Miss Maps Goes Solo

13 hours from Cusco to Ica, or so we were told by the bus company. At 8pm, we piled on to the bus, it was definitely not a 1st class one. The locals tend to buy 2 tickets and fit a family of 4 into those seats. Throughout the bus (including next to me), children are squeezed into the gap by their parents feet. The boy next to me must´ve been 10 years old. He spent the entire journey there and didn´t moan once. At first we marvelled at this good behaviour then decided that it´s actually very sad. These kids don´t expect any kind of stimulation, they just sit and stare. Some of the luckier kids (and unlucky adults) lie in the isle.

At 3am the mot horrendous Peruvian music came blasting through the speakers at top volume. After 10 minutes of this Justine could take no more and hurdled over the sleeping people down to the drivers cab. Weirdly everyone thanked her on her way back but no-one else dared to ask him to switch it off.

17 hours after leaving Cusco (13 hours, yeah right) we arrived in Ica. A 2 minute taxi journey took us to the oasis town of Huacachina. I´ve never seen anything like it. A lagoon surrounded by palm trees and then enormous sand dunes on every side. The ton has a strange decrepit English sea-side town feel to it. Old grand hotels which are now abandoned and pedal boats out on the lagoon. Punch and Judy would´ve completed the scene.

People come here to go sandboarding and dune buggying, so we signed up. Thanks to Tish´s recommendation I knew the name of the craziest driver and so off we went with Chupong, tearing up and down the dunes, screaming the whole way. It´s kind of like being on a rollercoaster apart from you´re not attached to the tracks, brilliant.

Sand boarding was OK but I was hopeless at it and spent most of the time on my bum. Once I went down the slope sitting on the board but under estimated how long and steep the slope was. I was so scared I dug my heels in and apparently came down the hill like a giant sand ball. I couldn´t open my eye or mouth and had to fall off to one side to stop the horrific expeirence. I had a layer of sand all over me, here are the before and after photos:

We ended up spending 4 nights in Huacachina, way more than we originally intended, but we had a great chilled out few days next to the pool. There´s something disconcerting about being in the desert though. I feel like living between huge piles of sand is asking for trouble, surely the town will just be swallowed up one day.

From Huacachina we spent a few hours in Nazca. This is a dust ball town in the middle of nowhere which only got on to the tourist maps after a plane accidentally discovered the Nazca lines in the 1930s. These are huge pictures of animals drawn in the earth which can only be seen from above. No-one knows how they got there or why. That´s all cool enough but somehow didn´t really appeal to us, especially as the flight to see them is quite expensive. Nope, instead we decided to go and see some dead people. Spooky but really interesting, the cemetary in Nazca is pre-Inca, about 1200 years old. They´ve excavated a number of tombs containing really well preserved skeletons and other burial artifacts. It was really interesting to see a real Shaman in his tomb, although I felt a bit wrong to be looking at them and taking pictures. There were also babies which were horribly well preserved, I didn´t take any pictures of those.

Another overnight bus journey later and we´ve arrived in Arequipa, further south in Peru. It´s a beautiful town but after Cusco we feel a bit like we´ve had enough of this type of environment so we´re mainly here to go to Colca canyon, an enormous place with good hiking and traditional villages, should be cool.

After white water rafting we checked into and out of our hostel at the same time. I hate doing that, but you have to when leaving at 5.30 the next morning. The train from Cusco takes 4 hours to Aguas Calientes, the nearest town to Machu Picchu. It´s actually not that far but it spends a long time zig-zagging backwards and fowards to get up the hill out of Cusco so you see the same thing over and over. Aguas is a funny town, part tourist trap, part shanty town. It´s clearly still getting used to the influx of tourists it receives since the train service started. About that, the train is $70 and entrance to Picchu is $60 if you don´t have a student card (I now have a fake one, apparently I study in Santiago de Goethe, wherever that is). It´s gone up something ridiculous like 300% in 5 years. The trains are owned and run by British Rail and some bad president sold off Machu Picchu to Chile! So not only can most Peruvians not afford to see it, it doesn´t even belong to them! Unbelievable.

Still, I guess I supported this ridiculous set up so I can´t talk.

Aguas Calientes literally translates to hot water because of the natural hot springs. I´d never been in one before so that was pretty cool, especially with the mountainous backdrop. I tried to ignore the scent of urine though, hoping it was just the minerals.

The next morning Pip and I headed to Picchu, we were so excited at finally seeing such a famous place. We had some time before meeting our guide so we wandered up to the site, apart from we couldn´t see it. Everyone was trying to work out where we should go when the clouds parted and we stood right in front of the famous ruins with the steep mountains in the background, magic. The view was only to last for a couple of minutes though.

Our guide was excellent, my favourite fact is that the Spanish never knew about this place. Seeing what they´d done to Cusco, the Incas kept it a complete secret. The city was abandoned for some unknown reason but it was never destroyed by the Spanish invaders like everywhere else.

We met up with Justine who had just done the 4 day trek, limping but very happy.

Apart from that brief moment earlier, the whole site had been covered in cloud and we were almost ready to go home when it totally cleared up and we climbed up to one of the highest points and sat staring at it for ages.

I must admit Machu Picchu wasn´t really on my list of things to do. I didn´t fancy the trek and I felt that I´d seen so many pictures that it might be a let down. I was so wrong, it´s the most awe-inspiring site I´ve ever seen.

We got back to Cusco late on Friday and went for dinner. By the time we got home food poisoning had set in. Now to most backpackers this would be no big deal but this doesn´t generally happen to me. The last time I threw up I was 14 when I drank a bottle of sherry, snogged the cutest boy in my year then threw up on his shoes. I just don´t have these problems. So I spent the night vomiting, how disgusting is that?! I swear I never ate anything that looked like that. Anyway, I spent Saturday in bed with a serious fever, I must admit that malaria crossed my mind, I might start back on those horrible tablets.

Much better now though, thank god, as we´ll be on a bus from 8pm tonight to 9am tomorrow. The next stop is Ica, on the coast, for a spot of sandboarding and dunebuggying, as you do. Oh, here are a couple of photos from the rafting and Machu Picchu, loads more under the my photos link.

Happy New Year everyone!

During the day on new years eve we took a tour to the Sacred Valley, an amazing area between Cusco and Machu Picchu with fantastic scenery, great ruins and cute towns. We loved it, although none of us are suited to doing guided tours and we all felt a bit rushed. In one place the incas built a prison into the side of a mountain. It was just lots of little individual rooms overlooking the town and the important inca buildings on the other side of the valley. Apparently they would put the lazy people up there, they could see what they were missing below, good idea. Oh, and we stopped off for lunch and I ate guinea pig and alpaka (llama) on the same plate! Llama was bloody lovely, guinea pig was hideous. Maybe because I had two legs and they were still hairy.

We had a pretty good night, we sat with our legs hanging out of the hostel window and let off fireworks over the town. That was definitely one of those “this is why I saved all that money for 2 years” moments. After that we danced, drank way too much rum and staggered into our dorm at 4am to find that my mobile phone and my stinky trainers had been stolen. Not a big deal in the whole scheme of things but after so much alcohol I cried like a baby, I loved having that phone and I needed the trainers for white water rafting.

So this is how I think I´ve changed. Me, scared of water, terrible swimmer, non-sporty Sharleen went WHITE WATER RAFTING and loved it! Justine was off on the inka trail so Pip and I headed 2 hours south of Cusco for two days of throwing ourselves around on rapids in a rubber boat. I couldn´t have been more scared. Day one was class 2 and 3 rapids which is the lower level. After strapping myself into a really attractive wetsuit and life jacket (see photos), we stood around and listened to our instructor as he told us how to live if the boat flipped, I thought I was going to throw up. 3 boats headed out on the lower section and after about 20 minutes I couldn´t take the smile off my face. It´s so much fun. Apart from the constant fear of falling into the rapids and smashing your face open on a rock of course.

2 hours later I was totally soaked, freezing cold, exhausted and incredibly happy. The camp site had a sauna, absolute genius, anything less and I don´t think we ever would´ve warmed up. It turned out that Pip and I were the only ones staying there which was actually lovely. Our guide walked us up to the local village, Cusapati which is the indigenous language for Happy Town. It was possibly the least gringo place I´ve ever been to and really friendly. I loved the pigs running around the streets.

One note on animals and Peru. The RSPCA would have a lot of work here. I´m not going to preach because I understand that in a third world country they´re not going to treat their animals like humans as we do in England. I´ve seen some horrible stuff though, donkeys with their front legs tied together so they don´t run away but they have to hop everywhere, dogs being kicked and whipped, all sorts. Santiago (our guide) told us how they cut one ball off the bulls, horses and donkeys to make them work harder, apparently it makes a difference and of course they don´t put them to sleep first.

Anyway, we bought a few beers in “happy town” and spent the evening chatting to Santiago and eating popcorn. We each had our own tent and went to bed pretty early, wearing as many clothes as possible, it was bloody freezing! The scenery was amazing to wake up to, I opened my tent to see the rushing river with huge mountains behind it covered in cloud, magic.

Day two was up to class 4+ rapids, that´s serious. On the first day one of the guides flipped a boat on purpose, just because they do that sometimes. Apparently some people think it´s part of the fun! We had to go and rescue this poor girl who was floating down the rapids and seriously panicking. So I was pretty terrified that the same would happen and made sure my guide knew I wouldn´t be impressed. I might be facing my fear of water further by doing this but I´m still not a strong swimmer. The rapids were amazing, really high waves and huge holes, a couple of times we had to follow emergency commands to stop the boat from flipping, absolutely bloody terrifying. I kept going between panic, swearing at the top of my lungs, laughing like a mad woman and screaming in delight like I was on a rollercoaster. About an hour in the rain started, I felt like I was trying to survive a shipwreck.

Absolutely bloody brilliant.

So, now we´re in Aguas Calientes (literally hot water because of the hot springs here). It´s the nearest town to Machu Picchu which we´re visiting tomorrow, can´t wait! Should be some great pictures from that.

Hi all

Had a lovely chilled out Christmas here, I hope you all had a good one too. Having my friends Justine and Pippa here made it ten times better, otherwise I reckon I would´ve been pretty home sick.

Christmas eve was a big one, this is definitely a party hostel, a bit too much so actually. There are some serious drinkers here, I feel a bit old! So Christmas eve we went to a club on the main square which happened to be the club every gringo went to. It was good fun though, we drank way too much rum and coke and danced loads, at 3500 metres it´s hard work, I felt like I might have a heart attack. The main square looked like a war zone, Peruvians really love fireworks and there aren´t any restrictions on them so kids as young as 5 were setting off rockets and god knows what.

Christmas day was pretty much spent recovering from the hangover. It was lovely to get some prezzies though, I got some great stuff from James, so nice to receive a package from the UK. Justine, Pippa and I decided to exchange prezzies too. I got those things called poi from Pippa, they´re like the fire chains that people swing around but without the fire. They´re very cool although I haven´t dared to try it in public yet, I keep hitting myself. Justine and I both gave each other chess sets, they have these really decorative hand painted ones here where one side is the Spanish and the other side the Incas, they´re very cool.

Yesterday we had a wander around a fantastic cathedral and watched Harry Potter in the evening. Today was fun, I was really ready to do something big so we went out to the inca ruins nearby. There are 4 in a row, aobut 7km apart so we got a taxi out to the furthest one and walked back in. The ruins were great, incas really knew how to build walls! After the 2nd ruin the skys were black and we could see sheets of rain coming down over the mountains on the other side of the valley, it was so dramatic. Then the storms started, fork lightning coming down in about 4 different places and really serious thunder, it was absolutely fantastic. At one point we could see the rain pouring down only about 100 metres away from us but we were totally dry. Didn´t stay that way, by the 3rd ruin it was chucking it down so we took cover and watched for a while before getting a bus back to the town. We´ll have to do the last two ruins another time.

Justine is doing the inca trail to machu picchu from 2nd January so we plan to stay in Cusco until then, we´ve loads more touristy stuff to do, then Pippa and I plan to do the sacred valley (which is all the stuff on the way to machu picchu but without the trek) and apparently a white water rafting thing. Hmm, this could be another time for me to overcome a fear. We´ll both get the train out to machu picchu to meet Justine there for sunrise on 5 January, followed by a dunk in the hot springs, I can´t wait.

On 20 December I cheerily bounced up to the check in desk of Quito airport, with a ticket dated 20 January, bugger. Stupid travel agency, stupid me for not noiticing, stupid Taca airline staff for finding it all so amusing. Amazingly they found me a seat on the flight anyway, ha ha! Not so funny now. I had to squirt myself with free poison perfume and buy a bottle of red wine in duty free, just to calm my nerves.

A total journey time of about 4 hours actually ran over 2 days because the stupid flight to Lima gets in late in the evening and the connection to Cusco leaves at 6am, who´s stupid idea was that? Sorry, I´m in a childish strop by this point. The good news is I got to stay in a swanky airport hotel for the night. It was all such a novelty that I stayed up until the early hours watching cookery programmes in Spanish on cable TV.

Cusco took my breath away, partly because it´s so high up there´s no bloody air to breath, but also because it´s the most beautiful town I´ve ever seen in my life. The view from my dorm room balcony is absolutely wonderful.

The hostel is great, the people are friendly, the architecture is gorgeous and the culture is amazing. I´ll definitely be happy to spend Christmas here, probably new years too.

I´m writing this on Christmas Eve and I actually have a stinking cold so I´m feeling a bit sorry for myself, which is probably why this update isn´t particularly enlightning. I´ll right more once I´ve recovered.

I´m kind of ignoring Christmas slightly because it makes me a bit sad being away from home and all. Maybe I´ll call my travel insurers and demand repatriation due to homesickness and having a cold!

But I hope you all have a fantastic Christmas.

Lots of love

Day 1

Flying out of Quito towards the galapagos was even more spectacular than flying in to Quito from Panama. The landscape is so mountainous it looks like a huge green crumpled up blanket. Some of the snow topped peaks sticking up through the clouds seemed higher than the plane. On the flight I felt a bit down, sad that James wasn´t there because I knew how much he would love it and maybe a bit apprehensive about being on a boat for 8 days with people I don´t know. The initial boarding and divvying up of cabins filled me with dread. The boat looked beautiful but so much smaller than I´d imagined and the cabin felt so claustrophobic at first. In a really short space of time though I fell in love with the boat and regained my feeling of excitement. The group was perfect, me plus 2 other English, 2 Aussies, 1 Dutch, 1 German and 5 Swiss all aged between 23 and about 35. Turns out we had all been worried about ending up stuck on a boat with rich, retired American tourists.

After a wonderful lunch (the chef is amazing) and sitting on the deck watching dolphins swim with the boat, we disembarked on to paradise. A gold sand beach with black volcanic rocks, green vegetation, turquoise ocean and blue skies. We saw sea lion colonies, each colony will have about 10-15 females and babies plus one dominant bull who rules supreme. Other bulls will come and fight to try and win the colony but those that lose (assuming they live) have to go and live on the batchelor beach with the other losers. Every now and again they go and have another pop at it.

We also saw flamingos (they really are pink because they eat shrimp, crazy), marine iguanas, yellow warblers, galapagos mocking birds, sandpiper birds, frigate birds and beautifully colourful sally lightfoot crabs. I can´t believe how close all these amazing creatures are, sometimes only 50cm away.

As if this first hour of the trip wasn´t overwhelming enough, I then faced a fear and snorkeled! I´ve never dared it before and can´t normally even put my face in the water or go out of my depth. At first I just stood and put my face in with the mask on to get used to breathing, what a weird sensation. It made me panic and breath in sharply to begin with and you really need to breath slowly through these things. Within 15 minutes I was happily bobbing around watching beautiful fish, blue ones with yellow tails like in Finding Nemo, and countless others which I don´t know the name of. What a great feeling to finally overcome that fear and do it somewhere as perfect as this.

Day 2

My first night on the boat was a shocker. We were travelling between islands until 1am and the movement was awful. I never actually threw up but I felt dreadful. It was an early start on to another paradise island to see more sea lions and land iguanas. Amazingly, a lot of the animals here only exist in one form on one island, on the next island they´ll be the same species but evolved in a totally different way (I´ve died and gone to Charles Darwin heaven). We saw loads of other stuff too but I won´t keep listing the same things. The reason for the early start was an 8.30 snorkeling trip, this time I struggled a bit more because we went off the boat, not off the beach. To plunge yourself into the middle of the sea with restricted breathing when you´re a crap swimmer is not the best . I spent most of the time clinging to the side of the boat with my face in the water. I´m so glad I managed to eventually let go. A young sea lion playfully swam around me, they´re so graceful in the water and so hopeless looking on land.

The sea sickness and lack of sleep was bad, we sailed through the afternoon and the movement rendered only 5 of us capable of eating lunch. Even then we had to keep stopping and closing our eyes. We stopped at the Galapagos Capital, Puterto Baquerizo Moreno for some badly needed land time and had the opportunity to go out for a few drinks in the evening. Beers ? Think not, I was in bed by 8.

Day 3

After a much better night of sleep and a sea sickness tablet (I finally gave in, I´d been determined to be an old sea dog who could handle it without medication until that point), I felt like a million bucks. After breakfast we disembarked onto Española Island. Definitely the most beautiful so far. We walked along the white sand beach and saw more sea lion colonies plus, most excitingly, sea turtles in the water. With snorkeling trip number 3 I was way better and this time swam with a sea turtle for about 15 minutes, such a graceful, prehistoric looking animal. The others also saw rays, sea lions and schools of fish. My little legs wouldn´t take me that far though. Mission for when I get home: become a better swimmer so I can snorkel more.

We sunbathed on the beach for a while and were plagued by Galapagos mocking birds. Before there were park rules tourists used to give the mocking birds water. They need fresh water but have adapted to living without much through the dry season. Now they bug tourists for water and can recognise the bottles. I tried to explain to one that if I gave him water he´d evolve all wrong, I don´t think he got it.

The afternoon was even more wonderful, another location on the same island with more sea lions, loads of marine iguanas, lava lizards and some spectacular sea birds. We saw loads of masked boobies, pure white with a black bit on their eyes that looks like those eye masks posh people wear at night. We saw some sitting on eggs and some with babies. I saw one mother regurgitate an entire fish, yuck! We also saw some blue footed boobies and then, the big boys, the albatrosses. These are enormous, with a wing span of over 2 metr es.

Watching the sunset over the lighthouse and rocks of the island from the deck of the boat was the perfect ending. What an unbelievable place.

Day 4

We woke up this morning on Floreana Island. I took 5 hours to get here through the night, this time I was kept awake just by rolling around rather than sickness. I found that the recovery position is the best for keeping still. We did a wet landing on to a green beach, get me with my Galapagos talk! A wet landing just means we disembark on to the beach so we get wet up to the knees. We´d already seen white and golden sand beaches, the idea of green sand didn´t really appeal. Actually it´s kind of browny green but when you sift through it there are millions of little green crystals, just because of the type of volcanic rock it came from. Not a 15 minute walk away was a pristine white sand beach, amazing how they can be so different so close together.

We saw yet more sea lions, I love how they lie lined up in rows, fins overlapping sometimes. It can´t be the warmth they need with all that blubbler and this climate, must be the companionship. We walked past the ever stinky sea lions towards the super stinky salt water lagoon , home to lots of flamingos. One of them was fishing for shrimp (actually that´s all they ever do) and a Galapagos duck was swimming around his legs nicking all the food! Really funny to watch them chase each other around in circles. We got really close to a juvenile with beautiful black, white and pink colourings.

Over on the white sand beach we paddled to spot sting ray, it wasn´t hard, they were swimming right over our feet! What a strange feeling.

By 8.30am we´d returned to the boat, got our snorkelling kit and were off again in our little dinghy to a site called ´Devil´s Crown`. Hmm, to a novice snorkler, this don´t sound good. It´s a rock formation off the coast so another off the boat affair. I panicked with this one, the water was so deep! I know I can float in this salt water, I know the boat is right next to me, yet looking straight down into the abyss (ok, exaggeration, I could totally see the bottom, in the distance) sent me into a frantic panic. So the boat took me over to a slightly shallower part (which everyone else happily swam to) and I tried it again. This time I was good for about 20 minutes and my god was it worth it! I saw beautiful fish, yellow, black and bright blue starfish, even a few rays. I´m hooked.

An hour back on the boat and we were off in the dinghy again to spot sea birds and, amazingly, penguins! What are they doing here? It´s bloody boiling! The dinghy ride was great because we visited small islands which tourists don´t disembark on, so it felt kind of hidden away.

I know there are heaps of tourists here (a huge boat full of geriatric Americans has been following us most of the way) but the islands are still absolutely pristine with no trace of human presence, apart from the inhabited ones of course.

In the afternoon we headed to Post Office Bay. Not a post office in the traditional sense, there is a barrel here full of postcards addressed to countries all over the world, but without stamps. Visitors come and take postcards addressed to their home country or anywhere else they are going to and either hand deliver them or put them in the post in the correct country. Some of them have been there for years. I have 3 to deliver in London and I left one which I hope will make it to James 1 day! The barrell has been there since 1762, when it was used in the same way but actually served more of a real purpose than the tradition that still stands.

Day 5

Last night we stayed in the dock at Santa Cruz island which was a blissfully still evening of wine on the deck followed by a good nights sleep. The day was actually a bit strange because 8 of the 12 of us left, having only booked a 5 day tour. 4 more joined us for the final 3 days so we seemed to spend a lot of time hanging about while that happened.

Nevertheless, we disembarked at 7.30 to visit the Darwin Research Centre, a small conversation based tourist attraction where they look after land tortoise eggs and release the juvenilles back into the wild when ready. Each island has different sub-species so they have to keep them in seperate pens to prevent mixed race babies (how un-PC)! Some adults are kept here too, to breed and help increase the populations which dwindled when people used to hunt them for meat. One of them, Diego, was given back by San Diego zoo and happily copulates all day, between posing for tourist photos. You can tell he was in a zoo.

Lonesome George is the last ever tortoise from Pinta Island. They found him there after thinking he was extinct and now there´s a reward out if anyone can find him a mate, it´s not looking hopeful so when he dies (in about 50 years, he´s around 100) there will be no more like him. There are actually a couple of females from a similar species in his enclosure, but poor lonesome George isn´t in the mood. Our guide suggested he maybe needs some videos. I think he needs to hang out with Diego.

In the afternoon we visited some of the giant land tortoises in the wild. These creatures are huge, about 250kg and every movement seems laboured. With that shell to carry I´m not surprised. Our guide got really excited when he realised there were 2 mating, it felt a bit wrong to watch, but we did anyway.The poor girl was way smaller than him and getting seriously squashed. He made this vaguely human kind of grunting noise as he was doing it! We all crept around the other side to watch closer and as we crouched behind him snapping away, he slowly arched his head around to look at us, he looked so guilty! Then, to everyone´s surprise, he started to get off and we realised he was on the wrong way around. Apparently they get carried away and don´t always know where they´re aiming.

Anyway, enough of the biology lesson, we had a few beers in town and headed back for dinner. For the first time I felt capable of staying up later than 9pm so some of us got a water taxi back to town for more beers and a bit of salsa. It was a nice evening, Ecuadorians are very friendly people.

Day 6

We woke up this morning just off Rabida Island, beautiful red cliffs and red sand, I´ve never seen such a colour before in a landscape. Here we saw more sea lions plus a batchelor area. They have to stay in a lagoon just behind the beach and if they want to fish they have to run really fast (not easy when you´re a big fat sea lion) past the dominant bull so they don´t get into a fight.

The blue footed boobies fish by diving from a great height into the water and hitting a fish with their closed beaks then picking it up as they head back up to the surface. Watching them do this in formation, 7 or so diving at once, was so fantastic. To then go snorkeling and see one dive in right next to you was even better. This was the best snorkeling yet, right off the red sand beach. I swam for ages and wasn´t scared at all. I swam with baby sea lions who were play fighting then when I put my head up there was an enormous Brown pelican staring at me, how awesome.

This place can´t be put into words, sure I´m not doing it justice.

Day 7

Isla Bartolome, all of the Galapagos are there because of volcanic activity and here it´s really easy to see. Some of the hills are ancient volcanoes, some are piles of volcanic ash. After a walk up to a beautiful viewpoint we headed to a beach for some seriously close-up sharks. White tipped sharks are harmless to humans but they still look menacing.

Off a seperate beach we did the best snorkeling yet (I know I say that every time), yet again I saw big schools of bright blue fish with yellow tails and playful sea lions but this time I swam alongside a sting ray. They´re so graceful, they look like they´re flying when they swim. I also saw a shark swim by, perfect.

Af terwards we headed to a lava field, a vast expanse of black lava that looks like waves which have been frozen in time. Only little falic lava cactus can survive out here, I felt like I was on another planet.

So sad to be having our last dinner, we cracked open the $2 carton of red wine and the two lovely Aussie girls gave me lots of tips for Peru and Bolivia,. I´m going to miss this.

Day 8

Our last day was more like a couple of hours as the flight was at 12.30. In the morning we still managed to pack in a visit to Seymour Island where we finally got to see up close the frigate birds which had been flying with our boat throughout the trip. Frigates look a bit teredactyl-like when they fly and they´re known as the pirates of the air. Unlike most sea birds they can´t swim so they have to fish on the surface but they´re also too lazy and instead they attack other birds who have caught something and make them hand it over mid flight. In the case of the boobies, who semi-digest the food for their young, they make them regurgitate it in mid-air! It´s either that or they have to make a crash landing. Frigate birds have the most fantastic courting ritual and we got to see it up close at the colony. When the males want a mate they inflate the red balloon type thing which is attached to their chest. It looks like an enormous bright red airbag. Then they sit and wait for the females to come and check it out. A female will land next to them but fly off again in a few minutes if she doesn´t fancy him. He doesn´t have any control over his airbag either so it stays inflated until he finds a lady, even then it takes a while to go down. It´s kind of like the most embarressing erection ever!.

Saying goodbye to the Galapagos and our boat , the Sulidae, was gutting. I´ve had to say goodbye to lots of things over the last 2 months but this really made me grumpy. I will never forget the last 8 days, it was a wonderful experience. I´ve relaxed, learnt loads, overcome a fear, seen some unbelievable sites and met some great people. It also confirmed my thoughts throughout this trip that I´m really interested in boat travel. How it works, how they navigate, life on board. It´s given me the inspiration to learn sailing when I get home. Someone hold me to that.

Thank you galapagos.

PS: sorry for the lack of photos within this blog, there are loads under the my photos link though, please take a look.

Next stop, Cusco, Peru.

Hi all

Just a really quick update to say that I won´t be contactable for the next 8 days because I`ll be on this:

So excited! It´s been a mission to organise. One day in Quito with a nasty headache and no energy from altitude sickness and I´ve spent the whole time running between banks and snorkeling kit shops and airlines but now it`s all sorted and I fly over to the islands tomorrow at 9.30.

The travel agency guys are so lovely they even invited me and the girls from my dorm to go out dancing tonight! (Don´t worry, their other girly friends will be there too, theyre not dodgy!)

Will update again next weekend.

What a life saver the caribbean coast is. What is it about this coast line? Belize, Livingston in Guatemala and now here, they all do something to me.

Cahuita is a tiny town 4 hours from San Jose. The locals are mainly black Creole and English speaking rastas and the atmosphere is seriously laid back, my hotel constantly stank of weed.

Cahuita cured the loneliness I´d been feeling in the rest of Costa Rica. On Saturday night I went for a post-dinner drink in Coco´s, one of the two bars in town. A bunch of friendly, crazy Canadian expats and their local mates adopted me and I had a great night drinking, chatting, dancing salsa. The Canadians even tried to convince me to run out on my hotel and go in stay in the property they´re doing up (if you´re reading this guys, so sorry I didn´t make it over, monster hangover, will email you soon though).

Anyway, the next morning I crawled out to the local cafe for some rehydrating orange juice and hangover curing gallo pinto (rice and beans) only to find some of the locals from the night before were there too, downing a few local beers at 8.30 in the morning, hardcore.

Once the hangover subsided I wandered around the national park, a beautiful stretch of jungle backing on to a beach. The howler monkeys were fantastic, I even saw one with a baby attached to her tummy. This really ticked off the list one of those things I´ve always wanted to do, lie on a white sand beach backed by a jungle full of wildlife.

At some point during my time here a mosquito ate my face. Unlike normal people, I can´t feel it when they bite me, I´d love to swat the little buggers if only I knew when they were there. Sometimes if I see one flying around I hold out a limb in the hope that he´ll take the bate and I can whack him, never works. So I now have bites on my forehead, eyelid, end of my nose (attractive) and about 5 along my jaw line, I feel like I´m made of Benadryl.

I was sad to leave Cahuita, if I were to ever pack it all in and head for some tropical paradise (which by the way I have no intention of doing) it would be to somewhere like that. I can´t wait to return one day.

Now I´m back in the capital and doing a few errands before flying to Ecuador. I just had great fun miming the need for motion sickness tablets in the pharmacy!

The next update may not be for a while but it should be a good one with some serious photos of the Galapagos.

Take care all and thanks for reading.

So, Costa Rica, what a culture shock. The kids go to school, heathcare is free, you can walk around the capital without fearing for your life, you can even drink the tap water.

Such a laid back country that unlike the rest of Central America, they only once got a bit carried away and fought with themselves in the 1940s. It was over within a year. The Costa Rican president in the 80s even got a nobel peace prize for helping Nicaragua sort themselves out during the war torn Sandinista era.

My first stop was Playa Tamarindo on the pacific coast. A beautiful long stretch of white sand big enough to get away from the tourists. The town (one dusty main road) is awash with overpriced souveniers, pizza places and realty agents. Many Americans have brought holiday property here but the businesses are run by Argentinians and Italians. According to the lovely Argentinian landlady of my hostel, it would take 5 Costa Ricans to do 1 persons job because they´re so lazy!

I was really on my own here, not sure why, maybe because I find it hard to relate to surfers. So I chilled on the beach, ate pizza, did some errands and left for the capital after a couple of days. San Jose is actually a pretty decent capital with some great museums and galleries. My hostel, for $9 per night, even comes with its own swimming pool!

With a real sense of killing time before doing the Galapagos next week, I decided to leave my big pack in the hostel for a couple of days and try out the caribbean coast.

Random observation: in Mexico and Guatemala cemeteries are extremely colourful and so packed with elaborate tomb stones that you practically have to clamber over them to get through. In Costa Rica, the tombs are white tiled affairs making them look like fields full of 1920s bath tubs. Either way, none of them are like the horror film set things we have back at home.

Wrote this sitting in a bus shelter in the pouring rain at a muddy border crossing between Nicaragua and Costa Rica.

Debbie and I reluctantly left Granada. A couple of chicken buses and a 1 hour boat journey later, we were on Isla De Ometepe, a sleepy island with possibly the friendliest people on earth. One theory from a French lady I met is that the island was isolated from the war, giving the people a certain softness.

Anyway, we arrived after dark so only had time to find a guide for our volcano trek the next morning. Yes, I hiked up a volcano! Not only was this my first hike ever, but it was up an active volcano 1600m high. We could only go to 1200m because of the ash and poisonous gasses but believe me, that was enough. I’m not very fit cardio wise which, together with the mental hurdles of ‘I’m not going to be able to make it’ and ‘I’m going to make a fool of myself’ made it hard. I hit the wall at about 800m but I kept going and my god was it worth it. From our viewpoint we could see Volcan Mombacho in Granada, right down to Costa Rica. It was so windy you could lean right forward and it would hold you up. The way down was fine (my legs are good, my heart is crap). By this point we’d seen a corn snake, white faced monkeys, blue magpies and an enormous blue butterfly the name of which I can’t remember. We’d also heard howler monkeys, I’ve heard them before in Tikal but they’re elusive so when we saw a large male and 2 smaller ones in the tree right above us we couldn’t believe it. Our guide made an excellent howler monkey noise and the male responded every time. In one picture his face is turned up and he’s actually howling!

Completing the trek was a great feeling and I’m keen to get more fit then try more. That evening we headed to another part of the island and watched the sun go down over the lake. The hotel was so beautiful and the people unbelievably friendly. Debbie decided she wanted a horse ride with a Nicaraguan cowboy early the following morning and they sorted it for her.

San Juan Del Sur was our next destination, a nice little sea side town on the Pacific Coast. The water is pretty nasty though so I decided to go to one of the more remote beaches further north. What the Lonely Planet failed to mention is that the bus stops miles away from the beach. I spent about an hour trekking along a muddy path, somethimes through streams, in the boiling hot sun, carrying all my belongings, including the two bloody paintings. The end result wasn’t entirely worth it. A lovely beach with good clean water but I have to admit the same can be found in Cornwall (well, on a very hot day). The ‘eco-lodge’ was a dive with a concentration camp style dormitory and a creepy manager.

I stayed for a few hours, had a swim then headed back to San Juan.

Whilst writing this I’ve left Nicaragua and headed into Costa Rica, my final Central American country. I’ll spend a few days on Playa Tamarindo then probably head inland before my flight to Ecuador and the galapagos, yay!

Anyone reading this thinking about going to Nicaragua, you have to go, it’s amazing and it will change pretty soon when more tourists arrive.

Most importantly of all today:

Happy birthday to my gorgeous niece Tabatha and happy anniversary to my just as gorgeous sister Nikki and brother-in-law Gary!