Tuesday, June 26, 2007

Oh yeah...

I'm home...by the way.

And I have discovered the joys of Facebook...the ease of discussion and photo posting...therefore posts and pictures have made a switch

I suppose I'll still use this for higher res pic posting....

Wednesday, May 09, 2007

Kevin and Columbo

Well, Gavin and I have managed to stumble our way into Colombia. Rubbin´ elbows with drug lords and black market animal traders...well no, not at all. The country has been great and the people are fantastic

Just arrived to the Carribean coast (Santa Marta....well, Taganga to be exact) from Bogota. Its incredibly hot here and Im loving it after being in the mountains in Bogota and rainy, cold Quito.

Starting a lovely 6 day jaunt through the scorching hot jungle tomorrow...which is apparently in guerilla territory...(lovely, huh?). well be going to the Lost City, which...is obviously not terribly lost.

Then were up to Cartegena to meet up with some Swedish friends who are starting a school there.

Thats a quick update...pictures soon, hopefully.

Tuesday, April 24, 2007

Its been a while, I suppose...

Hm...turns out I havent posted in a while...hes a summary of what ive done since Barriloche...

Planned on spending about a week in Buenos Aires, ended up staying for almost 3...met up with friends from London and New York....

Dropped our plans to go to Uruguay because of lack of time...

Went to Iguazu falls, which were incredible and the hostel had a fantastic giant pool...

Went up to Barra da Lagoa in Brazil to chill on the beach and had a fantastic time trying to surf...I emphasize trying...

Now im in Rio...been spending all my time on Ipanema and Copacabana Beach...and when to go see the Giant J.C.

Heading to Lima to bus to Quito, Ecuador in a couple days to meet a special guest...haha

Ill post pics soon, hopefully

Thursday, April 05, 2007

Freezing in a car...












After Mendoza we decided to make an attempt at heading down into Patagonia. Once we got there we realized it was pretty much useless to try to go further South and see some of the things we wanted to based on our time constraints (which is a new idea for us).




As an alternative we decided to rent a car and drive for 24 hours into the middle of nowhere, Patagonia. We managed to find it by rockin our VW Gol (without the f) over some of the worst dirt roads I have ever seen.


Somehow we figured sleeping in the car would be a good idea...turns out 3 guys sleeping in a two door compact car in the middle of nowhere, Patagonia results in absolutely no sleep and nearly freezing to death. Long story short I couldnt feel my feet for about 12 hours after starting the car to drive home.




In Buenoes Aires now. Have been here for about 5 days now, its a fantastic and massive city. Turns out we will be here a little longer then planned, seeing how our visa to get into Brazil has caught a few snags...

Here are some pics...the ones that look like Europe are from Bariloche, the least South American city we have been too, though ironically its the most South weve been. The rest are from our little road trip....



Wednesday, March 21, 2007

I fell out of a plane...



Andrew and I went skydiving today...

I really cant try to explain how incredible skydiving was...so I wont. I´ll just say it one more time...it was incredible. I´ll definately do it again someday.

Here are a few pics, sorry they are sideways...public computers really dont let you do much. Oh, and surprisingly they didnt let me hold the camera while i fell, GEEZ!! So all the pics are of us standing around like idiots in our suits.



Sunday, March 18, 2007

The end of an era....

For those who have ever met me....

M.I.A: My hat.

´Tis true...my hat has been lost.
Last seen.....somewhere outside Mendoza, Argentina...before white water rafting.
Its had a good life. Introduced to my existance as a gift by Jeff Addison and Lisa Hager on New Years of 2004-05 it has travelled four continents - North and South America, Europe, and techincally Africa - atop my head. Every day I adorned the attire and now....I cannot.

The hat will be missed.

Now I must get a hair cut......My hat has left behind one lasting sourvivor....My satchel. It shall stay by my side....

Thursday, March 08, 2007

Finally...

Okay, I havent posted in a while because we´ve been rather busy. In short...and in order, after Cusco we went to...

Copacabana, Bolivia. Nice little town on Lake Titicaca. Karl and I went kayaking and I went to the third mass of my life in Bolivias holiest church.

La Paz, Bolivia. Met up with some friends and celebrated Carnaval by having a giant water and foam fight in the Witches Market (complete with llama fetus`, teeth and jaguar skins) with locals and fellow gringos. Biked down the apparent `worlds most dangerous road`...it was a lovely bike ride on the edge of a 300 foot drop. I managed the exact opposite of falling off a cliff - I hit a wall. Went to a Cholito wrestling match where a stunt went horribly wrong and a father wrestled with a giant gash in his forehead from a florescent bulb to the head, and the family sat hystarical in front of us. Despite this it was a fantastic time.

Postosi, Bolivia. Highest city in the world. Played with dynamite and climbed down 4 stories into a working mine. The city is the foot of the world...hard working, kind of ugly and worn...except it should be on the head.

Uyuni, Bolivia. Did a 3 day jeep trek onto the worlds largest salt flats. possibly the most surreal place on the planet. Went very very high up into the mountains and saw geysers, got stuck in the mud for a couple hours, etc. The flats were the highlight, oh - and climbing onto the roof of the jeep while going about 70 km/h. The town of Uyuni sucks, but has good pizza.

San Pedro, Chile. Coolest town I have ever been to in my life. Seems like everyone is younger then 30 and an old hippie. Went to a full moon party in someones backyard on the outskirts of town - lots of fires, live music, drums and people. Every restaurant there is my favourite restaurant in the world.

Santiago, Chile....I got here yesterday. I dont know yet...check out some pics. There are more on andrews blog too...soon...



























Soon...

I know i havent posted in a while..ive been rather busy and in out of the way places. I will post soon with lots of pics, because I know thats what everyone cares about anyways!

Soon....soon...

Saturday, February 17, 2007

Karls Flickr Page

Check out Karl´s Flickr page, the link is to the right...

he has lots and lots of good pics

check out his blog too. He´ll be sticking with us through Bolivia, but after that its up in the air.

Friday, February 16, 2007

Sweat, monkeys and Pirhana

Scratch the plan to be in the Jungle for one month. Turns out we called it quits a bit early, well...halfway through to be exact. I think the best way of describing the situation is this...
The jungle is a lot like watching a really REALLY good movie, but sitting in a terribly uncomfortable chair. A chair where you are constantly sweating, covered in bug bites, going to bed at 8 and waking up at 4 to do 5 hour hikes and kind of bored. To elaborate a bit further, temperatures were about 37 everyday and about 90 percent humidity and didnt get much cooler at night. Clothes were thus incredibly gross because you sweat through them in about 10 minutes. Bugs were intense when in the jungle, hundreds of bites all over. I know at home its rather cold right now, and this may sound very nice but its really just trading one uncomfort for another.
But to stop complaining, the jungle was incredible. I loved it. It really was a hard choice to leave early. Its kind of hard to explain, because there really is so much you are surrounded in all the time...the flora and fauna were incredible, though the weather was uncomfortable it was fun at times. When it rained it felt like being in the shower and the river was fun to swim in, aside from the ´´little cat fish´´ that will swim up your urine stream if you pee in the water...a rather good deterant. Despite the fact pirhana were common in the river, we were all still somehow more scared of these apparent fish. Pirhana, by the way, is delicious. we went fishing (classic stick and a line style) and caught about 10 pirhana in about an hour and a half. there we a lot.
Aside from the jungle, the frontier town of Puerto Maldonado is rather interesting itself. The first night back we managed to celebrate being back in civilization properly by indulging in a ridiculous amount of pizza and singing kareoke to some rather unimpressed peruvians.
Anyways, the pictures below are mostly from Puerto Maldonado, the really good pictures are by Karl and Ill post some soon, and hell have them on his site too. To give an idea of how hot it is there, check out my shirt. Thats just from sitting in the restaurant....well, then singing and dancing and drinking. But I was like that before going out!.....its really hot there.
Anyways, back in Cusco now but leaving to Copocabana, Bolivia tomorrow night.







Sunday, January 28, 2007

Machu Picchu...I peed on Matts Shoe

I dont know what I can say about the Inka trail and Machu Picchu...it really was quite amazing. The trail was the highlight, as opposed to Machu Picchu itself. We hiked through the Andes for 4 days to reach a spectacular and over priced tourist trap. Not to say Machu Picchu wasnt impressive, but it has been bastardized into a site Japanese tourists can train then bus to to pay 7 soles for a bottle of water (about 2.50 but still very very expensive for Peru standards).
A brief summary of the 4 days: Day 1 was an easy walk but rained on us. Of course i underpacked and was soaking wet for the next 4 days. Day 2 is the most intense as you climb 1200 meters over 11 km. they say it takes about 5 hours to get to the peak and a 1.5 down to camp....I finished in about 3.5 hours - i was very tired. Day 3 is the longest, but relatively easy compared to day 2, it was about 17 km. Day 4 we woke up at 3:50 to get to machu picchu first, which we did. But, this may come as a suprise, but in the rain forest, in the rainy season - it rained. We couldnt see Machu Picchu from the classic view from the Sun Gate, but thats okay. we made it down, it poured, my hands died and turned a nice white/purple colour and shrivled up...but luckly it started to warm up right when we had tiem to roam around. we decided to climb waynapicchu (spelling?) which is the mountain in the background of all the famous photos...this was most certainly worth it and i think it provided better view then the sungate anyways.

okay, im back in cusco now and will be here for a the next couple days...
take a look at these pics...they dont do any justice as to how amazing the views and andes really are, but i suppose this is the best i can do.












Monday, January 22, 2007

Dogs on the roof...

When I asked about this the simple answer I recieved was ¨yeah, they do that here¨....fair enough.
Arrived in Cusco this morning and its gorgeous...here are a few pics from our hostel (they are the mountainy ones). Also some pics from Huachachina...if you didnt believe the sand sitation before, maybe you will now.

Check out andrews blog for some more pics...