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Mud glorious Mud!! Bit hot though!!

These are a few pics, look at the landscape!! also check out scottie! and the cool poster enticing kiwis to fight in ww1!!

NEW ZEALAND!!!!!!

WAHEEYYYY what a reverse culture shock!!! In New Zealand EVERYONE understands us and the Queen is on the coins!!!! ha ha The people are also really really freindly!!!! First stop was Auckland which was a nice place, the suburb we were in was a bit posh but really cool. So the first day we went to the new zealand museum which was great and had lots of maori stuff and lots on the wars which seem to have forged both new zealand and oz. The next day we decided to hire a van...called scottie!!! yeh!!! so off we set to explore North Island, such a cool place where everywhere that you look looks like lord of the rings!!
First stop Waitamo caves where we saw some amazing caves and glow worms, next we headed to Taupo but because it was getting cold we decided to tailor our stops to where there were hot springs so for this night and the next we stayed near taupo and rotorua near hot springs, really great, it was cold outside but in the hot baths it was brilliant! We also had a mud bath! Which i can still smell on my towel now!!

SANTIAGO CHILE

Well Mendoza was okay nice tree lined town with lots of references to wine. But alas suze was ill again so it was a bit dodgy with doing anything really. We also suspected that the andes to chile might be closed and we were to fly out in 2 days so had to book a flight over the mountains. It took just 45 mins, straight up and down with lots and lots of bumps on the way which was a bit scary! But then we were in the second major city of the trip! Santiago de chile!!! It was pretty cool, big place but very modernist in its design which spoiled lots of it! he he. On our last day we went into the national library and i complelety confused this guy who just didnt understand why i was in the national library of chile when i didnt speak any spanish....i tried to tell him it was because of the building (see above) but he still couldnt grasp it. Anyway Next stop NEW ZEALAND and was have to say goodbye to South America. its been a long arduous journey but what an adventure! I must say that i was looking forward to new zealand largely so i wouldnt have to be so bothered about getting mugged but the reality is that we never saw any crime in south america. Had some dodgy scenarios but nothing, i saw more crime last year in barcelona than here.
Anyway we got our night flight and headed off to our next continent....

Uyuni to Chile then back to Argentina

Well what a trip it was, now we decided to spend one last day in San Pedro to recover, it was positivley warm compared to where we'd just been. Just a shame we had to say goodbye to al our friends on the trip. They got dropped off in Uyuni but we had a lift back with another driver in the evening. Now that was an experience aswell, He didnt quite crash but broke down twice but loved a bit of terrorvision so that was okay. We stayed in another place with no running water and had to get up at 4am which none of us where particualry chuffed about, but hey at least it got us closer to chile! At 4am i saw the morning star low in the east that was amazing, so many stars and no one about but me in for a few moments. was pretty cool. So then we set off, the jeep was frozen and we saw dawn over the desert before arriving just before sunrise at the hot springs. We had visited these on day one and i'd gone for a swim but not today, they were steaming much more because it was so cold! anyway arrived back in chile and the next day got a bus to Salta in Argentina!!! wahey!! it was WARM, there were TREES, and it was so european except with an amazing latin american twist. We stayed at hostel del centro, a really really cool place with a great owner and staff. It was centro aswell and the first night we soaked up the evening heat and had a meal outside on the square. The next day we chilled out and just spent time in town, we then went for a steak dinner, it was argentina after all. I ordered one steak which was grea and suze ordered mixed meat platter and her plate came with two teeny little sausages on it! It wasnt until 20mins later that the second plate came, then the third, then the fourth! It was crazy. The next day we went to the museum in salta where they had found more inca mummies.
These three children were really well preserved after being on top of a mountain for the last 1000years! Really wierd and spooky stuff but shows the impact of the Inca even this far south.

The next day i think suzes steak dinner got the better of her and she was ill for about another week. So she was confined to bed and i was left to roam salta on my own. Nothig much happened i just skethced a bit and explored a bit. Next stop was Mendoza.

Salt Flats

The next day we drove again and saw some more amazing landscapes. We also had about 3 flat tyres and our drivers were busy jacking the vans up while we all loitered in the middle of nowhere warming ourselves in the sun. The second night wasnt as cold as the first and it was this night that we saw on this scratty little tv that micheal jackson had been found dead. Very surreal in such a place. I went outside like i did on most nights and tried to see the stars. Millions of them. I then went to bed in our room with five other people on a floor made of salt next to salt walls but fortunatly on a proper mattress...well only just. I also managed to actually take off my coat that night.

Next day we were up at 5am and were going to see what we all came for...the world famous Uyuni salt flats.....The lagest salt flats in the world...also the highest i beleive. Unfortunatly our jeep broke down again so we were a bit delayed in getting to the salt flats proper but wow, once we did...it was like being on a massive lake! infact it used to be a massive sea that dried up a few hundred million years ago or soemthing!!

We then went to Inca Hausa, an island with loads and loads of cacti on it. It provided such a contrast to the bright white of the salt flats....wow....

Fast forward to Australia

Wow, its been a while since we updated this thing but now i have my very own PC so should be able to get some supa dupa pics up here and update alot more...although strangley not much is happening at the moment. I think i left you in Chile??? Hang on i'd best check.....Ah yes Uyuni salt flats. Well what an experience that was. Because we set off from San Pedro our first night in the altiplano was at a height of 4300m at a place called Lagoa Colorado. It was fantastically beautiful scenary, very barren but some increadible colours in the rocks and the surrounding mountains. There are so many rich minerals here but the Bolivian government is too poor to extract them. So tourism is about as good as it gets for these people. Actually saying that theres not many people living here. 4300m is wayyy too high! But we arrived in our 4x4s and had to spend the night in an unheated adobe building with no running water. Infornt of us was the Lagoa Colorado which was a large lake that was coloured red by the minerals in the earth. The only real wildlife we saw were pink flamingos on the lake. (apparently it gets so cold here that these birds just stand there, freeze where they are standing and in the morning when the sun appears they can move again...)
Anyway we were to understand the true meaning of cold that night. Apparently it got down to minus 25 degrees. The only thing that keeps this place warm is the sun and that went down at 6pm. SSo we sat around playing cards. I was wearing the following...
1 thermal under tshirt thing
1 tshirt
1 wool jumper
another wool jumper
my fleece and my new coat that i had to buy in chile.
On top of this i had my alpaca scarf, my alpaca hat, gloves and two pairs of sock on.

It was cold....and i wore these clothes day and night for the next four days....yum....he he.

At 8pm we tried to go to bed. With 5 blankets but no heating we resoted to passing around my water bottle filled with boiling water to act as a hot water bottle....It worked...for a while...added to this the alititude sickness with headaches, shortness of breath and nausea and it began to turn into a real adventure..

Right if this thing doesnt work again i´m going to look for another blog! Where have we been since macchu pichu...well from there we headed on an overnight bus to nazca. The journey was all twists and turns and a few people felt a bit queasy. When we arrived at nazca we were asked to sign up for a flight, so half an hour later we were at the airport....and guess what,....it was there that i realised that i had left my beloved cap on the bus!!! That the 2nd one i lost!! So as i´m writing this i am wearing a cheap chilean replacement!!! Anyway went on the flight but it didnt sink in that we were actually seeing the famous nazca lines! They were pretty amazing, there was a monkey and a spaceman!! And they could only be seen from the air! So bizarre!
Anyway later that morning we were asked to go to a nazca cemetary with two english girls. We were apparently getting a VIP tour and the guide was great until he crashed his car into the side of a 4x4! So after getting out all okay, we pushed the car to the side of the road and a taxi took us on our ´vip´tour!! The cemetary was pretty wierd, loads of mummies and skeletons but there were 1500 year old fabrics and bones scattered everywhere!! It was like seeing anglo saxons with thier clothes really well preserved because theres no rain!
Anyway later that day and night suze got delhi belly and the next day all we wanted to do was get the heck out of nazca. so we got the bus at 3pm and saw the pacific for the first time! Arrived at arrequipa in peru. We were met by the girl from the hostel at midnight, then taken to the hostel and given supper before being shown our room with ipod speakers!!! It was amazing!! A well deserved break from nazca, delhi belly and the inca trail!
On our first day there we visited juanica, an inca princess who was sacrificed on top of one of the local snow capped mountains to appease the gods. She was really well preserved and apparently walked from cusco before being given alchohol, coca leaves and hit over the head. she was dressed in the finest alpaca and was found a few years ago.
The next day (who says theres no history in s america) we visited a 16th century nunnery that has been opened to the public. It was fascinating, a whole citadel within the city completly closed off! All the nuns had cloisters and their own cells with a room, kitchen and bit of open space. The whole area even had streets named after the cities in spain!
Then as it got dark they lit all the candles and you could wander round at night!!!
Anyway amazing place. After that we moved to Tacna on the peru chile border. I ate some wierd steak and was ill the day after...typical...but we eventually got to chile! First stop arica where we paddled in the PACIFIC!!! then we got another bus to iquique on the pacific coast. Really cool town with a long promenade and good surf. The centre also had a great street that was like something from the wild west!!! really cool buildings from the ealry 20th century!

Anyway next stop was humberstone a ghost town left over from the 1940s. it was set up by a british firm in 18 something, then abandoned in the 1960s. Its just been left now and is like an old industrial site in the uk except they HAVE KEPT IT and not demolished everything! Its now a UNESCO world heritage site!

After that we went to paranal, the european space agency observatory in chile! That was cool, saw the boffins and everything..will put pic up when thi stupid thing works...

Now we´re in San pedro de atacama! Just come back from the famous uyuni salt flats on an extreme 4 day trip!! Was crazy, minus 25 apparently on the first night and no heating. We were 4300m above sea level and had to wear about 6 or 7 layers all night and day! But it was worth it. Heading to argentina tomorrow......woohoo! Will update again soon....will try get these pics on flickr....

La Paz to Peru

http://www.flickr.com/photos/urbanglow/

Okay, this blogger thing is v slow so iñve posted some more pics on flickr...theres the link. also theres a great dan cruickshank video about some of the places we´ve been on here.... http://www.viddler.com/explore/enperu/videos/76/?secreturl=73081834

Anyway where were....bolivia i think. i´m trying to put up some pics of the witches market and tiwanaku. Anyway left la paz, really cool place actually and headed to the largest navigable lake in the world which is Lake Tititcaca. Stayed in a place called copacabana but it was a bit chilly and decided to book a bus straight to cusco. The bus journey was a day one for once and we passed through more of the altiplano desert with andean mountains and small farming communities. On the way there were some amazing adobe buildings aswell as proper hovels! people living in little hovels...thats the only word for them but they were in amazing surroundings near the beginning of the sacred valley to cusco. Anyway Cusco was great, so old and so well planned and so well preserved, better than any other city i had seen so far! The inca stonework is still visible perfectly jointed and there is a great combination of grand and modest squares and spaces with not a hude amount of traffic. The place is ofcourse a tourist centre but there are some amazing buildings here. Reminded me of the gothic qtr in barcelona, lotsd of little alleyways to get lost in etc. Anyway the main reason people come here is for macchu picchu....(i still cant spell it)...so we decided to book a trip there. Becasue it was waaay too expensive to book the inca trail and becasue it has a 3 month waiting list we took a tour that went away for 4 days and 3 nights. the first day we got taken up to the top of a mountain and cyhcled down. We didnt know it at the time though but our driver was hungover and keptfalling asleep when we pulled over. But we got down on our bikes for a well earned rest. We were with loads of crazy isrealis and a cool dutch girl called....something de vreies....he he....can never remember her name but we all becamed buddies straight off. The second day was spent on a seemingly endless walk. We apparently took up a bit of the inca trail and that was cool with a great footpath hugging the mountains. Then it was back on a long road. We walked from 7am to about 5pm...now thats a long way...But at the end we got to some cool hot water natural spas and spent a couple of hours there.
The next day ended up being another crazy day of walking, except mainly on a railway line that ran toi agua calientis at the foot of machu picchu mountain. The city of macchu picchu is incredible. perched realy really high on a mountain top. its amazing!!! Anyway the photos show it, wow, what a place. By this time we had little confidence in our guide so i left the group before sunrise in order to see the sun from the classic viewpoint! After three days of walking the walk to the top from one end of the city to the other nearly killed me but when i got there i simply watched the sun rise....wow, the beams were shooting down from the surrounding mountains and eventually the whole city was alighted....amazing!!! spent most of the day there before getting the train back to cusco for must have sleep. But now, after the trip we were all feeling a bit unsettled in the stomachs and the tour operator wanted even more cash off us...so is you go to peru never go with peru tours.....they´re rubbish...but macchu picchu is so worth it!!!
Annnnnyway heading to nasca next, overnight bus tonight to see the mysterious lines in the sand...
Oh and if you´re wondering, macchu pitchu was found b an american hiram bingham in 1911. Apparently the spanish only got 1% of the inca gold and the rest was sent to another place deep in the amazon, a 60 day walk directly to the east where the sun rises on the winter solstice.....i heard that from another guide....anyway hope the pics upload, if not chekc them out on flickr....

The Death Train!!!

Hmmm have i posted this before, anyway nehmind, finally got to la paz! The highest capital city in the world! Although technically sucre is the proper capital la paz is just the centre of government.
Anyway its a crazy city, the place is 3600m above sea level and is in a kind of bowl. the rim of the bowl is 4000m high and the city is literally overflowing from its 'bowl' onto the Andean plains above!
Anyway crazy city, lots and lots of traffic all tooting their horns, went to the main church and had a guided tour and saw a demonstration by miners from the roof and tower, was a great place. Then visited the witches market where they sell llama feotuses for sacrifice!! Scary stuff but its where most people presents have come from!!!
Then the other day we went to the ancient city of Tiwanaku. Its not properly excavated yet but there are three monuments, one to the heavens which was once a big pyramid with a pool on top shaped like the southern cross where they observed the stars! The second temple is one to earth whcih is precisely aligned to the soltices and has the real life star gate!!! Then the third is underground and is the temple to the dead and there are all these carved heads in the walls and some people say that some look like aliens!! Wierd stuff. But they were predecesors of the inca and the city was built about the same time as ancient greece and rome!! They even had the same calender as us! 7 days, 12 months!!! Amazing!
Today we went up a real Andeee....he he...a 4800m mountain. We drove most of the way up a really scary dirt track!! Then we gave an offering to pacha mama. This place used to be a ski resort 20 years ago but now the glacier is practically non existant! Crazy, so they all know about global warming here!
Secondly today we went to the moon valley which were these wierd turmite mound type hills that created this really amazing landscape! The indians used to beleive that they represented the souls of people and the continuation of life....but unfortunaly they;ve managed to build over most of the formations because they are really soft.

Anyway tomorrow we head to copacabana on lake titicaca....will post pics when i can.....

Okay well i managed to upload the video, cool eh? bearing in mind it was raining on the surface its still pretty clear is the video...ooh just been told a joke apparently...how many stars are there in the sky...cinquenta...apparently its a spanish ´joke´??
anyway here are some pics of the pantanal. from bonito managed to visit an authentic indeginous indian village. it wasnt mud huts unfortunatly but the people gave me and django some v funny looks...then i saw a building dated 193....i reckon these people only becamse "exploited" by the white man within the last 100yrs! Crazy.
Anyway in the pantanal we saw lots of annimals. stopped off on the way at this roadside restaurant where the owner told us to visit the tourist attraction. bearing in mind it was dark i walked down with my head torch on and almost immediatly saw three glinting eyes looking at me. then round the corner i saw about 20 more eyes! There were all alligators looking at us!! was amazing, counted about 0 eyes altogether..bearing in mind that you can only see one side of thier heads thats a lot of crocs!!
Anyway yeh the pantanal, wel lots of mossies and loads and loads of birds. they were so tame, got quite close up to some of them! Here are some pics....
In Bolivia now as i mentioned below...i think.....breakfast time for me....think its bank holiday there at home, have a good one....

Well here are a few pics of Iguazu and Bonito. Need i say more about the falls???? Anyway i´m trying to upload a video of Bonito where we snorkelled down the Rio da Prata which is a pure spring that produces crystal clear water! We went with a group of five German rockers who were failry amusing and softies at heartm we all got kitted out with wetsuits and walked throught eh jungle. Unfortunatly half way through and the heavens opened and we were in the middle of a tropical rain storm....but we were going to get wet anyway. We then found the river, as soon as you get in and put your head underwater there are loads of fish, plus its like swimming in a goldfish bowl, its sooo clear! you then simply let the current take you along the river, it got a bit hairy at times with the sharp rocks and shallow water and there was one bit where the current was really strong and you had to literally go with the flow and hope that you didnt hit any rocks!! was increadible, just like a computer game or something, you went really fast trying to keep yourself as flat as possible while the current twisted you round all the rocks then up and over into a crystal clear pool or 23 degree water!! was amazing! Anyway if the vid uploads you can see for yourself....prividing its the right video and not the one of me videoing when i didnt know how to work the camera! From there it was onto the Pantanal....i´ll haveto upload those pics later...just deciding at the moment whther to head to la paz or to sucre in bolivia...any suggestions....i think this time tomorrow i may have some signs of altitude sickness...hmmmm.....