Hi all! It has been a while since I updated my blog - bit of laziness on my part and also just managing to find time to do it while on my adventures has proven quite difficult. Since my last update I have finished my overland adventures through Asia, including a little stint with Dad through North Sumatra. I then went onto Australia to catch up with Mel for a few weeks before we both headed off to South America together. Mel and I are now stuck in the Amazon waiting for conditions to pick up so we can fly back to civilisation and then head south for the tip of the continent and hopefully Antarctica. The local airport runway is unfortunately made of dirt, which isn't much good in the middle of the rainforest as it tends to rain a lot and the runway turns to mud, which planes don't like taking off in - I wonder what bright spark thought of making a dirt (mud) runway in the middle of a rainforest! Anyway - we are fine and just chilling and lapping up this chillout time before our mad journey South - we only have a month left on the road and still have a lot to fit in.
Here are a few interesting tales of our travels and I hope you enjoy them...

Asia:

Jungle, river, rubber tubes and a few beers make one hell of a mix:
Somewhere in in the World there is a river that is lined with bars that have big slides, zip lines and swings that launch you into the river and you can float down this river while people shout from the banks that they'll give you free shots if you frequent their bar - this place isn't make belief, it exists....I have been there. The place is brilliant and maybe a wee bit dangerous but a lot of fun. There are mud pits to wrestle in, tug of war pits, monsterous contraptions of all kinds to launch you at scary speeds, spinning and flipping into the murky waters while a local hurls a float at you as soon as you surface, almost hitting you in the face and then they real you into the shore for another go or a drink.

While you float down the river looking at all the bars and madness on the banks, trying to decide what bar to hit next - the local bar men offer free shots and throw floats at you, trying to reel you into their bar. The place is surreal and put it on your itinerary for any trip round Asia - just stumble up to Laos and say ¨where do I go for tubing?¨and you'll be pointed in the right direction.


Motorbikes and an old man made of granite:
What can I say...don't rent motorbikes with your 50+ year old Dad when he's never ridden a motorbike before - is the moral of this story. Dad and I were on the island of Pula Weh (North Sumatra, Indonesia) and with a day off diving we had the bright idea to rent some motorbikes and explore the tiny isle. I had to convince Dad to wear a helmet because he wanted to feel the wind through his hair but I stuck to my guns and he wore one - just as well! We both had a bit of trouble getting used to our Indo bikes - speedometers not working and other little (vital) things not working like indicators, lights, slow punctures - the usual things that don't work in Indonesia. We were just getting to grips with everything and enjoying the open road when we rounded a corner and Dad caught some gravel on his rear tyre while going about 50KPH and he and the bike spilled onto the tarmac and slid into the ditch on the side of the road. My heart was in my mouth - was quite a spill and I was amazed that when I pulled up Dad was already back on his feet trying to pretend like nothing had happened. Even a local driving past stopped and to check to see if Dad was in one piece and to our amazement the only real damage initially seemed to be his pride - that and half the skin missing from his left side - leg, arm and back had all taken a battering, yet he was already trying to get back on and zoom off. I have to give it to the old boy - he's made of tough stuff and I know I would have been down a fair while longer than he was if it had been me.

The bike had a few scratches of it´s own and the steering was a wee bit wonkier than before but Dad was back on within minutes and we continued on our journey round the island and saw some stunning scenery while Dad's body began to cease up. We eventually called it a day and coughed up 70 bucks for the damage to the guys bike we rented it off and then set about patching up Dad.


Tsunami:
On our way to Pulah Weh, Dad and I had to stop for a couple of hours in Banda Aceh, which was the place that took the brunt of the 2004 Tsunami, killing over 100,000 people in this small city. 5 years on and the place is like a building site, new roads, new houses and a lot of visible carnage from the disaster still in your face.

It was quite a sobering experience driving along and seeing the odd nice park that had been built and then being told - "...mass grave, around ten thousand people burried there..." - the place was peppered with mass graves. We also visited one of the many Tsunami monuments, which didnt hold back on showing the devastation with pictures of hundreds of rotting corpses and sites which looked like the remnants of what I can imagine a nuclear waste land would look like. The main attraction was a power station boat weighing in excess of 2600 tonnes which had been washed from about 1KM out at sea to 5 KM inland and then parked itself on top of 7 houses - a sight you had to see to believe!


Oz:

Oz was a nice break to the madness on the road. I got to catch up with Mel and after not seeing each other for 3 months it was brilliant to catch up and we just chilled up on the Sunshine coast and it wasn't half bad having my own tour guide to show me around. Got to meet Mel's family and just spend some time relaxing, which was needed. I also was lucky enough to catch up with a couple of old friends from Peterborough who have started up new lives in Oz - Hywel and Stu. Both were on great form and we had a few dozen beers and caught up in a fair few pubs in Brisbane.


S.America

Powder, Avalanches and Ozzies aren't built for the cold:
After a very short stint in Santiago we headed for the Andes, more specifically the resort of Farellones about an hour and a half outside Santiago. The resort is situated at a mind numing 2500 meters and is constantly bombarded with fresh powder. When we were up there they had a massive dump of fresh snow followed by a big freeze - we had a lot of ice on the inside of our dorm window and then a massive storm. The conditions were amazing for skiing and we had a blast in all the fresh snow, even if poor Mel really struggled in the crazy temperatures - to be fair it was exceedingly cold even for this Scotsman.
There had been so much snow that there were several avalanches that cut off the resort from civilisation and even made the news because a little village took the brunt of one of the avalanches and a few people were killed and then a second avalanche in the same spot killed a rescue worker. We ended up marooned in the Andes for an extra 2 days and the ensuing chaos meant that we had to ski a couple of extra days while figuring out how to get of the mountain. We ended up deciding to hitch-hike down the mountain because no buses were running and while waiting for a lift Mel had to wear pretty much all her ski gear and mine to stay warm while I pissed myself laughing at her new michelin man look.

We ended up getting a lift with a random Chilean guy who spoke not a word of English but managed to sing along to every English song that peppered the Chilean radio station we were listening to. The lift down to Santiago was pretty amazing. We were escorted down the mountain by the police and had to dodge earth moving equipement all over the place, which was clearing boulders etc off the road and we also got to see the poor little town which got devastated by the avalanche - some houses had been flattened by boulders bigger than the house itself and it was a very sobering sight to see.

Inca:
Easily the highlight of our trip so far. The Inca Trail to Machu Picchu has a lot to live up to and it more than delivered.
The 40+ KM trek to the ancient city starts at a modest altitude of about 2000 meters and reaches a height of over 4200 meters and has several thousand monsterous steps to make it that little bit more difficult for you but it is worth it. The trail is littered with ancient Incan ruins along the way and the surrounding scenery is stunning - tropical rainforest valleys, cloud forrest and even massive glacier covered mountains that just dwarf everything else. It cannot be described well enough to do it justice, so I won't try - it just took our breath away (litterally took it away at 4200 meter!).
One of the highlights of the trip was the final trek to Machu Picchu - we were woken at 3.30am, fed, watered and then told that to stand any chance of getting one of the only 400 tickets up to Wynna Picchu (mountain opposite Machu Picchu which has one of the best views of the site) we'd have to literally sprint the last few miles of steps and try beat the day tourists to the ticket office. We gave it our best shot. We flew along at a ferocious pace, everyone encouraging one another and it was incredible. We were trekking in the dark as the sun rose to reveal our little path was on the edge of sheer drops of hundreds of meters while we clambered up and down hundreds of ancient and monsterous steps to try and get to Machu Picchu as quickly as we could. Mel and I were among the first to make it to the ticket gate, doing the normal 2 hour trek in 1 hour and 20 minutes! We arrived to find that not one person from the original Inca Trail managed to get a ticket to Wynna Picchu - a bit gutting to say the least, as we watched the hordes that arrived in buses take their tickets and head off to the mountain but we still enjoyed the race there against the clock and finishing at the ancient city of Machu Picchu was one hell of a reward for our efforts.

Ice:

While we were in Huaraz we headed for a day of ice climbing - full on crampons, ice axes - the works! We got driven to a national park an hour or so outside of the city and then hiked for about 40 minutes to the face of a glacier in some of the most stunning surroundings I have ever seen at a crazy altitude of 4900 meters!!

The face of ice was intimidating to say the least - a 20 meter face with some water trickling off it, the odd boulder dropping of it and the odd chunk of ice falling too. Our guide set-up the safety line in the safest spot and then I geared up - plastic boots, crampons, ice axes and most importantly a helmet. It was tough! Also a bit frightening - first assault on the face and a fairly significant rock gave me a nice whack on the head and the noise hitting the helmet was deafening. I made it to the top somehow and the experience sapped me of energy. I then abseiled back down to earth and watched Mel climb up the ice face and she made it look a lot easier than it was but was just short of making it to the top because of her fear of hieghts. After she came down and I was kitting up for another attempt a slab of ice calved off to my right and a several tonne chunk of ice smashed into the ground just a few feet away from us. The guide told Mel to move back and as she did she got the camera out, turned on sportshot and we both watched another even bigger giant slab of ice crack and then fall of the front of the glacier and smash into the already massive pile of ice - Mel caught it on camera. A shockwave of air hit me and the ground shook underfoot, it was incredible and quite frightening to say the least - I said out loud that I almost became a pancake tourist and the guide pissed himself laughing. To say I was hesitant about having another climb is an understatement, despite the guides reassurance. I eventually manned up and climbed to the top again and this time it was more difficult because water was pissing of the glacier and it was harder getting the ice axes and crampons to stick, as the glacier was melting rapidly. Somehow we both had another shot and made it up the face before calling it a day and heading back to Huaraz with our dramatic tale of almost becoming pancake tourists!

Birthday Bash, white water and local hospitals:
I celebrated my big 30 in true style. Mel spoiled me rotten and it was great. First up she booked us flights from Lima to Cusco - saving us from a 22 hour bus journey, then I arrived in Cusco to find that we were staying at a nice 5 star place at the top of the town for a couple of nights. Was fantastic to have a break from the buses and the dorm rooms for a couple of nights. We lapped up Cusco having dinner at one of the best restaurants in town and just relaxed and lived it up in style. I then found out that Mel was booking a 3 day rafting trip on the Apurimac river ("Speaker of the Gods" - s*** scary name), which is one of the best places raft in the world. We started the trip the day after getting back from the Inca Trail and we were pretty shattered but the scary bus ride to the river (dirt track skirting drops of several hundred meters with a driver at the wheel thinking he was Michael Shumacher), the stunning scenery and the cold river soon woke us up and it wasn't long till we were navigating through some serious rapids.

The trip was amazing. We were rafting down canyons that towered hundreds of meters above us, spotting the odd condor circling in the sky above us. We camped for 2 nights on the river bank and it was gorgeous and we slept like logs after a hard day on the rapids. Both Mel and I fell in on several ocassions, although I think Mel takes credit for the most dramatic splash after spending several seconds under the raft after being thrown out before being washed up at the side of the raft looking like a very drowned rat. We all also had a stint at swimming down the rapids, which was quite an exhilirating and hair raising experience, especially when after being told to stay in the middle of the river to avoid the rocks I got swept out to the side and my legs took the brunt of a few hellos from some pretty big boulders. We finished the trip battered and bruised but we loved every second of it.

When we got back to Cusco after a short rest we met up with the rest of the rafting group to check out the pics and video that the company had taken of us and then most of us hit the town and partied to the early hours. It was a brilliant night with all of us dancing on the bar, doing shots sitting on the bar, dancing with Mel on my shoulders and much more crazy shinanigans. At one point towards the end of the evening I finished off Mel´s drink and soon after I was unable to stand and I started to lose my vision. Mel and a few others from the group spotted something was wrong with me and hauled me off to the toilet to get me to throw up the poison someone had given me. I freaked out. All I can remember is being in the toilet, people sticking their fingers down my throat and holding me up cause I couldn´t stand. In my rage at what was goin on I ended up punching out a mirror and making a bit of a mess of my hand - not my finest moment but I was really scared as I felt my body shutting down. The rest is a blur. Mel ended up hauling me out of the club and despite pleading with locals and even the tourist police she was unable to get an ambulancen and ended up having to haul me off to hospital in a taxi. Mel then spent the rest of the night s***ting herself watching me freaking out and having to hold me down while nurses poked and prodded me and it took a few of them to hold me down to get a drip in me. I eventually managed to throw up whatever crap I had been given and the docs flushed me out with a lot of drip. Mel spent the night watching me freak out, spew and trying to calm me down. I could remember her talking to me but I couldn´t see her. It wasn´t a pleasant experience for either of us and I´d have hated to have been in her shoes and seen her go through what happened to me. After 18 hours and some testing on my organs to make sure there was no permanent damage I was released from hospital - which was a bit gutting because my hospital room was like a bloody hotel suite - massive comfy bed, lounge, bed for Mel, big bathroom with spa bath etc!

Amazon: Gators, Piranas, Tarantulas, giant insects, giant snakes...the lot:
We decided to take a boat into the amazon basin, heading for the Medidi forest, which is one of the most pristine sections of the Amazon left which is easily accessible by us tourists and resides in North West Bolivia. Noone told us the first 6 hours of the journey would be on the World's most dangerous road - a narrow dirt track skirting some serious mountains with sheer drops of several hundred meters, with on coming traffic with lots of blind bends and we were also driving on the wrong side of the road to get a better view of any traffic heading our way. Hairy ride there and Mel decided to just keep her eyes closed while I just kept mine open and shat myself for the best part of the day.
We eventually reached the river we were taking and hopped on our boat, which was quite narrow, long and heavily loaded with all us gringo tourists making the boat a wee bit unstable. Withing minutes we were navigating through some rapids and water was splashing over the sides and the boat was really unstable in the torrents and I honestly thought we'd shortly be taking a dip and everyone seemed very uncomfortable but we all survived and before we knew it we were an hour down the river and setting up camp for the night in the jungle. While our tents were being set-up our guide took us up a little creek to a jungle pool where we could swim and it was stunning being surrounded by forest and swiming in a tiny clear pool although we did get a couple of nips off the tiny fish in there which gave everyone a fright every once in a while.
We spent the next couple of days making our way down stream deeper and deeper into the Amazon basin, with the odd gold sifter on the banks trying to make their fortune and the journey was broken up by the odd trek into the jungle, which was amazing but the sheer size of the bugs that smacked into you as they flew by were frightening. On one of the treks Mel managed to stumble across a tarantula casually wondering across our path - nice orange and black one. I saw the biggest spiders, ants and flying insect things I have ever seen and your skin just seemed to crawl the whole time in the jungle and the noise the insects made at night was incredible and almost deafening. We finished our trip into the Amazon with a stop at a scientific station which has been turned into a zip line park with stations 40 meters up in the canopy and 8 massive zip lines between them. We spent 40 minutes flying through the forest canopy on some of the lines measuring over a hundred meters long and reaching speeds of up to 50 KMH. It was an one hell of a finish to the journey into the heart of the Amazon basin.
After arriving at the Amazon frontier town of Rurrenabaque and after a nights rest and a shower we headed off for the Amazonian swamps - the Pampas. We were promised that the place would be full of life and loads of critters and creatures that we had wanted to see and the place was! We saw Caymen & Alligators (look like crocodiles for those of you who don't know what they are), giant guinea pigs, howler monkeys, giant birds, pink river dolphins...the list goes on and on and our camp was teeming with life, we even had monkeys eating above our hut and dropping things on the roof! The place was incredible and the highlights have to be:
Stopping to Swim in the river with pink river dolphins and gators in plane sight - myself and a fellow Scot called Ross were the only idiots to brave getting the coffee coloured water and the bottom was slimey and the odd trail of bubbles within a couple of feet of us and the sight of gators on the bank were all a bit disconcerting. We also got the odd nip from fish underwater and only later found out that we were gonna be fishing for Pirana just a bit up stream the following day and the sight of what they did to the meat we used as bait would have definately made us think twide about getting in the river if we had done the fishing first. I survived my dip with all my limbs intact and no wierd amazonian river parasites to speak of yet - fingers crossed!
The second day we spent the morning searching for anacondain the swamp and our guide gave us some advice in Spanish which didn't help or reassure us at all. The search ended on a blank for the Anacondas but the group did stumble upon a massive 2 meter cobra while our guides were a few feet away searching for Anacondas. The massive snake raised its head just a few feet from us and slid through the group and as soon as our guides realised we had found a massive snake that was heading off into the bush, they lept into action - one tried to cut off it's escape while the other dove in the long grass after it - hands first! The snake managed to get away down a big hole but it was incredible seeing the local guides jump in fearless after this monsterous snake.
Later that day we made a stop on the river and perched ourselves on a clearing that wasn't littered with crocs and we were each handed some real with a hook on the end and some meat to use as bait - Pirana fishing was about to begin. As soon as your bait hit the water it was getting malled by ferocious little fish and the line danced around like a Chinese fire cracker - it was awesome to see. We ended up landing about a dozen fish between us all and I was over the moon that Mel and I managed to contribute 5 to the count. The piranas were actually quite beautiful and small fish but were armed with a very scary set of razor sharp nashers and it made me wonder if it could have been these little things nibbling on us the day before while we were having our swim. One of the group managed to catch a sardine which was used as bait - which lasted a few seconds before becoming half a fish! Incredible seeing these little monsters in action!

Chow for now.

Pete ;)