Nothing’s Familiar

Well I am finally here, exuse the lack of correct pronuctiation in this post. Spanish keyboards are just wrong. It took me roughly 40 minutes to figure out how to type the @ symbol! (Ctrl, Alt and Q).

I have been in Lima for two days exploring the old city with its amazing churches and other huge buildings of sigificant importance. It doesnt feel entirley safe walking around the old city, all the shops, buildings have bars on the windows. The banks have multiple gun wielding guards outside, and for some reason multiple police(slash)army people with riot gear and tanks! However saying that for some reason the traffic people dress up as mime artists, with white face paint and lipstick waving predestrations to almost certain death as they cross the road.

We (me and my two German speaking Italina friends) then paid 1 pound to get to Miraflores which is the new Lima, it was like another country. No people scrubbing the floor with toothbrushes here, shit no! They have pressure washers. The streets are cleaner and the houses bigger and the beach within 10 minute walk. Last night at the dorm we had a nice party, here are the people who I partied with….

Italians
Germans
Finish
Swedes
Swiss
Spanish
Australian (yes I did say 2-1)
English
Canadian
Japanese
Irish

Thank fuck beer and English is universal!

Today I got on a bus after muchus confusion (not knowing much Spanish sucks big time) and travelled 4 hours south to a place called “Pisco”. For $10 I have a private room with shower, there is a swimming pool, pool table, basket ball court, bar and I have met some lovely Dutch people to. Step outside the hotel and the houses next to it have no roofs, no roads and no electricity. We walked into the centre (central plaza) and keeping up with peru(apostrophe)s standards it was amazing, full of really colourful buildings, people and Tuk tuks.

Tomorrow I am off on a whole day trip boating, trekking and driving around national parcas ballistas(its in pisco mum, look it up´) the whole day cost 50 soles which is around 8 pounds. Then I am off sand dune surfing and buggy driving!

Its actually very hard to spend money here, everything is so cheap. I have budgeted for 15 pounds per day, but a 3 course meal costs about 1 pound a hotel bed costs about 4 pounds and a 4 hour journey costs 2 pounds.

Ok I should go before I exceed the 17p per hour charge

Adios amigos.

PS. photos to come as soon as an internet cafe invests in a PC with USB!!

Well after 2 and a bit years of employment I have finally reached the last day.

I arrived at work this morning to discover my desk surrounded with balloons, my computer wrapped up in toilet paper with the monitor saying “NO INTERNET FOR YOU TODAY” – a nice try I must admit!

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I’ve pretty much completed my kit list for my mission, all should hopefully last me through out the year i’m away. I’ve taken great effort to ensure I pack as little as possible, originally I planned on spending lots of money on a huge rucksack with attactchable daypack. Just because I’m like that, quick to purchase the thing which looks fancy without taking much consideration. However after reading thousands of websites i’ve luckily changed my mind before it was too late!

“The biggest mistakes … that travellers make? Packing too heavily, relying on outdated guidebooks, not wearing a money belt, leaving home with too many hotel reservations, and taking other people’s opinions too seriously.

“Everyone says pack light, but the vast majority of backpackers don’t until they have learnt the hard way”

The main benefits of having a small bag is the ability to carry it with you at all times, you won’t have to check it onto a plane or place it onto the top of a bus. You can happily jump off a bus and go for a wander without the annoyance of checking in your rucksack etc……..

So, here is a run down of everything I’ve bought in preperation for my trip.

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After about 4 hours in STA TRAVEL (Thanks Lucia) I have finally got round to paying for my ticket. The choices available and the problems which arose were just driving me insane. What I wanted to do would have cost about £1600, and I needed to plan a lot more than what I had. They needed 4 internal flights confirmed for each of the 4 continents I will visit before I book with a rough time of when I will be departing! I decided against this option as I would prefer to travel around and not worry about making or cancelling flights. So, I went for another option £1338 (inc tax). The only problem being the amount of land travel I will have to do in South America (4000 miles) but fuck it. It will sure beat working!

My Itinerary

30th August – London Heathrow (England) -> Madrid (Spain) -> Lima (Peru) // Bolivia -> Paraguay -> Brazil -> Argentinia -> // 10th December Santiago (Chile) -> Aukland (New Zealand) // down through New Zealand // 24th December Christchurch (New Zealand) -> Sydney (Australia) // across land, quick swim in the Barrier Reef! // 23rd February Cairnes (Australia) – Singapore (Singapore) // Malayasia -> Southern Thailand (All the islands) -> Cambodia -> Vietnam -> Laos -> North Thailand ->//TBA Bangkok (Thailand) – > Hong Kong (China) // up through China -> //TBA Beijing (China) -> London (England)

Hello. My name’s Rob. At the time of writing this I am 24 years old, so that’s roughly 8760 days of age. I’ve never ventured to university and have never rented or purchased a house. In fact, the longest I have ever been away from my parents is 2 weeks, with occasional single weeks here and there. Alone (without parents) I have travelled to Tenerife, Thailand, Ibiza, Holland, Germany and France. In total that would add up to roughly 80 days away from my parents, give or take another 50 for weekends away. That’s a total 130 independent days. 130 days out of 8760!!

If my calculations serve me correctly that’s 98.5% of my life which has been under my parents wings, for which, obviously I am eternally grateful. However, it’s time to give my parents a break..

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