...and what's to come

The past few months have been an absolute BLAST for me. I'm currently at University in London studying German and Hispanic Studies (with a little French on the side too). It's incredible. I've also been mega fortunate with my flat, as somehow I've been placed in with all international students. Seriously it's like a dream come true, it's like I'm constantly in travel mode.

Just to emphasise just how multinational my uni friends are, here's a low down of my flatmates. (This probably isn't interesting to most people, but this is my blog, so you're just going to have to deal with it. Just skip a bit further down if you want to jump to the exciting up-and-coming travel plan bit... :) )

So this is my first term flat...

There's me and my fellow first year Josie (Switzerland), then exchange students Ellen (Aus), Adriana (Mexico) and Gustavo (Brazil). I MISS YOU GUYS ALREADY :'(

However, we're lucky that the Newbies are awesome too...

This is the gang boogying to Thift Shop in Winter Wonderland... (left to right) There's Brett (exchange from the USA), Caitlin (Spain), another first year who moved in just before Christmas, Josie (who's stayed, WHOOP) and Steve (exchange from Aus). The others are friends from Uni, Mexican and American if you must know. There's also Shaynah (USA) but I don't have a pic with her yet :(

Also if you don't know what Thift Shop is (and you should) here's the youtube link:



The plus side of having a completely international flat is that the exchange students want to constantly be travelling the UK and Europe and I get to tag along/invite myself because I just can't be in one place for too long. Plus despite being in travel mode, I still have a base camp in London where I can relax and feel at home.

Unfortunately it does mean that I'm still making amazing friends and then having to watch them leave again and again. Which, by the by, doesn't get easier, no matter what people tell you, especially for a particularly emotional girl like myself. However I have come to terms with the fact that no matter where I am in the world, I'm always going to be missing someone. Sounds kinda sad but if you flip it, I also know that no matter where I am in the world, I'm always going to be with someone I care about :) Which is pretty awesome.

And now for the exciting part, this years travel plans (so far!):

February reading week in Madrid and Salamanca with the Hispanic Society. This is, as well as an opportunity to get a little silly on alcohol with the course mates, mainly an opportunity to improve my rather terrible spoken Spanish. As it's my degree, it's probably important for me to learn to do it well :P

St. Patrick's Day weekend in Dublin with all the flatmates. I'm FINALLY getting to Ireland and I'm super excited.

Then finally a week or two in Croatia with friends from home travelling and attending Hideout Festival. Which is a festival. On a beach. With real sunshine and waves and sand and EVERYTHING. Here's the promo video if you're wanting to know more...



Best get working on that Bikini Bod if I don't want to do my usual in knee length board shorts and a men's XL t-shirt...

Adios Peru

So this is it... we leave Perah TODAY. It's not really sinking in to be honest, I've somehow settled into the mind frame that this how I am going to live from now on, coming back to reality is going to be SO weird.

We spent our last night in Lima avec Samwise and we gorged ourselves on McDonalds as our last hearty meal in Peru, deciding that we've earned it as technically we've been here for so long now we are no longer gringos but Inca Warlords (Sam's logic really, I just went with it because I wanted chicken wings. You know they do those in McDonalds here?? It's awesome.)

I am so glad we decided to just do the one night in Lima, it's such a hole compared to any other place we've stayed in South America, with the only exception perhaps being Puno, but it's a blooming close call. For example our hostel has a roof terrace which anywhere else, would be lovely. Like in Cusco at night the sky is clear, starry and just beautiful. Where as in Lima, it looks white, thick with smog from the pollution. Lovely.

I woke up this morning feeling like I used to at Christmas as a child. My stomach is churning with excitement. Well that or it's something to do with the three chicken sandwiches I ate from a street vender lady yesterday. I really am in two minds, on the one hand I canNOT wait to come home and see everyone, have clean clothes, nice food, warm showers, a hair cut, comfy bed etc etc. But on the other hand I have had the time of my life and met so many awesome people! I know this isn't the last time I do a trip like this.

Our flight isn't for another 11 hours or so, so we have a day of packing and desperately trying to waste time ahead of us. Woooooooooo. We're also going to compile a few more posts with tips for future travellers, highlights and recommendations etc so watch this space, I'm not finished just yet :)

Goodbye Cusco :(

SO before and after the Inca Jungle Trek we spent a fair amount of time in Cusco. I think it's safe to say that Cusco has been my favourite place we've visited in South America :)

On the 31st it was EVIE'S 19TH BIRTHDAY so of course we went out to celebrate. I got her a little prezzie and a card signed by lots of different people that we've met throughout the duration of our travels. She was SO surprised so of course I was well happy that all my sneakiness had paid off. Also Matt got her some mustard...



In the evening we went out with the gang to Norton's, Indigo and the Wild Rover which was lots of fun, even if we did get kicked out at like 2.30am. I thought the Wild Rover was supposed to be like party central?? Honestly.







Another aspect of Cusco that cannot go without a mention is Jack's Cafe which is without a doubt the best place for food in South America (well, that I've been to so far!) A little pricey for Peru it has to be said but 100% worth every penny. I don't really think the pics do it justice but I'm going to share them anyways...





We also caught Corpus Christi by accident which was quite nice. Peruvians really do know how to do a religious festival! It was almost impossible to move around Plaza de Amas and they had all these massive elaborately decorated statue things that they were carrying through the streets. Plus music and dancing and food EVERYWHERE. It was great!!



I was rather sad to say goodbye to Cusco, but I reckon it wont be my last visit. I would definitely recommend a visit to anyone :)

Inca Jungle

The last few weeks have been SO good!!

From 1st-4th I completed a 4 day Inca Jungle Trek to Machu Picchu with Dan, Sam and Matt. I had such a good time even though it was bloody difficult.

The first day was Mountain Biking where we spent 2 and a half hours whizzing around 2500m downhill. I did get a little over excited at one point when racing Matt around a bend and executed Face Plant #4 with absolute grace and style, landing with the bike on top of me in a nearby ditch. Luckily I've managed to escape with nothing but a few rather large and impressive (if I do say so myself) bruises on my upper thighs. Silly em.

The rest of the evening was spent chilling with the 3 spaniards in our group (Jose, Carlos and Jose Carlos - how cool is that?!) attempting to speak Spanish/English to each other, until the others got back from rafting. After dinner we were joined by the guys and the three dutch girls in a our group and we decided to have a bit of a sing song until it was just Sam, Dan and I keeping everyone awake with our extremely tuneful drunken renditions of Jack Johnson and Tracy Chapman.

The second day was probably the hardest as we had to walk around 10 hours, mostly uphill and my asthma decided to be a cow. However the views and scenery were 100% worth it; it was totally incredible. Pretty cool to be on the real inca trail too!






The Hot Springs at the end of the day were SUCH a relief as we girls could finally chill out and watch whilst the lads, somehow still full of beans, decided to throw each other around.







Day 3 was ZIP-LINING 150m above the tree tops. Wowzer, it was AMAZING!! Its so high up it's completely surreal.





That little black dot in the sky. That's a person.



After that we only had 3 more hours walking until we arrived at Aguas Calientes and much to my delight it was almost all flat along the train track. I did however discover from our guide that I had left my steroid inhaler at the previous hostel, meaning I was to miss two doses before climbing Machu/Huayna Picchu the next day. Oops.

At 4am the next day we woke up to the unwelcome sound of our various alarms. By this time I was pretty terrified that I wouldn't make it by my lack of inhaler, whilst being completely exhausted and covered in bites and blisters. I don't think anyone has ever been less inclined to Machu Picchu.

However once we got started up the bazillion inca stairs up to the top, my spirits began to lift as I realised it wasn't actually so bad and the excitement sank in that I was going to watch the sunrise of the Sun Gate at Machu Picchu. How very gap yah. It was absolutely incredible too.





I have to say Huayna Picchu was a little bit more of a challenge but the overwhelming feeling of awe that you get when you reach the top is unbelievable!





That's Machu Picchu looking teeeeeeeeeeeeny tiny from so high up!



Us lot with the Picchus in the background. Look how high we climbed!!

We stumbled down just as the sun was setting and managed to catch the train back to Cusco just in the nick of time.

Lake Titicaca and the Isla del Sol

After La Paz we headed to Copacabana on Lake Titicaca, joined by Charles and Lucy who we met at the Wild Rover. En route we had the nice surprise of having to get off the bus and take a boat across part of the lake whilst our bus did the same, on a rather rickety looking barge. We came to the conclusion that we had to get off the bus as the barge it came across on looked so unstable, there must have been instances in the past where the whole thing has capsized... Luckily the boat, bus and all our luggage made it across safe and sound.

Our bus... on a barge.

Once in Copacabana we spent a couple of days enjoying the sunshine and hiking up a nearby hill which was quite the challenge at this altitude (we're over 4000m up!!) but the view of the lake was beautiful. I can't believe how HUGE it is, seriously puts 'the lake' at the bottom of Newman College to shame :p

Outside the Cathedral!

It took real skill to get the self timer on this right.


We're now back in Copacabana after spending the past few days on the Isla del Sol, which was ABSOLUTELY INCREDIBLE. We spent a day hiking from the north to the south side of the island and checking out the ruins at the Inca creation sight. The views were stunning, take a gander:

Steve, Georgia, Lucy and Charles have all head of to Arequipa for a few days before coming to meet us in Cusco for EVIE'S BIIIIIIIIRTHDAY on the 31st. I can't wait! We're still debating whether our next move will be staight back to Cusco or to the Uros Islands on the peruvian side of Lake Titicaca. All depends on pennies really, but fingers crossed we'll be able to get everything in :)

A week in La Paz

I don't know how we did it but we managed to spend a whole week in La Paz and do very little. But that's not to say we didn't have a good time.

After a whole day in bed recovering from our hectic journey from Sucre, we spent a large portion of the second day making jewellery on the street with a brazilian guy called Denny, who was allegedly 25 but has been travelling for over 10 years... However he was pretty cool and taught us how to make bracelets and anklets, tying Georgia up in a rather amusing fashion in the process. We also had to put a good thought into every knot and make a wish as he burned the ends in order to ensure the item held 'good energy'. I love travelling hippies.

Evie and Georgia both got tattoos at Pepe's tattoo parlour during our stay.

Evie's:

(If you can't see it, it's an arrow on her foot. OUCH.)

Georgia's:

Georgia designed both, pretty impressive eh? So that just leaves me now, any suggestions on what I should get?? :p

Watching the Champions League Final at an english pub called Oliver's travels was quite a highlight. The pub was FULL of Bayern Munich supporters, Germans, Israelis and English alike, so Evie, Steve and I decided to support Chelsea, just to add some diversity. It was SUCH a good game, though I'm not sure how Chelsea did it, I was sure it was all over multiple times. Unfortunately it did ruin the mood in the bar a little as the Germans didn't exactly take the defeat well, but our band of about 6 Chelsea supporters were loving it :D

On our last day we made a trip to the witches market which was rather interesting. You could buy all sorts of bottled potions and there were llama foetus' hanging everywhere (something about warning off evil spirits). Evie and Georgia also got their tarot cards read which was MEGA CREEPY because the lady was REALLY good. It freaked me out far too much so I whimped out.

The rest of our time was spent mainly partying at the Wild Rover (we got to go to our second UV party, whoop whoop!) or eating at Cafe Banais. The Wild Rover was really great fun and we met some proper cool people there. But probably spent a little too much time there instead of exploring the cultural side of Bolivia's capital city. Ah dear. But I did get a few pics of around the city...

Sugar Daddy, G-Meister General, Eve-ster and The Cow at the caf. (It would seem I got the short straw on the nickname front)

Journey to Sucre

Here's the belated update for Uyuni-Potosi-Sucre. I apologise for the slight overload of posts to follow!

The journey from Uyuni to Sucre wasn't the most pleasant one we've had. Nevi (our driver from the Salt Flats tour) warned us that there were bad, very bumpy roads for the first 5 hours of the journey and he was quite right. However the views were INCREDIBLE. Bolivia has to be in the running for one of South America's most beautiful.

We had to change buses at Potosi, the world's highest city, but as always buses in SA are never very reliable and we ended up waiting an extra 2 hours on what we were originally told.

In this time we decided to grab some lunch/dinner as we were all rather peckish. As we'd never been at such a high altitude we did overestimate our ability to wander around with our backpacks on and after a walk that should have taken 5 minutes and 0 effort in England, we were completely exhausted.

And the meal we received turned up on a school dinner and was... Well I'll let Evie explain:

'Imagine dog food. Not Pedigree dog food. Asda dog food. 30 per cent meat dog food. Imagine it minced to a state of neither solidity nor liquidity. Imagine it sandwiched between two pieces of bread, one stale and solid as a rock, one soggy and limp. Imagine it garnished with a tomato that is festering before your very eyes. Imagine the six lonely chips served in the adjoining compartment. Imagine a burger that almost drove a grown man to tears.'

It was really horrible.

We also discovered that in Potosi they worship the devil, call him uncle and scarifice animals to him. Their logic behind this being as they work in the mining town, they work closer to the devil than God. So as you can imagine, we couldNOT wait to leave.

On arrival in Sucre we had to ask around as to where our hostel was, as the bus didn't drop us at the terminal. We were surprised when a girl told us that we were on the other side of town to where we thought we were. She tried to encourage us to get into an unmarked, unlicensed taxi, but luckily we're not stupid and therefore had a look around for something more official looking. When we showed the driver the address we discovered the street we needed was actually the one we were on! The lying so and so obviously has tried to bundle us away in her boyfriends taxi so he could rob us for all we owned and leave us stranded in the middle of the surrounding hills. I hope they've never actually succeeded in praying on any other poor unsuspecting gringos.

Look how pretty Sucre is!

The next three days were pretty chilled out, we explored the city, watched the football, ate a lot and had a look around a really pretty graveyard. So yes, the news about Joey Barton being a complete tool has reached an international level.

Visiting the graveyard was a pretty emotional experience. Its difficult to describe really how it made me feel. There were some graves like this:

Huge elaborate things obviously for those families who are absolutely minted.

Some like this:

I have to say the ones all piled on top of each other did freak me out a bit. In my opinion it's not really right that the bodies should rot in a compartment and not give back to the earth to help give life to other plants and animals. But they were mostly beautiful, really elaborately decorated with gold and silver and things that one would associate with that person. From these graves it was easy to see the divide in wealth in Bolivia, as some hadn't yet been able to afford more than some spray paint and a pringles tube to home some flowers.

There was one section on the graveyard I couldn't bring myself to photograph because it had been completely smashed up. It was obviously the section for those with the least amount of money, just like a mass grave really, with little crosses and homemade grave stones. But see it be treated with so much disrespect made me feel sick in the stomach. Everybody deserves dignity after death and every family deserves somewhere to mourn.

As you may have guessed from my last entry, we're now in La Paz but are leaving tomorrow! Update on our antics here to follow shortly...

N.B. Sorry about the length of this post, so much has happened it was hard to summarise anymore!

HOLA BOLIVIAH!

Adios Chile! And CREEPY chilean men. 'shudders' We were harrassed so many times, invited to join them in bed after having just met them and all sorts. Even pretending to be german and speak a language they didn't understand at all didn't work. It was strange because it was NOTHING like that in Peru. So girls if you're planning on travelling without a guy, be warned, the older men have 0 respect for women (the younger ones on the other hand are really respectful and polite). Evie has now invested in a fake wedding ring, as they seem to leave you alone if you already 'belong' to another man. ERGH chauvinism makes me so angry.

Since my last post we finally managed to leave Iquique (we missed our first bus and had to stay ANOTHER day... though this did save us money in the long run) We actually went on a day trip two days before we left to a oasis town called Pica, where there was a really nice lagoon to swim in. It was sooooo deserty and HOT. But really pretty. We also tried to visit a ghost town called Humberstone, but our bus was late and we missed getting in by 17 minutes. From the entrance we could still see plenty of people inside too, but the meany security guard said no :(

On arrival in San Pedro de Atacama, our last stop in Chile, we met Georgia and Steve, both brits who had started travelling together a few days before. It would seem our route for the next few weeks is exactly the same, which means we have two new travel partners! We all get on really well too, which is always a plus :)

San Pedro is a really pretty small town and the stars art night are unbelievable. The sky is so clear! There's not really much going on there though unless you want to do extreme sports, sandboarding etc. So we just stayed the one night to book our tour and freshen up after our long bus ride from Iquique.

We have just arrived in Uyuni, Bolivia after a three day tour from San Pedro, in which we saw Lagoons, Volcanoes, Flamingos, Llamas, the Salares... the list goes on! It was so incredible, I would 100% recommend it to anybody travelling in the area. I can't really describe in words how amazing the trip was and unfortunately I can't upload my pictures on this computer but hopefully I'll be able to post some in the next few days.

SURFING

Aside from the 5 hour bus ride on Wednesday, the majority of the last four days has been spent chilling out on various beaches.

Arica was really lovely, we had such a good time there relaxing (I'm beginning to learn the difference between relaxation and lazyness) and swimming in the pacific. It's such a nice place to swim, even if it is freezing. We also took a few beach pics in an attempt to make everyone at home jealous. I hope it works.

The bus to Iquique was pretty horrible, for some reason Chileans like to close the windows to make the bus even more stuffy and ROASTING HOT. Evie and I also got taken off the bus by three policemen and were questioned about whether we were smuggling drugs inside of us... It was so scary. We were so relieved when we finally arrived at the hostel. Which is SO CHEAP and about half a minute from the BEEEEEEEACH (which is even nicer here than in Arica) :D

It's such a nice city to explore. There is loads of colonial architecture and the main square has a beautiful memorial with fountains around it.

We explored the markets a little and invested in a few bits of jewellery, before having a lovely wander along the beach. We've also discovered this awesome german cafe just around the corner from the hostel that does incredible burgers and cake. And I do love german cake <3 Yesterday I had my first SURFING LESSON and it was EPIC. I had so much fun, I forgot just how much I love watersports. I managed to stand up on the board too, I was rather proud of myself. Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures of the experience, but if i get a chance to have another lesson I'll try and get some then! The rest of the day we spent on the beach. It may seem that we're doing very little at the moment, but we're just making the most of our last few beach days since we're heading in land to San Pedro de Atacama on Sunday. Wandering down the beach we came across some cool graffiti.

Pretty impressive eh?

And then we watched the sunset... it was so beautiful!