We spent the next couple of days exploring on mopeds, snorkelling, relaxing and winding down to island time. During this time we realised that we’d be travelling almost non-stop for over six months and that we felt a bit tired of all the buses, trains, planes and waiting rooms and wanted to settle down for a while, kick back and take in the atmosphere of somewhere for more than a few days. Ko Phangan seemed like a good place to do this. Unfortunately before we made this decision we had already booked tickets up to the other end of Thailand to go to a festival called Loy Krathong, we decided that as we had paid we should go so undertook a massive journey to go to the festival and then travelled back to Ko Phangan where we are now. I don’t think we fully realised how much travelling we would need to do, we travelled for 35 hours each way, covering a total distance of over 2,200km to spend a couple of days at the festival!

Two 15 hour train journeys and a boat ride later and we arrived at the festival, in Thai Loy Krathong means “to float” and Krathong is a small decorated raft which the locals add incense sticks , candles, decorations and a small amount of money. The act of releasing this raft acts to pay respect to Buddha and is also symbolic of letting go of all of your grudges and anger. Millions of them are released down the main rivers and onto lakes and it seemed like everyone was involved.

Along with the krathongs, paper lanterns are released and the whole of the sky was filled with hundreds of these during the evenings creating a new floating orange cosmos.

It all sounds very idyllic and it definitely was, but naturally an element of Thai chaos was injected to make it a little more interesting. The lanterns were lit and people waited for them to fill with hot air before releasing them, lots of people weren’t patient enough so they slowly took off and then came back down to earth on fire setting fire to people’s heads, telegraph wires, trees, market stalls and motorbikes. Some of the more adventurous Thai’s took to attaching pyrotechnics to the lanterns so that as they took off they shot off fireworks and firecrackers at unsuspecting bystanders. This was a health a safety workers worst nightmare but the Thai’s loved it and had a great time! Only 14,598 people were maimed so no real damage was done.

A lantern crashing down into some wires

On the main evening of the event we went down to the river to watch the fireworks and people release their krathongs. As we sat peacefully a really wrecked Thai man wobbled over and asked for money, I gave him 10 baht to get rid of him as he had a funny look in his one remaining eye. He wobbled a little further and then jumped into the river where he proceeded to rip apart as many krathongs as possible to get out the money. People were symbolically releasing all of their grudges and anger only to have some drunk idiot pull it all apart 10 seconds later, which no doubt didn’t help with their grudges and anger. In true Asian style no one confronted him about this and even when people saw their krathongs destroyed in front of them they just looked a bit sad and then left. Christy and I were about the only people there who seemed to be annoyed, I wished that an English mentality lynch mob would come and dispose of him but they never came. Where’s The Sun when you need it?!

Whilst this was taking place a thousand fireworks were being let off all around us. Think of all the fireworks that have been banned in England since the 1800’s and then give those to under 7’s to set off as they please! “Grenade” fireworks were being thrown into the river which exploded throwing the water up into the air, fireworks on string were being spun around and then released to shoot off in a random direction and firecrackers were being thrown all over the place. It was quite a scene, and the noise was deafening. After a couple of hours of being in this war scene we retreated, thankfully with all limbs and major organs intact, but with mild post traumatic stress. We spent a couple of days in Chiang Mai, looking around and enjoying the incredible cheapness of everything in Northern Thailand.

We then had the monster journey back to Ko Phangan to undertake, we decided to mix it up and got 2 buses back instead of the train. We arrived at the port exhausted only to find there had been a storm for the last few days and that the water was rough. The 3 hour ride over to Ko Phangan was choppy, but sitting on the front of the boat as it rocked around seemed to help with sea sickness. Finally we arrived on the island, happy in the knowledge that we were here for a bit and there would be no more travelling!

Our choppy journey

We searched around for houses later on that day and what we found wasn’t encouraging, we were beginning to think we would be stuck with a Korean style one bedroom, one kitchen place when we found Lakeside House, which is where we have been for the last 3 weeks, we only have another week left, it’s gone so quickly! It’s a really nice house, with two bedrooms, a kitchen which opens on one side to look over the lake. It has a nice area outside which we can relax. As the name suggests it sits on the edge of a lake, which backs onto mangroves, followed by the sea, perfect!

The kitchen

The bedroom

The bathroom

Outside

Our view

View from our bedroom

The highstreet!

Most evenings we go down to “our beach” and watch the sunset and the fishing boats head out to sea for the night.

Our beach

We have hired brand new super mopeds, 100cc of pure power (£2 a day!) so we can scoot around the island.

The beast

The island has pretty much everything we need, including the plague-like Tescos (bad, although good for cheap rum!) and an even an English pub, which looks a bit odd sitting amongst palm trees but serves a mean proper English sausage sandwich and gammon and chips!!

An English pub, stage 2 of colonisation

We even have a major branch of HSBC bank on the island, which is great for our banking needs....

HSBC, the worlds local bank

We can get about nearly everywhere on the island, apart from where the roads give way to mad paths or have fallen into the mountain!

Road followed by, no road

We’re just a few km’s away from the best snorkelling spots on the island so we’ve spent lots of time on the beach. Our favourite beach in called Coral Bay, it’s in a cove and has a perfect sandy beach. The water is clean and clear and if you swim out a bit there’s a reef with lots of fish and according to Christy a few great white sharks, although we haven’t seen any of them quite yet. This beach also has a resident pig that snuffles around and occasionally attacks women for no reason which I find quite funny, and the women do not. The owner of the pig told us a bit about this; the pig was brought up with an old dog, so it thinks that it’s a dog and behaves in many ways like a dog. When the old dog died they got a new puppy, who now thinks he is a pig and snuffles around the beach digging up the sand with his nose like a pig does. So there’s a dog who thinks he’s a pig and a pig who thinks he’s a dog. To add to the confusion they’ve now got another dog, which looks very much like a wolf – I wonder what effect that will have on the trio, maybe a killer pig!

Apart from the beach we’ve been to a Muay Thai (Thai boxing) match, where we saw 7 fights. It’s not much like normal boxing, they can kick and punch, and they are much more agile and they had music playing when they were fighting which they almost danced to. It was like Swan Lake apart, apart from the fact that they beat the crap out of each other. Fighters start young here, at 13 days old they take their first steps in the ring, by the time they are 2 they can disable a man from 15 metres away, and when other children are just starting first school they are killing buffaloes for fun with their bare hands. The first fight we saw was very young fighters, they were actually pretty rubbish and one of them fell over in the 2nd round, I think even I could have beat him. The fights progressively got better and better until the last one was a frantic full 5 rounds of pounding and I definitely wouldn’t even consider looking directly at the fighters let alone sparring with them.

This morning we went and had an archery lesson which was fun. I hit the target quite a few times (although not as many times as I missed it), as did Christy - there is Robin Hood potential yet. I’m going to hunt down the shooting school and have a go there sometime this week too. I will be combat ready! We are also hoping to go fishing one day with some local fishermen, spend some time with our friends the elephants and get lots more beach action in over our final week.

Once we leave here we head down through Malaysia and Singapore to spend the next month in Indonesia. We’ve just booked our Christmas and NYE accommodation in a tiny island called Gili Trawangan, which has no cars or motorbike, excellent snorkelling (apparently there’s thousands of turtles there) and possibly most importantly, suckling pig!

Loy Krathong and our new pad remains copyright of the author monkeyboy1, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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A few weeks ago we went to Phuket vegetarian festival. Those who didn’t do their homework and travelled to Phuket with hopes of tofu stalls, kindness to animals and a peaceful hippy vibe would have been disappointed as vegetarianism took back shelf to the locals impaling themselves through their faces with any available item, varying from a machine gun to a child’s tricycle. As gruesome as this seems it does have some kind of background and they do have a reason for doing this to themselves, I will explain now (caveat: some information is correct where as other bits may be incorrect or just plain lies). It all begin in 1825 when the governor moved Phuket’s principle town to its current location because he envisioned it would one day make a better city to host many Tesco stores and 7/11’s. At the time the area was covered in dense jungle and a fatal fever struck down many of the locals. By co-incidence a travelling Chinese opera was visiting and they all came down with the fever, thankfully the Daily Mail wasn’t in circulation at the time or else there would have been mass hysteria around the world about the next swine/ bird or crab flu about to strike. To combat the fever the opera company ignored their doctor’s instruction of a lemsip, and lots of sleep and instead kept to a strict vegetarian diet for 10 days to honour two of their Gods; Kung Fu Panda and Mr Myagi. At the end of the 10 days their fever reduced and they packed up and went back to China. The locals saw that the vegetarianism stunt worked, so for ten days a year they abstained from meat in honour of Myagi and Panda, and also observed other rules such as not having sex, not eating chocolate biscuits and ordering their children to set off as many crackers humanly possible, preferably at tourist’s feet. This is where I get confused of the link between this and the sticking the rods through your face, but it seems that the Thai people have pimped up the Chinese version with the appearance of Ma Songs, or entranced horses. These are the devotees who the Chinese Gods ‘enter’ during the festival. Whilst possessed they manifest supernatural powers such as being able to stick machine guns through their heads, walk on hot coals, pour boiling oil on their heads, walk along razor ladders and endure endless hours of Enya on loop, all without feeling any pain. Now, I don’t want to be a non believer, but I did see quite a few of them look like they were in pain, but I guess it’s a little too late to bring that up once the pole has been stuck through your cheek and you’re claiming some kind of link with God, so they just had to put on a brave face and look a bit mental/ possessed for the crowd. It’s interesting and backs up the theory that certain elements of religion can be seen as a mental illness. If one person claims that an invisible person who lives in the sky talks to him (Jesus excluded, he definitely wasnt crazy and could really, honestly, definitely (maybe) walk on water too...) and also sticks poles through his head to ensure that people won’t get the flu then he would be locked up in a Mental Home, but if several people do the same then its religion and OK.

Either way it was an interesting insight into human behaviour, we certainly are an odd lot. Crowds were out in the city wearing white to pay their respects to the devotees and everyone from toddlers to old ladies stood patiently at the edge of the road praying to them as they lurched by with umbrellas and other items hanging from their faces. It would have been pretty awful if it had of appeared to be faked for the tourists, but in fact it was quite the opposite, the locals seemed to thoroughly believe it, the participants believed it (evidently because they were the ones piercing themselves) and the atmosphere of the festival was one of serious worship, apart from some of the odd items they chose for the processions.

Definitely not a festival to miss if you're not too squeamish!

Phuket Vegetarian Festival remains copyright of the author monkeyboy1, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Sawwatdee crap, or hello to those who don’t speak Thai. We’re here in Thailand and having a great time.

Arriving in Bangkok after the home comforts of Oz and NZ could be likened to being hit in the face with a brick. It was a real shock. Bangkok is non-stop madness in full swing; millions of people, smog, traffic jams, honking horns, beggars next to Ferraris and monks next to millionaires. It’s the kind of place you want to get out of as soon as you arrive because of the total overload, but also a place that grows on you and when you return it doesn’t seem half as bad.

Within 30 minutes of the first day there we closely avoided two scams, first we got chatting to a man on the street who asked us if we needed any help with directions. He chatted to us, seemed very genuine and said we should get a tuk tuk as today was a special day and that the King of Thailand was discounting petrol for all drivers to encourage tourism and that we could get around for 40p to as many temples in the city as we wanted. It sounded interesting, but we wanted to get breakfast (food rules, ok) and decided to give it a miss. After breakfast a tout comes to chat to us, he tells us again “it’s a special day, get to the temples for 20 baht”, sounds good but no thanks, we’re ok for the moment. We go to another street and meet yet another man, he again seems very friendly and chats to us about Bangkok life, shows us a photo of his children and his pet dog Scrappy, what a nice man we think, little did we know he’d probably kidnapped the children and dog for a photo session. He said once again it was a special day and that today was the only day of the year when women are allowed into the Black Buddha Temple. We buckle and agree to take the tuk tuk to this one special temple and also ask him to take us to the main tourist information office so we can get some more information. He drops us off at what we think is the official tourism place, it’s full of farangs (foreign ATMs as I think we are known in Bangkok) and we sit down to ask for a price to get to the nearby island. After long negotiations as she attempts to plan our next 4 months schedule down to the day we finally convince her we just want one bus journey and she quotes us 1300 baht to get there, we had seen it for 250 baht on the street near ours so question this and she got angry and started shouting about how this is impossible and that we have obviously been looking at un-reputable companies, and that of course we must book with her right now or all the tickets in the whole of South East Asia will be booked up. We politely get up and leave much to her disgust and the driver, all full of smiles and chat, takes us to the black Buddha temple and we have a look around. After we get back in the tuk tuk and he starts his spiel, to get the 40p ride all day we have to stop off at various tailors and jewellers along the way. We said we didn’t want to and offered him more money just to take us where we wanted to go, but he was insistent. After some time debating he exploded and told us to get out of his tuk tuk and left us in the middle of nowhere. Charming. We spoke to another couple later and they went to these tailors etc and got hassled and were shouted at when they refused to buy anything so I’m glad we left then! So, my first impressions of Bangkok and of Thai people that day weren’t that good. The problem in Bangkok seems to be this, if you are nice to people then there’s a big chance that they’ll take you for a ride, but at the same time you don’t want to be rude to people and it would be nice to be able to chat to locals and find out stuff without being suspicious. Being in Bangkok seems to have a hardening effect on you within hours though and the thought of engaging in conversation with random “friendly” people doesn’t even occur to me now! Luckily we’ve found the countryside much more genuine and we can have good chats to people without them trying to extract our livers, make us a silk suit or sell us into slavery.

The city was stiflingly hot and we spent the afternoon in a local mall and watching a film in an ice cold cinema, not very cultural but we needed to escape the madness. Armed with the knowledge that my £20 budget would now buy me more than a beer and a sandwich (hurrah!) we went on a mini shopping spree. This is what I got for my budget, awesome!

The following day we visited one of the main temples in the city, Wat Pho. We were propositioned by several tuk tuk drivers with “I’ll take you for 20 baht, today is a special day sir”, but wisely decided to avoid them and get a ride with one who charged a normal price and actually took us where we wanted to go. The temple was amazing and massive, it dates back to the 16th century and houses a lazy Buddha (not sure that’s the official name) which is 15 metres high and 46 metres long. It was stunning to walk around and we made our way around admiring the spires, statues and buildings all adorned in diamonds and coloured glass. Compared to the Korean temples it was very Las Vegas and not at all down to earth, but both are appealing in their own different ways.

Afterward we visited an enormous market with far too many stalls, including rabbits in dresses and dogs in dungarees. This market is visited by 200,000 people a day and was way too hot so we escaped before we imploded on the spot.

After a couple of days in Bangkok we’d had enough and decided to escape for a paradise beach island to do some snorkelling, lying around on beaches and drinking cool beers whilst the sun beat down on us. Unfortunately it didn’t quite work out like that. Koh Chang, or Elephant Island was being hit with the aftermath of the Philippines monsoon and it rained, and rained and rained a little more to make sure that we had noticed. We spent our days peeking out of beach hut, drinking with other travellers and playing cards, not very beach like activities but fun all the same.
So back we retreated from Rain Island to the insane asylum of Bangkok once again. We decided to go and visit a museum of forensics which sounded interesting. We dodged the persistent tuk tuk drivers and caught a bus as advised, it stopped near a bridge and the driver told us to get off. We had no idea where we were and attempted to ask a few people, who couldn’t speak any English. We knew it was near a railway station so tried making choo choo noises whilst moving our arms in the old fashioned locomotive train movement. As they have electric trains in Thailand this was totally lost on them and they directed us in any direction away from them discounting us as mentally ill. Maybe they pointed towards the nearest mental hospital, we will never know. We walked in the suggested direction for ages and didn’t see anything, we asked another man who looked worried and pointed back in the direction we had just come from and said in broken English to get the 146 bus. For confirmation we then attempted to ask another lady who pointed in another direction and told us to get the number 20 bus. We gave up after ages of wandering around and got a taxi, which drove us for 30 minutes to the right location over the other side of Bangkok! It’s good to be back in a country where even doing the simplest of things is a challenge! The museum was located inside a hospital and quite hard to find, but after making a few enquiries surrounded by old women in pushchairs and drips we found it. We entered and were greeted by a charming set of photos of people who had died in various horrendous ways, including light aeroplane crash, suicide by chopping off a hand (who does that?!), smashed bottle to the neck, shotgun, and many more, the finale was a man who had been blown up by a hand grenade. I say a man but I couldn’t be sure, there wasn’t all that much left. By this time I was feeling more than a little queasy but ventured around a corner to see photos of the tsunami victims and a real life toddler in a jar who had drowned (he didnt drown in the jar, he was just pickled in it). On seeing this I left before I puked on the floor and looked around the parasitology museum next door, which to be honest wasn’t much better. You should have seen the size of the testicle of a man infected with elephantitus, it was bigger than my torso. Christy joined me later and regaled tales of a small boy who had unintentionally cooked himself inside a clay pot. I decided not to ever join the fire brigade, police or do any job where I see dead people, and also not to play with grenades or ever put myself into a clay pot in an oven, even if it is the only hide and seek location available. Brutally aware of all the horrible ways we could die or be infected by parasites which would change our genitals into concrete we stepped out into the real world making sure to look left and right before crossing the road. We found out there was a ferry literally seconds away which took us back to opposite our hotel in under 5 minutes. It seems we really did take the scenic route on the way there!

We then left Bangkok and headed to Kanchanaburi, which is the home of the bridge over the river Kwai. It’s a nice town surrounded by mountains and lush green vegetation. We went to several war museums to read about the POW’s, the bridge and the railway and then went to see the bridge itself. Although it wasn’t the original bridge, which was bombed by the Americans months after it was built, it was still moving to see it and to think how much work and how many lives had been lost spanning the river.

The next day we hired a couple of mopeds and set off on a mini adventure to explore the surrounding countryside. We were both given helmets (one with fetching union jack design and mine like an American police man) which were about as effective as balancing a piece of cardboard on our heads and we set off. Thai people seem to think wearing helmets is an activity for the paranoid and looked at us with astonishment as we drove down the road looking a bit like retards. When they drove past us you could see the people in the back of trucks laughing out loud in amusements at our outrageous and unnecessary safety precautions (and of course the ridiculous designs on them!). Little did they know about the man at the forensics museum who had forfeited wearing his helmet and consequently died when he was hit by a duck on the head (ok, I made that bit up but these things are possible and our cardboard helmets were a neccessary precaution).

We rode about 75km to a place called hellfire pass, which was where the POW’s had to dig out a pass by hand through the rock, it was meant to one of the worst places along the death railway and hundreds of people had died there due to maltreatment from the Korean and Japanese guards. We walked along its length and it definitely had an atmosphere about it, and it was not too hard to begin to imagine what it must have been like. One of the surprises I got was that many of the POW’s described the area as beautiful and vowed they would come back later on after the war ended, I thought that they would have hated the area but it seems that many did not even though their time there was terrible. I was also shocked to see how many Asian workers died on the railway, far far more Asian than Western workers died (around 90,000 I think) and none of their details were recorded so their families never knew where they were buried or what had happened to them. After this moving site, we rode on to a waterfall and then had a drive around the countryside where I was rewarded with the amusing site of Christy wobbling down the road looking petrified with a one eyed dog nipping at her heals, whilst Thai children looked on smiling and laughing at how odd us Whiteys are.

The next day we took the death railway train along a section of its route which whizzed through the Thai countryside filled with paddy fields, cows, egrets and herons, climaxing at a rickety old bridge which creaked dangerously as we passed over it. We stopped in a small town for lunch where I unsuccessfully tried to persuade a shop keeper to let her songbird free from its stupidly small cage (I got as far as “No speaky English”, but at the same time she seemed to have no problem saying she wanted 5000 baht to let the bird free, talk about selective English knowledge!). I love birds but I’m not paying £100 for her to set it free and go out and catch another one the next day so it had to stay captive

After our time in Kanchanaburi we set off to Khao Yai National Park, which claims to be the 5th best national park in the world, and is a UNESCO protected area and home to tigers (although at last count there was only 7 which is not an encouraging sign in over 2000km of park), elephants, bears and gibbons. I wanted to arrange a personal guide rather than a tour and we did so after much bartering. To get a knowledgeable guide who also speaks English is no easy task! Our guide was a man called Djib who had such immense enthusiasm for all things living he would have made pre-stingray Steve Irwin look like an unmotivated slouch. After a couple of minutes driving down the road he skidded to a halt, jumped out of the car and started screaming at a car coming the other way. We thought we were on for a tiger spotting or maybe an elephant wrestling with a bear with an eagle on its back, but in fact he had spotted a beetle on the road and wanted to save it. Djib was, in my limited knowledge, what I would call a real Buddhist and a genuinely nice person and it was great to chat to him about his views on life. We visited a bat cave at sunset and saw 3,000,000 bats leave for a night of hunting, which was fantastic to see but hard to photograph. As the bats left the cave they were swooped down upon by kestrels’ and barn owls who grabbed the odd one for dinner. The next day we set off for a full day’s photography bright and early and we weren’t disappointed. Our first spotting was an Asian elephant, we crept through the woods and saw its trunk metres away, before it moved on further into the undergrowth and we couldn’t see it anymore. A good start to the day. Luckily we were given leech socks as they were attacking in mass as soon as we got out of the jeep, one managed to get into Christy’s trousers and sucked blood from her bum, which she wasn’t that amused with. We then walked back into the jungle to find some white handed gibbons, we located them after a while and spent an hour or so watching them swing around whilst trying to throw poo and wee at us. As they were so high up my lens couldn’t really get any decent shots but I have a few for memory at least. We continued on seeing pig tailed macaques, muntjak deer, sambar deer, a monitor lizard swimming in a river and a beautiful white lipped pit viper resting on a branch. We finished the day by walking up into some woods at the top of a mountain, we stood in the twilight and thousands of bats (the same bats from our cave the day before) poured through the forest skimming our heads by millimetres, a great experience.

After a few days of our park experience we headed back down on a night bus to an island called Koh Lanta, which is down the South of Thailand. We spent a couple of days relaxing and basking in the sun, which was a nice change after our Ko Chang experience!

Next up is Phuket where I will be hopefully getting some good photos of the vegetarian festival, where the locals pierce themselves through the face with various sharp objects, walk up razor ladders and step on hot coals. Mental stuff!

I hope you’re all well, apologies that this blog has once again turned into a bit of a novel (again)!!!

Yet another special day for a tuk tuk ride! remains copyright of the author monkeyboy1, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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First of all, I have learnt an important lesson here in Australia; never let your relatives cut your hair, especially with a clipper brought for a "bargain". There's a reason why it cost under $30.

I had to bail out half way through the cut as my hair was being so badly mauled. I went to the hairdresser yesterday who commented "that's a bloody mess isn't it" and then thankfully sorted it out

We've been having a great time in Australia. When we first arrived we went to a few beaches, caught up with Rachel, Dave and Rich and checked out the local areas. We have been made to feel completely at home, it has been great having a sofa, internet, good company and cold beer!

After a few days in Sydney we set off on an adventure down to Melbourne to do the Great Ocean Walk, a 104km jaunt along the coastline of South Australia. As with the Salkantay Trek i'm going to write out what we did by day so I dont forget!

Day 1 - Sydney to Melbourne

The day started off well but rapidly went downhill. We were at the airport about to check in, as I was going to take my camera equipment as hand luggage I looked into my backpack to find it, it wasnt there. AGH! I'd left it back at Rachels when I was packing which was REALLY annoying, especially as it was my only real chance to get photos of Australian wildlife. Bummer. As we went through security checks they stopped Christy and told her she had a knife in her bag, she protested that there must be a mistake but they asked her to check, and in a small sidepocket which has rusted shut there was indeed a knife. Bin Christy, the new face of terrorism. We got onto the plane and it took off ok, which was great, all went to plan until the airhostess spilt milk all over my t-shirt making it smell gross. When we arrived in Geelong the hotel we had called and spoken to about a room said they didnt actually have any spare rooms. We eventually found somewhere and hoped that the walk would go smoother than things had panned out so far.......

Day 2 - Geelong to Apollo Bay (bus), Apollo bay to Elliot Ridge (walking)

We arrived at the bus station well in time and were informed that the bus we thought we were catching back the following Thursday wasnt actually running and that the only bus we could catch would be a day earlier! We took the bus to Apollo Bay, which was the start of the walk and set off with rain and strong winds against us, which was a shame as Christy only had a giant bright yellow condom to protect her from the elements. Our bags felt incredibly heavy and our shoulders were aching within minutes. We got lost within about 15 metres of the visitor centre and luckily a man directed us the right way! As we walked along the first path cockateels flew around our heads in noisy flocks and superb fairy wrens hopped around the bushes - even though the weather wasnt great at least we were seeing some good stuff.

We got lost again and ended up slipping and sliding over some rocks on the beach, as the rain pounded down on us. Thoughts of deserting came into our minds but we decided to keep on it in the hope things would get better. We found the right path and headed up into a forest filled with enormous eukalyptus trees which gave us some protection from the wind and rain. After a massive hill we finally arrived at the campsite, which was in the middle of the forest, miles away from civilisation. We were the only people at the campsite and the visitor book was last signed a month earlier - we didnt see another person doing the walk at any point of the trip, although not treated as real wilderness by Australians this was as remote as we'd been before and felt like a real adventure. As we settled into our sleeping bags we realised the importance of roll mats, which we had forgotten to bring. The floor was absolutely freezing and it penetrated straight through to us and into our bones. We spent an uncomfortable night shivering, whilst Christy freaked out at a potential axe murderer outside.

Day 3 - Elliot Ridge to Blanket Bay

We woke up like zombies, but arose to sunny weather which was a definite improvement. We put our heavy backpacks on our achy shoulders and set off through the forest again and bumped into several black wallabies. Most of the jumped away when we disturbed them, but one of them, the Fonz of wallabies, wasnt fazed at all by us and sat a couple of metres away ignoring us. Later on as we walked along Christy spotted our first wild koala, which was asleep in a tree, looking exactly like a teddy bear! As we continued on the forest changed and we were greeted by black cockatoos which swooped around us chattering noisily. We saw lots of brightly coloured birds which look almost out of place in the wild as i'm so used to seeing them in cages - it was a shame I didnt have my camera to get photos of them. We arrived at our campsite in Blanket Bay and settled down to another cold night. This time we used our backpacks as roll mats and curled up into a fetal position to try to fit onto them - comfy stuff!

Day 4 - Elliot ridge to Aire River, by Cape Otway

As our return bus times had changed we had to fit two days walking into one. We walked through woodlands again and then out into heathlands, spotting another koala and wallabies on the way. We stopped off at cape otway lighthouse, which should have been our campground, brought some more chocolate bars to keep our energy up, and then continued onto Aire river. We walked for what seemed like an eternity through rolling heathland, at the top of every hill all we could see was the winding path and more and more hills off into the distance. Finally and with VERY sore and achy feet and shoulders we arrived at Aire River. We put our tent up next to where another man was set up, he started talking to us and offered us some water. Christy instantly assuming he was a serial killer whispered to me to only fill one bottle with his water just in case it was poisoned. He was very friendly and lent us a couple of roll matts, which luckily werent poisoned and also gave us some baked beans for the morning breakfast - excellent. As I chatted to him I noticed he had a full sized crossbow in his car which made me wonder whether Christy was actually right and that he would hunt us down in our tent! We went to sleep early and slept much better because of the roll mats.

Day 5 - Aire River to Johanna Beach

We woke up relieved that we hadnt been shot through the face, or poisoned during the night. We hobbled out of the tent and had our beans, which were accompanied by some toast he cooked us too. As we were about to set off he came and offered us one of his roll mats to take with us, along with some more food, what a nice man he was! All axe murders should take lessons off him and the world would be a much nicer place. We set off and walked through yet more heathland which meandered down onto the beach, stopping off at a viewpoint near to the great ocean road where people spritely hopped from their cars and walked over without hobbling to look at the nice views. When we got down to the beach the wind was blowing full force in our faces, it took ages to walk along it, half way along we had to wade across a creek, and as I finally thought I was at the end my hat blew off and I had to take chase back down the beach in the wrong way. After the beach we entered farmland with beautiful rolling farmland, similar to what we had seen in NZ. We finally reached the campsite which once again was in a wood in the middle of nowhere and settled down for another nights rainy rest.

Day 6 - Johanna Beach to Ryans Den

As we packed our tent up 2 grey kangaroos came bouncing past our tent, without even seeming to notice us. The sun was shining again and we started the day by cooking our socks to try to try them off! When we set off we walked across fields and saw loads of kangaroos bouncing all around us, it was an amazing scene. We continued walking and it rained on and off, finally we started heading down towards the beach but the paths were slippy and I slid over and very elegantly landed on my butt and backpack, broken noodles were now on the menu for lunch. We reached the beach, with very muddy trousers, and had to decide whether to risk dashing along the shore with the tide coming in or whether to wait for another few hours until it was heading out again. In Indiana Jones style we decided to risk it and made a run for it along the 500 metres of shore. Christy slipped on the rocks and ended up with her bum in a rockpool and cut her knees up in the process. When we reached the other end we could see how quickly the tide was coming in, as where we has been was being smashed by waves, phew! We set off up a steep slope and then sat down for a moment on a grassy verge for a rest; everything was very peaceful, the sun was shining, and the mars bar tasted extra good. It was only then I noticed an army of leeches crawling over to suck our blood, we jumped up and noticed they were attached to our trouser legs, Christy screamed and asked me, The Leech professional, to remove them, instantly, I didnt really know how so I tried flicking them off but they held on tight as Christy danced around. We then realised that our bags were on the grass too, and saw there was leeches attached to them, so we were trying to remove the leeches on our trousers, whilst holding heavy bags in the air, whilst dancing and trying to avoid more leeches joining in the party. We finally got rid of them by grabbing them with paper and ripping them off. We ran away once all were removed, and checked ourselves many many more times to see there was no more hiding. After the leech attack we thankfully only had a couple of hours more walking until we reached our campste which was again in a forest, high above the sea. As we went to sleep again that night Christy heard some cracking noises, and again we thought an axe murderer had returned to finally finish us of, thankfully he couldnt find our tent in the dark so he gave up and went home for a cup of tea instead.

Day 7 - Ryans Den to Princetown

By this point of the walk it would be safe to say we smelt and looked very much like full time tramps. We set off early and walked through the forest, and onto tracks through dunes and heathland. Along the way we saw an Echidna, which is like a hedgehog mixed with a porcupine, we tricked him into thinking we had walked away and then papped him. We drew on our energy resourses and decided we could do another double day, in return for going a bit further to a town along the way where we could hire a bed in a hotel and go to a pub. We walked and walked and finally reached the town, where we spent the afternoon watching a DVD in a hostel, followed by an evening in the pub with beer and steak. Definitely a good reward for our hard work!

Day 8 - Princetown to 12 Apostles

We finished off with what the lady in the hostel said was a 3km trek to the 12 apostles. Whether she had never walked to the apostles, was very bad with distances or was mentally ill, we will never know, but it was much further. We had to rush as we had a bus to catch and did 6km in about an hour, not bad with heavy bags and weary feet! We arrived and briefly visited the 12 apostles before falling happily on the bus knowing we didnt have to walk again for a long time! We got to the nearest city and ate lots of non-noodle food and drank lots of wine, then fell asleep on a proper bed, with no fear of axe murderers!

Now we're back in Sydney it seems like it was a ages ago we were on the walk. It was a fantastic walk and I would definitely recommend it to anyone who likes hiking, apparently most people get a local company to transport their backpacks between campsites which would have made it alot easier!! This weekend we went down with Rachel, Dave and Rich to see the Blue Mountains which were very beautiful, even with gale force winds and freezing cold temperatures!

We have just 2 more days left now until we set off for Thailand, and SE Asia. Hope everyone is well Adios!

Oz, axe murderers and the epic GOW remains copyright of the author monkeyboy1, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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I have been very slack in writing up this blog, which is a shame because our New Zealand trip isn't as fresh in my mind any more now we have left. We were sponsored for this journey by the Christian society and in a gesture of appreciation we travelled around the island in the shape of the Christian fish symbol. Once again thanks for your funding, we spent it well on cider, fish and chips, crucifixes and death metal CD's.

When we arrived in New Zealand it felt like we were almost home again, everyone speaking English, looking the same as us, driving on the left on tarmacked roads (luxury!), fish and chips and extortionate prices . Once we had made our way into Christchurch we picked up our transport for our trip, a trusty campervan called Bernard.

Bernard was a fine van and had been decorated by a graffiti youth fiend, probably on community service for joyriding or arson. It looked great.

We escaped from the bustle of Christchurch and within no time were out in the country driving through beautiful rolling hills, dotted with frolicking hobbits and magicians.

A magicians house

We drove for a couple of hours and then realised we were shattered after flying and waiting at airports for the last 24 hours, so we pulled up at a small campsite right next to the beach and passed out for the night.

We woke up the next morning, surprised at how comfy sleeping in the campervan was, and got out only to be greeted by an excellent sunrise and NZ fur seals playing in the water just a few metres from us!

After watching them for a while, and after having a real life hot shower (a luxury, possibly the first decent one for me in 6 weeks), we set off to the nearby town of Kaikoura. We did a walk around the coast of Kaikoura; past a seal colony (nearly stepping on a seal we didnt notice), past a colony of birds and up and round some cliffs, stopping at the end for a pint of cider and fish and chips (ah bliss!). NZ was just getting better and better!

After Kaikoura we set off up North to near Picton and drove along empty roads through beautiful landscapes, we ended up camping at a DOC (Department of conservation) campsite which was pretty much just a mud path down to a small beach. We parked up and spent the afternoon alone on the beach having a BBQ, burning the food to death in traditional British style.

After a few nights we set off again and headed over West to Nelson where it rained, and rained, and rained some more. Being stuck in a campervan when it's pouring down isnt all that much fun, especially as whenever you have to go outside you seem to bring half the water back with you, along with a bucketload of mud. To pass the time we went to a wine tasting tour and were educated in the fine art of drinking, or maybe appreciated drinking. After lots of samples we wobbled out with a bottle in our hand.

Not to be deterred by the rain we drove even further West the next day, and reached Rotarua Lake, where not all that surprisingly, it was raining. We ventured out briefly to learn about the eels in the lake which dont even reach sexual maturity until 90 years old, did a short walk and then went and hid in the van. The next day we went to the local tourist information office who said that it would rain heavily on the West coast for at least the next 400 million years, so we decided that being deterred by the rain wouldnt be so bad and headed back over east again, where the sun shines and the seals play.

Weather back over the East side was good again and we pretty much stayed over that side for the rest of our trip. We travelled down the coast and ended up in Dunedin where I went on a tour and saw wild yellow eyed penguins, which are the rarest penguins in the world with under 4000 left. The penguins were used to the tours and we sat on the beach and watched them come ashore and waddle in right past us!

After the penguins we saw some male sea lions on the beach fighting constantly and generally misbehaving.

After our time in Dunedin we travelled to another coastal town where another rare species of penguin, called Blue penguins can be found. We went down to the beach and sat for a few hours in the freezing cold waiting for them to come into land, which they didnt do. The best photo I got of them was this....

We also stopped at some big round boulders which were on the beach, various theories for how these got there have been proposed ranging from them being dinosaur eggs to being alien landing sites. All of course are complete rubbish, they're obviously fossilised giant testicles.

After a week or so of alcohol deprivation (apart from the wine, cider, and beer) we decided to give our livers what they had been begging for and put our new vineyard alcohol appreciation skills into practice. We drove to Queenstown, which is the adventure capital of NZ, and so it seems, also the English capital of NZ with more Brit than Kiwi accents to be heard. We met up with a friend of Christy's and went to his house armed with the ever sophisticated Scrumpy Jack, looking back this was probably a mistake, for a night of merriment and - vomiting on the next door neighbours drive - festivity.

We drove away with grinding headaches and headed towards Mount Cook where we spent a night under its shadow. After that we headed back to Christchurch, dropped off the ever reliable Bernard and said some teary goodbyes.

We spent the last night in Christchurch with Christy's friends, who were very nice but a little quirky, a quick summary of their beliefs was:
1. You can redirect your sperm via your back, forehead and down through your body.
2. Ejaculation of your sperm can be viewed as a negative thing, keep it in!
3. If you put cow poo in a horn and bury it for a lunar month it will fertilise at least a million acres of land, and create super vegetables (charged at super prices).
4. Milk, butter, bread and cheese are evil.
5. It's ok to rename yourself after a town in China which has literally vibrated itself into an alternate reality through meditation.
6. That dogs cant look up.
7. That dolphins are evil.

Ok, so I made points 6 & 7 up but the rest were said it all seriousness. I'm not sure what the correct answer is to someone who tells you that ejaculation is bad, or that they are named after a vibrating town, but I think "hmmmmmm ok sure" probably passed the test. Either way they were very hospitable and we had a good time discussing these mental propositions whilst trying to hold back any signs of mirth at their ideas. The next day we hastlily got onto the plane checking they hadnt implanted any weird objects such as cows skulls or sperm packages into our bags and flew to the land of Oz.

We didnt really have enough time to see all of NZ, but our couple of weeks gave us enough time to see a sample of the amazing offerings, I would like to come back one day when I have more money and can actually afford to do the tours and activities and spend a little more time. Of course, I couldn't finish any blog about NZ without at least a few sheep photos so here you are

Now for the top trumps of NZ!

NEW ZEALAND SOUTH ISLAND
Natural Beauty ----------- 9.0 (Lord of the rings landscapes, say no more!)
People --------------------- 8.5 (very friendly locals and sheep)
Sights/Activities ---------- 7 (loads of stuff to do, but not cheap, back into real world prices)
Food ----------------------- 7 (fish and chips!)
Cost ----------------------- 5 (approaching English prices for food and beer)
Shopping ------------------ 5 (once again too expensive for my lame budget)
Architecture -------------- 3 (No amazing architecture, but the landscapes make up for this)
Transport ----------------- 10 (Campervans rock!)
Price of beer ----------- c.£2.50

Overall Impression ------ 8

New Zealand, sheep and the vibrating town of Shumbi remains copyright of the author monkeyboy1, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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PERU
Natural Beauty ----------- 8.5 (awesome rainforest, beautiful mountains and purty seasides)
People --------------------- 7.5 (friendly and helpful people)
Sights/Activities ---------- 9 (loads of stuff to do, and cheap too!)
Food ----------------------- 8 (good food, cheap and delicious)
Cost ----------------------- 9 (cheap cheap cheap!)
Shopping ------------------ 6 (loads of stuff on offer and once again fairly cheap)
Architecture -------------- 9 (Two words: Machu Picchu! Add that to nice Spanish architecture and you're onto a winner)
Transport ----------------- 7 (Good comfy buses at fairly cheap prices)
Price of beer ----------- c.90p

Overall Impression ------ 8.5

I'll write a blog for New Zealand soon!

Top Trumps remains copyright of the author monkeyboy1, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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After flying back from Puerto to Cuzco I met with Christy at the airport, it was so nice to see her after our break and we went out and celebrated in the city, we woke up the next morning with a vague recollection of what had happened and receipt which stated we had drunk 18 shots at one bar, we had obviously been framed. We spent a couple more days in Cuzco, recovering and visited the town Christy had been staying at to see her perfect pots. We then took a bus for 6 hours to the lakeside city of Puno. Puno is situated next to the highest lake in the world, Lake Titikaka. Our mission here was to get onto the lake to visit the people who lived on the reed islands. We met a man near the lake who declared that he was “the famous Juan of the port”, I wanted to tell him that he couldn’t reliably declare himself famous and that it was really down to other people to do this, but let him continue to tell us about a trip to the reed islands he could arrange for us, including spending a night on one of the quieter islands. It sounded great so we decided to go ahead and let the one and only world famous Juan of the port arrange it for us.

We set off the next morning and caught a boat from the harbour, our first stop was the floating reed islands of Uros. Nearly everything on these islands are made from reeds; houses, floors, boats, pets, food and much more. Apparently they inhibitants initially made these floating islands because of the threat from the Incas and because they could hide on the lake away from them.

We pulled up to the island, stepped onto the spongy reed surface and were greeted by the islanders who were dressed in their traditional gear. After a short talk from our tour guide we were attacked by the islanders who pulled us into their reed houses and tried to sell us their reed made goods. It all felt a bit too touristy and I was half expecting to see a reed VISA card reader or a McDonalds around the back of the island. We spent an hour or so on the island trying to avoid buying souvenirs we didn’t want, including a badly stuffed duck, which was quite a mission on an island smaller than most people’s back garden. At the end they bundled some of the more pliable gringos onto a reed boat and paddled them off with the islanders serenading them with “hasta la vista baby” as they floated away. We decided to save our money and caught the tour boat across for free instead; we didn’t get a hasta la vista send off which was most upsetting, anyone would think they just wanted our money.

We visited one more reed island and Christy brought a nice tapestry off a grumpy reed lady who looked like she might throttle me for taking her photo, we then set off for Isla Amantani. Our boat seemed to be powered by something like reeds and moved at a slower-than-death pace, it took over three hours to arrive at the island which was approximately 14 metres away. We were a bit apprehensive after the Disneyworld’esq experience we had at the floating island but went in with an open mind anyway.

The island was quite rugged and arid and it reminded me of the island in the “wicker man” film, I hoped that we wouldn’t be burnt alive during our stay.

It turned out there was no roads, vehicles, play stations, Topshop, strip clubs or electricity on the island so it looked positive that it would be a more authentic experience. We were greeted by a few families of islanders, and everyone was paired off to stay with one of the families. After the pairing there was one lady left by herself and we offered to let her join our temporary family for the day and night, for the purposes of confidentiality I will call her Ms X. Our host family was a girl of 20 called Marissa, and her grandmother and grandfather, whose names I could not understand but that I pretended to take note of. They led us up the short hill towards their house and Ms X nearly had a heart attack on the way up, they offered to take all of her luggage to lighten her burden and their potential liability in the case of a law suit that could take place if she keeled over on the way up. The house was basic and it was made of mud blocks, but it was in a nice location looking out over the sea.

We got to meet the family properly, Marissa’s grandparents spoke some Spanish but mostly the local dialect of Quechua and Marissa spoke both Spanish and Quechua – they were all very nice and made us feel at home. We tested out our basic Spanish skills and managed to get along fine, although Ms X had been touring South America for some time she didn’t know any Spanish, and kept repeating “gratil” instead of Gracias which seemed to amuse and confuse the family at the same time. They cooked us lunch and we had it sitting out in the sun in their garden, next to their sheep and chickens. Looking at the sheep Ms X asked in all seriousness "are they llamas?", excellent! We spent the afternoon exploring the island, saw part of an annual island party and then headed back to their house for dinner.

We had dinner in a small room accompanied by the grandfather who was a really nice man, we questioned him as best we could in our broken Spanish and it was really nice to speak to a real life authentic person who didn’t own a Mercedes and/or shares in Microsoft. He had lived on the island all of his 68 years and had always been a farmer, and lived in their current house. He had married his wife young and they had amassed 5 children, one cow and a few sheep and chickens (not all through copulation). He had obviously had a fairly hard life, but seemed very happy with his lot, and with the view out of the window I guess we could see why.

After the meal we washed up the dishes to say thanks, but Ms X couldn’t wash the dishes as she didn’t want to get cold so instead she sat in the corner letting off little farts and mumbling gratil occasionally.

Next we were asked to prepare for a party. We went to our room and shortly after the grandparents came up and knocked on our door, they had brought us some appropriate clothes to wear to the party. Christy was given the traditional island costume and I was given a fetching poncho and hat combo.

We were then whisked to the party, we arrived to an empty warehouse with just one man sitting in the corner next to a table with a couple of beers on it, this was to be the bar. Well, we wanted authentic and this certainly wasn’t Ministry of sound so in a way we got what we wanted.

Gradually more people came to the hall and a small band set themselves up and started playing. We were taught how to dance by Marissa and proceeded to mess it up completely. We danced a few dances, had a beer and then set off home in time for bed at 9:30pm.

The stars on the way home were so bright and you could see the whole milky way, no electricity is certainly a good thing sometimes. We got up the next morning, had breakfast and then said goodbye to our Peruvian family, it was nice to stay with them and meet such friendly people.

Next up we visited another island, called Taquile, on the way Ms X warned us and the tour guide, and in fact most of the group that she had bad diarrhoea and could expel her bowels at any moment. We braced ourselves and continued on hoping for the best, I was worried our slow boat couldn’t take any extra weight whether it consisted of people or faeces. Isla Taquile was a scenic island which reminded us of Greece, life here was also slow and the locals continued their traditions including wearing certain costumes depending on their status, arranged marriages, public beatings for crimes, and possibly burning people in wicker caskets for fun. We spent the afternoon on the island and had a nice time wandering around.

After we stepped back onto the sloth-boat and steamed slowly but surely back towards the mainland. We finally arrived, both happy that overall the trip had been a real success and spent the night into Puno, the next day we travelled to Arequipa where we are now. We’ve spent the last few days visiting the deepest canyon in the world (twice as deep as the grand canyon, so yaa sucks to you America!), spotting condors, and visiting Juanita the ice maiden so I’ll write a blog about that soon.

Lake Titikaka and the chronicles of Ms. X remains copyright of the author monkeyboy1, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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I’ve just finished my first week in the jungle and I’m now back in the nearest city of Puerto Maldonaldo for a day back in civilisation, which mostly consists of eating lemon meringue pie and drinking beer.

The rainforest is humid and hot, only some daylight filters through the trees and gets to the floor so most areas are in a state of twilight all of the time. Animals are hard to spot; it’s so dense that you can walk a few metres from a jaguar without seeing it. Everything seems to want to bite, sting or lay its eggs in me. I have found out a couple of times how fire ants earnt their name, I have a family of tiny mites called chiggers eating their way up my legs, I am a mosquitoes´ best friend and I am trying to avoid getting a bot fly larvae laid under my skin (they lay their eggs in wet clothes and they then burrow into your skin, my clothes are constantly wet so I am a delight for bot fly mothers to be). Snakes lie around waiting to be trodden on, although I suppose thats not their main intention. The humidity rots everything unbelievably fast, my bags already have mould growing on them, my clothes smell like a wet dog and my ipod has some mold in the connection socket. When it rains it really rains, a few days ago we had 150mm of rain in one morning (in Norwich we get 300mm per month!), the trails turned into rivers and lower ground turned into lakes and we spent the afternoon wading around with water pouring into our wellies.

Despite all this I’m having a jolly good time, and all of these things seems like a mild distraction from how much fun jungle life is. The job here is great, we have to complete some tasks and after they´re done the rest of the time we can ramble around the jungle at our leisure hunting down animals. I am sleeping in a bungalow with another volunteer called Andy, he is from Uganda and is really easy to get along with and very nice, he seems to have had an interesting life, not many people can claim to have been shot twice in the back with an AK47 and to have had a broom sword fight with a spitting cobra all before the age of 20. The lodge is nice and our rooms are comfy.

They ring a bell three times a day and I have learnt, as did Pavlov’s dogs, that this means food time. We get a good breakfast and then a 3 course lunch and dinner. Andy and I have made friends with the waiter by giving him a reggae CD and in return we get multiple desserts and sometimes 2 main courses, I may come back fat.
Most days we walk between 10 – 15km along very muddy paths, we have built a bridge, put up signs, cut transects through thick jungle, canoed around a lake and done a few other jobs, but mostly we have just walked for the sake of walking and to try to find animals. In the evening we often go out and wander around the jungle in the dark (with a proper torch!) to search for the nocturnal animals that lurk around.

On the second day it rained heavily in the morning and we were stuck inside, in the afternoon we decided to go for a walk anyway to put up a sign near a lake. We lost track of time and by the time we got to the lake it was past 5 and the light was fading. Not to worry says Andy, I have a torch, and we set off home. When darkness came we were about half way home, he got out his torch, winds it up and turns it on, it looks and acts like a Fisher Price torch made for under 5’s and doesn’t really illuminate anything. Bugger. We continued on getting lost a few times, aware that if we wander even a few metres off the path we will be lost for good and that our bodies will be found inside an anaconda later in the month (ok, thats an exaggeration, we´d just have to sit in the dark for a night). We ended up in a basin, flooded deeply with water, in the dark with our dim torch, we didn’t know which way to go, we tried climbing the sides but slid back down. We tried leaving by what looked like a river but it was so deep it came past the tops of our wellies and we turned back. We panicked a little considering spending a night sleeping with snakes, army ants and a thousand mosquitoes as roommates. Eventually we decided to walk our way out via the river which turned out not to be a river at all but actually the path. Happily we made our way back and I vowed to take a proper torch next time.

We’ve seen a fair few animals; white lipped and collared peccaries, similar to wild boars but bigger and with tusks they roam around the forest in groups of up to 200 stinking like sweaty gyms and urine and freak out when they see you charging, snorting and knocking down anything in their way, we pick a tree when we first see (or smell them) to climb if they let loose in our direction. We see lots of monkeys, saddleback monkeys who are quite tame and like bananas, howler monkeys to try to pee on your head and capuchin monkeys who are very grumpy and throw sticks at you to make you go away.

We’ve also seen other mammals like agoutis, pacas, deer, ocelots (only a dead one though!!!), bats, tayras and Amazonian squirrels who are all keen to get as far away from you as quickly as possible.

We’ve seen a few snakes including a bad tempered rainbow boa who tried to bite us and then chased us down the path. We have a few pink footed tarantulas living at the lodge, one of which can sometimes be found in the toilet bowl. Butterflies are everywhere, there is 1400 species here, the highest number in the world, in all colours shapes and sizes, the same goes with birds and there are 2 wild macaws that hang around the lodge, I have managed to make friends with one of them and she will fly down, sit on my shoulder and eat oranges, the other one doesn’t like anyway and just tried to bite me (he sometimes also breaks into people’s rooms and hides under the bed until them come in, at which point he jumps out and attacks their feet).

Insects in all shapes and colours are all around and when they’re not trying to bite me are great to look at and photograph.

A project called Forever Fauna Tambopata has just come to the lodge, they are carrying out 3 surveying projects on mammals, birds and reptiles (and amphibians). We have been helping them out and when I get back to the lodge I am joining the bird team to go mist netting (to catch and measure the birds) and the following night I will be out in the jungle from 9pm-4am searching for snakes, lizards and frogs. Hopefully I´ll see lots of stuff (although I´m not all that keen to get close to a pitt viper to be honest) and I´ll learn alot too, it will be good stuff for my CV.

Jungle Boogie remains copyright of the author monkeyboy1, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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We have just got back from a trek to Machu Picchu and we’re now recovered after all the walking, we had an amazing time and it was one of the best things I have done since we’ve started travelling. So I can remember it all when I’m an old man and have trouble remembering even my name I’m going to write a mini novel about it all, you can just look at the photos to get the gist….

Day 1: Mollepata – Soraypampa. 18km. 700 metres ascent, 0 metres descent.

We started off bright and early and caught a bus from Cuzco to Mollepata at 4am. We met the other people we would be trekking with, 6 Americans, 2 Brazilians, 2 guides and us and got acquainted over some coca leaf tea and breakfast before we set off.

The trail at the start was fairly easy and lulled us into a false sense of security; this was going to be a breeze. We wandered through rolling hills and dusty paths up to a big hill where we had our lunch and relaxed before setting off again.

In the afternoon we set of again, now a bit sleepy from lunch and the mornings walking and we walked, walked, walked and walked some more. Slowly but surely we approached the snow capped peak of Salkantay. We arrived at our camp after 7 hours of walking, with aching feet, feeling very tired and had dinner before we fell exhausted into freezing tents at 8pm. It was one of the longest and coldest nights ever and I didn’t get hardly any sleep, at about 3am I even managed to break the zip on my rental sleeping bag and spent the rest of the night swearing at the bag and the cold and the tent and pretty much everything.

Day 2: Soraypampa – Challway. 20km. 1050 metres ascent, 1700 metres descent.

We all got up in the pitch black at 4am and stumbled around in the freezing cold to get breakfast.

We were all cheered up no end when one of the American girls asked in all seriousness whether llamas laid eggs. Brilliant. We informed her that they did and also had feathers and exchanged stories about how we had either not slept or slept very little and we sang happy birthday to Christy. We all seemed to be in a very good mood despite our lack of sleep and we set off for what we knew would be the most gruelling day of the trek. We started off walking along a valley next to an icy river and as our campsite disappeared behind us we saw the massive Salkantay Mountain looming ahead. We worked our way up a steep series of switch backs up the mountain which was hard work but well worth the view from the top when we finally got there.

We had a bit of a group celebration before realising we were actually only about half way up to the pass and that most of the climb was still ahead. On we plodded, walk walk walk walk walk.

We continued heading upwards stopping off at a nice frozen lake, played with a calf and then headed towards the top of the pass. At last we reached the top of the pass and had amazing views of the mountains surrounding it and the valleys leading from it. We stopped for a bit to take in the view, rest, drink some birthday rum and undertake a spot of mountain rock golf.

We set off down the other side of the pass into a mist filled valley. It was good to see a change of scenery from the icy top to more green with birds singing and packhorses charging by in the mist.

By the time we got to have lunch we had been walking for 6 hours and we were exhausted and settled down to a nice siesta before setting off again.

After lunch the scenery changed rapidly again as we descended into a mist topped jungle valley with a river flowing down the middle.

As we walked on slowly with tired feet horsemen and porters with massive backpacks came running past making us feel very unfit.

After 3 more hours walking we reached our next campsite which was perfectly placed in the jungle near a river. We played cards, had dinner and our chef brought Christy out a birthday cake which we had somehow magically cooked oon a gas stove. We then sat around a camp site telling stories, one of our guides who didn’t speak much English decided to tell a story with the help of a translator. Unfortunately it didn’t make any sense as it was about a woman who changed into a puppy, a man who went for a wee with a girl tied to his leg and Dracula, either way it was quite entertaining in a weird sort of way. After we settled tired down and slept perfectly for the night.

Day 3: Challway – P. Sahuayaco. 14km. 0 metres ascent (yay), 1020 metres descent.

We woke up early refreshed and ready for another days trekking. We set off first through open hills and then went into the jungle again on dusty paths high up winding around high above the river below.

We continued through the jungle stopping at a beautiful waterfall, met some locals and after for a game of football, gringos against Peruvians. We lost after we scored in our own net and kicked the ball into a fast moving river.

We finished walking early at 1pm and celebrated by going to some hot springs to soak our legs. In the evening we all got together for dinner and celebrated with some wine and rum. We were in a tiny village but our guide told us about a nightclub there, I didn’t know whether to believe him because he liked winding people up but he persisted saying it did exist. A few of us went to investigate and were surprised to see it did exist. Based in the main room of the bottom of a small two storied house and decorated with a stripper’s pole and a wolf skin on the wall, it was quite possibly the weirdest nightclub ever. It was owned by an old lady who promptly fell asleep on a chair at the bar when we arrived and left her 10 year old relatives to run the bar. An interesting mix of Dr Dre and traditional Peruvian was being played and we stayed for a few hours taking advantage of the constant happy hour rums. After we went back and slept perfectly again. Tent sleeping was getting easier by the day.

Day 4: P. Sahuayaco – Aguas Calientes. 14km. 80 metres ascent, 0 metres descent.

We woke up covered in ant and mosquito bites, in our drunken state we had forgotten to put any repellent on and had made a great meal for the local wildlife. We got up and went for breakfast only to be provided with entertainment like none before. Across the road from where we were eating there was an open sided metal shed. A live cow was lead in, it was stabbed in the head, had its throat cut and the drama unfolded something like this...

It was quite shocking and put me off my breakfast a bit (not enough to stop me eating it, thankfully it wasn’t beef) but it was a brutal education and thankfully the cow playing along splendidly and died fairly quickly, after twitching a lot and banging its head on the floor a few times. I think it’s good to see what happens to the animals which we eat so it was a good experience in some ways. We tried to decide whether it was better to be a intensively farmed cow killed with a bolt gun, but who would have to live in a shed all its life, or to be a free range Peruvian cow who lived outside happily all its life but got killed by being stabbed in the head. We decided the Peruvian cow’s way would probably win, although being a cow in India would be better.

We set off walking later in the day and regretted lying in because sun was beating down. We were now out of the jungle and we trekked along dusty roads alongside a river.

We walked until we reached out lunch spot and enjoyed eating in the shade. After lunch we continued on briefly entering the jungle to see an Inca sacrificial stone where llamas were sacrificed for the gods. Christy and Ben reconstructed what this would have been like, to great effect.

After we walked along a railway line for at least 1000 hours before finally and very happily reaching the gringo filled town of Aguas Calientes, tired and very smelly, where we had a hotel with hot water and a comfy bed waiting. We had a final meal together and then went to bed early, ready for Machu Picchu the next day.

Day 5: P. Aguas Calientes – Machu Picchu. 14km. 800 metres ascent, 0 metres descent.

We woke up at 3:45am to start the 2km trek to Machu Picchu, it sounded very easy but was in fact 2km of almost vertical steps up to the site, which was even harder in the pitch black. We stumbled and panted up the steps until we finally reached the site in time to see a beautiful sunrise over Machu Picchu, it made all the trekking even more worth it as the tour groups didn’t get into the site until about 11 so missed half of the fun. The view as you walk into the site is amazing and it was much bigger and more impressive than I thought it would be.

I decided to climb the mountain next to Machu Picchu to get a better view, from the top Machu Picchu looked tiny but I got a good view of the sadistically winding route up we had slogged up in the morning.

After that climb Christy and I fell asleep in a meadow for a bit then wandered around some more.

After spending the day hanging out with llamas we caught a train and then bus back to Cuzco where we fell asleep for the next few days.

[*]

All in all it was an awesome trek and I hope we can get some more trekking done in the rest of the countries we go to. I am going into the rainforest tomorrow for the next month, apparently there is a satellite internet connection when there is no rain (not sure how often that is in the rainforest mind) so with any luck I might be able to add photos of me wrestling jaguars and racing on anacondas.

Do llamas lay eggs? remains copyright of the author monkeyboy1, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Cuzco was the centre of the Incan empire and the continents oldest continuously inhabited city, after the Spanish invasion it became a bit of a backwater but now it’s back and is known as the cultural capital of the Americas. One of the reasons we travelled to Cuzco was to see Peru’s biggest festival, Inti Raymi (festival of the sun). For Christy’s birthday we checked into a 400 year old hotel which was built by the conquistadors and enjoyed the festival in style. For 10 days before the festival the city is totally filled with parades and celebrations. It seems like everyone’s involved and the whole city parades about dressed in awesome costumes, dancing, playing music and having a great time – it was really nice to see everyone getting involved and the feeling of community spirit. It all comes to a head with the main celebration, the festival of the sun, which is attended by everyone and their dog. We got to see all the parades close up but the main festival was so busy we had to sit high up on a hill and watch from afar. Unfortunately some people in front of us on the hill stood up enraging everyone behind who, on encouragement from a stupid American, started throwing rocks to make the people sit down. Some of these started landing near us and some on our heads so we decided to run away before they got so hyped up the mob started to crucify people. I don’t think we missed that much as we couldn’t see very well from there and the parades in the city definitely had a better atmosphere to it anyway. The festival was a photographers dream and I got a bit carried away, here are some (lots) of the photos ....

Ok, no more I promise!!!

Inti Raymi Festival remains copyright of the author monkeyboy1, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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After the detective work we decided that we needed a rest and went to live up in a lodge in the mountains.

The lodge was right up in the hills and surrounded by small villages, you could see the locals, dressed in their traditional clothes walking around ushering cattle, donkeys and occasionally pigs (on leads!) around.

It was a great place to relax, the scenery was amazing and their 2 little dogs were good company too!

The first day we went for a trek up a valley, at the opening of the valley there was a gate and on the other side 6 mean looking bulls and a friendly donkey that looked like he wanted to get away from the nasty bulls. We debated entering the arena but decided against getting mauled and instead crawled over a dry stone wall and walked up the valley on the wrong side of the river. After a while we realised a path would be better and decided to cross back into bull country. The river was quite fast and there was no bridge so we had to cross Indiana Jones style, across a thin fallen tree. I got across but Christy ended up ripping her trousers open exposing her bum for all the locals to see. We walked up the valley for a few hours but the weather started to turn. We turned back but not wanting to expose ourselves anymore to the locals we decided to leave crossing the river and risk the bulls by returning that way. The bulls turned out to be not that bad which gave us confidence and when we saw the friendly donkey we didn’t hesitate in walking straight up to it to make friends. Unfortunately the donkey seemed to have issues and wouldn’t leave us alone, it seemed to fall in instant love with us, maybe it was Christy’s exposed buttock that excited it or maybe it was just lonely with all those bulls. Either way it kept following us at way too close quarters nudging us and bucking. All I could think about was a you tube video I had watched where a man got raped by a donkey when he was going for a pee in a field - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRm8okHhapU&feature=related - so I told Christy about it which turned out not to be the best calming idea considering the donkey did look as though it might turn romantic on us. It got to the point where Christy was standing on a rock above me begging me to hold the donkey back, I was trying to hold the donkey back with a small twig and every time I prodded at it, it bucked a bit more, but didn’t back off. I was left wondering how I could hold back the beast from ravishing both of us and wondering why I was held accountable for calming the animal, after all a degree in ecology doesn’t cover how to stop donkey attack. I didn’t want us to get into the newspapers again, especially not for being sexually abused by a donkey in the Andes and in Monty Python style I could see no other option but to run away. Run away we did into the bushes and luckily the donkey didn’t follow us, but we had to walk all the way back clambering over trees which took longer.

By the time we got back the rain had stopped and we were greeted home with a nice rainbow and a cup of tea from the owner who assured us that donkeys do not rape humans.

The next day we decided to trek the other valley, we got about a mile into the walk, I fell into a mini river and we got eyed up by what looked like a rabid dog and that was enough to crush whatever small motivation we had for exercise and we decided that drinking wine would be a better idea. So we went back to the lodge, brought a litre of wine and spent an excellent afternoon sitting at the edge of a beautiful canyon drinking wine, eating pies and photographing the hummingbirds, not a rapist donkey or rabid dog in sight.

We stayed at the way inn for a few days and then travelled to Nazca where we are now. Earlier today we took a flight in a tiny 6 seater plane over the famous Nazca lines. I remember reading about the Nazca lines when I was little and it was fascinating to see them, and to wonder about how and why they got there. The plane banked full right and left so that everyone got a good view and by the time we landed everyone was a bit green but glad they had seen the lines and not thrown up in the plane. Tomorrow we’re off to check out a cemetery in the desert which sounds awesome, more bones!

The dangers of hiking remains copyright of the author monkeyboy1, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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When we finally got back to base camp Christy wasn’t any better so we decided that it would be best for her to go back the next day to recover. We had a very long and cold night in the tent and woke up to ice on our boots. We then walked back to Huaraz and rested for the next few days recovering.

Whilst Christy was recovering I amused myself by playing Columbo. When we were first dropped off for the hike I realised that I had forgotten the plate which attaches my camera to my tripod and it was therefore useless. So, I asked what I thought was the agency driver to take it back to the hostel for me. He agreed to do so and left his driver’s licence as security, along with his number plate details. When we got to the hostel it was not there so I contacted our trekking agency who then said that they had no idea who the taxi driver was and that they just grabbed him from the street. Thus started the epic tale of the tripod. I went along with the hiking agency man to the main police station. After much handshaking and waiting we were admitted into the hub of police activity in Huaraz, which consisted of a small room which was half filled with boxes of red wine and a few very jolly looking officers. We sat down on wonky chairs and waited for the police commissioner to finish his demanding work of looking through an album of football photos. Once he had finished this important task he turned to us and we discussed what had happened. He decided the best move would not to be to ask his force of several hundred traffic police to look for the taxi, but to ask us to stand on the main crossroads (next to where the police stood already playing with their phones, blowing their whistles for no reason and chatting amongst themselves) for two hours trying to find the taxi amongst at least 1000 other taxis. So we did that and by the end my head was filled with number plates, but not the correct one. We gave up for the night and the next day the hiking guy did some of his own private investigation and found out the taxi drivers cousin’s address. The following morning we went and collected the police commissioner and, in a taxi paid for by me (apparently Peruvian police cars are not for hunting down criminals, but for more important business like doughnut and ice cream collection), drove to the cousins house, picked him up and then tried to find the house of the taxi driver. The cousin wasn’t sure exactly where he lived and everyone on the street seemed to know nothing and denied everything. So we gave up and as we were walking back towards the station I spotted the number plate of the thieving taxi and we hailed it down. It wasn’t the same taxi driver and it turned out that 4 people shared driving the one taxi. Either way it was a lead and we were all chuffed that at least we now had a free taxi which we could finish the investigation with; the taxi driver didn’t share this enthusiasm with us. We all piled in, me, Christy, trek man, police commissioner, and cousin. The taxi driver took us to a house next, unfortunately the thief wasn’t there but a small girl was so we apprehended her and crammed her into the car. We then drove up to a market where another woman was also piled into the car, along with a sausage dog and a rare breed of pig. By this point the car was struggling to get up hills with the weight of everyone in the car. We then drove back to the very first house we had knocked upon and been told he didn’t live there, only to find out the woman must have forgotten that her husband indeed DID live with her, an easy mistake to make and one that didn’t seem to bother the commissioner. After some time the tripod stealing taxi driver appeared from the house, he was drunk and apparently had been for the last 4 days at a party which explained the absence of the tripod. We piled him into the car too along with my tripod and headed to a cafe where over a coke the police commissioner explained that he would give me back my tripod in exchange for 50 soles for his hard work, the taxi driver was set free and law and order was restored in Huaraz. Police work at its best!!!

Peruvian Law and Order remains copyright of the author monkeyboy1, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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We’ve said adios to Mexico and we’re now in Peru. I’m sitting in our room looking out over the most stunning mountains, which make up part of the Andes range.

It seems that all around where we are staying at the moment is beautiful; one of the mountains near where we are staying is in Paramount Pictures logo you see at the start of their films, another one was voted to be the most beautiful mountain in the world and the film ‘touching the void’ was filmed here (possibly the oddest name for a film and most likely to be ripped off to make a gay porn movie, but nevertheless a very good film anyway).

On arriving in Peru we spent a few days in central Lima and we were surprised at how cold it was, there was a blanket of fog over the city the whole time which blocked out the sun, but to be honest after the scorching Mexican weather it was a nice change to be able to wear a jumper and not drip sweat everywhere. It turns out that on the coastal areas it is winter and therefore cold, but in inland areas it is summer, so we now we are in Huaraz we have nice blue skies and sunny weather again.

We were a bit suspicious of Lima, after hearing stories of it not being that nice, but we were pleasantly surprised as it had a fair bit to offer and seemed fairly safe and the people seemed much friendlier than those in Mexico. We visited the main monastery on the first day and went on a tour around it and into its catacombs, which housed the bones of 25,000 people all laid out right in front of us on display. They had separated them out so one room would have hundreds of skulls and the next femurs etc, inside a well they had even made a pretty spiral display out of several hundred bones which although aesthetically pleasing I wondered what the owners would think if they knew that hundreds of years after their death they would be made into a bone kaleidoscope.

Either way we gawped on whilst the guide lady tried to whisk us along to distract us with the equally fascinating sculptures of Jesus, it didn’t work. Lima seemed to have an excess of skulls, our rather grand hotel had 3 skulls in a box in reception, if you look closely at the photo you can also see a child’s (or midgets) foot in the front of the box, nice!

Everything is really cheap here which is definitely a bonus, you can buy a three course meal with a drink for £1.20 (we actually saw a set meal today in Huaraz for 60p!), it’s edible and pretty good stuff – yesterday I munched on a guinea pig which was good, it tasted a bit like chicken, but more picky as it was mostly bone. I am working my way through pets as food sources, watch out kitties! Anyway, just as importantly I can buy a big bottle of beer for 40p too which is definitely a good thing

We looked around various museums over the next few days and wandered around the city which was great. On the second day we decided to be brave and go and get a haircut as both of our hair was getting a bit wild. After all, compared to Korea, what could go wrong?! We found a hairdressers just off the main street and went in, they said the price was 20 soles which is about £4 which didn’t seem too bad. Christy got a bloke who could speak good English cutting hers and I sat waiting for him to finish before he cut mine. Unfortunately, he called over a giant ape of a man who I presumed was the security guard and asked him to cut mine. He looked like he would be happier working in an abattoir or beating small children to death rather than styling hair but I decided to give him a fair chance, after all the other option was to turn him down and offend a man who could kill me in 10 seconds flat. I showed him what I wanted and he set off on the longest hair cut I have ever had, or wish to ever have again. I think maybe he actually did work in an abattoir and had wandered off the street because he seemed to have no idea how to cut hair, first he buffed up my hair up into some kind of square shape, a bit like Bart Simpsons, and then he proceeded to cut my hair with a cut throat razor (yes a cut throat razor, I have no idea what was going on there), twisting small clumps of it and hacking off the top section. Naturally this took some time and left my hair uneven all over, nearly balding in the centre with longer bits around the edge like a wild maverick monk who doesn’t like to do things by the book. With his creative juices in full swing no one could stop him and he curled the front of my hair with curlers and poured some kind of perm fluid over the curlers. By this point I had already given up all hope and had mentally decided that it would be better, safer and more amusing, to let him do his worst and I could just shave it all off afterwards. After one and a half hours he had finished and he revealed his masterpiece, which would have been welcomed into the Tate modern on account of it being a load of crap. Short in the middle, long at the sides with a permed front, just what I wanted. Poor Christy had her hair massacred too and we sat looking a bit dazed at each other, at last we had found a worst haircut than you could get in Korea, this was the holy grail of shit hairdressers. Then Dr Abbattoir brings out a bill and declares that Christy owes 50 soles and I owe 70 soles. Apparently as Christy’s hairdresser had combed her hair that cost an extra £6 and the perm, which I had never asked for and combing was an extra £10 for me. We refused, gave them the 20 soles we agreed on and then ran away as fast as we could before Cut Throat Razor man chopped us up and put us into a pie. So, we experienced our first Peruvian gringo rip off initiation, and survived with nothing more than bad hair, which all considered isn’t too bad.

After Lima we caught the bus up to where we are now. We were dreading the buses as we had been told lots about the crazy driving, but once again we were really surprised as it was the best bus journey ever. The seats went all the way back to almost horizontal position, we got a meal, internet access, films and a blanket, along with a bus driver who didn’t go over the speed limits or go crazy around corners, all that for £10 for a 8 hour bus journey. Peru keeps getting better!

More exciting than buses and hairdressers combined, we have booked a trek starting tomorrow, the main trek around here is the Santa Cruz route, but apparently its full of gringos so we have opted for an alternate route which takes us past lakes, over snow topped mountains and through small villages, and apparently it’s really quiet so we won’t have to hike with a million other people. The trek is for 4 days, about 65km and the highest point is around 5000 metres (the highest mountain in the UK is Ben Nevis at 1344 metres, we're touching the heavens here!). We are going with another couple and we have a guide, porters and a cook. The company organising it are hiring us tents and equipment so I don’t have to worry about bringing anything apart from the real essentials for trekking; a bottle of rum, a pair of pants, a camera and a novelty hat with a propeller on the top to ward off evil spirits and jaguars. I’m really looking forward to it and it will be great to get out there for a few days and explore where no man has ever explored before. Wish us luck, adios!

Hola Peru, guinea pig stew remains copyright of the author monkeyboy1, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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MEXICO
Natural Beauty ----------- 7 (nice jungles and beautiful beaches)
People --------------------- 4 (met a few great Mexicans and ex pats, but generally, where were the smiles?!)
Sights/Activities ---------- 7 (lots of activities but quite expensive and very touristy)
Food ----------------------- 4 (some was delicious but often we felt a bit cheated)
Cost ----------------------- 6 (not expensive but not cheap)
Shopping ------------------ 6 (lots of hassling, but good souvenirs)
Architecture -------------- 10 (awesome temples and colonial cities)
Transport ----------------- 7 (Good buses but quite expensive)
Price of beer ----------- c.90p

Overall Impression ------ 7

Finally, here are some final Mexico photos from Mexico Zoo which I took on the last day. Adios!

Top trumps remains copyright of the author monkeyboy1, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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We visited Chichen Itza earlier this week, once again the swine flu did us a massive favour and this normally jam packed site was practically empty. So, we got to see one of the 7 wonders of the world without hundreds of other gringos buzzing around blocking our views, excellent - go pigs!

It was such an impressive site and you could really imagine what it would have been like over the years when it was occupied by first the Mayans and then the Tolecs. I think if I could go back in time anywhere I would have gone here when one of the big ceremonies was on, it would have been amazing when all the colours, carvings and pyramids were new.

The first building we saw was a big pyramid, which is actually a humungous Mayan calendar which worked like this: on each side of the pyramid there is 9 levels, divided by a staircase, equalling 18 which is the number of months the Mayans had in their year.

On each of the 4 staircases there is 91 steps, totalling 364 steps, add the top platform and you have 365, the number of days in a year.

As if that wasn’t clever enough, during spring and autumn equinoxes the design creates a light and shadow illusion of a serpent crawling down or up the staircase. Amazing! All this was built 1200 years ago without the help of any machines, wheels or Bovis homes. To think the Spaniards came along and wiped out most the evidence of this culture as heathen is a real loss, apparently not much is known about the cultures because the conquistadors and priests burnt their idols and scrolls, and smashed thousands of their temples.

We walked around the site and saw a cenote, which is a big hole in the ground which would have been an underground cave but over time the ceiling had caved in. The Tolecs, who were apparently obsessed with sacrificing as many people possible, used to throw people into this lake alive as offerings to the Gods, think of it has a human flavoured God sized pot noodle.

Next we saw a big ball court, which is the largest in Mexico, it had large walls along the sides with two stone hoops.

Here the Mayans and Tolecs used to play a game similar(ish) to football (apart from sometimes they set the ball on fire). If they happened to get the ball through the hoop the team would automatically win, there must have been other ways to win as well I assume. To add a nice twist and a real incentive to win the game, the losing team were all killed. There were carvings along the walls of players having their heads cut off, gruesome stuff. I think this idea would be a great introduction to professional football, I’m sure it would decrease the amount of fake falling over and girly crying ...

No way to get ahead.....

Next we saw the platform of skulls; this was a T shaped platform with skulls etched all over the walls. In Tolec times this would have been used to display the skulls of those sacrificed for all to see, maybe every Sunday families would have taken a nice afternoon stroll to see the decaying heads, who knows?! Walking around it you could really imagine all of the skulls up there, awesome!

The site was pretty big with loads to see, but the sun got hotter and hotter so we left after a few hours.

Over the last week or so the midday temperature has been 42 degrees, which is pretty much so hot that all you can do during the middle of the day is sit and drink beer and lounge around in the swimming pool. It’s tough but we seem to manage it somehow.

We have now dragged ourselves away from our last hostel in Merida city, it was as near to perfect as a hostel can be with really friendly people, a nice swimming and lots of cool stuff to do. We are now in San Andres Tuxlas, back near the jungle again – the journey here took 23 hours which is an immense amount of time to be sitting on a bus or waiting in bus stations for transfers, but we survived it and I vowed to take more journeys in the UK, 7 hours to explore Scotland always seemed quite far but compared with the journeys here it would be nothing! Mel Gibson’s film ‘Apocalypto’ was filmed around here and we went and spent this morning at the waterfall where they filmed the main man jump off (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FT-jNv6QxU), it was really beautiful although it isnt rainy season here yet so it wasn´t quite so violent as in the film. We sat and watched lizards, damselflies, butterflies and leaf cutter ants doing their thing at the side of the river. Perfecto!

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A week ago, lying in my bed at about 4am and quite drunk I heard the weirdest noise in the world, it sounded like an evil man groaning really loudly, swirling around the room – like the bad guy from Lord of the Rings when he was angry at that poor little Frodo. It turned out it wasn’t Saruman but that I had heard my first howler monkey. It was definitely the strangest sound I had ever heard. I can’t do it justice by describing it so here is a link to the noise, turn your speakers up full, drink a bottle of rum and lock yourself inside a dark room (preferably in the jungle)to get the full experience.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwQuGGFYZcA

I can’t even imagine what the first people who came here must have thought it was but it must have been pretty scary with what sounded like a demon outside! Every night in the jungle we were woken up with a full performance, I quite miss it now we’ve gone, but at least I’ll get it again in the Amazon.

But, I need to rewind, that was only last week and a lot has happened since the last blogathon. Last time I wrote we were in Puerto Escondido, the surfing town. The day after my last blog we went sport fishing, I had high hopes of becoming a master fisher and making my living sailing the seas catching trophy winning fish, like Captain Birdseye but with a bigger beard and less of a penchant for small children. So, we set off at 6am to catch me a marlin. Within a couple of minutes of dropping our lines both of us had caught fair sized Dorados, the fisherman in charge seemed to think we actually knew what on earth we were doing so we had to make it up as we went along, somehow we managed to drag the fish aboard and he kindly beat them to death for us. We were really cuffed and I mentally prepared myself for the big catch that would put my name in the history books. Unfortunately things didn’t quite pan out like that and I spent the next 3 hours without catching another fish whilst Christy, who wasn’t really that fussed about fishing anyway, caught fish after fish after fish, including a tuna! The end result was 6-1 to her, unbelievable. My Captain birdseye dream shattered I returned to land to be mocked by the locals for letting a WOMAN beat me at fishing. Either way it was great fun and I saw lots of other wildlife including turtles and pelicans, and for our lunch we ate one of the dorados and we had tuna for dinner, and they were both delicious.



My ears had been playing me up since we arrived in Mexico with lots of popping and deafness so I decided to go to the doctors, I went and found out I had a blockage in my inner ear, he thought it was blocked by some kind of wax but I personally suspected a rum build up. At the end of the appointment Dr Cristobal turned Dr. Nick (from the Simpsons) and tried to charge me 2000 pesos (£100) for the consultation, I said that was too much especially considering the normal doctors down the road were charging 30 pesos, and he gave me a 50% discount on the spot which was very accommodating of him. I said that was still too much and he gave me yet another 50% discount so we settled on the price of 500 pesos. Not great but better than £100, he threw in a set of tyres and a pencil shaped like a giraffe too so I was delighted. I am also glad to say my hearing has returned now which is a bonus, good old Doctor Nick.

Our next stop was a 12 hour overnight bus journey away to the mountain city of San Cristobal. The city itself had a really nice feel to it and we spent a couple of days wandering around it, checking out the cobbled streets, colonial buildings and locals dressed in their traditional clothes. I couldn’t take many photos because they believe in the evil eye and think that photos steal their soul, and apparently people have been attacked for taking photos so I left my camera in my bag. Every afternoon without fail there was a massive thunderstorm and on the second day we hid in the hostel playing scrabble. We were joined by a Mexican man who I think might have been Sam’s double, his name was Bernardo and he had the same looks and mannerisms as Mr Lewis Jnr. It turned out he could play a mean game of scrabble which was a bit embarrassing as English was his second language and evidentially our first, once again I blamed the rum. We were joined later by Juan, another Mexican bloke who worked at the hostel and we all went Salsa dancing in a great club. Mexicans put us to shame with their dancing, everyone seemed have been trained intensively since they were toddlers and shapes were being thrown that I couldn’t even begin to work out. Christy and I joined in and I made a fool out of myself no doubt but we had lots of fun anyway. Bernardo who was fairly quiet all day bloomed in the Salsa environment and shot off as soon as we got there, grabbed a girl and flung her onto the dance floor for an hour of intensive salsa therapy. Afterwards he came at sat down quietly once again.

The next day we went for a boat tour down a canyon and saw lots of vultures, kingfishers, herons and other interesting stuff.

On the final night in San Cristobal I went out with Juan for some final goodbye drinks, I met another couple of blokes, Andy who was from Manchester was a loud and cheerful bloke and Jesse from Seattle who sounded exactly like Nicolas Cage. Andy was meant to be in Cuba with his friends, but had got to Mexico only to find out that Cuba had cancelled all of the flights from Mexico because of the swine flu, so he was travelling by himself making his way over to Cancun to catch a flight later on to Jamaica to meet them again. Jesse was just 18 years old and had travelled by himself overland from Argentina and was planning on continuing all the way back to Seattle, impressive stuff at that age (or any age really).

I said that the next day Christy and I were going to the jungle to live with some monkeys which excited them as much as it did me, and they decided to join us for the next few days on our jungle boogie.
So the next day we travelled together to Palenque, we arrived around 6pm and it was still boiling hot and steamy as any proper jungle should be. We got a collectivo to the jungle lodge which was an awesome assortment of huts, hammocks and a few rooms set in the jungle and around a big swimming pool. It was filled to the brim with hippies, lots of which I think stayed there for months on end, playing guitars, munching on the local mushrooms and talking to the trees. We spent a few days lounging around the pool, drinking way too much rum and asking Jesse to do Nicolas Cage impressions.

On the second day one of the hippies, who we believed to be King of the hippies, asked us whether we wanted to join them in a steam room and do some “Mayan chanting”. It all sounded very nice and relaxing so we agreed. At sunset we joined about 8 of them who were marching around a campfire sweating profusely and obviously quite excited about what lay ahead. We were told to get in line and only look at the fire for it was what the ceremony was dedicated too. The fire has been set up and surrounded by antlers and offerings to the Mayan gods, it turned out this was not a hippy ceremony but an ancient Mayan one. After what seemed like a very long time walking around the fire chanting whilst feeling like I was on fire, and with big chief man dropped various substances on the fire which made it go pop and whizz and in turn making our heads go pop and whizz, we stopped and he explained that the ceremony would begin. Apparently we were about to enter a state of meditation where there was no tomorrow, no yesterday, just now. It was all very intense, we had signed up for a hippy fest of light chanting not a full on spiritual festival of Maya. We then had to pay our respects to the Gods of the North, East, South and West and then we were ushered into Temezcal whilst having dubious smoke blown over us. A temezcal is a stone hut which looks like an igloo, it has a hole in the centre for hot rocks and inside it is totally black apart from the hot rocks in the middle. Christy decided that it was all a bit much and left which the man in charge wasn’t at all happy with, I decided to follow her to check she was ok and big chief Maya tried to block my way with a pair of antlers but after some light debate he set me free from the temezcal. We sat in the pool listening to frantic chanting for about an hour after. Jesse and Andy stayed and we caught up with them later for a full account. We saw Jesse first, he stumbled up to the bar like a zombie, I thought maybe he had been lobotomised but I couldn’t see any obvious entry wounds to his skull. He said that the heat was unbearable and that they had shut the door and sat inside the dark room chanting various things with only the hot rocks to focus on, whilst the main man burned various things on them. After a while he started hallucinating and saw 5 imaginary people trying to touch him. We found Andy later, he had left after 10 minutes of hallucinating and passed out outside the temezcal, the man had come out to check his pulse to see was still alive, which was nice. Apparently most of the people had left around the same time and Jesse said that by the end the few people remaining were all lying passed out on the floor. I don’t know exactly what went on in there but for the next 2 days they were both space monkeys and kept repeating “the headmaster is a wonderful man”. All very odd but an experience all the same.
Close to our jungle hangout was the main attraction in Palenque, a big Mayan temple. We went and checked it out and it was really impressive. You could imagine what it was like at the time and the people going about their day to day tasks such as chopping people’s heads off and throwing them down the steps. Apparently lots of the architecture was inspired by psychedelic substances which the priests used, most probably in a temezcal!

After a few days we said our goodbyes to Andy and Jesse and we set off for Tulum. In Tulum there is a Mayan temple right on the cliff of the beach and we spent the day looking around it and on the beach hanging out with iguanas who seemed to think they owned the place.


Next up we set off Cancun, the Great Yarmouth of Mexico. We checked in at a random hostel only to randomly find Andy there so we decided to go and check out what Cancun nightlife had to offer. We ended up in an open club which cost a tenner to get in with unlimited drinks all night. I’m not sure that they made all that much money from us and we drank and danced until they threw us out at the end. It was a good night and Cancun provided exactly what it said on the tin; no culture but lots of booze.


After a day’s recovering we said goodbye to Andy (again) and set off to where we are now, Isla Mujeres. It’s a small island 30 minutes from Cancun, it seems very nice and there’s lots to do – the sea is amazingly blue and the beaches are perfect too.

Weve spent today driving around in a golf buggy which has a maximum speed of about 10mph, we went and saw some turtles in a sanctuary and then went snorkelling and were surrounded by hundreds of fish, it was roight nice!

I’m deciding whether I can afford to go swimming with whale sharks over the next few days which sounds awesome, if not there’s lots of snorkelling to do and maybe I’ll bump into one anyway! We’re going to spend the next few days here and then head off to one of the seven wonders of the world, Chitchen Itza. Until then, adios amigos, hope you are all well and that its still sunny in England!

Hanging with the monkeys remains copyright of the author monkeyboy1, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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On our second day in Oaxaca we decided to hire a car and explore the nearby towns, in true Korean style we rock scissor papered to decide who would drive and I won (or lost depending on how you view driving on Mexican roads). We escaped the city without too many problems and were surprised to see the amount of speed bumps Mexican roads have, they literally stick them everywhere, even out of the cities on long straights with no houses nearby. These are not the amiable small speed bumps you see in England, but bigger, meaner and even more concerning, they seem to be cunningly camouflaged which resulted in us hitting a couple of them at full speed, which luckily due to our 998cc engine was about 70kph – only a small take off was achieved. Our first stop was nothing less than the largest tree in the world; with a trunk diameter of 11 metres, height of 42 metres and age of at least 1500 years old it was certainly impressive.

It looked almost like several trees had been stuck together (maybe a con by the tourism agency to increase notable sites in Mexico?) and housed hundreds, if not thousands of small birds which buzzed around. This was a good tree, even the birds who lived there were exceptionally happy, Enid Blyton would have loved this tree. Nevertheless, it was just a tree and after 10 minutes of saying “my, that is a big tree” we left and set off to our next destination.

We drove on for around 45 minutes up the most windy and steep road ever (or so we thought naively at that point) only to realise that our fuel reserve light was on, deciding it would not be best to be stuck in literally the middle of a mountain we drove back down the windy and steep road, got some more fuel and then drove back up the very windy and steep road once again, it was tiring and dizzying work. After some more driving around in circles the tarmac road came to an end and led onto a bumpy road leading to seemingly nowhere. From out of nowhere appeared a rope which was tied across the road to stop cars passing through, I nearly crashed into it but luckily saw it at the last minute and skidded to halt.
Three older Mexican men walked from a hut and conveyed to us that it was necessary to pay an entrance fee of 20 pesos, curiously the same amount it would cost for three elderly gentlemen to buy 3 beers, a co-incidence no doubt I’m sure. We pay the fee and continue along our merry way. Finally after much more bumping we arrived at the waterfall, only to meet a man at the gates informing us that we need to pay 15 pesos each to view the waterfall. We told him we’d already paid some other men for entrance and he reliably informed us that was road tax and this is waterfall tax, silly us for asking, we pay the waterfall tax and also some sun, tyre and gringo tax to complete the package. I get the feeling that this is the way things work here, an ex-pat was telling us that when he drives down from the U.S. with his foreign number plates he gets stopped all the time and told he has broken the law by having two eyes, or for wearing a hat of illegal dimensions, or for driving with 4 wheels and that every time he will be told that he has to pay a fine or go to jail for at least 21 days. On one of these occasions he decided that he would to go to jail, on hearing this the policeman gets flustered and suggests instead that he gives him the pot of spare change he has on his dashboard, amounting to about 4 dollars. He agreed and was allowed onwards. Law and order at its finest. We eventually got to see the waterfall, which was petrified and very stony. It was beautiful but after all the taxpaying and bumping we had done maybe something more spectacular was required!

That night back at the hostel we met a Swedish couple, Martin and Laila, who were also at the start of a year away. We went out for a meal and drinks with them which was great. We got on really well with them and it turned out that they were both heading off to NZ next for a year so we will no doubt meet up with them again then. Over several mescals (a Tequila esk drinl) Martin and I chatted about loads of things including a bike ride he had done from Sweden to Africa, through Holland, France and Spain, stopping off to live in some caves in Spain for a bit which sounded very impressive. I regaled a tale of when I had once ridden to Bacton Woods (a whole 4 miles), but then got a bit tired and called my mother to pick me up in the car. Naturally, he was impressed. After the bike riding he had joined a local paper as an apprentice photographer for a few years. Several mescals later we decided bed was in order (not together) and that we would meet the next day. The next morning we all met up and Martin was excited because the paper he worked for in Sweden had asked him to get some photos of the dreaded swine flu. I decided to go with him and see what I could get, with the possibility of selling some of the photos to a paper in England. Christy went off with Laila to look around a local temple and we set off into the flu. We got loads of photos throughout the day and I learnt a lot being with someone who has worked as a photojournalist before, mostly about being brave and just taking the photos whether the subject is bothered or not, then running away before they beat the crap out of you. We got photos and did a few interviews with some locals. He sent his off to his paper and I contacted the EDP (possibly the biggest newspaper in the world for those of you who don’t know) who brought them from me and added me to the front page, along with a headline quote that I definitely did not say, “I saw Swine flu unfold”, there was no unfolding in front of my eyes, that sounds gross. So that was my few minutes of fame, if some other big news happens along our journey then I’ll be sure to get loads of photos and try my luck again! Is hoping for a national disaster so wrong?

With news of the piggy flu building to gargantuan levels, and the threat of humanity being wiped out and the world being taken over by swine we did the only thing we could sensibly do, go to the beach and drink ourselves stupid with tequila. So we set off on a bus journey we’ll never forget, we’ve since been told that the route between Oaxaca and Puerto Escondido has 3000 curves, I think by the end we could have guessed something around that figure. For most of the journey, the bus literally drove 10 metres forward, did a hard left, went 10 metres forward and then did a hard right, and so on for 6 hours. I wished the Romans had been to Mexico and I wished the bus driver hadn’t played so many Sega rally car driving games in the early 1990’s.

Finally we arrived in Puerto Escondido which is a reasonably small fishing town which boasts a legendary surf break known as the Mexican Pipeline and lots of surfing types walking around saying things like “whoa dude, did you catch that surf?”, “bodacious” and “narly”. We made our way to the hotel we were staying at and where we still are now. We are actually staying in a cabana rather than the hotel, which is a hut outside the hotel. It’s basic but nice, and at night-time the local wildlife comes out to play. On the first night I saw a big black scorpion walking along the side of our room, giant ants in the bathroom and of course the mandatory colony of geckos. We agreed that the geckos could stay but that the rest of them were quite frankly going to have to leave. Unfortunately they haven’t taken any notice of our polite requests. Thankfully we have a mosquito net which makes us feel a bit more like we won’t get stung, bitten or eaten during the night and so far only my feet which rest against the netting have been chomped upon.
It turned out that because of those naughty sick piggies, tourism has dwindled massively and everyone has run (or surfed) away. We are the sole guests of Hotel Ben Zaa, and the town is also pretty empty, not a “duuuude” in earshot. This has benefits such a swimming pool all to ourselves and the undivided attention of the owners Steve and Maria, every cloud has a silver lining. They are both really nice and have made us feel at home, we have been at their bar most evenings drinking the largest margaritas (4 shots of tequila per margarita, for 1.70, niiice) and rums you have ever seen and chatting about many things. It’s been great and more like visiting a relative than staying at a hotel, and the food is great too. Steve took us down to his friend Jose’s house on our second day and we went horse riding with him.

We took a route down lots of dusty country roads to a river where we went for a swim. Jose was really nice and calm and put up with us practising our Spanish on him and our complete horse ignorance and “how do I get it to reverse?” type comments. Neither of us has ridden a horse for years but it was a great experience. The horses were really good and didn’t throw us off even once. On the way back we felt more confident and built up to a canter and even a gallop. I will make a cowboy yet. Afterwards, over a nice cold beer, Steve translated a story which Jose was telling which I thought was worth sharing. It was about a friend of his who had accidently cut off his finger with an axe, that would be painful enough but the story gets better (better for the gore loving listener, not for the man). So, his finger is chopped off and because he doesn’t have any money he tapes in back on again and then bandages it up, hoping it just fixes itself. A month later he takes off the bandage and realises that in the blood and the pain he has taped his finger on the WRONG WAY, with the nail facing inwards! He then had to bite the bullet and go to hospital where they had to chop it off again and stick it back the right way. Ouch. We found out later that our guide Jose had been involved in a hit and run car accident and had his legs broken, he couldn’t afford to go to the doctors so he set them himself and had to sit at home until they mended, by which time he found out they hadn’t set right and he couldn’t walk. Luckily after some fundraising at the hotel they raised enough money to send him back to the hospital to get his legs re-broken and reset. I will never moan about the NHS again. Ever. Probably.

That night when we were in the bar we heard a samba band playing loud from somewhere near the hotel, it’d actually been playing since 6am when it woke us up. No one knew exactly why they had played all day but they thought that it was possibly in tribute to an old lady who died a year ago; apparently she was a bit of a party lady and used to regularly hold 5 day parties. Fuelled by super cocktails we decided to sneak around and see if we could spy on what was going on, peaking around the corner we saw a big band plus over 200 people sitting around a courtyard with people dancing in the middle. We were spotted and pulled into the party by a sweaty Mexican man, who gave us beer followed shortly afterwards by a full meal. They wanted dancing foreigners, unfortunately I don’t do dancing especially in front of 200 people, but Christy was brave and went and had a dance providing a spectacle for the locals to photograph. A few of the local kids joined her and decided that she was the best blonde haired Barbie ever and proceeded to pull her about even after the dancing had stopped. Overall an interesting night!

Yesterday Christy and I got a collectivo, a taxi bus, to drive us to where we went swimming in the river. I took down my camera and got lots of photos of the colourful birds which zoomed all over and entertained us.




At lunchtime Steve had suggested we walk up to the village and ask for a woman called Martina who would cook us some lunch. So we turn up, find her and she obligingly cooks for us, but seemed a bit flustered. Whilst eating lunch outside in her garden we chatted to her in our broken Spanish and from what we could work out she didn’t normally cook for people and wasn’t actually a restaurant, just a women with a house, a cooker and a frying pan. Either way she didn’t seem to mind and seemed happy with the company. When we asked her how much she wanted for the food, she got all flustered and refused any payment, we didn’t let her get away with that. Along with the meal we also got a mini tour of all of her menagerie, including 20,765 big turkeys (including a baby turkey just 1 day old), a million dogs and a parrot (numbers may have been enhanced for reader benefit) which her six year old son was keen to handle in a way that the RSPCA wouldn’t approve of, notably holding it upside down, shaking it like a maraca and petting it like he would a full sized Rottweiler, which would have been fine but it was only the size of his hand. I tried to suggest not sticking his fingers in its eye sockets but he just grinned and laughed a lot, he seemed like a very happy boy and was genuinely oblivious of any discomfort the parrot was going through. Out in the country there aint no animal care and I guess animals are for eating or shaking, luckily the parrot didn’t seem all that bothered and the boy got bored so it escaped. After lunch, an afternoon back down at the river watching the vultures swoop around was called for and we lazed about some more in the shade of a tree whilst a girl tried to catch fish, some cowboys charged around and a boy herded his goats around us and across a river using an ingenious way of getting the goats to cross the river which was mainly taking hostage one of the baby goats and walking across with all of the mothers and families following bleating away.



All very idyllic and it was nice to see some rural Mexican life. After, whilst waiting for the collectivo to pick us up a shopkeeper let us sit on some chairs in the shade outside her shop and gave us a free ice lolly, then a drunken man rolls up and tells us his name is Yinny. He jabbered to us in Spanish for quite a long time, btought me a beer and then sat patting his pot belly whilst telling us he was happy and talking some more, oblivious to the fact that we didn’t understand anything he was saying, even though we are saying “we don’t understand” in Spanish. He didnt seem to mind and we didn’t either. It seems that overall the Mexican people are nice (excluding some police and road tax collectors), especially the rural ones and that the sun is shining and that we are both having a good time. It looks like this entry has turned into a bit of an essay, I’m going to quit before my computer explodes and go for a swim in the pool instead! Tomorrow we´re going sport fishing for tuna, sailfish and marlin, fingers crossed!

Windy bus journeys, swine flu, scorpions and rum remains copyright of the author monkeyboy1, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Finally, we are here! We arrived in Mexico City on Monday evening and ordered a "safe" taxi from the airport, I think safe is a pretty loose term in this case as our taxi driver, who was in his late 60's, drove at breakneck speed dodging traffic undertaking and overtaking, making even crazy Korean drivers look like old women dawdling to church on a Sunday morning. We arrived safely at our hostel which was really nice, a big colonial building 30 seconds walk away from the main square of the city.

We got up early the next morning and went for a walk around the main square which was an impressive row of colonial buildings with a giant Cathedral in the middle.

It was all quite peaceful apart from the 100 or so policeman and soldiers standing around, we saw a wide array of killing devices from pump action shot guns to machine guns to standard boring old rifles, all being waved around, often pointing in your face - we just hoped that the safety catches were on and that they hadn't been watching too much Rambo recently. I'm not sure whether the presence of so many military and policemen were meant to make you feel safe, which it did partially, but it also made you wonder exactly how bad the situation was if it needed that many of them in such a small area! Walking around the city there was a policeman on nearly every street corner, there seemed to be almost more policemen than normal people. Luckily we avoided bullets and swine fever which was a great result.

Walking around the streets the first morning a man called us into his restaurant and fed us pig intestine tacos, the first of my brave Mexican gastronomic experiences! It was actually pretty tasty, much better than the dried grasshopper I ate early today which tasted of gone off crispy marmite, niiiiiice.

On our first day we went and looked around the National Palace at the murals by Diego Rivera and around the botanical gardens which they seem to have forgotten to plant any flowers in, but it still had some giant cactuses and trees dotted about the place.

We finished it off with an our first shots of authentic Mexican tequila, which although tasting much better than the normal car brake fluid we get at home, still tasted of tequila which I'm not sure can ever be a good thing after my Stalham Christmas eve experience which I think I will never forget.

The next day we went and comandeered a boat on an ancient canal, it was a bit too relaxing and calm to don my pirate headscarf and patch, but we had a great time floating along in the sunshine with a Corona and some tacos.

After Mexico City we travelled to a nearby city called Puebla which was exactly what we needed after the intense Mexico city experience, the city was really beautiful and had a really relaxed atmosphere about it. Once again the city was based around a Cathedral and central square.

We spent our time walking around looking at all the nice buildings, soaking up the sun and eating lots of Mexican food. On the second day we went into the Cathedral which I think contained the most gold I have ever seen in one place. I couldnt help but think it was almost obscene and so over the top and that if even 1% of the gold was sold they could rehome all beggars around the city in mansions, and probably have enough change to purchase a Premier league football team afterwards.

We were sitting in the main square when a youngish bloke comes over to us and tells us "I had a shower today, I think that makes me handsome", we agreed as any polite English couple would do. He then offered to write us a poem in exchange for some money, he challenged us to think of any topic for this poem, no matter how difficult. So, I asked him to write us a poem about Stephen Hawkins, the legendary astrophysicist. Unfortunately he didn't know who Stephen Hawkins was so we asked him to write us a poem about my big toe (who recently went through a mid life crisis when the nail totally fell off, I was wearing sandals so he could see the toe in question to get some kind of inspiration, and we filled him in with vital information such as the name of the toe, Egor). He agreed to the challenge and wrote possibly one of the worst poems ever heard iof in the history of bad poems, it went like this:

"I write this melancholy to my bare foot,
to the embers of solitude of the broken finger and his light steps of wood and the anarchist theatre,
Egor can fill me with dirtyness,
In this eternal travel in languages and their ultra violet tears of side walks"

We gave him 15 pesos (about 70p) for this work of genius and sent him on his way hoping that he would change career and do something he was a bit better at.

After our relaxing Puebla experience we set off to catch the bus to our next destination, Oaxaca. In order to catch the bus we decided to catch the city bus to the bus station. We got onto the bus after sweating our way over town with my 20kg of backpack and camera equipment and got the bus which was packed full of people, including a blind man playing a harmonic badly. As there was no room we had to stand up and completely filled the space between the seats, holding on for dear life as the driver once again did the manic depressive version of driving seemingly perfected by all Mexicans, alternating between ultra fast and complete stop with very little inbetween. It was taking up pretty much all of my strength to stand upright when the blind man decides he wants to relocate to the front of the bus via us which I would imagine would be quite difficult at the best of times let alone when you have two gringos blocking the way and hanging on to the rails so much that they can't move. Anyway, we eventually got the the bus station in one piece and caught the 5 hour bus to Oaxaca. The journey started off with fairly dull scenery but built up to mountain circuits through cactus forests which was all very spectacular.

We then arrived in Oaxaca last night, home of Mexican art and crafts and funny coloured rugs that Christy loves so much :-)

First thing this morning I spotted 2 hummingbirds outside our room here which can only be a good omen for this place. We spent today walking around the local markets, people spotting and eating a massive steak with tortillas for lunch (which was better than grasshopper and tequilla put together)

We're going to spend the next week or so in Oaxaca relaxing and seeing the sites, and afterwards we're off to the beach on the Pacific Ocean for a spot of surfing, duuuuuude! It's only just sinking in that we've got nothing to do apart from relax and see the sites, filled in with the odd siesta here and there, awesome! It's nice not having anything to rush to and that we can take our time speaking to random people and mooching around, sweeet!

Tomorrow we're going to hire a car and visit the largest tree in the world, a petrified waterfall and a town where they make the colourful rugs. Will add stuff about that soon

The Mexican eagle has landed remains copyright of the author monkeyboy1, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Well, we're just 7 days away from setting off on our trip around the world. The map above shows where we're roughly planning to go. It hasn't really sunk in yet with either of us that we're going travelling, maybe it won't sink in until we actually touch down in Mexico and are trying to find our way around a city with 20 million other inhabitants using our more than basic Spanish, "Entiendo?" "No Entiendo!" could be the way it will all go... :P

Even though it hasn't fully sunk in i'm still getting excited about the prospect of seeing so many cool places and doing so many things, in my head the highlights on the trip will be:

- Diving off the East coast of Mexico.
- Climing Tikal to watch a sunset.
- Trekking an alternate route to Macchu Picchu for Christy's birthday.
- Living in the Amazon for a month whilst trying to avoid being infested with skin boring bugs and/ or wrestling with anacondas.
- Trekking the Great Ocean walk in Australia.
- Seeing Komodo dragons and orangutans in Indonesia.
- Spending Christmas and New Year in Thailand.
- Exploring Africa.
- Spending a year with Christy doing hardly any work, and best of all not having to teach any children! :D

I'm sure there will be many many many many more exciting things happening along the way that I can't even imagine yet and I'll keep this blog updated when I can with everything that happens.

The next time I add to this I'll be in Mexico, hasta la vista amigos!

7 days till take off remains copyright of the author monkeyboy1, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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