Greg and Mandy's Travels

Saturday

Just about to start the long journey home. Its been a challenging trip, and lots of fun. Catch you soon.

Thought I’d leave you with a picture of ‘The Girl From Ipanema’.

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Wednesday

A transit day. Took a taxi into Brazil from Argentina. Was so quick and painless that I ended up spending hours in the Brazilian airport lounge waiting for my afternoon flight. Finally arrived in Rio. Came halfway around the world to see the best beach and harbour, and its pouring rain. Major flooding in the city, so it took 5 HOURS for the bus ride from the airport to the city. Imagine if it took you 5 hours to get from Tullamarine to the city!

Anyway, finally arrived in the rain about 11:30 and found the hostel. Fell into bed.…

Monday

Well after almost 4 weeks of perfect arrangements and nothing ever late, something finally went wrong. Got up at 5:30 to get to airport for 8:30 flight to find it had been cancelled and I was now on the 11:30 flight instead. Could have been in bed for another 3 hours, but I had the chance to sit on the beach across the road from the airport and watch the sun rise over the Atlantic Ocean. Beautiful morning.

Finally arrived at Puerto Iguazu which is the town on the Argentinian side of the Falls (its Brazil on the other side), and took the shuttle bus to the hostel.…

Friday

A transit day. Early to the airport, then a flight to Santiago via Iquique. Chile is really backward in terms of the airport infrastructure. They have no concept of ‘transit’. Made everybody disembark at Iquique even thogh it was a through flight. You went through immigration then customs then security then immigration then security then back on the plane. When we got to Santiago we did it all again even though I was just in transit to Buenos Aires. No internet,
broken toilets, and they forgot to open the terminal doors on arrival so we had a whole planeload of people trapped on the airbridge.…

Wednesday

Took an 8 hour trip via 3 busses and a ferry from Puno in Peru to La Paz in Bolivia.

It was a fun day, but rather eventful. We didn’t arrive till 5pm. We all got through the border crossing successfully, except that our guide got detained and refused entry, so our bus took off without him. Some anxious minutes for the worriers in our group.

However, to cut a long story short, he caught 3 taxis and went to the next border crossing 50 kms away and walked through there. Lo and behold he was waiting for us at our hotel, as he didn’t have the delay of the ferry crossing to slow him down.…

Tuesday

Took tuc-tucs down to the harbour, and then spent the day on small boat going out to the floating reed village of Unos on Lake Titicaca. About 40 islands in all made completely from reeds and floating on the lake. They have been existing like that for hundreds of years. However, the down side is that the reeds are degradable material, so they have to remake their homes and boats every three weeks. Oh to be a builder on the lakes. They took us for a row around their home island in their reed canoe. Fascinating.

We then journeyed to another island where we sat, very like they do in the Greek Isles, under a canopy on a hill overlooking the lake while they served us grilled trout, and then made us join in the local folk dances.…

Sunday

Sunday was a rest day for all of the trekers. We got to sleep in, organise washing, and generally recover. As normally happens I was awake early as we had been all week, so I wandered around the town and saw the sights. Cuzco is the ancient capital of the Incas so steeped in history.

Monday

We had a six hour ride on a local chicken bus from Cuzco to Puno. About the best thing to report was that we arrived safely, and there were no pigs on the bus as their often is.
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Wednesday

The start of our trek. Didn’t start on time as the mayor closed his office early on Tuesday to celebrate the holiday and didn’t issue our permits. 8 of us finally got underway by lunchtime assisted by 10 porters, 2 cooks and a tour guide. First session was a gentle climb but the last hour was steep and we arrived exhausted.

The porters had the tents set up for us, and then produced dinner. Meals were incredible. One typical dinner was onion soup, chicken and cranberry sauce, scalloped potatoes, beans, brocolli, carrots, mulled wine, and chocolate mousse. Amazing thing was that the porters carried it all, as well as a dining tent, chairs, table, stove, gas cylinder, crockery, pots, lights and goodness knows what else.…