Heading to the island And so, early one morning we all descended out of the hotel to the coach that was to take us part way across the country to a port where we could board our boat for Koh Samet. After saying fairwell to those of our group leaving us to head to Koh Tao for diving, we piled onto the bus and headed off. Frankly it was a nightmare of a journey as I had woken up feeling not well and the supposedly air-conditioned bus was not very air-conditioned at all. When asked if we could turn the air-con [View Full Entry]

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The Resort We left Brown House thus, never to return again and headed off to a resort in the middle of nowhere to relax for one night before the group was split up to go its seperate ways. We arrive at this beautiful golf resort (though about 10x smaller than western golf resorts), checked into beautiful air-conditioned rooms with televisions and big beds and got ourselves all prepared to enjoy some afternoon activities! Charlee and I decided to head straight down to the pool however, we got slightly distracted by the mini spa so we decided to have an hour-long thai [View Full Entry]

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Arriving at Brown House After our two hour drive from Bangkok, we eventually arrived at Brown House, our home for the next two weeks! We had already been split into our rooms, so in we moved and to my sheer joy I found out that although the rooms can hold 6 people, two people had not turned up for the program so we had two spare beds! Naturally one of those has become my storage space! It was then dinner time and time for me to discover that Brown House is a vegetarian house so I would be suffering a severe [View Full Entry]

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Flying once more So, yet again I headed to the airport and was off on another long-haul flight after a tearful goodbye with the parentals. Luckily I chekced in online so didn't have to wander the airport for too long. The flight was also pretty empty so, once boarding was complete, I moved to an empty row of four, much to the annoyance of four guys behind me. Thus, once we were up in the air, one of them proceeded to take one of my four chairs! I still had three though to sprawl across; I wasn't going to give another [View Full Entry]

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The last border crossing Another early morning and a hard pack up due to it being so hot and everything including the tents being covered in sand! But we were eventually away and off on a two hour drive towards the border in Ecuador. The border crossing was actually quite an interesting one. We did the whole entering the Peruvian immigration side to hand in our visa slips (only Charlotte had lost hers this time and luckily the fine was not as hefty as the Brazilian one!). We then hopped back onto Swampy and drove along onto the Ecuadorian side. Now, [View Full Entry]

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Up we go again: to Huaraz So onwards we drove from Lima and it was again another trip up to altitude to visit the city of Huaraz. The journey was pretty long and very bendy and unfortuantly it was raining and overcast so we didn´t get to appreciate much of the views either. We eventually arrive in Huaraz however to another cute little hotel where we got divided into our rooms and I was with two other girls but in a bedroom with five beds so we weren´t complaining! The hotel also had a tv room with lots of dvds which [View Full Entry]

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Happy Birthday to me My birthday "day" actually started at 4am in Cusco when mum proceeded to call me to wish me Happy Birthday, forgetting that there was a five hour time difference! Never mind, I had to get up early anways as we had a 10 hour journey to Arequipa ahead of us. So after a quick bacon baguette brekkie to take-away, we left the hotel and headed back to Swampy, who´d had a paint job and a really bad one at that. So on we hopped and off we went to Arequipa. The journey on the bus was unbelievably [View Full Entry]

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Cusco and the Inca Ruins Arriving in Cusco, we all knew what was ahead of us: the famous four day trek along the Inca Trail to one of the wonders of the world and the infamous ruins of Macchu Picchu. We firstly had our meeting with our trail guide, Julio who gave us our duffle bags which we were allowed to fill with 5kg of stuff that the porters would carry for us, as well as our food, tents etc. Once I'd fitted in my sleeping bag and a huge gigantic fleece, there was little room for much else! We also [View Full Entry]

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Entering Peru With our time in Bolivia having come to an end, it was another early start to head towards the Peruvian border. The drive was absolutely beautiful as the border between the two countries is surrounded by Lake Titicaca, the highest navigable lake in the world and also the largest lake is South America. Thus the drive to the border was along its coast line which made for gorgeous views. The border crossing was an easy affair, probably because we were so used to it by now. A quick stamp, walk across a bridge, fill out a visa form and [View Full Entry]

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Higher and higher we go So we promtly exited Argentina and entered the land of bad roads and altitude sickness: Bolivia. Now this is not necessarily a bad thing, if fact Bolivia has become one of my favourite countries. But seriously, the roads need some major work done to them, especially when your driving along them for 8 hours. And when rising from 1187 meters in Salta to the highest city in the world, Potosi at 4,824 meters then it is not a wonder that you suffer. Unfortuantly due to this, I do not remember much of the border crossing due [View Full Entry]

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