followkatie

angry mob

There are riot police on the main square, and I can hear a marching band. Might walk home a different way! :)

posted by Katie @ 1/29/2004 04:56:00 pm 0 comments

Moving.....

We´re moving hotels today to "el indio dormido", am just hoping they weren´t lying about the hot water. 3months seemed like such a long time when I first got here,and now it feels like nothing near long enough! Got loads to fit in, and lots of money to spend. People here are quite good at helping you do that!! We are constantly being accosted to sign up for tours, buy painting, come in this restaurant,no this one, no...aaargh! Whatever happened to free choice. "Maybe later" is pretty much the stock answer. Had fried eggs for breakfast, mmm.

posted by Katie @ 1/29/2004 11:43:00 am 0 comments

Brrrr

OK, the 5 spots of rain turned into full on raining, and I had to break out the waterproof coat to go out for some dinner last night. Spending some time today trying to figure out which of the gazillion tour operators we should go with to do this Colca Canyon thing. Everyone seems to be on commission so v aggressive with the selling. I´m up for an overnighter, but not sure C wants to carry her high heels and hairdryer off round a canyon. The one dayer messes with your entire body clock, as have to get up at 3am! Watched dreadful Kung Fu spoof last night...but laughed for ages. Needed that as there is a serious lack of agua caliente in our bathroom. Cold showers, it´s like a Madagascar flashback. Peruvian cable telly is something else, but they do have USA channel, so lots of crap American ´dramas´ of the Sunset Beach variety.

posted by Katie @ 1/28/2004 11:28:00 pm 0 comments

Arequipa

Been here nearly three hours, spent a lot of money, felt a small earthquake and five spots of rain, have a hotelly kind of hotel so going to look for somewhere different,i.e. more people. Bus didn´t turn up till 11pm, but was very nice with reclining chairs and some very hairy views down the side of a very steep mountain. Shouldn´t have looked, specially as we seemed to be on the left side of the road at the time. BCG not gone yet, any tipson how to make it go away??

posted by Katie @ 1/27/2004 11:42:00 am 0 comments

hanging around (one horse town)

Luckily the ants moved out....seemed to realise that getting executed by being squashed with a tissue was not the best fun! Bus is not till 9pm tonight...going to Arequipa by "business class" bus. We arrive at 5am, so about an hour before it gets light. But comparing this with the buses we´ve been on so far, they have all been an hour late so not too concerned. Had to check out of room by 12.30 so this means that I only have 6 and a half more hours to kill. Hmm. Went to very nice restaurant last night with a Dutch couple, and an English couple from Ealing - instead of decorating the walls they had gone for letting travellers write all over the walls...what Watford Girls Grammar school were doing there I don´t know. Then a small Peruvian boy with absent parents that one of the boys had befriended (was looking through the window as we were eating, so they invited him in to give him chips) finished off everyone´s meals. Really really quickly. I have never seen a person eat so fast. They were big portions too, so there was quite a lot left over. The ripe smell of him meant that actually, it was good that he ate fast!

posted by Katie @ 1/26/2004 02:50:00 pm 0 comments

Desert

Well Nazca is in the middle of a desert. The town just seems to appear out of nowhere, and there doesn´t seem to be much to it. I think people come here for the tourist bits and move on. This morning, we´ve been on a flight over the Nazca lines, C & I were on different (very small) planes, both sitting next to the pilot. Did not really feel too well during, as they bank quite steeply to each side so you can look down on the figures (monkey, dog, condor.....& lots more) carved in the rock. Definitely a case of "don´t have breakfast!!". We´re being tourists big time, & went to the cemetery...discovered about 30 years ago, with mummies and skeletons lying on top of the ground. They´ve all been nicely organised now, but you still find yourself walking around bits of skull & bones & pottery bits. And if you think your job is bad...we´ve seen how they extract gold here! A lot of hard work for what looks like a very small return. I´d have to get paid a lot to handle mercury with only a pair of rubber gloves. Staying here tonight as well....my bed is "interesting". I had to remove a small colony of ants before I got in it last night and I suspect that my mattress is nowt but a piece of foam attached to some wood. It´s cheap though so I´m kind of OK with it. The pool more than makes up for it & very nice terrace 7 patio bit.

posted by Katie @ 1/25/2004 03:41:00 pm 0 comments

dads & computers?

hmmm. Dad I meant kind of was it "good luck you´ll need it" in a bad way. What with a Norwegian scare monger man on the flight over saying "don´t go out in Lima, it´s like Bogota, everyone has guns" (this was an exaggeration big time) ....
The plus side of being foreign looking is that every taxi offers to stop for you...

posted by Katie @ 1/24/2004 08:19:00 am 0 comments

Again....

Charlotte has gone to sleep....I´m, just waiting for her to wake up so we can go out!!!!
Have explored hostal (Posada Hispana), it has big signs pointing up the stairs saying "roof terrace". Which does sound hopeful you know, sun loungers and stuff. Hmm. Unfortunately they´re building extra rooms up there, so it´s more like a concrete roof with ladders, bricks lying around...and a big cage full of budgies!!!!!! But otherwise very nice, very clean, have room with mezzanine & bathroom that i would be quite happy with if it was my full time house. Probably wouldn´t get it for $10 a night at home though:)

posted by Katie @ 1/23/2004 08:53:00 pm 0 comments

Standards go down.....

tomorrow nights bed is $5, (parents fyi I´ll be in Nazca, Hotel Allegria, 2 days there then on to Arequipa)

posted by Katie @ 1/23/2004 06:29:00 pm 0 comments

Sealions smell

Been on organised tours today....as well as aforementioned sealions, there are penguins, Peruvian booby (not forgetting the baby booby), inca terns & a whole bunch of Pelicans. Charlotte keeps waking me up. It has to stop....every time I have woken up this week it has been, yeah you guessed. Even in "siesta time" I´m not allowed to sleep! Rant over. Best I put it on here than get shouty!!!

posted by Katie @ 1/23/2004 06:16:00 pm 0 comments

Pisco

Two things have happened today. I woke up at 5am (no that´s not one of them mum!) and went in the shower. Completely lost where i was with the taps and got trapped behind a sheet of scalding hot water, and couldn´t get to the tap to turn it off. So I pull a random lever that I think might make the water come out of the taps instead...but no that puts the plug in.Might have damaged my skin turning the shower off.
The second is that when we left our hostel this morning, the maid / cleaner / cook hugged me and said something that I think is Good Luck in Spanish. I am wondering if this is a bad thing? Things seem to be going OK so far anyway.....Befriended random accounting student in Lima yesterday...bit too touchy feely for Charlotte´s liking. And met our first "I can do everything cheaper than you backpacker". (nob) Going on a little tour tomorrow to look at sealions and penguins and stuff.

posted by Katie @ 1/22/2004 05:37:00 pm 0 comments

Yeah, I'm up early for someone with nothing to do.....there's a bird type thing that maks the wold's worst noises every morning, at about 6am. By 8 tho', it seems to have gone back to bed and I can't, cos getting too hot! BCG still struggling to heal itself....I'm not very happy with it cos it looks like I don't wash / have some random disease.

posted by Katie @ 1/21/2004 08:07:00 pm 0 comments

Peru

So I am in Peru!!

Takes a long time to get here by the way, and how dull are planes? Iberia is not to be recommended for its food, I thought it had given me dodgy travllers tummy before I'd even got here. Our taxi to Heathrow at 5am, was kind of eventful, with the pikey taxi driver constantly scratching his head, running red lights and trying to stay awake!! The highlight of that trip was narrowly avoiding an 'already happened' car crash. Cue sudden braking.

At Lima, the world's nicest taxi man Ricardo met us with a big sign with my name on (yippee, i always wanted one of those at an airport), and then proceeded to take us on an impromptu tour of Lima, when all I really wanted to do was sleep. Sunday night was basically sleep night, but come 6.30am, yes I was awake again. Woke up to dog barking. Went into Lima yesterday with some girls from the hostel, weird to be stared at so much, and that was just the skulls in the catacombs. Will be learning some Spanish fairly rapido I think, as I don't like to be asking people if they speak English all the time. Went to a club in Barranco last night for a funky jazz jam session...very cool and lots of people there.

Am currently planning to go down the coast south of Lima to Paracas and Pisco for some wildlife seeing, and then to Cuzco for some Spanish lessons and the whole Machu Picchu thing.

posted by Katie @ 1/20/2004 02:50:00 pm 0 comments