Jim's Travel Blog

Nazca, Arequipa & The Colca Canyon

2008-06-11T15:50:00.000-07:00

The next stop on our travels through South America found us in the small but famous town called Nazca. Famous because it is known for its mysterious 1000 year old lines that can only be viewed from the sky. They form many shapes, such as animals and other geometric patterns.
We arrived and made our way to our hostel and made arrangements for our next day of activities.
The next day we had prepared to go out to the local airport fairly early to get a light aircraft flight over the lines, but because of delays due to bad weather we advised that the flight wouldn´t be until the afternoon.

As we had a few hours up our sleeves, we decided to take a trip out to the Chaucilla Cemetary where there were many ancient burial mounds of the Nazca people.

After the Spanish Conquistadores back in the 1500´s, the burial mounds had been desecrated and any valuables stolen, so originally the remains were just scattered around the desert.

When we arrived however, it was a very different site. Most of the bones had been collected and pits had been dug and the bones were neatly arranged to point east (towards the sun rise due to their worship of the sun.)

We looked around for about an hour and then headed back to Nazca to get ready for our flight.

Eventually we travelled out to the company that arranged the flight for us, but we soon found out that there was a big backlog of people wanting to get flights that day, and due to the earlier bad weather all flights had been pushed back, which we then realised meant we weren´t to be flying that day.

Luckily for us the kind lady from the hostel helped us reschedule our bus trip and gave us free accomodation for our trouble, and the next day we finally made it out to the airport.

After a brief video about the lines and theories about them, we went to the departure area and waited patiently for our flight to begin.

Eventually our pilot came over and we headed out towards our light aircraft.

A cosy fit was probably an understatement, but with a bit of elbow grease they managed to shove me into the cockpit, and I got to ride shotgun up next to the pilot.

Suz sat behind me and there were also 3 other passengers in the plane.

The whole time during take off (and during the flight as well) I tried my hardest not to bump my knees on any of the cockpit controls and end our flight prematurely.

Luckily I managed to keep my legs out of the way, and it soon dawned on us that we had bigger things to worry about: air sickness!

I was happily snapping photos by the dozen of the many lines and figures in the desert, but then the constant sharp banking left & right of the plane took its toll and I started to feel a bit queasy. I looked behind me to see how Suz was faring, and she was literally green by this stage, and she was just sitting there concentrating on keeping her breakfast down!

Our 30 minute flight eventually finished and we landed safely back at the Nazca airport, and we all came to the conclusion that it´s not something we´d do again in any hurry. As we waited for our ride back to our hostel, we noticed that the occupants of another plane obviously didn´t cope too well, because as soon as they hopped out of the plane, one of them just lay down on the tarmac and didn´t move for a good 15 minutes.

For the rest of the day we basically just killed time around Nazca and waited for our next overnight bus to take us to our next destination: Arequipa.

We decided to upgrade our seats on the bus to 1st class, and we got to ride in style all the way, and luckily it was a fairly uneventful journey (i.e. nothing got stolen this time).

When we made it to Arequipa the next morning, we caught a taxi to our next hostel, funnily titled ´La Casa De Los Pinguinos´ or ´The House Of The Penguins´ in english.

The hostel turned out to be fantastic, and we were happy to make this our home base for the next few days.

On our first day in Arequipa, we took a stroll around town, and we also booked a trek into the Colca Canyon, which was about 5 hours away by bus.

During our short stay in Arequipa, we also made a trip to the a local monastery which was basically a small city where the very well off nuns did their thing.

The day for our Colca Canyon trek arrived, and our guide turned up at our hostel to take us to the bus station (via a small detour to his house as he´d forgotten his wallet!) We met the other two guys doing the trek, and we hopped on the locals bus and headed off.

We made it to Chivay about 3 hours later for a bit of a pit stop (it was supposed to be about a 10 minute stop, but it ended up being about an hour stop as the bus driver had apparently gotten in a fist fight with another driver and was down at the police station for a while).

Our bus kicked us out at Cabanaconde, and we had some lunch at a local restaurant before starting our trek.

After lunch we began our very long trek into the canyon, passing through the town and walking for about 20 minutes before we got to the edge of the Canyon.

We could see the little town that we were supposed to be staying at on the opposite side of the canyon, and it was at this point we realised that it was not going to be a stroll in the park.

5 hours later (about 4 hours worth of steep down hill trek, and about an hour of uphill at the end to finish us off, and we made it to our accomodation).

We were all rather tired and emotional, and after a nice meal cooked by our guide, we soon hit the hay and tried to get some sleep for the next day trekking out(!) of the canyon.

The next day we got up, had an awesome feed of pancakes and tried on some of the locals traditional clothes for some kodak moments, and then we trekked along to our first port of call, which was a small oasis which included a few swimming pools to relax by.

We had some lunch there, and then waited around for a few hours for the sun to start setting, and then we started our 3 hour climb out of the canyon.

I believe the official time out of the canyon was 2 hours 59 minutes, so we timed it quite well in the end (our guide books said to allow about 3 or 4 hours).

Once we got to the top we walked in the dark back to Cabanaconde and stayed at a nice little hostel for the night.

The next day we got on a very early bus and headed to the Cruz De Condor where there was a high peak where the Andean Condors flew around in the thermal drafts and we got to take many a photo (unfortunately only a few turned out ok).

After an hour or two we hopped back on a bus and made our way back to Arequipa and stayed another night before getting ready for our next location: Cusco (and our long awaited Inca Trail trek)

Some more Ecuador, a bit of Peru, and a lot of drama!

2008-05-31T15:47:00.000-07:00

After spending about a week in Cuenca brushing up on our Spanish by getting lessons etc, we finally decided to make a break for the border.

We first got on a bus and headed for Machala, and after a bit of aimless wandering around the streets trying to find the bus we were after, there was a wait of about an hour before our next bus got on its way.

We had heard all sorts of nightmare stories about Gringo´s being ripped off and things like that, so we specifically wanted a bus which would get us over the border from Ecuador into Peru.

Luckily there wasn´t too much drama, and we got our passports stamped in Tumbes and then made our way onto Mancora, which was a popular surfers destination, so it was nice to trade in the cold weather gear for a bit more beach action for a day or two.

We had decided that we´d had a lot more fun in Fiji and we weren´t exactly craving lots of beaches just yet, so after two nights we decided to organise a night bus to head to Trujillo.

Our first night bus experience did not get off to a good start, with the first seats we got in were probably a tight squeeze for a midget, let alone someone who is 6 foot 9.

Needless to say the old woman sitting in front of me wasn´t too happy that I had now rammed her reclining seat into the fully upright position just by sitting behind her.

We decided a move was our best option, and the back seats were free (mainly because they didn´t recline), so we made our way back there.

The tv was blasting a martial arts movie dubbed in Spanish, so it took a good while to get settled.

At about 1am I think I finally nodded off, and our bus arrived in Trujillo at about 7:30 the next morning.

We collected all our belongings and hopped off the bus.

It wasn´t until after we´d gotten to our hostel, had a bit of a kip and then woken up again that I finally started unpacking my small day pack, and to my horror I only then realised that not only had my camera been stolen, but I then realised that my money belt had also "vanished" too.

I was now royally screwed, no camera, no passport, no travellers cheques, missing bank cards, no air ticket from Iguazu to Rio, and I was stuck in the middle of South America! Not a good start to Peru!

Needless to say, the rest of the day was filled in with visits to the tourist police to file reports, and then many phone calls were made to Insurance companies, banks, embassies and the like.

Our travel plans had now taken a different course due to the recent events, and our next destination was Lima, and not Huaraz like we had planned.

We did spent the two nights in Trujillo first however, and we did a trip out to see the ancient ruins of Chan Chan.

A day bus was on order for our trip to Lima, and we had only wished we had taken the same company from Mancora to Trujillo, as not only did we got through metal detectors, they had our passport info, we had to give fingerprints, and our bags were ticketed which we had receipts for, and they also took photos of everyone on board the bus to keep tabs on everyone.

Oh well, as the saying goes, a lesson lived is a lesson learned.

We arrived in Lima on the Thursday evening, and the Friday was spent visiting the Australian Embassy and arranging an emergency passport (which luckily was ready on the same day). We took a visit to a local ancient monastery, which had some big catacombs underneath where they had the bones of about 25,000 people from the last 500 years or so... pretty crazy stuff.

I also managed to replace my camera on the Saturday, and we also paid a visit to the Museo De La Nación however they had most of their exhibits closed so it was only a brief look around.

A few more days in Lima before we make a move for the famous Nazca Lines.

Baños: Home of the hot baths

2008-05-21T13:12:00.000-07:00

After what ended up being an on and off again 2 week stint based in Quito (a big shout out to the Travellers Inn by the way) we finally decided to take the Circo de le Jim y Suz on the road. Destination: Baños, which literally translates as "Baths" in Spanish.

Small History of Baños: The reason for this is because Baños lies in the shadow of Volcán (volcano) Tungurahua, which up until recently has been erupting fairly often.
Anyway, long story short, the volcano feeds the hot springs which in turn is used to supply the hot pools in the town.

This makes Baños quite a popular destination for international (and local) tourists.

We arrived to see amazing sunny weather, which got us excited about our potential outdoor activities over the next few days.

Our first afternoon was mainly spent strolling around this small town, soaking up the sunshine & the sights, and we had our first of many visits to a popular restaurant/cafe called Casa Hood (the mocha milkshakes were to die for!)

Our hostel happened to have cable tv, so we spent the evening watching cheesy American sitcoms and reality tv (what can I say, sometimes Latin American tv just doesn´t cut the mustard).

Day 2: Awake to find that the heavens have opened up, and my anticipated outdoor adventure extravaganza in Baños was washing away before my very eyes. D´oh!

After lunch it stopped raining long enough to squeeze in some hiking in the surrounding mountains, however even this was cut short by our trail turning into a small river a few kilometres in. Some good views were experienced nontheless.

Food supplied by Cafe Good this time (apparently they all had to rhyme... or something).

Day 3: While in Baños we were determined to hire mountain bikes and ride 60km through the valleys down to the township of Puyo (weather pending of course).

It was raining once again, but it didn´t look too bad, so we geared up and got ready to go.

The weather finally cleared up and we organised some bikes and took off.

Mother nature had other plans for us however, and we did´t get 500m down the road before we got caught up in a torrential downpour.

We thought better than to spend the next 5 hours in this weather, so we rode back to the outdoor shop & said thanks but no thanks. Bike riding trip over.

It did actually clear up later in the day so we opted for a visit to the famous hot baths and spent an hour or so mingling with the locals until the novelty wore off and we spent another evening watching old episodes of Friends.

The next morning we caught a bus and then spent the next 8 or so hours in buses making our way to our next destination: Cuenca

Ecuador Part 2.

2008-05-20T12:02:00.000-07:00

After arriving back in Quito from the Galapagos Islands, we had to get ready straight away for our next trip, which was out to the Amazon basin and deep in the heart of the Amazon jungle.

We got a flight from Quito out to Coca (after a good 6 hour delay in the airport) and we eventually landed and were greeted by our guide for the next 5 days, Jose!

We were taken from the airport to the Napo river, where they had their supercharged twin engine canoe to take us 2.5 hours down the river to the Yachana Eco Lodge which we´d call home for the next 5 days.

Each day we were involved in many different activities, from hiking through the primary and secondary forests, to eating ants and grubs which tasted like bacon(!!) and generally being shown how life operates out in the remote parts of Ecuador.

We got to see how chocolate is made, and discovered a hot sauce called Aji which we´ve now got a slight addiction to.

One of our trips was to a local healer, where we got our bad spirits dealt with in no uncertain terms (the procedure was something along the lines of the guy blowing tobacco smoke over us, then shaking some leaves and chanting and whistling).

During the visit to the healer a curious toucan (let´s call him Sam) came and decided it wanted to be fed, and started biting us until the healers wife came and fed it a banana. Sam was content after this and left us in peace.

After the healer worked his magic, we got to try our hands at using the blow pipe and shooting darts at a target, and then we got to throw a few spears for good measure too... Apparently if I couldn´t hit the target then I wasn´t a worthy husband, so luckily I came through with the goods and took the target down a few times.

Other trips included visiting a local school which had been setup by the founder of the Lodge we were staying at, and we also did a night hike to try and find all manner of creepy crawlies in the forest.

We had some drama on our last day in the Amazon, when we were supposed to be taken back to Coca to catch our plane back to Quito, but unfortunately their super-canoe had broken down, so we had to get a taxi back through some of the roughest roads I´ve ever had the pleasure of driving on.

Luckily we made it back in time and caught our plane back to Quito, where we spent a few more days before catching a bus to the small township of Baños.

Ecuador Part 1.

2008-05-20T11:45:00.000-07:00

After paying ridiculous departure taxes at the airport in Chile (not to mention the insane taxes getting into the country) we took a flight up to Quito, in Ecuador.

Quito is based at an altitude of around 2800 metres, so for starters it was a bit of fun getting used to constantly being out of breath and suffering from a bit of altitude induced insomnia.

We didn´t hang around for long however, as we had a trip to the Galapagos Islands planned, so we managed to squeeze in a trip to the Otovalo Markets, which were a hairy bus ride down from the mountains into the more southern plains.

One thing to note about Ecuador, it´s quite close to the equator (go figure), so being the centre of the Earth I had imagined it would be quite hot. Not the case in Quito (because of the elevation) so when we got to Otovalo I wasn´t quite prepared for the heat (and hence I got sunburnt to a crisp).

Suz & I both lost our minds shopping at the Otovalo market, and we had to try and refrain from buying everything in sight (we almost succeeded).

We returned to Quito with our purchases and after 3 nights we flew out to the Galapagos Islands.

According to our cameras, we managed to take around 680 photos in the 5 days we were in the Galapagos Islands, so I don´t think I´ll share them all, however I´ll try and get some up here in the near future.

The Galapagos Islands are based around 1000km off the coast of Ecuador, and for those that don´t know, they happen to have some of the most diverse animal life in the world, so we were constantly seeing crazy animals of all shapes and sizes.

We took a boat cruise around the islands, and the basic setup was that we´d do a day trip at an island, and generally the boat would go to the next island overnight, and then we´d see another island the next day and so on.

Some of the animals we saw in no particular order were: Giant Galapagos Tortoises, marine iguanas, land iguanas, blue footed boobies, masked boobies, waved albatross, Galapagos sea lions, frigate birds & much more (all of the animals above are only found in the Galapagos islands, and it just so happens that they aren´t scared of humans so we got to take some great photos (hence the 680 shots).

Apart from seeing the animals in their natural habitat, another highlight was snorkelling with the playful sea lions.

After our 5 days we got a flight back to Quito and got ready for our next trip. The Amazon Jungle!

Honeymoon in Fiji

2008-05-02T18:09:00.000-07:00

We finally landed at Nadi airport Fiji, and the first thing that hit us was the heat, and this was at about 6:30am in the morning!
We collected our bags and after a fairly hefty wait to get through customs we grabbed a cab, stopped in at a local supermarket and grabbed a few beers etc, and then headed for Port Denarau where we had a big boat waiting to take us out to our resort.

After hopping on the boat and deciding it was a good idea to sit in the sun for the entire length of the 4 hour journey, we made it to our resort after stopping at about 12 other resorts along the way to pick up and drop off other passengers.

We arrived at Botaira Resort at around 12pm after hopping on a smaller boat which ferried us to the shore. We were greeted by some of the locals who worked at the resort who were playing guitars and the ukelele and singing Fijian songs. (nice touch!)

During our stay at the resort we went for about an hour hike over the mountain to a local village, and visited the church and school and met the locals which was amazing to see who differently they lived! For instance, the town was without electricity so the locals generally shared a generator between 2 houses to get their power!

Another day we did a trip out to a nice coral reef and got into a bit of snorkelling in the shallow water, which we loved so much we then went snorkelling nearly twice a day for the rest of our stay.

The good thing about this was there was also a fantastic coral reef just offshore from our resort, so we got to check out all the different types of coral formations, as well as probably around 100 different varieties of tropical fish, which were not particular stressed even though we were pretty much within arms length of them the entire time.

The rest of our stay was mainly spent being lazing the days away on the beach which was a good 5 metres from our room, or working on perfecting our hammock techniques from the many trees they were hanging from... ahhh.. it was so good.

We also happened to be quite entertained by the local wildlife on the beach, mainly consisting of little sand coloured crabs scooting around everywhere, and then seeing hundreds of tiny hermit crabs plodding about the beach in all assortments of shells they've made into their home on legs.

In the evenings we'd amble on down to the beachside bar they had setup, and sampled many of the cocktails they had on offer while we waited for our dinner to be served. Hard life indeed!

Our time was finally up at our resort, and we were then taken back out to the larger boat which was heading back to the main island.

We spent one more night at a hotel close to the airport, and then got an early flight the next day to Auckland, where we spent several hours doing laps of the airport while we waited for our flight to Santiago, Chile!

Even though we were completely jet lagged when we landed in Santiago, we did find it quite amusing that although the flight took around 11 hours, we still managed to get into Santiago 4 hours earlier than when we left. Needless to say it took a few days to get the body clock sorted out!

Jim's last night in town...

2008-04-19T06:41:00.000-07:00

Well... time has certainly flown since being back in Oz.

4 weeks and 1 day has gone in the blink of an eye, and I'm now a married man and have attended another mates wedding in the time since, so it's certainly been all action stations in the land down under!

Tomorrow the big honeymoon begins, starting with 9 days lazing away in sunny Fiji (fingers crossed for some good weather - bring it on!), then followed by a 3 month extravaganza in South America, starting in Chile, then flying up to Ecuador (enjoying a cruise amongst the Galapagos Islands and a trip out to the Amazon jungle to an eco lodge), then making our way down through Peru (Inca Trail here we come), Bolivia (salt plains a go-go), Argentina (steak heaven!), then finishing up in Rio, Brazil for about a week before flying back to London and joining the rat race again.

I'll hopefully keep this blog up to date with my travels along the way, so stay tuned for some crazy stories & adventures!

Each time heading back to Australia it feels like it's harder to leave, this visit being no exception. Especially having so many good friends at our wedding reminded me of all that we left behind when we moved overseas, so unexpected surprises aside, we'll be touching back in Oz in about two years... I can only imagine it'll feel like two weeks...

Another weekend another wedding...

2008-04-14T04:35:00.000-07:00

So I survived another wedding, this time it was for a good mate Lachy over in Adelaide.

It was an outside ceremony followed by a sit down reception at the Glenelg Golf Club, and after initially being a bit skeptical that we wouldn't know anyone else, we met some great people and the day (and evening) was a complete success by all accounts!

Less than a week till we fly out to Fiji for the start of our honeymoon & then our travels around South America.... I can't wait!

Wedding: Check... Honeymoon... errr... just about

2008-04-01T03:37:00.001-07:00

To everyone who made it along to the wedding on Saturday, I sincerely thankyou from the bottom of my heart. I am so happy I got to share this special day with so many close friends, and all expectations were completely blown out of the water - the weather was great, the photos were great, the ceremony was fantastic, the venue was amazing, the speeches were truly touching, and the band rocked the house!

What more could you ask for, well... a special mention must go to the bride, Suz.

My jaw absolutely hit the ground when I first laid my eyes on her wearing her wedding dress, and from that moment I didn't want the day to end and to date it truly was the happiest day of my life hands down.

I got a sneak preview of the photos today, and I can't wait to see them printed out - if and when I get my hands on some digital snaps I'll try and get some up here...

Now the waiting game begins until we head off on our extended honeymoon/adventure in approximately 19 days time, luckily this is broken up by another wedding over in Adelaide in two weeks time which I'm really looking forward to.

Let the fun & games begin!

3 days...

2008-03-25T21:52:00.000-07:00

Firstly, an observation: I've been back in Australia for 5 days, and it's now rained for 4 of these, so I'm starting to think I'm some kind of rain deity. The farmers aren't complaining anyway.

As long as it doesn't rain on Saturday I won't be complaining either, but we'll cross that bridge when we get to it.

Not a lot happened today on the wedding front.. had a bit of wedding dance practice, and I can safely say I have two left feet.

Saturday night could be interesting... stay tuned.

4 days to go...

2008-03-24T17:56:00.000-07:00

What better way to start this blog than with a count-down.

And not just any count-down either.

It's officially 4 days until I tie the knot / get hitched / whatever you may call it - any which way you look at it I'll be getting married this Saturday, 29th March.

Everything looks to be going to plan, so I'm now just patiently waiting for the big day... wish me luck.