guess it's my turn to do a blog update.

We have been in India now for about 3 months and have about 7 weeks left here. Amongst the chaos at Uni and Corryn's office we managed to get away for a short break. We met Vicky at Dehli airport and embarked on a 10 day trip from Dehli to Agra and around Rajasthan, the heart of the Indian Moghul empire (aka the land of Kings).

In Dehli we met our driver, Sampat Gaur, a tall Brahman male of 29 years old who had a very quirky sense of humour. Many interesting times ahead.

Dehli is a busy place but much cleaner than Kolkata. We spent a few days in Dehli checking out the main sights including Jama Masjid which is the largest mosque in India built in the middle of the 17th Century. The pic of the left of Corryn & Vicky in front of the main section also shows the southern minaret that we climbed up. The view from the top was amazing but the journey up and down the tower was more memorable. It was a dark spiral staircase that was built for single file only. However, we managed to pass at least a dozen people in there and the girls informed me that hands do go a wandering! Pic on the right is inside the mosque. So intricate and ornate.

After leaving Delhi we headed south to Agra, home of the Taj Mahal. On the way, we stopped at King Akbar's tomb, one of the most famous Moghul Kings (pic on left). They have just released a Bollywood movie about him, which we saw on the weekend. Akbar (Muslim) had 3 wives, each of a different religion. One Muslin wife, one Hindu wife and one Christian wife. It was great to see some of the sights that we visited in the movie, all decked out as if it was 400 odd years ago.

Okay the main event. We finally got to Agra and our heads were poking around in every direction until we finally caught a glimpse of the magnificent structure. For those of those into a bit of history, the Taj Mahal was built by Emporer Shah Jahan as a memorial for his 2^nd wife, Mumtaz Mahal, who died giving birth to their 14^th child in 1631. It took over 20 years to build and is by far the biggest, most beautiful thing I have ever seen. The marble work is so intricate and just looking at it from a distance is so surreal. As the sun was setting, the marble was changing colours from white to grey, to blue, to pink. You could have just sat there for hours looking at it.

It might be pertinent at this point to mention that simply travelling around India and going from place to place can be just as interesting as the main sights. The pic on the left is a common form of transport that you overtake while travelling along the state highways.

After Agra we headed south towards the state of Rajasthan. However before getting there, we stopped in at Fatehpur Sikri, which was once the Palace of King Akbar. It is now a fortified ghost city but in its day (mid 16^th Centruy) Akbar ruled Hindustan from here. What's amazing about the place is that he has incorporated Muslim, Hindu and Christian achitecture into the place for his 3 wives. Pic of Corryn & Vicky on right.

Okay so we finally made it into Rajasthan and our first stop was the city of Jaipur, also know as the pink city. In 1876, the city was painted pink as a ceremonial colour of welcome for the arrival of Prince Albert. It was a pretty cool town but I would have to say that the colour was more of a rustic orange / brown than pink. Jaipur has a few attractions so I'll try to summarise as best as I can.

The Palace of the Winds is only one room deep and was basically

built so that the ladies of leisure could sit in their rooms and watch the processions going on in the streets below. Pic on left.

The cinema on the right is Raj Mandir, which is where we watched out first Bollywood movie called “Sunday”.

There is also a pic of us at this folk town come handy craft village. It was a little bizarre but I got to wear a turban which was cool.

The main attraction in Jaipur was the Amber Fort. This is another one of Akbar's creations built in the late 16^th Century. It was also huge and really impressive. The pic on the right is looking across the central garden to the main building. You could imagine what it looked like when the fountains and gardens were cared for.

The City Palace also had some really interesting rooms with ornately decorated doorways. Pic on left of Corryn & I sitting under one. (If you haven't noticed by now Corryn has developed a scarf fetish since we've been in India).

On our way from Jaipur to Jodhpur we passed this mass of red and were amazed to find out that they were chillies being dried out in the sun. Pic on right.

Jodhpur is known as the blue city and the pic on the right may help illustrate this. Basically the Brahman's (an elite class) paint their houses blue. When you look down on the city from the Meherangarh Fort, the city literally looks blue. The Fort itself is the also pretty huge and impressive. Pic on the right is looking up at one of the sections from the main gate. Very intrusive!

Once you get inside though, the rooms are still very well maintained given their age (over 150 years old). Pic on left is one of the Maharaja suites. There's even gold on the ceiling.

To give you an idea of how these fort's sit above the cities, have a look at the pic below.

After leaving Jodhpur, we went to a small town called Ranakpur, which is in the hills. There isn't much in Ranakpur except one temple to visit. I'll tell you what though, It was definitely a highlight of the trip. The temple was built by the Jain people. Jain is an extreme form of Hinduism. The Jain's live a pure vegetarian diet and do not believe in killing anything. they even walk everywhere and wear a cloth over their mouths so they don't breath in insects. Fascinating stuff.

Anyway, the temple was absolutely beautiful. It's all marble and hand craved. The pic on the right is a broad pic but the one on the left is an example of some of the intricate marble work within the temple itself.

There were also heaps of monkeys around so I thought I'd include this

pic of one having a snooze while its mate attends to some grooming.

Last stop on the journey was Udaipur. This is a small town on a lake and even though the lake was small, it makes the place very picturesque. Our hotel had a great view and the photo on the right doesn't do the sunset any justice.

There was a main palace and Museum on the lake and whilst going through it was fantastic, the view form the lake was much better (pic on left).

Waking up and looking over the lake with the morning sun on it was a great way to end the trip. Watching the locals washing their clothes in the lake and just enjoying the cool air was a nice break from Kolkata.

Before I forget, we organised our tour through a company called Real India Tours www.realindiatours.com they tailored the whole thing to our requirements and Sampat, our driver was great. Definitely recommend them for any of your Indian travels.

Anyway, as I said earlier, we have 7 weeks to go. We'll try and do another update before we leave.

Love to all

Rich & Corryn

Kolkata - Instalment 1!

Namaste!

Hope this blog finds you well & happy! Apologies once again for not blogging in so long... we've been busy! Richard & I have been in Kolkata, India since late November & have been very busy beavers. I have been busy getting into the swing of things at work, while Richard has been drowning in study. We've managed to see a few things nearby, but still have a lot more to go.

We're heading to Rajasthan on Tuesday to see the palaces and forts in the area, including the Taj Mahal! I thought I should try to update you all on where we're at before we go, since I'm sure we'll have hundreds more photos once we get back!

We're staying in a very luxurious hotel in the middle of the city. I've included a pic of the room, and also a pic of an unexpected room guest we found on the first night (the lizard). The hotel is very central, however my office is fairly far out of the city. It takes me around half an hour to get to work in the morning and around an hour or more to get home in the evenings. Traffic is pretty bad, as are the roads. I think my blood pressure has increased substantially over the last month due to the hair raising nature of driving over here. As my colleague described it... a white knuckle death ride... is actually fairly accurate... however I think I'm getting used to it. Watch out when I get back behind the wheel!

The city itself is pretty amazing. There are some gorgeous places and some disgusting places - the old cliche about India being a country of contrasts is actually very accurate. There are whole families sleeping on the pavement, while millionaires drive past in their BMWs.

One of the first places we went to see was the Victoria Memorial, which is a tribute to Queen Victoria and a gorgeous building. See the pic of the building with the lake in the foreground at the top of the blog.

We also went to see St Pauls cathedral which is up the road from us. Pic on the left. We also went to midnight mass there on Christmas Eve for the atmosphere, and couldn't believe the number of people packed in there!

Last weekend our driver, Shiv, took us on a tour to the areas around the city. Across the Howrah bridge into the Howrah area, which is completely different from the area we live in. I've attached a picture of a very cute couple waiting to cross the road, who we saw as we were driving through Howrah. We headed up to see the Ramakrishna temple on the Hooghly river where we saw hundreds of people praying and washing themselves in the Hooghly river. We also took a photo of one of the buildings covered in Bamboo scaffolding (a common sight), and also a picture of Shiv & I in front of hundreds of devotees bikes!

After visiting the Ramakirshna temple we headed further north to the Dakshineswar Kali temple. Both were very interesting and absolutely packed! Unfortunately cameras were not allowed. We didn't end up going into the Dakshineswar Kali temple due to the line to get in which was literally several kilometers long. Apparently now is a time of holiday for a lot of people from Mumbai and Delhi who come to make offerings at the temples.

On the way back from the temple we managed to take a photo of a rickshaw in action on the roads. The rickshaws are rickety old carriages on two wheels which are generally pulled by a wirey, leathery older man, and are everywhere, dodging the traffic and pulling one or two people.

From the temples we came back down into Kolkata & then over into the Botanical gardens. It was great to check out some greenery and with a variety of birds (all we see in Kolkata city are black scavenger birds)! Also in the botanical gardens is the largest Banyan tree in the world. The Banyan tree has proproots which it drops from its branches which allow it to continually expand. This tree covers an area of approximately 14,000m2!

Anyway, back into Kolkata, yesterday we went for a walk in the morning to take a photo of some of the things we'd noticed over the last month or so. You can see a few street scenes photos we took, including a local corner store, with the two shop keepers sitting up on the counter serving a guy. Also a cyclist cycling down a street early in the morning with what we think are gas bottles hanging off the side of the bike... this is a really common sight all the time actually - cyclists with gas bottles or other huge items riding through the streets.

We also took a photo of some people still sleeping on the pavement at 7am on a Sunday morning. They are the big bundles of cloth on pavement in front of a white wall. This is also common in the mornings. People everywhere sleeping on the pavement, from older people to children to whole families. The climate here is quite warm at night which means it is a comfortable temperature outside for sleeping.

Another common sight is fellows getting a hair cut or a shave with a cut throat razor on the side of the pavement. Barbers who don't have a shop, just a razor and a stool who are set up waiting to give you a hair cut or a shave. After asking permission, we took a photo of one such barber who seemed quite surprised that we would want to take a photo of such a common thing.

Finally, we also took a photo of some of the decrepit buildings which are everywhere in Kolkata. Apparently rents are set at very low levels, so building owners don't bother to maintain or upgrade the buildings, which leaves them in amazingly delapidated states. Its incredible some of them are still standing! Also, one last random photo of a line of motorbikes which look like they haven't been ridden in over a year, covered in dust & leaves on the side of the pavement. Very bizarre, and I have no idea where they have come from!

Anyway, as I said, still lots of things to see and describe, and I'll try to keep it more regular!!!

Lots of love to all
Richard & Corryn

HUGE update - rest of South America

Hi All

I'm going to try and summarise the remainder of our trip in South America below. There are literally hundreds of photos on our Flickr site if you'd like to see more, but I've tried to just pick the best ones below.

So, in the last blog we were in Bolivia. From Bolivia we travelled down into Chile with several flights - one from La Paz to Santiago, with a loooonnng stop in Iquique where we had our passports checked & stamped. Our flight from Santiago to Punta Arenas was delayed, so we were in Santiago airport for some hours before boarding our flight.

The flight to Punta Arenas also had one stop at Puerto Montt. All in all, from the time we left La Paz (9am in the morning), to when we arrived, tired & bedraggled, in Punta Arenas (at 1am the following morning), it felt like we'd spent the day going up and down in a plane!

Anyway, onto Patagonia!

Our stay in Patagonia was quite brief & cold, we had only 4 days all up & we'd hired a guide & a driver for the duration of the stay. On the first day we started out from our hotel in Punta Arenas at 9am with our guide. The temperature as we left the hotel was around 2 degrees and freezing. Our guide took us to a penguin colony first up, where we were enchanted by the sight of penguins making their way from their burrows down onto the beach (you can see pics on flickr). We nearly froze while we were watching them, and it started snowing while we were there. A nice introduction to the temperatures to come.

After the penguin colony we continued north onto Puerto Natales where we stopped for lunch before continuing on to the Milodon Cave Natural Monument. Apparently more than 10,000 years ago, giant sloth like creatures (Milodon's) existed in the area. In 1895 a German discovered the well-preserved remains of a Milodon in a huge natural cave. You can still find hairs from the Milodon's on the dirt floor of the cave today. Apparently the temperatures in the area keep everything well preserved! To assist with your imagination of the Milodon, there is a life size statue at the mouth of the cave. Check out the photo of us on the right next to it (how cheesy!).

After the cave we were back on the road heading further north to the Torres del Paine national park. The park covers around 181,000 hectares & is renown for the glaciers and wildlife found there. In addition there are amazing greeny blue lakes fed from the glaciers. The scenery is fantastic. One of the main attractions is the glacier Grey. You can see a picture of me on the left up the top of the blog with icebergs behind me which have broken off from the glacier & if you have really good sight, you can see the tip of the glacier in the far background. In addition to this though are the huge mountains in the park which look incredible. We spent a night in the park so we had a whole day & a half in the park which we spent doing walks around different areas to see a lot of the wildlife & some spectacular sights. In terms of wildlife, the main species we saw was a lot of was guanacos which are a type of llama. You can see a pic on the left of a guanaco (pronounced wanaka) with one of the mountains in the background.

From Chile we headed back up to the top of Argentina where we met our next group in Buenos Aires. Unfortunately we had only half a day in Buenos Aries which we spent walking around the city trying to see the main sights. From Buenos Aries we caught a ferry over to Colonia del Sacramento in Uruguay, which is a UNESCO heritage listed town. It was a Portuguese settlement, founded in 1680, and contains gorgeously coloured buildings & cobblestone streets. I've popped a pic on the left from one of the streets in Colonia. A gorgeous old car, converted into a garden. The town is very sleepy & relaxing. We spent a day or so meandering around the streets before catching a bus onto Montevideo, the capital of Uruguay.


In Montevideo (pronounced "Monte-vidayo") we stayed a couple of nights, and, on the first night, were treated to a concert in the streets which was part of a political celebration. Along with modern hip hop was some modern salsa music which we had fun dancing on the streets to. Lots of fun. Pic of us on the right at the concert. The next day we meandered the streets & checked out some street stalls with heaps of cool products made by the locals, before heading out for dinner and a tango lesson! Lots of fun.



From Montevideo, we hopped on a bus destined for a ranch in central Uruguay.



We were met at the bus stop by our host Juan, who owns the ranch we stayed at. The ranch was around an hours drive from the bus stop & Juan had bought his truck with a comfy sofa sitting in the back for us. You can see a pic of us on the left in the back of the truck. We were at the ranch for 2 nights & had a very busy stay.

Some of the highlights of the stay included some very competitive games of volleyball & shuttlecock on a slippery, muddy court, with the added excitement of cow dung to avoid while trying to hit the ball or shuttlecock (pic of the court on the left). Needless to say we ended up with some very muddy clothes.

Juan also took us out on some of his amazing horses for a day of rounding up some cattle. The horses are by far most well trained horses I have ever seen. They are apparently trained by the Gauchos (a Gaucho is a traditional South American cowboy) when they are young. The bit they use has a protrusion which rests on the palate of the horses mouth & can therefore cause great pain to the horse when the rains are pulled on. The horses were extremely eager to trot or canter at the slightest opportunity, and would respond to the smallest movement in the rains. Amazing.



Two pics on the right of us rounding up cattle. One of me in very flattering gumboots, and one with the view Richard had from on top of his horse. Also a pic on the right of a sunset over the ranch gate.

From the ranch we crossed the border into Brazil and caught an overnight bus far inland to Iguazu Falls. Iguazu falls are situated on the border of Brazil & Argentia, close to Paraguay.

Apparently there are 275 falls along 2.7 kilometres of the Iguazu river. Some of the falls are up to 82 metres high. At peak times there is an estimated 6.5 million litres of water gushing down the falls per second. We spent several days visiting the falls from the Argentinian side and the Brazilian side. Two pics on the left of the falls.

While we were there we also went to a "traditional dance" show, which featured dance styles from around Latin America, including salsa, tango & many other styles. Pic on the left of one of the dancers wearing a whole lot of feathers. Very glittery!




We also spent a morning in the border town of Ciudad del Este in Paraguay, where we checked out some of the shopping available, including this bizarre little lamp (pic on left) in one of the department stores.

From Iguazu Falls we caught another overnight bus East into Paraty (pronounced "Para-chay"), which is a colonial town on the coast of Brazil.

We stayed in Paraty for 2 nights & enjoyed the street festival which was happening on one of the days we were there. Another really laid back town, cars are not allowed in the old section of the town which gives a lovely relaxed feel to the place. Unfortunately the cobblestoned roads are made of huge bolders which are very unevenly placed and can be quite slippery. At times when I was looking at the gorgeous old buildings instead of the road I nearly broke an ankle. Pic of one of the streets on the right.



From Paraty we caught a very windy bus up the coast line, and then a ferry over to Isle Grande, a gorgeous island off the coast of Brazil. The island is quite big & hilly, with a lot of natural forest in the middle.

We spent one day treking over the island to get to the gorgeous beaches on the other side, and the other days we spent lazing around on the beach. Unfortunately the weather was dicey, raining in a number of the afternoons, however it was a very relaxing end to our holiday. Two pics on the left - one of a small monkey we encountered during our trek over the island and the other of me with the beach in the background on the day we left.



Onto Rio de Janeiro! We only had half a day in Rio unfortunately, due to the timing of our flights, but we tried to make the most of it!


Unfortunately it was pretty cloudy while we were there, so we didn't go up the sugar loaf mountains, nor did we go up Cristo Redentor (the giant statue of Christ overlooking the city). We did however take the rickety street car (tram) up into Santa Teresa (a historical district) where we had some great views of the city & saw some pretty cool buildings.



Check out two pics on the right of some colourful houses on the hill, and one of the streets of Santa Teresa.

There was also some curious cows dotted all around the city. Pic of one on a main road on the right.


Finally, we also checked out some of the main beaches including Ipanema and Copacabana, which were gorgeous & right in the middle of the city!. Pic of me on the right next to a pretty cool sand castle.

After Rio we had a spare 2 days in Santiago on our way back home.


While there we caught up with an old school friend of mine who is playing in the Orchestra in Chile (another meeting thanks to facebook!), and followed a lonely planet walk around the city, in particular, checking out a castle in the middle of the city.

The castle was pretty strange - an old building in the middle of all these new skyrises. We had a great view of the whole city from the tower at the top of the castle. Pictures following are some of the sights from and around the castle.


So! That's everything up to when we left South America!!!

We're now in Kolkata, India, however I'm going to save that one for the next blog update...

Hope you're all well & happy!
Richard & Corryn

SORRY!

Hi!
Quick blog to let you all know we're currently in Kolkata, India & I am planning to catch up on the last month or so of travels as soon as possible. Things are a tad hectic at the moment, trying to settle in here & catch up on study & whats happening at the office. Promise to get up to date in the next couple of weeks!!!!!
Hope you're all happy and well!
Love Corryn & Richard

Lake Titicaca & La Paz

Hola!

Richard & I are currently in La Paz, Bolivia! Last time I finished up I think we were in Cuzco, Peru. We really enjoyed having some time off in Cuzco, catching up on some sleep, soaking up the atmosphere in a few cafes & of course seeing some of the main sights. Unfortunately, while in Cuzco, one of our team members was hospitalised with Altitude sickness & suspected Salmonella poisoning. After inhaling half an oxygen tank & a number of antibiotics, she decided to continue to travel on with us rather than be left behind.

The most amazing sight was Saqaywaman (pronounced "Sexy Woman" :) & pic on left - the dots are people!), which is believed to be an old Inca fortification of the town in the shape of teeth. The whole city of Cuzco was apparently designed in the shape of a Puma in the Inca times, and these fortifications are the teeth of the puma. The stones are massive (up to 300 tonnes I believe), and are so carefully carved & placed that there is barely a crack between them.

Anyway, after resting up in Cuzco, we travelled onto Puno, which is a largely tourist town situated on the edge of Lake Titicaca, the highest navigatable lake in the world. Puno didn't leave a great first impression, with unfinished buildings, roads and dirt & rubbish everywhere. The main center of Puno however is tourist heaven. Western food in chic restaurants & souvenirs everywhere! We were in Puno for a free day (as we travelled a day earlier than planned due to a national census during which everyone has to stay home & there is no transport, food, shops etc open). Unfortunately that meant that we had a day to do nothing much more than sit back & relax! Also unfortunately our team member who fell ill in Cuzco became worse in Puno (which is at 3,800 m above sea level), and the local doctor diagnosed bronchitus (rather than salmonella) and altitude sickness. She decided to cut the trip short and travel home at that point.

The day after we arrived we were picked up at 7:30am by our local guide with a number of local tricycles with seats on the front (being the local transport). The cyclists took us down to the port on Lake Titicaca where we started our trip out onto the lake. Lake Titicaca was massive, to the point where you feel as though you are on the ocean. Our first stop was on the floating islands. They are completely reliant on tourism & appear to be very popular. The floating islands are made with reeds which grow abundantly in that area of the lake. The houses, boats & the islands themselves are made with reeds which need to be regularly renewed as they rot over a number of months (2 pics on right of the people and the reed boats). We were given a tour of one of the islands & travelled in a local reed boat across to one of the main islands where we had the opportunity to buy some of the many souvenirs there. Lots of fun, but felt a bit as though we were in a museum, with everything carefully arranged and displayed to give tourists a lesson on the local life.

From the floating islands we travelled onto Amantani island where we were split into pairs and allocated to local families with whom we were to spend the night. Richard & I stayed with a young couple (Nancy & Victor) with a 3 year old daughter (Anna) . Victors parents also live with them. Similarly to the floating islands, the main income on Amantani island is tourism. Nancy & Victor told us that they have around 10 couples stay with them per month. The tourists are rotated around the families to ensure everyone participates and the money goes to the community. We were told to bring around 20 soles worth of groceries as a gift to our family, which included oil, rice, noodles, sugar, and salt. The house we stayed in was very basic, with reed mattresses & the house made out of mud brick.

We were lent local beanies to wear (pic of us in our beanies on left) for the night & our group climbed up to the top of the island where we had a fabulous view of the sunset over Lake Titicaca. Absolutely gorgeous (pic of us watching the sunset on left).

After dinner (delicious soup & then vegetables & rice prepared by Nancy), we were dressed up in the local dress (poncho for Richard & huge skirts, blouse, & headscarf for me, pic of us with Nancy, Victor & Anna on left) and taken to the local disco which is put on for the benefit of tourists every night. Victor & Nancy had us up and dancing the local dance as soon as we arrived which was a fun, if breathless activity (due to the altitude!) .

All in all, a bizarre experience, if only because it was so put on for tourists. Still it was interesting to see how these people live & learn a bit about them.

The next day we headed onto Taquile Island which is famous for its knitting which is done by the men (Pic on right of 2 of the men knitting). Again, it is a very cute island, but relies on tourism and is therefore very tourist oriented. Young girls constantly harrassed us to buy bracelets & when taking a photo, would rush to be in the photo so they could ask for money. It's hard to know whether the tourism is good, as it helps to maintain their customs & way of living & gives a better lifestyle, or if its bad as the local customs etc are so obviously maintained just for the tourist dollar.

All in all a very interesting experience.

We travelled onto La Paz after Lake Titicaca, crossing the border into Bolivia & stopping at Copacabana for lunch (no where near the same Copacabana as the one in the song!). After lunch we crossed a stretch of Lake Titicaca on the local ferry, where the bus goes on what looks like a few rotting pieces of timber & we go on a small boat. The swell was pretty high & the boat (with its tiny engine) took ages to get across. The bus was even worse. We watched with some trepidation as it seemed to continue rocking and floating far far down the stretch rather than going to the other side. Very bizarre, but it made it in the end :)

Anyway, we're now in La Paz which is a gorgous colourful place, packed to the brim with people everywhere! (pic of La Paz from the hill on the left). We're planning to chill out for the day before we fly to Patagonia tomorrow. Our group disbanded last night (pic from our last group dinner on right), so we're on our own for the next week before meeting up with the next group trip.

Hope you are well & happy!

Lots of love

Richard & Corryn.