Ellie and Adam's Round the World Adventure

Getting wet at the falls!

2007-09-24T15:12:00.000-07:00

The bus journey was almost as bad as we´d expected. Our seats were quite near the smelly toilets at the back and just 54 minutes (Ad was timing!) into the journey the little girl behind us started being sick all over herself . . .nice! Things didn´t improve and we watched Spanish movie after Spanish movie whilst being served hot slop . . . . definitely no whiskey or Tia Maria!

We eventually arrived at Puerto Iguazu and set off to see the famous waterfalls. Now we had heard great stories about these falls but really, come on, they´re just big waterfalls, how impressive could they really be?

Absolutely amazing . . . seriously, words just can´t describe how awesome the Iguazu falls are, utterly breath taking. After standing at the top and gawking at them for ages whilst jostling for prime photo positions with thousands of Argentinian tourists we decided to take a boat trip to the bottom of the falls. Whilst booking our tickets the boat operator smiled and just said, ´be prepared to get a bit wet´. A bit wet was an understatement to say the least.

We sat in a little speed boat and raced towards the bottom of the falls at high speed. We expected to stop a short distance from the waterfalls and were looking forwards to experiencing their ferociousness close up. However, our captain had other plans, with a wicked little laugh he steered us right up to the bottom of the falls so that the water was falling directly onto us. It was like sitting in a power shower fully clothed . . but worse!

The following day we made our final border crossing of the trip, destination Brazil. As we were pretty hooked on the falls by this point we decided to go and have a look at them from the Brazilian side. The views were even more spectacular and we also got to walk out on a platform above the falls and look down the face, pretty scary. We thought these views were good but apparently in the early days of Latin American tourism you used to be able to hire a mad boatsman who would row you to the top of the falls and then paddle furiously backwards while you happily enjoyed the views and took photos. After a while though the inevitable happened and a boat plummeted over the edge so that was the end of that. Pretty glad it wasn´t still an option as my travel partner would have definitely wanted a go!

And so we boarded yet another night bus (one thing I´m not going to miss!) and continued our journey into Brazil.

Horsing around!

2007-09-24T14:00:00.000-07:00

As we boarded the bus that would be our home for the next 14 hours, something felt different. We had had to book the executive class bus as the others were full, but `executive` usually means that you get Spanish films and your own chair. This however was amazing, huge leather chairs with more leg room than you need and the chair reclined in to a horizontal position so that it was actually a bed. Things got better as the film was in English, a 3 course meal was served and then pre sleep drinks of Whiskey and Tia Maria were given. Why the hell aren´t all buses like this? It could have been an advert for Carlsberg.... "if Carlsberg made buses!".

Anyway, we arrived in Mendoza, which is in the heart of the wine region, feeling very refreshed from our luxury bus. As I said Mendoza is the main wine region in Argentina so as you can imagine just a little more wine was enjoyed during our stay here. However there was the added bonus of our hostel being on one of the many grassy plazas the town has. Our Plaza was "Plaza De Chile", the bonus being that as it was Chilean Independence day and there was a 4 day party going on with whole cows being roasted on bonfires and as much drink as you could shake a stick at (so this meant more wine, beer and steak!!! it´s a hard life!).

However we hadn´t come to Mendoza for the wine.... honest! We had come because the town is on the fringe of the spectacular Andean range and we wanted to get into the mountains. We had planned to go hiking but my knee has been hurting recently (probably gout, considering my current diet!) so we had to re-think. How could we get into the mountains without walking, but without sitting on a tour bus. HORSES!!!! One problem Ellie is very scared of them. Still it sounded really cool and if she could get on a motor bike in Vietnam horses should be easy. "Not that many people die in horse accidents El" I said as she climbed onto her horse "No, most of them are paralysed!" This helped her fear massively.

The riding was fantastic and Ellie, much to her relief, had the slowest most docile horse in the world and plodded along happily without risk of death. The scenery was breathtaking, although we were slightly beaten by the clouds again as the highest peaks could not be seen. My horse was called Mr Gaucho, which actually translates into English as "Devil horse!". He hated all the other horses so tried to bite them, spit on them and actually crapped on 2 of them. I liked him a lot and with a kick he liked to gallop, which my bum now doesn´t like much!

After a morning spent with our very different horses it was time to try a very different activity. We had considered spending a few hours abseiling but as the drops were only 18m we decided on canopying. I think that canopying is the official word but I would call it "zip lining". Standing on top of a mountain, connected to a piece of wire that spanned several hundreds meters of jagged rock and river 50m below me, I suddenly really wished that the safety talk had been in English. I Knew that if the instructor at the end of the wire started shouting and waving his arms around frantically I had to slow down. Unfortunately I had missed how to slow down and so had Ellie (our Spanish is still bad!). This however added to the risk of the activity and we just jumped off and decided it would be fine.

We spent several hours hurtling down different wires that screamed as you reached top speed. We managed to work out how to stop, in fact Ellie´s breaking was a little to strong on the last zip and she ended up stranded, 50m above the river with the Andean wind blowing her from side to side. After a quick rescue mission she was pulled to the end, much to my amusement. Luckily I had been ready with the camera when this happened!

We´re just about get on a 36 hour bus, Oh what fun! It´s not the executive bus either so we may be sharing our seats with several Argentinian families!

Having a riot in Buenos Aires

2007-09-24T13:21:00.000-07:00

After a few days relaxing and getting tear gassed we headed to Buenos Aires (BA) in Argentina. We had heard some really good things about Argentina from friends, when I say good things I actually mean, the steak is amazing, the wine is even better than the steak and they are both dirt cheap, so I was very excited about our visit!

Once we found accommodation we wasted no time in sampling the "good things" ! In fact I went 4 days having steak in different forms for every meal WAHOOO!

While in BA there are several things that you have to do, see a tango show and visit the Evita Museum and graveyard (the others are wine and steak but I had done plenty of those!!). So the first night we were there we went to see a tango show. I wasn´t that excited about it, the thought of spending several hours watching some dancers dressing in different costumes to depict the history of tango didn´t sound that great to me. However I was amazed!!! I´d forgotten that tango started in the brothels of BA, this meant that for the first part of the show the women were wearing hardly anything. Suddenly tango was very interesting!
The next stop on the sights list was the Evita museum. It was very interesting to get a really good insight into Argentina´s political history and Evita appeared to be a very compassionate women who helped millions of impoverished people. However there were no half naked ladies there so it didn´t beat the tango show! The graveyard was a great laugh as you can imagine, but it was impressive, as every family that is buried there has its own crypt and there are thousands of them, all trying to be more elaborate than the next. But again there were no half naked ladies wondering around so the tango show was still the best by far!

Oh, our time in BA was not without a riot incident. While enjoying dinner one evening, watching the world go by outside the cafe, I noticed a small mob of angry looking people heading up the street. I joked that this could be another riot, the laughter soon subsided as the mob threw down a few tyres and set fire to them. They then proceed to attack the building we were eating in (actually it was the hostel above the cafe!). Paint and bricks were thrown at the hostel and the sign was set alight. The police soon arrived and the incident ended with no serious injuries and our dinner was brightened up a little too. It appears that the people were all ex-residents of the building who were evicted so that the hostel could expand.

We decided that as we were so close to Uruguay we should pop there for the day and see what another country had to offer. It takes about an hour on a ferry to hop from BA to the small town of Colonial in Uruguay. Uruguay was very similar to Argentina, everyone speaks Spanish and they like wine and meat. On a serious note the town was used by the Portuguese to smuggle pretty much anything in to BA to avoid Spanish taxes and has a real medieval feel. The cobbled streets, forts and old churches really add to the oldie world feel. We also discovered the worlds strangest plant pot in the form of and old car. Weird!!!!! We had such a nice day wondering around the old place that we decided to stay for the night.

Popping back the next day we headed straight for the bus station to catch our 14 hour bus to Mendoza. I´m thinking that another night on a bus will be slightly less relaxing than an evening in Uruguay!

A 'quiet' few days in Santiago!

2007-09-12T16:19:00.001-07:00

So after the action packed time we had had in Bolivia it was time to relax a little in Chile´s capital city Santiago. Getting there proved harder than we thought though as the ground crew damaged our plane and it was cancelled. We can´t complain though as we were bussed to a five star hotel for an evening of luxury and free food. Our room also had sky T.V. (a real treat for us) and it was while watching BBC world news that we saw pictures of the riots in Santiago that had happened that afternoon. Whoops!

So one day later and with the images of riot police and water cannons fresh in our minds we set off again. Landing in Santiago we had no trouble finding somewhere to stay and it felt safe in the city. So we spent the evening enjoying the fine wine of Chile, WOW a bottle of fantastic sauvignon blanc for just 1.70 British pounds, Ellie thinks she has died and gone to heaven!

The next day however while we were taking in a few of the sights of the city, things changed a little. Out of nowhere there were riot vans, trucks with water cannon and lots of riot police in full body armour and all the shop shutters came down in a frantic unison. Feeling a little curios we went to see what was happening. As we got to the main road that leads to the Parliament buildings we found ourselves in the middle of reporters, camera men and photographers (all carrying gas masks!). After having a little chat with the one presenter we discovered that the rioters were expected to surface soon and head to the Parliament building to generally cause trouble. It was at this point that everyone started to cough and sneeze. This was the result of tear gas being blown down the street from where the police were dealing with some of the rioters. After 30 minutes of sneezing and coughing we decided that there was not going to be any action where we were standing so gave up and went to see some more sights. Fact of the day, for anyone thinks that they may be tear gassed by police in the near future. Take some lemons with you. Eating the lemon and the skin makes you less susceptible to the effects of tear gas and according to the photographers works like a charm!

Although we have not directly seen any of the rioting there has apparently been quite a lot of it and we discovered this morning that one of the riot police got killed yesterday afternoon. But don´t worry, we are safe and sound!

DEATH ROAD!!

2007-09-12T15:54:00.001-07:00

Apart from the rafting, river zip line and generally taking local transport we had not been risking our lives much recently, so we thought it was time to inject a little fear back into our trip.

What better way to do this than to mountain bike down "DEATH ROAD". Now I know that lots of things have scary names when they really aren´t scary at all, but this is NOT one of them!
On average 1 person died on the 32km stretch of road every 3, yes 3 days. Mountain bikers have been riding down it for several years and on average 1 dies every 4 1/2 months. Being a bit geeky Ells and I did a few calculation on the risk involved with mountain biking down this road (unfortunately this was done when half way down, scaring the crap out El) and the odds of dieing while mountain biking are 6500-1. Thinking about this further we concluded that if you rode down as fast a possible with the lead guide the odds were cut dramatically. Which means that as that was what I was doing I stood a chance of about 500-1 of dieing (and we'd PAID to do this). These odds are the risk of being KILLED not injured. It turns out that if you get away injury free you have done very, very, very well.

So this is what we were going to do and what an amazing day it was. We started at an altitude of 4660m in snow and ended several hours later at 1500m in hot sun. Starting with a new tarmac section of road we wound our way down through the mountains, I was keeping up with the lead guide and was a little shocked when we started to overtake buses and lorries ( I think that this also cuts the odds of dieing even more, sorry Mom!).

Ellie was taking it a bit easier as I think she had already started calculating the risks. After this first section we got onto the real "death road", 32km of narrow dirt track that clings to the sides of mountains with countless hairpin bends and shear drops of 600m+ over the edge (this is Bolivia so of course there are no safety barriers).Every bend or long stretch of road was littered with crosses and shrines for the people who had died. It`s almost like the whole road a long never ending reminder of those who didn´t make it to the end.

As I was hurtling down these roads following the suicidal guide I suddenly thought about doing this in the England. I imagined going to the bank with a business plan. I could even hear the bank manager talking to me "So your business idea is to take people down the most dangerous road in the world on mountain bikes. They don´t have to have any experience and there are no safety barriers anywhere on route. You also say that you would like to go down as fast as you can and that the risk of death is about 500-1" It was at this point I realised that this would never be allowed in the UK and probably for very good reasons!

As if the risk of injury and death was not high enough just completing the "death road" the guide decided that I had proven myself worthy enough to attempt some stunts. The main one being to ride as fast as possible down a small down hill section and off some rocks into a shallow pond. This was actually really cool, although I got soaked through. It was so much fun that it had to be done again. As I waited to go I watched in shock as another biker (Matt) had a go, landed, came off and rammed his face into the rocky bottom of the pond. Luckily we were wearing full face helmets so all he suffered was cut arms, a few bruises and a twisted knee (well I say ALL like it was nothing, but he could hardly walk after!). My final jump ended without any injury, although it did make my back tyre explode, the 4th flat tyre in a week. It also caused Ellie to titter and mutter about too much good food and something about fatso, the cheek!!

So we managed to survive the day in one piece and totally unharmed. If anyone every finds themselves in La Paz with a day to spare and a REAL death wish, it´s definitely the thing to do!

4 x 4 Experience

2007-09-09T08:27:00.000-07:00

After a crazy journey which included getting off our bus while it crossed a river on what looked like a huge floating plank we found ourselves in La Paz, the world's highest capital. We set off to explore the Mercado de Hechiceria, otherwise known as the Witches Market where they sell such delights as shrivelled llama fetuses (apparently burying one under your house will ward off evil spirits . . . don't think I'll be testing this myth out) and whole preserved frogs with stones in place of their eyes, I haven't got a clue what they are for . . . in place of an ornament maybe?!

So after an action packed day exploring the city we set off on what looked as though it could be the best night bus yet; lots of leg room, reclining seats far away from the smelly toilet, an english film, dinner provided . . . things were looking positively radiant. That is until we heard a massive bang and the bus came to an abrupt halt. All the passengers, including us, looked at each other with rather worried expressions, however it turned out to just be a flat tyre which the driver fixed and we were soon on our way again. We hadn't gone much further though when we heard an even louder bang, another flat (have I mentioned that our driver was driving like an absolute lunatic on unpaved roads?!) . . slight problem, we only had one spare tyre which we had already used. At this point we were about 60km from our final destination, however, that was obviously too far to drive on a flat tyre so we turned round and drove 40km in the wrong direction to the nearest cluster of homes.

So, at 7.30am about 35 westerners descended onto this tiny town in the middle of nowhere in search of toilets and water, much to the surprise of the local community. Meanwhile our bus driver started to attempt to fix the tyre. He pulled and pushed but couldn't get the tyre off the rim. He tried using long iron rods, he even tried lubricating it with cooking oil, but nothing happened. The minutes turned into hours and the sun started to beat down on the dusty little town. We were all getting hot, smelly and pretty irritated. The driver roped in some of the locals to help him in his impossible mission and even some of the passengers gave it a go but to no avail. We were starting to get a bit fed up, we had after all been sitting on the side of the road for about four hours by this point when suddenly a spare tyre arrived, the bus was fixed and we were finally on our way. Not quite the perfect journey we had expected.

We eventually arrived at our destination and jumped into a 4x4 . . .we were off to explore the Bolivian countryside. And what a countryside it is . . .we spent three days driving through some of the most amazing scenery I have ever seen. From the enormous salt flats; a dazzling whiteness spreading out as far as the eye can see in every direction to the dusty desert with Dali style rocks appearing in the middle of nowhere to explosive geysers and boiling, popping mud pools. It was all simply stunning.

The highlight of the trip was still to come though. On our final morning we were to visit the thermal pools in an attempt to warm up our chilly bones (the temperature dropped to about -20C at night, brrrrrr!). Arriving at the thermal pools we found about 6 other car loads of people had had the same idea and were already warming up in the hot water. We were just about to jump out of the car and join them when our driver muttered something to us in Spanish and continued driving. None of us spoke Spanish so feeling a little disappointed we just settled back to continue enjoying the amazing scenery.

Our driver stopped the car in the middle of nowhere and getting out we discovered that he had brought us to our very own private thermal pool. So, while he got down to cooking our breakfast we relaxed in the hot water whilst admiring the splendid views. Perfect! Wasn´t quite as much fun getting out of the lovely hot water and trying to dry ourselves as quickly as is humanly possible in the freezing cold air. It was so cold that our swimming stuff actually froze during the time it took us to eat our breakfast!

The thermal pool was definitely the highlight of my trip, however, Adam preferred a different section. We arrived at our first accomodation late in the afternoon and our guide (who spoke no English) muttered something about a cemetry and pointed to a spot in the distance saying 5 minutes and doing a miming walking action. Having nothing better to do we decided to go and find out what he was going on about. To my horror and Ad´s delight we stumbled across as ancient burial ground. The term burial ground might be a bit misleading here as the people hadn´t actually been buried at all but rather put into hollowed out rocks. Peering inside we could clearly see the skeletons which were crouched over in foetal positions, in the clothes they had been buried in hundreds of years before. It was far too real for my liking however Ad loved it.

Floating in your sleep.

2007-09-09T08:26:00.000-07:00

Waking early in the morning after 5 days of hardship and quite a few beers to celebrate our survival, we wished that we had planned to spend the day sleeping and relaxing in the little bars and cafes of Cuzco. However we had decided to catch an early morning bus to Puno, a little town on the edge of Lake Titicaca which is the largest lake over 2000m in the world at a staggering 3820m. Puno itself is not a very remarkable place but it´s the only place to get boats out to the islands on the lake. We had decided that we were going to try and stay on one of the islands if we could.

So with no information about where we could stay or how we could stay there we jumped on a boat and sailed off. We spent several hours visiting the remarkable floating islands. These are islands that are made out of thousands of tons of water reeds and actually float on the lake. The locals put new reeds on top all the time to replace the reeds at the bottom of the island that rot and fall off. The texture resembles a soggy mattress and it feels like you're walking on the moon, very strange.

We liked the islands so much that we decided that we would stay there for the evening. With our Spanish skills (or lack of them) we managed to get ourselves a tee pee like hut for the night, made from guess what.....more reeds! We had a lovely afternoon relaxing and "talking" to the locals. My famous "screwing the finger off" trick (thanks for that one Uncle Mick, it scares children all around the world. Just like it used to scare me!!) came out again to astonish / scare the children and I think it almost got me burned for witchcraft!! After an evening of miming and getting very confused it was time to get our first good nights sleep for ages. As you can imagine we were so happy to find that the mattress was made of......... REEDS arggggggg! However we were surprised to find that it was very comfy and warm and we had an amazing nights sleep (it may have just been that we were exhausted though!).

The next morning we boarded another boat and sailed for 3 hours further into the lake (yes 3 hours, the lake is bloody massive!) to the island of Tequili. There we were treated to a demonstration of local dancing and informed of local customs. Men on the island always wear hats. If the hat is white they are not married and if it´s red and white then they are. Not very interesting but the hats are made by the men themselves. Walking around the island you see men going about their normal daily duties but knitting ferociously as they go. If they get married they also get to make a scarf out of their wife's hair, NICE!! It brings a whole new meaning to my wife is a pain in the neck! Apart from the strange local customs the island was beautiful and the views were amazing.

Our Alternative Inca Trail!

2007-08-31T16:14:00.003-07:00

With the fun of rafting behind us it was time to expose ourselves to the extremely high altitudes of the Inca trail. As we did not know exactly when we would be doing this trek we had not booked in advance. We knew that the classic Inca trail would probably be fully booked but thought that we would try anyway. We were not surprised to find that the earliest available trek was mid November. We were however surprised that the agent actually thought that we were going to say "Yeah no problem, we'll sit around in this small town and wait for 3 months." BLOODY IDIOT! Needless to say we found a different agent to help us. As the classic Inca trail was full we had several other choices, one of them being the Salkantay route. We were told that it was one day longer than the classic, a little further and at higher altitude. No problems we'll have that one please.

However we didn't realise the true error of our slap dash approach to booking the trek until we arrived at the start of the trek and casually asked the guide "so how many kilometres are we walking today?" Imagine our shock when he announced that it would be 24km, all up hill to an altitude of 3900m. All that Ellie could manage was a small "oh" when he added that it would probably take about 9 hours! It appears however that the other people on the trek were in the same, uninformed boat as us and we all had a good laugh as we wheezed and grunted our way through the thin air of the first day. Oh how we laughed!!! The general consensus in the group is that the agents are purposefully vague as to the distance as they know that no sane person would pay money to do this! The best was yet to come however, as the guide casually dropped in halfway through the first day that this is the easy day compared to tomorrow, oh how we all laughed again!! "WHAT, harder than this?" we all asked. Yeah tomorrow is 26km and we will be climbing the Salkantay pass. Which has an altitude of 4600m and takes you between two glaciers. MUCHO, MUCHO FREEO (very, very cold!) he laughed as he continued to taunt us.

Still the first day was amazing with the scenery changing from small farming towns with little pastures and rolling hills, to the huge mountains of the Andean range with imposing glaciers clinging to their craggy sides. Getting to the camp ground (oh yes a forgot to mention that we would be camping on this trip!) just before dark, we set up our tents at the base of the two huge mountains (one being Mt Salkantay) and were stunned by the amazing views we had of their peaks and glaciers.

This stunned joy however turned to bitter cold pain as the sun set and arctic like wind blew down from the glaciers! I have NEVER, NEVER been so cold in my life. We went to bed that night in as many clothes as we could fit on.

Ellie's crazy attire included, thermal bottoms, thermal top, 4 jumpers, 2 coats, 1 pair of trousers, 4 pairs of socks, 1 pair of gloves and a hat. I was not quite as well dressed but did put my hat and gloves on in the middle of the night. It was so cold that the condensation on the inside of the tent had frozen. Just the great nights sleep we needed after hiking for 9 hours and having the hardest day still to come!

Setting off the next morning we were not looking forward to the gruelling trek but definitely looking forward to amazing views of Mt Salkantay from the top of the pass. As you can see from the picture, the weather turned slightly and the amazing views were not quite what we were expecting. You can imagine our joy after slogging for 3 1/2 hours up a steep mountain pass in the thin air of the altitude to be able to see 3 feet in front of us. We've seen pictures of the view though and it does look amazing.

Eating lunch at the top of the pass in the bitter cold was not the best moment of our trip so far, but the 6 hours that followed were a lot worse.

The mist and cloud stayed with us until we got to our next camp and wandering through the unseen mountainous terrain reminded me of the start to American Werewolf in London. SPOOKY!

Descending through the clouds our camp appeared and we were pleased to find that were no glaciers in sight to freeze us and that some of the jungle scenery was actually visible. It was in a beautiful valley with a wild torrent of a river running through that sounded like an never ending freight train as we lay in bed and finally got some sleep.

The next 2 days of the trek were pretty uneventful (apart from both of Ellie`s little toes being replaced with huge blisters!) and the distances were only a mere 18km each day through mountains and jungle with only little "supermarkets" like this one to refresh us! The highlight was arriving at our third campsite to find a cow being tied up over the road. Withtypical morbid curiosity it was time to investigate. Just as I thought, it was the cows unlucky day as it's owners obviously fancied some steak for dinner. So for almost an hour we watched the local butcher teach his 7 year old son the tricks of the trade. It was bizarre to watch this small boy wielding a very sharp knife hack and chop off various parts of the cow. My personal favourite moment was when he attacked the horns on the skinned cows head with a hack saw and the cows eyes almost fell out. COOL. It was at this point however, I realised the difference between English and Spanish cuisine. We had become really good friends with a Spanish couple (Rafa and Natalia) during our trekking ordeal and Rafa started to explain all the Spanish dished that involve the parts of the cow that in England get carted off and end up in Pedigree Chum, Stomach, intestines and the tongue NICE! (when we visit you guys there had better be none of these little delicacies on my dinner plate!!).

Oh.. I almost forgot the river crossing. When we booked, our vague agent didn´t mention that anyone with a fear of heights should´t go. We were walking along on the third day when we came to very ferocious river about 100ft below us. It was a fantastic sight so we never though anything of it, until we went to continue walking and the guide called us back. "No, no we cross here" he informed us. To our surprise we noticed a piece of wire going across the river to the

other side with a small cage attached.

The realisation then sunk in to each member of the group that we were actually going to sit in this contraption and kind of zip line over the river. As Ellie and Rafa sat in it on the first run, Rafa´s concerns became vocal as he informed Ellie that "if the cable breaks we will definitely die!!" We all got over in one piece although Natalia and Ellie´s nerves were a little shook up!

Oh.. and I almost forgot the train tunnel incident! The last 10km Ellie and I walked alone as we were too tight to pay the $8 to get a train. We were given directions by the guide and we set off. However his directions were not great so we ended up having to walk (well kind of run) through 2 train tunnels where there was no way of knowing if the train was coming. We made it through safe and sound but, about 2 minutes later the tourist train came thundering along the track Just a bit of a close shave! So actually the last few days were no where near as uneventful as I thought, sorry.

The end of the forth day bought us to Aguas Calientes, the village at the base of the Machu Picchu (our final destination). So after over 86km we finally had the opportunity to sleep in bed and relax.

We had a great night with Rafa and Natalia, but unfortunately we had to wake up at 3:45 the following morning to begin the final climb up to Machu Picchu, the site of the most intact Inca Ruins in the world. After several hours of walking up the sometimes near shear track in torrential rain and climbing over 1200 steps the four of us arrived at the top to be greeted for the second time with a pitiful view. All we could see was mist . . not one Inca ruin was in sight!

We went on a guided tour around the ruins in the mist and it did add a certain air of mystery to the ancient buildings. Luckily the Inca weather gods were not totally against us and the cloud and mist cleared to give us stunning views of the huge site perched on the edge of the mountain. Unfortunately it also gave us no excuse not to climb the final higher mountain of Huayna Picchu.

Reaching the top and looking back at the famous city was worth every hard minute we had spent over the last few days and it really made us appreciate just how amazing the Inca people were (although I still think that they were bloody stupid building their most important city at the top of a mountain!) Sitting in a bar back in Cuzco with Rafa and Natalia we could finally all laugh properly about the experiences that we had shared and the blisters, hurt knees, twisted ankles and sore legs we suffered (over a few well earned beers of course!!!!!).

Deepest, darkest Peru . . . the home of Paddington Bear!

2007-08-31T16:14:00.001-07:00

And so we found ourselves heading towards our final continent, South America. Having only learnt of the devastating earthquake the day before our flight we felt quite apprehensive as we boarded the plane, especially as about a quarter of the people on our flight were aid and rescue workers. We started to wonder if this was such a great holiday destination . . .

All fears were soon abandoned though when we landed in deepest, darkest Peru. We found ourselves in an amazing city, full of history and culture.

Flicking through the ever trusted guide book I discovered a Monastery in Lima that is famous for it's catacombs which are thought to be the final resting place for an estimated 70,000 humans. So off we set. After an interesting tour of the monastery itself we ventured underground. I was starting to feel a little claustrophobic at being underground in these spooky hollowed out rooms and also a little nervous at the thought of suddenly being faced with thousands of human skeletons. Now, being faced with all those skeletons underground would have been daunting enough but some bright spark had decided it would be a good idea to count the bodies so that they could have a more accurate figure of exactly how many people were buried here. Good idea, I hear you say, except for the fact that to count the bodies they took them apart and counted each type of bone separately. As you walk around you discover a pile of skulls, then a pile of femurs etc. . . . pretty weird. Even more bizarrely someone had decided to use some of the bones to make a circular design which seemed to follow the pattern of skull, skull, femur, femur, skull, skull . . you get the idea. I found the whole experience rather bizarre and felt quite relieved when we emerged into the fresh air once again.

To recover from our spooky experiences we decided to hit one of the local outdoor bars and decided to warm ourselves up with a glass of the famous Peruvian national drink, Pisco Sour. Watching closely we discovered that the drink was a combination of Pisco, sugar, lemon juice and ice. It looked rather good until the raw white of an egg was added! Tasty! Adam thinks it resembles alcoholic, uncooked pancake mix in a glass!

And so it was onto our next city, Cuzco. Fearing that our bums wouldn't be able to withstand the 18 hour bus journey on a partly unpaved road we jumped on a plane and arrived in Cuzco very early one morning. Now, for those of you who don't already know, the city of Cuzco is at an altitude of 3326m, which is pretty high! As we'd flown in from sea level the altitude was a real shock to our systems and so we spent the next couple of days feeling kind of rough, very out of breath and trying to overcome these symptoms by devouring as many coca sweets and as much coca tea as is humanly possible!

To try to jolly ourselves out of this sluggish state of mind we decided some action was needed. We jumped in a bus and headed to the Urubamba River, we were going white water rafting. Now, I think at this point you should know that we had only been white water rafting once before and this experience had ended when our boat deflated mid journey and our guide tried to blow it up manually. Not the best experience . . . with this in mind, off we set.

The rapids were awesome, really spectacular and lots of fun, however, our guide was a bit of a madman. He decided that a great idea would be to paddle back to a set of rapids, all lie with our heads at the back of the boat and 'surf' the rapids in our raft. So, on his signal we all began to paddle furiously back towards the rapids. It was pretty hard going, we weren`t moving very quickly but we eventually managed it and with that our guide shouted 'back' at which point the 5 of us all leapt to the back of the boat. Well, the four boys did, I managed to leap over the side into the freezing cold, turbulent water! Whoops!

´gator spotting!

2007-08-25T14:05:00.000-07:00

After our action packed days at KSC and Universal Studios we decided that it was time to take a reality check and see what natural wonders the state of Florida has to offer. The reality check was definitely needed for Adam who actually thought he might get spotted at KSC and asked to be an astronaut on their next mission! I do worry about him. So, we set off south (on a road that had way more toll booths per mile than it´s fair share) towards the Everglades.

Talking about the Everglades used to conjure up images of murky, swampy waters and those river boats with the fans on the back for me. The picture couldn´t be more wrong. For a start those crazy little boats aren´t allowed in the National Park and the scenery instead of being swampy and grimy is pretty spectacular. Beautiful clear water, giant insects and birds of all varieties (including one that could dive and swim underwater to catch it´s fish! pretty cool!). However, there was one preconception that I´d got spot on and that was the reason we were visiting the Everglades in the first place. The alligators!

Now, bearing in mind that these creatures are kind of dangerous, can be hard to spot and that there are thousands of them in the park I was surprised that you could get out of your car and just wander around on your own. It seemed like asking for trouble but never ones to shy away from danger we set off on a short walk. I was kind of nervous (these animals can kill after all!) as we set off, eyes peeled ready to ´gator spot. We didn´t have to wait long, there was movement in the water and an enormous ´gator was swimming our way! Pretty exciting. We saw loads of alligators, all within about 10m of us which was absolutely amazing but quite scary! Ad reassured me with some of his ´Discovery Channel´ knowledge that alligators can´t run very fast on land so I was perfectly safe as long as I didn´t stand too close to the waters edge!

After an awesome day getting very close to nature we headed even further South, past Miami to Florida´s famous Keys. The journey was even more spectacular than the destination, driving along huge bridges with clear blue water stretching out as far as we could see in both directions was phenomenal. So, it was back to the tent, camp fires, marshmallow toasting and relaxing in the sunshine for a couple of days before we set off on the final leg of our journey, South America!

Spaced Out!

2007-08-25T13:24:00.002-07:00

Leaving Mexico late one afternoon we headed for Florida. Once again we had not booked anywhere to stay when we got to Miami. To make matters worse we were not planning to stay in a hotel or motel, we were going to camp. As you may have guessed we didn´t have a tent! So first job was to find a tent and then somewhere to sleep. As we had planned to visit the Kenedy Space Centre (KSC!) we headed north out of Miami and drove until it had been dark for several hours. Then by luck (actually it had more to do with my excellent map reading skills than luck!) we managed to find a national park to camp in. So we lit the fire and enjoyed an evening of BBQ and beer, I LOVE camping in America!
After a very hot and uncomfortable night (this is Miami in summer) we headed for the KSC and it was amazing! We spent the day looking at shuttles, rockets, launch pads, parts of the international space station and being thrown around in the take off simulator! I couldn´t believe how large the place was or how big the rockets were. This is a picture of the shuttle preparation building, the flag that you see is the size of a football field!! Yes, it´s HUGE!

Fact of the day: If you were closer than 1km to the launch pad at launch the sound of the take off would kill you! WOW! Not sure if that would actually happen or if they were trying to make it sound cool!

After the real world of space travel we headed to the very unreal world of Orlando and Universal studios. Now considering that I was not a fan of the whole American theme park thing prior to meeting Mary Poppins in California I was surprised to be going to another one so soon(especially as the memory of meeting Miss Poppins had faded by now!). I can say however that once again I was blown away and had an amazing day, meeting spider man, the Xmen, Betty Boo (she was hot!), all the characters from Scooby doo (hey SCOOB!), Bart Simpson and the Grinch. The weather was amazing and rides out of this world. Although I was very, very disappointed to find that the back to the future ride had been shut and was being replaced by the Simpson's ride. RUBBISH! I was looking forward to hitting 88 mph and all that, however the car was still there so at least I got to see that.
Over all a fantastic couple of days in Florida topped off with amazing weather!

Chichen Itza

2007-08-25T13:24:00.001-07:00

After spending a great few days on the coast (luckily before the hurricane came!) we had to begin the mammoth journey back to Mexico City. The direct bus from Playa Del Carmen back to Mexico City takes over 30 hours so we decided that we should split it up with a stop off at the site of the famous Chichen Itza ruins. We spent the whole day following a tour group around so that we could get explanations about all of the different pyramids and sites (we are so tight!). The tour was really interesting and my personal favourite fact from the extremely camp guide was, "As you can see in the carving there is a Viking man. We think that Vikings may has sailed to Mexico by accident and were treated as gods because they had blonde hair and pale skin!" I was shocked to find that the Vikings had sailed thousands of miles across the Atlantic by "ACCIDENT" over a thousand years before any sailing ships capable of this existed. WOW! After this amazing fact we took some of his other special facts with a pinch of salt.

We did however get to see the sacrifice platform that is decorated with carved skulls and when in use would have been surrounded with hundreds of heads on poles. Even cooler is the most intact ball court in the world is at Chichen. The hoops that were used as goals are still present along with thousands of carvings depicting games. Another interesting fact from the guide, "even though the carvings show losing teams being massacred, I don't think that this happened, I think that it is symbolic" (we would have asked for our money back if we had paid!).

In the evening we attended the........ drum role..... "light and sound show!" We were slightly dubious of attending this as it sounded like Dave's fantastic wedding disco (but in Spanish!). However, we glad to find that translation earphones were available as we were given an acted out audio history of the ancient sight. It also included the different buildings being lit up in an array of colours to make them look pretty and to demonstrate the shadow of the snake that appears every summer solstice. The highlight was the acted audio execution of a rival tribal chief, complete with gargling scream!

So after an interesting day of culture we set off back to Mexico City for our final night before we headed to America. Fancying a few quite drinks we walked into the small cantina that was attached to our hostel. As soon as we entered we realised that sunday night must be the night to go out and get drunk with your guitar! The quite drink ended in lots of drinks and an interesting sing along with the locals. What a great end to Mexico!

Driving and Diving!

2007-08-08T16:45:00.000-07:00

Imagine our relief when after two consecutive nights on a bus (our journey broken only by a few hours exploring Palenque in some of the worst humidity I have ever experienced) we eventually arrived on the island of Cozumal and were greeted by white sands and clear aqua sea, just what we needed after our mammoth journey!

Having spent a few days recently on the beach we thought that it was time to do something a little different, so we found a small, back street hire company and hired the most clapped out, creaky, loud and totally cool VW beetle on the island (there are lots of Americans on the island who would only hire the newest, most fantastic car, so we got a real bargain and were quite unique!). It was a bright yellow (although a little sun faded), convertible beetle that didn´t have any windows apart from the windscreen (luckily it didn´t rain as I don´t think the roof would have worked if we had tried to put it up) and people could hear us coming from a few miles away as the exhaust was so loud. All in all a perfect car to drive around a little island. We spent the day cruising around, stopping at deserted beaches for a swim and generally having a great time.

However, the real reason for venturing this far south was to explore the beautiful waters that surround this little island. So, we once again donned our wetsuits and ventured into the underwater world. Our first dive was amazing, 28m underwater we swam through narrow rock tunnels and explored tiny underwater caves made out of coral. However, the highlight of our day was definitely during dive number two. Not only did we once again get to swim with a turtle but while drifting along, minding our own business, we suddenly noticed two sharks swimming towards us! Rest assured, they were Nurse sharks and so our lives were not in immanent danger! Although a little scary it was an awesome experience.

More than just a game . . .

2007-08-08T16:23:00.000-07:00

After Amatlan we headed back to the town of Oaxaca. Now, we thought that the town was not that safe when we left a couple of days previously, however, the sight of demonstrations in the streets when we returned..........well, we decided that it might be a good idea to leave. This forced us to undertake something that we always try to avoid... the NIGHT BUS! (I said that in a kind of thriller voice, with a definate hint of menace!). Ellie can sleep for England on a bus, unlike myself, who definitely can not. This may have something to do with the fact that Mexicans are smaller than me and therefore the leg room I get is not exactly spacious. But with the risk of being shot and kidknapped in Oaxaca as an alternative we boarded the dreaded bus and headed towards the town of Palenque (oh.. the night bus is also notorios for being stopped by bandits and people being shot and kidknapped. Ha.. damned if you do and damned if you don´t!). Anyway we didn´t get held up by the bandits and we arrived in Palenque safe and sound, apart from the worst case of stiff neck in history!

Palenque is famous for some of the most intact remains of pre hispanic setlements in Mexico. The pyramids and palaces there date back to 100ad an at it´s height the ancient city was home to 10,000 people. Most interesting for me was evidence of an early form of football that had a gruesome ending for the loosers. The losing team, usualy some captured enemy soldiers, would be beheaded by the winning team at the end of the game (I did think that this could have been appropriate for the times we beat Germany and Argentina!!).

We had an amazing and very hot day exporing the ruins, at the end of which we decided that the actual town of Palenque was a humid den of filth, so we caught another night bus... arrgggggghhhh! Including the day that we left Amatlan at 4 in the morning this would be the third night that we would get hardly any sleep, the second on a bus and another day of not having a wash or a shower. Ohhhh we were smelling sweeeeeeeeet! but that´s the joys of travelling for you.

Oaxaca

2007-08-08T15:13:00.002-07:00

After a few days of relaxing in the sunshine we decided to head inland to explore the Mexican countryside. We caught a ridiculously early bus that spent the next seven and a half hours covering the approximate 200km! We literally stopped for every waif and stray that fancied a lift, I seriously reckon it would have been quicker to walk!

We eventually arrived in Oaxaca (pronounced Wahaka, I have no idea why!) and were surprised to find the city almost deserted of tourists. We later discovered that there had been serious rioting [all started by teachers demanding more pay, they have my support!] earlier in the week that had escalated into street shootings, the 'disappearance' of rioters and the burning down of hotels! Glad we discovered this once safely out of the city though and not while we were still there. Realising that something wasn't quite right we caught another early morning bus out of the city into the beautiful surrounding countryside.

We arrived in the tiny village of Cuajimoloyas (your guess on pronunciation is probably as good as mine) and were met by our guide for the morning, a pleasant little man who spoke even less English than we speak Spanish. Our guided walk was err interesting to say the least. We would be walking along when he would suddenly point at something, say it in Spanish and encourage us to repeat it in English, a kind of mutual lesson which was quite amusing, especially when Ad tried to work out the name of a cow by pointing at a bull and saying senorita! Our guide didn't have a clue what Ad was going on about so just laughed and smiled. Our morning hike was only about 7km but it covered a really hilly route, we were kind of high up (over 3000m), oh, and our guide got us lost three times! He would stop and say 'uno momento', look around him whilst maintaining a thoughtful look on his face and then point back the way we had just walked as if that was obviously the route we should be following! So, all in all we had a very tiring morning. We were shattered by the time we arrived in the even smaller village of Benito Juares where we were faced with the ordeal of ordering lunch without even the aid of a Spanish menu. A lot of smiling and nodding occurred on our part and we were thankful when a fairly tasty meal appeared in front of us!

Feeling revitalised we headed outside to meet our second guide of the day. A man named Jose (how Mexican!) who was leading us to our final destination by bike. Now, Jose promised that the entire 12km ride was flat or downhill so imagine my horror when we headed off up the hill. We rounded the corner and the hill just kept going, up and up and up. I was starting to feel more than a little anxious (maybe his English wasn't as good as I'd though and he'd mixed up the words up and down!) but luckily we reached the brow of the hill and it was more or less all downhill from there. To my surprise I loved the ride and all too soon we found ourselves in the quaint village of Lorita where we spent the night.

Our second day of exploring involved a 15km hike (again through pretty hilly terrain) but luckily we were walking with a lovely French couple (promised you'd get a mention Ben and Lauren!) who were able to not only speak French and English fluently but also Spanish and therefor made the whole experience a lot easier for us! During our walk our guide pointed at a whole in the side of the rock face and said something we didn't understand. Ben turned and told us there was an old gold mine there and we could go in if we wanted to. Mexicans don't have health and safety laws like we do so on our hands and knees we crawled in and sure enough there were tiny flecks of gold in the walls, pretty neat!

By the time we arrived in Amatlan we were pretty exhausted however the views and our gorgeous rooms with open fires (imagine Ad´s excitement!) more than made up for it. We watched the sun set in the distance and sipped Cervesa, life could definitely be worse!

Death in the Pipeline!

2007-08-08T15:13:00.001-07:00

So after a few surprisingly good days in Acapulco we headed for another beach destination, Puerto Escondido. Unlike last time there were no problems getting out of our hotel to go and catch the bus and we were soon on our way. Once again it felt great to be travelling with the locals on public transport and not driving, however, this feeling diminished slightly when 1 hour into our 8 hour journey the air con packed up. No problem, I thought, we were speeding along and although it was 32c we could just open the roof vents and all would be fine. This was not what the driver and his mate decided should be done though. They suddenly became air con repair men and with their professional tool kit (a very large hammer!) they managed to also break the air circulation and simultaneously blow all of the electrics on the bus. We heard one of them shouting fire as we dragged our belongings off the bus and onto the side of the road! We then had to wait for several hours on the roadside in the baking heat until a replacement bus came to pick us up. Luckily though refreshments were on hand in the form of some blokes harvesting mangoes from trees on the side of the road. They took pity on the bus load of people and started throwing fresh mangoes down to us, nice!

The rest of the journey went with out any problems, apart from the fact it ended a lot later then we had planned and we again had nowhere to sleep! We managed to find a beach shack that was on top of a bar that only had 3 solid walls and deciding this would do set out for a night on the town.

The main reason for our visit to Puerto Escondido was for the beach, well actually, it was for what happens at the beach. This place is famous for the MEXICAN PIPELINE (as usual no sound, so I said that in a kind of boxing master of ceremonies voice. You know like.... and in the red corner weighing in at several thousand tonnes of water and over 20ft tall, please show your appreciation for the one, the only....... MEXICAN PIPELINE!!!!!!!!) Sorry, errr, anyway, the Mexican pipeline is what they call the huge breaking waves that crash along the shore in a kind of pipe, which means that you can surf for longer and faster across the wave as it breaks. When I say huge, they regularly get over 20ft high and several days before we got there some guy got killed when his surf board smashed into his face and made a very nasty mess. In addition to this the rip in the water is so strong that you are not allowed to swim in the water, you can only surf and bodyboard (i.e. if you are not attached to something that floats you WILL die!). So with this in mind and the waves only being a meagre 10ft high what else was there to do but hire a surf board and go surfing (I did check my health insurance before entering the water, don´t worry).

What followed was several days of being smashed about, getting chewed up, being half drowned, swallowing more sea water then possible, losing several sets of contact lenses a day and most of all lots of great surfing! Oh.. I did manage to break 2 of my toes in the process, but they seem fine now!

In addition to the great surfing we also found some time to chill out in the beach bars, swing in the hammocks and enjoy lots and lots of very, very cheap cervesa. I think that this need for relaxing may have been because we were so exhausted from our sea based activities during the day (that´s our excuse anyway!).

Going loco on our way to Acapulco!

2007-08-05T16:08:00.000-07:00

Leaving Mexico City by a combination of walking, train, bus and coach was fantastic. While in Oz, New Zealand and the USA we had been driving ourselves around and to be once again back travelling properly was amazing (well I thought so, not sure if Ellie thought the same after carrying her bag for 50 minutes it started to cut into her shoulders and stopped the circulation to her arms!).

So we headed away from Mexico City and the crazed sprawl and towards a small town called Taxco. Arriving and being dumped by the coach in the middle of its tiny backstreets we immediately realised what an amazing place it was. It reminded me of a mixture of Venice (tiny labyrinth of back streets. No canals though) and Prague (Gothic style architecture and imposing churches) and finding a hotel was a challenge. When we finally set off to peruse the town we found hundreds of little, cobbled streets with fantastic little bars, quaint shops and a magical zocolo (town square) with restaurants, traditional Mexican singers and one of the most amazing Churches I have ever seen (and believe me I have seen quite a few while we have been travelling). However the thing that was the most interesting about this town was the locals use of retro style VWs. Every taxi (and there were hundreds buzzing about) was an old white VW beetle and every bus was a converted VW camper van. Seeing the little white beetles bouncing around the steep and narrow streets bought back memories of Herby goes.......... something or another (it should be Taxco I suppose!).

After a couple of days wandering around the streets and people watching from little bars we decided that it was time to head to the coast. It shouldn´t be that hard; we get up, pack, get on a bus and arrive 8 hours later in Acapulco. This however was not the case! The getting up and packing bit went fine and for once we were in plenty of time. When we came to leave our little hotel we realised for the first time that Mexicans don´t get up very early. It was almost 8:00 and the front gates were well and truly locked with no sign of the owners. 15 minutes of banging, shouting and cursing managed to wake the sleepy amigos and we just made our bus.

We had heard that Acapulco was a little shabby and we were not expecting much. In fact the only reason we were going there was to see the famous "Cliff divers" (again no sound, I shouted that in a kind of ring master, roll up, roll up style!) and so that I could sing "Going Loco down in Acapulco" over and over again, annoying Ellie. However we really enjoyed Acapulco. We stayed in the old town that is built around the harbour (i.e. not the beach fronted neon signed new part of town with night clubs and strip joints. I wanted to stay there but Ells insisted that the old town would be better) where we watched the locals hauling in their catches and selling them on the dock, ate in small restaurants with the locals and listened to the Mexican singers in the local bars. When we wanted to go to the beach though we headed up to the new part of town with its perfect white sandy beaches (unfortunately this was always during the day and there were no strippers!).

What we had come for though was still the highlight of our stay in Acapulco. On our last night we walked up a hill for several kilometres (no point in getting a taxi, we´re on a budget. Again don´t think Ells thought the budget was so important when we arrived at the top hot and sweaty) to the edge of town and a view point to see these speedo clad lunatics. Now as you may have guessed from their name, the "Cliff Divers" dive off the cliffs, into a small deep gully that is about 10 feet wide. Oh I forgot to say that they dive from about 100ft. Just getting to their dive platforms is an ordeal as they have to jump into the gully from the viewing area, swim across the stupidly turbulent water and then climb up the cliff to their spots. We were transfixed with the spectacle of the whole thing, from the climbing, to the praying at the shrine at the top (and I don´t blame them!), to the final magnificent death defying dive (again in my ring masters voice). In fact we loved it so much we were there for over 3 hours and watched 3 shows.

Overall Acapulco was a fantastic place and we were glad that we had made the journey.

Eating on the hoof in Mexico City!

2007-07-24T11:17:00.000-07:00

Chicago was our last stop before we hit non-English speaking countries again as we were headed for Mexico, the originally named capital Mexico City to be exact. We boarded the plane, got out our next guidebook and began reading about our next destination. It was only then that we discovered what an enormous city we were heading towards. 17.8 million people live there, that´s almost the same as the entire population of Australia all in one city!

Not for the first time we turned up in a country with no where to sleep and it was at this point that Ad wished he´d taken more notice in his school Spanish lessons. However, after lots of miming and reading out of phrase books we found ourselves at a little hotel in the old part of town and headed out for our first taste of Mexico. And what a taste it was, Ad´s mouth is still burning, but at least he learnt a valuable lesson, if it´s red, it´s HOT! We spent the next day exploring the city and trying not to get ourselves run over by the crazy drivers who occupy the roads (and sometimes the pavements too!). After a few hours wandering around the little bustling markets and gazing in awe at the beautiful buldings and churches we stumbled into the main square which has in it possibly the biggest flag in the world (pictured above). It´s simply enormous. We had to wait for an almost galeforce wind to blow to get this picture!

We also ventured over to the nearby ruins of the ancient capital of Mexico where we saw (and climbed) the third largest pyramid in the world. The ruins of the whole city are still there including some of the original frescos that date back to about 100 AD. Pretty amazing to see. However, even more interesting was learning of the huge number of traditional human sacrifices that used to take place here, supposedly 25000 in one ceremony that lasted for four days.

Then, after a day of cultural activity we decided to head over and enjoy a traditional Mexican pastime, Mexican wrestling. We couldn´t quite believe our eyes when we arrived at the stadium, there were people everywhere and most of them were wearing skin tight masks over their entire heads emulating their favourite wrestlers. The surprising thing was that these people weren´t children, they were grown men! The atmosphere inside the stadium was crazy as lycra clad, mask and cape wearing wrestlers (similar to those around in the very early 80s) were escorted to the ring by bikini clad beauties. They then proceeded to throw themselves at each other in some kind of mock fighting, elaborate gymnastic routine. If things looked as though they were going the wrong way for the hero's a couple more wrestlers would join in to even things out again (at one point there was even a midget donned in a blue monkey suit jumping up and down on a black cape wearing villain wrestler, weird!).

At the time we thought that this would probably be our most bizarre experience in Mexico City but it fades into insignificance when compared with the next evenings antics. We were just going out for a quiet dinner and a couple of drinks (it tends to always start that way though doesn´t it?!). Dinner passed as planned (although Ad did get a plate of black looking tar, no idea what it was, that´s the problem when the menu is in Spanish!) and then we headed to a traditional Cantina (bar). Sitting at the bar we ordered our beers and then looked in bemusement as the barman wittered on and on at us in Spanish. Eventually he said, ¨I recommend¨ and scurried away. We were quite perplexed but when he returned with a plate of peanuts figured out he must have been offering us a bar snack. A few minutes later he returned with a plate of stuff that looked a bit like raw fish with what looked like a knuckle joint in it. On noticing the bemused looks on mine and Ad´s faces he smiled and did an impression of the tasty nibble he´d created for us. He put his hands on his head to resemble horns and mooed and then pointed to his foot!! BULLS HOOF! Ad and I looked at each other in shock! But were forced to tuck into the gristly, jelly like treat with the aid of some lime juice and Tabasco sauce, nice!

One positive to come out of the evening was that we met a random Mexican girl at the bar who decided that she would like to show us round the city the next day. Meeting her the next morning we discovered that her English wasn´t actually as good as we remembered and we spent most of the day talking in broken sentences like Borat (without the dodgy accent) and miming like fools.

We´ve ´bean´ to Chicago!

2007-07-22T13:11:00.003-07:00

In order to get to Mexico City we had to fly into Chicago. That was pretty much the only reason that we decided to go to Chicago but I´m so glad that we did.

Chicago is an amazing place, it feels like a land locked city but it´s on a lake larger than Wales so has beaches for the summer months. It has old areas that feel like you are back in England and the best pizza I have ever tasted. It also has the tallest building in America (Sears Tower, it´s the tallest thanks to Mr Bin Laden) and a sculpture called The Bean!!

We took a lift to the top of the Sears Tower and it was only at this point that the strict block system that the Americans use for their cities really became apparent. It´s crazy just how regimented it all is. Give me the crazed madness of UK cities any day (unless I´m lost and then the block thing is amazing!).

As for The Bean, well you can see for yourself. It´s a huge shiny err.... bean! (it was made so that it reflects the skyline of the city in its curved surface and looks really cool!).

That´s enough of culture and all that, the main thing that attracted me to Chicago was the Baseball. Which brings us to our last day there, Ells and I are standing outside Wrigley park (home of the Cubs) with 2 lovely tickets. What I didn´t mention is that neither of us have any idea of the rules of baseball or how it all works.

However, the atmosphere was great and you never have to move from your seat. They bring beer and hot dogs to you while you try and figure out what the hell is happening. We were lucky enough to have fantastic seats that were 10 rows back from first base and a very helpful steward sat nearby who told me all that I needed to know.

For the record Cubs beat San Fransisco 12:1, but there were no home runs. This now brings me onto the other American sport that I discovered this day. Beer pong! Basically a pasting table with a triangle of bear glasses either end. The objective, to get a ping pong ball into the other persons glasses (making him drink them) before he can do it to you. A mix between basket ball, ping pong and drinking. Only in America!

Our time in America (especially Disney!) has definitely changed my views of this country and most of his inhabitants. But, having said that, there are a lot of really fat people living here whos diet consists soley of McDonalds!

The Grand Canyon to London Bridge - only 300 miles?

2007-07-22T13:11:00.001-07:00

Got to say that three nights in Vegas was definitely plenty and we were kind of glad to be back in our car heading onto our next destination, the Grand Canyon.

We had an awesome campsite close to the canyon but Ad was really disappointed as all fires (even smoking!) were banned due to the heat.

We rose really early the next day as we were planning to hike a short way down into the canyon. In one ridiculous moment (while sitting in our freezing cold camper van somewhere in New Zealand) we had considered trying to hike all the way down and back out in the day. So glad that we dismissed that idea as one extremely fit, twenty something American marathon runner had attempted this foolish escapade a couple of years ago and sadly never made it out of the canyon alive. So, armed with lots of water and wearing our caps, as instructed by park officials, we headed down into the canyon. Now, canyon hiking isn´t like normal mountain hiking. You have to do the easy part first when you´re feeling pretty fit and the weathers that litte bit cooler, then, just as the sun starts to reach it´s peak and you´re feeling pretty shattered you´re faced with a long upwards struggle to get out again!

The views inside the canyon were just amazing though. To be standing inside something that enormous (we went just a sixth of the way down) that has been formed through erosion is mind boggling, really hard to comprehend.

We were feeling pretty proud of ourselves by the time we reached the top of the canyon again, all that exercise and it wasn´t even lunch time! Inspired, we decided that a hike along the rim seemed the perfect activity for a swealtering hot day. Again, the views were just breath taking. Different rock formations and sections of the river could be seen with every turn and each one seemed more impressive than the last. Got to admit though that after hiking along seven and a half miles of the ten mile trail we were absolutely starving and so gave up and caught the shuttle bus back.

And so it was time to begin the ridiculously long drive back to LA. How surprised was I when during this seemingly endless journey Ad exclaimed, ¨there´s a sign for London bridge!¨ Now, Adam quite often makes random statements to work out whether or not I´m listening to him so I wasn´t sure if I should take him seriously but sure enough after another couple of miles there was indeed a sign for London Bridge. Looking it up in the guide book we discovered that an American bloke had bought the bridge when the Government put it up for sale in the late 1960´s. He´d then had it flown over to the States where he´d reconstructed it in the middle of nowhere in Arizona. Turns out that he was expecting Tower Bridge and so was quite disappointed with the finished thing!! Being English we had to go and see it and so off we set to see London Bridge surrounded by a very tacky supposedly English style village in the middle of the USA desert, extremely surreal!

Viva Las Vegas!

2007-07-22T13:10:00.004-07:00

From the heat of camping in Death Valley we headed south to Las Vegas (Wahooooooo Viva Las Vegas, again as we don´t have sound I sang that in a crazy Elvis style, tank ya very much!).

Sorry, where was I, Las Vegas, one of the places that I have been looking forward to since we left home. We had nowhere booked to stay (unusual that!) so we headed down the strip to find the best place to say. We were shocked when we found that we could stay at a hotel called Paris for the same amount as some of the shabby holes on the strip.As you can guess it is themed on the city, with a huge Eiffel tower, full size Montgolfier brothers balloon and inside, mock french streets (complete with sky!)

Vegas totally lived up to everything that I had hoped and we had an amazing few days. This included drinking for free while playing on the 1 cent slot machines (we are on a budget you know!), watching BIG Elvis (some really fat bloke that sounds just like Elvis but has to sit down for 4 out of 5 songs because he gets tired!), standing in awe watching the fountains at the Bellagio, watching The Producers and generally staring in disbelief at the size and extravagance of this place.

Just a side note, while watching the Big Elvis I noticed another bloke in full Elvis getup, we assumed that he was part of the show and would take over from the fat guy before he died of a heart attack. That´s what we thought!! He finished his beer and just walked out down the strip as though dressing in an Elvis jump suit with massive gold belt was normal! Vegas is a little crazy like that.

I definitely gained a few pounds in weight while there but didn´t loose any money, unlike some of the mugs we saw! After 3 nights in Vegas we were glad to move on and what better way to do it than to head off on Route 66 towards the Grand Canyon!

It´s a hard life!

Death Valley is HOT!

2007-07-22T13:10:00.003-07:00

After a great time in Yosemite we headed for Death Valley. Before we got there though we found time to drop in on the biggest tree in the world. I had heard about some of the huge trees in America and where else would you find the biggest tree but in the ¨GIANT FOREST¨ (very imaginative!). We were surprised at just how big this tree was though it WAS giant! (as you can see from the picture). The tree has a circumference of about 30m, madness.

Anyway enough about trees and stuff we were on our way to Death Valley (as we don´t have sound on the blog I said "Death Valley" in a Darth Vader voice for dramatic effect). We had taken the precaution of booking a campsite in advance as national parks get really full in the summer time. We were shocked when we arrived and found that we were the only people camping in the park. The reason for this we discovered later that evening when at 12:30 it was still 105f. Before our hot night, where we ended sleeping outside rather than in the tent due to the heat, we spent a scorching day exploring the Valley of Death (again in a dramatic voice!!). Death Valley is only a few hundred miles east of the lush green, river filled national parks of Yosemite but it is the most arid place I have seen or been in my life. The only sign that there is ever water in the valley is a large flat salt "lake", that is actually 85.5m below sea level. I decided that I would take a walk out into the middle of this lake (don't worry it´s very dry and hard!) to get some good views of the whole valley. Ellie opted for the safer option of staying in the air conditioned car. As I got out of the car I glanced at the temperature gauge, it read 122f which is over 50c! (and the car was in the shade). I can say that the next 20 minutes were the hottest I have ever experienced in my life. The sun blazed down, the white salt reflected all the heat back up and there was a strong wind blowing that was hotter then a hair dryer in my face. I walked for 20 minutes and did not get sweaty at all due to the water on my skin evaporating immediately that it came into contact with the air. You get the picture, it was bloody HOT but an amazing place!!

While we were there we noticed about 10 identical cars driving around that had no markings on them and were covered in a kind of black body cover. We found this really strange and wondered what these weird cars were. We were slightly surprised when we learnt that car manufactures send there new ranges (hence the body cover for secrecy) to Death Valley for heat testing, cool! (well hot actually but you know what I mean).

Smelly Ellie and Stink Boy Dodd!

2007-07-22T13:10:00.001-07:00

After an amazing couple of days in San Fran we headed inland to our first American National Park, the famous Yosemite. I don´t think I mentioned but our last campsite didn´t have any showers (you´ve calculated correctly, that´s three nights so far without a shower) and California in July is a pretty hot place so by the time we arrived in Yosemite we were pretty riffy and things were definately about to get worse.

We decided to spend our first night in the Valley to cut down on travelling time the next day. When the bloke at the information hut told us that the valley tends to be slightly warmer at night than the other sites in the park, we took this as a positive meaning that we wouldn´t get chilly, unfortunately though this isn´t what he meant. We arrived at our camp site at about 7pm and it was still roasting. Putting the tent up brought us both out in a sweat and then we had to build and light a fire in order to cook our dinner! To put it mildly it wasn´t the coolest of evenings and to make things worse - there were no showers!

Yosemite was definately worth getting pretty riffy for though. The combination of the huge granite rock faces next to the green forest was just stunning and we enjoyed driving to various scenic spots to take photos and generally enjoy the views (it was way to hot to hike!). A dip in the river seemed like the obvious way to cool down (and get slightly cleaner!) so we hired a rubber dingy and set off down the crystal clear river to find a few quiet spots to relax and swim in.

Although we were getting pretty grimy and we probably smelt a bit we were really starting to enjoy the simple life. Camping in beautiful locations and having nothing else to do with our evenings than cook on a fire and gaze at the stars was starting to feel like the perfect way to unwind and relax. Although having to store all of our food and toiletries in a metal bear proof box at all times did counteract this relaxation somewhat!

Falling asleep at the wheel!

2007-07-22T13:07:00.001-07:00

So our American road trip began properly with our drive from LA to San Fransisco. Our guide book said that it would take us about 6 hours but it failed to mention that in order to complete the journey this quickly the interstate road needed to be taken and not the road they recommended. Unfortunately we learnt this piece of information the hard way by driving along the recommended and supposedly scenic road. Hours and hours and hours later we eventually arrived in San Fransisco. As you can imagine by this time it was dark, really, really dark and as usual we hadn´t booked ahead and so had nowhere to stay. After driving for what seemed like an eternity along a windy, climbing country road we eventually came to the campsite we were looking for, however, the gates were well and truly locked. We had just pulled into the lay in oposite when a police car pulled up. Slightly anxious (as it was very dark and we were in the middle of nowhere and this guy had an enormous gun) we got out of the car and politely asked in our best English accents if it was OK to park there over night. The policeman seemed surprised at our request but said it was fine and disappeared and we settled down for our first (and fortunately only) night of sleeping in the car!

We slept incredibly well and woke up to find the sun pouring in through our windows. After checking into our incredibly remote campsite we set off into the city to visit the infamous prison.

Alcatraz was awesome. Such a remote and desolate rock stuck out in the middle of the bay, it really was the perfect place to house the USA´s most notorious criminals. Although it had been roasting when we left the mainland the weather on the rock was completely different, really cool and windy, making the experience even more chilling. We knew that we had a ticket off the island that same day and it was still a harrowing place to be, you can only imagine what it would have been like to have been there on a life sentence.

That evening Ad indulged his pyramaniac tendancies by not only lighting his own coal bbq but by also making use of the fire pit next to our tent. Roasting marshmallows and drinking beer - what a perfect way to spend an evening.

The next day was 4th July, American Independance Day. We headed off into the city to join the thousands of Americans who were celebrating by eating at least 10 hot dogs each and swilling it down with extra, extra large full fat cokes. While driving over the famous Golden Gate Bridge we recieved a text message we had been waiting for, our friends Kate and Marcus had had a beautiful baby girl, congratulations guys! Had a great day just chilling out listening to absolutely terrible bands while enjoying a pic-nic overlooking the bay and famous bridge. The celebrations ended with an absoluetly fantastic firework display - the Americans definately know how to celebrate in style.

Disneyland? Are you taking the Mickey?!

2007-07-22T13:06:00.005-07:00

Leaving Hawaii with it´s sand and surf (and dead drop outs!) was hard and the next stage of our trip was the part that I really was not that excited about. America had never really interested me and it´s stereo typical Jerry Springer population tended to annoy me. Ellie had decided that we would go to Disney land for a few days which had not really done anything to excite me any more. One thing that I was looking forward to however was the car that we were hiring. Unlike our normal philosophy of hiring the smallest cheapest car that we could, we hired a huge and very powerful DODGE CHARGER (which still turned out to be the cheapest due to some crazy internet deal, wahooo!)

So our first day in America was spent in LA driving the very large Dodge Charger to Disneyland. Now as you can probably tell I´m not much of a fan of Mickey Mouse and all that Disney stuff. That was until I had walked halfway down Main Street, played on the penny arcade and met Mary Poppins. I don´t quite know what came over me but I just walked up to her and Burt, said ¨Hello¨ and had my picture taken with them. So from that point on I was having a great time and thought that Disneyland was amazing! To make things even better there were very few people in the parks so the ques were pretty short and we got to meet Buzz Lightyear!

So with my dislike of Disney conquered it was time to turn to the rest of America. Driving in to LA had been something that I was dreading as everyone we´d met that had been there had stories of getting lost, hundreds of highways and terrible one way streets. In reality it was easy and we drove straight onto Hollywood Boulevard and started our star spotting! (the ones in the pavement not real ones or anything!). We found ourselves outside Manns Chinese Theatre (this is the place of course where all of the Hollywood premiers are held, I knew that!) and went about trying to see who´s hand prints in the concrete were the biggest.

I discovered that Arnold Swartz....(ect) has smaller hands than me, but didn´t get much further through the stars as I was getting in too many peoples photos!

One down side was that Beckham was not getting to LA until after we had left. That´s a shame because he would of course have invited us both over for dinner!

In general I was discovering that America was actually OK, but I still needed further convincing, so, we got in the ¨Charger¨ and headed for San Fransisco. You can picture all of the songs that we were singing along the way, California dreaming, If you´re going to San Fransisco, Do you know the way to San Jose (just south of SF). There are many, many more!

Sun, sea, sand, surf, and dropouts!

2007-07-22T13:06:00.003-07:00

We were sad to be leaving New Zealand and our little camper van. To add to this we also had 15 hours of travelling ahead of us. This is the point where you all feel sorry for us and the hardships of travel but don´t get feeling too sorry though as we were heading for HAWAII!! Now before I go any further I must tell about our peculiar journey, we travel from New Zealand back to Sydney to fly to Hawaii, we travel for a very long time and arrive in Hawaii 2 hours before we arrived at the airport in New Zealand. It was the longest Friday 22nd of June ever and all because of the international date line!

Anyway, sorry, Hawaii!!! I had talked Ellie into including Hawaii on our travel plans as I had heard so much about the sun, surf and HULA HULA girls. There was plenty of sun and surf but the only hula hula girls we saw looked like the pre-diet picture you see for slim fast!
Not too disheartened by this fact we did have almost a week of pure sun, surfing and body boarding (even Ells tried and succeeded at surfing on the famous Waikiki beach!).

We did however break up these paradise days with a trip to Pearl Harbour. While there we saw the harrowing original footage of the attack and the single bomb blast that totally destroyed the war ship Arizona. After this we were treated to the most politically insensitive talk ever about the cowardly Japanese and their tirant empire. I think that the Japanese members in our group really appreciated it! We were then taken out to see the sunken wreck of the battle ship that is lying where it was bombed, still with over one thousand bodies entombed!

We were lucky enough to find a very reasonably priced hostel right on Waikiki beach and couldn´t understand why it was so cheap for it´s location. We turned up and the room that we had was fine, which puzzled us even more. All was answered when we found one of the blokes that was in the dorm next door making his own Crystal Meth (some new drug in America that kills your brain). He spent all of his time collecting shells and making patterns with them which he would then proudly show to anyone passing by, very bizarre! Then another guy from the same dorm was found unconscious the first night we were there and was rushed to hospital and resuscitated twice. This we thought was quite hardcore until the following night the bloke that had found the unconscious guy was found dead in his bed after an overdose!!! As you can guess our room was so cheap because it just about one step up from a homeless drop in centre!

Still, the beach and weather were absolutely amazing and we loved Hawaii!

Rotorua and Beer Tour!

2007-07-22T13:06:00.001-07:00

Now that we had seen the fantasy sights of the North Island it was time to see some more traditional parts. We drove to a town called Rotorua that is the centre of the Maori culture. We spent an evening watching traditional Maurie dancing that included the very scary Hakka and even better eating traditional Maori food. In order to cook the food they dig a huge hole, fill it with an even bigger fire, wait for the fire to burn down and then put large stones in. They then wait even more time until the stones are hot and then dowse them with water, throw the food on to them and then bury it all in the ground for 3 hours. It would be so much easier just to have a BBQ on the fire in the first place!

The reason that the town of Roturua is the centre of the Maori culture is largely due to the fact that the area is high in volcanic activity. This activity has resulted in a huge number of Geysers (holes in the ground that super heat water and explode without warning, not some dodgy bloke from London!) and as we were here it would be rude not to go and see some of these fantastic natural wonders. So there we are standing behind a small fence about 20 meters away from the largest geyser in the area, we´ve been told that it hasn´t exploded for a few hours so it should be soon. We wait and wait until we think that our presence has broken it, when all of a sudden there was a huge bang and water (well steam!) shot 50 meters into the air (just for the record I screamed with joy at seeming this sight, not because it had scared me as Ells thinks) and continued to do so for about 20 minutes. It really was like nothing I had seen before in my life and defiantly worth getting soaked by steam for (I can´t believe that Ad hasn´t mentioned how bad the smell was! This was the smelliest place I have ever visited in my life, it absolutely stank of rotten eggs, urghh!!). With all of the culture and amazing things that we had seen it was time to bring the New Zealand trip down a level.

We had heard that the famous Lion brewery in Auckland offered tours. We were happy to find that this was true and in no time found ourselves standing in the bottling section, deafened by the clanking of the thousands and thousands of bottles that were being efficiently boxed and sent to some corner of the country. This was pretty cool but the best was to come! As the tour ended we found ourselves in a large bar with beer taps on both sides. Thinking that this couldn´t possibly be true, we were given a large amount of clean glasses and told to help ourselves to as much and as many of the different beer types that were there. HEAVEN!!!!! (we found out after that all of the workers at the brewery get 3 hours free drinking like this every day in the staff bar. Strangely there is a high alcohol dependency problem and divorce rate at the site!!!!!!!!!)

Welcome to North Island, my precioussssss!

2007-07-22T13:05:00.000-07:00

After thawing ourselves out in the hot springs we headed to a place called Kaikoura on the east coast. The reason for the visit was to hopefully get the chance to see a wild seal colony. As we arrived at a weather battered outcrop of land we weren´t sure what to expect or even if there would be any seals there. What we saw however was amazing, the seal colony was about 10 meters away from us. It was fantastic to be so close to these animals and they didn´t seem to mind humans being so close to them at all. Unfortunately there were some annoying Germans who decided that the warning signs around the seals didn´t apply to them and walked to within touching distance of them just to get some better photos. We were waiting for the seals to attack and drag them into the sea bleeding and screaming, but we were disappointed.The seal colony was the end of our time on the south island and that evening we boarded a ferry at 9pm and had a very bumpy 4 1/2 hour sail to the north island.

And once again as if in a state of deja-vu we were in a strange city (Wellington) very late at night with no where to stay. No problems though we managed to find a camp site that resembled an ASDA carpark but with showers and a toilet, very nice!! We spent a few days seeing the sights in Wellington before heading to our first real destination on the North Island, Taupo which is famous for the being the closest town to Mount Doon from the Lord of the Rings. We spent an amazing day hiking around the landscape that was used in the film and up to the base of the mountain (that is actually a volcano!). Once again I was blown away by just how breathtaking the scenery in this amazing country is and standing there you could understand why it had been chosen for the film.

News from the Shining Star

2007-07-22T13:04:00.002-07:00

While we were in New Zealand we received an update from Melkior about the Shining Star Nursery School that we helped to set up whilst we were in Tanzania.

We were overjoyed to hear just how well things were going with the school. Since we left there have been further improvements including a new toilet being installed so that girls and boys don´t have to share, lots of new playground equipment has been built (I´m sure it all compleys with UK safety standards!) and they now have swings, slides and a roundabout to have fun on during their break times. However, the biggest improvement is that the school now has electricity which is pretty rare in Tanzania. The children are now enjoying learning through listening to CD´s and they also have a DVD player and big screen! Sara and Melkior also organised a school trip to one of the countries amazing National Parks for the children to see the spectacular wildlife first hand. This was the first time any of the children had seen giraffes or elephants etc in the wild even though they live so close.

As you can imagine the Shining Star is now the most popular Nursery school in the area and Sara and Melkior have actually had to stop admitting pupils as the school is up to full capacity.

All of this started from nothing and we would just like to thank all of you who gave your time and money to get this project off the ground.

Hanging around in New Zealand!

2007-07-22T13:04:00.001-07:00

So we headed back to Queenstown, which if you know anything about extreme sports is the place that bungy was invented. So what else can you do but give it a bash. We decided to jump from the first ever bungy site, which is a bridge spanning a gorge. It's 45m (about 145 feet in old money) from the bridge to the water below. This sounded fine as we paid our money in a nice warm shop in Queenstown that was very definitely not very high up. It started to seem not quite as fine as we arrived and went to have a look!!! Now consider that Ellie (I will never, ever do one of those bungy jump things) Muxworthy is standing next to me who was definitely thinking it was not such a good idea anymore and you will understand that the next words out of my mouth at this point should be well chosen as not to cause any concern or panic. However what came out of my mouth was "Sweet Jesus, that's a bloody long way down" Whoops!! Backtracking from this initial outburst and insisting that it was all going to be fine seemed to take my mind off the jump and suddenly I was standing on the edge smiling and laughing (before I looked down again). The only thing that I was concerned about was that I would just flop off the platform and look rubbish or stand there for an hour not wanting to jump. So as soon as he said you're ready to jump I leapt out like a fool! I can't remember shouting WAHOOOOOOOOOOOO but evidently I did, very loudly! Having jumped I felt amazing for about 30 seconds until I saw that Ellie was being prepared to jump. It was strange watching, I felt more nervous watching her than i had standing there myself. There were no problems though as El seamed to copy my jumping style and threw herself off the bridge with a crazed vigour as soon as she had the chance!!! All in all we both agree that bungy jumping was amazing and something that everyone should do!!

So after the thrill of bungy we set off towards our next destination, The Franz Joseph Glacier (FJG). Stopping that evening just outside a place called Wanaka (very careful with the spelling there!) on the edge of a lake called Hawie. It was again another amazing spot, with a crystal clear lake and a fantastic mountain range to frame it. New Zealand is one of the most beautiful places in the world and it appears that every corner you turn you are faced with another amazing view!!

Anyway, we arrive at FJG and manage to find a camp ground that was situated in the rain forest. This was really cool and true to it's description there was a forest and unfortunately (lots of) rain. Now rain would not normally be a problem but the following day we were climbing onto the glacier and spending the day exploring. Now not only does the glacier become very, very slippy but it also gets really, really cold up there in the rain.

With this thought haunting us as we went to sleep, imagine our surprise when the next day there was just clear blue sky. We had an amazing (and quite warm) time climbing the glacier and we were also lucky to see "blue ice". This only happens on really clear days when the blue sky is reflected through the ice to make it look blue. This doesn't happen very often as it rains here 250/365 days and when it's not raining it's cloudy!

After all the thrills and large amounts of cold things we decided that we should attempt something less dangerous and a hell of a lot warmer. We headed to the hot thermal springs of Hamner. There are lots of beautiful thermal pools that you can relax and laze in. I love doing adventurous stuff but this was fantastic, although I think we spent too much time in there as I almost got a severe case of water wrinkle on my hands to match that of David Blain!

Milford Sound is snow good in a camper van!

2007-07-22T13:02:00.000-07:00

After a great time in OZ we felt sad to be leaving and slightly unprepared for New Zealand as we hadn't really had time to plan our trip. So with this in the back of our minds we landed in Christchurch late one evening. After a good nights sleep and a quick tour of the city sights we sorted out a small camper van at a fantastic price to be our home over the next few weeks.

As you can see the van resembles a small plumbers van with an extra bit added so that you can stand up inside. It was fitted with all the mod cons.... well a bed, a cooker and a fridge (which we soon found out we wouldn't need as the climate was definitely cold enough!!). So off we go on another road trip! After several minutes driving the van I realised that it had probably seen better days and that the pretty black patterns in my rear view mirror whenever we went over 50km per hour were in-fact oil and smoke billowing out of the exhaust. It only took several days for the radio to break, well stop working anyway, which I felt was a curse from Liz and Meg for slating their Cd's! But the van was amazing, and we were having a great time.

At the end of our first day driving we stayed in central south island (Cromwell) and got ourselves ready for our first night in the van. We did have a heater but didn't think that it would get too cold, so only set it on a very minimum setting. This we would discover was a bit of a mistake as Ellie had to put her thermals on and get in her sleeping bag in the middle of the night (her sleeping bag as well as being under the duvet!) and I couldn't feel my feet the next morning. So vowing never to sleep without the heater on a more sensible setting again we headed for Milford Sound.

During the morning the prior day we had heard a rumour that there was a snow storm heading for the area but nothing had been confirmed. It was however later confirmed when we were driving through the mountain pass that leads to Milford Sound and we were faced with about 2" of snow. We were advised by the guy driving the snow plough that this was just the start and that we should get through the pass before the real stuff came! True to his word it did get worse and by the time we had slowly wound our way up and down the pass there was about 5". It was at this point that they closed the road. This was the only road in and out of the village of Milford, so we were stuck. We then discovered that there was no mains electricity in the village and that we would therefore have NO HEATER!!! This was a very chilly evening that seemed to last for an eternity.

However the next morning we realised that it was all worth it. The previous evening when we had driven into the village visibility was down to about 50 meters so we had not been able to see anything. However with the snow storm past and the sky an amazing blue we were able to see some of the most fantastic scenery in the world. Sailing out into the "sound" (a very large lake created by an ancient glacier) at Milford we were treated to even more amazing views and after about an hour more rain (which would be falling as snow on the mountain pass, we were starting to think that we were going to be stuck here for ages!). Getting back off the boat we were pleased to learn that the roads would be opening again and we could continue with our adventure (after a brief stop to throw snow balls at Ellie and give myself frost bite!)

The Ultimate Roadtrip - Part 4 - The Final Leg

2007-06-23T20:42:00.001-07:00

So the adventure continued. As we were going to complete the mammoth drive from Cape Trib to Noosa in just two days I had been given the task of finding somewhere to spend the night. Not being satisfied with just staying anywhere I spent hours perusing the various guide books we had accumulated and eventually found the ideal place. So, at about 7pm after a full days driving (thank you Adam) we left the main road and began heading inwards towards Eugella National Park, home of the platypus. Now, at this point I feel that it is important to point out that I am English and on English maps when something looks close to the main road on the map it generally is . . . obviously this is not the case in a country as enormous as Australia. We drove, and drove, and drove, and eventually found ourselves at the entrance to the one hotel this National Park had to offer where I was was sent inside to discover if there was anywhere nearby we could grab a bite to eat and pitch our tents. You have to remember that when I got up that morning I had been in quite a warm (if slightly damp) climate and had spent the whole day in the car . . . I was obviously dressed accordingly and therefore attracted very strange looks from the clientele of the hotel who were wearing coats and gloves and sitting round fires. Upon discovering that this was in fact the only place to eat the three of us descended onto this odd restaurant which resembled something like the inside of a ski chalet from the late 1960's and after a bizarre meal we left, directions in hand, and set out to find our campsite.

Now, I should probably tell you that we were beginning to run pretty low on fuel, we had after all not really meant to venture quite this far inland. So, it was crucial that we followed the very simple directions and arrived at the campsite as quickly as possible. So, with all eyes peeled we were surprised when we got to the end of the road without any sightings of a camp ground. Faced with the dilemma of sleeping in the car at the National Park car park or trying to discover the evasive campsite we decided to give the latter one last try. Turning round we began a slow drive back along the road (at which point the car in front of us seemed to think we were stalking it and sped off into the distance). Luckily we weren't forced to sleep in the car as the campsite miraculously appeared out of the darkness, we did however all sleep together in one tent, cosy!

We had to get up very early the next day in order to get to the river for dawn which is apparently the time when the platypus' (platypus' or platypi?!) are the most active. After staring at quite a few long brown still objects which I later discovered were logs a platypus appeared. They really are quite incredible creatures . . . they lay eggs but suckle their young, have fur but also a beak, therefore making them pretty unique (in case you were wondering they are officially categorised as mammals). I don't think that Ad or Owen were convinced that they were worth the combination of the long drive out here and the ridiculously early morning but I thought that they were pretty cool . . after all, it's not every day you get to see a wild platypus. So, it was back to the car for another ridiculously long day travelling. After a painful 12hours drive with just a handful of CD's to keep us amused we eventually arrived in Noosa and set out for a well earned night on the town.

We spent an awesome few days in Noosa, chilling out on the beuatiful beaches duing the day and then drinking our way through the many different Australian beers by night. One day Owen discovered that nearby was a nudist beach and managed to persuade us to venture over there (did I stand a chance voting against two boys?). Imagine Ad and O's horror when we arrived to find only two people on the beach, both retired males who were most definately naked - not quite what they had in mind!

All too soon the end of our fabulous road trip was in sight. We headed back to Brisbane where our friend Yo (one of the other Tanzanian volunteers) had offered to put us up for the last couple of nights. We spent our first night together just chilling out, watching films (which inlcuded Wolf Creek - so glad we did this at the end of our trip and not at the start!) and taking full advantages of being in a nice warm house while it tipped it down outside (no having to try to dodge the raindrops when you needed the loo - bliss!).

What better place to spend our last day in the land of all things dangerous and scary than at Steve Irwin's Zoo! Had an awesome day (despite the rain which appeared to be following us around this supposed drought ridden country) seeing all the kinds of wildlife that Australia is famous for. We patted Kangaroos, saw lots of killer snakes (did you know that the ten most dangerous snakes in the world are inidgenous to this fair land?) and watched crocodiles stalk a very brave man who was holding chunks of meat which he luckily managed to let go of at the last minute and so prevented his hand from being bitten off!

Yo sent us off with a blast (almost quite literally!). She had built a huge bonfire and despite the rain we were determined to enjoy it, so, beers in hand we set off into the garden to get the enormous creation lit. As it had been raining all day Yo and Ad decided it would be a great idea to douse the bonfire in parafin before they tried to light it. Not thinking it was such a great idea I took a back seat while matches were thrown at it but both being pyramaniacs they knew just what they were doing and before long we had an amazing roaring fire.

The night gradually descended into drunken anarchy as usual and ended with Yo lying on the soaking wet grass laughing hysterically and Adam jumping over (yes over!) the bonfire!

All too soon our Aussie adventure had come to an end. We both felt really sad at the aiport saying bye to O and having last minute chats with our down under friends. Maybe though our sadness was heightened by the prospect of leaving the sunshine behind us and heading over to a freezing cold New Zealand. Winter, here we come!

The Ultimate Roadtrip - Part 3 - Cairns to Cape Tribulation

2007-06-21T23:30:00.000-07:00

Now don't get me wrong, Cairns is a nice enough place but it doesn't really warrant driving hundreds of kilometres up the East Coast to visit, it is after all, just a small town. However, there is something this far North that does deserve such dedication and we decided to hop on a boat and see it . . .we were off to see the awesome sight that is the Great Barrier Reef. Reportedly the only living thing you can see from Space the Great Barrier Reef is simply enormous. Covering somewhere between 280,000 and 344,000 square kilometres it is the largest living thing on earth and therefore definately worth driving such a colossal distance to visit.

So, on our first day as a three we got up pretty early to discover that we had had torrential rain during the course of the night. The storm had brought to Owen's attention that maybe his bargain tent wasn't such a great buy as unfortunately it didn't appear to be waterproof. He'd spent the night sleeping inside two sleeping bags but assured us that this meant he could hardly feel the rain drops that fell on him. Although we were moving on that eveing we decided to abandom our tents on the campsite for the day in the hope that the outsides (and in the case of Owen's tent, the inside too) would dry out; there really is nothing more vile than trying to sleep in a damp, mouldy smelling tent!

On reaching the harbour I was delighted to discover that our boat was rather big as I tend to suffer from sea sickness and did think that this could ruin the experience somewhat! Even better were the free sea-sickness tablets available. I helped myself to a few and settled back to enjoy the ride.

As the journey got underway it was evident that medication was more or less compulsary for most as the boat rocked around on the waves. Strolling about the boat became a near impossible task as it rolled around on the waves meaning that even the slightest movement began to require a considerable amount of co-ordination. We decided that the best plan was to simply sit outside and enjoy the view. Suddenly, the rocking stopped and the boat began to smoothly glide through the water . . . we had arrived.

Recently learning that the Great Barrier Reef contains at least 1500 species of fish and 400 types of coral I was eager to don my wetsuit and venture into the underwater world. Luckily there were only four qualified divers on board our boat so we were the first into the water.
What greeted us as we descended below the surface of the water was incredible. Coral as tall as a person and fish that were so brightly coloured they looked as though they were out of a cartoon. Swimming around and being surrounded by such amazing wildlife was simply awesome, words just can't describe it. Just before the end of our first dive we spotted a sting ray lurking close to the sea bed . . . pretty special to see. Our second dive was even better. We hadn't been in the water long when we saw a huge turtle . . we were thrilled and then things got even better. Swimming round a particularly large coral we literally swam into another turtle that was feeding, it was so close we could touch it and it didn't seem at all bothered by us.

After our amazing day we ventured back to the campsite to find slightly drier tents and Owen was pleased to discover that the puddles inside his tent had completely evaporated. We put the tents down in record time, hopped in the car and were once again on our way.

We had one last Northern destination to visit before we began the long drive back to Brisbane; Cape Tribulation. Clearly we hadn't learnt from previous experience as we began this trip at about five o'clock in the eveing with no idea of where we were going to spend the night. As we drove Northwards it began to get darker, and darker, and darker. The roads got narrower and
narrower and instead of being on quite a main road (the type that Australians refer to as
motorways but back home would just be a normal road) we found ourselves on a quiet winding
country lane. Every mile or so we were faced with warning signs about cassawarries and things
were starting to feel a little creepy. We eventually found ourselves at the edge of a lake . . a lake
I must add that had no bridge across it. We'd read about this in our ever reliable guidebook so
weren't fazed at the sight . . however, we were quite bemused as to why no one had ever built a
bridge. The ferry across takes a meagre four minutes, it's hardly a vast expanse, surely a bridge would be a more suitable method of crossing?! Anyway, I digress, as we were waiting for the ferry to appear Ad decided that this would be the perfect toilet break, despite the likely presence of killer cassawarries and murderers. He was quite offended when as he got out we leant over and locked the door behind him, no reason to let the murderer get all of us now was there! Eventually the tiny ferry arrived and took us to the other side of the lake which we soon discovered was even spookier. The combinaton of the road winding through the oppresive rain forest and the thought of an immenent cassawarrie attack was making us feel more than slightly apprehensive. To make matters worse we were driving through torrential rain and every stream we crossed was bulging, threatening to flood the road at any minute. Abandoning the idea of sleeping in tents we pulled up outside a small farm that advertised available rooms. The owner was amazed when Owen appeared at the door, she couldn't believe that we had got through as she presumed the roads would already have been flooded due to the 10cm (yes I mean cm not mm!) of rain that had fallen during the last twenty four hours! She politely assured us that it wouldn't be long before the roads were unpassable and we would be stranded!

Bearing this in mind we rose pretty early the next day and after a quick stroll through the rain forest (making lots of noise to keep snakes away and always keeping close to trees - apparently a key to surviving a cassawarry attack) we were on our way again, eager to escape while we still could.

The Ultimate Roadtrip - Part 2 - Brisbane to Cairns

2007-06-10T23:19:00.000-07:00

And then we were four. We were feeling quite depressed after the departure of our fifth member and so decided to abandon the original plan to stay in Brisbane and instead hired a car, turned the radio up full (NOT THE CRAP CD'S THOUGH!) and headed north.

By the time we reached Rainbow Beach (our planned destination) we were all feeling much better and we were looking forwards to a good meal and a few cheeky beers. However, as we drove around the small (and I mean very small!) town we noticed that there were no lights on anywhere, in fact everywhere was well and truly shut! Looking back, maybe we were a bit naive, we did try to call ahead though and it was only about nine pm! The town being closed posed for us two immediate problems; we had nowhere to sleep and nothing to eat! Arghh . . maybe our spontaneous decision wasn't going to be as successful as we'd hoped! After a hilarious conversation with a very grumpy campsite owner who wouldn't let us stay at his site and some frantic conversations with Ozzie friends (they began something like "can you be arrested for camping on the side of the road here?" followed by laughter from the other end of the line and then a demand for an explanation before an answer would be provided, which was always "I'm not really sure!") we met a couple of fishermen. Looking back I'm pretty glad that non of us had seen Wolf Creek at this point as these random guys who we had never met before said that they knew of somewhere we could stay and it just happened that they were heading in that direction now so why didn't we just follow them. So, after locking all of the doors, we began to follow them. The roads became narrower and narrower and darker and darker. Either side of us there were just forests, no sign of human life, if we screamed no one would hear us! Eventually the car in front pulled over and one of the fishermen jumped out . . . and said "you can camp anywhere around here mate, should be fine!" and with that they drove off. Australians are really very friendly!

So, we found ourselves a nice secluded bit of sandy ground well away from the road and put our tents up. Well, to be honest we only put up one of our tents and the four of us spent the night squeezed in it as we were still pretty freaked out about being in the middle of nowhere and to make matters worse we could hear wild dogs!

We woke up bright and early the next day (maybe because it was about 50 degrees in the tent with the four of us in!) and set off to explore Fraser Island in a 4WD that Adam refers fondly to as The BIG Beast! (3.4 litre V8!!!!!! WAAHOO!) In true passenger style Meg and I promptly fell asleep when we arrived on Fraser Island and missed most of the first drive along the awesome wide, sandy beach (not that we missed much as we did the hourney at least another 10 times). After whizzing along the beach for hours we eventually arrived at Indians Point, all feeling quite excited as we had heard great stories about shark viewings from this awesome vantage point above the ocean. Unfortunately though, we had no such luck, we couldn't even see any fish! A little disappointed we decided that after the events of the night before we would be sensible and go and find a place to camp before the sun set, so, off we went. We found a gorgeous spot, right on the beach, pitched our tents, set up the BBQ and were all relaxing (beer and goon in hand of course) and feeling very proud of ourselves when a random bloke came and told us that we were in fact camped in a no camping zone! By this time it was very dark and we we couldn't really move our tents. Worried we asked the bloke for his advice and he assured us we should be able to avoid the rangers (and their hefty fines) as long as we moved on in the morning very early!

Luckily for us we managed to escape early the next morning before being spotted by the rangers and we spent the day exploring the island, or should I say being bumped to death by Ad who was driving our 4x4. In fact, it was so bumpy that lots of the beers in the ice box exploded, then the lid came of the ice box so all of the beer ran out into the back of the pick up, all over our pillows, it made them smell errrr . . . fragrant! We all had an awesome day watching turtles, swimming and, much to everyones delight, shark spotting!

So after the fun of Fraser we headed up to Airly Beach and booked a sailing trip round the Whitsundays. As we were finally back in civilisation we felt that we ought to take full advantage of the facilities available and so headed out into the town for a few drinks. Much to Owen's delight we ended the night at a foam party! It was hilarious! Random people kept picking us up and throwing us into the foam, which although looked very soft and spongy, definately wasn't. By the end of the night we all looked like drowned rats. Woke up feeling pretty groggy the next day and covered in cuts, bruises and carpet style burns! Ouch!

Sailing around the Whitsundays was awesome. The first day aboard was fab - blue skies, calm sea, snorkelling - this is the life! However, the next day was a different story, the sky was a shade of battleship grey, the sea so choppy that I thought I was going to throw up any moment/be thrown over board!, and boy did it rain. It just tipped it down all day! We were dropped off at Whitsunday Island to go and see the famous Whitehaven Beach and the crew didn't come back for us for about 2 hours! It rained the entire time and what can you do at the beach in the rain in jellyfish season!?! Not a lot! Still had an amazing couple of days though.

Next stop . . . Cairns, where we lost another of our group. This time it was Meg who was flying back to England and leaving me to travel with the two boys (I'll forgive you eventually Megs!). So then we were just three . . . . but the roadtrip continued!

The Ultimate Roadtrip - Part 1 - Sydney to Brisbane!

2007-06-10T23:18:00.000-07:00

So having planned the first leg of our OZ road trip with Owen, Megan and Liz the only thing we had do was to get a good early night before we set off! That was the plan, but not what happened. In addition to the 5 of us on the road trip meeting for the first time in months, another of our friends, Miff, decided that she would drive down from Canberra to get in on the action. It was all very simple, everyone met up, went for a meal and then went for a few drinks, then some more drinks, then some more drinks, then back to Megan’s place for more drinks! The effect of this however was not so simple, Owen started to steal “no smoking” signs from pubs, Miff lost her ability to walk and even stay awake, everyone thought they could sing when even talking was a challenge and then everyone went to sleep (drunk!).

So probably not the best preparation for the road trip, and not surprisingly the early start ended up being more of an early afternoon start! The next problem came in the form of lots of luggage that hadn’t seemed quite so big until we tried to get it into the car. What followed was a 3D jigsaw puzzle involving a car boot and bags that would rival anything ever seen on the Krypton factor (but it all went in….. in the end)

So off we went, first stop Port Macquarie. After our early start it was no surprises when we got there in the dark, especially considering the girls made me drive the scenic route for 100km! Putting up tents in the dark is always fun especially for “I don’t do camping” Megan, who failed to mention that she didn’t have a sleeping bag until we were almost at the camp site. After the drama of the tents it was a relief to chill out and have a good old fashioned OZ BBQ (with a few beers of course).

While the girls went off swimming the next morning it was left for Owen and I to take down the tents and pack the car up (lazy bloody girls, they don’t even do the cooking!) and we were off again. Nearing our destination of Wooloorugo (or something like that) we stopped of at the nearby Coffs Harbour information centre to see if we could get some information on campsites. When we mentioned where we were staying the women in the centre grilled and reprimanded us for not staying in Coffs Harbour, including the statement “well errrr, what is wrong with staying here then!” and “I don’t really know much about that place so I can’t really help” So we blindly stumbled on and found a site (in the dark again) with a swimming pool and slide. WOW a swimming pool and a slide I hear you say, what fun. Well, it was at 2 in the morning when Owen and I (after 1 or 2 beers) decided that this was the best thing in the world and experimented different ways of going down the slide and risking injury! The other development of this evening was the production of a road trip CD using Megan’s i-tunes and computer (important camping equipment Meg!). We had grown a little sick of the radio already and thought that this would be great. However what actually happened was…… Megan and Liz filled 3 Cd's with the same songs that were crap (the best 2 songs being Billy Idol, White wedding and Boy George, Do you really want to hurt me?!) So after 4 hours of crap Cd's with hangovers the next day we were back to the radio again (PHEW!).

Next stop Byron Bay where we found a lovely campsite that was full of hippies and other people that didn’t wash much. However it was close to the town and facilitated another night of drinking and fun which included Liz putting a whole mobile phone in her mouth, Owen showing parts of his body that aren't supposed to see the sun, me becoming an acrobat and showing how I could flip over (on nice soft concrete!), Meg just generally being very drunk and then Ellie pretending to be dead. We also discovered (at 3:30am) that the smelly inhabitants of our campsite liked to go to bed early, WHOOPS!

It was no surprise that the next day was spent recovering on the beach and what fun we had. We body boarded until dizzy and then Owen and I dug the biggest hole in the history of Australia (and then left it for the evening to see if anyone would fall in drunk for us to find the following morning!). This photo shows us in the very early stages of 'hole construction' . . .I think the girls were too fed up with us to take photos later on!

To reinforce what a bad influence Liz, Meg and Owen are on us that night we were forced (!) to play drinking games and guess what, everyone got a little tipsy again. Now I know what you're thinking, this road trip sounds like 5 people getting drunk most nights and errrr . . . you would be correct! Most memorable thing to happen this evening was the trolley "roller coaster" I put some of Meg's friends through!

So, the next day was again spent recovering on the beach and being battered by waves that we were attempting to body surf on. Oh, and we buried the girls in the hole that we had made the day before! They got in of their own free will -IDIOTS!!!! (IT'S A LOT MORE PAINFUL THAN IT LOOKS . . BELIEVE ME!) Then it was time to leave Byron Bay and we headed North again to a quiet beach near surfers paradise where we spent the evening in preparation for the following day at WET & WILD! What can I say? What a day! Wet and Wild is a huge water park, outdoors (imagine the water park at Stoke, only 100 times bigger, 100 times better, with no stinking chavs and in glorious sunshine! And not in bloddy Stoke!) that has rides similar to the water park we visited in Vietnam, only they are safe. We all had the most amazing day and acted like little kids running from one ride to the next and refusing to leave until the park was actually shut and the water was turned off!

After a hard day at the water park it was onto Brisbane where we would meet up with another of our friends from Tanzania, Yoland (Yo) who lives just outside Brisbane and was going to show us the sites for the evening. You will not be surprised to hear that the night was another drunken fiasco that included being turned away from a gay club because Meg was wearing a rubber thong, (I was very surprised to learn this and wondered how he knew about Megs strange underwear fetish, until I remembered that thongs are flip flops!) playing drinking games in a very nice jazz bar that ended in Yo losing the ability to speak, walk and stay awake (just like her friend Miff in Sydney!), Liz getting very drunk and making a speech (as she was about to leave us) which no one could remember the next day, Owen blowing bubbles through a straw into my beer and bartering with the man at the pizza shop for a cheaper bulk buy rate (hhmmm). So once again a very drunk evening!

It was only natural that the next day should be a very somber affair. Not only because of the few drinks from the night before but also because Liz was flying home. So it was coffee and big breakfasts all round as we waited for the hangover to subside and for the time when Liz would have to go.

Sydney

2007-05-09T20:48:00.004-07:00

The Muxworthy Family Holiday was coming to an end and we decided to spend our last couple of days together in Sydney, visiting the countries two most famous icons.

We started with the Opera House. You've got to admit, it's an awesome looking building, but somehow it didn't seem as big as I expected . . . until we got inside. The theatres are just enormous, really impressive.

In contrast, the Harbour Bridge was so much more spectacular than I had expected. And we didn't just look at it, or even drive over it, we climbed it! After arriving at the climb centre we were taken into a small room where we had to sign consent forms etcetera and also take a breath test - even though I knew that there was no way I could be over the limit from the amount I had drunk the previous evening my heart still started to beat a little faster at this point - how embarrassing it would be if the bloke in charge had to escort me from the room because I was still drunk! Fortunately, this didn't happen and instead I was given a rather attractive all in one suit to put on. So, after donning our climbing suits we attached ourselves to a kind of metal rod which runs around the bridge and set off. Got to admit that I found the start of the climb a little daunting. You begin by climbing up a series of vertical ladders - beneath you all you can see is the road with traffic whizzing by and then to the right of you is nothing but the ocean. Thoughts of what would happen if you slipped and the safety harness didn't work begin to hurtle through your mind! Then the ladders end and you are actually on the arc of the bridge, gazing out over the city and the awesome Opera House. The views were just spectacular.

That evening Mum and Dad treated us (again!) to a sumptuous dinner aboard a floating restaurant which meandered around the harbour while we dined. The views, food, wine and company were simply amazing and a night I don't think any of us will ever forget. However, as seems to becoming a trend with good nights out we did consume rather a lot of alcohol (I think I might have drunk my body weight in white wine!) and as we got off the boat we noticed one lone passenger was still on board, leaning over the handrail of the deck, doing a strange dance and singing rather loudly . . . when we looked closer we realised it was Adam!

All too soon our family holiday was over. We both had an absolutely awesome time and hope you guys did to. Thanks ever so much for flying half way round the world to see us!

Strewth, we're in the outback!

2007-05-09T20:48:00.003-07:00

After the fun of the wine region and the spectacular scenery of the blue mountains we headed inland for the Northern Territories, which is basically the barren, desert like, uninhabitable centre of Oz that is known as the outback in Aussie speak (you flaming galahs!!) We flew from Sydney to Alice Springs (which was named Alice Springs after the commissioner’s wife at the time it was made into a town. Strange though as his second name wasn’t Springs) This is where we picked up the BEAST! A 4.0 litre 4 wheel drive Nissan Patrol that was an absolute monster! We spent a day relaxing by the pool of our hotel in Alice Springs before setting off on the long drive to Kings Canyon (which was not named after Elvis). This would have been quite a dull drive if we hadn't decided to drive “OFF ROAD” for 100km. I had an amazing 2 hours smashing around and generally punishing the beast (not sure everyone else had such a great time as it did get eeerr “a little” bumpy!)

Walking down in Kings Canyon was amazing and it’s hard to believe that places like this have been created through erosion. The visit into the canyon also gave us our first taste of the famous outback flies. Sweet Jesus, I have never been so annoyed by a few flies in my life. They fly around your head until they think it is the right time to either fly into your eye, up your nose, into your ear or into your mouth and they don’t stop until they have been killed doing it. To make matters worse their dying screams must alert all of their friends that they too can die in the same way! You very quickly adopt what is called the Aussie salute, which involves you swiping your hand non stop around your head.

Once the sun went down (and the flies went to bed) we had the most amazing evening. Sitting out under the stars next to a campfire we were served a 5 course meal with fantastic wine. After this amazing meal it was time to retire to the hot tub that was attached to our room and drink some more great wine. Well not quite! Ells, her sister and mom had a very relaxing time while Mike and I fetched them drinks! Oh it’s a hard life this traveling.

The next stop in our outback experience was probably the most eagerly anticipated. We drove (Boooo hissss, no off road this time!) from Kings Canyon to Ularu (or Ayers Rock, named after the chancellor of Australia at the time it was discovered. Again strange as the chancellor was not called Mr Rock!) Anyway watching the sunset and rise over Ularu was amazing and an experience that we will never forget. If this wasn’t enough we decided that we would walk all the way around it. From a distance it doesn’t look that big, however when the sun starts to rise in the sky, the bloody flies come out and it starts to heat up, the six mile walk around the base suddenly seems a very long way indeed. It was worth it though as it was crazy to see all of the different shapes of the rock as it is being eroded away by the very rare rains.

We also drove out to see Kata Tjuta, which is a bizarre collection of rounded domes, some even higher than Ularu. Completed an amazing walk through the Valley of the Winds which included climbing up sheer rock faces and ended in the most spectacular view which definitely made the walk worth every step. Watching the sun set over Kata Tjuta was just stunning, as just like at Ularu, the setting sun changes the colour of the sandstone to a deep blood red.

Having spent a fantastic time in some amazing places with fabulous accommodation, it was time to fly back to Sydney and hostel rooms that we are used to (which is hard when you have been spoilt) for the final part of the Muxworthy family holiday.

Abseiling anyone?!

2007-05-09T20:48:00.001-07:00

After our travels around Victoria the four of us headed north to Hunter Valley, famous for it's wine production! Ad got the unwanted job of being our designated driver and luckily didn't take the advice of friends who had assured us that it didn't really matter if you were a little bit over the limit as the the police never stopped anyonw. Typically, Ad was stopped and breath tested in the middle of the day but all was fine as he'd been swilling and spitting!

Visiting the vineyards and seeing how the wine was produced was amazing and tasting (although I definately had far more than just a taste as I finshed off Ad's glass as well as my own!) was even better. The hotel we stayed at also had a micro brewery so we ended our tasting session with a paddle of beer samples much to Adam's delight!

After a couple of days relaxing in gorgeous accomodation surrounded by vineyards we headed back to Sydney to meet my sister. As you can imagine, the reunion included several glasses (or was that bottles Katy?!) of wine - a reunion pattern definately seems to be forming!

Early the next day we headed out of the city towards the blue mountains, stopping en route at a wildlife centre where we got to stroke koala's which looked very cute but can apperently, according to Adam, scratch your face off!. Also got to hand feed kangaroos which was lots of fun until the mad emu (I don't know why there was an emu in the hand feeding kangaroo bit) randomly started to race around with it's neck stretched out which I personally found a bit freaky!

We had such an amazing time in the Blue Mountains. The views out over the three sisters and the forest below were just stunning. Loved walking down the Giant's Staircase (thank goodness we didn't have to go back up though!) and through the forest. Really thankful of the cable car that took us back up and provided with us some more awesome views. Got a completely different perspective of the forest when we viewed it from a cable car with a glass bottom, so weird to look straight down and see the views directly beneath you!

However, the highlight of our stay in the Blue Mountains was saved till last. We were taken out to a remote cliff face and given harnesses that resembled big black rubber nappies to wear - next seasons must have I'm sure! We then walked backwards over a 90m cliff with just a rope attaching us to solid ground - that's right - we abseiled . . . and it was awesome! Our last drop included a drop of about 20m where you couldn't reach the cliff face and so just had to lower yourself down on the rope. This was amazing as you got to spin around and take in the views, only our instructor failed to mention that it was going to happen. Very amusing once you had completed this unexpected act to stand at the bottom and watch as the person whos turn it was next hit the free fall descent and went into a state of panic and tried to air run / shout expletives very loudly!

Who the hell is Ned?!

2007-05-09T19:37:00.000-07:00

After a two hour wait at the airport (with Adam saying 'they'll be next' after almost every person!) my Mum and Dad finally came through customs. It was so good to see them again and although we didn't get to the city till about 10.30 we headed straight out to a bar for a "few" drinks and a very excited catch up.

We'd planned to spend a couple of days in Melbourne before introducing my folks to the nomadic lifestyle we have become accustomed to and so what better way to introduce them to Australian life than visit . . . . . the set of Neighbours!! Couldn't believe how small Ramsey Street is and did you know that they just put the Erinsburgh School sign on the fence of some random primary school whenever they want to film in that location?! After visiting some of the sets it was time for us to meet one of the stars of the show - would it be Toady, Doctor Karl, Suzanne (PLEASE LET IT BE STEPH SKULLY!!)? Oh no, we got Ned, who on earth is Ned?! I actually stood pretty close to him and asked Mum when the star would arrive only for her to nudge me and point out that he was already there!

All too soon it was time for us to leave Melbourne and head off along the Great Ocean Road in our Camper Van. After spending about 3 hours being shown by a very annoying little man how to operate every device in the van (including the light switches!) we set off. Got to say that it wasn't the most comfortable of vehicles to travel in, especially for those who got to sit in the back and were subsequently bounced out of their chair every time we went over even the smallest of bumps but it was lots of fun.

The Great Ocean Road was simply stunning. The coastline itself is really impressive, swapping between rugged cliffs and pure white beaches. The road is also periodically dotted with great attractions (lots of which were free to visit much to Adam and my Dad's delight!) and cute little towns.

Highlights for me - well, I loved walking along the sky top walkway through the rainforest in the Otways. It was so amazing to be walking amongst the treetops and looking down at the forest beneath us, not quite so enjoyable though when we were standing on the cantilever walkway and Ad started to jump up and down to see how much he could make it sway! However, the best bit has got to be the twelve apostles (why they're called that when there are only about seven of them I don't know). These rock formations that have been left standing on their own just off the shoreline are simply stunning and even managed to make a complete non geographer like myself wonder about how on earth erosion had caused just those bits to be left (Katy - you would have been proud!).

After about four days on the Great Ocean Road we headed west to a farm where one of Mum's friends children lives. After a few too many beers Ad decided that he would offer to help with milking the following morning and was subsequently woken up at ten to four to honour his promise (he'd only been in bed about two hours!). Surprisingly though he really enjoyed it - maybe because he got to ride a quad bike around and to be fair he hadn't stopped drinking long enough for the hangover to have set in! (IT'S LUCKY THERE ARE NO DRINK DRIVING LAWS ON PRIVATE LAND OR I WOULD HAVE BEEN DOING SOME TIME IN THE SLAMMER!).

Our travels around Victoria ended with a visit to Philip Island, home to the Little Penguins. We wrapped up warm and sat down on the beach ready for the little creatures to appear out of the sea and head up along the beach to their burrows. We waited and waited and waited. Finally a group of about fifteen penguins braved it onto the beach only to turn around and head straight back into the sea as they were scared. This happened about a dozen times - very amusing at first but it was getting pretty cold and seeing the penguins waddle along the beach was falling lower and lower down the priority list whereas returning to the warm van and having a glass of cold wine was shooting upwards fast! We did sit it out though and the Little Penguins (that is their actual name by the way!) were very cute as they waddled up the beach, cuddling together in little groups for protection.

Arriving in the land down under!

2007-05-09T18:59:00.002-07:00

Our journey to Australia was ridiculously long seeing as we were already about hlaf way there. We caught a plane from Beijing to Hong Kong where we had a twelve hour stop over before we flew onto Perth. We werwe still not at our final destination however as we were headed for Melbourne to catch up with some of the girls we volunteered with in Tanzania. Before we could catch our final flight though we had a six hour stop over, lucky us!! Ad decided to use this time to wash and shave in the men's toilets, much to the amusement of the female cleaner!

So, after a total of thirty six hours travelling plus a two hour time difference we eventually reached Melbourne, and instead of going to bed headed out for a night on the town with our friends! After a reunion with Liz at the airport we headed into the city to meet the Aussie girls (Miffy and Yo) who had volunteered with us in Tanzania and had flown into Melbourne earlier that day to meet us. It was so good to see Yo, Miff and Liz again and reminisce about Tanzania, over a few glasses of wine of course! Had a fab night (from what I remember!) and looking forwards to catching up with Yo and Miffy again later on in our Australian travels!

Lizzie lives in Melbourne and very kindly offered us a room at her place - so nice not to be in a dodgy hostel, to use a washing machine that you didn't have to sit and watch run it's cycle for fear of someone stealing your clothes the moment it finished and be able to use a clean toilet that you didn't have to que for (actually, forget about the que, it was amazing just having access to a clean toilet - the things you appreciate when you've spent six months outside Western civilisation!). My parents were flying into Melbourne the following week so we spent our time in Melbourne meeting Liz's friends and doing not a lot at all which was simply perfect.

CHINA!

2007-05-09T18:59:00.001-07:00

So after a great time in Borneo with our friends, they headed off to a 5 star resort and we travelled to China, a country that has a star on its flag. We only spent just over 2 weeks in China but saw some amazing things and had some awesome experiences. Here are some of the highlights and my general thoughts on China.

Top of the list just has to be seeing and walking along the Great Wall, it really was just amazing. Having seen so many pictures of this icon in books and on T.V etcetera it felt really surreal to actually see it and even more so to spend the day walking along it. We decided not to go to the part of the wall closest to Beijing and instead, in an attempt to avoid millions of Chinese tourists, undertook an eight hour return bus journey to a more remote section! Our efforts paid off and we were able to walk along a 10km stretch of the amazing wall which was virtually tourist free. It was huge and more spectacular than I could ever have imagined, however, Ellie wouldn’t let me take a bit of the wall home as a souvenir.

We'd seen a travel programme about Xian which showed people riding bikes around the city walls - it looked fun so we decided to go along and give it a try. When we got there we discovered that you could also rent tandem bikes - awesome! Riding around the city walls was pretty cool, although very hard work. Ells insists that she was peddling all the time on the 10km ride but I’m really not that sure. AD HOWEVER FOUND IT VERY AMUSING TO STEER IN SUCH A WAY THAT THE FRONT WHEEL MISSED THE POT HOLES BUT THE BACK OF THE BIKE (WHERE I WAS SITTING) ENDED UP IN EVERY ONE – OUCH!!

We travelled to and from Shang Hai by train but decided that riding the MAGLEV was definitely worth the trip out to the airport for. . . . and it was definitely worth the effort. This train reaches the staggering speed of 431km (270m) per hour, simply fantastic. It took us just 8 minutes to travel from the airport back to the city center. The down side was it took us an hour and a half to get to the airport by road!

We managed to find a bar in Hong Kong that offered a drinks buffet. This meant that for 4 hours you could drink as much as you wanted of whatever you wanted! The evening of the drinks buffet was amazing (although I can’t remember getting home) however the following day was not quite so great. I had the worst hangover since we met up with my mates in Bangkok and we had to walk across Hong Kong to catch a 26 hour train to Shanghai. We didn’t drink again for almost 2 weeks!

Seeing the terracotta warriors was another must visit icon when in China and it didn’t disappoint. I had always thought that the warriors were small, I could not believe it when I saw the thousands of warriors that are all LIFE SIZE! There was a WBA fan standing next to me who had never seen such a crowd, although he admitted that he was used to seeing 11 useless statues week in, week out.

Ho(s)tels in China were always interesting. Quite often the receptionist didn't speak a word of English and so miming (involving sleeping and washing routines to discover what facilities the room had) became pretty routine, but obviously never lost their amusement factor! In Xian we found a pretty nice and really cheap hotel without too much stress and so left to go sight seeing feeling very pleased with ourselves. When we returned it was dark and it was at this point we realised why the hotel was so cheap. The street that we had presumed was just quiet had transformed into the sex shop capital of China! While fetching some water later on in the evening I got dragged along the street by several short skirted ladies trying to get me into their shops for a “massage”. My shoulders were quite sore from carrying my rucksack so it could have been quite interesting if I had been gullible enough to go with them!

Eating authentic Chinese cuisine was . . . . . .different! Why when you have the whole chicken to choose from would you order the feet, or my personal favourite, chicken stomach on a stick! And these tasty options weren't just available in dodgy back street stalls, oh no, you could get them everywhere! Seriously though, we had the best duck pancakes I have ever tasted in Beijing, and they gave us the ducks head for free - what a bonus!

In general the people in China were fantastic. They would all try and help you even though most of them don’t speak a word of English! We arrived in Shang Hai by train and before heading off to find accommodation I decided to go and get some cash, leaving Ellie with the bags. This task proved slightly more difficult than expected and when I returned I was concerned as Ells was no where to be seen. I did however notice a large group of about 50 people standing pretty near where I had left her. Panicking now I began to run towards them and as I got closer I realised that they were all “talking” to Ellie and helping her find the hotel that we were trying to find on a map, the only problem being that between them they spoke about five words of English!

In Beijing we visited the Forbidden City, of which most was surrounded in scaffolding, being renovated in time for the 2008 Olympics. Our sightseeing was livened up when we agreed to let a guide that was practicing to be an English guide show us round for free. We became very good at translating sentences such as “woo wee a woof o a gate pwawis i gwowed a errri errri evi! (You can see that the roof of the great palace is made from gold and is very very heavy!)

China was an absolutely amazing place and despite (or maybe because of?) the difficulties in communication and hotel rooms with original features such as open sewer pipes in the bathroom (certainly unique!) is definitely a place that we will be coming back to!

The dreaded Mount Kinabalu!!

2007-04-01T01:48:00.003-07:00

After 3 days in the jungle we were smelling like, well words really can't describe just how bad we smelt! We were definately ready for a bath and not just any old bath would do. We decided to visit 'poring hot springs' where seriously hot spring water is piped into bath tubs big enough for two people to sit in and relax/sweat!

We all really enjoyed relaxing in the hot baths and when it all got a bit much we headed outside and jumped into the freezing cold outdoor pool or copied Adam and just tipped a massive bucket of cold water over ourselves - very ummm refreshing!

After a day of relaxation at Poring it was time for the bit I was least looking forwards too - climbing the 4095.2m peak known as Mount Kinabalu. Our guide book describes the climb as 'unrelenting, with seemingly endless steps - actually there are 2500 - as far as Laban Rata. Then it gets a whole lot tougher' and continues to describe the assent to the summit, 'The trail becomes even steeper as you approach the summit, then disappears altogether on vast, near-vertical fields of slippery granite. Every step can be a struggle as you gasp for breath in the thin air.' Sounds like fun!!

So we set off and to my surprise it wasn't too bad. Ridiculous amounts of never ending steps yes, but overall, not too bad. However, the steps went on, and on, and on. We climbed continuously for about 5hours, pausing to stuff our faces with choclolate (we needed the energy!! AND IT WAS A GOOD WAY FOR ANNA TO GET AROUND HER LENT! Sorry that was Adam putting his views in!) and to try to get our breath. With the steps getting increasingly more vague as we climbed higher and higher we were releived when we arrived at Laban Rata where we were going to spend the night. After a huge bowl of unappetising and extremely bland rice topped with a fried egg - certainly different! we headed for bed and set the alarm for the unheard of waking hour of 2am!!

When the alarm went off in our little dorm room it was freezing. Seriously, it was a similar temperature in our room as it was outside on the mountain! We put on every item of clothing we could possibly find (Nigel even purchased some rather fetching purple gloves!) and then we set off.

More steps faced us as we began climbing up sheer rock in the pitch black and the higher we climbed the worse I felt. Think I suffered a bit from altitude sickness - a combination of feeling as if I was going to be sick and a thumping headache that resembled an invisible man playing the drums on my head - nice! We kept climbing and climbing and then the steps disappeared and in their place was a rope.

OK - picture the scene - it's about 3.30am, very dark, it's freezing cold and the wind is blowing violently across the side of the mountain, I feel ridiculously sick and I now have to hold onto a rope and literally haul myself up the side of the mountain!! I found the whole experience pretty tough! We continued hauling and climbing for what seemed like hours until finally the summit was in sight. I was so glad that I wasn't on my own and I had Ad, Anna and Nigel to help me get to the top. The views of sunrise from the summit were absoluetley awesome and definately worth every painful step. The landscape around us changed dramatically as the sun came up and illuminated the darkness we had climbed through. Thank goodness it had been dark - there is no way we would have contemplated climbing up the sheer rock faces had we been able to see them!

Coming down was so much easier (well it had to be really, didn't it?!) This was until I took my boot off at the bottom and realised that what I thought had been pain from a blister was in fact a sprained ankle! My ankle resembled a tennis ball for the next couple of days! We were all aching loads by the time we got back to our hotel - in fact, Adam compared the pain he felt in his legs everytime he took a step downwards to being stabbed in the leg with a knife and I think that described it perfectly!

As it was our last night together we headed out for a farewell and celebratory drink, which once again ended in Adam and Nigel singing loudly in a bar!

Hippie hating Orang utans!

2007-04-01T01:48:00.001-07:00

After a bumpy boat ride back from turtle island we were straight onto our next adventure. This time it was Orang Utans and not turtles though. Not far from Sandakan there is a place called Sepilok which is a Rehabilitation Centre for orang utans. It is set in a vast jungle but there are several feeding platforms where there are usually Orang Utans to be seen at feeding time.

Arriving early we decided that we would go for a walk into the rain forest to explore. ––”t”Tl‹„—Í‹„—Í‹„ñ•C˜ ŠD˜ —Í (sorry I'm in Hong Kong and for some reason the key board just started writing in Chinese! If any one can translate what I have written please let me know!) Anyway..... yes we decided to explore! There was a trail that we could follow that would take us about 2km into the jungle. Not far we thought, it will only take us about an hour. We didn't really think about the mud covered, fallen tree blocked, undulating path that we would be following. After about 3 hours we emerged from the jungle filthy and sweat covered only to be confronted by 3 young Orang Utans playing on a small bridge (oh Nigel went for a pee in the jungle and almost had a nasty incident with a leech! Could have been very interesting and painful!). This was amazing (the Orang Utans - not Nigel and the leech!) as neither Ells nor me had seen any before. However the best was to come as they decided to steal a ladies coat, try and put it on while hanging upside down and then pull bits of it apart. They rolled around and generally had a good laugh.
However I did feel that one of the Orang Utans was on the same wave length as me. I hate people who have been away from home for a couple of days and get bloody braides in their hair. Why oh why would you do that??? Anyway the Orang Utan in question either had the same hatred for them as me or just saw lots of ropes, because he reached up and hung off them. This was so funny as the stupid hippy that they were attached to was reduced to a screaming pile on the floor! Oh how we laughed! (well Nigel and I did anyway!)

After this amazing chance encounter we also went to see the feeding time which was great but not a good as seeing them in the wild just doing their thing! (and hurting hippies!).

After spending the night near the sanctuary we set off on another adventure, this time into the middle of the rain forest. This required a bus journey then a boat trip of just over an hour. This sounds great, however once again it was tipping it down and rain whacking you in the face while on the boat resulted in temporary blindness and a wish to be in a nice warm bar with a nice cold beer! Anyway after the boat journey we were faced with a walk to the camp through what can only be described as a swamp. Once at the camp it stopped raining and we settled into out 3 walled cage that was our room and had some dinner (things were looking up!). Over the next 3 days we had an amazing time going on night boat trips and treks into the jungle where we saw crocodiles, monitor lizards, snakes, spiders, frogs, monkeys and again wild orang utans. Nigel, who is a very very keen bird watcher in his spare time (when he's not train spotting) was very impressed with the abundance of Hornbills in the area (Over 5 species apparently including the blue beak!).

However my personal favorite things at the camp were the jungle football and our search for the jungle elephants! Football is self explanatory but the search for the elephants was ill conceived to say the least. It involved all of us setting off down the river in torrential rain and then jumping onto a river bank that was so deep with mud it came over my knees (spent quite a while getting my shoes back and freeing Ellie's and Anna's feet so that they could get out of the mud). After this we trekked for several hours though thick jungle into palm plantations to get to a place where the guide thought the elephants would be. After waiting a while he consulted some local people who "apparently" told him that the elephants would appear at 6pm. It was only about 4pm but some of the gung ho and gullible fools we were with decided that we should wait the 2 hours for them. As you can image standing around in the rain waiting for some "elephants" was not our idea of fun. Little did we know that the fun was indeed only just beginning. As you guessed the elephants didn't appear singing and dancing at 6 so we trudged back in the pitch black to the boats (without torches!). It was at this point though that the true level of stupidity of our guide came out. Not realising we would be returning so late he hadn't brought any boat lights with him which meant that we had to go back down a log and crocodile infested river blind. "Sorry I can't go very fast. If we hit a log the boat will turn over" was the last thing Nigel and myself heard before we stared to plan how we were going to kill him and drink all the beer in the camp!

After having a bucket shower that involved filling a bucket with brown water and tipping it over ourselves outside in the cold we decided not to kill him.......

....but we did try and drink all of the beer in the camp!!

PS: Sorry Nigel, I was only joking. Everyone knows you don't go train spotting!

Turtle Time!

2007-04-01T01:47:00.000-07:00

We spent our first few days in Borneo relaxing on beautiful beaches and snorkelling in super clear waters - until about 2pm each afternoon that is. This seemed to be some sort of witching hour as at exactly 2pm every day it absolutely tipped it down!

Our friends from home arrived and after a good drunken catch up (which ended with Adam and Nigel singing along with a live band in a bar at the top of their voices but using their own made up words) we set off on our Borneo adventure.

First on 'the planner' was a trip to turtle island where, if you're lucky, you got to see wild sea turtles laying eggs on the beach. This only happens at night and so we had the day to explore the island - in the rain! After lots of snorkelling, playing pit pat and taking it in turns to amuse Adam it was time to head indoors and wait for the turtles (they won't come onto the beach if it's occupied).

We waited, and waited, and waited. Then we waited some more. You get the picture - after a pretty long wait we were told that it was 'turtle time!'. A mother turtle had landed on the beach, dug quite a deep hole and had started laying eggs. We crept outside and stood around her while she continued to lay eggs, in total 109!! It was awesome to watch.

However, the best was still to come. As turtles are an endangered species rangers on the island collect the eggs as they are layed and take them to a special hatchery where they bury them in fake nests. After a couple of months the eggs hatch and the rangers take the hatchlings down to the sea to be released. We saw about 50 hatchlings get released into the sea that night, they were so tiny, much smaller than the palm of my hand. They could swim pretty fast though considering how little they were. Kind of scary to watch them swim out into the sea though as they have an absolutely tiny chance of survival, something like 1 out of every 100 survive.

Just get on your bike

2007-03-17T05:46:00.002-07:00

After a particularly unpleasant bus ride (7 hours sitting on a broken seat that shot me forwards everytime we went round a bend, next to a man who spent the entire journey either spitting out of the window or yelling into his mobile phone [not Adam!] while the teenagers on the other side of the aisle kept swapping places so that they could each ask me the same set of questions where are you from? what's your name? etc) we decided to revert back to our favourite mode of transport so far and hired a couple of motorbikes to explore the Bolivean Plateau (an area famous for lush coffee plantations and beautiful waterfalls). I didn't even take convincing that it would be fun this time, although that's not much of an endorsement for how much fun biking over here is as anything would have seemed better than public transport!

We were only going for a couple of days and as there aren't many roads in Laos we decided that a map was excessive and so just set off. Had an amazing time, although as you can see the roads weren't of the highest standards!

Had such a fun few days. The smell as we rode along through the coffee plantations was amazing (and that's from a coffee hater!) and the views were pretty good too. Riding a bike enables you to just stop and immediately be within a community, children and adults alike crowd around you every time you stop trying to talk to you (very amusing) and children chase behind you as you drive along, reaching out and trying to touch our different looking skin or do a high 5!

The waterfalls were pretty awesome too. Was great to go for a swim in the cool water at the end of a day on the bike. Ad decided that a swim wasn't refreshing enough though and actually got in the waterfall for some kind of power massage!

We've loved our time in Laos - next proper stop . . . Borneo (via Bangkok and KL!).

Leaves for lunch?

2007-03-17T05:46:00.001-07:00

After a few days of chilling out and drinking a little too much we decided to head south within Laos. We caught a 5 hour bus and arrived 9 hours later (the usual now!) in Savanaketh. This is the second largest city/town in Laos and it was absolutely deserted. The restaurants closed at 10 and there were no bars at all. We decided that we would go trekking for a few days to get back to some sort of culture after our excesses in Vang Vieng! However before we could go trekking we had to spend a whole day in the town. To fill the time we visited the worlds smallest dinosaur museum (which was all documented in French, GREAT!) and a very large Buddhist temple on the outskirts of town, very cultural!
We started the trek the next day and guess what we visited first, the same temple that we had been to the day before. It just goes to show that there really was nothing going on in this small place. Trekking however, was amazing! We were with 3 girls, 2 from Ireland and 1 from America, the Irish girls were great but the American was really annoying! Our guide was full of information and knew everything about the jungle. He found nests of spiders that housed thousands of spiders that were the size of your hand. We couldn't see them very well so he poked them to get them to come out of their tree! He was very caring like that. As the morning went on we started to get a little hungry so he found us leaves and berries that we could eat. They didn't taste great but they we good when you need something to eat. The best part however was looking for water. The guide hacked some vines down and when they were tipped upside down water came out. It was kind of like a jungle tap!
After we had walked 18km, been chased by spiders, eaten leaves and drunk water from plants we arrived in the village that we would spend the night. A local family were to feed us and give us a place to sleep. While waiting for dinner to be prepared (which we knew was chicken as we had seen them “preparing” them, in fact they were still twitching!) we all went for a walk in the village and to have a drink, as per usual I found a group of children that wanted to play football and had a great kick about with most of the village watching and laughing. (Not sure why they were laughing though I was turning on the magic!)

Anyway, when we returned for dinner we found that all of the heads of the village were at the house and a ceremony had been prepared to welcome us and to give us luck on our travels. The ceremony involved all of the heads of the village and the family members putting white pieces of string around our wrists to bring the bad spirits out and the push the good spirits in. It is bad luck to remove the string, it has to fall off, as a result we still have 10 pieces of slightly dirty string still attached to our wrist!

The ceremony was actually really cool and ended with bottles of beer lao, a huge feast that included whole fish that had to be eaten in one and lao lao (local spirit that I think can send you blind, I also don't think that it's the good spirit that they were trying to push in during the ceremony!)
The next morning I discovered that everyone in the village owns a cockerel and they had tied them up next to my head, well, that's what it felt like when they started crowing at 4:00, it wasn't even bloody light! Apparently everything in the village starts very early so we got up and visited the local Buddhist temple. We went to see the monks and give them food (for those interested in religion its called giving them Alms). We got blessed by the monks and set off on our last day of trekking. The temperature on both days got up into the thirties and walking was really hard going. By the time we got picked up and taken back to the town we were shattered (and didn't smell the best!) So we got on a bus for 7 hours to get to Pakse, just the calming evening you need after a couple of days trekking through a forest!

The laziest (but definately the best!) pub crawl ever!!

2007-03-17T05:22:00.000-07:00

After finishing our motorbike trip we flew into Vientienne, the capital of Laos (I know we're supposed to be on a budget and flying is a bit extravagent but the alternative was a 24hr+ bus ride - definately not my idea of fun!). We decided that we were ready to get back on the tourist run again and headed for Vang Vieng - a town notorious for water activities and restaurants where you lie down and watch friends while you eat!!

When we first arrived we weren't sure what to make of it - there were tourists everywhere you looked and you could sit in one restaurant and hear at least three episodes of friends at the same time - however - after a couple of days we were very reluctant to leave.

What changed our minds - tubing! OK, let me explain, you sit in a tractor inner tube and literally float down the river - very relaxing (apart from when your tube runs aground in the shallow water, ouch!) This isn't half of it though - along the river are loads of little bars selling drinks and free goes on their swings. Not a normal swing either - just a piece of rope hung really high above the river - hold onto the handle bar at the end, close your eyes (well I had to anyway) and jump off. When you let go you fly through the air and land in the river (and hopefully not on a fellow tuber!) Amazing!

The further down the river you ventured, the higher the swings (and the braver we became thanks to the beers at the previous bars!). Very amusing to watch other people 'swinging'. Everyone develops their own style - I kept my body dead straight (you had to concentrate to do this and I found it worked well at blocking out the blatent fear I felt at swinging from a piece of rope about 12m in the air with my only way out being to crash into freezing cold water!). Ad on the other hand couldn't contain his excitement and as soon as he let go of the rope and started free falling he started to make whooping noises and running motions with his arms and legs! Very funny to watch! (I've tried to upload a video but apparently that's not a feature of this blog and it's too big to e-mail so you'll have to use your imagination!)

This is seriously the best bar crawl I have ever done! In fact we enjoyed it so much that we went back the next day, and the next!!

Our Motorbike Adventure - The End!

2007-02-27T01:33:00.000-08:00

ELLIE - Our final proper days driving was amazing. We drove along the Tam Tron Pass which at over 1000m is the highest mountain pass in Vietnam and the views were simply stunning.

ADAM – I loved this day on the bikes, the sun was blazing and the roads were all winding and cliff edged with countless hairpin bends and the most stunning views to look at as we rode along. At one point I let my mind wonder to what I would be doing if I was back in England. After a quick laughing fit about work I concentrated back on the roads and the views (sorry to rub it in).

The route that we had followed supposedly goes though some of the coldest areas of Vietnam and this time of year is supposed to be the worst. With this in mind we packed all of our coats and thermal gear ready for the big chill. However, the chill never happened as the sun blazed down every day and the only time we even needed our thin coats were when we rode at night and during the high mountain pass. The effect of packing all this warm gear meant that my razor didn’t get packed and I am now sporting a very interesting red beard which Ells thinks is very, very attractive and the locals in the villages are bemused by (along with my arm and leg hair!).

During our trip we have ridden through some amazing villages and met some great local people, all have been so friendly and made us feel really welcome.

ELLIE - Our Motorbike Adventure completely exceeded all my expectations. I am amazed at just how much I have enjoyed the past week and was a bit sad when they loaded my bike onto the train back to Hanoi - a move which marked the end of our journey.

Arriving back in Hanoi we were once again faced with crazy traffic. People driving on the wrong side of road, blaring horns and generally following no rules at all! Not quite the peace and quiet we had become so accustomed to!

ADAM - This has definately been the best thing we have done since leaving Africa. For me, the only down side to this trip has been that it had to end!

Our Motorbike Adventure - Part IV

2007-02-27T01:27:00.000-08:00

ADAM - After several days hard riding we decided to wind down a little the next by going on a bike ride in the local area. Great, so not only were still sitting on bikes but this time we had to peddle! It was worth it though as we came upon rice fields and had a very strange “chat” with one of the workers about what part of the plant the rice comes from. After being laughed at by a field full of local women I decided it was time we got back on the road again!!

We had another great days riding and even though we set off late we arrived at Tho Dueang to find that we had been totally TETed. This time there were no shops open and none of the restaurants would serve us as they all had private celebrations. Going back to our hotel and resigning ourselves to the fact that we were going to go hungry again we decided to ask the receptionist if she knew of anywhere we could get some food. She looked puzzled and made a phone call. 2 minutes later she told us to follow her and walked back down to the street and into someone’s house!

ELLIE – The evening just got more and more bizarre! It turns out that we were now in the home of her Uncle, a policeman with two children. The lady from the hotel left us there saying ‘I go now busy me’ and suddenly we were alone in this strangers house. He disappeared off and his eldest daughter came to sit with us. She spoke some English and before long we were having a pretty normal conversation, aided of cause by the ever helpful phrasebook. Her Dad in the meantime was preparing some lovely TET food for us, a dish of roast pig, I can’t call it pork as I’m not sure which bits of the pig were used but it didn’t look like normal meat! And lots and lots of rice. On discovering that we liked coke they proceeded to take cans off their offering to the hearth spirits that had been the center of their TET celebrations!

After we had eaten as much as we could physically manage the Dad brought out a random alcoholic drink which I wasn’t allowed but which he enjoyed forcing on Adam. Apparently he was ill and couldn’t drink it but he enjoyed giving it to his new best friend! Ad forced down a couple of glasses of what smelt like pure alcohol with a smile and then we all sat around chatting, well we chatted with the daughter and she translated bits for her Dad. Suddenly her Dad got up and went over to the corner of the room and started getting changed into a shirt and trousers. We presumed he was going to work but when he finished he asked his daughter if we could take a photo of him! He then got a bit photo crazy and pictures had to be taken of every conceivable group of people present – quite amusing. Just before it was time to leave he motioned for Ad to pick up his alcohol glass again – unwillingly Ad did as instructed and then he kept pointing at me. We knew that I wasn’t allowed this special ‘mans’ drink but we hadn’t got a clue what he wanted me to do – suddenly I realised, he wanted me to take a photo of him and Ad saying cheers but because he couldn’t drink due to his illness they were going to do it with empty glasses! Even as I took the photo Ad looked very confused about what on earth was going on!

Our Motorbike Adventure - Part III

2007-02-27T01:15:00.000-08:00

ELLIE - We spent the morning seeing the sights of Dien Bien. Ad loved visiting A1 Hill, climbing on the tanks and running around the reconstructed trenches! After a while it was time to be on our way again and so we set off on the most amazing, straight and perfectly smooth road I have ever seen. It wasn’t to last though and suddenly the tarmac just stopped and we were faced once again with a small dirt covered track! Not convinced we were on the right road we decided to stop at one of the first villages we came to (by village I mean collection of wooden houses) and check with the locals. It was hilarious – within seconds of stopping literally the whole village was crowding round our bikes trying to talk to us. The only English they knew was ‘what is your name’ and they were obsessed with trying to work out if any of them were taller than Ad – they weren’t of course but very funny to see each of the men come and stand up really straight next to him just to check! We were heading in the right direction and so off we went again.

Before we felt Hanoi my biggest worry about the journey was other road users. However, there was no need to worry as the mountain roads we were riding on really weren't busy at all - well, not with normal traffic. There was one form of road user that I hadn't even thought of though - animals! They were everywhere, dogs and pigs I could cope with but these water buffalo were seriously big creatures and pretty scary, especially when they stopped eating and just started at you as you rode past!

By mid afternoon we were thirsty and so stopped off for a drink in a little shop which was once again owned by a very friendly lady. Deciding this was a good chance for a toilet stop I managed to ask in my best Vietnamese and she pointed behind the shop where there were a collection of doors. Off I headed but after looking behind every conceivable door I just couldn’t find the toilet. I was forced to go back and ask (again in Vietnamese) to which the lady laughed, took me by the hand and lead me back to where I’d just been. Instead of pointing to the doors though she pointed down a rather steep muddy slope to where a curtain was rigged up in front of a pond. I scrambled down this hill to discover that the toilet was a random stone and once finished you were supposed to scoop water out of the pond to wash it away with! Very hygienic I’m sure!
ADAM – After the toilet stop we rode on through increasingly amazing scenery to the place that we thought we were going to stay, only to be confronted by a road sign telling us it was another 150km. Not understanding this we stopped at a hotel to ask advice and discovered that the names of 2 villages had been swapped and that we were in the correct place after all. I can’t believe that the government just changed the names like that.

Our Motorbike Adventure - Part II

2007-02-27T01:13:00.000-08:00

ADAM - Setting off the next day we started to climb into the mountains on the nice smooth roads we had ridden on the day before. This nice smooth road lasted for about 1km when it suddenly disappeared and was replaced by uneven pot holed black stuff that looked like tarmac but was barely wide enough to drive a smart car let alone 2 way traffic. I can feel that you are concerned for Ellie at this point but don’t worry, these road conditions didn’t continue for too long. NO they were replaced by barrier less mountain roads made from dirt, gravel and my personal favorite deep, soft sand. At the prospect of these road conditions I started to get concerned for Ellie as she had only been riding a motor bike for just over 24 hours. However I needn't have been concerned as after a particularly treacherous patch of 'road' I turned round to check she was OK and found her standing on her pegs laughing. Much to my surprise (and relief!) she was loving it and was taking it all in her stride.

ELLIE - I couldn't believe it when we rounded a corner and were faced with thick, soft sand. After an initial moment of panic where I was convinced as soon as my bike touched the stuff I would be off, over the edge of the mountain, I was fine, and as Ad said, really enjoying it!

Riding that day was loads of fun, the sand and gravel made the mountain bends exciting and we were having a great day. Being on bikes meant that we were able to stop and talk to the locals which was always interesting. These children were trying to give me some random fruit which didn't look all that ripe or tasty! However, soon afternoon was turning into evening and we hadn't reached our destination. We started to get concerned as although fun in daylight we didn't think these roads would be quite as great in the dark (and believe me - in the mountains it gets really dark!). We were only about 20km from the town at this point and knew we'd be able to make it if we just picked up our speed a bit and cut out our photo stops. Off we set, determined to make it before nightfall. Ad was a little in front of me when a bike with 3 blokes on came past me waving frantically and pointing at the back of my bike. Panicked I stopped - what was wrong? Was my wheel about to fall off! (Strange the thoughts that go through your mind!) The guy on the back of the bike got off and started pointing at his shirt, then at the road and then at my bike. I hadn't got a clue what he was going on about. Then, much to my horror, he tried to get onto the front of my bike - the penny dropped - he was wearing his best shirt as he was going out for the night in town and instead of riding three on his bike he wanted to come on mine as there was only me. The other two guys at this point rode off leaving me with this random Vietnamese man who had definitely had too many drinks to be driving a motorbike. I managed to mime that I was going to drive and he should sit on the back. Then, much to my relief, just as we were about to set off Ad came hurtling back round the bend in front of me.

ADAM – After going round a bend I always checked my mirrors to make sure that Ellie was OK and still behind me. Imagine my concern when she didn't emerge from a cliff edged hairpin bend! Turning round and heading back I was confused when I saw Ells with someone on the back of her bike. It took about 2 seconds to get the passenger transferred onto my bike as Ells was not happy to say the least having a pillion passenger on the bad roads. So for the next 40 minutes I drove down the side of a mountain in the dark on sand covered roads with our baggage and new friend that we had found. He didn't really say much as he knew no English and the TET festival had taken its toll on him already, evident by the way his head crashed into the back of my helmet every time I applied the brakes! (it hurt him more than it hurt me!) Dropping our friend off in the city of Dien Bien Phu (if you know your French history you will know that this is the place that the French lost there struggle to keep Vietnam as part of their Indochina empire after a torrid 57 day siege of there base) we set off to find some food.

Walking around for 50 minutes it looked like we were being TET(ed) again, until we found a very small "restaurant" that was operating out of a garage. Not being great with the local language and the phrase book drawing a blank we resorted to the oldest form of communication-mime. I pointed at all of the things I wanted to eat and mimed how I wanted them cooked (much to the amusement of the toothless owner and the locals!). To our amazement 5 minutes later our beef and noodle stir fry arrived, exactly as we had asked for!

Our Motorbike Adventure - Part I

2007-02-27T01:08:00.000-08:00

ELLIE - We have just had the most amazing week ever!

We've really loved being in Vietnam but we were both getting a bit sick of continually being surrounded by other tourists, all doing the same thing and visiting the same places. After a trip to Halong Bay (a beautiful bay full of caves - if you could see past the other thousand tourists who were there!) where we were hearded around with countless other excited travelers we decided that it was time to do a bit of exploring on our own. Our chosen destination was North West Vietnam, an area described in guide books as pretty unfrequented by tourists - sounded perfect! So, we bought a pair of gloves, an atlas of North Vietnam and hired two motorbikes and off we set! Got to say that I was pretty nervous about our trip as I'd never really ridden a motorbike before and not only did our planned route cover more than 1,000km but it also encompassed what Lonely Planet described as 'some of the most treacherous roads in Vietnam'!

ADAM - I must admit that I was very surprised when Ellie showed any interest in the idea of going on a motor bike trip as her description of "not really" ridden a motor bike actually means that she has been on the back of a motor bike a few times and has never ridden a motor bike (in fact she hates motorbikes with a passion!). However the prospect of days on motor bikes on mountain roads sounded amazing (to me) and the thought of no tourists was obviously enough to spur Ellie on to do the unthinkable.

So having picked our motor bikes up I thought it would be a good idea for Ellie to get a little practice on her bike to make sure she knew how the bike worked. After an hour of driving around the near deserted late night streets of Hanoi I realised that she was a bit of a natural. This was lucky as the next time we rode our bikes it was in crazed morning rush hour traffic where there are no real rules to the road. In fact to ride a bike in Hanoi you need 2 things an accelerator and a horn everything else on the bike is an optional extra and rarely used!

Safely out of Hanoi we started on our journey to Mai Chia which is west of Hanoi and a nice easy ride for our first day. This was however until Valentino Rossi (aka Ellie) decided that it was too close and that she was happy to continue to what was our second night destination Son La. This was almost 400km of winding but good quality roads. (I know that 400km does not sound like a long way for the perfect motorway roads of the UK with laws and rules but in Vietnam it's a bloody long and very dangerous way!)

ELLIE - Looking back it was pretty stupid of me to suggest we drive all that way extra. By the time we arrived in Son Las (11 hours after leaving Hanoi!) I was shattered and badly in need of a good, long shower! However, the drive had been awesome (I still can't quite believe that I enjoyed it so much!) and we'd met some amazing people along the way.

At one point I was running really low on fuel so we stopped at this petrol station - I know it looks like a random plastic carton on the side of the road but believe me - it was a petrol station. The woman who was running it didn't speak a word of English but was very friendly none the less. Once she had filled both our bikes up she grabbed me by the hand and literally propelled me into her house. Inside she sat us both down and proceeded to pour us tiny cups of tea - much to my horror! Not wanting to be rude I forced mine down pretty quickly only for it to be refilled seconds later! We were relieved when the teapot appeared to be empty but then she topped it up from a luke warm thermos flask - nice! We stayed and talked (we talked in English and she talked in Vietnamese - it kind of worked!) for quite a while, we were having a great time with her and the hundreds of children who had appeared from nowhere to see the 'white people'! It was really refreshing meeting someone local who was genuinely pleased to see us and didn't just see our white skin as dollar signs!

ADAM - As Ells said we were both pretty tired when we arrived in Son Las and very hungry! The only food we had eaten all day was "new year" food that we were forced (sorry kindly invited) to eat by a lady when we stopped at her shack for a drink. (New Year food is white sticky rice with some corn, a type of meat which I think was dog all held together by fat of the animal the meat related to, hmmmm Nice!) So I decided to go and find some food in Son La and discovered that for the first and not the last time on this trip I was being TET(ed). This means that all restaurants were shut or had private celebrations going on for New Year. Although discouraged I managed to find a small shop that sold biscuits and beer (always essential!). The owner was a very enthusiastic old man who watched the premier ship all day, screaming and jigging up and down in his chair every time a goal was shown. I spent a very confusing 30 minutes sitting with him "talking" about football! Still no real food to be found, so sadly we went to bed hungry.

Happy New Year (again!)

2007-02-17T03:00:00.000-08:00

Not happy with having a whole year off work, we have also managed to get more than our fair share of New Year celebrations! We arrived in Hanoi (the capital of Vietnam) ready for the Tet celebrations. Tet seems to be the equivalent of Christmas, New Year and your Birthday all rolled into one! The Vietnamese follow the Lunar calendar (like the Chinese) and so New Year is based on this and this year New Year’s Eve was celebrated on Friday 16th February. People here don’t get a year older until the new year has passed, therefore New Year’s day is also everyone’s Birthday! Not surprisingly a week of celebrations follow that involves drinking and feasting, kind of like Christmas.

Anyway enough of the cultural stuff, we were in Hanoi and were lucky enough to spend the night in the center of the celebrations (that were being beamed to TV’s all over Vietnam!). There were acrobats, fireworks, thousands of people and loads of street restaurants for food and drinks. The atmosphere was electric and was added to by the deafening sounds of fire crackers that were lit and just thrown into the crowd – mostly by children! (almost had my toes blown of at one point!). At midnight there were hundreds of thousands of people on the streets all just celebrating, dancing around and shouting! No trouble to be seen - although I’m not sure if the lack of trouble was down to the kind nature of the people or the large sticks and guns the police and army were carrying!!

Suppose I’d better follow the custom here and wish you all ‘Chuc mung nam moi!!’

Water Parks and Whip Lash!

2007-02-17T02:25:00.000-08:00

As Saigon is such a hot, sticky, busy city we decided to spend an afternoon chilling out at a local waterpark. We had the best time ever! The water park seemed just like other ones we had visited - however - all of the rides were just a little bit, well, dangerous! A favourite of mine was a racing slide you had to go down head first that ended in a plunge pool - all of your insticts were telling you that it was a stupid, dangerous thing to do - but it was so much fun you just had to! Kind of regretted it the next day though when I woke up with whip lash and had to literally roll out of bed!! (SORRY TO INTERUPT BUT THAT IS A BIT OF AN UNDERSTATEMENT! SHE COULDN'T MOVE PROPERLY FOR DAYS AND DIDN'T I KNOW ABOUT IT! ADAM CAN YOU JUST PICK THIS UP, ADAM CAN YOU JUST PASS ME THAT, OOOOH MY NECK HURTS!) He exaggerates!

After a few days in Saigon we headed over towards the coast for a couple of days in the sun. While we were there we discovered these huge sand dunes where you could go sand-sledging - it was awesome! These little children gave you a plastic mat to sit on and just pushed you off the edge of a gigantic sand dune - absolutely ace (if not just a little scary!)!

YOU ALSO GOT A MOUTH FULL OF SAND FREE WITH EVERY GO YOU HAD ON THE SLEDGE!! He's not exaggerating this time! It literally took us days to wash the sand out of our hair, ears etc!

Tiny tunnels and BIG GUNS!

2007-02-17T02:05:00.000-08:00

Well Vietnam has been pretty cool for us so far. Our first stop was Ho Chi Minh City (fomally Saigon, but I don't think that you want a history lesson about that!). Anyway, as we were in Vietnam we thought that we ought to go and see some of the remnants of the war. About 50km outside the city is a place called Co Chi, this was a strong hold for the communists within the south of the country, and was therefore an area of high military activity. The whole area was deemed a no go area by the Americans and anyone living in the area was considered to be part of the Viet Cong. As a result the Americans bombed the hell out of anything that moved on the surface. The Viet Cong were a little upset by this (to say the least!) and so they bulit whole communties underground. These underground tunnels are really quite brilliant and worked a treat for them (probably a bit of an understaement as they stopped them from getting blown to bits!). The tunnels are still there and we got to crawl through them, apparently the Viet Cong were a lot smaller than me so it was easier for them to fit into the entrance!! It was also amazing to see just how many bomb craters were there and the size of them - about 20m by 10m deep - they were HUGE!

As well as getting a very one sided history lesson about the 'American Invasion' and how the communist brothers prevailed, we managed to find a place that allowed you to fire GUNS!! Not just little pistols either, I was let loose with an AK-47 and an M-16! It was absolutely awesome! It was also really scary just how accrurate you could be with these guns with absolutely no training. Apparently if you have the money and are a little sick you can machine gun a cow or hand grenade a sheep, but I didn't have the cash! (it's a dollar a bullet for heavens sake!!)

'Happy' Birthday

2007-02-03T02:55:00.000-08:00

After the traveling fun of the last few days I woke up in Phnom Penh on my Birthday. As it was my birthday Ellie had told me that I could do anything I wanted, so to test this theory I went for breakfast and ordered fillet steak with sausages and hash browns, well it was going to be a long day and I’m a growing lad!

Anyway, as most of you know Phnom Penh is the capital of Cambodia and was the site of some of the worst atrocities during the Khmer Rouge years 1976 to 1979. If you didn’t know you do now!

As it was my birthday we decided that we would fill it with as much happiness and joy as we could. So…first we went to a place called S21 which was a former detention centre and torture facility. It was shocking to see how well the Khmer Rouge documented everything that they were doing including the methods and outcomes of torture sessions (including pictures). Having visited Auschwitz in the past the things that we were seeing here seemed to be of a more sadistic and barbaric nature (if that is possible).

This was further reinforced when we visited the killing fields only 15k away which is the site of some of the mass graves (in total 2.5 -3 million people were killed! - 40% of the population at the time!). A number of these mass graves have been uncovered to try to discover and detail what happened. There are 8,000 skulls in a memorial building, all of which have horrific fractures and holes where the victims were beaten to death with bamboo sticks, hammers, spades, axes and any other hard object that could be swung with devastating effect. The worst part of the visit by far was seeing an ordinary tree, this tree was used by the Khmer Rouge as a place to smash babies against in front of their parents before throwing them into the mass graves. None of the victims were ever shot as this would be a waste of bullets and therefore money to the Khmer Rouge government. What a loving, caring bunch they were!

So after a fun packed day it was no surprise that Ells and I were ready for (or needed!) a few birthday drinks. Even better I managed to find a very nice ex-pat restaurant that served bangers and mash with caramelised red onion gravy, hmmmmmm!

Thanks to everyone who sent me a birthday email, I really appreciated them!

Definately a Birthday to remember!

Bumper boat to Battenbang!

2007-02-03T02:34:00.000-08:00

After a couple of days in Siem Reap we decided to follow the Lonely Planet's advice and take 'the five hour scenic boat ride along the river to Battenbang - a beautiful town with lots of French Architecture'. Sounded pretty good.

This is a picture of our boat - funnily enough it doesn't look anything like the one in the travel agents window where we bought our tickets from! We set off at 7.00 am over this enormous lake. As we picked up speed the wind started to whip around us - freezing us to death! The water was splashing up over the sides so the side covers had to be pulled down - what a great view that was!

The lake part of the jouney lasted for about an hour, a very long, cold hour! Then it got more pleasant. Beatiful scenery, tranquil villages. This is the life - 4 hours of gentle cruising - nice!

However, a couple of hours later our driver managed to somehow completely loose control of the boat and ploughed into some poor fishermans nets. They got completely entangled in the rudder but instead of stopping and sorting it out he tried to continue on the journey. We found it quite amusing to watch the panic on his face as we just careered between the riverbank, stationary boats and anything else that didn't move out of our way fast enough. Amusing for the first two hours that is. By this point we had been on the boat for the promised 5 hours - our bums were starting to get numb and hunger was setting in. We realised it was going to be a very long day.

Nine and a half hours after boarding the boat we arrived in Battenbang only to find it's a little town with absolutely nothing to do! Certainly no beautiful buildings!

I tell a lie when I say there was nothing to do. We found a small restaurant that also ran a cooking school. Had much fun visiting the local market, buying all of the ingerdients and then desperately trying to follow the instructions to make exotic dishes. Got to say they tasted pretty good and we look forwards to wowing you with our new found culinary skills when we get back. If we can ever find the ingredients that is - any idea where to buy morning glory and snake beans??!!

Which Wat? What Wat? That Wat!

2007-02-03T02:19:00.000-08:00

Do you like what I did with the title there, Ells doesn’t seem to think it’s as funny as I do!

Anyway…..sorry, where was I, YES. We have arrived in Cambodia after a long day traveling. We got up at 4:30 to pack and catch the train from Bangkok to the Cambodian border. It was quite amusing seeing the very worse for wear drunks stumbling around the Khoa San road as we were leaving.

The Cambodian border has a reputation for taking an extremely long time to get through, however with a small “extra fee” paid at the right time we were through in 5 minutes just leaving 3.5 hours of moonscape style roads before we got to Siem Riep.

So we did WAT (sorry last time I promise!) every tourist does when they come here and we visited the world famous Wats at Angkor. They were absolutely amazing as you can see from the picture above. There are over 20 separate Wats that were built several hundreds of years ago by the ruling royal family of the time. They were all pretty spectacular but some of them were just downright dangerous - including the one in this picture! These steps are ridiculously steep - very funny to watch some tourists climb up and then see the panic on their faces when they realised they had to come back down! They have been used as the back drop to loads of films, the most recent being Tomb raider. However it was difficult to image the serenity that must have been present at these temples when surrounded by an army of Japanese and Korean tourists. I have never really seen the stereo typical Japanese tourist with 10 cameras and a disregard for anyone else around, but there were thousands of them here! We did manage to find a temple that was totally deserted and it was beautiful to sit and just relax (so much so that Ellie fell asleep!)

After a pretty hectic day battling the crowns we decided to have a more relaxed experience and went to the flooded forest (tried to think of something more spectacular to call it but that is pretty much it). This would have been relaxing but for the fact that at the end of our tuk tuk ride we had to ride 30 minutes on the back of scooters over what can only be described as a MOTO X track. Also being heavier than Ells and the average Cambodian my bike kept getting stuck in the deep sand and I had to push it out.

Anyway back to this river forest thing, there is a river delta that floods by over 20 feet during the wet season cutting off several villages (all of which are either floating or on stilts) and consumes an entire forest. As the waters recede you can go on a dug out canoe through the forest. It was really weird to be floating past trees in the middle of the forest. The other strange thing was the fact that the village was no longer under water so all of the houses were 20 feet above the ground!

Oh the other amusing thing I saw on the way was what I can only describe as pig carriers. These guys on Mopeds tie up fully grown pigs in this wooden holder and put them on the back of their bikes to take them home. I had to double take as we went past one and this pig snout shot out and started oinking at me!

Our visit to hospital!!!

2007-02-03T01:53:00.000-08:00

OK - before you start to stress out you don't need to worry - we're both fine - haven't fallen off the back of a motorbike or caught some deadly tropical disease!

After a long day of temple visiting we were out enjoying dinner when I noticed a poster advertising the latest tourist activity going on in Siem Reap - giving blood at the local children's hospital!

The hospital are running at a 40% defecit everyday as there has recently been a dengue fever epedemic in Cambodia so loads of adults are unable to give blood. This sounds like an enormous shortfall but the hospital only uses a relatively small amount of blood - just 25 pints per day - however, only 15 pints are being donated.

So the next morning we headed off to the hospital. We were amazed at just how clean and hygenic it was. Everything was sterilised and only used once. The staff were so kind and friendly and to make our day we were given a can of soft drink, a packet of biscuits and, even better, a t-shirt each for our efforts!!

Later that night, after a few beers, we were talking about the problem faced by the hospital and Ad decided that in true 'my name is Earl' style he would try to win back some good karma by spreading the word about the hospital to 10 poeple - making up one days shortfall. He proceeded to stop randoms in the street and explain the problem. As we thought, no one knew of the hospitals problems and sure enough Ad managed to convince ten people to give it a go.

So if you're visiting Siem Reap in the near future, after you've visited the Wats why don't you join in this latest craze and go and give some bloody blood!!

Sting Rays and Exploding Lungs!

2007-01-24T05:39:00.000-08:00

After the excesses that came with spending a week with the lads on Koh Samui we made our way over to the tiny island of Koh Tao to have our first ever go at scuba diving!

We decided that instead of just going on a fun dive we'd go all the way and complete our open water certification course - making us fully fledged divers.

After a few classroom based sessions on how your lungs can explode we put all the gear on and were thrown in the deep end (pardon the pun!!). Kneeling on the sea bed we had to practice taking our masks off and had our air tanks switched off to check we wouldn't panic! I found it quite scary which was a bit stupid really as we were just kneeling down in quite shallow sea - if I stood up I could breathe normally!

We had to sit an exam before we were actually allowed to dive properly - felt very random to be sitting an exam wearing my bikini (before we get any random e-mails about Adam wearing a bikini this is Ellie writing!)!. Got our marks back the next day and I got 2% more than Ad - wish we'd had some kind of bet on it now!

Diving is amazing - it's so surreal to sit at the bottom of the sea, 18metres below the surface, watching sting rays and baracuda swim past. We are both completely hooked and can't wait to go diving again.

In fact, we got so enthused that we headed off to the nearest Scuba shop and bought masks, snorkels and fins. Seemed like a good idea at the time but not quite sure how we're going to get them round the world!!

Biker Gangs and Beers!!

2007-01-24T05:22:00.000-08:00

After our long drive up through South Africa we flew into Bangkok . It was great to be back in Thailand and as an added bonus some of our mates from home were flying in on their way back from Oz! They landed at 22:30 and were flying out to Koh Sumui the following morning so it was going to be a very brief catch up! As we were staying on the Khoa San road there were plenty of places to while away the hours over a few beers. However after 11:00 no beer could be served, well it could be but we all had to pretend that we were drinking tea!

After a few drinks we decided that we should travel down to Koh Samui to meet up with Bolts, Beast Man and Wuka properly and spend a few days on the beach. Waking up the following morning to go and buy the train tickets was painful, my head was killing me and the thought of more days drinking was not very appetising. After a night train and a good nights sleep things seemed much better and we met back up and enjoyed a few more beers followed by some midnight swimming.

While we were on Koh Sumui we went to see some Thai Boxing. The sport looks really painful and makes normal boxing look as dangerous as knitting. There was a huge amount of respect between the boxers though, who shared the same dressing room and were best friends again after the fight (where they had punched and kicked each other until one of them couldn’t walk!) The best knock out of the night though came courtesy of a young German lad. He was walking to the toilet when a young Thai lady caught his eye, not looking where he was going he walked straight into a metal post. He knocked himself out, got up and tried to walk on to the toilets falling over several time. Don’t worry he was fine after we sat him down and give him some water and ice (ice for his head!)

Deciding to explore the Island we all rented scooters and set off. Given the bikes small size and subsequent lack of power we started a new motor cycle gang, Satan’s Mice (See attached picture of the notorious bike gang! Hmm really scary! - especially Wuka's toilet blue bike!!) On the way round the island Bolts, Tim and Wuka got blessed by a Buddhist monk, very rock and roll guys. This kind of blessing is usually reserved for the pure members of society and not ones sporting love bites (Beast and Wuka!)

Aswell as being in motorbike gangs and doing other ladish things we also had time to be a bit more refined! We had some great seafood meals (and had typically male fun looking at the intestines as they fell out of the cut open fish!) on the beach and let off some Thai style balloons (after spending one of our first nights wondering what on earth the strange glowing spots were in the sky and being convinced - after a few beers - that they were UFO's!)

We had a great time on the Island even though it resembles Blackpool with sun rather than Thailand. The sunshine combined with seeing our mates again though made up for the Blackpoolness - it was really great to see our friends again.

Cheers lads for letting us crash your week in the sun!

Cook the books? No lets freeze them!

2007-01-20T04:26:00.000-08:00

The following day we started our journey up towards Jo’burg. We had planned to stay in a town called Bloomfontain which was about half way but the crazy old couple who ran the guest house told us we should visit but not stay as they thought it was a dump! They then continued to talk to me for almost an hour about anything they could think of beofre I finally escaped.

In Bloomfontain we visited the Anglo – Boer war museum and then had a walk into town. To be fair they were right as there wasn’t much to see or do, so we drove on towards Jo’Burg stopping about 90km outside. There was no chance of us driving into Jo’Burg after dark as we value our lives and wouldn’t want to deprive you of our company in the future!

Leaving just a short drive for the next day also meant that we could visit both the apartheid museum and go on a tour around Soweto, both pretty depressing but a must if you’re ever in the area.

The apartheid museum was shocking; as you arrive you get given an identity card which states your race. This then determines which entrance you go through. Ellie and I were given different racial cards (I was a non white and she was a white) and as we went through our seperate doors and began looking at the information in a long corridor I immediately started to wonder what Ellie was doing and what she could see. It was a really effective way to get you in the right frame of mind for the rest of the museum and a shocking insight into the unjust system that was in place. The rest of the museum was equally as shocking and made even harder to comprehend by the fact that it all happened so recently.

That afternoon we visited SOWETO which you can probably remember being the centre of the anti apartheid uprising and a strict no go area for white people. Things have changed a little since then so we were safe! We went to Nelson Mandela’s old house (he lives in a mansion now in the richest part of town) and a church that had been raided several times by the police during the uprisings. It was crazy to see bullet holes in a church!

We also went to the slum area of SOWETO which has no tarmac roads, very few houses with running water and toilets, and people cook on paraffin stoves. It was just like being back in Tanzania and was actually a lot more developed than the area that we used to teach in! We met one young lad who was training to be an accountant (idiot!) and he took great pride in showing me his “library”. Going into his house I was amazed to see he had a huge fridge freezer, until he opened it to reveal all of his books!! The freezer was broken so he decided to use it as a bookcase.

Leaving the slum area and getting back on the bus made us feel really awkward. We have been used to walking around areas like SOWETO and not showing our relative wealth but just talking to the poeople we meet. The rich tourists who were on our trip however thought it would be a great idea to hand out presents in the forms of pens and pencils to the children who were following us about and trying to hold our hands. The chaos that followed was crazy as some children got pens and some didn’t. The ones that didn’t get pens started fighting with the children that had them. It symbolised everything that we had come to hate about tourists visiting developing countries and throwing gifts at people they meet as a way of 'helping' and 'making themselves feel as though they've contributed'. It makes so much more sense to try to make a sustainable contribution by giving the pens to the local school who you have to trust will use them wisely.

Our long journey

2007-01-20T04:04:00.000-08:00

Next morning we drove up through the mountain passes and had breakfast on a cliff top looking back over the valley and all of the vineyards (Oh yes, this is where we called our friend Liz from on her 30th birthday. That’s old - a real chikamoo!). Driving on through some great mountain passes full of winding roads and sheer drops a few feet from the car and the most amazing scenery was fabulous. However, these winding roads were a stark contrast to the miles and miles and miles and miles (you get the picture) of straight roads that we followed as we headed for Graff Reinit in the middle of SA. Things couldn’t have been better. We were having a fantastic day, until we came over the brow of a hill.

The sight that greeted us was unreal, a minibus (the size of a large transit van) with trailer had swerved across the road, flipped over several times throwing people out of it’s now shattered windows, and come to rest in a field on our side of the road. We have travelled in this kind of vehicle loads during our time in Tanzania and the sight of this accident was all the more frighting with the knowledge that this could have happened to us. As we drove up we could see that there were a few people helping, but there was no ambulance. The accident had happened literally a minute before we got there. Getting out of the car and walking toward the crash site I suddenly had the most overwhelming sense of being totally useless. What should we do? Where should we start? Who should we help? Who could we help?

As we got nearer to the site the true size of the accident really kicked in. The bus had been carrying about 25 people, a large proportion of these had been thrown from the doors and windows as the bus had rolled. There were two people who I think must have been caught under the bus as it flipped as they were already dead, thier bodies twisted horrifically. We noticed two girls that must have been thrown from the bus as it first left the road as they were 30 feet away from where the bus came to rest. We went over and started to talk to the older girl (aged 15 and called Porcha) as the younger girl (aged about 4) had some talking to her already. We had a look at her injuries and were shocked by what we saw. She had been thrown from the bus with such force that when she hit the ground her thighs had shattered, the waste band on her jeans had split, along with a large proportion of the rest of her jeans. I have never seen denim torn in such a severe way. After she had hit the ground she had slid off the road across gravel which had taken the skin off one side of her back until she went over a jagged rock which had gouged a hole in her lower right back 10” long 2” wide and about 2” deep. She was in absolute agony. We stayed with her until the ambulance arrived keeping her conscious and holding her hand in a desperate attempt to help her with the pain.

I then went to help the ambulance men move other casualties into the ambulance, while we were putting someone in the ambulance the person next to us died. As more ambulances turned up I went back to see how Porcha was and noticed that the smaller girl was on her own and had stopped moving and was hardly breathing. I immediately called for help, a paramedic rushed over started swearing and she was rushed away. Although she had had an initial treatment and assessment she had been forgotten about due to the shear size of the carnage.

While talking to Porcha we found out that she had been traveling on the bus with her mother. No one had left for the hospital at this point and her mother had not been asking for her. Trying not to sound too concerned we asked what her mother was wearing. It was at this point that the full horror struck us, her mother was lying about 10 feet away but Porcha was unable to see her as she was lying behind her. Her mother had been alive when we arrived but had died while we were there from internal injuries. There was nothing anyone could have done. We told her that her mother had probably been taken to hospital in an ambulance and luckily Porcha didn’t see her body as she was being taken to an ambulance.

After helping for about an hour and a half there was nothing more we could do; the area needed to be cleared by professionals and the final walking wounded were making their way to ambulances.

Driving onto the town we checked into our accommodation and went to a place called the valley of desolation. It’s a valley that has the most amazing rock formations and looks very beautiful as the sun sets. It felt very strange just to carry on with our journey having seen such a horrific accident, but I suppose life goes on and we did the best we could. It has however given us a renewed respect for people in the medical profession!

Drinking and Driving!

2007-01-20T03:34:00.000-08:00

Well after a fantastic time in Tanzania and a great New Year in Zanzibar we finally started our travels for real. We flew from Dar Es Salaam to Jo’Burg and after a night in Jo’burg we flew down to Cape Town .

We spent a few days in Cape Town and had a great time. Felt fantastic to be sitting on top of Table Mountain , having a drink and watching the sun go down. Thought of you guys back home having a cold January and starting back to work, HA! The views are amazing especially where the cold mountain air meets the warm sea air and you get a fog literally “dripping” off the cliffs. Definitely worth a visit if you are in Cape Town.

Also went to an apartheid museum in “District 6” of the city. This used to be a slum area that was inhabited by mainly black families. The government at the time decided to pull down this area, claiming it was for hygiene reasons, and moved all of the residents to Townships outside the city. These racially segregated areas were just as crampedand uninhabitable. They pulled down all of their old homes and they planned to use the land for ‘white’s only’ facilities as it was in such a prominent position!. These people had been living in an area in the middle of the city where they worked and socialised and were now 20 or 30 miles away. I was even more shocked to discover that this only happened in 1966. It seems so recent for something like this to have happened.

Anyway after a few days in one place doing serious stuff it was time to move on! We decided to hire a care and drive from Cape Town to Jo’Burg as the roads are good and we could come and go as we pleased without having to worry about time tables. We hired the cheapest care available, which turned out to be a mark 2 VW Golf. This style of Golf are still made in SA and so it was brand new. It was really cool to be driving around in what looked to be an old classic!

Our first day “on the road” was short lived as we drove to the wine region. As I said enough of the serious stuff bring on the wine drinking….. er . . .I mean tasting, of course! Anyway 3 vineyards later (in the Franchoek area for those of you in the know!) and several tasting sessions to the good I decided that most of the wine in SA is pretty tasty. We had our favorites but I just can’t remember what they were called (must be all those tasters!). Sitting amongst the amazing scenery, drinking good wine in the sun will be one of the highlights of SA and defiantly something we (especially Ellie!) would like to go back and do more of.

No window frames... but card games!

2007-01-20T02:15:00.000-08:00

It was absolutely fabulous seeing my sister in Zanzibar. She arrived on an early morning flight into Dar es Salaam and we all immediately got a so called 'fast' (it ook about three hours instead of the promised hour and a half!!) ferry over to Zanzibar.
Spent our first day and night exploring Stone Town, shopping and enjoying the first of many 'sun downers' (am I the only person never to have called a sunset drink this before?!) together!

The next day we headed for the beach - we'd had a bit of trouble trying to book accommodation in advance as there were three of us, it was NewYear and as usual I'd left it to the last minute. Our room, if you can call it that, was up a steep set of steps above a circular shop which the owners wife used as a workshop for her retail business. It had a roof and that's about all - no walls, doors or windows- just timber poles supporting the roof and curtains hanging in between them. It was fantsatic - the views were amazing and you got a fabulous sea breeze at night!

Spent our days sunbathing (obviously!), fishing and cycling. Cycling along the beach was great on the way there when the tide was out and we could cycle along the hard wet sand. Coming back however when the tide was in and our only choice was the soft, fine sand wasn't so much fun and really hard work!! We also hired a car one day - well it was actually a taxi - the owner worked out he could earn way more if he just gave it to us for the day instead of trying to get his usual fares. Before we left we obviously needed to fill up with fuel and as the nearest petrol station is over the other side of the island the owner said we could have some of his store. We expected him to come out with one of those little petrol tanks you keep in your boot but instead he arrived with about 15 half full water bottles containing petrol. He then spent the next 5 minutes pouring the contents through a funnel into the car- only in Africa!! Spent the day exploring the island- in our taxi driven my Adam - with our Bongo Fleva CD blaring out authentic African tunes (cheers Liz!). At one point we were pulled over by the police for a routine check- we thought we'd have difficulty explaining why there was a mzungu driving the taxi instead of the real taxi driver but the police weren't at all concerned - weird!

The days we spent together were fabulous but I think I speak for all of us when I say the highlights were definately the evenings. With our swahili and masaai language skills we managed to befriend some of the local Masaai who worked at one of the neighbouring bars as watchmen. We spent a couple of evenings chatting to them and trying to teach them card games - it was absolutely hysterical!! After the first game the picture cards came out - they were way too complicated!! Our limited language combined with cards they had never seen before and a few cocktails turned snap and chase the ace into the worlds most complicated games. To try to make it easier for them to understand the games had to be renamed- snap became simba as you had to pounce like a lion (their idea!) and chase the ace is now know as mbaya (bad) as you didn't want to be left with the bad card!!

Was really sad saying bye to Katy at the end of our stay - we were also kind of worried as one of the Masaai men had taken a bit of a liking to her and was wondering if she'd like to go to his hut that night - she politely refused but of course had no way of bolting the door to her room as there wasn't one and so spent the night in fear!! Really looking forwards to catching up with her again in Oz!!

Christmas Time - Rhinos and Wine

2006-12-28T07:55:00.000-08:00

We left organising what to do over Christmas a bit late - in the end we could either go on an animal safari and stay in tents or we could go to a national park (renown for it's beauty rather than its abundance of wildlife) and stay in luxury - we opted for the latter!

However - when we saw the price we were horrified - $195 dollars each per night!! There was no way we could afford that! The kind lady on the other end of the e-mail said that as we had been working in Tanzania she would give us resident fees - just $80 - much better, so we booked!

Christmas Eve arrived and we made our way with our millions of bags to the bus station. Sitting on the bus (waiting for it to leave!) we started to talk about the place we were going to and realised we didn't really know anything about it, we hadn't seen any pictures or heard any recommendations - fear started to set in!

After an hour of sitting on the bus in the bus station the bus finally began the one and a half our journey. We arrived almost five hours later!!! Thanks to blow outs, shoddy spare tyres, Adam changing the wheel and the bus driver running off because he was scared of the bus full of furious passengers! My favourite comment of the journey was when an African lady turned to Adam and said 'what are we to do. Mzungu - you drive!!!'

We eventually reached our destination and our car was waiting to pick us up. A car with just the two of us in is quite a novelty so we enjoyed the journey - that is until the driver said 'you can see the camps tents from here'. At the word tents Adam and I exchanged horrified glances - tents! we'd been promised luxury!! Tales of rip off scams and 'I'll give you special price' started running through our heads - Christmas in a standard three man tent - not my idea of luxury!!

However - we needn't have worried. As we pulled up at the camp 6 men rushed out to greet us - some carrying drinks, others cold towels, others to fetch our bags and some just to say welcome, welcome, welcome over and over again. We were shown to our tent which was in fact very luxurious with proper beds, running water and Adam's personal favourite - a writing table. The highlight though was the outdoor, hot, open air shower - truly fantastic. As we had arrived quite late we were asked to just wash and then come back to the dining tent for a late lunch. The dining tent consisted of a huge dining table, laid with china and silver ware, gorgeous cushions to relax on after dinner and an old working gramaphone to listen to. It really was like stepping back in time.

We soon realised that the other four tents were in fact empty and so we had the undivided attention of the eight staff who waited on us hand and foot. They literally did everything from fetching our drinks to doing our laundry and from accompanying us on walks in the surrounding wilderness to serenading us on local instruments while we sat around the campfire with pre dinner g & t's (one of the most bizarre experiences I've ever had!). Nothing was too much trouble.

I'm sure you'll all be pleased to find out that we awoke on Christmas morning to the worst rain we have ever heard! Luckily though by late morning the rain had stopped and we were able to go and see wild dog and rhino sancturies - with the accompanyment of our transportable bar! The picture shows Adam with his first beer of the day standing next to our rather mud splattered car! Boxing day was scorching though - HA HA!!

We had an absolutely fantastic (but very different!) Christmas which was made even better when we received calls and texts from friends and family back home! We replied to everyone but apparently lots of our texts get 'lost' somewhere on route, so sorry to those of you who didn't receive them!

After an amazing Christmas we were then subjected to an eight hour journey in a moving sauna - Tanzanian's call it a luxury bus! THE LOCALS WERE CONFUSED WHEN I WALKED AROUND IN JUST MY TOWEL, TRYING TO THROW WATER ON THE COALS (GUESS WHO'S WRITING IN CAPITALS??!!) We're now in Dar es Salaam waiting for my little sister to join us (can't wait to see her!) in the morning before we head over to Zanzibar for New Year.

Hope you all had a fantastic Christmas and we wish you all a very happy New Year! HOHOHO!!

Ellie and ADAM xxxx

Our last week in Moshi

2006-12-28T07:33:00.000-08:00

After saying our goodbyes to both the secondary school and Sarah's school, as well as numerous goodbyes to mzungu friends who were going home for Christmas, it was finally our time to leave Moshi - the little town we had been calling home for the past eleven weeks.

This town is so amazing - you walk down the street and see such a huge array of bizarre sights- you'd stop and stare if you were anywhere else, but in Moshi it's just normal. Some of our favourites include men pushing enormous wooden wheelbarrows of fruit, brass bands playing whilst jammed into the back of trucks, people carrying absolutely anything on the back of their push bikes or on their heads, Maasai people walking through town carrying huge knives or spears or simply dancing and singing in the street and of course the infamous dalla dallas, rammed with so many people that all an outsider can see is various body parts squashed against windows.

On our last day we went to say good-bye to Sara, Malchiory and Armstrong. We knew saying good bye to them was going to be difficult as we'd become such good friends over the last few months. When we arrived Sara had prepared some traditional Tanzanian snacks for us as a way of saying thank you. It was great to sit in their newly decorated front room chatting and laughing about all the things we had done together. The time came for us to leave but before we went on our way Malchiory asked us to join hands so that he could say a prayer for us. His words were so genuine and from the heart, they were really moving. He thanked God for sending him us as friends and for blessing us with such supportive friends and family. He then thanked us and the other volunteers for all the help and hard work we had put into their home and school. He promised that he would never let what we had started die and that he would do his best to help it to grow and grow. He explained that lots of people come through Tanzania help and then leave, but the work we have all done together is everlasting. By the end of the prayer three of us (Adam doesn't cry!) were in tears.

Hearing Malchiory's words and seeing the completed schoolroom has made us realise just how much support and effort has been given by so many people. Without this help none of this would have been possible so could we just take this time to say a huge thank you to all of you!

After this emotional goodbye we walked back to our old house to say bye to our Mafrican friends who had been living with us. We'd bought Tanzanian football shirts for our gardner and Maasai watchmen which they loved. For our cook and cleaner we'd bought material which they had had made into skirts and tops to wear on Christmas day. They all proudly showed off their new attire and posed for photos. Just as we were about to leave Eliza (the little girl who's mother has died) came home from visiting her Grandmother. We'd bought her a little outfit which she ran and put on, strutting up and down as if she was a model. It was so good to see her again before we left but resulted in another tearful goodbye with lots of promises of letters.

We have had an amazing time in Moshi. We've met people and experienced things that will remain with us for ever. If the next part of our journey is half as good we're going to have a fantastic year!

Adam's intellectual thoughts and observations

2006-12-28T00:36:00.000-08:00

As the time is getting near to leave Tanzania I thought that I would share some of my thoughs and observations with you about this place and the affect that it has had on me. (This is Adam writing so if you're expecting something deep and meannigful I'm sorry)

Bus and taxi rides: Forget health and safety! The more that you can get in the better. The record set by us and the rest of the volunteers over the past few months is 9, yes 9, in a normal family car size taxi. Well i say record we started to move and had to stop after a few feet because several of the occupants started to become clostraphobic. (if you were wondering 3 on the front seat and 6 in the back, almost a daily occurance to have 7 in a taxi though!)
Although this seems dangerous i think that in an accident no one would get hurt as there would be no room to be thrown around. Would be a little messy if there were a fire though!!

Safari: Why do people go on Safari wearing there Safari outfits? Safari style khaki hat, khaki shirt with khaki waist coat(must have at least 200 pockets in) khaki trousers with a 2 zip off leg options and khakii walking boots (and probably some Khaki underwear of some sort). YOU ARE GOING TO SIT IN A CAR FOR 12 HOURS A DAY YOU IDIOTS!!! What did they think they would do on Safari? Wrestle loins!! And where the hell do they buy it from? Is there a Safari shop somewhere? FOOLS!!

Local dress and hair: The local dress is as you can imagine typical african style Kangas and brightly coloured material. Why do some Mzungus(white people) decide that becuase they have spent more that 1 day in Africa that they can wear such clothes and then after 2 days get there hair braided or put into dreadlocks. They might aswell put a sign on their heads saying "I WILL BUY ANYTHING, PLEASE HASSLE ME AS I WALK DOWN THE STREET!!!" Why oh why?? AND AGAIN FOOLS!!

Maasai: We had a Maasai watchman at our house and there are loads of Maasai wearing only their Massai blankets (which is actually just their ordinary clothes) with knives and spears etc as you walk around Moshi. I had become totally desenseatised to them until i left Moshi and suddenly i have really started to miss them. I managed to pick up a little Maasai from our watchman and loved seeing the shock on the faces of Maasai in the street when i asked how they were and tell that i would see them later. The Maaai people are one of the things that i will miss most about Moshi and Tanzania. I would like to say that i have not seen any Mzungu dressed as Maasai, I think that is more to with the fact that the Maasai would KILL them if they did and not for the want of trying!!

Mzungu and teacher: It has become natural to walk around with people shouting MZUNGU, HEYMZUNGU (all one word) TEACHER and HOWAREYOU HOWAREYOU at you in the street. This especially common from the small children in the streets where we live. I will really miss this when we move on to another country. It's been great having the time to talk to people in the streets and get to know the people that we meet every day on our walk to school. I don't think that i will miss "GIVE ME MY MONEY" half as much though!

Sports hooligans: Every country has its fair share of hooligans that attach themselves to a sport as an excuse to fight. However here it is the school girls that are hooligans and not the boys. I have never been scared of a girl in my life before (apart from some of the Ukranian gymnasts!) but these girls really were scary. If the football grounds of England were full with these girls the police would have there work cut out. The chanting would be more entertaining too as they sing their insults to each other beautifully!

Weddings: Not mine of course. When someones got married there is a long procession through the streets that includes at least one truck that has a whole brass band stuffed into it. No matter what kind of day you are having the sound as one of these processions going past can cheer you up (and make your ears bleed!)

Cheap beer: Over the last few months i have been treated to a wide aray of beer that costs 40p a bottle. I was horrified yesterday when in Dar Es Salam i had to pay 80p! What will i do when i get back home?

These are some of my thoughts, not all of them of course but i hope that you have enjoyed them!!

Saying bye

2006-12-22T23:46:00.002-08:00

Our last day at Sarah's school came round far too quickly. We organised a party for the children and loads of volunteers came to help us. We all had a fantastic time playing games, dancing to Christmas music and eating party food. Adam and the other male volunteer Owen did their usual tricks of throwing children over their heads - the children thought it was great!

All too soon it was time for the children to leave. I was in tears again (I'm not great at good-byes) and so were some of the children. It was really sad saying bye but at least we know that they now have a fantastic new school room to work in.

Final update on Sarah's School

2006-12-22T23:46:00.001-08:00

We are pleased to be able to tell you that at last Sarah's school and her new home are finished. Sarah and her family are so excited about spening Christmas in their new home. Thank you so much for making this happen.

Here is a picture of the new classroom. We came back from safari last week to find this huge blackboard had been fitted - isn't it fab! The benches and desks are also now completed and the floor has been painted a dark green colour. It looks amazing - pictures really don't do it justice. All of the children love their new room and are looking forwards to school starting properly in January.

As all of the work that we could actually help with is now finished we have spent a couple of afternoons working with the children to make displays for the walls. It's been great spending time with the children again and they've had so much fun cutting, sticking and painting!

Other work that has been completed includes the rest of the rooms in the house being painted and wire meshing put over all of the windows to increase security. A tap has been fitted and connected to the side of the house which means Malchiory no longer has to carry 40litres of water on the back of his bike each day. Sarah thinks she's in heaven. Even better than that, the water supply has also been connected to the toilet so that it now flushes - fantastic!

It has been fantastic to be part of this project over the last few weeks. Sarah and Melchiory are so proud of their new home and school. They have promised to keep us up to date with what is happening. It feels really good to know that our time here has been productive and we've actually been able to change someones life. Thanks again guys, without your support none of this would have been possible.

Musical chairs

2006-12-22T23:46:00.000-08:00

Our last day at school finally arrived. Our time here as gone so quickly we really can't believe that it's nearly over. Teaching in a secondary school where children walk for an hour and a half just to get to school and then get sent home because they can't afford to pay for their education has been a real eye opener. Children out here really value their education and they realise what a crucial part learning English will play in their future. It's been fantastic to be able to help these children and to see their confidence and ability grow day by day.

On our last day we decided to have a couple of fun lessons followed by a party. We prepared some traditional party games (musical chairs and pass the parcel) but weren't sure how they would go down. The pupils loved them. They thought musical chairs was the best game ever and couldn't believe that every time you took a layer off in pass the parcel you got a prize. We finished off with a game of musical statues which even our teacher joined in because she wanted to win the prize!!

We ended our party with party food and chocolate cake - I think the staff enjoyed it even more than the pupils. We were just about to leave when four girls from our classes told us that they had written a song and a short speech that they would like to perform for us. I had been on the verge of tears all morning and this was the last straw! These girls had taken the time to write and practice their song and speech for us in their own time. It was really touching and the English they used was brilliant. It made us both feel so proud and lucky to have been able to work with such amazing children.

Sarah's School - Part II

2006-12-12T06:33:00.000-08:00

It has been all systems go with the work on Sarah's school. I really don't know where to start as so much has happened! Thanks again to all of you who have supported Sarah and Malchiory to fulfil their dreams (open a school of their own and live in a house that isn't shared - not unrealistic in our society).

This is a picture of the school just after we had started work on it. Most of these low branches have been cut off now to allow more light into the building. The door you can see leads into the classroom.

This picture shows the walls after they have been undercoated - they still look revolting. Everything out here gets dirty so quickly and isn't helped by us not having a supply of running water to wash things down with. After we'd undercoated the walls we started cleaned the ceiling only to discover that lots of the boards were rotten and needed replacing.

Do you like Adam's traditional African dress?! We don't have any 'painting' clothes with us!

We painted the new ceiling boards before they went up - much easier than using our rollers attached to sticks! The ceiling fitters then came and took the old ones down ready to fit the new boards. However, as the boards came down so did ten years worth of bat droppings - the smell was awful! After Malchiory had cleaned them up the ceiling fitters nailed the new boards up for us - they didn't have any ladders and instead balanced on a piece of wood which was placed precariously on two huge barrels! You can also see the new doors and shutters in this picture - don't they look fab?!

After we had undercoated the walls of all of the rooms we began to apply the colour. Sarah has chosen a pale green for the school room, a disgusting bright yellow colour for her bedroom and a nice cream for their living room. After she saw the yellow on the walls of her bedroom she wanted to exchange the cream - it took about 5 of us to talk her out of it! The classroom is now finished and looks amazing!

The school has been named 'Shining Star' as Sarah used to live in the old Marangu Shining Star restuarant. One of the volunteers designed a sign (sorry about the sideways view!) to go up outside the school and we have made leaflets to distribute around the local area.

I'll update again soon!

The big move!

2006-12-12T06:25:00.000-08:00

The day finally arrived when the new house was secure enough for Sarah, Malchiory and Armstrong to move in. As there is no way Malchiory could afford transport to move his furniture Adam, I and a couple of the other volunteers offered to help him. We turned up at his house mid afternoon one Saturday to find him still packing. We waited, and waited and waited. Finally as dusk was beginning to fall Malchiory said 'now it is time'. It turns out that if you are moving house in Tanzania you do it in the dark so that no one can see what you have! As we thought we were moving during the daytime we only had one head torch between us and there is a good mile inbetween the two houses - part of which is over a field! The furniture out here is so bulky that we decided the only way to carry was in traditional African style - on our heads! Not an experience we want to repeat in a hurry!

Scary safari!

2006-12-12T06:00:00.000-08:00

Last weekend we set off on safari with 3 other volunteers. We all arrived together and have got to know each other really well over the past few months so were looking forwards to spending some time together before going our seperate ways.

Finally it was time for us and our many bags to be loaded into our battered car and begin the painfully long and dusty journey to the first of three game reserves we would be visiting. We had a brilliant game drive and stayed in quite a luxurious camp site that even had warm showers (quite a novelty for us!).
The the next morning we set off for the Serengeti. Unfortunately our car had a bit of a suspension problem - not great when you're travelling along miles of dirt raods - to compensate for the problem we drove even slower than normal so our journey seemed to take for ever! We finally got to the Serengeti and went for a game drive where we saw loads of lions before we arrived at our campsite. I'm not really sure if you can call it a campsite - it was literally a toilet and a lockable hut to eat in in the middle of the serengeti - no fence! We were quite nervous going to bed - especially as a few weeks ago some of our friends stayed at the same campsite and their tents got attacked by bushpigs! We heard loads of animal noises during the night but luckily all survived to tell the tale the next day!

After an early morning game drive we packed our tents up once more and headed to Ngorongoro Crater. We were camping at the Crater rim and so had amazing views across to the other side - some 20km away! We went to bed quite early as we had arranged another early morning game drive. We hadn't been in bed long when we heard a munching sound outside our tents. We carefully unzipped our tents only to see an enourmous buffalo literally feet from where we were camping. He didn't seem to like us all looking at him and stopped eating and just stood really still, staring right back at us! One of the girls we were with reminded us that we didn't have to worry as there was an armed ranger on the campsite and he would surely appear soon to chase the buffalo away. As the minutes ticked by we realised he wasn't coming and then Adam kindly reminded us that earlier our guide had told us that buffalos were most prone to attack when they are on their own and they feel threatened - great! We needn't have worried though - the buffalo wasn't interested in us and after a while carried on eating before slowly moving away!

We had a fabulous, if sometimes slightly scary, few days!

Armbands at the ready!

2006-12-12T05:53:00.000-08:00

To raise the profile of Sarah's school a bit (and also because we enjoy it!) we decided to take all of the children swimming last week. Sarah normally has about 15 children at school however on swimming day there were 28! Armed with loads of armbands and lots of other volunteers we set off to the local pool.

When we arrived we asked if anoyone could swim and were surprised when quite a few children put their hands up. After a couple of children had jumped in and been caught by volunteers we realised that being able to swim just meant jumping into the water (preferably in the deep end!).

A brilliant time was had by all and the day ended with 28 very tired, happy children walking back to school (and 7 shattered volunteers heading for the nearest bar!).

Pitch invasions and penalties!

2006-12-12T05:34:00.000-08:00

After 8 weeks of training two different schools football teams myself (Adam for those of you who think it's always Ellie who writes the blog!) and the only other male volunteer decided it wasd time that they had a game against each other.

The date was set for a Friday afternoon after school. We couldn't believe it when the other team turned up - they had brought along the whole of their school for support! Luckily our pupils decided to hang around and watch too so that we wouldn't be out numbered!

The match began with 10 African children and one adult mzungu (me and Owen!) on each side - we decided this was definately an opportunity not to be missed and wanted to play!

After a close first half which ended 1:0 to us the second half became far more one sided. My team scored a further 2 goals and managed to score off a penalty so it was 4:0. Every time a goal was scored all of the supporters invaded the pitch, mobbed the players and then began taunting the other side shouting "you are fat" and "your father is a theif"!! It was approaching the final minutes and the match looked as if it was over when a player on the other team was 'accidentally' hacked down in our box and was awarded a penalty in extra time! It was a nerve racking couple of minutes with both sets of supporters shouting abuse at each other - suddenly the crowd went silent as the player began to run up to take the penalty - our goalie managed to get a hand to the ball which sent it crashing into the bar and then bouncing off the line before ending up on the pitch! The game ended 4:0 and as you can see from the picture, another pitch invasion!!

Rotten bananas and removable fingers!

2006-12-12T05:17:00.000-08:00

Last weekend Malchiory asked us to visit his village with him. We were intrigued to find out what kind of background he came from so we went along. We took a dalla dala to his village and then began walking through beautiful banana plantations. We were treated as a bit of a feak show though as mzungus never visit the village. Children would spot us walking up the road and would run to fetch their friends and parents who would all come out and say hi. Sarah wanted to know if she came to England if she would be treated in the same way - she thought people would shout 'African' and point at her.
Before Malchiory took us to his mothers house we stopped off to visit his aunt. Malchiory was disappointed that she wasn't there as if she was she could have shown us his uncle's skull!! Apparently a local belief is that after 12 years of being buried the wife traditionally digs up the husband then reburies all of the bones but the skull. She cleans this and keeps it in the house as she feels safer having a mans presence about!

Malchiory then took us to his mother's house (picture above) where he and his 10 brothers and sisters were born. Imagine twelve people living there?! All of his brothers and sisters are really close in age - sometimes only 8 months between them! His family were all very welcoming and insisted that we try some of their home brew which is warm, lumpy and made from rotten bananas - nice! Adam kept Malchiory's many nieces and nephews entertained (and quite scared) with his 'removable magic finger!' - a trick which he learnt from his uncle many years ago (which he now recalls absolutely terrified him as a child!).

It was really inspiring to see the background that Malchiory comes from and how hard he has worked to achieve everything he now has.

If Adam was Tanzanian he'd be a Chagga!

2006-12-12T04:47:00.000-08:00

The English teacher at our school, Beatrice, comes from a local village that is about an hour and a half away. A couple of weeks ago she asked us to go with her to see her family in their home village. We arranged to meet at 8:00 am (on a Saturday!) in town where we would then catch a dalla dala up to her village. We had been out the night before as some of our friends were leaving and it was also another volunteers Birthday so when the 7:00 alarm began to ring we weren't in the best of moods! We made our way into town and she took us to the dalla dala stand where we were rammed onto the busiest dalla dala I have ever seen. Seriously, it should have heldabout 16 people and instead there must have been 30 on it! We arrived in Uru about 45 minutes later where Beatrice pointed to a really steep hill and said this way!! About an hour later we finally reached her village and were welcomed by her Grandmother and her father. Her Grandmother was amazing, she is in her 80's and still farms the land by hand - picking and sorting the coffee beans. Her father welcomed us in what is apparently a traditional chagga manner - he gave us each a bottle of beer and said 'karibu!' (welcome) - it was only about 10.00am and we were still feeling the effects of the night before!

We spent the day looking round her village, meeting other members of her family who were all extremely friendly and drinking beer (it's the Chagga way!). We decided that if Adam was Tanzanian he'd definately be a Chagga!

Adam the angel????!

2006-11-21T01:05:00.000-08:00

Hi all

Thought we'd give you all an update on Sarah's School.

As we mentioned in a previous entry there's a teacher called Sarah who runs a school for free every afternoon from her front room. It is her dream to set up a proper Nursery school (for 2 to 9 year olds) but without proper desks, benches and a blackboard she doesn't stand a chance. Sarah and her husband, Malchiory, both work extremely hard holding down two jobs and hardly seeing each other but still they struggle to survive on their incomes - let alone save to start a business.

After working in her school for a few weeks we decided that we would like to help this family to start a proper school. Adam helped Sarah and Malchiory to work out the costings and feasibility of the project one afternoon while I entertained 25 children in the baking sun! Armed with his business proposal Malchiory went to see their landlord. He was planning to rent another room in the derelict building they already lived in which would house Sarah's school. However, before he had a chance to voice his proposal his landlord (who is apparently an evil man who you don't argue with) told him that he was being evicted and had 10 days to get out. They had been living their for 5 years.

We arrived at the school a week last Monday ready to teach the children to find everything locked up and Malchiory sitting outside. He explained what had happened and told us that after alot of searching over the weekend they had eventually found an empty building with a room big enough to house their small school. However, they hadn't been able to find anywhere to live. He took us over to the new building which is much nicer than the one they used to occupy. Only problem is that there are no doors or shutters over the windows.

As the days went by Malchiory was having no luck finding a home that he could afford to pay rent for every month. He was getting quite desperate (understandably!). After the weeks events we wanted to help Malchiory and Sarah more than ever and so spoke to some of the volunteers here who had also been working at the school. We all decided to give some money to try and turn this building into a school. After clubbing all of our available cash together though we were still short. As a final attempt to help them we e-mailed you guys who have been amazing and donated loads of cash which is very, very much appreciated. Last Thursday we realised that we had enough money to not only secure the schoolroom but to also transform the rest of the building into a home for Sarah and her family.

On Friday morning we went to tell Sarah and Melchiory the good news. They were completely overwhelmed and described the situation they had been in as the 'darkest period in their lives'. They said that they felt that God (if you remember from our earlier church entry they are very religious!) had sent us to Tanzania - like angels into the darkness - to help them. It is definately the only time that Adam has ever been referred to as an angel!

We spent the rest of the morning with Malchiory pricing up doors and shutters for the house and deciding how much paint we needed to buy. Then on Friday afternoon 7 volunteers decended on the house to begin work. The walls were filthy and the plastering wasn't the smoothest so before any painting could be started everything needed to be sanded down. Malchiory had asked one of his friends- who also happens to be a Masia watchman - to come and help us. He decided that the sandpaper wasn't doing a good enough job so got out his Masai knife (approx 50cm long!) and started to attack the walls!

Unfortunately there have been a few days without electricity (not unusual for Tanzania) so the shutters and doors are now behind schedule as the wood needed to be machined before anything could be made. We have also had some heavy rain over the past few days which has highlighted the fact that the roof is leaking and 9 of the internal roof boards need replacing as they look as though they are going to collapse! On a more positive note though the schoolroom and one other room has now been undercoated and are ready for a final top coat.

The secondary school that we work at has exams this week so we are going to spend our time decorating Sarah's house and school. Luckily for us quite a few of the other volunteers out here are also going to give up their spare time (after they have spent a day on their own projects) to help.

Thanks again to everyine who has contributed to making this a reality for Sarah and her family. You will never know just how much this means to them. We promise to send pictures soon!

2006-11-17T01:56:00.000-08:00

All of the volunteers that are here in Moshi live in two houses and each house has four members of Tanzanian staff; a cook, a cleaner, a gardener and a watchman. When we arrived we noticed that one of the houses was noticably dirtier than the other and our co-ordinator explained to us that this was due to the fact that the cleaner in this house, Scholastica, was very ill with Malaria. For the first three weeks we were here Schola was frequently visiting the doctors and was finally admitted to hospital. It was decided that her 7 year old daughter Eliza would stay living with the other volunteers while her Mum was in hospital as her relatives lived too far away for her to be able to continue going to school.

Tragically however Schola never came out of hospital. On 25th October she died, leaving behind her 7 year old daughter. Although she officially died of Malaria it is widely thought that she was suffering from HIV / AIDS. Apparently there is still such prejudice here associated with HIV that no one ever admits to suffering from the disease. Even to the extent that some people refuse treatment as they will not admit that they have it. Over 1500 people attended her funeral.

Eliza has continued to live in the volunteer house. Her family is having meeting to decide who she should live with and when school finishes in two weeks she will leave the town where she has lived all of her life and her friends and go to live with relatives in a small village.

Last week we popped round to the other volunteer house and found Eliza holding an identity photo (it had been on the wall in the i-to-i house) of her mum. She was just looking at it and crying. It made us realise just how fragile life out here is. Unfortunately Eliza's story is not a rare one.

In an attempt to cheer her up we decided to take Eliza swimming. The cook from our house asked if she could come too so yesterday we all met at the pool and had a great time pushing each other in and trying to teach Eliza to swim. Swimsuits are rare in Tanzania so both Emmy and Eliza came in in just their underwear.

So good to see her smiling and laughing.

Can you cut with scissors?

2006-11-17T01:08:00.001-08:00

Hi!

I didn't have time to update the blog with all of the things that had happened last time so here is the next instalment!

After several weeks (8) of hair growth I finally bit the bullet and went and got my hair cut. There are lots of places to get your hair cut here, however there are several complications. 1 They are all little wooden shaks that are on the side of the road. 2 They never have Mzungu men in so they are not sure how to cut straight hair. 3 there is a chance that you will get scabies from the hair cutting equipment. All said my head was getting too hot and it had to be done!

I found a small "salon" that looked clean and went for it. All of the equipment was disinfected prior to the hair cut, so no scabbies (how kind!). The "hairdresser" got the clippers and went to shave a bald line down the middle of my head. I was on my toes and managed to thwart his attempt. I managed to comunicate that I wanted my hair cut with scissors. He routed around in a draw and came back with a rusty pair (they will have to do!). I should have known better!! He walked behind me with them and just took a random hack at my hair twice, that was enough for me to realise that I was about to be scalped! So I played it safe and got him to shave my head all over grade 4. Much safer and cooler for me.

It was a hair raising experience! (BOOM BOOM!)

Sleeping at school and our church experience!

2006-11-17T01:08:00.000-08:00

A couple of weekends ago Sarah and Melchiory asked us to go to church with them. As we happened to be in Moshi that weekend we decided that it would fun to go so we arranged to meet at 08.00 at Sarah's home. New volunteers arrived on the Saturday so we had quite a big night out. Our alarm went off and as we had only been in bed for 3 and a half hours church didn't seem quite so appealing but we'd promised to go so we got up and made our way over to Sarah's.

When we arrived the family was waiting for us dressed in their sunday best. Sarah walked with us to church and on the way explained that church didn't actually start till half past 10 but she ran a Sunday school class and she wanted us to see it! Sunday school in Swahili - not really Adam's thing - especially after little sleep and lots of beers!

After what seemed like an eternity Sunday School finished and people started to arrive. We all sat in rows and the singing started as you would expect. We attempted to sing along in swahili - haven't got a clue what we were saying but never mind!

Then the pastor started to speak, obviously in swahili so we didn't understand a word. After a while he paused and the organist stood up and explained in English that the pastor had been welcoming us to the church - we were sitting about half way back so looked around at everyone and said thank you ( or asante sana) and smiled. The organist then said 'now it's your turn - please come to the front'. With that Adam and I had to walk to the front of the church and give a speech about who we were, why were we here and then thank everyone for welcoming us to their church.

With that done we sat back down and the pastor exclaimed 'now it is time to praise the Lord!' With that everyone stood up, put all of their song books down and the organist started to play. The person sitting right at the front of the church turned round and started to improvise - singing words about loving Jesus and praying etc. Everyone else was clapping and whooping and repeating every line that was sung. After a while it was the next persons turn, then the next and the next. Adam and I glanced at each other - we were both clearly thinking the same thing. What on earth were we going to sing when it was our turn! We were both panicking. Before we knew it it was Sarah's turn and I was sitting next to her - it would be my turn next - arghh!! Luckily just as I was about to launch into singing asante sana Jesus (thank you Jesus) over and over the organist stopped playing and everyone sat down. I have never been so relieved!

After several hours the ceremony ended in a maize auction (gambling in the house of the lord!). All in all church lasted for just over 5 hours! Not great considering the night before!

Last weekend a few of us went to the Pare Mountains to do some hiking. The Lonely Planet said that we should arrive at the village in the mountains and ask for Ferdinand - he should be at the local secondary school. We followed the advice dubiously and were surprised when people at the school knew exactly what we meant.

We explained to Ferdinand that we wanted to climb Mount Kinderoko the next day and after arranging to meet us 'hapa' (here) he introduced us to the headteacher. She was very apologetic that there were no beds made up for us but offered to sort some out and then cook us some food. We were slightly confused as were planning to stay in a hostel we had passed but she insited that she would be able to sort things out for us. Some of the pupils of the school then showed us the way to our accomadation which was in a small boarding house within the school! Later that evening the headteacher came to fetch us and took us back to her house to eat dinner which she had prepared when she finshed her school duties!

Had a brilliant weekend hiking during the day and drinking in the teachers on site bar in the evenings.

Fights in the classroom!

2006-11-13T04:07:00.000-08:00

Hello again!

Well it's been another week since the last update so it's time to let you know what has been happening in the life of Adam and Ellie.

I have managed to annoy most of teachers at the secondary school El and I teach at this week. We found out last Monday that the children have to pay 145,000 tzs (2500 =1 fine British pound!) for their first year at school and 20,000 every year after. This covers their uniform, teachers wages and lunch etc. However as the school only opened in May all of the students are new and therefore all of them are paying 145k. I was so shocked to learn this as 145k is a huge amount of money in Tanzania and so it was no surprise that over half the school has at some point been sent home for non payment of fees! My shock kind of turned to anger considering the "can't be bothered attitude" of most of the teachers who don't teach their lessons and just get a child in the class to write something on the board.
We decided to confront the teachers that weren't teaching when they were supposed to in an attempt to bully them into their classes. This was partially successful and some of the teachers appreciated what we were saying. The situation detriated further on Wednesday when I had to leave my lesson, run into the other class, fight my way through a chanting crowd to stop two lads beating each others brains in (during a history lesson!). The reason for the fight is not important but it happened because there was yet again no teacher in the classroom. As you can imagine given our recent conversations this incensed both of us and we ended up having a heated discussion with the teacher concerned. This seems to have done the trick as all of the teachers went to their classes today when they we supposed to be there without any hassling from us. Success at last!!!!!

On a positive note about school, the English lessons are going really well and the children are getting better at actually interacting with each other during the lesson. It has been difficult to get them to do anything that isn't just copying off the board as this is all that they are used to. They are enjoying the lessons so much that we are going to run lessons at the school during the Christmas holiday (all of December) and it looks like the majority of the school is going to come.

Masai Madness!

2006-11-05T06:03:00.000-08:00

Yesterday a group of us visited a remote Masai village - we had an amazing day!

We arrived near some Masai bomas and began to walk towards a group of Masia men in the distance who were standing under a tree. I wasn't really sure what we were going to see, maybe some dancing or a medicine man? I would never have imagined what actually happened!

We arrived at the group to find two of the Masai men holding down a goat and another sharpening a huge blade - you've guessed it - they were about to slaughter the goat and they'd brought along the naive mzungus to watch! It was horrific / amazing - they killed the goat (with us all standing round gasping with shock!) and then proceeded to skin and carve it. Meanwhile we all stood around taking millions of photos (definitely some for the album!). Once it had been skinned they started to remove the organs - they popped out one of the kidneys and a Masai man ate it - the next one they offered to our friend who had to eat it to be polite! The raw kidney eating was swiftly followed by drinking the warm, congealed blood that had been sitting around in the sun for 20mins! Mmmm tasty!

After this traumatic start to the day things proceeded in a more expected way. We visited a Masai village and saw women and girls dancing and singing. We were shown round their tiny, round mud houses which were so dark you could hardly see. One of the Masai women took a liking to me and decided to hold my hand for most of the trip which was slightly odd.

Just when we thought the day was over we were taken back to the slaughter site of the goat to have 'a bit of a bbq!' Our guide was most disappointed (I was relieved) that the head had already been eaten! There was thankfully just a few organs (we avoided the lungs!) and legs left. We all ate a bit and I've got to admit that it was more normal tasting than we'd expected (considering it had been smoked for a couple of hours over smoldering embers rather than properly cooked).

Our day ended with a visit to the medicine man who can cure almost anything by boiling twigs in water and then drinking the mixture - reliable I'm sure!

All in all a fantastic day!

Hippos and Big Bums!

2006-11-02T00:38:00.000-08:00

We can't believe that it has been almost 2 weeks since our last update - time is going so quickly.

Thanks for all my Birthday e-mails and texts - I had a brilliant day. My Birthday was on a National Holiday so we didn't have to work. Instead we went to a traditional African / Masai village which was fantastic - we got to look around their bomas and see how they live / work. In the evening we went out for dinner with all of the other volunteers (about 20 of us). I had an enormous chocolate Birthday cake with a normal candle wedged in the middle! All washed down with a few cold beers (60p each) and some Konyagi (a bit like gin) and tonic (45p!) - a good night was had by all!

Last Saturday Adam organised a canoe safari as a Birthday treat. We went on a short game drive on themorning and saw loads of giraffes from our truck. Then we boarded our two man canoe and set off round the lake. We saw buffalo, flamingos, giraffes and baboons on the lake shore. It was fantastic being so close to them. As we rounded a corner we heard a huge splash - there were hippos IN the lake! It was amazing - we got to canoe pretty close to them.

Our Swahili is coming along quite well. We've both mastered a few useful phrases - I can book a taxi home and ask the price of and order a cold glass of white wine and Adam has learnt how to say lower price, big bum and you must be joking! All essential phrases in everyday Tanzanian life!

School is going well. We finished reading our compulsary set text yesterday - Mabala the Farmer - about as interesting as it sounds! Now that ordeals over we'll be able to start teaching them somehting a bit more useful.

We've also started to help out at a local pre primary school. The school is run by a Tanzanian lady called Sarah. She works in a Nursery school in the morning and when that finishes she collects approx 20 children from some of the poorest neighbourhoods and takes them back to her school. She runs her school from her tiny front room. She lives with her husband and 2 year old son in part of a disused building which used to be a bar. All of the windows are smashed and her front door is made of an old beer advertisement. There is no electricity or running water. The children at her school speak fantastic English for their age - better than some of our secondary pupils. We found out last week that Sarah does not get paid for running this little school - she does it because she knows how important education is.

On a cheerier note - we had a halloween party last Tuesday. Everyone dressed up in a Tanzanian / Halloween theme. The costumes were fantastic (especially considering the lack of resources and time that went into creating them). In the fancy dress competition Adam (who was dressed as an African lady complete with taco kumbwa, big bum!) came joint first with a giant pumpkin!

This afternoon we are going swimming with children from one of our friends projects. The children live in an orphanage where they sleep 4 to a bed and conditions in general are pretty grim (1 toilet). Our friends are bringing them into town on a dalla dalla (a local mini bus that has no restrictions on the number of people it can squeeze on) which should be an experience - especially as they are all going to be extremely excited!

Hope to hear from you soon!

Mzungu!

2006-10-20T02:16:00.000-07:00

We're only at the end of our second week in Tanzania but it feels like we've been here for ages. We walk to school every morning through the town of Moshi and then through the poor housing area where our school is based. The walk takes us just under an hour and the last half through the houses is definately the most interesting. We can't walk more than 5 metres without someone pointing and shouting Mzungu! (white person!) and running over to see us. Adam has learnt how to say high 5 in swahili so is now the most popular mzungu around! It might also have something to do with the fact that he has taken to using the small children who follow us around as make do gym equipment and lifts them up in the air over and over again. Alright for him but not so great for me as they expect all Mzungu's to do it!

School is going well. As we said before there are about 50 children in each class, however this week over half of the school was sent home for not paying the latest installment of their school fees (20,000 Tzs a year which is about 8 pounds). Quite nice to have 'normal' sized classes for a change! Ad's started a couple of football clubs after school with the only other male volunteer - they were impressed by his football skills (and the fact that he brought with him real footballs and not plastic bags scrunched up into the shape of a ball!) I ended up taking a Netball session - thought they would have played before but it turned out they hadn't - they thought netball was running around holding the ball and then punching the person with the ball to try to get it off them - slightly different to our version! Had fun trying to explain the rules!

This afternoon we are meeting some of the other volunteers to go on a pub crawl through the poor part of town. We get treated like celebraties there and the beer is really cheap - about 30p a bottle! ("YIPEEE!!" says Adam!). We haven't been to many of these small local bars yet so thought it would be fun. We did go to the bar attached to the local football club the other day though and everyone stopped and stared as we walked in but then continued dancing on the stage at 5.30 in the evening - strange!

Looking forwards to hearing from you. We'll update again soon!

Tanzania!

2006-10-17T04:28:00.000-07:00

Our journey from Nairobi to Moshi took us eight hours on a very hot and dusty bus. Got to admit that this was probably shorter than we anticipated, especially as it included being dropped off in a car park in the middle of no where and waiting over an hour for another bus to pick us up!

It was definately worth the journey. Moshi is a very busy little town where you can buy almost anything - and if you don't have cash swapping things of your own is fine! There are loads of restaurants and bars - however - they are very much on African time - all of the volunteers (about 16 of us) went out for dinner last week at half 7 and our food finally arrived at 11pm!! Much to our surprise the local swimming pool is very clean and even has a dodgy looking diving board at one end (neither of us have dared that yet though).

We are teaching at a two class secondary school that was opened last May. Each class has about 50 pupils of varying ages (13 to 17) and abilities. After the shock of the first day where we were told 'teach' (and Ad ended up teaching Tanzanian History) we have begun to settle in .

Hope to hear from you soon.