South America

After visiting Keulap we went on another excursion to see some giant stone heads in a near by village, but to be honest they weren´t all that great. I´m sure they are very historically significant etc, but they were still just stone heads and they didn´t really do that much, plus we had just been spoilt with the Keulap fortress so anything else was going to seem a bit tame. The same evening we caught a night bus for the 10 hour journey to Trujilio, a small town on the coast.

In Trujilio we saw two different sets of ruins before taking another night bus to the mountain town of Huaraz. The ruins were the ´Chan Chan´ ruins, effectively a giant sand castle, and ´Huaca de la Luna´ a more impressive site with originial paintings done by the Pre-inca´s. Deciding we´d had enough ruins for a while, we parted ways with Hilde and headed back into the mountains, the "Cordillera Blanca" to be precise, the highest in the Peruvian Andes.

Huaraz, at the foot of the Cordillera Blanca, was a fun place, we used it as a base to do a few day hikes to mountain lakes and up various valleys. We also stumbled upon a mountain lodge doing their "full moon" dusk till dawn party which we naturally had to check out. After the weekend we took another night bus to the capital city, Lima, where we arrived early Tuesday morning. We viewed a few sites in the city and met Hilde and friends for her farewell dinner and then left Lima on Wednesday afternoon and headed South towards ´Ica´ and then ´Huacachina´, a tiny oasis town in the desert. We stayed here two nights and went on a dune buggy tour that included sandboarding in the middle of the desert, great fun!

Leaving the desert we headed south again to Nazca with the intention of viewing the famous "Nazca Lines". So this morning we went to the tiny airstrip to take our plane trip over the mysterious lines etched in the desert, only to be messed around for hours by lazy Peruvians until we eventually got in the little 6-man Cessna and went for our flight. The lines have experts baffled, with countless different explanations of meanings, bus basically there are numerous animals and shapes drawn out across the baren wasteland, which are best viewed from the air.

And that was this afternoon, and right now we are killing time waiting for another night bus to Arequipa to trek in the "Colca Canyon" - which is supposed to be twice as deep as the Grand Canyon!

In the town of Chachapoyas right now in the Northern Peru Highlands. Arrived here on saturday after a mammoth journey to cross the border...

We left Cuenca (Ecuador) last tuesday and headed south to the small town of Vilcabamba. We stayed at a hostel just out of town which turned out to be complete luxury! It had a pool, bar, pooltables etc and nice restaurant which is unusual to say the least. Went trekking in the rainforest on the wednesday with a Dutch girl (Hilde) who was staying at the hostel and two other Dutch people were on the trip, so including myself and the Spanish speaking guide there were a lot of translations flying around, but it was awesome and the scenery was unbelievable.

The next day we went horse riding up a valley out of Vilcabamba, and again the scenery was amazing. The group included Rob, Truman (a friend we made from the states), Hilde, the guide and myself. We stopped for lunch after riding for a few hours, tied up the horses, and went walking up the river to see a waterfall. The walk was more like jumping between the rocks and clambering about up the river banks, then after half an hour of that I heard a thud and turned around to find Hilde holding her hand up, her middle finger bent at a rather unusual angle, with the calm phrase: "look, I broke my finger."
So after the very difficult journey back to the horses we headed back towards town, noting that on the way back the saddle broke on Hildes horse and she fell off backwards into a big ditch...
We went to the hospital and it turned out only to be dislocated, so after a yelp and some painkillers we were ready to start on the cocktails again!

Friday was uneventful, we relaxed and packed up our stuff ready for the midnight bus towards the border crossing into Peru. The journery to the town where we are now took 20 hours of constant bus trips, taxis, trucks and random minibusses that looked like the wheels were about to drop off. Hilde speaks Spanish thankfully or I dread to imagine where we might have ended up. The border crossing was comical to say the least. The border control man was in a towel when we arrived after just getting out the shower (his bed being in the same room as the immigration office). After a few stamps and shouts of "Inglaterra??" "Si, Inglaterra!" we crossed the bridge into Peru to be greeted by a similar state of affairs, only the Peruvian border control was manned by a donkey and three ducks instead...

So we eventually arrived in Chachapoyas and on Sunday headed towards Keulap to see the massive pre-Inca ruins. This involved a bus ride and then a 10km uphill slog to the sumit. We stayed overnight with a local family and got up early to watch the sun rise over the mountains, before spending a few hours touring the ruins and then hitching a ride back here in the back of some blokes piclup truck! Time for a few beers me thinks!

We´re heading South now to try and make some progress towards Peru. After Banos we went to the town of Rio Bamba (on Monday 10th) with the intention of taking the famous mountain railway journey that we had read about. Unfortunately when we got to Rio Bamba the train wasn´t running as the workers were on strike, and Rio Bamba itself seemed a bit crappy so we were a bit down about the wasted trip. But we made the most of it and booked a mountain biking trip on Mount Chimborazo, the highest peak in Ecuador. So on the Tuesday we were picked up from our hostel and we headed up to one of the mountain lodges at Chimborazo with our guide before cycling the 30ish km down the mountain trail, mainly off road. It was pretty awesome scenery and the ride was fun too.

After Rio Bamba we made our way back towards Banos and then to the small town of Merra, where the Alison, Dot, Louise and Chrissy are based for their volunteering project. We arrived there on Wednesday evening and met Frank and Jennifer, the couple running the project, and whose house we stayed in for the three nights. On the Thursday and Friday we made the journey up to the project in the middle of the rain forest, which involved a 20 minute truck ride and then a 30 minute walk into the complete middle of nowhere...

So far the guys have constructed all kinds of bridges, paths, basic buildings etc that will be used for the animal sanctuary, all made mainly from materials taken straight from the rain forest. Rob and me got set the task of building a path (the rain forest floor is usually muddy and difficult to walk on) to where the avery is going to be constructed. This was easily the two hardest days of labouring I´ve ever done. Carrying bucket after bucket of rocks and sand from the river bank up the hill to the path almost killed us! But in two days we got the path almost completed, much to the amazement of Frank and Jennifer, so although we weren´t there long we still made a relatively decent contribution. They decided the name the path after us seen as they were so happy as to how much we´d done in two days, so the "Sharrock-Dale Trail" was born, and apparently they are going to make a sign for it too. The river running past the buildings was beautiful and perfectly clean, and at lunch time on the second day we walked upstream to a waterfall to swim and have lunch. I could have stayed there all day, climbing up the rocks and diving into the crystal clear plunge pool with Rob, Chrisy and Alison, and it actually wasn´t that cold either. It was like a real life version of the Center Parcs rapids, with the exception that only a handful of people know about this place as it is so hidden and isolated. I´d really like to go back in a few years and see how the project is getting on and maybe lend a hand again.

We all sat around and drank beers and just chilled out on the evenings and then this morning (Saturday) we started the journery towards Cuenca which is further South. And we´re en route right now, waiting for a bus which doesn´t leave for another hour or so. We won´t get into Cucna till very late tonight but we really want to start pressing on towards Peru so we´re pleased to be moving on a bit. That´s it for now!

In Banos right now, a small town right at the foot of an active volcano...

We travelled here from Killotoa, which is another volcano with a crater lake in the middle of it, a mini version of Crater Lake in Oregon. When in Quito we looked at booking a trip with a tour company to visit the crater lake, but they were asking $35 for the trip which included transport to the lake (a few hours), a visit to a market, an Ecuadorian farm and an indigenous hut.... and it seemed like the biggest crappy tourist thing ever, so we went by ourselves. Spanish phrase book to hand, we set off from Quito and took a series of busses towards mount Killotoa.

We bumped into two of Robs friends from Sheffield en route, and got as close to Killotoa as possible by bus, and then hitched a ride on the back of some guys truck up to the tiny village at the rim of the volcano. We stayed in a really basic hostel run by indigenous Ecuadorians, luckily one of Robs friends knew some Spanish which made life a bit easier. The next day we walked the 8 miles around the rim of the volcano, which was steep in places but the views were amazing. After that we walked down the path inside the crater to the lake at the bottom, and much to the suprise of the group of tourists who were there on organised trips, we jumped straight in the lake and went for a swim! We stayed another night with the indigenous folk and then made our way towards Banos.

We have been here for two nights now and we´re staying in a really nice hostel with private shower etc but it´s only $5 a night. Some of the people Rob met before I arrived were in town for a night so we met up with them and went to the hot baths (heated by the active volcano we´re sitting on...). These four girls are working about an hour from here on a volunteering project in the rain forest, they are helping to build a sanctury for the rehabilitation of trafficked animals. Rob and me were planning on taking a few trips into the jungle further down the line in Peru and Bolivia, so when the girls offered for us to go and see their project for a few days and stay in the jungle we thought it a mighty fine idea. So later this week we are heading into the unknown to help out with the project.

Today in Banos we rented motorcycles and went riding up the mountain on the opposite side of the valley from the volcano. We then rode further down the valley and found some waterfalls to ride under... as you do. The girls have gone back to their project now so Rob and I are planning on rafting or canyoning tomorrow and then visiting another town before heading to the jungle later this week.

More soon...

Went sight seeing around the old part of town today, visited numerous churches and cathedrals etc. The insides of the churches was mighty impressive, basically everything was gold plated and very shiny! We are spending this afternoon doing a bit of planning as to where we are going to go next etc, I think we might be heading towards the coast then South towards Peru. We are probably saving all the adventure type stuff (mountain biking, rafting etc) for Peru and Bolivia as it is apparently much cheaper there.

I will add some photos as soon as possible!