http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/KenandMel/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from KenandMel en-us Fri, 16 May 2008 12:26:55 BST Fri, 16 May 2008 12:26:55 BST It was now a while ago that we were actually in Slovenia and to be honest I am battling to remember what we got up to That is shockingI loved Slovenia It is a tiny country below Austria and bordering on Croatia I am updating the South Africans reading this....who I am certain are all wonderingSo much to do there and a definite must for those who want an active holiday or even a long weeken http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Slovenia/Bled/blog-210134.html The great joy about Europe for us among many other things of course is that you are so close to everythingBudapest is only 3 hours from Vienna....and that meant we just HAD to pop in to visit Markus. Markus for those of you that wont know is an old family friend of ours that has been coming to visit South Africa and the Hooper family for the past 12 years. He is passionate about SA and there http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Austria/Vienna-State/Vienna/blog-210132.html Poland is such a huge country compared to the rest of Eastern Europe. We did not really want to visit Warsaw but had to stop there for a night after a 8 hour night bus from Lithuania. It was not bad I expected a huge dodgy concrete city with only old people and a sign saying everybody else has gone to London please switch the light off when you leave....... but I was pleasantly surprised. We had http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Poland/Lesser-Poland/Auschwitz/blog-210127.html Sorry been a bit lazy on the Travelblog you would have thought we were on holiday.We hopped on a night train to Budapest we thought it would be a good idea a cute cabin for too romantic train journey through the night not quite...We did not know that from Poland to Hungary we would pass through Slovakia which meant being woken up at 2 different border crossings to have our passports checked ob http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Hungary/Budapest/blog-208556.html I am writing this VERY late as you can see we have been lazy with our blogsPoland I must say was a great surprise....I figured with all the thousands of Polish in London particularly in theWest side that they all left for a good reason. ....One of Kens coworkers even said to him 'Why do you want to go to Poland...I spent 10 years trying to get out of thereWell we were pleasantly surp http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Poland/Lesser-Poland/Zakopane/blog-205385.html So. Lithuania...... after Riga we had finally met up with people that were going our way. Karen from Canada Ally from Australia Ken and myself had caught the bus to Vilnius. All these cities had the same sought of attributes beautiful old city centres and massive developing tourism trade. Vilnius did not let us down.The advantage to this place was the local population also shopped ate and dra http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Lithuania/Vilnius/blog-205383.html Well let us see.....Riga is very different from Tallin. Not quite as Disneyland pretty plenty of beautiful art nouveau buildings lots of them by the famous Russian Mikhail Eisenstein and its fair share of cobbled windy streets....streets you have to watch where you walk.. They are so potholed that you are highly likely to twist your ankle or just plain fall over while you have your eyes and n http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Latvia/Riga/blog-205381.html Well after Stockholm which Mel and I decided was our second best city.My first but after Mel's Sex in the City weekend in New York with her girlfriends any city would be second to New YorkWe boarded our ferry to Tallin Estonia. We obviously had to book another broom closest with no window it was the cheapest room and Mel's in charge of the cash. No luck with an upgrade this time.It was a s http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Estonia/Tallinn/blog-202317.html We needed to take a train from Copenhagenvia Malmo overnight to Stockholm. We had grand ideas of our couchette being rather luxurious it had cost us 80 for the 5 hours trip....sadly it was a 6 sleeper cabin with zero extras and in fact was exactly like to roudy ski train we took 2 years ago minus the hectic night of boozingMalmo we thought was still in Denmark and only when we bought a jui http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Sweden/Stockholm/blog-201530.html Or as Rob would say enough leavers drinks when the hell are you two going to bugger off We left England beautifully on Friday form Harwich port in Essex on board a ferry to Denmark.What a way to go we had booked a cabin actually a broom cupboardMel was trying to be thrifty and made me book the cheapest cabin onboard which did not even have a window but with a stroke of luck we were upgr http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Denmark/Copenhagen/blog-200698.html Well our bus journey from Puno to La Paz was pleasant and really scenic. Other than the nerve racking experience at the borders we had no problem.The drive took us all along Lake Titicaca which was beautiful Unfortunately we had to head straight to the British Embassy first thing on the Friday morning so stopping and spending a leisurely few days on the lake was out of the question.Isla del So http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Bolivia/La-Paz-Department/La-Paz/blog-66815.html We tried to visit the Amazon Jungle while we were in La Paz but the flights we had booked could not not land in the town we were supposed to start our tour from because of to much rain. Apparently the runway was some sort of gravel and turned to mud in the wet weather. I thought maybe stupidly that because the airstrip was in the Amazon rain forest they would have forseen this problem but hey w http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Bolivia/La-Paz-Department/Yungas-Road/blog-66809.html Thank you to all of you for writing to us via the travel blog it is really good to know you are enjoying our travel stories.Please keep them comingI will have to split this next story into two parts. First part is the trip to the floating islands.Quite an amazing idea these locals who where trying to escape from Spanish persecution decided to tie a bunch of these reeds together on the edge of http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Peru/Puno/blog-66808.html Well that hot humid air of Panama is certainly far away It is freezing hereWe caught a long 10hour bus from Arequipa and arrived to the sprawling cobbled stoned city of Cusco.Our first night we stayed in a really basic hostel 5 a night each including breaky but the room was so small and cold that we only lasted one night there The bed had three massive blankets on it the covers so heavy t http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Peru/Cusco/Cusco/blog-62986.html One of the trips from Arequipa was a guided hike in the ColcaCanyon apparently the deepest canyon in the world for 100 kms averages 3400 meters deep so obviously Mel wanted us to walk down it.The trip took us from Arequipa at 6am on a local bus to a town called Cabanaconde we crossed over the mountain tops at 4500m. We had a quick lunch at local restaurant and we were off.The walk was 4 hour http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Peru/Arequipa/Colca-Canyon/blog-62984.html We left Lima on a 4 hour bus ride down South to Ica. A few kilometres away is a oasis town Huacachina know for its huge sand dunes which you can sandboard down. The town was tiny with a few places to stay and not much to do but play in the sand. We booked on a tour that promised a thrilling adventure and they delivered.We drove out over the dunes in a 5 seater dune buggy at great speeds. We g http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Peru/Ica/Huacachina/blog-62983.html Well Lima surprised us both. We had planned to stay just two days thinking we would probably hate the place.We booked a hostel and a pick up over the internet and so after a very decent flight we had a driver with our sign Schenk Home Peru. Oh so civilisedWe met a great couple on the flight Becks and Ben and the four of us made our way to the lovely hostel Home Peru in Miraflores.To be hone http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Peru/Lima/blog-60884.html Well after being deprived for 2 months we jumped at the chance of movie watching and 1st world shopping centresI know ...sad But hey we loved our 4 days here.We arrived in that tiny 16 seater plane after a fantastically scenic 1 hour flight from Bocas to our hotel transport waiting for us. Love being organised Daniel at the hostel at Bocas had given us the name of a cheap but decent hotel tha http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Panama/Panama-City/blog-60882.html Unfortunatly we left the beach without me learning how to surf properly but I will definitly be giving it another try.We spent an uneventful night in San Jose on the way across to Carribean side of Costa Rica most of the worlds bananas are grow here and man there were millions of them.A short walk across a very rickety bridge and we were in to Panama. Bocas del Toro is a small town on a group o http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Panama/Bocas-Del-Toro/blog-58145.html Just a few Kilometers up the coast was the small town of Santa TeresaMal Pais the reason for the two names is that both towns just comprise of the beach road and they merge into each other at some point...exactly where we are not sure.Unfortunately we jumped off the bus at the start of the one town and the Funky Monkey where we were going to stay was at the end of the other town. We walked with http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Costa-Rica/Puntarenas/Mal-Pais/blog-57371.html