Jono Dahna
Dahna McConnachie and Jonathan Edwards Joined: February 7th 2007
Logged in: December 29th 2011
Logged in: December 29th 2011
Travel Blog Posts
Jane and Evangaline
Leaving no grass to grow under our itchy feet, (which were probably itchy more from foot fungus caused by poor on-the-road hygiene, than from any metaphysical relationship to the travel urge) Jono and I made our way to Smith Rock. On the way, we visited the very good and very pregnant friend of mine, Jane, who we had only managed to catch up with once in the whole time we were in this part of the hemisphere. I am slack. I confess. But slack things can tend to have more give and be less likely to break than tight things… where that point is leading and what, if anything, it is justifying I do not know. I have already mentioned this earlier I think, but I just could not get my head around how much my ... read more
Sun set off Vancouver Island
Before we took off to Smith Rock, Jono and I had a date with Cass. She took us to Vancouver Island and showed us around where she grew up in Campbell River, a logging town on the Island. We met her Dad, her mum (who are seperated), her sister and some of her cousins. One of her cousins has been adopted by the first nations people and lives on a reserve. His friend and flatmate is an incredibly talented carver, and artist and we got to look at a lot of his work. Breathtaking. He makes the big traditional masks that they use in ceremonies, and he is also commisioned by the council to do a lot of public art. The reserve was also the first one we had seen that was pretty and well maintained, ... read more
Jono and I before the rain set in
Faced with a week of forecasted bad weather in Squamish, and enough experience from a year of living in the area to believe the forecast, we joined up with the rest of our friends from home and hatched plans to go to Skaha for a few days, chasing the sun. The trip started with a night out in Vancouver drinking, dancing to bad music, and then crashing at Tim's place - all 7 of us crashed out on Tims apartment floor made for very cosy accommodation. We put Damo out on the deck due to his tendency for snoring, loudly. The sun chasing plan worked. We had a good three days of sunshine and climbing. After this we all split up. Ev went home back to keep his business running. Damo went abroad for more adventures ... read more
Tim on manana
I have left a few South American entries out in the desire to write in the present tense again. At first I was thinking I would put entries up on the last couple of weeks in south America, but I really do not think they warrant that much attention. Soon after Kate and Ruley left us, Jono and I came down with the worst flu come chest infection either of us had had in years. We cancelled the hike we had been planning with Laurence and Phillipe, headed North to Arequipa and planned to meet Laurence and Phillipe again there to do a hike in the Culca canyon (climbing Mount Mismi to see the source of the amazon river). This plan, too had to be aborted. So, the last few weeks featured us shifting hotels in ... read more
Chinchero markets
On our way back to Cusco we stopped at Chinchero. The town was included on our sacred valley tour but we did not get to go to it because we got off at Ollantaytambo to catch our train to Machu Pichu. We walked through a locals market, which was really interesting. Kate got hassled AGAIN by little kids wanting to sell tacky fake lama beanies with lama patterns on them. She was always attracting people to hassle her for some reason. At one point in Cusco some little kid ended up telling her she was a stupid bitch, when she walked away from his finger puppets. I was really shocked. No one had said anything even close to that abusive to me before. We walked around the Inca ruins outside of town, but they paled in ... read more
morning grazing, Machu Pichu
Machu Pichu was mindblowing. It is always a strange experience to see the real version of something you have seen plenty of pictures of. A lost and recently discovered City surrounded by beautiful mountains and cloud forest. We stayed in the nearby town, Aguas Calientes (hot waters) so that we could catch the early bus up at 5:30am and watch the sun rise and dance over the mountains. Aguas Calientes is named after the natural hot springs in the area, which I was initially excited about, but they are more like overcrowded hot tubs than natural springs, and did not really have much appeal. Lonely Planet had already warned us about how touristy Aguas Calientes is, so we were prepared and it really wasn't as horrible as the Lonely Planet made it out to be. How ... read more
spiky horizons
On the way to Machu Pichu we decided to pay for a bus tour of the sacred valley and finish at Ollantaytambo, where we needed to catch the train to Machu Pichu from. I felt a little like a sheep in a herd being prodded along, and the challenge of making any sense of the words being fired at me like rapid machine gun fire made my head hurt by the end of the day, but the valley is definitely amazing. It is a fertile valley in the middle of altiplano desert where civilisations way before the Incas grew potatoes, corn, beans and farmed animals. It became an important area to the Incas as well, both agriculturally and spiritually, with terraces, fortresses, temples and ruins pretty much lining the whole valley. We visited two of the ... read more
big church
After a somewhat torturous 18 hour bus ride from La Paz, we arrived in Cusco, Peru after midnight, tired and grumpy. We were even grumpier when the taxi driver ripped us off, charging 20 soles instead of the 5 soles it should have cost, but your options are limited after midnight when you are tired in a strange City. The bus ride was meant to be a direct bus, but ended up being three buses from different companies that regressed in quality each time. Obviously the first company just bought the cheapest crappiest tickets it could for the connecting buses it wasn't bothering to run. I do not know what the Bolivian concept of direct is, but it does not align with my own understanding. None of the buses had toilets, and when I asked the ... read more
The start of the trek
One night back at ¨home¨at Arthys in La Paz. I realised at one point that even the name is familiar and comforting, as Dad´s name is Arthur, and is called Arthy by some people.) A good vego feed at the local Govindas restaurant and then it was off with Laurence and Phillipe for the Choro Trek the next morning. It cost us a few dollars each to catch a taxi out to the trail head, about half an hour out of La Paz, up in the mountains. The 3 day trek is one of the best I have done in South America. It links the dramatic Andes ranges with the cloud forest and subtropical Yungas below, following an Inca trail and going through several small villages whose only access road is the walking trail itself. I ... read more
