Closure

Well, it's over now, and we're back in the UK.
We survived all our adventures - and each other. We've travelled by bus, train, plane, car, bicycle, moped and horse; lived for a month in a 3 man tent; seen snow capped mountains, rainbow clad fjords, salt deserts, raging waterfalls and more volcano's than I can count.
We've all got our favourite places and memories: Ned and I loved Japan, with it's bullet trains and Pokemon centre, and I won't forget riding down the Death Road in Bolivia; while Annie was smitten by Cambodia and camping in front of Mount Cook, and Kim's already planing on moving to New Zealand when he's old enough so he can ride the luge as often as he likes.
Encouraging the boys to keep diaries was like pulling teeth, but I think they've learned so much on the trip, just by seeing and touching things. Ned could tell you all about tectonic plates now and Kim was correcting me on my Spanglish just by listening to the locals. I like to think they've got a better understanding now of the variety of the world, it's customs, cultures, language and landscape - and with a bit of luck, they might even remember some of it. But the trip wasn't about them, we just ran away because we could and the boys had to come with us. But I certainly don't think it did them any harm.
And six months was about the right length for this trip. By the end the boys were getting desperate to play with their friends again, and I felt like I needed to do something constructive (though it didn't necessarily need to be in England).
So here we are. We've been back 4 weeks, work is trickling in again and we've now moved to a rented flat in Lewes.
Here starts the next adventure...

Round #12

After four days in Montevideo, and on the eve of our return trip to Buenos Aires and London, we discovered why the city is so quiet. Not only is it Easter weekend and bank holiday here but just up the road on the outskirts of the city is a huge gaucho rodeo festival. We could have rounded off our trip at one of Uruguay's biggest cultural events if only we'd known - doh!

Que?

Annie had a migraine today, but tried to convince us it was dengue fever.
I think she's just malingering and looking for an excuse not to get on the flight home.
Actually, come to think of it, I'm feeling a bit peaky too...

It could be London...

...except for the palm trees. And the blue sky. And the traffic free roads. And..

Montevideo

If Buenos Aires is a mix of Barcelona and Paris, Montevideo feels more like a cross between Havana and Berlin. Lovely old classical buildings in various states of faded glory sit cheek by jowl with blocky seventies architecture, which isn't always as ugly as it sounds - and I'm very fond of Havana and Berlin, so it's a favourable comparison. In fact, it's easy to imagine how beautiful this city once was. It's just that, like me, it's let itself go a bit. On the plus side it has wide, tree lined avenues, little traffic, lots of culture, drinkable tap water and free museums - the last two being things that can't be said for the rest of South America. It's a much smaller, slower and (I suspect) poorer capital city than BA, but that makes it somewhat more interesting, and certainly a more relaxing place to spend our last few days.

We came here not only to collect one last geeky stamp in our passports, but to sit on one of the many beaches that stretch along Uruguay up to the border with Brazil. We'd have liked to go further up the coast to the better resorts, but time is against us - so we'll have to make do with the beaches surrounding Montevideo itself. The sea here washes up a strange green algae at low tide, which is probably harmless but doesn't look very appealing, but the beaches are wide, clean and of the softest white sand. Perfect for lazing in the sun while the boys dig escape tunnels.

Can you guess what it is yet?

Elvis hiding in the clouds, or is it Bruce Forsythe?

Jumping the sun

Annie shows the boys how it's done!

Colonia de Sacramento

Alternately controlled by the Spanish and Portuguese, Colonia del Sacramento is an ancient port town originally founded by Jesuit monks so they could smuggle goods across to Buenos Aires. Now it's a beautifully preserved haven for BA day-trippers and snap-happy tourists alike. Rough cobbled narrow lanes open out to wide green squares lined with pastel coloured buildings, terracotta roofs and hand painted ceramic street signs. Classic 1930's cars are dotted about, to add to the times-gone-by aesthetic. One was used as a planter and had a tree growing out of it's roof, while this one above was parked outside a restaurant, and at night a table for two is set inside it.
We sat on the pier and watched an incredibly colourful sunset and knew we'd done the right thing coming to Uruguay.

Buenos Aires

If you'd blindfolded us and dropped us in Buenos Aires, we'd be hard pushed to guess we were in South America - it's a busy, bustling modern European city transplanted to another continent. Long pedestrianised shopping precincts, with every luxury brand conceivable, McDonalds and Aroma coffee shops on every corner, traffic jams above and an efficient metro system below, classy European architecture covered in huge glossy billboards for Gucci or Nike, and immaculately dressed fair skinned inhabitants - BA had been described to us as 'the Paris of South America' and it's easy to see why. It's a city we could imagine living in (though the closer we come to the end of our trip, the more we can imagine living everywhere).
Time is running out so we couldn't explore BA as extensively as I would've liked, but we enjoyed mooching around La Boca - the colourful port area once occupied by penniless artists but now seemingly dominated by tourist restaurants and tatt shops, and watched tango buskers dancing in the streets.
Another day I stumbled across an exhibition by Steve McCurry, one of my favourite photographers, and we managed to spook the boys by letting them explore the Recoletto cemetary alone - a citadel of imposing one-upmanship mausoleums in the affluent north of the city. We also managed to catch up with Pablo and Cherry, our companions back in Bolivia, and spent a lazy afternoon on the rooftop terrace of their apartment block (if you're staying here a week or more it's cheaper to rent a serviced apartment).
But, with less than a week left before our flight home, and feeling in need of some R&R, we decided to hop across to Uruguay (it's only an hour on the ferry) and seek out a beach. And with sleet and snow forecast for Easter weekend, we need to make the most of the sun while we can!

Bum Bum fireworks

Butterfly hunter

Give way to snakes

Iguazu Falls

After a 23 hour bus journey across the breadth of Argentina (not as hard as you'd think: luxurious wide leather seats, movies, free wine and food) Iguazu had been built up to be a highlight of our last few days away: 270 huge waterfalls cascading across the border between Argentina and Brazil. Wider than Niagra and more spectacular than Victoria, these falls had been billed as a 'must see'.  
Unfortunately the weather had other ideas. Who knew we'd have sub-tropical thunderstorms in sub-tropical rain-forest? I guess the clue's in the title. 
Being stoic Brits, and with the forecast for storms all week, we decided that we'd go to the falls anyway and hope that the rain stopped by the afternoon as it had the day before. 
It didn't.
Despite the drama and power of the falls, and a thrillingly wet speedboat ride underneath them, it was my lowpoint of the trip - just from disappointment at schlepping about in a continuous grey downpour and not being able to appreciate the day properly.

But, luckily for us, the weather made an unexpected change the following day - so we went back and did it all again, this time complete with sunshine, wildlife - and happy, contented smiles.

Latest questions:

Why is England called England?
Why do they make cars with engines that can go faster than the speed limit?
Why does blood pump around the body?
Why do ladies wear hats in church, but men have to take them off.
Why do mice like cheese so much?
Do flies have hearing? 

Turn over your papers.... now.

Feeding the llama's

"I'm chillin' in Chile...

...big up for me family" - or so the song goes.

After crossing the border and a day or two by the beach in northern Chile, we hightailed it inland to San Pedro de Atacama, a tiny oasis town in the middle of the world's driest desert. We planned to stay here a day or two, only to find that the next bus out wasn't for four days - but we've got a pool and there's great food, so what's the rush? The town is made up of single-story red mud adobe buildings, nestled in a dry, flat valley ringed by Andean volcanoes. You can walk to the desert in 10 mins and being such an arid area it has the most amazingly clear starlit nights.

Against our natural rythms, we got up before dawn today to take a tour out to watch wild flamingoes at sunrise. The picture above doesn't do justice to how close we got to these amazing birds (did you know that the female pelican lays two eggs: one containing the pelican chick and a second 'dummy' egg to feed it with?). Even though he was shivering with cold, Kim pronounced the sight as 'magnificent'.  
Although it's not a cheap place, I can't help feeling that the beauty and tranquility of San Pedro, combined with it's dramatic setting, will make it one of our favourite stops in South America yet.

(Though I seem to be saying that about everywhere lately).

Arequipa

The pretty city of Arequipa, the 2nd largest in Peru, sits in the shadow of still active volcano El Misti and is known as the White City because of all the pale volcanic sillar rock that's used in the beautiful colonial churches, convents and mansions that surround the central plaza. There are supposed to be up to 15 tremors a day, but we've not been aware of feeling any yet. We've not really done much, bar exploring a few of the cultural landmarks - including the massive convent of Santa Catalina, which was a mysterious 500 year old Dominican citadel within the city until it was forced open to the public in the 1970's. The most curious sight there, apart from the maze of streets, stairways, rooms and courtyards themselves, was an exhibit on penance - including barbed-wire underwear. Ouch.

We've done an about-turn now, and are heading south again on the last leg of our trip. The plan is to cross the top of Chile and Argentina, and end up on a beach in Uruguay for a few days R&R before flying back to reality from Buenos Aires. Not that we want to return to reality...

Question of the day...

Why do non-confomists all look the same?

Poor man's Galapagos

Paracas is a small coastal fishing village surrounded by arid desert, about 4 hours south of Lima - though judging by the amount of hotel plots and plush waterfront holiday homes being built it won't be small or quiet for long. We came here just to visit the Islas Ballestas, known as the 'poor man's Gallapagos' because of the abundance of wildlife that live there, but having treated ourselves to a comparatively posh hotel with pool, decided to stay a few days and enjoy it. 
The islands are only small, but packed with colonies of cormorants, pelicans, vultures, humboldt penguins and sea-lions (it's the wrong time of year to see dolphins and flamingos too, but that's just being greedy). One area was packed so full of sea-lions and their pups that it looked as if the beach itself was moving, accompanied by a sound like the roar of a football stadium.    
Back in town Kim and Ned got to feed wild pelicans as they scavenged among the tourists on the beach (the pelicans, not Kim and Ned), and Annie and I finally had 'proper' wedding rings made - and for those of you who scoffed at our £1.50 stone rings from CenterParcs, I'll have you know these are a whopping £10 worth of solid silver. Each.
 - Extravagant I know, but she's worth every penny!

Sunshine hit me

Hoorah for sunshine! We've dropped nearly 4km in altitude from the chill of the Altiplano to the coastal desert of Peru, where mountainous sand dunes run down to the sea and the sun cooks us at a steady 28 degrees.
We stopped briefly in Nazca to check out the huge pre-Inca drawings in the desert. No-one's quite sure what they were for, but theories range from ceremonial art to irrigation channels to runways for alien spacecraft. Being drawn in the flat desert plain, they can only really be viewed properly from above, which makes you wonder how these giant figures (a tree, a bird, a lizard, a human etc) were drawn in the first place. Being the cheapskates that we are, we opted not to take a flight over the desert, instead catching a bus to the middle of no-where to climb a lonely lookout tower for a glimpse of the lines. Standing in the midday sun, with flat desert as far as the eye could see in all directions, waiting for a bus to come past (and hoping it would actually stop) was almost as bizarre an experience as the lines themselves.

Bookworm

Finding books to satisfy Kim's voracious reading habit has been difficult, especially when he's been known to read four or five books in a week. Main cities occasionally have English language sections in their bookshops, but otherwise we've had to rely on lucky finds in traveller book exchanges. In the absence of his preferred Alex Rider books, he's punched above his weight by reading Around The World In 80 Days, The Hitch-Hikers Guide To The Galaxy and The Hobbit - which has become one of his new favourites.
I hope that counts in his favour when he returns to school.

Saucy!

Round 11

Cusco is a bit like a South American Oxford - full of cobbled streets, classical architecture (often built upon the stones of old Inca sites), a relaxed atmosphere, and lots of nice bars and restaurants (including Paddy's - the highest Irish pub in the world). We could easily see ourselves living here for a while. If only the rain wasn't so similar to Oxford too.

Yikes

Just seen the papers, and 8 people died yesterday in the river at Pisaq.
We had a close escape indeed.

Pisaq

Pisaq is an Inca citadel high above the Sacred Valley. Bigger and more intact than Macchu Picchu, it only lacks the mystique of being a 'lost city'. Walking around it, it's streets, steps and buildings, we could really see and feel how the Inca's lived. There were houses, terraces for agriculture, look-out towers, a hospital, a cliff-face cemetary (where bodies were placed into holes in the rock), and ultimately their grand astrological site and temples to the sun and moon. 
As the afternoon clouds descended around us, bringing a mist of grey rain, it created a uniquely ethereal (though slightly damp) atmosphere.

Unfortunately, what felt like a mildy annoying shower to us at the top of the mountain, had gathered momentum and turned to a torrent by the time it had reached the town below. The river had burst it's banks and flooded the main street and the footpath down had been washed away in sections. In short, we were stuck.
Luckily for us, a group of local guides on their way home soon joined us, and together we all made our way slowly down the only route available - scrambling over rocks and bushes down the near sheer mountainside. As we came lower we could see the men of the town all fighting the raging river with sticks, moving rocks and trying to prevent the river silting up and flooding over into the town. They directed us across the face of the mountain, away from areas prone to landslides, and eventually we made it down to the only safe river crossing - a narrow concrete drain into town, where a Peruvian TV crew stood, filming our 'rescue', just for good measure. 

As if that wasn't enough adventure for one day, our bus back to Cusco got stuck behind a huge landslide, and we had to wait for a bulldozer to come and clear a path through.
Eventually we made it back, muddy and chilly, but safe and all a bit excited by the adventures. 
My Mum had signed off her last email (with reference to the recent earthquake and tsunami) "Take care of everyone, and stay away from danger!"
I didn´t do it on purpose Mum, honest!

Naff 'orf!

"Jesus unimpressed at papparazzi intrusion..."

Just a bit of gold

The churches in Peru have to be among the most elaborately ornate in the world. We've never seen so much intricate carving and if there's a golden equivalent of snow-blindness, this is where you'd suffer it. Life-like effigies of bloodied Jesus' and locally venerated saints peer down at you in every church, which can be a bit eerie, and as many churches were built upon old Inca ruins, elements of Inca mythology are often incorporated into their decoration, such as Jesus wearing the Inca headress of the sun god. Catholic synchronism at it's best.

Cocaine beer!

There's a prophetic ancient poem to the sacred coca leaf that says
"Guard its leaves with love and when you feel pain in your heart, hunger in your flesh and darkness in your mind, lift it to your mouth. 
You will find love for your pain, nourishment for your body and light for your mind.
But when the white man touches it he will find only poison for his body and madness for the mind."
So does coca beer count?

I think so...

Sadly Macchu Pichu is still closed, but we came to Cuzco anyway as there are lots of other Inca ruins here and in the nearby Sacred Valley to explore, such as the brilliantly named Saqsaywaman with it's pitch black tunnels, 70 tonne stone walls, and altars with carved channels to deliver the sacrificial blood to Paccha Mama, or Mother Earth.
Our route here followed the river that caused the Macchu Pichu train-line to be washed away, and we saw examples of the devastation it caused - small clusters of blue plastic temporary shelters next to damaged and crumbling homes, either being repaired or just bulldozed completely to start anew.
We're still nearly 4km above sea-level, and the Peruvian rainy season is clinging on tenaciously. Most days start dry and warm, but turn wet and chilly by late afternoon. The locals are all wrapped up in puffa jackets and boots, while we're wearing most of our clothes at once and dodging showers in flip-flops and shorts. But where in England would you get sun-burned on a grey, overcast and rainy day?

Who's a pretty boy then?

All safe

Just got up to the news of the earthquake in Chile, so here's a quick line just to let you know we're safe and un-affected.
We are heading towards the coast of Peru, but not for another day or two - so we'll keep an eye out for tsunami warnings.

Oops

Still on Lake Titicaca, we're just back from a boat trip out to where the Uros people have lived for centuries on floating islands built of layers of reed. It felt strange to walk on the damp, squishy, un-solid surface and think that people spent their whole lives there. The houses, boats and handicrafts were also made of reed, and it's even burned as fuel for cooking in their clay ovens. The only concessions to modernity were small solar panels attached to the thatched reed roofs of their huts.
Ned's intrepidness nearly became his undoing as he followed a dog between some huts and fell through a gap in the islands. Luckily I saw him plunge into the lake and managed to pull him out in the nick of time, soaking wet and a bit shaken, but thankfully un-hurt.

¡Hasta luego Bolivia!

Bolivia has been brilliant. It's taken us completely by surprise with it's scale, beauty, heritage and character. We really only passed through because it was 'on the way', but it's definitely been one of the highlights of our trip. ¡Bolivia nosotros mucho gusto!

Fleeing

Carnival seems to be following us, or we it. We've just left Copacabana (not the Barry Manilow one) a small town on the Bolivian edge of Lake Titicaca (no sniggering Alan). It's normally a fairly sleepy town, most notable as a base to explore nearby Isla del Sol, the centre of Inca creation mythology - but this weekend was Carnival. The main square was full of local groups in costumes that'd put a Pearly Queen to shame, dancing to marching brass bands and huge latin sound systems, while the surrounding streets were terrorised by gangs of marauding children spraying everyone with water, foam, flour and confetti. I haplessly got caught between gangs and as the only Gringo within striking range got properly 'owned' before a local lady took pity and dragged me behind the shutters of her shopfront for safety.
After the excitement of the day we had more to come as we had to flee our hotel in the middle of the night when a freak hail and thunderstorm leaked through the ceiling and flooded our room. The young guy left in charge for the night was no help at all, bar offering us a mop and bucket, and even threatened us with the Police for non-payment as we dashed out into the rain looking for another hotel.
We had planned on visiting the Isla del Sol, but between the floods and dwindling cash in a town with no open bank, we figured it was an omen to move on. 
So here we are now, just across the border in Peru. I'm finally realising a childhood ambition to visit the homeland of Paddington Bear, though I never envisioned I might be fleeing here as an international fugitive with a price of £15 on my head!

Bolivian crack house?

Even more questions...

Which country gets the most meteors landing?
Why do onions make your eyes water?
How did people find out what's edible or not?
Why don't bulls like the colour red?
How do they make bullet-proof glass?
How much does a horse cost?
How much does your head weigh, and how can your neck hold it up? 
How do your ears work?
What makes a diamond so hard? 

Been there...

La Cumbre (above La Paz) to Coroico is officially the world's most dangerous road, in terms of fatalities. Barely wide enough for a single car, it's gravel track winds 64km down a lush green mountain and descends 3,600m vertically in altitude. It's the only left-handed road in South America, so that drivers can see if their wheels are going over the edge. Cycling down it is a big tourist attraction, despite regular fatalities and an average one traveller a week hospitalised. I just hoped it wasn't going to be me. (Don't panic Sandra, Annie and the boys stayed behind).  
Starting at 4,700m above sea level, we rode down through the clouds, led by Ben, an American downhill racer. Cycling (and occasionally skidding) around corners with deadly sheer drops only inches away, past and even through huge waterfalls, and splashing across streams it was hard to concentrate on the road as we travelled down through some of the most achingly beautiful scenery (I now know the true meaning of that phrase) I have ever seen - made all the more dramatic by the low clouds and misty rain. It's probably one of the most scary, exhilarating and fun things I've done, and luckily we all came through un-scathed, earning ourselves complimentary 'badge of honour' tops - so I can now say: 
"Worlds Most Dangerous Road? Been there, done it, got the t-shirt." 
Literally.

Carnival

It was inevitable. After four and a half months away we've had our first bouts of illness. Ned and Kim both had dodgy tums, with Kim suffering the most, but thankfully it only lasted 48 hours and we had a nice room with TV to convalesce in. 
We're in La Paz now, the highest capital in the world. It's not a pretty city as such, but it's got a busy buzzy vibe and plenty of colour and life. Houses cling on top of each other to the steep valley walls, and our hotel is in an area called 'Witch's Market' where you can buy a dried llama feotus to bury under the steps of your house for good luck.  
It's carnival time here, which means four days of parades and the biggest water fight we've ever seen. It seems the whole city is armed with huge water guns, water bombs and cans of spray foam, and everyone's a target. So it would've been rude, and foolish, not to arm ourselves and join in.

Climbing in Bolivia

How high? Ned the Fearless, yet again. And just in case you're worried, he is on a rope.

Dino

Just outside of Sucre is the largest collection of dinosaur tracks in the world. What was once the flat shore of a lake has been pushed up over time by volcanic activity until the fossilised footprints stood vertically as a wall, only to be uncovered as part of a concrete quarry. We had a great time learning about the different tracks and the dinosaurs that created them, how mountains are formed by movement in tectonic plates, and studying the life-size replicas of the dinosaurs themselves. 
The same day we also ended up in the Bolivian Museum of Independance, which sparked several conversations on colonialism and sovereignty, leadership, battle tactics, and facial hair fashion through history.  
Who says the boys are missing out on school?

Sucre

We're loving Bolivia - every stop get's better than the last. We've riden horses in cowboy country, drunk coca tea (made from the same leaves that cocaine is derived from - I had a numb mouth by the end of the cup, but it's all legal, honest), crossed the world's largest salt flat on the roof of a 4x4, been to the highest city in the world (beautiful Potosi - at 4070m above sea level, higher even than Llhasa in Tibet) where I sang kareoke in Spanish, and now we're in the white-washed colonial splendour of Sucre. The restaurants are fantastic, Annie's been pampered with a simultanious haircut and pedicure, and we've just watched Avatar in a swanky multi-screen cinema. The secret's out: Bolivia is brilliant.   
The only glitch was when leaving Potosi, and Kim had his bag stolen at the bus-station. After his initial and understandable anger, he coped really well - especially when we promised to replace it's contents for him. When listing what was missing he said "...reading book, jumper, keys to my private jet..."
Well, there's no harm in trying is there?

Pablo & Cherry

Ever since coming into Bolivia we're more acutely aware of being on the 'Gringo Trail', as we're forever bumping into travellers met in previous towns, hostels and cafe's - which is nice and creates a special kind of cameraderie, not to mention the value of swapping notes on activities and destinations.
Special mention must go to Pablo and Cherry, our travelling companions of the past week (since the salt flats), who successfully taught our boys to swear in Spanish, were great company with a shared sense of humour, and who very kindly volunteered to child-mind the boys so we could go out for a drink with another couple we'd met back in Chile (get us, the social butterflies).
Pablo will forever be remembered as the man who christened a purse a 'lady pocket' (so wrong, but so funny), and Cherry for braving a chilli so hot she had to brace herself as if in childbirth. 
The intensity of travelling makes you feel like you've known someone forever after just a day or two, but I think we've made two more good friends who we'll hopefully catch up with again further along the 'trail.

Uyuni

Again our guidebook mis-guided us into thinking that Uyuni was just a platform town to explore the nearby salt-flats from, but we really liked it. A busy street market populated by cheery round ladies in bowler hats, llama meat pizza for dinner, a train graveyard (all old English locos) and a quirky little museum housing mummified Inca bodies and deliberately deformed skulls (they used to tie boards to girls heads to shape the skull into a cone, but we're still unclear if it was for fashion or some other purpose) make it somewhere to stop in it's own right.