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.

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....

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...

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.

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.

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.

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...

Sand sand everywhere

We went sand surfing a couple of days ago in Huacachina, an oasis just outside the City of Ica. I think I had a heart attack walking up the dune, not only that but it was very windy and I brushed my teeth with sand and gave my eyes a nice sand blasting. By the time we got the top I was almost too tired to appreciate where I was...so I layed back, let the heart attack take its course then stopped and took it all in.

Sandsurfing itself is tough, and when you fall its not nearly as nice as falling on snow or water...as you can generally eat both substances with relative ease. Sand is not ingested nearly as comfortably. Nor does it simply roll off your body, but rather finds each nook and cranny that you would generally prefer sand not to be and lodge itself there for days on end.

I think I am now sand free, but I cannot garauntee anything.

Were now in Arequipa after a solid 14 hour bus ride. We paid for the upper end ¨royal class¨ seats, and did enjoy them for the first 2 hours. Until the bus broke down in the middle of the desert, only to get it started again (possibly by some hard hitting judging by the sounds). We had a small visit to Nazca to switch buses which was also royal class but circa 1988. We cruised through the night comfortably (with not a wink of sleep) and watched the sun rise driving on the edge of a rather large cliff dropping into the ocean with a full one foot between the road and the ledge and no barrier. It was comforting.
I feel as though buses do not agree with deserts as as soon as we started driving inland (and up the Andes) this bus broke down as well. For the last 4 hours of the trip we cruised at a steady 10km/h and saw 2 other buses on the sides of the road (side means off a small cliff).

Tomorrow we get to do it again, except through the tropical mountains of the Andes to Cusco. Im looking forward to it, though Arequipa is a beautiful city it hasnt been agreeing with us - and Cusco sounds like the place to be.

Things about Peru...

Peru...its great. i love it.
some things about it...
buses break down...cities arent actually that far apart but they apparently are. sand gets stuck in teeth and will be in my shoes for months. taxi drivers let you squeeze in, even though you clearly dont fit, as long as they get there 2 soles....ie. 50 cents....backpacks are heavy, whatever those cakey things i had from argentina are good...

and i haent slept in well,...9 minutes 4 days. and apparently ive had 4 beers and its like 20....

goodnight.

Lima

Well it turns out we have stayed in Lima a bit longer then we had anticipated. We were supposed to leave on sunday, but we wont be leaving until tuesday. Lima has been interesting...i very much enjoy the city but it really is quite dangerous and poor. The gap between rich and poor is incredible in peru, and its very much seen in lima. The other night even the cops tried to rob me...i was walking home after the bar at about 6am with a guy from manchester. Naturally, since we hadbeen at the bar all night we were a bit tipsy and had to pee, so we did. Cops pulled around the corner and stopped us...they wanted our money and passport...since we had been at the bar, we had naturally drank all our cash away, luckily. anyways, when they realized we didnt have anything they let us go after some very much broken spanish and slowly inching away from them. it could have been much worse. (while this was happening, about a block away an aussie from our hostel was robbed at bottle point and hit in the chest with a rock...he had no money either). this also explains the lack of pictures...obviously im not carrying my camera with me

But limas not all bad, being here and being white is like being a rock star and we have been enjoying. THe weather is incredible, there are beaches (dirty ones in the city, but we went to a nice private one with some friends). everything is cheap...everything is available, from free booze at the bar to a giant black market supplying all your fake product needs.

We are off to Ica and Huachachina tomorrow to go sandsurfing and dune buggying.

Lima

Well, ive made it to lima and its been very interesting.

this is a quick one, but here are some pics.
check out andrews blog to know a bit more of what weve been up to

iminsouthamerica.blogspot.com

ill post soon

oh, apparently i dont know how to use my camera...so these pics are really dark. i have since figured to out.

New Years