Colca Canyon Photos Peru

North Stradbroke Island

Midweek finds us spending a few days on Straddie; one of the world’s most important ecological wetlands I read in the brochure on the way over (Everywhere in Oz has the world’s best or largest something). It’s about an hours drive from Brisbane or taking the bus, train, bus, ferry and bus, closer to three and a half hours. Much as the city was fun, it’s great to be back in a sleepy hamlet again with the sounds of the bush and waves crashing nearby. Straddie has the best land based whale watching spots to be found anywhere (I’m resisting the phrase ‘world’s best’ although I think it is) and we spent a pleasant morning looking at whales, turtles and rays going about their business in the Pacific. To boot the Island has a string of some of the best beaches I’ve seen with turquoise oceans meeting long stretches of white sand that squeaks like you’re walking over a field of mice.
The other interesting thing is that we’ve actually veered from the well trodden backpacker trail down the East Coast. Although the place isn’t dissimilar to Fraser Island, a dead cert on every backpacker itinery, it doesn’t feature as part of the tours prescribed by the Queensland hostels. So much so that we found ourselves in a unique position of being the only people carrying rucksacks boarding the ferry and are being pleasantly surprised at hearing Australian accents instead of Irish or English. You get used to the ease of following the same path here with a deluge of information on where to go, how to get there, where to stay and free pickups. When you stray a little though it’s almost a shock to actually have to do a bit of searching on the Internet on your own. We got it into our heads to come here (blame it on a quiet evening in reading Lonely Planet, nothing more trail breaking than that) and caused consternation at the desk in the Brisbane Hostel when we asked about train and ferry times to Straddie. After giving us funny looks, a few puzzled queries about where we were staying and eventually the wrong information, we went online and worked it out. God knows what would have happened if we admitted we were skipping Surfer’s Paradise and heading straight to Coolangatta, a little further south instead. (Finding a place to stay there was another morning on the computer). I’d imagine we’d probably set alarms off, the sprinklers would come on and the place would go into emergency shutdown. So if this gets reported as happening on the news, don’t worry, it’s not terrorists, just myself and Mike asking some tricky questions at the front desk.

Brisbane

We’ve swapped the sea and beaches for the big smoke. I haven’t been in a big city since leaving Dublin so Brisbane feels a little strange. I have to remind myself that the cars won’t automatically stop and wave me across the road any more and everyone in the street isn’t actually staying in our hostel. We’re staying in Fortitude Valley – an area that was rough about the edges in days gone by but now is quirky and trendy in the heart of the club and gig scene. I like to think of it being akin to Stoneybatter in ten years time. Watched the Aussie Rules grand final in the afternoon. I found it hard to muster enthusiasm and my eyes were glazing over a little by halftime, either due to the afternoon beer or the incomprehensible rules. (The Hawthorn Hawks won if anyone is remotely interested.) Later we went to a club called Ric’s Bar that had local bands playing, heavily influenced by The Velvet Underground, Nirvana and somebody else…….*. The cool kids here ticked every box going: arthouse, student, goth, trendy gig heads….. and us. The DJ downstairs was mid sixties, pot bellied, with sideburns the size of footprints, playing an eclectic mix of album tracks from everyone under the sun from every decade. We ignored the fact that after him we were the next oldest people there, yet knew none of the songs he played. Upstairs the guy and gal DJ double act would have frozen over if they were any cooler and we danced to tracks ranging from Modest Mouse to Fine Young Cannibals. Got home at midnight, which was a shock to the system as recently I struggle to stay awake after 10pm. As my mother reminded me on the phone tonight I used to party more when I was backpacking ten years ago. I must be getting wiser.


*Mike wants me to say “The Fall” here but I refuse to mention them on my blog. www.visi.com/fall

Squawky Australian Birds Part 1

Kookaburra: Solid, chunky type of bird. Makes an unforgettable noise, basically shouts it's name very, very LOUDLY. Over and over again. Bit like football supporters. Koo koo koo ka ka ka ka KA KA KA KA KA KA ...you get the picture.

Rainbow Lorikeet: Look pretty but screetch like a child being strangled. Waking up to a dawn chorus of them in Noosa at the moment. Big misnomer the Dawn Chorus.

The Cassowary: The strangest looking bird I've ever seen and definitely the only one with a blue neck. Very tall, about half my size. Met one in Mission Beach who was a resident at the place we were staying. Prowls around very quietly. I wouldn't mess with him though. Reckon he'd take me in a fight.

Surf''s up

We're slowly swimming our way down the East Coast - not literally-pretty much visiting a different small beach town every couple of days. Today we're in Noosa and we've hit the first of the big surfing areas. Got a shock when I landed in here as it was only 20 degrees and cloudy. Had to dig out my one and only jumper from the bottom of my rucksack where its being going musty since chilly Peru. Dusted the cobwebs off and made a mental resolve to get the first flight back to Cairns if the weathr didn't improve the next day. Of course it did and after a morning messing around in the surf I'm a little bit pink like a medium rare steak. The pinkness though could be due to a wave battering rather than too much sun. I'd like to give the illusion I was out catching the big ones on the reef, of course nothing could be further from the truth. Despite my liking for the surf lifestyle I'm definitely more at home wearing Billabong rather than standing on a Billabong board. Truth is, although I'm happy swimming, snorkeling and diving I don't like water going over my head, a disadvantage if you want to surf. I did well today though and tried to swim back to shore on one giant one (probably all of half a foot high) only to swamped beneath it. I didn't panic, held my breath and broke for the surface. I hadn't drowned! I had survived! Feeling proud I stood up, only to realise I was standing in water that just reached mid shin. I don't think Kelly Slater needs to worry just yet.

Airlie Beach

Yesterday we arrived in Airlie BEach. Although it's a one street town it seemed like a sprawling metropolis to us. Since Cairns we've been staying in accomodation surrounded by rainforest, going to sleep to the crazed sounds of Australian wildlife and in Magnetic Island having to ask permission from the resident possum before gaining entry to our timber framed cabin. So the YHA in Airlie seems positively luxurious by comparison. We've gotton over our fear of being thrown out of youth hostels for not being young enough and have adapted nicely to communal living. So much so that after a rare meal out last night I found myself stacking the plates getting ready to take them to the kitchen and wash them. We're also adapting to the Greyhound Bus journeys although the big test comes tomorrow evening when we tackle a 13 hr overnighter, which is bound to test our love for bus travel and possibly for each other. On a bus note, our driver taking us to the Magnetic Island ferry was possibly the cheeriest bus driver I've ever come across. He was wearing a bright orange hawaiian shirt as it was "Tropical Friday" and had an equally loud hello and smile for each passanger. I was thinking it'd be a great idea to introduce "Tropical Fridays" for grim old Dublin Bus to brighten the mood up a bit on a rainy day. Mike reckons the drivers would go on strike as it'd be against union rules. I reckon he might be right.

Summer Time and the livin' is easy

I am writing this entry in Mission Beach, Queensland, sitting in a small haze of DEET, glass of chilled Chardonnay at hand to ward off any originators of the weird noises from the Tropical forest behind our room. It’s been a tough few days, deciding whether to laze by the jungle pool or on the 5km stretch of golden beach, bordered by a palm lined shoreline on one side and turquoise ocean on the other. Decisions, decisions…
I’ve had reverse culture shock since coming here from South America. Where Peru was rough like 3 day old stubble, Australia is smooth like a freshly waxed leg. Apart from the ease of getting around and speaking English, the most exciting things I’m enjoying again are: having cereal for breakfast, (if I ever see flatbread and strawberry jam on the breakfast table again I won’t be responsible for my actions), knowing that wherever I go to the toilet there I’ll be able to sit down, flush and have a plentiful supply of loo roll, being able to brush my teeth using tap-water and sing in the shower without expecting a dose of the plague as a result.
The master plan of landing in Cairns within 2 hours of Mike worked surprisingly well. He flew via Singapore and Darwin and I flew via New Zealand and Sydney. Mike’s bag flew via we’re not sure where but spent some time in Sydney, had an extended stay in Cairns and eventually caught up with us yesterday. I was as thankful as Mike to get it back as he had my summer gear with him and I was getting desperate. My convertible trousers had been zipped off into cargo pants and shorts, but no matter how I zipped and re zipped, I failed to convert them into something clean to wear. All sorted now though and I just have to figure out what more I can shed from my rucksack in order to get the new stuff in. Tomorrow, Magnetic Island.

PS: Today, actually Magnetic Island. Finding it more difficult in Australia to get internet access than in Peru. Peru, despite dodgy water, taxis and random protests had free high-speed broadband in everywhere I stayed. I had this blog written and saved on a USB key and it’s taken me two days to find an internet café with a computer with a USB port. Still ended up using my own laptop and a wireless connection fee, which is more than if I were using the Internet café computers – go figure!

I´m leaving on a Jetplane...

Just spent a day in Lima and a day in Santiago, Chile.
Santiago is clean, safe, has lots of department stores, familiar cars that indicate instead of beeping, money, infrastructure and reminds me of any European city.
Lima is nothing like Santiago.
My top tip for Lima: don´t sit in the front with the taxi man if you are easily scared, in fact don´t look at the road at all. It´s best that way.

The Three Amigos

I hooked up with my 2 friends in Machu Picchu and we set out together to Arequipa. Arequipa is the second city of Peru and immediately struck me as being a bit better off than Cusco. We certainly contributed to the economy as we hit the markets with determination on the one free day we had. The following day, retail therapied out, we hit the Colca Canyon with equal determination. We had 3 days, one to hike down, the other to come back up and the third to get back to Arequipa. To sum it up, dusty, steep and the girls are now sharing my new found respect for the effects of altitude. (Plus respect to Joe whos planning to run the Everest marathon next year for our charity, see Brighter Futures Nepal link on RHS ---I´m just realising now exactly how crazy he is!) The price of the trek was slmost worth it for yet another crazy Peruvian bus journey. Coming back from Machu Picchu we had to swerver in and out of lines of bricks across the road, a result from earlier protests. Here we just swerved randomly, stoppped randomly, 70s disco blaring out of the banjaxed van at nightclub volume, our bums being toned by the unique combination of vibrations from a gravel road and bad suspension. I´m going to miss Peru!

Inca Trail Part 2- Arrivals

The second day was the "tough day" and to prepare we fuelled up by Western (pancakes) and Andean means (Coca leaves jammed into the side of our cheeks) and so we were ready to climb some more stairs. Three hours later we had a ten minute sit down, the aptly named "Dead Woman´s Pass" looming above us. My mouth was too dry to release any Coca leaf juice so I resorted to Milky Ways for an added burst of something. How tçcan I describe climbing/crawling up Dead Woman´s Pass? An ascent of 600m up to 4,200m took about 2 and a half hours. Walking at this altitude was frustratingly slow as after about 15 steps the lack of oxygen hits you like a truck;you can´t walk through it but have to stop, steady the breathing and heart rate and slowly set off again on the next 15 steps. The whole morning was like walking through treacle. The views however were simply breathtaking (literally and figuratively!) and I never got tired of leaning on my walking stick, getting my breath back, gazing out on the majesty of the Andes, stacked up like lines of wizard hats. I hope the photos do them some justice. We eventually reached 4,200, celebrated and all we had to do now was go downhill for 2 hrs for lunch. After about 10 mins of descending rickety, wobbly stonbe steps designed for narrow Incan feet, my calves began to burn, my legs wobble and I hated going down more that going up. And so the pattern was set for the rest of the day. We even hit 4000m again, our guide pulling us through, running back and forth like the mountain goat that he was, extolling us to go "slowly, slowly". I was never quite sure if he was being a little sarcastic as our group was always the last to get anywhere despite having at least an hours head start. By the end of the day I had indigestion and stomach cramps and practically crawled into camp. A porter had come out to escort us home and when i inquired in my broken Spanish how far we had to go he replied cheerfully "Ten minutes". Ten minutes and about 200 meters later his smile dropped and he revised it quickly to "I´m not sure" when he saw how "despacio" I was walking. Finally into second camp and the basins of water and soap laid out at our tent doors exceeded any view I had seen that day. After another amazing spread ( barely eaten) we had a jug of sangria to celebrate surviving Day 2 but we could only manage a token sip before flopping into our sleeping bags. Fortuantly the third day was easier due to the mammoth distances we had covered the previous two. We woke to find our campsite was surrounded by glittering glaciers (less than years ago due to global warming) and glorious sunshine. We had a relatively lesiurely 5 hr hike in the sun exploring Inca sites before reaching Base Camp, where all the groups converged to camp about 2 hrs away from Machu Picchu. Something must have happened us over night. Maybe the ceremony on top of the Second Pass to leave our tiredness behind worked, because we were a group with a mission on our last morning. We awoke at 3.30am, packed up camp and were ready , waiting for the last checkpoint to open and let the flood of 200 hikers on the final part of the trail. At 4.30 am we were waved through and we marched silently, concentrating in the dark, torchlight dimly lighting the way. We didn´t pause, hesitate, stop for water or to take off our warm clothes. There was an urgency and new energy about us. We passed out most people ahead and almost ran up the last lot of steep steps to the Sungate and finally we had arrived, one of the first that morning to see the first fingers of light creep across Machu Picchu. Tears were shed, texts were sent. We had made it!

The Inca Trail Part 1- What goes up must come down

Two weeks of not very good Peruvian food had left me feeling lethargic and unready for doing a 4 day hike the day before the Trek. At our starting point at Kilometre 82however, I felt my strength and excitement returning. (In our group of 5, of which I was the youngest, everyone had at least one day when they felt unwell so I wasn´t alone). Our first day was designated the 'easy day´and after a 4am pick up the first four hours were spent leisurely walking by the river Urumbamba with a gradual rise. After lunch, and an afternoon nap on air mattresses thoughtfully laid out in the sun by our porters, the real march began and we began to climb. By 4pm we had reached the site where most groups camped but we, the ´super hikers´, were literally going the extra mile. We faced a slow 2 hours gruelling hike, up steps all the way to our campsite as the sun started to disappear and the cold draw in. I began to realise what my walking stick was for as I used it as an extra leg to get me up the hills. The sight of our first camp with the porters applauding us in as the dusk drew around them was like a glimpse of heaven . In our dining tent later we were too tired to eat the amazing spread of food in front of us and fell into our tents exhausted at 8pm. Our guide warned us not to get up at night due to a ´bad Andean wind´ that could strike us down with illness, the only cure being administered by an Andean medicine man. There was no fear of us budging from our sleeping bags until our wake up call at 4 am by a smiling porter bearing a steaming cup of tea.

Inca Trail Day 3-Feeling Dead

 
 
 
 

Inca Trail Day 2 - Dead Womans Pass

 
 
 
 

Inca Trail Day 1- Feeling Energetic!

 
 
 
 

These Boots Were Made For Walking

Tiring, exilarating, challenging, beautiful, exhausting, spectacular, emotional, awe inspiring....I´m just back after the 4 day Inca Trail trek and words (and breath) fail me. For now I´m just going to post some pictures. Although Machu Picchu is amazing, it really was a case of the journey being more than the destination. More later when I get feeling back in my legs and can walk to another Internet cafe.

I Predict a Riot..

There´s never a dull moment in Peru. Just when I thought I had gotten over the culture shock, (I´m not fazed by the sight of alpacas meandering in and out of traffic and children not knowing about hand washing seems normal, then I try and go to work this morning. I have killed my cold off and was raring to go. Myself and 2 American buddies were surprised when the first Combi passed us packed to the gills. So packed that they didn´t allow any more people on, which in Combi terms is equivalent to squeezing the contents of a double decker bus into a Mini. When the next two passed, similarly full we smelt a rat. Then they stopped coming at all. We debated briefly about getting a taxi but our query of "Ultimo parada for Santa Ana Combi?" drew a blank face from a taxi man so we elected to wait patiently. After half an hour out of the blue we found ourselves spectators to a student protest. Out of nowhere about 50-60 young kids marched on the streets banging a steel drum and shouting. A stray bus happened to be going past and they immediately set upon it kicking the doors and threw a brick in the back window until it turned around. Then they merrily set upon another one, smiling all the time as if they were going to a rock concert. My American friends wished they had cameras, ("Dude this is awsome!")I was glad they didn´t as three westerners stuck out enough in the area we live in. Local people stood curiously but unworried outside their shops watching the morning entertainment. There were no sign of the police, except for one guy who ran past twice holding what seemed to be a small rocket launcher, looking like Wiley Cyotoe realising the Road Runner had duped him again. We made our way to the Volunteer centre and found out that the protest was against the increasing cost of services and the combis were supposed to be on strike so we had the morning off. (The cost of a Combi ride is about 15 cents). As we walked back home, the main street was blocked off and I heard a voice through a loudspeaker getting louder and louder. Expecting to see a wall of police shouting instructions, I turned and instead an elderly man cycled slowly past me, a barrow of papayas and oranges in front, with a loudspeaker hoisted precariously high above the handlebars advertising his wares. Strange but true.

Sacred Valley Part 11

 
 
 
 

Sacred Valley - Views, markets and People

 
 
 
 

Snuffle

I´ve inhaled most of Cusco´s dust and pollution over the past week or so, not to mention cement and lethal paint fumes, so it´s no surprise that I have a upper respiratory tract infection. So far not so bad but I´m dosing myself with paracetamol and Vitamin C and have discovered that you can get Penicillin over the counter, just in case. I´m not a hypochondriac but I everyone in the house where I´m staying (AKA The Big Brother House)are coming down with either chest infections or crazy gut problems. After lunch I spent a pleasant hour googling Salmonella and Giardia which one of the girls have been diagnosed with. My trusty 90% Alcohol hand cleanser which travels everywhere with me is being truely tested.

Beep! Beep!

I´m here a week now and I´ve got my head around the culture pretty well. You kiss on one cheek to greet people, never refuse food if it´s offered to you and bargain hard with the market sellers. The one thing that escapes me though is what the hell the rules of the road are. It would be wrong to say there are no rules. There is definitely a system. To cross a juntion you pause, blow the horn and put the foot down kamikaze style regardless of what´s going on in the other streets. There are policemen at junctions blowing whistles randomly and cars play chicken to determine who gets into the right lane. How you know where the lane is and where it goes to is probably a Cuscuen secret that gets passed down from generation to generation at a coming of age cermony. The cars themselves remind me of the lego cars I use to build when I was young. They have no brand names and boot around the place merrily, held together by bits of baler twine and stickyback tape. I feel like I´m in Noddy episode when I get into a cab as we dodge dogs, kids and tourists, a mushroom cloud of smoke billowing behind and somehow getting to where I need to go without any major mishap. In fact the two most startling taxi episodes of my stay happened to me yesterday: one taxi driver asked me to put on a seat belt and the second actually indicated before making a right turn. Freaky.