KazzaK
Karoline Joined: April 15th 2006
Logged in: October 23rd 2008
Logged in: October 23rd 2008
Did the nature side in Oz swimming with whale sharks, some treks in Karijini and diving on the Great Barrier. Also have partied our way from Melbourne and down the East Coast to be ready for Christmas and New Year's in Sydney.
Became very sporty in New Zealand new fave hobbies are now zorbing and skydiving, we shall see what South America brings along with the Inca Trail and Carnival!!
Travel Blog Posts
Nothing like lying back in your hammock reading your book while overlooking the night lights of the small fishing village Taganga, and then a complete electricity blackout. The four of us just rocked back and forth, helped by the strong winds and had some sporadic conversation, everything is understated in Techos Azures (where we are staying), nothing too stressful, our main worry is getting a nice hammock or space on the beach to see the sunset! I fell asleep in my hammock but as wake up was nearly falling out I decided to hit my bed instead. Taganga is beautiful and worth the 20 hour plus bus journey from Bogota, even though they claim it's only 16! The bus was fabulous, we were so well impressed. That was until the air con came on so strong ... read more
So there has been a dearth of communication.....the main reason being that Teresa fell on Death Road and had to be flown home, that was after five days of hospital in Coroico and hiding the fact that anything was wrong from the duine in Ireland. So between pretending that nothing was wrong on gmail chat, when people "jokingly" asked if we had killed her, impersonating her on gmail chat (that thing should be banned, totally invasive!), ringing the insurance dickheads and trekking back up that bleeding road to Coroico to see Teresa in hospital, there was not much time to be doing anything culturally orientated. Excepting drinking and eating in Ollie's every day. So even when Teresa, completely famous now to all backpackers, got back to Ireland it seemed rude to leave La Paz and our ... read more
You have never seen filth like it - we crawled out of those mines literally black. After cleaning ourselves, we had a lovely dinner in Potosi, after braving the hailstones to make it there! About $20 for six people.... We then got the taxi to the bus station, looking forward to our cama bus. Made it downstairs to the bus, only to be told we had to hand our bags in upstairs where they were then lowered down to the bus. Fine, grand, even after an all day mine mission, and severe altitude we ran back upstairs, put in the bags and ran back down to get on. So despite actually standing at the door of the bus, the bus starting driving off, WITH our bags, and no amount of banging on the door and shouting ... read more
On recommendation we booked our Mines Tour with Koala Tours. To be fair our disastrous journeys seem to precede fantastic tours, Efra our guide proved to be highly, highly entertaining (including replying to Irene when she had a big head, "small brain", or telling me I could be Monica Lewinsky!) and knowledgeable (which included telling us Potosi miners had no hair on their bodies so Eoin would have all the women if he went out showing his shirt hair!). This is while we are dressing ourselves up as miners, complete with hard hats and lamps! We then went to the miners market to buy gifts for the miners, bottles of soda and dynamite. On reaching the mines, I initially didn´t think I could walk in. However, we did, including crawling down shafts to the second and ... read more
It seems anything worth doing in Bolivia involves a mission and a half! Lucky enough to secure the last three seats at the back on a local (know what that means) bus out of Uyuni to Potosi, we thought we had it made. That was until a man, the size of a seat and a half sat beside Irene. Not that he seemed overjoyed to be sitting beside her, but made it a point to regularly move over on top of her during the night - bearing in mind that he took up half of her seat in the first place, this meant that Irene is practically sitting on my lap. All the while this is happening I had to be constantly be on the alert to the weapon in front of me who wanted to ... read more
Salar de Uyuni is one of the most amazing, awesome and spectacular scenes any of us have ever seen in our lives. As it is wet season, the Salt Plains are covered with water, creating the most amazing reflections and magical wonderland. Driving towards the salt hotel, Hotel Playa Blanca, across this landscape of never ending tranquility inspired speechless (in all three of us, quite a feat). We literally walked through the water, looking and talking photos the whole time. It was like being in a giant dome, due to the reflections of the mountains in the water and the sun being placed nearly directly above us there seemed to be no reflection. The mountains seemed to float, the water stretched for what seemed like infinity. You appear to be standing on the edge, or in ... read more
Not only can Bolivia lay claim to the World´s Most Dangerous Road but they also def have the world´s bumpiest road!!! Despite being warned by the Kiwi lads about the perils of the bus journey to Uyuni, we decided to get the bus....a few bumps sure we can survive that. As it turned out we could have survived the bumps, it was the bus being two and half hours late (due to flooding - should have given us our first clue), the three flat tyres and the three rivers that we had to cross....sans bridges! When we reached the first one, the driver got out....waded in, looked around, observed the area for a while and then decided to drive through anyway. There was a big cheer as we arrived bumping and shaking on the other side. ... read more
It certainly is the highest city in the world....and you know all about it every time you walk a few steps, or in our case when we had to haul ass .... and our fifty bags half way down the street to the "annex" of the hostel and then up way too many steps. We did have a nice look around La Paz though, took in some wrestling (in the girls case) or as in mine chilled out and eat and drank! Patricia and I hit Mercado Negro on Monday to try and stock up for the Inca Trail.......we were expecting a Silk Market like experience.....it couldn't have been more removed. We practically had to beg them to sell us hiking boots and were outright refused when we tried to buy a hoodie! The witches market ... read more
Altitude sickness? me??? I didn´t even consider it! But unfortunately two days in bed proved me wrong...... The girls meantime had a fabulous time, The Point is one of the best hostels, had so much fun... read more
Arriving in Lima, to be greeted with low, flat topped, colourful houses, men playing frantic football games in run down basketball courts on the side of roads, old, colourful and dilapidated cars confirmed mental images of "South America"! There is also of course the beautiful tree lined boulevards we also drove down which provide a quiet balance and elegance to Lima. Of course, it wasn't as if our flight had gone completely smoothly, not only was the flight overbooked and they tried to persuade us to take one the next day but they had completely deleted us from the flight records. Thank God it was resolved with minimum effort , as after the unmitigated disaster in Sydney and literally having to jump customs queues and run to board our plane, I don't think we would have ... read more
