babyape
Eddie Jordan Joined: January 15th 2009
Logged in: September 9th 2011
Logged in: September 9th 2011
Travel Blog Posts
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Sorry for the delay on this blog, but due to camera cables being swiped i've been unable to get to my pics!! So, the end of the trip, and i decided early on, as my flight was passing through Madrid, to stop there for a few days, as its a great place. I landed early afternoon after a duff flight in which the baggage handlers helped themselves to items in my bag, and found the hotel my parents had booked, quick tram ride away. Nice hotel, very 70's, but nice. I dumped my bags, had a shower and headed for the Bernabau Stadium, may as well carry on my world stadium tour. Really impressive place. I also had a poncey designers guide to madrid, so spent a bit of time looking at architecture, but soon got ... read more
Aaaaaaahhhhhh
The VIP section of the bus to Mancora was sold out, so we had to make do with 2nd class, which is still luxurious. We arrived in Mancora in the morning, and after haggling with a tuk tuk driver we settled on staying at Kon Tiki Bungalows, a little bit of luxury to end my trip. They are set slightly above the town, and he soon realised his tuk tuk couldn't make the journey, so we had to walk. It was worth the walk tho, great views of the town and the ocean, a stunning restaurant bar, and 3 little bungalows. 1 was free, and altho a little pricier than the hostels in town, well worth it. We said we wanted to stay for 5 nights and could we get a discount if we paid upfront. ... read more
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Early bus to Lima, and it was just a pitstop really. Claire was flying home, and we were heading way north the day after. I'd heard really bad things about Lima, so didn't expect much. What we saw of it, it ws beautiful. Yeah it ws a big city, but full of stunning squares and great old buildings. Granted, you are offered drugs literally every 30 seconds, but after a few minutes its just funny as you know every single person who approaches is trying to sell, so you have a bit of fun at their expense to pass the time. We found a great Hostel on the main plaza and got some amazing cheap food. Cerviche (raw fish in lime) has fast become one of my favourite foods of all time. I've now had it ... read more
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Trek over, 4 days of sobriety over, it was a 16 hour VIP bus to Ica. The journey was great, big leather seat in the posh section, only a handful of seats on the whole of the downstairs section. Had a nice meal and a few films and i arrived in Ica, where i caught a taxi to Huacachina, a little Oasis in the middle of the desert. Matt & Claire were already there as their little trek finished earlier than mine, so i met them at the hotel they had picked. Little cracker in the sand dunes with a pool. Strange little town in the middle of the sdesert built around an Oasis. We booked onto a sandboarding & dune buggy trip for 4pm and spent the day around the pool where we all burnt ... read more
Early morning Rum
We arrived in Cusco really early, around 6am, and found a stunning room overlooking the main Plaza. We managed to haggle price down and went out for some breakfast. After a few laps of town we headed for a bar called Nortons Rat. Nice place, and has 3 dart boards, that was me sorted for a while. We ordered a beer and played some darts. We then sat on the balcony and ordered a jug of Cuba Libre. To us it felt late as we'd been on the night bus, but an inspection of the watch said it was only 10.30am, little early for the hard liquor, but it was ordered. We sat out on the balcony and watched the square only to hear 2 loud Texan voices shout our name.....yep, the Dragoman Tour had caught ... read more
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So, it was finally here, my trek to Maccu Pichu. I wasn't on the Classic Inca Trail as i'd heard this was getting a bit commercialised and there were much better available (or i'd been drinking too much in South America and forgot to reserve a place. Only 500 people a day can go on this, and that includes 300 porters and staff). Anyway, it worked out better, i booked a longer trek called Salkantay, which is becoming the one to go on. It was just voted best alternative trek on the planet by National Geographic....not bad! However, i really should have researched it a little more, i didn't realise it was the hardest trek to do..... and it was seriously hard! We met at 4am, and drove an hour or so out of town for ... read more
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An early bus, booked all on our own now we were off the tour took us to Copacabana on the shore of Lake Titicaca. Stunning little place and we managed to get a brilliant room overlooking the lake. The sun was shining, and there ain't much to do around there, so we basked in the glorious weather and sampled the local food & drink. Got a bit drunk and forgot to put suncream on, burnt face. They love the set menu here, so for £1 you got a 3 course meal & a drink, albeit a soft drink, but bung in a few extra pence and a beer arrives. We spent the day going from place to place enjoying a few drinks, then we took some beer up to the rooftop terrace overlooking the lake, and ... read more
Posh Tuk Tuks
Another successful border crossing and i made it to Peru. A little town on the other side of Lake Titicaca called Puno, nowhere near as nice as Copacabana, but a good place to start Peru. After checking in we found a local pool hall and had a few games, same stupid tables so we didn't bother for long. Had a good walk around the City and noticed a really cool looking Football Stadium. It looked really old and looked to be made out of stone, had a real coliseam feeling to it. Again, we were able to stroll in, no questions asked. It was a great pitch, 4th Generation Astro, i was dying to find a ball for a kick about, but no joy. In the afternoon we ate at the most recommended place in Puno, ... read more
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So, after the floating islands we caught a bus to Arequipa, Peru's second largest city. We sadly caught a local bus, it was awful, Peruvians are crazy. Everytime the bus stopped, loads of locals would run on trying to sell you allsorts from clothes to food, stinking food, and the passengers would go mental and start stamping their feet and banging the windows. The bus actually broke down in the middle of nowhere and it seemed for a minute there was gonna be a mass riot. I was still feeling ropey from the food poisoning and just wanted to get there. Eventually we did at about 9pm, and checked into a hostel. It looked nice enough, but it turned out to be one of these Party Hostels. Now, as you know, i like a drink, and ... read more
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The 3 of us set off for Chivay on our tour of Colca Canyon. We stopped at various tacky places on the way where the locals sell you tat and give you Coca Tea to help with altitude, not sure about that, it tastes awful tho...... Saw a lot of variety of Llama on the way, and finally made it to Chivay by 1pm. We checked into our hotel, and headed straight for the Thermal Springs. Loads of indoor & outdoor pools, really hot too. Spent a good few hours in them enjoying some large chilled beers. Didn't want to get out as it was freezing, but we had to be back for a meal and cultural show, which we knew would be a bit rubbish. Food was ok, the band were really good, but the ... read more
