Jul 2007

I´ve been up to a lot recently, hence the long wait between entries, both due to the increased demand on my time and to having a lot more stuff to write about, making the prospect of doing so even more daunting. However, I have summoned up the inspiration and have managed to free up some spare time to devote to my beloved readers, if they haven´t given up on checking already. One of the things that has happened is I have had my camera, iPod and PSP stolen out of my locked bag, from between my feet on a bus from Nazca to Ica, so to see the photo´s that go with this section of the blog you will have to check out hutchi´s flicker,

http://www.flickr.com/photos/8075577@N02/sets/72157600767324997/

monkey´s blog

http://randomphotomonkey.blogspot.com/

and this site which has photos of us riding down the worlds most dangerous road, the password is "photos"

http://www.shutterfly.com/progal/sign_in.jsp?aid=768a5498cf40ad58caed

and for some photos of Lima taken with my new camera, check out my flickr at

http://www.flickr.com/photos/12875483@N00/

Anyway, after Cusco, Hutch, James and I headed to Copocaban to check out lake titikaka. From Copocabana most people take tours on the Island of the Sun, which they reached by ferry. However, we figured we didn´t need any fancy, motor powered ferry to get to the Island of the Sun, so we hired a wonderful little sail boat for the very economical rate of 30 bolivianos (about AU$5) per hour. We later named the vessel crapsack, soon after we had given up on ever reaching the island. When we left port, the wind was heading more or less straight back into port, making it very dificult for us to leave, to the great ammusement of those watching from the shore. However, after a while the wind started to turn around and we started to make a bit of ground. We ended up making it around a point, which we had taken as our new goal after conceding that the island of the sun was out of reach, so we decided to turn around and head back in, only to find that the wind was then blowing into our faces again coming from the direction of Copacabana, our intended resting place for the night. With my sailing savy, I reasured the guys that we should be able to zig zag back in without any problem. However, poor old crapsack was not the best boat at pointing upwind, not actually having a centerboard, and we were finding it dificult to make ground. In fact we were getting blown back around the point we were so proud to reach. We decided to row back around the point, then hopefully the wind would somehow be different and we could sail back in. Rowing proved to be more dificult than expected, until we moved the oars from the front to the middle of the boat and took the sails down. It was good to finally put all those rowing trainings to good use. All the five ergos I did were not done in vain. Pretty soon we were back around the point, and with the sight of Copacaban so far away we decided to try the sails again. We broke the paddle off the end of one of the oars while moving them back to the front of the boat, so we had no other choice but to sail in, or so we thought. As soon as we put the sails back up we were getting blown backwards and the waves were washing us into the rocky shore, so we "decided" to beach the boat just as it crashed sideways into one of the bigger river rocks, as if we had any other choice. So we took the sails down, pulled the rudder in, jumped out and started trying to pull the boat up onto shore. Luckily for us, a much more sea savy kid came along and started to help us out, first advising us to stop trying to pull the boat sideways over big rocks and push it around them instead, and showing us a good trick using the broken oar handle to slide the boat on up the beach. After we got it far enough out of water he asked for money then left and we started our long walk back into town. I was worried and thought we would be thrown in gaol for destruction of private property or something, but as we were about to get into town, the guy who had sent us on our journey came out to meet us on his push bike. He asked us where the boat was, we pointed and tried to explain, then he said we owed him 70 bolivianos for the extra time we had the boat. We paid and asked how he was going to get it back. He was going to ride out and row it back in. We explained that an oar was broken so he turned his bike around and started to ride back to his storage shead. I could not believe our luck and felt bad that this guy was going to row back by himself in the dark. He didn´t even charge us extra for the time it would take for him to do it. We figured that 70 bs would be going straight to his pocket, which is a fair bit for locals, but we still felt bad but helpless and lucky at the same time. Anyway, it´s a funny story. That´s all for now folks. Signing out, Marc/Plummers.

It´s been a while, but here is all the places I have been since Potosi.

So, after Potosi I went to Sucre, which is a pretty nice city. Went out to Joyride, a total gringo hang out, a couple of times. Had a shot drinking competition with the table of travellers next to ours and won a nacho eating competition by because a friend emptied my bowel of crumbs while no one was looking. I also went looking for 7 waterfalls with 2 guys called Anders and Nick and an english guy called Dan. We didn´t find it the first day we looked for it, partly due to my misinterpretation of spanish directions. So we just followed the river for a while, suppoing we would find the waterfalls, without drinking water, because why would you take srinking water to waterfalls. But it was the dry season so the river was low and full of algae, so we didn´t risk it and went thirsty, walking up a massive ridge, which was meant to be some kind of shortcut and to get better view of the area, and eventually giving up our search for the waterfalls and heading toward the closest settlement, where we were ill recieved by the local street dogs, given strange looks by locals, who probably weren´t expecting to see 3 blond foreigners and one 6´3¨ guy in boardies with towels, and unable to buy any water. So we settled for a few mandarines and caught the next mini bus back into town. The next day, with better instruction in english, we managed to find the waterfalls, which are on a seperate stream that joins the one we walked along, and had an awesome time rock climbing our way to the last (7th) waterfall, where there is a natural waterslide, which we enhanced by dambing upstream then unleashing a torrent of water to aid your ride down. Then we had to jump of the 6th waterfall into its pool to get down, because it would be too hard to climb down, so I threw my shirt and wallet down without any problems, but my beloved calculator watch, which I had just meanded with superglue specifivally bought for the job, caught the wind in the wrong direction and bounced off a rock into the pool, where it shall forever rest in peace.

In Sucre, I got in touch with Hutchi and decided to head north to La Paz with the intention of meating up with him further north. La Paz is a pretty cool city with lot´s of stuff to do, but the first time I was there I just chilled out and waited to hear from Hutch while he was coming down from Quito. When I did get on to him, we decided to meat up in Cusco, so I got on a bus the next day, and twelve hours later I was in Cusco, Peru.

I thought Hutchi and James were getting there the night after I did, so I just went to watever hostel I could find the evening I got there, then decided to look for another place the next morning before they arrived. But after I found a place then came back to the first, who should be in reception but my old friend Hutchi, James amd two Columbians they shared a cab with. A little surprised and unprepared, I told them, to the disappointment of the receptionist, I had found another place and off we went. Cusco is a bit of a party town, with all the gringos, and there are four bars with totes out the front handing out free entry (yay) and free drink cards (now we´re talking). So we had a pretty big night the first night, which was fun. I can´t really remeber too many details so it must have been good. The next day we sorted out how we were going to get to Machu Pichu and the next morning we were off. Unfortunately the Inca Trail hike was booked out till like september at that stge so we decided not to do one of the alternate hikes, which didn´t really compare because none of them go via any other ruins and they all arrive at Machu Pichu by train then bus (or you could walk along the rails then the road, awesome). So we decide to skip the stroll around the country side and take the train an bus anyway. On the way though, we went to some other Inca archeological sites, Morray and an Inca salt farm, which were cool (photos coming soon). Machu Pichuu itself was pretty awesome. We were actually there on the winter solstace, which is pretty cool, but I think all the cool stuff had already happened at sunrise. Me and James climbed up Waynapichu, which is the big hill in the background of most of the photos of Machu Pichuu, while Hutchi, who was feeling a bit under the wheather, slept like a baby. It was a pretty crazy climb, then we went like half way down the other side to the temple of the moon, then had to climb about 3/4 of the way back up before heading down to Machu Pichuu again. We were ruited so unfortunately we couldn´t be bothered to climb this other hill called Huchupichu on the way back, despite it sounding like hutchi. After the climb we saw the few last things we wanted to then got the bus back into Aguas Calientes, which means hot water. It is named such because there are ¨hot¨ springs, which we went to and decided would be better described as luke warm springs, but it was still nice to relax after the big day. We caught the train back to Ollantaytambo the next day then got a taxi back to Cusco. That´s enough word nourishment for now, more to come later.