Well since the last time I couldnt really be arsed writing much.... theres just too much stuff going on and I dont even have time to sleep... not getting any sleep for 36 hours is getting to be normal...
So much has happened that I cant possibly write it all, Iv taken busses and planes and met squillions of people . I think its only been about 4 weeks but Iv fitted in enough for about 5 holidays....
so, continuing....
from Huancayo I got a night bus to Lima and then flew to Cuzco, where I met this scottish guy who was going to become my best friend for the next 5 days or so (which is a long time when youre travelling..) Cuzco is very nice, it was packed with tourists because the Inter Raymi was on. (Peruvian version of Paddys Day... except with Inca stuff and sun gods etc. but generally the same, parade, drinking, and everyone out in the streets) Theres big theaterical production though in one of the nearby Inca sights, it was cool, but after about half an hour it was enough.... Camron Diaz and Bill Gates were there and everything... woo, very exiting...
But Cuzco is pretty cool, quite touristy and plenty of going out etc, but defintly a must in Peru and a great base for exploring. I didnt do the Inca trail, a. dont like climbing mountains, (but Id gotten pretty good at the hill walking at that stage and was able to tear past most people with my fine sturdy legs...) b. too expensive and c. didnt have the time.... dont really feel like I missed out too much... wouldnt be arsed going back and doing it or anything....
With me only having a week and a half to `do` Peru and Liam having to be in Chile in a week, we were on a pretty tight schedule... So we did Machu Piccu in 1 day on the train, got back to Cuzco for about an hour and hopped on a very crappy night bus to Puno (Peruvian side of Lake Titicaca)
Machu Piccu is cool, dont get me wrong... its one of the most fameous places on earth and has a cool and mysterious history and its very impressive and pretty breathtaking, but its just the way you do it is a bit of a pain.... a) its very commercalised = expensive for gringo tourists = E100 for the day, (train is $80 for forigners and 10 soles, which is about $3 for Peruvians, and a Peruvian tourist was really annoyed over this and was trying to get us on the cheap tickets, but they told him that the forign tourists had to pay extra `for security`, never mind that we all got the same train!) not that I ever would think of not going, but when youre travelling thats about 4 days budget... and as Liam aptly put, we´re not tourists, we´re travellers.... (my defination being that tourists leave tips in restraunts, travellers steal extra napkins to use as emergency toilet paper in the next bus station toilet stop... Ive got lots of funny, as in weird toilet stories... rural Peru is not the place to have a kidney infetion...) anyway.... this was even doing the whole thing the super cheap way and buying dodgy train tickets with funny names off some guy that was selling them to the queue for the real train tickets... With our strict timetable, (cause wed stupidly already bought our bus tickets for that night), stupidity cause we didnt book the tickets earlier, and some `sure feck it we may as well try it`, we decided to be Emma Simionoto and Jacob Flueling for the day (those were the names on the dodgy tickets, in case some people didnt understant ie.the people who want to donate money to the Mute Tourette's Syndrome fund.... you know who you are..... )..... It was sortof funny that we did buy them in the end because we met this crazy Argentinian couple, who were obvioulsy big eejits like us, cause they bought the dodgy tickets too. But she was an `actrice` from BA, (and had all the dramatic hand movements to go with it) and looked mental too.... as in really reallllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllly bad blond wig, fake mole (yes seriously with like eyeliner or something, ala Madonna in the 80´s, it totally looked real.....) makeup that youd need a shovel to take off and of course about 6 inch platform boots, just what you need for Machu Piccu.... but she was nice in fairness, and told me loads of places to go in BA .... but we spent the whole day taking the piss out of her...
so our day was; up at 4 to try and buy real train tickets; (I fell on the dark hostel stairs too with all my bags on, and had bruises on my knees for the next 2 weeks from it, there was a lot of moaning) bought dodgy ones; got a taxi to another train station about 2 hours away; got train for about another 2 hours to aguas caleintes (town outside Machu Piccu) with lots of oldie, Italians, who kept offering me cake shouting in Italian, because of course our seats wernt together; the whole town is just one big market practically, where we had to run around, literally, after out tour guide (who we never paid for our tour!) to get our entrance tickets, got the bus to Machu Piccu; did the tour; (there was this stupid american woman on our tour, Im not insinuating that all americans are stupid, just this one... and all through out the tour she kept asking stupid questions, like `so they had to lift every single stone up to build that wall?` and it was like, em no, just a few and then they majiced the rest up.......) then we had about 40 mins to run around and take lots of silly photos; and did it all in reverse.... it was about 7 when we got back and then got the crap night bus.... and of course I had to do it all on 1.5 hours sleep.... (there was this really cool bar the night before where they just had a free for all jam session and it was really cool and I couldnt leave!)
So anyway, arriving in Puno at 5 in the morning = absoutly farking freezing like youve never known, (4000m +) and its also a total hole, so while having breakfast in the bus station and trying to warm up we watched the coolest sunrise ever... then did the floating islands for 3 hours, very touristy but you gotta go and met loads of people on the boat, and then beat these 2 annoying girls to the last 2 seats on the bus to Bolivia... (in which two seats were just stools in the aisle!) the Bolivian side, the town is called Copacabana, is much nicer then the Peruvian one, and cheaper too, went out with some crazy aussies, ate lake trout, mmm, went shopping in the morning for about an hour and then got the bus back to Peru... Liam stayed in Bolivia to do the salt flats... and I got the bus from Puno the Arequipa... if youre in Peru dont get a Destino bus, 4 hours = 8 hours trip, and not much fun with a 15k backpack on your lap.... Arequipa was a nice place, with lots of things to do, but after everything, I just wanted some time to myself to do silly things... Im sure some of the people in the hostel thought I was a bit of a weirdo, but sometimes its nice just to have some time to do things you want to do without feeling obliged to do something else...
So from Arequipa I went to Nazca, I took an expensive night bus this time with beds, but which I left a bag on, with presents and other things....pain... I went straight to do the nazca lines flight, which was absoutly amazing and then straingt to Ica and Huacachina... which is an oasis in the middle of the Peruvian dessert where you can do sandboarding & was finally somewhere hot, but of course the next morning it was raining, but I went sandboarding anyway... the actual dune buggy that took you up there was more crazy then the sandbording... I think the driver was still drunk from the night before and he was absoutly tearing it.... as in you have these special seatbelts that go over your sholders because the car actually does aires off the top of the dunes..... it was like being on a roller coaster without any of the safety features and a very high possability of rolling, but the sandboarding was good too....
Theres loads of Isrealies there, for some reason they all come to south america after thwir 3 years in the military service.... even though none of them seak spanish ir even try to... but they all love smoking weed and there was this Isrealie hostel that atually gave you weed when you bought food there...
Its terrible to steryotype people and or nationalities, but sometimes theyre very true.... I suppose the steryotypes have to be based on something....
From there I went to Lima, spent about 4 hours in a shopping center and flew to BA...no sleep again because it was a night flight, that lasted about 3 hours, and after eating and using all the cool things on the lan planes sure we were in BA at 5.30 in the morning... BA was pretty cool, a totally different experience because its a huge cosmopolitian city and espicially after Peru, and I was just staying in a hostel and was there for 6 nights, well 5 and a half.... on the last night I didnt bother booking a bed (with this other a bit mad Australian girl who I will be going to visit in Melbourne sometime....) cause there was no room at the hostel... we just went out to Pascha, which I sort of knew would be crap, cause I dont like techno, but everyone was going and I was a sheep and sure I thought Pascha in Buenas Aires, it has to be a bit cool, well, it wasent.... there was about 3 squilion people (in relaity about 10,000, but it felt like 3 squillion) squished in and they were mostly after taking something and being there made me feel very old.... I was thinking about stuff like ...if there was a fire wed never all get out of here in time.... hehehe, but the Aussie girl fell asleep! so at least I wasnt as bad as her... but we stayed till 6 ... went back to the hostel, had a shower and I went straight to the airport to go to Iguazu...
But Buenas Aires is cool, but I think its a city for living in, to get to know it properly... theres lots of cool concerts and gigs and little bars... and the food is amazing... oh my god the steak... I was never a steak fan, but there I ate steaks that were about triple the size of what youd get at home, they were so good... we were all the same ans ate steak every night, and in really posh restraunts and it was like 10euro... BA is also slightly European looking, and almost everyone is decended from Spanish and Italian immigrants.... everyone is quite white and I totaly didnt look like a forigner there. Its definatly somewhere I could live for a while, I think Argentina deserves a whole other visit just for itself... but it was fecking freezing there too, it even snowed after I left, the first time in 80 years...... but I got to know the city pretty well when I was there and got the subte and busses everywhere... it was cool, but Id like to get to know it with argentinians and not just hostel people.... not that the hostel people wernt nice or anything, its just that I can meet loads of Irish people at home. there were fecking millions of Irish people in BA, Id say about 60% of the hostel was Irish people.... like people walking around with CIT GAA jerseys on, all they were missing was their hurleys...
So Iguazu (Argentinian side... ) of course it was raining again when I arrived, and I missed the bus into town and had to wait 2 hours for another one, and there was the bigest thunder and lightning storm Iv ever seen, it sounded like there was bombs going off inthe building, people actually screamed a few times when there was thunder it was so loud... but the next day I went to the falls and met these crazy argentinians who I went around with for the day... The park is absoutly beautiful and really well laid out, but very touristy... the falls themselves are ridicusiously imoressive... you have to see them, I cant describe it... like theres just so much energy and the total shear force of nature is increadable... but they were cool anyway
The next day I got a taxi over the boarder to Brasil and flew to Sao Paulo... there I met Bia and all her friends and stayed with her family.... I thought I would only stau one night or two but ended up staying a week! Everyone was so unbelieveably nice and kind.... I cant say enough good things about them! Sao Paulo is a really cool city, for living, I m not too sure for just touristeying, maybe thats why I liked it so much too... but because I was with Bia it was totally different. After my week there I felt as if I had friends there too... and I had known everyone for way longer then just one week! I will definatly be going back at some stage and seeing them again... I know it! m definatly very happy to be back in Brasil.....
Well, after that I flew to Rio, from Sao Paulo... (the same airport that the crash was in... 24 hours before and the weather was just as bad.... was a bit surprised by the lack of are you alright emails.....but it was slightly unbelieveable when I heard about it) but Rio is indescribable, I think it has to be one of, if not the most beautiful cities Iv ever seen, granted I only saw about one quarter of it, and mostly just the beautiful touristy parts, but they were amazing..... I went up the sugarloaf for sunset one of the days and the actual sunset itself was amazing, but over that fameous backdrop of Rio, I think it was the view of my trip... something I´ll never forget...but I felt the safest in Rio out of anywhere I was before, and probably got the least hassle....after staying with Brasilians and only speaking portuguese, the whole hostelling scene was a bit bleaghhhh, but hey, I was in Rio.... I wasnt complaining... for people that havent been to Brasil before, I think the best way of describing it is probably a feel of New York with beaches....hehehe, Im sure Brasilians would hate that, but theres just that cool big city vibe....the Panamerican games are on there too at the moment.... and theyre like the olympics theyre so big, so the atmosphere was really cool, we got to watch some of the beach vollyball on some of the big screans just outside the stadium (which was on Copacabana itself) at night, there was loads of people and it was really cool...... But Rio i definatly highly recommended to anyone who can get there, but of course when I was there it was raining...... not all the time, but a good bit... typical...
After that it was straight to Salvador where finally it was sunnyyyyy!!! Really cool there too, lots of amazing beaches, I didnt get time to have a look at a quarter of them, I think its somewhere a car would be really handy.. theres definatly a different feel there though, its the afrobrasilian capital, but there was more `lighter?!` people there then I thought there would be, definitaly would go back there too.... nothing too crazy happened there, beached it, explored a bit, drank some caiprihinas and beer and ate some nice food....
But anyway, thats the end of my travelling around, Im back in Recife now.... I didnt get to do everything I would like to have done, but I think everything I could have... but sure theres always next time..... Im sort of glad to stop the hostelling and the living out of a bag... it will be really great to be with brasilians and all my friends again.... but Im a bit apprehensive about being here agian.... just because its never going to be the same as last time, but I think thats a good thing too.... I suppose its just something that I have been thinking about since I left the last time that Im nervous and excited now that its here..... you know the way that you just know some things.... well, I knew that last time when I left I would be back, and now I am.....
So, Id say this is probably the last of the blogs, except for a few bits here and there, cause I think my time here is going to be pretty busy, and Iv got to throw myself into the learning portuguese, no more english allowed.... so, back to volunteering.... back to Recife..... and we´ll see what happens from here!
hugs and kisses to everyone, hope youre all well....
from me xx
