Nath Ash

We got to Cusco thinking we had the Inca Trek booked on the 17th March, therefore thought we’d have a nice long 5 days beforehand to chill and be in the same place for a while for a change! A few days in, when we actually read our documentation, turns out we weren’t actually booked in til the 19th so we had even more time to chill! So we spent a lovely week in Cusco and by the end it kind of felt like home! It didn’t start off so well though, our first night and day being spent with Nath hunched over the toilet bowl every 10 minutes…a cruel case of food poisoning, apparently from a dodgy ham sandwhich he’d (crazily) accepted on the bus here. Ashleigh on the other hand had resisted and ... read more

From La Paz, we decided to head to Lake Titicaca which straddles Bolivia & Peru; it’s claim to fame is it’s the highest navigable lake in the world (at 4200metres) but it’s also got huge historical significance because of the Inca ruins still remaining. There are quite a few hilly islands on the lake, dotted with gorgeous traditional villages. We chose Isla del Sol (Sun Island) on the Bolivian side, apparently the birthplace of the Incas. It has only about 1000 people all of Aymara descent. They are quite secluded from the mainland, speaking their own dialect, rarely leaving the island, all living by subsistence methods…growing or fishing everything they need We were getting a bit lazy and also didn’t have much time, so decided to sign up to a 2 day tour to get ... read more

At 3600 metres, La Paz is the highest city in the world. The city is kind of a bowl shape; located in a valley and surrunded by mountains. As the city has spread it has just climbed up the sides of the mountains. There are thousands of tiny houses clinging to the side of the mountain in what you would think would normally be deemed an impossible - or unwise - engineering feat. The mountains are so steep and seem to rise up so high - no matter where you are in the city there is always a mountain jutting out in front of you. The city is a maze of narrow - and steep - cobblestone streets which are great for exploring, but a killer at the same time! So much of traditional indigenous ... read more

After returning to Santiago from Patagonia, we hit the bus (again) and headed north up the Chilean coast. A 7 hour bus ride got us to La Serena, a pretty beachside town in the region famous for growing pisco grapes for Chile´s famous and delicious pisco sours (pisco, egg white & sugar) - Ashleigh´s new favourite drink. That night in La Serena, we went to a local Chilean restaurant and had some more regional specialties including avocado stuffed with chicken and all kinds of things - avocados are absolutely everywhere here and they are bloody delicious! Plus you can get a whole kilo for less than the cost of 1 avo in Australia. Every restaurant seems to have a TV and there was a major soccer game between a Chilean and Argentinian team that night so ... read more

Located at the southern tip of South America (straddling Chile and Argentina), Patagonia is the southern-most land in the world, only a hop, skip & jump across to Antartica. And boy did it feel like the end of the earth getting there - a 5 hour plan ride south from Santiago to Punta Arenas, followed by a 3 hour bus ride that night to Puerto Natales - and we were still not even there! Ashleigh scored herself an admirer on the bus - the mute bus conductor who found any way possible to touch her skin and hair - creepy!! Even though he was mute, he insisted on coming up to our seats to ¨talk¨to us and keep trying to touch Ashleigh. Luckily I fell asleep which was the only way to get rid of him ... read more