So we woke up horrendously hungover and realised that the night before, whilst somewhat pissed, we had booked a four day rock climbing course. This had seemed like a good idea at the time. In fact it was an awesome idea, I actually learned loads and really enjoyed it. Just not so much that first morning. Our guide taught us everything from the very basics to setting up your own systems for a multi pitch climb, lead climbing bolted routs, putting your own gear in a wall and some rescue techniques. I learned to trust knots and systems I´d set up [View Full Entry]

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So we´d decided on the Santa Cruz trek, the most popular and supposedly most beautiful. It takes four days and reaches an altitude of 4800m, which is considerably higher than I´d ever been. In Huaraz, at 3000m, walking upstairs rapidly felt like quite the physical challange, so I was curious to find out what if anything this kind of altitude would do to me. On day one we got off to a bad start by setting our alarm for 6pm not 6am. Schoolboy error. I had one of those moments when you instantly wakeup bolt upright in bed because your inner [View Full Entry]

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Our next stop was Trujillo, just a break in the journey to Huaraz and the mountains. We were lucky to get the last seats on the last bus, having failed to notice that it was Peruvian independance day, major national holiday, and the whole country was on the move. I don´t actually remember this journey, so I must have been tired. Anyway it was a night bus and we managed to sleep a little and not get robbed so I consider it a success. We booked our ticket to Huaraz for the next day and set about trying to find something [View Full Entry]

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So we got up at bastard oclock in the morning and were driven, along with a Canadian couple, to a picturesque river valley where another group of trekkers had been camping out the night before. The idea was for us to join them the rest of the way. A couple of times we had to get out and walk so the car could make it through a particularly nasty looking stretch of mud, but by now we had become accustomed to this. I slightly flipped my shit when I realised that the other group contained two 12 year old kids who [View Full Entry]

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After Vilcabamba we wanted to head to Chachapoyas in Peru, because we´d heard that the surrounding area had some impressively jungly ruins to explore. The main border crossing is notoriously grim and dangerous, associated with much hassling and theivary and the like. Because of this, because it´s the fastest way to get to Chacha, and because I am difficult, we decided to go to this really remote border town and do the crossing there. The other, smaller crossings have only been open a few years because aparently there has been a long running border dispute between Ecuador and Peru, including a [View Full Entry]

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So I said the hostel in Vilcabamba was a poor choice. Allow me to explain. It was a fairly standard 5 USD each for a double room with shared bathroom. Aside from the fact that someone appeared to have written the word ´LIE´ in their own blood on one of the bed sheets, it was ok. Then, just as we were getting to sleep, the screaming started. Peering cautiously out of the window, we realised that someone outside was slaughtering pigs, then cooking them with a flame thrower. At 2am on a Sunday. I know this sounds unlikely, but it is [View Full Entry]

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Cuenca is a lovely, well preserved colonial city in the south of Ecuador. We only stopped off there for a day on our way to the Peruvian border. After our night of no sleep and silent resentment, we went out to explore the city. I proved definitively that I am turning into my parents by spending the morning looking round a market, commenting on the size of the fish and how interesting the potatoes are here. The rest of the day I wandered the city snapping pictures of the pretty colonial arcitecture and suffering severe hat anxiety. I was supposed to [View Full Entry]

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I´m about two weeks behind on this whole blog thing because I just haven´t had chance to get near a computer. Today I have a little free time since litterally ALL my clothes are at the laundry and I can´t leave the hostel wearing only a pair of tights and a llama pattern jumper, so I will use this opportunity to catch up. So based on notes I´ve been making on the back of leaflets during horrendously long bus journeys, here is is installment number one - leaving Canoa Our favourite electro hut burned down the night before we left. There [View Full Entry]

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While we were out stuffing our faces with seafood the other night, we came across a big group of American doctors eating in the same restaurant. From eaves dropping on their conversation, we established that they were a Christan medical mission. Kit wanted to go and make friends. I was very much against this, due to my irrational phobia of evangelical chrstians. Yes, this is a little mean. But in my defense, I have never once been hassled by a Buddist, Hindu, Jewish or Muslim person, it´s just the christians that really seem to have it in for me. And they [View Full Entry]

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Our hostel / spanish school is at least 30 minutes walk outside of Canoa. Not 15 minutes, as stated on the website. This is a LIE. To try and get around the problem we have rented rusty old bikes, to which we have afixed torches using part of my bikini top in an attempt at road safety. Mine will not change gear and is stuck in an extremely low one meaning I have to peddle like fred flintstone to get anywhere. The road is pretty quiet, at least 50% pothole and lit iratically in places by streetlights which go on and [View Full Entry]

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