http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/CrystalinPisco/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from CrystalinPisco en-us Sat, 26 Jul 2008 09:33:12 BST Sat, 26 Jul 2008 09:33:12 BST Potos is a small town south of La Paz its architecture reflecting a very special longheld colonial interest. It is the town sitting around the base of the Cerro Rico the Rich Mountain a red hill revered in sacred art from the 17th century onwards the Virgin being portrayed sitting on it as she would on a throne. One day a long time ago a llama farmer lost one of his flock in the wilds o http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Bolivia/Potosi-Department/Potosi/blog-250340.html The Oruro madness winding up I headed back to La Paz for some rest and recuperation only to discover on arrival that in fact Carnaval happens all over Bolivia that week and the capital city is no exception. After an age wandering around the bus terminals taxis bedecked with multicoloured streamers flowers and drunk taxi drivers hanging out of their car doors singing tunelessly to Peruvian pa http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Bolivia/La-Paz-Department/Yungas-Road/blog-249033.html Hello. Where are you from England. Do you like Peru Yes it's very nice. What do you think of the foreign policy of your government Um I haven't lived there for a while I don't know much about it.Meanwhile some other bloke on the other side of me was trying to pickpocket the contents of my jeans pockets namely a torn photocopied map of Lima and a flyer for some di http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Bolivia/Oruro-Department/Oruro/blog-244272.html So much to the dismay of my brother I made it to Colombia. His warnings of the Cali and Medellin drug cartels Pablo Escobar stories the fact it produces 80 of the worlds cocaine and has regular tales of kidnappings and murders was enough to put some doubts in my mind. But the experiences of everyone else I have met on the road proclaims it to be one of the world's best kept secrets. Lets http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Colombia/blog-239400.html At the end of our little cruise we touched down in Santa Rosa which is the Peruvian side of the river. From where we stood we could see Leticia the Colombian border town and Tabatinga the Brazilian town on this threeway border. After a few emigration formalities mainly involving me paying a small fine for overstaying my Peruvian visa we hopped from dirty nappy to dirty nappy to get into a http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Colombia/Leticia/Rio-Yavari--Amazon/blog-239373.html We arrived in Iquitos in the Peruvian Amazon Basin late the next evening and whizzed around the centre in a little mototaxi with open sides as the full force of a tropical storm unleashed itself around us. The plan was to get a boat up the Amazon from Iquitos to Leticia in Colombia and cross the border off the beaten track spending a memorable New Year on a boat with hundreds of Peruvians a http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Peru/Loreto/Iquitos/Amazon-Rainforest/blog-234748.html Following the rather eventful last few days in Pisco it was certainly a relief to be out of the place. On that bus about 6 hours later than we planned to leave due to an urgent appointment with an ultrasound machine and the nice Cuban doctors I watched the sun set over the desert for the final time as the bus sped through the ruins of Ica province. Still in ruins still so much to be done but http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Colombia/Bogota/blog-234623.html Ok this one you'll never believe. So Paul one of the four Hardcore Ica Classroom Builders who I am travelling round Colombia with and I were planning to leave on Saturday morning early to meet Kristina at Lima airport before flying out to Iquitos to meet John on the start of New Year Odyssey down the Amazon to Colombia. Everyone in in Pisco was having a quiet one which suited me just fine http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Peru/Ica/Pisco/blog-232284.html Indeed Ica is now well and truly finished. It's done. 86 or so woven cane classrooms constructed touched up demolished not the ones we built...obviously and rebuilt in the capital of the region. The place the Governor lives. The place that received 10 million soles out of 20 million for reconstruction when Pisco received 5 million and Chincha 3 million. And do you know why it was such a fun http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Peru/Ica/Pisco/blog-230617.html Some interesting observations about Peru. They all think the world thinks they are lazy and all thieves.They dislike and distrust other Peruvians to the extent that they will not allow them into their houses. It must be a lonely life for the Peruvian to categorically refuse any Peruvian friends.Panpipe techno is a musthear. It shall be introduced to the UK music scene very shortly I promise.. http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Peru/Ica/Pisco/blog-219342.html This piece should have been entitled I want my mummy since I was feeling rather sorry for myself a week ago but having forgotten remembered forgotten and remembered my login details for this blog a fair amount has happened since then and I am no longer pining for what I call manja in Malaysia and what you folks back in Blighty call TLC. Its all about avocados. Other titles included I http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Peru/Ica/Pisco/blog-213234.html So Week One is finished. So Ive only worked Thursday to Saturday but my back certainly feels like its experienced a lifetime of hard graft on a Siberian work camp. I arrived on Thursday having been warned by a knifewielding man in the hostel in Lima that I would be raped and murdered and hidden in a ruin in banditcountry Pisco that was before he tried to get me to be his Partner on an arc http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Peru/Ica/Pisco/blog-209163.html