view from the top - el misti

view from the top
Originally uploaded by birtlestravels.

Another photo blog. Ben, Mel, Pearcy and I attempted the climb of El Misti (a volcano 5,822m above sea level behind Arequipa City). This is a shot from the top. At night we camped about half way up and our tents got covered in snow. It is really hard going walking up at mountain at high altitude. A dissapointed Ben suffered from a stomach bug on the first day and only made it to 5000m before feeling too tired to continue.

I You just have to praise God for massive views like this. It was just unbeliveable.

After a recovery day we caught another bus ride to Cusco where we stayed for two nights. We have made it now to Aguas Calliente at the base of Machu Picchu and its raining hard!

Taxi mulas

Taxi mulas
Originally uploaded by birtlestravels.

We managed to pop in a few photos the other day when we burnt them to CD. Here is one of the mules - one of which Sarah rode to the top of the canyon! At the bottom there was an oasis with warm water pools which was great for a swim

How green (and deep) was my valley (Sarah)

We have just been on a three day hike to one of deepest canyons in the world, the Colca Cayon, it is twice as deep as the Grand Canyon in America. We took an amazing bus ride to the canyon, we passed through dry plains with llamas, reached 4200m with snow capped mountains and then back down ro 3600m in a green valley. Of course we also had the obligitory pan pipes, both live and recorded!

Unfortunately, due to the combination of altitude sickness (intense headaches, very short of breath, loss of apetite etc..)and four & half hours walking on the first day I was calling the canyon the valley of death and told Phill I was quite happy to die right there. I felt a lot better the next day and was even able to catch a taxi mule out of the canyon!

There are now six of us travelling together, Fiona and Pearcy joined us in Lima. We make quite a sight when we´re all out together. Fiona and I have spent two days relaxing, shoppping and cafeing in Arequipa while the other intrepid four are climbing the local volcano, El Misti.

Today, Fiona and I visited the local monastary that was only opened to the public in 1970. Before that no one from the general public had been inside for approx 360 years. It is huge and ocupies 5 acres, with streets, kitchens, a laundry, a bathing area and an art gallery.

We are off to Cuzco tonight, another fantastc bus trip.

This morning I woke to the sound of pan pipes

well last time I left off, I believe we were all sitting down eating steak. Today we are perched in the beautiful city of Arequipa at the base of the Andes in Peru.

To cut the last few days a little short we got our plane to Peru ok and when we got off found noone had come to pick us up form the airport. We decided to get to our hostel by ourselves and got swindled by a dodgy taxi driver who qouted one price and then demanded a different one. He had 4 angry australians to deal with but there was little we could do at 2 am in the morning. I was confident that I would report him to the proper authorities, something that seems fairly remote now a few days later. We arrived and crashed and woke a few hours later to find Pearcy and Fiona arriving in a taxi with the dawn and a car alarm that went off for about an hour. Our hostel was a lovely and breezy 2 story house overlooking the ocean.

We got out of Lima fast and rode the bus to Pisco. Famous for its sealions and birdlife at nearby Paracus. The scenery was just so wild. It simply doesn^t rain here and the landscape is completly devoid of vegetation. If we can get to a computer with a USB port I will post the pics. Sarah was impressed by the local street theater occuring in the main square in Pisco which basically comprised of two characters speaking rapid spanish at each other, hitting each other with a stick and a little bit of cross dressing thrown in. Although simple, half the town came out to watch - it was good fun.

Yesterday we attempted sandboarding at a desert oasis and last night we caught an overnight bus here to Arequipa(12hrs).It wasn´t much fun, especially when the hostess decided to play traditional peruvian panpipe music at 6 am to wake us up. We have had a recovery sleep now and sarah and I have made it to internet cafe. Tomorrow we are going hiking!

bye for now

The best steak in the world

the best steak in the world
Originally uploaded by birtlestravels.

What else is there to say bout this?

imagine if I could some how send the taste of this down the internet? a pity - you´ll just have to come to argentina to taste it yourself!

love you all
thanks for the coments everyone!

Horse riding in Tandil (phill)

Hi there gauchos,

just a quick post of our weekend. I feel like I have ben posting a lot of quick posts. Not the best way to blog, I know.

Basically we had a fantastic time on the weekend. Getting out of the city was just so nice. A 5 hr bus ride was fairly managble on the way there and Ben and I had booked into the best hotel in town. The girls were stoked and Ben fufilled a life long dream of buying something from the mini bar - a pepsi for 2.50 pasos (about $AU 1.20). Tandil is like a country holiday town - people wear thongs (flip flops)in the street and every second shop is a icecream shop. It was much more relaxed than Buenos Aires and at 2-4pm it was like a ghost town - siesta was seriously enforced.

The best thing about the city is a little place called Lo + Pancho where you can buy superpanchos - or as others would call them hot dogs with a ridiculos amount of sauce, cheese, salad, cheese and potato`chips. Did i mention they had cheese?

Actually I´m not sure if I mentioned that you simply cannot buy anything in Argentina without ham and\or cheese - something that was made clear to me when I bought a vegetable pie that came with chunks of ham in it.

We also went horse riding with unshod horses in the countryside and had our first taste of mate. which wasn´t too bad actually. Gabriel our guide and his wife and their two kids took us riding up into hills where we watched the sun set. For the first time in a long time I had an all out belly laugh when my horse decided to gallop alongside sarah´s for no apparent reason except that it was following Gabriel´s horse. It was just so fun.

We also ran into a local fiesta in the street on sunday afternoon which was completly random. It was so cool to see all the neighbourhoods doing a little dance all the way up the main street. So much cool drumming going on too.

We caught an overnight bus back and went straight to lessons which was a little upsetting as we found our beloved spanish teaches had all changed for the new week.


love you all

First week of spanish finished (phill)

Hola chicos!

this is just a 'we are still alive' blog entry. We have now completed a week of spanish classes and are heading out to the country for the weekend - so expect some photos next week!
Ben and I have been trying to arrange the weekend for the girls which we have found a tad tricky due to our poor spanish. I am the worst at spanish out of our group of four and am daily frustrated by our tutors so I found it particuarly funny to hear Ben struggle to book a room over the phone with a lady who just wanted to correct his words. In the end we resorted to getting one of the argentine girls at the hostel to book it for us. The weekend is meant to be a bit of a suprise for the Sarah and Mel but i think the hostel staff blew our cover this morning.

So we off to sunny Tandil in the argentine seirras.

Will see how it goes!

Big hi to mike and george and thanks for the photo link!

Tengo pecho peludo
Phill