My adventures around the world!

Hola amigos!
Firstly I would like to say sorry for not writing for about 300 years and confirm that I am, contrary to popular belief still alive!
A lot has happened since my last blog, I am still in deepest, darkest Peru though and am now a seasoned expert in the ways and often mysterious workings of the country!
On june 23rd I went to Lima airport to pick up a new travelling buddy! You can imagine my disapointment and disgust when I was met at the airport by Mark, white as a sheep and admiring his newly acquired accolade of being the tallest man in the country!
The week that followed included (in no particular order) some hardcore shopping in Lima, an overnight bus journey with a nun, and a mammoth 23 hour journey along a ' long and winding road´, with seemingly endless drops just inches from the side of the road and a bus full of Peruvians sleeping in the aisles!
So after the arduous and cramped journey we finally made it to Cusco, smelling violently and with numerous sore appendages from having sat folded up for over a day! The journey was more a pilgramige than a 'bus cama'

Once in Cusco we wasted no time in getting back to our old ways; Lunch was eaten at the usual joint, (hot chocolate with whipped cream included) and the evening was dedicated to giving Mark a guided tour of some of Cusco´s 'evening attractions' notably our favourite club Mama Africa!

Sunday, however, saw the start of the real attraction, a trip to Machu Pichu, via the sacred valley. It was absolutely beautiful and i did still manage to enjoy the two day tour even though i was quite ill. The ruins at Machu Picchu are absolutely amazing... it is vast and the view from the top is one of the best i have ever seen. The tour that we went on, although quite expensive, was definitely worth it as on the first day we were able to see three other incan sites in the sacred valley, which were again astounding!

After being ill for a few days, we have finally made it to Lake Titicaca and are staying in such a nice hotel over looking the Lake. Today, we went on an excursion to the Isla Flotantes... numerous little floating islands near the town we are staying in called Puno. The islands are floating on reeds.. about 1 and a half metres deep and people actually live there in houses made out of reeds, with little electricity (formed only from solar panels) and no hot water. I don´t quite understand how it is possible for them to live there during the winter or during harsh storms but apparently they do and they seemed very happy about it. I have some great pictures but unfortunately this computer wont let me upload photos.

Anyway, tomorrow we are crossing over the border into Bolivia. It should be an interesting experience seeing as I have lost my peruvian visa form!! It seems to have fallen out my passport but we have been told that it is easy enough to buy a new one at the Bolivian border .... fingers crossed! I´ll hopefully post again once I am safely in Copacabanna, Bolivia having crossed the border!!
Lots of love to all xxxx

Having left Cuzco a week ago, we are now heading up the coast of Peru and are currently in a very small resort town called Huacachina. This place really is amazing... something out of a Disney film. It is a little town, mainly aimed at tourists surrounding a small lagoon with a few shops around the lagoon. It doesn´t sound pretty amazing when you put it like that but the scenery is incredible. The town is surrounded by HUGE HUGE sand dunes as we are in the desert and the view from the top of the dunes is incredible. We have only been here two days so far but we have been so impressed by the scenery. Tomorrow we are planning on getting a sand buggy and going on a little tour of the dunes, followed by some sand boarding! Should be fun.

On our way up the peruvian coast line towards Lima, we have visited Nazca famous for the Nascan Lines: strange formations and shapes in the desert created by the Incans. We took a 5 seater plane (i was right at the back as i was the smallest) and flew over the desert where the Lines are situated. When we reached the Lines, the pilot fly us over each formation or shape (mostly animals actually...a monkey, a dog, a hummingbird etc) and he would tip the whole rickety plane on one side so that one wing would be vertical to the ground so that we could get a good view of the Lines. He´d then fly round in a full circle and do the same, tipping the plane on the other side. It was great to see the Lines despite the fact that we felt severly sick afterwards! It´s quite tricky to explain them properley on the internet but I have some photos so I will put them up in due course so that it makes more sense.

On Sunday, we are moving on towards another town on the coast called Pisco before heading to Lima a few days after that. We are really enjoying ourselves at the moment as we are staying a nice, sociable hostel with a pool and the weather has picked up a great deal.. i guess being in the desert helps! Our tans are now back on track!

Photos to come soon... i promise! Lots of love xxx

Hello all!!
Must start with a massive apology to friends and family for serious lack of communication since I have arrived in South America. The computers out here are not all that easy to find so havent had the time to update this blog at all... until now!

We arrived in South America a month ago and we were initally so so shocked at the culture difference. We didn't expect the language barrier to be such a problem and at first, we found it especially difficult to organise anything with our limited Spanish or Castallano as they call it out here. After a month out here though, we can actually get by without too many problems and we understand most of what people are saying!

It also took us a while to get used to the fact that we, out here, look ridiculously different to anyone else and stick out so much with our blonde-ish hair and blue eyes. We get hassled quite a lot by people trying to sell us jewellery, scarfs, alpaca jumpers and massages (!) The men are also quite perverted and we have had to get used to lots of gawping and comments such as "OLA BONITA! MUY LINDO!" (Hello beautiful! So pretty!)... I guess you could say its good for the confidence but it does get pretty tiresome when you hear it everyday.

Anyway, we have been up to so much since I last wrote so I better let you all know about it! One of the most amazing things we have done so far is visit Iguazu Falls. After a long bus journey, we finally made it to the falls and it was definitely worth it. I have never seen anything so impressive and so HUGE! The sound of the waterfalls was so loud and we could hear them before we could even see them. We got absolutely soaked though because we decided to get a boat ride under the falls. We were literally drenched through but it was pretty fun so worth it nonetheless.

We have also visited Buenos Aires, which I loved so much. It's such an amazing city... a bit like Paris and New York put together. We had a week there so we were able to discover the city pretty well; visit some famous sites (the worlds widest road, the obelisk, some churches etc) and we also went to a famous cafe called Cafe Tortini where we watched a tango show whilst having dinner. The tango show was incredible and we all wanted to have a go at it afterwards. We also visited an area of Buenos Aires called La Boca. It is home of the famous Boca Juniors football team... the team which Maradonna used to play for. La Boca was really interesting actually... it is by a port and all the houses are painted bright colours: blue, red, yellow, green. Supposedly the houses are painted these colours because the port was the place in the past where boats were painted and as there was lots of paint left over, they decided to splash it all over their houses.

We then went to Mendoza; the wine capital of Argentina. We were only there for 2 days but the weather was really nice so we decided to do a bike tour of the wineries, plus a chocolaterie and a olive oil factory. We cycled between all these places, along tree lined streets with awesome views of the grape vines with snow-capped mountains in the distance.

From Mendoza, we headed through Chile, via Santiago to Peru where we are now. We have made it to Cuzco and we are all in awe of this town. The weather is amazing, blue skies every day, the town is totally steeped in culture; so many churches, inca ruins, walls etc and the nightlife here is great aswell. We have been here for just under a week and I don't really want to leave but I will be coming back in about a month to visit Machu Picchu. Today, however, Lizzie and I climbed for about 30mins up a steep hill/road which was pretty difficult given the altitude here of 3,326metres and finally made it to Sacsayhuaman, an immense incan ruin of both religious and military significance. The actual site is made up of 3 different areas, the most impressive being a three-tiered, zig-zag fortification which is meant to symbolise the teeth of a puma. In short, the Incans believed that Cuzco looked like the shape of a puma with Sacsayhuaman (or sexy woman as all english people call it out here!) as the head of the puma and the zig-zag walls as the teeth. The walls also have military significance as they were supposedly used to prevent attackers from getting close to the incans.

We are having a great time out here in Cuzco. Lizzie and I met up with Em and Marie-Anne about a month ago and we have been travelling with them since, having such a great time. Unfortunately, they are both heading home next week so we are splitting up from then on Thursday as we head south to a place called Arequipa whilst they go back to Bolivia to get their flights home. We have had such fun out here though, and have had lots of great nights out especially at our now local hang out, Mama Africa.

I will try and upload some photos asap so i can show you all what i've been doing.

Hope you are all well... under 2 months left until my imminent return!!
lots of love to everyone xxxxx

So once again I have been pretty lazy at writing things up on this blog so I now have a million things to tell you all!

Most importantly, I have to let you all know that I am no longer a bungy jumping virgin! Yes, that's right... i did it! Infact, I did a tandem jump with one of my friends, Ed who I have met on the kiwi bus. I was ridiculously nervous but once we got to the edge, I was the braver of the two of us and we somehow managed to jump, despite the 50m drop into a river below us! It was great fun though and if the bank balance could stand it, I'd definitely do it again.

Bungy Kawarau Bridge (first bungy site in the world)

We have also been to Franz Joseph Glacier - a whole day hike up the glacier, climbing through glacier tunnels, in ice crevices and up steep hills made of blue ice. Probably the most exercise we have done for quite a while but it was a great day, really enjoyed it and i surprisingly didn't feel too tired when the day was over!

Climbing through a crevice on FJ glacier

We are now in Queenstown and having met so many new friends on the Kiwi bus, you can imagine that there have been a lot of late nights and probably too much alcohol consumed. Despite that though, Queenstown is absolutely beautiful and i just wish it was snowing so that we could go skiing. It's so pretty here ; we are surrounded by mountains (the remarkables) and a huge lake. We took a ride up the gondola where the view is astounding and where we did luging - sort of like go-carting but smaller and probably a bit more dangerous because the tracks are pretty narrow but still a lot of fun.

Queenstown with friends from the Kiwi Experience Bus

Anyway, we only have a few more days in Queenstown before we head to Christchurch for 2 nights... and then we hit the big S.A (south america!) It's going to be so strange when we fly into a country and people don't speak the same language ... hopefully we'll get used to it!

xxxx

Queenstown Lake Wakitupu

We arrived in New Zealand just over 2 weeks ago and we have almost finished travelling around the north island with our Tour group, the Kiwi Experience. It is basically a backpackers coach so we have met loads of really nice people in the same situation as us and made lots of friends along the way.

We started off in Auckland, where we met up with two of my friends from Fiji; Matt and Toby. It was really great to see them after leaving them a month ago and we had a good, fun night out in Auckland.

Toby and I ontop of Mount Eden (an extinct volcano)

Since then, I have been up to so much I don't know where to start....!
We went skydiving the other day which was pretty scary but so much fun at the same time! It was a tandem jump so I was attached to a kiwi named Gus who did all the hard work and actually pushed me out of the plan. After the inital shock of realising that I was in fact falling towards the ground from 12,000ft at some ridiculous speed, I actually managed to enjoy myself and the view was incredible. The sun was just beginning to go down and the view of Lake Taupo (the biggest lake in NZ) was spectacular. The parachute opened at 5,000ft and Gus let me fly it for a bit so it was pretty cool!

A few days before the skydive, we went black water rafting, which was incredible! It basically involves climbing equipped with wet suit and rubber ring into a cave about 65m underground where the water was absolutely freezing and it was pitch black. We had head torches so we could see for most of the way round the maze of caves but in order to see the glow worms we all had to turn our torches off. They glow worms (maggots bottoms!) were like little bright green fairy lights and they were so pretty to see! We also jumped backwards off a waterfall whilst we were down in the caves (apparently the safest way to do it!) and swam with the eels which luckily we couldnt see! For the last 500m or so we all had to turn our torches off and make are way to the end in complete darkness which was pretty scary as we kept bashing into the cave walls but it was so fun. Really want to do it again!

Before Black Water Rafting

Other extreme things that i have done so far are.... parasailing, sandboarding, horse trekking, zorbing and watching dolphins. Parasailing was awesome - we did it in the Bay of Island (the far far North of NZ) which was really stunning.. we felt like birds! Zorbing, for those of you, like me who have never heard of it before involves sitting in a massive rubber ball filled partially with water and with two of your friends and being pushed down a massive hill. It's a pretty stupid sport really but was a lot of fun!
Horse trekking was great. Really did not expect it to be that good as I had never been on a horse before but my horse Bibi was pretty well-behaved and after a quick 5 minute lesson beforehand I was able to tackle steep mountain cliffs and ride in the sea! All very picturesque!
The dolphin trip was actually quite a bit of a letdown because they advertised that you would be able to swim with them which is what initally attracted us to it, but because they dolphins we saw were swimming in a pod with babies, we weren;t allowed to go in the water because it damages the babies upbringing. Nevertheless, we saw a pod of about 50-70 dolphins jumping in the sea! Was amazing!
Sandboarding was another extreme sport that we did in the Bay of Islands- you get given a boogie board (like a surf board but smaller) and we climbed up a huge sand dune and jumped on our boards and whizzed the whole way down! Really great fun.

Anyway, im sorry that this blog has been so rushed - i'm running out of time as internet here is pretty expensive but I will try my hardest to update more often because i know i have missed out loads of things!

Must go, tea time now - jacket potatoes and cheese! Will let you all know if i decided to do that bungy! eeek!

Sunrise on the East Cape

Bay of Islands (Northern most point of NZ)