http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/Jono---Dahna/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from Jono Dahna en-us Thu, 26 Nov 2009 07:09:35 +0000 Thu, 26 Nov 2009 07:09:35 +0000 Leaving no grass to grow under our itchy feet which were probably itchy more from foot fungus caused by poor ontheroad 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 http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/Oregon/blog-325360.html 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 tal http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/Washington/blog-322819.html 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 Tim http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/Canada/British-Columbia/Squamish/blog-322824.html 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 http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/Canada/British-Columbia/Squamish/blog-314708.html 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 peo http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Peru/Cusco/Cusco/Cusco/blog-311054.html I want a pet lama http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Peru/Cusco/Machu-Picchu/blog-311029.html 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 530am and watch the sun rise and dance over the mountains. Aguas Calien http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Peru/Cusco/Machu-Picchu/blog-310965.html 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. http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Peru/Cusco/Sacred-Valley/blog-310943.html 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 di http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Peru/Cusco/Cusco/Cusco/blog-304717.html One night back at homeat Arthys in La Paz. I realised at one point that even the name is familiar and comforting as Dads 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 http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Bolivia/La-Paz-Department/blog-304391.html Our next sojourn out of La Paz was to head for Lake Titicaca and Isla Del Sol Island of the sun the birthplace of the Sun according to the Incas. We were trying to decide whether to go to Lake Titicaca from Peru or Bolivia. After talking with people and reading up a bit about it all we decided on going from Copacabana in Bolivia. Apparently there is a lot of tension between the locals and the http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Bolivia/Cochabamba-Department/Cochabamba/blog-303315.html From the Amazon jungle it was back to La Paz which was feeling less crazy and more like home by now. We have both decided we love the City and if anyone reading this is planning to go to La Paz I have to give our hostel a big plug. It is called Arthys Guesthouse and is run by a local family as opposed to a lot of hostels in Bolivia which are foreign owned. The whole family is really friendly http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Bolivia/La-Paz-Department/La-Paz/blog-300558.html Go on Dahna the more you fear the worse it will be came the voice of our guide as he read the mixed feelings showing across my face. I do not really know what grounding that theory has. It was a new found fairybook style dream of mine to swim with pink river dolphins. However the murky brown opaque water that hid alligators and piranhas were NOT part of my fairybook style dream. Just twent http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Bolivia/Beni-Department/blog-300515.html Volunteering was a great experience on many levels... but I still did not get to see any pink river dolphins and I could not let go of the idea. I never even knew that they existed until I was reading up on the Amazon last year and then I got really excited. So we spent a couple of nights in Rurrenabaque to organise a pampas trip. When we were not shopping around for a responsible tour company t http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Bolivia/Beni-Department/blog-300492.html We spent most of our time in La Paz trying to find a responsible tour operator to go to the Bolivian Amazon basin with. La Paz is full of travel agencies and tour companies and the more we read the more disillusioned we became. Visiting the Amazon rainforest has been a childhood dream for me. I see it as a totally sacred place home to the greatest biodiversity of flora and fauna in the world a http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Bolivia/Beni-Department/Madidi/blog-294502.html Cobblestone streets zig zag up either side of a steep canyon full of mini buses vans and taxis that collectively define anarchy better than any dictionary. There are absolutely NO rules. No need for indicators. Traffic lights occasionally exist more occaisonally work and even more occaisionally yet they are followed. Crossings are not crossings. Lanes are not lanes. Walkways are so narrow in ma http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Bolivia/La-Paz-Department/La-Paz/blog-288496.html Here are some more pics from Parinacota. http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Chile/Arica-and-Parinacota/Lauca-National-Park/blog-288248.html The most popular gringo route from Chile or Argentina to Bolivia is to go through the Atacama desert stay at San Pedro and then do a jeep tour of the salt flats. We wanted to do it a bit differently so we decided to fly to Arica on the coast of Northern Chile then head up to Bolivia stopping at Putre and then Parioncota. It turned out to be such a worthwhile and interesting trip all the more s http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Chile/Arica-and-Parinacota/blog-287036.html We caught a bus from Cordoba to Santiago and then headed to Vina del mar where our friends Bergoa and Cristobal live. Actually they live on the beach right between Vina del Mar and Valparaiso. These were the guys that we met in the Ancud hostel on chiloe and they invited us to stay at their place when we came back through Santiago. I love that there are people in the world as friendly open in http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Chile/Valparaiso-Region/Valparaiso/blog-283820.html The highlight of our Cordoba stay was a day trip out to Condorito National Park. Just under two hours out of Coroba by bus this park was an un planned trip just to escape the city for a day and it was amazing We were almost 3000 meters above sea level so it was icy cold but luckily we had sun to take the edge of that a little. It was such an amazing landscape and as it is not one of the heav http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Argentina/Cordoba/blog-283812.html