Getting a bit like Christmas

Dames knows how lucky he is to be outside the walls of Alcatraz.

Note that scarf: surely a federal offence.

This is our Christmas picture. We're high on a hill above San Francisco, having eaten some barbeque at the festively-decorated house of Matt (Bev's brother) and Amanda (Matt's wife). The two red lights in the background are on top of the Golden Gate bridge.

A little to our left, though not actually in the picture, are the lights of Candlestick Park - the venue of the Beatles' last ever proper concert (the roof of the Apple Building in Savoy Row doesn't count). Sadly, they've renamed it Monster Park, because they hold Monster Truck events there now (heathens).

We stayed in South Beach in Miami. We bought shorts and slapped on the Factor 30, but the sun barely showed its face all day. Here's Jules looking lovely and windswept. The next day was absolutely stunning: cloudless blue skies, but, because we were flying to San Francisco that evening, we were dressed in our winter clothes all day. Bah!

Still, we could put the roof down and cruise along Ocean Drive looking pretty damn cool, listening to the local radio stations and generally having a groovy time.

Here's Dames on a streetcar named dessert. We loved San Francisco from the minute we fell out of our shuttle bus and into a bar that served Guinness and Magners. The next day, we strolled along Fisherman's Wharf and window-shopped in Union Square before going over to Matt and Amanda's for much carousing and fun. So much carousing, in fact, that we didn't make it back to the hostel and were kindly allowed to crash at their place. Dames swears that he was woken by a wee tremor at the crack of dawn (9.30 am).

Yo ho ho! It's a pirate's life for us. This is us being tourist-y at Fisherman's Wharf (Worf?). Don't you think Jules looks as though she's contemplating all sorts of mischief?

And a classic tourist pose for Dames, too. Happy Christmas, one and all!

Southern Comfort

(A very brief post.)

• Orlando for Dames' birthday and rollercoasters.
• Tampa to catch up with Bev, Matthew and Dave.
• St Augustine for pirates, forts and (too much) rum.
• Savannah for history and beautiful architecture.

Thanks especially to Bev Dave and Matthew for looking after us:
staying up and drinking red wine into the wee hours;
eating lots of grub;
and showing the hapless tourists what to do.

Jules realises that she's not the only old boiler in town.
Roundhouse Railroad Museum, Savannah, Georgia.



Dames drinks in some style on his birthday. Well, he is Nearly Forty.
Orlando, Florida.


Dames gets to play on rollercoasters on his big day
Busch Gardens, Tampa, Florida


Bev, Dave, Matthew and Jules in a rubbish picture taken by Dames.
Tampa Bay, Florida.


Jules takes in the history of the Sunshine State.
Fort San Marcos, St Augustine, Florida


Our car and our hostel.
Savannah, Georgia.

Where haven't we been?

We last spoke to you all from the lovely, if nutty, city of La Paz. Often claiming to be the hightest capital city in the world, it sits in a bowl of mountains at about 4,000m (13,oooft). Helpful hints at altitude: take small steps; do not attempt to run up stairs; eat and drink in moderation (Damian!); don't smoke; be very careful when you open a bottle of pop (Julia!).

La Pax teems with markets. We saw one street that was devoted to confetti, another to popcorn; and all sold, more often than not, by ladies in bowler hats and enormous skirts. And we thought the eighties were odd.

Boliovian prices are extraordinarily low.

660ml bottle of local beer - 60p.

Room for the night - four pounds

Two course meal in a local restaurant - 40p

Slap-up steak dinner in a plush restaurant, with unlimited salad bar and more chips than you could possibly eat. 10 pounds. For three people.

When we arrived in Peru, we were appalled to be charged a pound each for a meal.

Oof! Sorry it's taken us so long to sit down and blog again. We've been busy, busy busy.





Since we last wrote, we have flown with the Bolivian military to the mighty Amazon basin. In the steamy town of Rurrenabaque, we set off in a dug-out canoe to play with pirhannas (ooo!), alligators (ooo-oo!), dolphins (aaah!) and mosquitoes (ouch!). We spent two nights under canvas, went on hunts for anacondas and sang to the pink dolphins (they seem to take a liking to Damian's Bobby Darin impression).





Here's Dames stealing a banana from a relative (Damian's in the foreground).





When we got back from the jungle, Jules and Dames dressed for action (thanks John and Marie, for the Guinness T-shirt). We spent the next afternoon happily dangling from the canopy on a series of zip-wires, suspended 40m/130ft above the ground. One of the lines was more than 200m/1300ft long (Damian screamed like a girl).

First one to make a pirate comment gets a lick of the cat.

Damian gets into a fashion argument with an ex-Guinnness advert.

The Lady in the Van.
The Other Lady in the Van.

All our luggage is on that bus. On that bus is all our luggage. That bus, on that flimsy raft, contains all our luggage. Not that we were worried at all.

Here is a picture of Julia eating a banana. No camera tricks. No bribery, except, perhaps, te chocolate sauce. No llamas were harmed in the taking of this picture.

Here is a picture of a Digger on a Train. Hello, Oscar!
We took a (dodgy) bus to Cusco, in Peru. And, after a night's cocktails, we headed off at some ungodly hour on the Inca Trail. Six thousand steps, drizzling rain, scorching sun, bouts of flatulence and attacks by marauding llamas could not keep us from our stated goal of well-cooked chips and a decent cup of tea. Oh, and the ancient ruins of Machu Picchu.


Dames tries to remember the words to "Val-de-Ri"

Although it occasionally drizzled, Julia never let her sartorial standards slip.

Day three. Yes, it was absolutely stunning.

Oh look. More ruins.


Julia demonstrates the correct attire for incidents of llama attack.

The High Life

We have spent the last week travelling through Lauca National Park in the North of Chile. At altitudes of over 5000m above sea level, it has been a serious test of endurance. And gin.

Who says coca tea doesn't fix all ills?

Subsidence. What subsidence?

Our humour has matured greatly during our travels.

And we have developed spiritually to a Zen-like state.

Sort of.

Note the classy surroundings, particularly the backdrop.

Guess what? It's a mountain. At 6500m above sea level, it makes a molehill out of Mont Blanc.

Look! They get everywhere.

Andean Wildlife

And you think Dale Winton has a fake tan?

About twenty minutes away from our hostel in Putre are some hot springs. We've managed to laze about in them for an hour or so each day so far. Why break the habit?

What this picture conceals, however, is just how pink Dames' sunburn is. For a man of above-average (so he claims) education, it is astonishing how he failed to realise that taking most of your clothes off at midday, a few degrees south of the Equator at 4,300 metres above sea-level will result in painful reddening of the skin.

Ow.

Ouch.

Ooo.

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Julia tells us just how close she came to actually catching a llama. Please note the stylish headgear.

Ask Dames for his impersonation of a llama evacuation. Spookily accurate, we think you'll find.

We walked for three hours in this desert. Guess what? It was desserted, or Angel Delighted. NB, large mountains to the rear are the Andes Proper. We're at about 5,000 metres, here.

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Don't eat these. Not if you want to sleep, anyway.

Each of us had spent a good half-hour stalking these furry beasts. We drove up to this one and he started to pose. Bastard.

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Rabbits, Jim, but not as we know 'em. Particularly unbothered about humans walking up and snapping them. Yes, that's right: Dames and Jules are now officially wabbit-botherers (before, you only suspected such).

Please note long tail. Deviants.

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Yes, it is this pretty up here. The landscape veers from relatively lush to numbingly-barren within a few yards' walk. Wouldn't build a holiday home here. It's three thousand miles from the nearest KFC. Kentucky Fried Llama, anyone?

Party time in Arica, Chile

Roberto's Hallow'een Party

Thanks for a great week, dude.

Freeze! Or we'll get into focus.

Our gentle host, Roberto.

"...and then you give it a little twist. Like this..."

Adios, amoebas!

Dames finds his vocation.

Half a world away

Well, we’ve come to the end of our whistle-stop tour of central Chile on the Patchmamma (Earth-Mother) bus and have learned that sea lions smell very bad and do a mean impersonation of the Bud commercial - Whatssuuup!, Flamingos are not so pink; dolphins make you want to commune with nature; and Chile still has quite active volcanoes and has miles and miles and miles of very deserted desert.

We set off on Sat 21st with 11 other backpackers with whom we have talked an amazing amount of b******* over some seriously cheap and tasty wine. The hostels have varied in quality, but special mention goes to La Serena for fluffy toilet-seat covers and pelmets/curtain ties in the shower.

In Coldana we explored a deserted train yard with steam trains that were used to transport nitrates. Cue 11 grubby big kids returning to the bus after clambering over, in, through steam trains, engines and funnels.

The nitrate industry fluctuated and, when there was no longer any call for it, they moved entire towns out of the desert and towards the coast. However, they could not move the cemeteries and we visited one that remains. Unfortunately, there is a legend that there is gold buried in one of the graves (to hide it from people who looted the church) and so several of the graves have been smashed open. You can still see the bodies inside that have been preserved pretty well by the hot, arid conditions.

The Chileans are very proud of their mummies and are keen to point out that they were doing it much earlier than the Egyptians. You can also see pointy skulls in the museum at San Predro. The different tribes shaped the skulls with bindings at a young age to differentiate them from different tribes.

We saw the most amazing sunset at the Lunar Valley, but I’m sure you’ll get to hear so much more about sunsets over the next year so we’ll move on.

We’ve been resting up in Arica for a few days now after finding a hostel that is a self-proclaimed “Party House” with no ******* scheduled breakfast or curfew. Roberto (hostel owner and all-round party animal) hosted an impromptu BBQ and nightclub expedition on our arrival. Chileans certainly do love the Village People…

What’s the best thing about Chile?, I hear you ask. Is it the majestic volcanoes that fringe the vast salt flats? Is it the 10,000 year-old mummies that pre-date the Egyptians by 5,000 years? Is it the never-ending golden beaches made up of white, dust-fine sand and iron pyrite? No, no and, again, no. It is that finest of epicurean delights, the empañada.

No matter where the exhausted British traveller lays down his moist-rimmed Panama, whither he lifts a crooked little finger as he supports a cup of Earl Grey, wherever he lays his clean-shaven cheek; he shall never be further than half a furlong from the nearest empañada stall.

Empañada – basically a deep-fried pasty. Always containing cheese of the lowest calibre, but often packed with the finest floor-sweepings of porky goodness. Ginsters have missed a trick by not thinking to drop their products into the cheapest vegetable oil to give them that final, artery-damming flourish of toothsomeness. Mmm-mmm, them’s tasty, my friends.

Aside from the occasional (by which I mean “almost daily”) trip to the empanada stall, we are trying to keep a little healthy. We haven’t cooked for ourselves as much as we should, but we do get in a bit of walking, sometimes at altitude, every day. And, since we arrived in Arica, we’ve tried to play Frisbee in the surf for a while.

Our Castillian is improving by tiny amounts. Yesterday, we noted with some amusement that the Spanish word for ‘wait’, esperar, is also their word for ‘hope’. Anyone who’s ordered food in a Latin-American restaurant, will recognise the irony.

Tonight is Hallow’een. It is also our host Roberto’s birthday. An ominous amount of rum has arrived at the hostel. We have been advised to rest to save our strength for tonight’s celebrations, which bodes. We’ll let you know how our livers fare in the next installment.

More photos soon, promise.

Super Santiago Snaps

Clip clop!

(this one´s for Jessie)

Too much Merlot tonight and this is where we´ll end up.

Jules stikes a pose.

Ah! Reminds us of N21.

There´s a lady to be found hangin´around

on every hill in South America.

Kof!

It`s all downhill from here.