Corryn & Rich's Adventures

Gorillas in Uganda

2008-04-26T03:15:00.000-07:00

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!!!

2008-04-08T21:21:00.001-07:00

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

2008-02-24T21:11:00.000-08:00

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!

2008-01-19T23:44:00.001-08:00

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

2007-12-13T19:54:00.000-08:00

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!

2007-12-01T07:53:00.000-08:00

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

2007-10-25T10:44:00.000-07:00

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.

Inca mysteries

2007-10-18T13:19:00.000-07:00

Hola!

Hope this blog finds you happy & well. We´ve just returned from a 4 day trek over the Inca trail which was heaps of fun!

After the last blog however we were on our way to Cuzco. Cuzco was once the Inca capital & is absolutely gorgeous (Pic of one of the streets on the left). We only had a night in Cuzco before travelling onto Ollantaytambo in the Sacred Valley using a public bus which was an adventure in itself. We stopped on the way in a small village to have a demonstration of how the locals weave many of the brightly coloured textiles we´ve been seeing everywhere. The children are trained from as young as 9 years old (Pic on the right of one of the weavers) & are experts by the time they´re 20. They use Alpaca and Sheeps wool which is converted into yarn by hand and dyed into bright colours using pigments found in local products (including a bug which is found on cactus plants). The yarn is then woven by hand into all sorts of products from belts to bags to table cloths. A small meter square table cloth takes around 4 weeks of labour.We bought one of the small cloths for 180 soles.

We also stopped at Pisac on the way to have a meander through the markets and lunch. Pisac was once an Inca town and therefore has very narrow streets which are largely cobblestones. It´s a cute little town, & had heaps of gorgeous markets. We nearly bought several of the brightly coloured textiles but stopped ourselves in time (remembering the size of our backpacks).

Finally in the afternoon we arrived at Ollantaytambo which was also once an Inca Town. It has narrow cobblestone streets and a lovely big square in the middle. Overlooking the town are huge Inca terraces and the remains of a temple on the top. Our guide gave us a detailed tour of the terraces and the temple remains and we admired the Inca design where the stones are so perfectly fitted together so as to be almost seamless (Pic on the right of part of the temple). It is mindboggling to think how they managed to get such huge stones up onto the mountain and carved into place.

The next day we travelled from Ollantaytambo to the kilometre 82 marker which is where we began the 4 day trek to Machu Picchu. We had a crew of 14 porters, a chef, a guide, and an assistant guide! The porters were incredible. While we were puffing our way slowly up a hill at high altitude, the porters were almost jogging past with burdens of up to 25kg. On day one we saw two Inca ruins which are believed to be resting places for travellers and/or agricultural farms and greenhouses. Our guide also explained many of the properties of the plants we passed on the way. Plants for indigestion, shampoo, to assist the lungs etc etc. Incredible stuff. We arrived to our lunch stop to find that the porters had set up a large tent & cooked a delicious 3 course meal for our lunch. They did the same for lunch and dinner on every day, and in the evenings even had our tents up before we arrived to the camp sites!

Day two is said to be the most challenging as it is almost straight up to Warmiwanusca (Dead woman´s pass) at an altitude of 4,215m (Pic of Richard on right & Pic of me on the left with some Llama´s which wandered onto the path). We found it quite difficult, especially as it is quite difficult to catch your breath at that height & it was incredibly cold.

After getting over the pass it was another 2 hours down many stairs to the bottom of the valley where we camped for the second night. It was very cold that night & we all rugged up & went to bed quite early.

I actually found day three the hardest as it was mainly downhill using steep stairs. It was the longest day of treking and was quite hard on the leg muscles & knees. The views on the way was very rewarding though (Pic on the left of one of the views on the way). We saw the ruins of Phuyupatamarca (the "Town above the clouds") toward the end of day three before heading to camp.

The final day to Machu Picchu was raining quite heavily. We rose at 4am in the dark to pack up camp & head to the Sun Gate which is perched on the mountains above Machu Picchu & which, when the clouds cleared, gave a fantastic view (Pic of us with Machu Picchu in the background on the right). We arrived at Machu Picchu at around 9:30 am covered in mud & rain and exhausted.

Our guide gave us a detailed tour of the site after which we headed down to Aguas Calientes for lunch & to catch the train & a bus back to Cuzco which is where we are now!

We are in Cuzco for another couple of nights to rest and relax before we head to Puno and Lake Titicaca and finally La Paz in Bolivia. Lots to look forward to!

Lots of love

Richard & Corryn

Peru - Earthquakes and desert lines

2007-10-08T09:26:00.000-07:00

Hola!

We´re currently in Arequipa, Peru & have just arrived back from 2 days in Colca Canyon where we saw huge Condors! I´m going to try & summarise the last week fairly quickly as we are off again tomorrow morning. Sorry!

We met up with our Intrepid group in Lima around a week ago and are in a group of 10 people with a local guide. Lima was interesting, but very dirty and under a constant mist/haze. Apparently it only rains for around 3 months of the year there. Not a city I'd like to spend a lot of time in. The most interesting part of our quick visit was seeing a statue with a Llama on its head (Pic on right). Apparently the local craftsman confused "Flame" with "Llama" as they are the same word in Spanish, so rather than a crown of flames, the poor statue ended up with a small Llama on her head! Very amusing.

From Lima we travelled to the coastal town of Pisco which you may have heard in the news recently as it was hit by an earthquake measuring 7.8 on the richter scale in August. The epicentre was Pisco. Much of the town was leveled, including the big church in the city center, with only rubble left. Trucks and bulldozers were working well into the night still trying to clear the rubble. Many people are living in tents or in temporary shelters which resemble a small garden shed. Surprisingly the people we met were quite upbeat & were working hard to get the town back on its feet as soon as possible.

From Pisco we took a boat out to the Ballestos Islands where we saw heaps of birds, and sea lions. The Ballestos Islands are also known as the Gallapagos Islands of Peru, however we´re not sure that they´re quite that good. We didn´t spend long as the area is protected so you can´t get out of the boat. From Ballestos Islands we headed on into the desert to do some sand boarding before lunch which was heaps of fun, although I managed to stack it on the way down my first dune. We continued on after a lovely lunch to the city of Nazca.

We stayed for 2 nights in Nazca in a nice hostel with a gorgeous big pool! In Nazca we took a flight out over the Nazca lines where we were astounded by the strange figures in the ground. The plane was a little six seater with me in the co-pilot seat (see pic on right) & 4 people crowded in behind. Also, to ensure passengers on both sides of the plane had a chance to view the lines, the pilot swung the plane from side to side which was extremely disorienting & quite sickening. We spent the rest of the day feeling rather ill.

In the afternoon we went out to one of the old cemetaries of the Nazca peoples. The mummies are very well preserved due to the hot dry temperatures which are fairly constant, however many of the graves have been plundered due to grave robbers. Archeologists have reconstructed some of the graves & mummies however, which makes for a rather spooky/morbid tour.

That night we hopped on an overnight bus to Arequipa at 2,700m above sea level, in the Andes. The next day we visited an old nunnery in the centre of town which was very colourful & our guide explained how the nuns lived in the 16th century. Very interesting stuff.

We headed out to Colca Canyon yesterday which took around 4 hours, with a peak at 4,800m above sea level. We were very breathless & Richard ended up with a slight headache for the rest of the day. In the afternoon we walked around some of the reconstructed Inca sights before resting in the hot thermal pools. Very relaxing.

In the evening we went to have dinner with a local family. They showed us how they live & also managed to get most of the group up for a traditional dance which was lots of fun. The group helped prepare dinner for the night, which was an Alpaca (similar to Llama - pic on right) soup, followed by the common dish of Guinea Pig. One of the group was lucky enough to get to pluck the guinea pig, after which it was pan fried whole (although minus entrails). Being vegetarian I was able to skip on the Alpaca & Guinea Pig and had a porridgy Quinoa with cheese & egg. The rest of the group told me that the Alpaca was quite nice and the Guinea Pig was a bit like chicken except for the paws and the many small bones. There was rather a lot of guinea pig left over (although that might have been due to lack of appetite due to altitude). One of the guides mentioned to us (after polishing off several pieces of guinea pig) that he could never imagine eating hamster as it was so cute. Bizarre.

Anyhow, completely exhausted (from the full day & the altitude), we all collapsed into bed. 5am this morning we were woken up to travel up into the Colca Canyon to Condor cross (see pic on left). The place where the condors tend to use the thermal air pockets in the mornings. We were lucky enough to see a number of Condors, Hawks and Falcons, which were all magnificent birds. Amazing.

We drove back to Arequipa this afternoon & are chilling for the evening before our 7am start tomorrow. We are taking an 11 hour bus on to Cusco which should be great fun.

Hope you´re all happy & well!

Lots of love

Richard & Corryn

Ecuador!

2007-10-03T15:51:00.000-07:00

Hola!

What an adventurous start! We arrived in Quito, Equador (pic on right) on Friday afternoon after a 15 hour transit via Madrid from London. Saturday we spent mostly sleeping, only venturing out in the afternoon to see the old part of town. Quito is dirty, crowded & gorgeous. A vibrant city perched amongst the mountains at 2,850m above sea level, there is latin music everywhere, coloured buildings and heaps of people!

The old part of town has cobbled streets and big old buildings. Quite a few of the streets are closed to cars, making it a pleasant walk. Between the altitude & the steep streets though, I seem to be breathless quite often.

On Sunday our guide picked us up & we drove for 5 odd hours over the Andes mountains (we got to 4000m above sea level on the way) and down into the Amazon jungle. On the map on the left you can see the red star where Quito is and the red dot where we stayed. On the way we visited the hot thermal springs in the mountains. Freezing wind up in the mountains, and water which is 30 to 40 degrees. Bizarre. Anyhow, we arrived on the banks of the Napo river in the afternoon, where we were met with a canoe with a speedboat engine which took us 20 mins up the river to Yacuma lodge where we were staying (down to 600m above sea level).

The area is actually relatively developed, with the jungle broken occasionally with banana plantations or, as we were driving in, petroleum plants. Parts of the road were also sealed. Apparently Oil & Bananas are Ecuadors 2 top income earners, followed by sea products (mainly shrimp), followed by tourism.

The lodge uses no electricity & all the cabins are open, meaning that the windows and much of the wall is covered with fly mesh and otherwise open. Apparently because Ecuador is on the equator (runs through approx 22m north of Quito) the temperature is virtually the same year round. That is, very high humidity & quite warm. We were greeted by around 20 huge cockroaches (around 2 inches in length) in our room & managed to kill around 12 of them, the rest escaped through the bamboo walls. After securing our beds tightly with the mosquito netting we were able to head up to the communal bathrooms where we brushed our teeth etc while dodging/killing the many more cockroaches we found up there. Lovely.

On Saturday we headed down the river in the canoe to visit an animal rescue centre (Amazoonia) where we were treated to a guided tour of the monkeys, Toucans, short tigers (Richard's favourite, see pic on right), turtles, parrots, and many more amazing and fascinating animals. Apparently the centre has trouble releasing the animals once rescued as they are in danger of being killed or hit on the road.

After a relaxing lunch on the side of the river, several of us (Richard, myself & some german tourists who were with us) hopped into the river & went tubing down through some minor rapids. Heaps of fun & quite bizarre to think we were in a rubber tube floating down a river in the Amazon jungle in Ecuador! See pic on left.

On Sunday we headed out into the jungle in our gumboots & walking stick along with the local community president (Orso, from the Quichua tribe), our guide from Quito to translate & our driver came along for the walk too. First stop was a community school, where the local children & teacher entertained us with a song and dance & answered lots of our questions about how the schooling works in the jungle. The school has 10 children, from kindergarten age to grade 6. They were very cute (pic on left). We paid a USD$3 fee each to visit which goes toward the cost of the school. The school is privately funded (mainly through the lodge we stayed at), as the government only provides a primary school if there are more than 25 children.

We then continued on & visited an older man's house, where we paid another USD$1 each to be shown some of the cooking methods & learn about how the community operates, including how the house is built from local materials. We were then face painted with red berry juice so the jungle would know it was our first time, and so our enemies would know we were brave and strong (and hopefully therefore wouldn't mess with us!). Orso took us on a 3 hour hike through the jungle proper, where he showed us lots of the local plants & explained their uses, including one which, when the leaf is chewed, provides an antidote to maleria and yellow fever. Amazing stuff.

We ended up back at the lodge exhausted and starving for lunch. After lunch, Orso gave us a demonstration of using the blow pipe, which is a 2 mtr long pipe which can shoot up to 50m. Apparently the neighboring tribe uses one which is 5 mtrs long and which can shoot up to 80-90mtrs! After having a go ourselves (with Richard managing to shoot the target & me falling short :P Pic on the right), we hopped back into the canoe to go up the river where Orso showed us how they pan for gold on the banks where the river curves. Apparently gold comes down from the mountains & 1 day of panning will yield on average 1 gram of gold which is worth $10. Its back breaking work though, & not something you'd want to do for too long!

We finished off the afternoon with some piranah fishing (pic on the left), which coincidentally happened to be in the same spot we were tubing down the day before!!! Unfortunately no one was successful, although a few of the lines came back minus the hook, the bait & the sinker!!

Anyway, back in Quito today (Monday) & heading out to grab a bite to eat. On Wednesday we head to Lima where we'll be embarking on a 3 week journey down through Peru & ending up in La Paz in Bolivia. Will keep you posted!!!

Hope you're all well & happy!

Lots of love

Corryn & Richard

Exciting times ahead!!!

2007-09-18T09:32:00.000-07:00

Dear All

With only a week and a half to go before we fly out of London I thought I'd put together some info on where we'll be over the next year so you can keep track of us! Its not all quite finalised so we might change bits of it as we go :)

This map comes from another web page, and if you click on the map above it takes you to that website which lists all the places where going to & when! You can either hover your mouse over the places, or you can see a list of all the stops at the bottom of the page. I'll put a copy of the map on the right of our website so you can check it out throughout the next year.

It's all very very very exciting :) For anyone who has lots of time these are the trips we're doing:

- South America:

- India: Well, we'll be working & studying for 4 months in Kolkata & will hopefully be able to see a few places in that time. Will keep you posted!
- 2 months in Africa!! Climbing Mt Kilimanjaro, seeing mountain gorillas, camping in the Serengeti, checking out Victoria Falls & heaps more (did I mention I'm so excited!?!)
- & finally, Europe we're not sure where or what we'll be doing yet. Will have to keep you posted on that one too!

Anyway, hope you're all happy & well :)

Lots of love

Corryn & Richard

Dusseldorf, English Countryside & France!

2007-09-10T10:57:00.000-07:00

Hi all!

We've been very busy since the last blog, but will try & give you a condensed version :)

We went to Dusseldorf in Germany for a long weekend on the bank holiday & had a fantastic time. It's a very clean, ordered and green place. The people in Germany are very friendly and sell lots of sausages :P Dusseldorf itself is a very green town and our stay

happened to coincide with a street festival that lasted all weekend. Lots of live music, stalls and more sausages. There is a tree lined canal through the town. Pics of me and us taking a well earned rest on a park bench.

There is also some interesting architecture in Dusseldorf. Along the harbour of the Rhine, there are three buildings that are constructed as pieces of art. Check them out!

Also, the Rhine Tower at 235m tall holds

the worlds largest decimal clock, indicated through the portholes on the vertical axis. Whilst a country that we ventured to by chances, Germany is definately a place we will return to explore more of.

The next weekend, Richard, Amanda & I hired a car & ventured out into the English countryside to see the sights.

We started in Oxford & visited some of the university colleges there, in particular, Christ Church. This college coincidentally holds the hall which features in the Harry Potter movie (we seem to run into Harry Potter everywhere in this country!!!). Pic off to the side.

We also saw numerous gorgeous little villages that form part of the Cotswold region. This area has buildings which date back centuries. Speaking of which, Bath is one of the only cities in the world to be classified as a UNESCO World Heritage site. Yes, that's the whole city is a World Heritage site. The Bath Abbey (pic on right) is one of the last great Medieval churches left in the UK.

On our way back to London, we stopped at Stonehenge with the millions of other tourists. Despite the amount of people there, you could still block out the noise of tourists and traffic (yep it's located in the middle of two major highways) and absorb the atmosphere of the stones. Just standing and watching the magnificence of such

an ancient (believed to be up to 5000 years old) and mysterious site was overwhelming.

That brings me to the weekend just gone. It was our 1st wedding anniversary and Richard organised a romantic weekend away to France. We went to the Loire Valley, which is about 250km south of Paris and home to many gorgeous Chateau's, one of which, happened to be our hotel! The food, language and countryside in France are definately three things that could make you want to live there. We are looking forward to spending more time in France next year.

On the morning of our anniversary, we took a row boat down the Indre River. It was so misty, tranquil and just perfect :)

We visited the Chateau de Chanceaux, which is a gorgeous old castle set over a river. It boasts many beautiful gardens to meander through and enjoy. What a fantastic weekend.

Lord's, Buckingham Palace & Italy

2007-08-19T01:24:00.000-07:00

Hi All

Sorry for being such slackers. We've been very busy lately. I (Richard) did a tour of Lord's cricket ground and it was awesome. They took us into the visitors dressing room in the Pavillion as well as the room where the Queen watches the games from when she goes to the cricket. We saw the original Ashes (pic on right) - very small for those who didn't know. Only about 6" tall. We were also taken into the new Media centre (large UFO construction) and the view from there is almost as good as coyt cam. Unfortunately though, they wouldn't let us on the pitch for hit. Also, check out the pic on the right. They have preserved a dead sparrow that was hit by a ball in 1936. Cool hey! Okay, back to Corryn.

The day after Lord's we went & did a tour of the state rooms in Buckingham palace. The Queen spends August & September in Windsor Castle, so they open Buckingham to the public. It was a very interesting tour, however I think I preferred Windsor Castle. I don't have any photos of Buckingham Palace as you're not allowed to take any when you're inside.

Ok, so now we're up to last weekend. We went to Florence & Pisa :) We arrived in Pisa late on Friday night & caught the train to Florence. Florence was gorgeous. We were staying in the old part of town where there are cobbled lane ways everywhere and really, really old buildings. The streets are interspersed with big public squares & huge churches, gallaries & other sights (Pic on the left of the Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore, the 4th largest cathedral in the world).

We met up with some friends from Sydney on Saturday & spent the day meandering around. First up we climbed up to the top of the cupola (some 400 -500 stairs), where we saw the amazing fresco close up, by Vasari and Zuccari with a representation of the Last Judgement (Pic on the left & heaps more on Flickr). Up on top of the cupola we had an amazing 360 degree view of Florence. Pic on the right of us with the view in the background.

We then continued on to the Uffizi gallery. On the way to the gallery we saw a fake statue of David (apparently the real one is in a museum, however the fake was was still impressive - see on right). The Uffizi gallery was huge! We saw so many famous paintings, most noticably a collection of Botticelli works (e.g. The Birth of Venus), and also some Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo & Raphael paintings. Amazing stuff. Unfortunately no photos are allowed, however you can google the gallery on wikipe

dia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uffizi_gallery) to see some of the fresco's on the walls and some more information on the collections.

After stopping for lunch & drinks (pic of us on the right), we continued onto the Basilica di Santa Croce (pic on the left), which is

is the burial place of some pretty famous people, such as Michelangelo, Galileo, and Machiavelli, amoung others. The basilica has heaps of stained glass windows and frescos on the walls and ornate tombs. There are more pictures of the inside on Flickr.

Finally, we finished off the day listening to an amazing busker who had a voice which was several times larger than she was, singing operetta while we had dinner followed by an amusing performance on the street by a Charlie Chaplin lookalike (pic on the left).

On Sunday we caught the train back to Pisa where we meandered through town to see the leaning tower of pisa where we took lots of touristy photos (see example of Richard on the right holding up the tower), which kept us occupied for a few hours before heading back to the airport back to London.

It's been raining here for the past week, so we haven't done anything exciting recently, except to visit Borough markets yesterday. Next weekend we're off to Dusseldorf in Germany for the bank holiday long weekend. Will keep you posted :)

Lots of love to all.

Hungary :)

2007-07-31T08:38:00.001-07:00

Hi All

Apologies for not blogging in so long... we've been doing so much! And now I have heaps of cool photos to share :)

Firstly, Hungary last week was brilliant. Gorgeous place. We spent 7 lovely days sleeping in in the morning, and walking throughout Budapest for the rest of the day :). We also seem to have taken millions of photos of which I've picked a couple shown below.

I've uploaded all of our photos to our new photo album site: www.flickr.com/photos/richncorryn and am in the process of adding labels and descriptions. The albums are on the right hand side of the page, and just select the "Hungary" one (or whichever one you want to look at).

We spent the first few days in the Pest side of Budapest (east of the Danube), where we went to see the gorgeous St Steven's Basilica (pic on the right). The detail throughout the basilica was amazing. You can see all of the pictures on the flickr website. A lot of them a blurry though as you are not allowed to use a flash inside the basilica.

We also took a 3 hour train ride out to Lake Balaton one day, which is the Hungary equivalent of the sea side. You can see a pic on the left of all the people crowding into the water and on the beach. The water is apparently slightly alkaline and is said to be medically beneficial (although we didn't notice anything?!)

Back to Budapest, other sights we visited included going out to the city park in the far east of the city, where we saw Heroes Square, spent hours looking through the Museum of Fine Arts (including the Inca exhibition - getting our background research done for our trip to Peru in October!), and the Museum of Contempary Arts (which was a bit disappointing for the entry fee). We also visited the Széchenyi Baths and the Vajdahunyad Castle (which was spectacular). Also in city park we saw the largest hourglass in the world (pic on the right with me in front of it to give an idea of the size!). It was made to commemorate Hungary joining the EU, and is turned once a year. Apparently it is able to adjust the rate of sand flowing through for leap years and temperature changes. Incredible.

Back in the center of the city, we also took heaps of photos of the parliament building (pictured on the danube on the left), and the Fisherman's Bastion in the old part of the city, i.e. in Buda (picture on the right), and also of course, of the Grand Palace & the Chain Bridge. Gorgeous photo on the left of them at night.

Also in the older part of Buda (west of the Danube) we meandered around old old old streets (pic on the right)which had gorgeous colourful buildings everywhere, the building where Beethoven lived, and lots of curiousities everywhere. See picture of a flying nun in the corner of a building (pic on the left) to see what I mean.

One other curiousity that I thought was really cute is a statue sitting on the railing called Little Princess. Her knees are shiney because people touch them for luck. Pic on the right.

Finally, we also spent a day north of Budapest in Szentendre, a cute town with lots of shops. We went to see a "mini museum" which had the smallest book in the world! See flickr for photos. Pic of me on the left standing under a street sign to Budapest and pic of

Richard on the right meandering through the town streets concentrating on a wooden puzzle we bought from one of the toy stores.

I've also updated our previous Windsor Castle post with our pictures. Including a cool one of us with one of the guards (how cheesy!) :)

Lots of love to all back home :)

Royalty

2007-07-16T09:28:00.001-07:00

Hi All

Hope you are all well & happy. We had a lovely weekend, despite a rainy Sunday. Friday night we went out for dinner in Soho with Amanda. Fantastic food, and so many people everywhere! We then headed back towards Covent Garden for some cocktails in one of the trendy bars there, and spent the evening lounging on a big sofa drinking "Hunk" Martini's (which are a lot sweeter than the real thing). Lots of fun.

Saturday, Richard & I headed out to Windsor Castle & spent a good couple of hours meandering through the castle, listening to our audio guide & taking heaps of photos. Very touristy. The Dolls house was absolutely incredible. It is a full mansion with teeny tiny rooms and teeny tiny furniture. Teeny tiny cars out the front and a teeny tiny wine rack in the basement. The banquet room has a full set of teeny tiny silver plates and cutlery, and the housemaid's closet even has a fully functional teeny tiny vacuum cleaner (about 5 cm high). The plumbing and electricity works, and even the library has walls lined with teeny tiny bound books. Apparently it was made as a gift for Queen Mary, and all of the master craftsmen of the time made something to go in there. Even the walls have teeny tiny replica's of master works of art. Check out the queen's bedroom on the left (keeping in mind that the whole room is no bigger than around 20cm2), and the "day" nursery on the right (there is another nursery for night time) with the minature toys! Incredible. (if you want to see more -> http://www.royal.gov.uk/output/page4488.asp)

Actually the whole castle was amazing. It is apparently the largest castle still in use in the world. Incredibly the public is allowed to see a huge amount of the castle. We saw the state apartments and the church and took heaps of photos (although you're not allowed to take photos inside the castle). Example pic on the right.

After spending hours in the castle we headed to the Long Walk (pic on the right),where some friends had kindly supplied heaps of food for a picnic. We spent the afternoon on the grass drinking champers and getting into some really good food. Lovely. We also saw a couple of weddings go past which was interesting to watch. Would be great to have the castle in the background of your wedding photos!!!

Sunday we headed up to St Neots for a BBQ with the PwC team, hosted by one of the directors in the team. His house was in a gorgeous village, which was having a scarecrow festival at the time. There were some really interesting scarecrows out the front of people's houses. Quite realistic! Unfortunately we didn't take our camera. It rained on and off for most of the afternoon, however that didn't stop the kids from using the bouncy castle & the rest of us spent a lovely afternoon chatting undercover.

Anyway, this week we're hoping to go to the Nottinghill cinema to see Moliere tomorrow night, and then on Saturday morning we're flying to Hungary for a week's holiday in Budapest. Should be fun :)

We've also just about finalised our round the world tickets, and it looks like we're going to have a few days in Brisbane in mid November, so will have to organise to catch up with everyone there!

Hope you're all well & happy! Have a great week :)

London by the Sea

2007-07-09T03:28:00.001-07:00

Hi all

Hope you've been keeping well. We've had some brighter weather since the last post, so have had fun getting out and about. Yesterday we spent a day by the seaside in Brighton. We sat on the pebble beach

(picture of Richard on said beach on right), and had some fun at Brighton Pier, looking at all the rides & having a go at some of the skill testers (with no luck unfortuately! See pic of Richard on left trying to win a Simpsons doll).

We also went to see the Grand Pavilion, and while we were there, were lucky enough to see a concert band in the gardens. We pulled out our picnic blanket & enjoyed the sun, the gardens and the lovely music for most of the afternoon. Long enough for my nose to turn pink :P (See pic of the pavilion on the right - strange to see such architecture in Brighton - looks similar to a lot of the pic's we took in Turkey!).

On Friday we went to the PwC Summer Ball which was fun. Lucky for me, my dress arrived in time for the ball - Mum posted it from Brisbane a week earlier for me (thanks Mum!) which meant it arrived just in time for the ball. The ball was fun, good food, nice venue (the brewery in London) & they had some arcade games where you're racing on ski's through trecherous terraine. Unfortunately when I had a go I managed to crash into most of the obstacles on the course :P (Pic of me on the left in full concentration trying to ski! Pic of us on the right in our dinner wear - Richard looking very spiffy in dinner suit & bowtie :) although I think there's a thumbprint in the middle - Sorry!)

Anyway, I've finally uploaded all of our photos to date! I've also updated all of our photos on our website (au.photos.yahoo.com/richncorryn) so if you're particularly interested in checking out all of the photos, have a look there for the full album of them!

Keep well & happy :)

Travels

2007-06-30T02:22:00.000-07:00

Hi All

Its another rainy day today in London, so I thought it'd be the perfect opportunity for a blog update :)

We went to see Mary Poppins on Thursday night, which was one of the most polished performances I have ever seen. To the point that Mary Poppins flys off over the audience at the end! Very cool special effects the whole way through :)

The rest of the week has been spent planning our future travels so we can get everything booked in. At this stage we've planned a week in Budapest at the end of July, a long weekend in Dusseldorf in August and a long weekend in the south of France in September. We're also finalising some travel plans through Central & South America for Oct & Nov, and contemplating a few trips in Africa for May. Today we had the joy of being vaccinated for yellow fever & meningitis to cover us for Sth America, India & Africa. We also need to work out the maleria stuff & whether we want a course of rabies vaccination injections. Joy of joys.

Closer to home, Richard is going to be working up in Sheffield this week to help out with the insurance for all the flooding that has been happening up there lately. To help with his work, his boss has kindly arranged a car for him, which we happily can use tomorrow. So we're planning to drive out to see some english countryside. Perhaps the Cotswolds and/or maybe Stonehenge. Exciting stuff.

Hope all is well back home & promise to have some photos to post next time!

English Adventures

2007-06-24T06:37:00.000-07:00

Since we've been here, we found this company called London Walks. They do all sorts of walking tours around London and even have day trips to the country side.

Anyway, we started with a Harry Potter walk, which took us to all these different sights where the characters of the movie were based on. Check out the picture on the left. It's the laneway where Harry buys his owl and wand from. Pretty cool hey.

We've finally gotten around to see some of London's West End theatre. We went to Chicago at Covent Gardens and it was a great show. I think Corryn has booked a few more shows in so that will be good.

We also did a day trip last to a few towns outside of London. The first stop was Avebury Henge. It's a huge stone henge that is said to be the 3rd most spiritual place in Britain. It's a large circle of 99 stones (said to mirror Mars' 99 moons) with two

smaller circles in the centre. The circles were constructed in 2,500 BC.

Some were toppled and destroyed during the Roman period but the remnants of the circle are still quite marvellous. The picture of the tree roots on the left (which is inside the stone circle) is supposedly what gave JR Tolkien the idea for his entrance to Middle Earth.

After we left Avebury, we went to a small town called Lacock (pic of it on the left). It is a beautiful old Medieval English town which has maintained its natural appearance due to being part of the National Trust. Many films are shoot there because of its style and buildings.

The Lacock Abbey (left), an 18th Century homestead, which was originally built as a nunnery is gorgeous.

The photos may look familiar as several rooms and passageways

were also used in the Harry Potter films (Hogwart's School I believe - see a pic on the left of one of the hallways).

Anyway, we are learning lot's about Harry (Well I am anyway).

Other than that, we have ventured around town a bit and seen a few of the usual sights. Yes, even Buckingham Palace (pic on the right). There are lot's of squirrel's in the parks and every time you see them it's still exciting!

Our focus now is trying to plan some weekend's away. We'll keep you posted.

Random Update

2007-06-13T07:59:00.000-07:00

Dear all

Apologies for being slack lately, we've been very busy! Richard started a new job last week out just outside of London with an International Loss Adjusting Firm, Cunningham Lindsey. It's a 4 month contract which is perfect, and the company has an office in Kolkata so he may be able to get some work in India!

I've also started work at PwC last week which is strangely familiar but different at the same time. I'm finding out that the world seems a lot smaller from London. Yesterday I was calling our offices in the Middle East and today I've been talking to people from the US. Everything seems so much closer!

We've also started doing some sight seeing... with a picnic in Hyde Park last weekend, and a tour around the Tower of London the weekend before. We're currently planning our holidays (we get 7 days holiday in the 4 month contracts), and are looking at doing 2 short trips, maybe one to Ireland and one to Scotland, so any suggestions are very welcome!

Hope you're all happy & well :)

London living

2007-05-29T13:11:00.000-07:00

Hi all

Apologies in advance. I have no further photos at the moment. The good news though is that we found somewhere to live! We've just moved into a room in Holborn which is quite central. We're sharing an apartment with a Latvian couple (Nellie & Jeff). We're on the third floor and have a big bright room to ourselves & a bathroom (with a bath!) and big bright kitchen which we're sharing. We share the building with a dentist (Nellie) and a beautician (also Latvian) who use the levels below us.

In other news DHL finally delivered 2 of our suitcases & have somehow lost the 3rd suitcase in transit. Unfortunately the 3rd suitcase is the biggest and contains all of our suits & my big wool coat. It's lovely to have some different clothes to wear (in addition to the summer clothes we took to Turkey with us), however I'm hoping that the suits are delivered before I start work on Friday! One of the customer service officers we spoke to believes it might still be in Sydney but isn't sure. Crossed fingers they deliver it soon!

More updates soon!

G'day London

2007-05-24T14:04:00.000-07:00

Short message to say Hi to everyone back home. We're both well & happy. Missing everyone back home (of course), but loving seeing new places!

Spent the last few days in Istanbul seeing a few more sites (Blue Mosque, Galata Tower & a ferry ride down the Bosphorous to the Princes Islands for a day) and one memorable day carpet shopping! We saw literally hundreds of carpets in 6 different shops. Each shopkeeper sat us down with a cup of tea and rolled out an absolute mound of carpets - an experience I highly recommend to anyone travelling to Istanbul. We started with a $1,000 budget and ended up convinced we needed a $7,000 carpet. Luckily we slept on it and decided we probably didn't need a carpet for travelling ;)

We arrived in London yesterday to around 26 degree heat & are doing our best to get everything organised before we start work. Also, it's looking as though we'll have around 4 months of work in India starting in December so we're hoping to find an apartment for only 4 months in London so we can travel for 2 months through Europe before getting to India. It's harder than we thought it would be, with most agents not wanting 4 month leases and a lot of places being taken by the time we call them.

Otherwise we're getting all of the accessories for life in London fairly quickly. Yesterday we picked up SIM cards for our mobiles and today we picked up our bank cards and applied for credit cards (no fees for most banking over here - yippee).

Hope everyone is happy & well and hope to have some photos for the next post!

Back in Istanbul!

2007-05-18T05:26:00.000-07:00

Since the last post we've had a busy couple of days. We started off with a visit to the ancient ruins of Troy. See pic on the left of the massive Trojan Horse at the entrance to the site with Richard in the top right window (in the orange shirt)!

The site is somewhat confusing as there are 9 main cities built one on top of the other, dating back to 3,000 BC. Apparently, since most houses were built of mudbrick, everytime the city was destroyed (e.g. earthquake/ war etc) some 40 years later more people would come and build on top of the rubble of the old city. The resulting mound is 15/20 metres high (remembering that this mound is entirely old cities), and was flattened off on top by the romans who built a Temple of Athena on top most recently (which was subsequently destroyed by a later civilisation).

Our guide was pretty fascinating and has written a book on Troy (of which we now own an autographed copy!). The ruins were only discovered in 1822/1890 by a German amateur archaeologist who was looking for the treasure of King Priam (which he subsequently found). There is now an international team excavating the site and so far an estimated 10% has been uncovered - still quite a way to go. They believe that the famous Trojan War occured in Troy version 6 and/or 7. Anyway, enough history you can google for more information if you're interested, or borrow our book when we get back! Pics on the left & right of some of the ruins.

Following Troy we headed back into Canakkale and then on to Gallipoli National Park via a ferry across the Dardanelles which is the passage of water which the Allied forces were fighting for to gain access to Russia. It is also the divide between the Europe and Asia continents, so we actually caught the ferry from Asia to Europe! (see pic of Richard on the boat on the right).

As you arrive on the Gallipoli peninsula there are gigantic letters in Turkish which say "Traveller halt! The soil you headlessly tread once witnessed the end of an era. Listen! In this quiet mound there once beat the heart of a nation." During the campaign it is estimated that there were over half a million casualties. Around half of them being Ottoman troops. Our tour leader said that most families in Turkey sent someone to defend their land so the war is very close to their hearts. Gallipoli was a very moving tour. We took 7 hours to see most of the sites including the intended landing site for the ANZACs, the actual landing site, the sites of some of the fiercest battles and quite a number of cemeteries. The number of bullets in the land is so high that the farmers now have a phrase "Ploughing the bullets" instead of ploughing the soil.

The stories told during the tour were also very moving. They told of the respect that was developed between the Turkish and the ANZAC's, with both sides calling a ceasefire one day to bury the dead, both sides throwing food to each other to try, the Turkish not firing when the ANZAC's played a game of cricket, and many more.

In addition, stories were told of the many mistakes made during the campaign and the many lives that were lost. Stories were also told of the conditions and the many people who died due to poor diet, poor sanitation and poor conditions. People died in the heat of the summer when flies were in the millions, passing on disease, people died of exposure in the cold of the winter when it snowed, and people drowned in the tunnels when it flooded.

Pic on the right showing the first beach cemetery (Hell Spit Cemetery) near the landing site, with a grave for John Simpson the "Man with the Donkey" who passed

through the battle grounds many times a day to collect the wounded and who collected an estimated 300-500 soldiers before being shot in the back, pic on the left of Lone Pine - a huge cemetery on the site of one of the bloodiest battles for the heights (an estimated 4,000 died here in a few days), another pic on the left of the first Turkish Prime Minister Ataturk who became famous during the war and who eventually led most of the Turkish troops and who took a bullet to the heart at Cunuk Bair which was stopped by his pocket watch. A very full 7 hours with a lot of emotion felt by all the visitors.

Eventually we caught the ferry back to Canakkale in time for sunset over Gallipoli. See pic on the left.

Today we were out of the hotel by 6:30am to catch the ferry back to Europe and a bus onto Istanbul which is where we are now, and which is where we will be for the next 4 days catching up on sites and some rest.

Love to all.

Historic ruins

2007-05-16T09:11:00.000-07:00

Merhaba! Apologies in advance for the appalling quality of the photos in this post. I had to be fairly creative as the computers here didn't connect to my camera, everything is in Turkish & there are limited programs for compressing photos on this computer! Challenging stuff.

We're now on the 3rd last day of the tour and looking forward to resting when we get to Istanbul. For those of you who are not so familiar with Turkey, I've included a map of where we've been on the right (conveniently lifted from the intrepid website if you want a clearer version: http://www.intrepidtravel.com/trips/RRG)

Since the last post we travelled from Fethiye to Pamukkale, a tinee tiny town with lots of tourists where we stayed only one night. The main attraction here is the Travertine pools (pic on the right). Unfortunately, since the tourism boom in the 80's, a lot of the calcium deposit has vanished, and the water has slowed significantly apparently. The government has since demolished the hotels which were above the pools, which has improved matters, however the water flow continues to decline. Nevertheless they are still magnificent.

From Pamukkale we travelled on to Selcuk which is near the famous ancient city of Ephesus. We stayed here for 2 nights. It was a gorgeous place - very laid back with cobbled streets and heaps of history.

We started off on the day we arrived with a meander around St John's Basilica. After some of the other ruins we've seen I have to say I found it a bit disappointing. Apparently the government is still restoring the site. The view from the hill was magnificent though.

The next day we woke early and caught a Dolmus out to Ephesus where we had the most amazing tour guide. Student in Archeology and History, Neil was racing all through the site to try to show us all of the main points in 2 hours. The place is massive and only a fraction has been unearthed and restored. The statues, the detail, and the general magnificence of the place was astounding. Pic on the left of the library remains.

Moving on, Salih had organised lunch at the nearby Grotto of the seven sleepers. This is a cave where apparently 7 christian men escaped to while being prosecuted. Unfortunately for them, the King trying to prosecute them sealed the cave where they then fell asleep for 200 years and apparently then died shortly after awakening. The cave was interesting but I don't recommend going out of your way to visit. Lunch was Gozleme - a turkish dish which basically is very very thinly rolled dough cooked with fillings such as spinach, cheese, minced meat and or potato. Richard & I had a go at making our own under the close supervision of the cooks. Heaps of fun - see pic on the left.

In the afternoon we moved on to visit the Ephesus Museum where many of the statues have been kept. More amazing ruins & an interesting display on gladiators in ancient rome.

That night we caught another dolmus up to Şirice for the evening which was a gorgeous little village nestled in the hills (see pic on left). With Greek style houses and many shops with tiny cobblestone paths & roads the place is really adorable. We spent the evening doing wine tastings of some amazing fruit wines (that really taste like apple/peach/tangerine/cherry etc etc!) see pic on right of the group doing the wine tastings.

For dinner we went up onto a balcony overlooking the village and were treated to some music performed by the owner on a local instrument called a Saz which is similar to a guitar but with a round body and only 3 strings. Very special.

Today we have travelled 7 hours by bus to arrrive in Canakkale. Tomorrow we are off to visit Troy (as in the trojan horse see pic on right) and Gallipoli with historical tours at both sites.

Another update!

2007-05-12T04:47:00.002-07:00

So. Coming back from Heaven and Hell with the military police. They were nice enough to let us take a photo which I've just posted to the right.

After the day at Kizkalesi we went up to Silifke Kalesi which is an old Byzantine fortress high on the hill overlooking silifke for dinner. Lucky for us there was an anniversary happening up there including a live band and lots of very friendly turkish people who were more than happy to get us up & teach us all some turkish dancing. It was heaps of fun :)

After Silifke we travelled on to Antalya - a huge city with a population of 500,000 and over 8 million tourists visiting every year - mostly German apparently. It had gorgeous cobblestone streets with old houses everywhere! We were here for 2 nights. On the first day we went to the Archealogical Museum which has more than 5,000 archaeological works in 14 exhibit halls. Amazing stuff. I've posted a pic of one of the Roman statues on the right.

After spending half a day at the museum we had a lovely lunch by the water spent the rest of the day meandering through the town taking in the sights and some turkish tea here and there.

The next day we headed on to Kas (pronounced Kash), which is a gorgeous little village tucked between mountains sitting on the coast. The town is beautiful with lots of narrow streets and old greek ottoman houses all sitting on the water. You can see a pic of Kas at sunset on the right. Gorgeous!

While we were there we went on a boat trip to visit the sunken cities around Kekova Island. See pic of richard snorkling amongst the ruins and a pic of us on the boat also on the left.

Moving along, we drove to Fethiye and on the way stopped at the ancient ruins at Patara (see pic on the right of the old theatre) and enjoyed some time at the famous Patara beach. Another beautiful spot.

We then moved on to Saklikent gorge which is an 18km crack in the mountains. The first part of the gorge is a raised walkway into the gorge and then on to the gorge proper. We then waded on through icy water and over many rocks up the gorge. You can see a pic of richard on the right wading through the water. It was an amazing place with huge walls of rock on either side.

Anyway we then drove the rest of the way to Fethiye which is where we are now. Today we have caught a Dolmus to Oludeniz which has one of the best beaches in the area & Richard has just finished his paraglide. See pic on him paragliding.

Hope you're all happy and smiling! I'm off to grab lunch.

Travelling on the Coast

2007-05-08T08:30:00.001-07:00

Greetings from Oludeniz! Last time I finished I think I was still up to the Cappadocia region...

On our 2nd last day at Cappadocia we did a 4 hour walk through the valleys (& over the ridges) to Nazim's place (our homestay for the night). Nazim has been renovating his place for the last 10 years with the aim of making it into a pension (hotel) for guests who want to stay in one of the fairy chimney caves. We stayed in one of his rooms which was gorgeous as was the food prepared by his wife. See picture to the left of Richard helping out in the Kitchen!

The next day we took a 10 hour bus ride to Mt Nemrut (far east - more Kurdish cultures out here) where we crashed for the night part way up the mountain. The bus ride was uneventful with the exception of one incident where a truck pulled out in front of us & the bus missed the truck by inches. The bus driver then got out of the bus & went over & started abusing the truck driver. We thought that there may be a fight as there was some shoving going on, however things calmed down after a bit & we continued on. The reason for the bus driver being so heated we believe is because the buses are all new (replaced last year apparently as part of Turkey's bid to enter the EU) & record the driving - including heavy braking which is analysed. Very strange.

The next morning we were up at 3:30am to pack our gear & ascend the mountain for sunrise. At the top of Mt Nemrut is a man made mountain top with 8 statues facing east for sunrise. The statues are of the gods & a roman king believed to be buried there. Apparently they were built around 60 - 30 BC & were rediscovered in 1881 & explored in 1951 by archeologists. They have lost their heads due to earthquakes & the heads are lined up in front of the bodies still facing east. There are more statues facing west however these are more randomly placed. It is belived that these are the tombs of the king and some other females. Breathtaking. See pic on left of some of the heads facing east & in the background the bodies still seated on thrones.

We then began another 10 hour bus ride to Sıflıke on the coast. This little town didn't have much going for it apart from its proximity to some attractions! On our first day here, 5 of us caught a Dolmus to Kizkaleski (the nearest beach) in the morning. On the way to Kizkaleski we hopped off to visit the Chasm of Heaven and the Pit of Hell which are quite interesting. Unfortunately, Salih hadn't told us that it was 3km uphill from the Dolmus stop to get there, which, on a boiling hot day, isn't an attractive proposition. Lucky for us a passerby took pity on us & ferried all 5 of us up there. The Chasm of Heaven had 452 steps leading down and is a 250m gorge with the ruins of an early church, 4th century BC. Hell is 150m deep and cannot be walked down. Local legend holds that it was one of the entrances to the underworld. Very fantastic. See pic on the left of Paul & Chris next to the signs pointing to Heaven & Hell! Another pic on the left of us with the tractor that was kind enough to give us a lift back down! We were also able to then catch a lift in the van with some of the local military police into Kizkaleski which had a lovely beach with a castle out on the water which Richard swam out to.

Anyway must go as Richard is paragliding at the moment & is about to land! Will attempt to catch up more later!

Going East

2007-05-06T07:49:00.000-07:00

Merhaba! We're now writing from Sıflıke on the south east coast of Turkey & a lot has happened over the last week!

Last time we wrote, we were still in Istanbul & had just visited the Grand Bazaar where we bought some jumpers (due to the weather being colder than we expected) & an overnight bag for our excess baggage to leave in Istanbul. The Grand Bazaar was huge & the building where most of the stalls were was gorgeous - big doomed ceilings & cozy little cafe's tucked in between stalls. We then went on the to Spice Bazaar (see pic on right) which had amazing colours & smells - spices & foods of all kinds! We had lunch in a deli which we happened to walk into with a cafe tucked away up a spiral staircase at the back of the shop. Gorgeous food. We ordered 3 dishes just so we could try them all!

We met our tour group that day as well. There is 12 of us - 10 Australians & 2 Canadians. The group leader - Salih is Kurdish, from east Turkey & has heaps of jokes & is a fountain of knowledge. See pic on left.

So. Onto our 18 hour overnight train to the Cappadocia region! Fortunately some good wine & beer & a few packets of cards helped us to get a decent nights sleep. (see pic of some of us on the train on the rıght & a pıc of the train also on the right. You can see Mt Argeus in the background with snow on top - amazing landscape). We arrived in Goreme in the afternoon after transferring to a Dolmus (12 seater bus).

The landscape in the Cappadocia region is amazing with bizarre moonlike contours. Apparently these have been carved out of volcanic ash over the years by the weather. They are called fairy chimneys which you may remember from part of Star Wars which was filmed in the area. Up until recently when the government bought out many of them, they were inhabited. You can therefore see windows & doorway's in many of the stone faces (see pic on left & pic of us in front of pidgıon valley below also on left). Amazing.

After an orientation walk of the town courtesy of Salih we had dinner at a local restaurant where the speciality was Pottery Kebab. This involved the meat of your choice + vegetables being cooked in a sealed pottery jar which you smashed open at your table (using the implement provided on the scored line on the jar). Absolutely delicious & extra nutritious with some bits of pottery depending on your pottery breaking skill level (see pic of Richard with his pottery Kebab on right).

The next morning we went to visit an underground city in Kayseri where the villages would hide if they saw enemies coming. The tunnels have been carved out over many years & are extremely detailed. The tunnels we visited included a winery, ventilation shafts & a morgue among other things. Apparently they could hold approximately 4,000 people for up to 2 weeks at a time. After this we had a local lunch of Gozeme (thin pancakes with any combination of cheese, spinach & sweet potato - yumbo). Did I mention Turk's eat around 4 times more bread than any other country (according to our lonely planet guide)? We are given bread with all meals for free & it is delicious!

After lunch we proceeded on into Kayseri where we went to the local Hamam (turkish bath) where we nearly cooked ourselves in a steam room & took of a few layers of skin afterwards with the massage. Fabulous way to get clean!

We then went on to see a local pottery maker who gave us an amazing demonstration of tea pot making at the pottery wheel (see pic on right) & had Sally (one of the girls in the group) attempt to make a basket which was quite funny. The stuff he makes is gorgeous & extremely durable. The colours painted on the finished product are gloriously rich. He set fire to one of the plates with some oil to demonstrate the colour fastness of the product. Very cool.

We then proceded back to Goreme where a few of us hired quad bikes (4 wheel drive motorbikes) up along the ranges to see some of the valley's (including love valley which is aptly named - see pic of me on a quad bike on right) We also saw sunset over Goreme with wine & cheese which was nice.

The next morning started bright & early at 4:45am for 4 of us who went hot air ballooning over the valleys (see pic on left). Amazing experience as neither of us have been hot air ballooning before. The driver of our balloon was extremely experienced and had us hovering in valleys & brushing tree tops and amazingly touched the balloon down on the trailer waiting for the basket! The balloons are 100% controlled by the wind but this guy knew the current's so well it was as if he had the wind in his control.

After the hot air ballooning we went to a local carpet shop where we were treated to a educational lecture about the carpets including origin, differing styles, indicators of quality for the different styles and heaps and heaps of different examples which were rolled out all over the floor for us. I never knew that there was so much to learn about carpets! We nearly bought a few, but managed to restrain ourselves.

More to follow soon...

Istanbul

2007-04-30T03:35:00.000-07:00

We're up to around day 4 today & loving Istanbul. The culture and the history here is amazing. We've spent the last few days exploring some wellknown spots. First up was the Topkapi Palace (see pic on right), where sultans of ages past have lived. We hired audio guides & explored all of the nooks & cranneys for around 4 hours. The Harem & the Treasury were both gorgeous. In particular the massive 86 carat diamond & the Topkapi dagger with 3 massive emeralds on the hilt, both in the treasury took my breath away. Also in the treasury was the arm & skull piece of St John the baptist which were encased in gold and precious stones - spooky.

Yesterday we went to see Aya Sofya which was originally a Christian Church when it was built in the 6th century, and then later converted to a Mosque, and finally to a museum. It was huge and filled with detailed mosaics from ages past (see pic of the roof which doesn't do justice to the collosal size of the place). We also visited the small Aya Sofya which is still in use as a Mosque & which was also gorgeous.

The tulip festival was on recently as well & the city is filled with amazing tulips of every colour. Beautiful! (Pic to the right). We also visited a hamam yesterday which means turkish bath. It involved an hour of steaming, exfoliation & massage. I've never seen that much skin come off all at once & Richard is still recovering from his massage which involved being walked on by a big heavy turkish man.

Finally, we also saw a whirling dervish demonstration (video uploaded to MySpace at

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=2026062444 ) and went to visit the 7 towers which has in the past been a fortress, a prison, a treasury and currently hosts music festivals (what an awesome venue!). They were huge! (see pic to the left).

Anyway, heading off on an overnight train tonight to the capital of Turkey, Ankara & expect to arrive tomorrow afternoon (18 hr trip). More updates to follow!

Arrival in Turkey

2007-04-27T23:29:00.000-07:00

We finally arrived in Istanbul yesterday afternoon after around 30 hours of transit! Managed to find our way to the hotel on public transport with the help of some very friendly locals :)

Woke up this morning to the sound of morning prayer (just like the singing at the arab churches) at 4:30am, & found a little cafe with some spinach/cheese pastry things called borek & turkish coffee for breakfast - yum yum!

There are millions of beautiful tulips everywhere - the tulip festival is currently on & are on our way to check out the Topkapi Palace (home of many sultans between 1453 and 1839).

Will post some photos when we get a chance. Love to all back home :)

The start of our adventures!

2007-04-10T04:26:00.000-07:00

So we've finished work, packed up our unit & headed out of Sydney back to Brisbane. We're now officially jobless & homeless & loving it :)

Our plans are to relax & catch up with everyone in Brisbane before flying out on the 26th of April to Istanbul. We'll spend a month in Turkey before reaching London on the 23rd of May. Stay tuned for updates on our travels!