Ginger DJ Rob

Not much happening for us but buying souvenirs and hanging around Lima for the last time. Our transit to the airport fought through more traffic than expected. Our guide said it was due to tomorrow's public holiday and the city's special evening concert of Oasis. On our journey we say a long queue of people outside an official building. We asked our guide why, and he explained it was people paying their month end bills. Peruvian banks ask a cheeky percentage for direct debits. The approach to the airport was memorable for two things: one for the smell of fish due to its neighbouring fish oil refinery; two for the amount of people wearing face masks including all staff due to the swine flu. It was at the point of checking in I developed a timely annoying tickle in my throat and started coughing. Then I remembered we shared a plane with some Mexicans back for the Nazca Lines. Here's our final list of loves and hates of our Peru holiday Love Inca Kola Sublime chocolate Casa An...

The last early morning for this holiday though I wouldn't say we really needed it. We bused it over to Paracas for our Ballestas Island boat excursion for an 8am start. It seemed a bit unorganised and our rep didn't quite seem to keep on top of it (like yesterday and compared to the rest of the holiday). It looked like two other tourists were being looked after by our rep who were late and didn't arrive with us. This just added to the wasted time - you can tell we were getting grumpy by now. The 30 minute boat ride to the islands was ok (apart from the gloomy grey skies) thanks to our sea sickness pills but the side effects were drowiness so could have missed the whole trip through nodding off. We saw an ancient landmarking along the way called the 'Candilabre'. After that it was boobies, sea lions, penguins, turkey vultures and more boobies. No wonder they used to collect the crap for fertilizer! Seeing the hundreds of sealions was the highlight as they congreg...

Breakfast wasn't the best with no cereal at all but our gloomy mood soon picked up for our sand-buggying experience at 10:30am. Carlos led us to the buggy garage at the back of the resort and equipped us with helmets and goggles. The first part of the journey was across a barren, dusty scrubland and I almost thought this would be the track. Instead we headed through a gate and towards the proper desert dunes. From here on the dunes got bigger and the ride wilder like a rollercoaster. Pretty soon with the speed and distance we were surrounded by desert. Our second stop was to see an oasis of ...asparagus! In the desert! Then at the top of a dune I tried sandboarding. It took some wax and the board looked like it had seen better days with two small fins for stability but the ride was easy with good balance. No chance of turning unfortunately like with snowboarding. Back in the buggy for some more sliding, climbing dunes, flooring over ridges and a surprise of reversing up the hill co...

Yawn! 5:15am alarm and a pickup for 6:20am to get to the Cruz del Sol coach station for our 4 hour journey down the coast to Ica and our potential stomach churn of flying above the Nazca Lines . We were expecting something quite basic but instead it was a luxury coach with reclining seats, footrests, TV etc. However, this didn't stop us moaning about the jazzy muzak they insisted on playing. We endured it watching the Monday morning rush hour plod into Lima city as traffic built up, buses collected passengers and as the city limits thinned the shanty towns influence increased. The landscape got more desolate with stoney, grey dune like hills with the main motorway cut through and huge advertising boards flanked either side sometimes with 3D effects. A quick safety video telling us the bus was being tracked by GPS and the drivers get changed halfway then they changed it to a DVD of Beowulf - result! A couple of observations: some larger business sites had turret like watch tow...

The pills seem to be working and feeling alot better with the confidence to go out for a last look around Arequipa town centre. Being a Sunday nearly everything was shut but it was only 10:45am and we predicted an 11am opening after the church-goers got chucked out. We got accosted by the tourist police and were given a pamphlet on personal security with some quite bad English translation. Found a cafe for cold drinks over looking the Plaza de Armas (main square). Kerry ordered a dodgy meringue/pavlova turning out to be a hot flan, hot strawberry and whipped (from a can) cream. Three single decker buses with Metropolitan Transport De Barcelona turned up to collect a mass of disabled church goers, all of them getting hassled by ice-cream sellers etc. When the shops did open we bought a few souvenirs and wandered around a bit more. As we headed back to the hotel we were approached by a beggar who had no hands! He just held out his stumps asking for spare change - where do you put the coi...

Recurring theme warning: had a normal breakfast as feeling well enough but this wasn't the best idea as I'll explain later. The mini-bus left for Colca Canyon at 6:30am and stopped a number of times to appreciate the deep, wide valley views. Locals had got wind of tourists would be there and were out in force with souvenirs or had dressed up for the occasion and brought their pet llamas in case we wanted to pay for photos. Luckily the views were free and were good value. The driver played a trick on us turning off the van lights whilst going through a tunnel, and Jordie, our rep told a story about some very serious East Germans not appreciating his cheeky humour. We arrived at the condor viewpoint and walked for about 20 minutes towards the canyon edge. The birds themselves had appeared on the far side and we almost thought we were too late for their flying show. However, we stood at a viewpoint for a few minutes and gradually one, two then three condors glided close to us. ...

A reasonable 8:30am pickup for our trip to Colca Lodge accompanied by the Norfolk couple and newly joined Mancunians, Paul and Catherine. The journey was all at high altitude reaching its peak at 4900 metres. School visit Before getting to this height we visited a remote school where we had been briefed to buy colour pens/pencils for the children. They were all hurdled around a laptop about to watch a TV programme but were very pleased to see us putting on a song for us and giving us drawings in exchange for our gifts. It was humbling to learn that a pair of children had to walk 3 hours just to get to school. The highest point was full of tourists and their mini-vans, as like a lot of this holiday, we seemed to be on the same 'gringo trail'. As well as as the tourists there were loads of stacked rocks everywhere, built by past tourists not by Incas. A few more stops, the wildlife spotting continued with wild pink flamingoes, vicunyas (smallest breed of llamas) and the strangest...

A good night's sleep but the disappointment of not being able to eat the amazing breakfast buffet which Kerry stuffed herself with (French toast, maple syrup, bacon, fruit salad, scrabbled eggs on toast and the trimmings). I was limited to toast though sneaked in a small bowl of cereal. We headed over to the main square in search of some non-tacky souvenirs and shopping. We still found some but this is Arequipa and there were hardly anyone hassling us plus the shops were almost European normal. Shame the tourist prices had quadrupled. Juanita was next on our list to see. She's a frozen mummy found locally on top of a mountain sacrificed as part of the Inca worship. She wasn't in as she's quite popular touring the world (at 12-14 + 500 years). The tour around her modern day home at the university's museum was quite interesting with lots of artifacts and the final piece shown by the English speaking guide was a huge humming transparent freezer which was home to anothe...

Feeling a little better today but still eating toast and soda biscuits to bung me up. Kerry wanted to buy some more souvenirs so we had a last minute wander through the urine-smelling lanes buying the cheapest but biggest croissants ever for brunch. We got back to the hotel to wait for our 11:30am pick up and were confronted by two of the hotel reception staff. Llama Travel had forwarded Kerry's complaint email and they wanted to sort it out with us! Bit embarrassing but I think they were quite sorry about their attitude etc. A little language difficulty and even Fernando, our Cusco rep was keen to sort it out on our behalf. We approached the airport to find that the tour reps were picketing outside the gates and it was impossible to enter by car. Slightly concerned we wouldn't be able to catch our flight, it was simply a case of walking through the gates with our cases. Phew! The flight to Arequipa stopped at Juliaca which is the nearest town to Lake Titicaca taking less t...

Got organised with some tactical pre-packing, breakfast (a very depressed piper getting his notes wrong) then checked out a museum where some skulls were discovered with elongated shapes and some with trepanation (drilled with holes). Like the previous museums in Cusco it was small and with only one or two really interesting artifacts. It only took 15 minutes to see it all. We finally found a decent cafe, Cappuccino which thankfully served decent cappuccinos over looking the main plaza. Lunch was at Jack's Cafe which served the largest plates I've seen, obviously catering for the American market, which there were at the time, but the young, thin kind. Although the burger ordered tasted good it wasn't such a good idea (or what was eaten for breakfast). More on that later. We looked at the hotel's dial-up speed internet for an animal rescue/zoo the French-Canadian's recommended. They'd seen rescued pumas, condors and speckled bears. Only a Trip Advisor blog mentio...

Image by Ginger DJ via Flickr The last day of the hike before reaching Machu Picchu had to be started extra early so why change the routine of the holiday! 4:00am start - Yay! Loving those early nights! Breakfast was a special moment for us as Socrates gave the ruse of pancakes but really the cook had been preparing a birthday cake. It was great with a sponge base, not too sweet, white frosted cream topping, written in caramel sauce, Happy Birthday Kerry (in Spanish), and 2 matches for a candle. Kerry was in tears of delight as we all sang happy birthday and the cake cut in equal shares between us and the porters etc. Before queuing up for the checkpoint opening, we had to meet our rep at the restaurant. A quick look in the toilets before the last trek wasn't the best idea as it seemed everyone had been before us leaving them in the most inhumane state I've ever seen (it was piled up). Instead, we joined the back of the 200+ queue for the 15 minutes before the 5:30am openin...

Image by Ginger DJ via Flickr 6am start with a brew served through the tent flap again. We'd managed some sleep though it was the coldest night so far. Didn't appreciate the tight schedule for breakfast, toilet and decamping, it was just one big rushed hassle. Even though the ham and cheese omelette was good I wanted a few more minutes to let it go down before the trek. Mostly because my stomach wasn't happy but at least the walk was relatively simple stopping for a break/lunch at around 11am. Whilst Kerry was visiting the ladies Socrates let me in to a secret that the cook was to make a birthday cake for tomorrow's breakfast! The rest of the hike was actually quite relaxing with the paths high on the mountain side with stunning views of distant waterfalls and walking through a couple of small tunnels. The flora and fauna was, like the rest of the hike, colourful and varied traveling through some cloud forest areas. The very last stage was almost a jog down to the f...

A pretty crap night's sleep due to the slanty position. Even though the tour provided a ground mat and blow up mat, and we brought our own blow up mattress it was a hard rest. The donkey, dog and rain sound effects didn't help either. Breakfast was at 6:30am was a limited choice of Peruvian porridge. Our guide warned us it would be the hardest part of the whole trail and it certainly was. The first section was challenging but, unlike the hot sunshine from yesterday, it was refreshingly cool having to wear coats at the start. The first break didn't come soon enough for Kerry and we were allowed to rest and eat for as long as we liked with the next section taken at our pace. Our packed brunch was a green mandarin, chocolate bar (Sublime) and a ham/cheese sandwich - all well needed fuel for the worst part of the trek. It was a punishing, never ending steep stepped journey which could only be taken at a slow, short stepping pace. We left the last rest point at 11am for two hour...

Although we had to get up at 4:45am we were feeling much better compared to yesterday. After our hotel pick up the van driver picked up the other pair of travelers for the trek, a French-Canadian couple. Julien and Cynthia had only arrived in Peru a few days ago and were going to Bolivia straight after the 3.5 day hike. We stopped in Pisac for our last provisions stop. Even though I had a 20 sols note, the shop-keeper still had to go to another business to get me change. Using a restaurant's backyard toilet also revealed countryside life as there were a couple of guinea-pig hutches and chickens roaming free. It took about 2 hours to get to the starting point where we met the rest of our party - 2 chefs, a waiter, our guide and 7 porters. Our first stage of walking was very easy stopping a number of times to look at flora and fauna whilst being overtaken by porters carrying doors, concrete blocks, pipes etc, and passing those hikers who couldn't quite hack it on horses going ...

So surprised we forced ourselves out of bed for today's trip with a midnight run to the toilet and Kerry getting full-on stomach cramps. Somehow we pulled ourselves out of the doldrums. The journey went passed the previous day's excursion and climbed to 3800m. We felt physically better as soon as the road went down into the Sacred Valley and were spoiled with the stunning views. Every decent parking view point had locals selling the same tat sold everywhere else. Pisac market at the base of the valley was quite a cultural confrontation as the tour rep took us through the food market. She was picking up maize and vegetables to show us, pulling them apart in front of the selling. It was slightly uncomfortable to watch but the seller didn't seem bothered. The rest of the time was looking up and down the many rows of almost the same souvenir stalls as those everywhere else. Our next destination, delivered at top speed (our driver seemed addicted to overtaking), to Ollynant...

Breakfast was slightly disappointing with a more Germanic based buffet (too much sausage meat). I ended up with sugar puffs in strawberry smoothie and toast. Coffee still tastes like crap. The food was accompanied by a solo pan-piper with backing tracks of Beatles, Frank Sinatra etc., all a bit full on for 8am. Our morning's excursion was visiting the local museums and notable ruins. The first was the main temple which the Spanish built on top with their own church. The Inca 's stonework was perfectly built using no mortar, just stacked and cut to perfection. I would have liked more time at this museum but the tour rep was keen to get drive us to the city's hills (more altitude!) to see the Inca military fortress of Saqsayhuaman. It had some fantastic views of Cusco and you could see the flightpath and planes landing at the airport. On a nearby hill, the locals had been given a smaller version of Rio's Jesus statue that overlooked the city. The Temple of the Mother...

A slightly chilly night by jungle standards and another early start of 5:30am for our boat ride back. Our flight was at 12:50pm and the boat ride would take 90 minutes, quicker as it was downstream...thank god. Kind of glad really and looking forward to more kinder climates and less early starts. Last nature spots were two humming birds. A quick transfer from the boat to bus (running down local stray cows and dodging dogs refusing to move out of the middle of the road) then a hasty re-pack at the office. We got to the airport about 10:15am and increased our salt intake by 300% with crisps and Ritz biscuits. Peurto Maldonado airport is small with lattice walls to let the air flow through and jetplane noise. The flight to Cusco was a very short 35 minutes and the temperature difference was appreciated. Kerry was the firs (and worst) to suffer from the altitude feeling sick from the sensation of the floor moving. I was just taking it easy with shallow beathing. Cusco itself was alot ...

With the open wall style lodgings we heard our neighbours get up at 3:30am for their final departure - keep it down! Then our wake up call from our rep, Delford (he did this in person) at 4:30am though to say that the first trip was cancelled until 8:00am because of the rain so more sleep. Breakfast was disappointing though we both needed something plain for our dodgy innards. A small boat ride upstream to visit a parrot lick. It was a very muddy bank to climb onto then a 40 minute hike through 'secondary' forest. My choice of socks soon became noticed as my ankles rubbed more and more. The heat, lack of food and the dreaded diarrhoea from the morning got me down. By the parrot lick I was glad to rest but a bit miffed at the lack of birds. The stomach cramps and diarrhoea came back with a vengeance as I paced up and down praying for toilet roll, Luckily, Nico the German girl with us had brought some with her, so with some advice from Delford I legged it away for some brown reli...

Somehow the temperature dropped enough to wake up with all the bed covers on me as it rained last night and at 5:30am we had our first jungle breakfast - strawberry yoghurt, cornflakes and pancakes. At 6am we were puling on wellies and trekking through mud. Lots of interesting jungle vegetation plus we saw and heard some different monkeys. The Fig, Telephone, Pregnant and Erotic trees were seen on our hike. We got down to the oxbow lake for a paddle hoping to see some otters or anacondas. None of these were seen but there were some unusual birds and some bats in the surrounding trees. The heat really started to beat down - it was too hot to wear sunglasses. Across the lake we saw two enormous trees at least 40 metres or taller with their 'buttress' roots supporting them and the largest snail I'd ever seen, the size of a pasty! By the end of the trek we were desperate for our cold showers and scoffed at the idea of another 40 minutes of walking in sweltering heat to see a m...

A ridiculous start time with a pick up from the hotel of 6:00am with no proper breakfast. We got to know the retired couple from Norfolk - Judy and Maurice from Cromer who joined us on the very bumpy transit to Lima airport. Our Peruvian guide decided to make our journey even more testing pumping up the volume to the local Latin American radio station. The check-in was quite modern with only a code to enter at the e-kiosk. Kerry's stomach took a turn for the worse after a Starbucks' coffee but managed to keep it together. The flight stopped at Cusco before Peurto Maldonado seeing some impressive snowy topped mountains from the plane. After touching down and exiting the plane, the heat was instant and wasted no time to apply the insect repellent. Had some slight confusion identifying our next tour rep expecting a Llama Travel board but soon found Delford from Refugio Amazonas, who's obviously been with too many English quoting 'lovely, jubbly'. The transfer out of th...

Whilst in the hotel room, Kerry found the telephone directories for Lima and, with a little spare time on my hands, found the following facts: Since there are 8 million people living in Lima there are two large directories The name PEREZ is popular at 12 pages FLORES is the most popular at 22 pages I found 4 entries for COLEMAN There are about 25 FIDEL CASTROs I found 4 pages of PONCEs There are 17 pages of GONZALES Just one entry for SPEEDY GONZALES

Woke up about 4:30am, snoozed a bit then got up at 6:15am - damn jetlag. Our view from the hotel room was grey with seeing only 50 metres beyond because of the smog. Learnt my first Latin American IT lesson - ALT and 64 is the @ sign when using the internet. We headed out for the Inca Market but noticed how quiet the streets were then realised it was Good Friday with nothing open so walked over to the local parks. The sound of parakeets flying above just brought it home that we were in South America. We found some park benches but Kerry got told off by the park police for having her feet on the seat. More exploring and we went down to the cliff side park at the top of the cobble hill we experienced the night before. In the middle of the Gaudi-like walled enclosure was a statue of some overweight lovers kissing each other. The sea mist had come in at this point so headed up the coast to some shopping arcade cut into the cliffs. There were alot of nuns shopping for some reason which ...

Edited highlights edition until I get back to Blighty. Business class rules - the sleeping chair is the best, pity Iberia have lousy food and in-flight entertainment. Saw the mighty Amazon river - it was Amazoning(sic) Lots of banners for waiting Peruvian family at exit doors of airport. Our rep let us in to some local culture and possibly some snobbery. Peruvian roads are a mixture of potholes, smooth surfaces and full-on cobble streets Hotel very plush with flat screen telly, about 60 channels, 18 floors and a pianist in reception - Casa Andina Private Collection Jetlag got us at 4:30am and decided to get up at 6am Saw 5 parrots flying past window after the smog had lifted - could see about 30 metres Going to do some local exploring in the safe bit of town then some Colonnial trip at 2pm Early start tomorrow for jungle trip - 6am for pickup

Image by Ginger DJ via Flickr The excitement of the Peru holiday has been very low on my radar due to a couple of things. I've been working a lot of evenings to get a major project finished - a new Content Management System for the Institute. This has possibly been one of the most stressful things I've done and it felt like putting years on me with the decisions I've had to make along the way. Bonus is that I've somehow built up enough time in lieu to take 3 days off in May. Whilst all this has been happening we've been struggling to come to terms with the decision of whether to put down our furry best friend, Sasha. The vet couldn't really say exactly how long he had but quoted weeks. The worst was he looked and acted almost normal so it just seemed wrong. But after a few more days did we start to see him change. Apparently cats have a high pain tolerance - so he's one hard b*stard. So, on our last day we fed him a sedation pill to calm him down for h...

Saw this in today's Guardian newspaper. It's been a legend for awhile and, from the trailer, it looks like the biggest laugh ever. There's even an alternative trailer trying to make it look like a family drama without any gory, green bite.