Huanchaco, Peru

The last few days have been a little uncirtain and we have headed through Peru at a slower pace than we initially wanted. Both because we needed the time to decided what to do next considering the earthquake in Peru, and becasue we wanted to put a little more time between us and the date of the earthquake before arriving in Lima. Our original plan was to go south after Lima, but due to road blockages and more importantly, continuous after shokes, that is no longer possible, and we have decided instead to fly to Cuzco straight from Lima.

Anyways... back to the story of my life.

Leaving Cuenca we headed down to Loja, our last stop in Equador. We stayed there only one day, with the aim of going to see the near by national park. We met an American couple on the first evening with the same plan in mind, and the four of us set off together the next morning in a taxi, undaunted by the continuous (and increasing) drissle. The taxi however, after arriving at the national park enterance refused to take us up the road to the main tracks, and we had to then walk the 8.5km (and then back down later) before we actually got to the park!! And on top of that we had to pay five quid for the privillage - apparently not eveyrhting is cheap out here!! So yeah, after the 2.5 hr hike up the hill we were all pretty drenched and tired so we decied to do two hikes - a 700m one and a 400m one, yes we were a bit wussy, but you have to understand it was bloddy miserable up there!! We then trudged back down the hill only for the rain to stop half wa y- grrr. At the bottom we then hitched a ride in the back of a pick up truck back into town. An eventful day, thought not quite as nature filled as we had planne,d we got some good excersize walking 18km (a grand total of 1.1 of which was in the national park).

Yeah so that was an interesting story, not. We continued from there to Piura in Peru, a town the lonely planet promised to be nothing more than a transport hub. We arrived at 3pm, by 3:30pm we had seen Piura. We met two couples on the bus who ended up in our hostal and drank beer with them until 10pm (this is similar to 2am when you got up at 5:30am the previous morning).

The next day we headed out to Trujillio and from there to the coastal town of Huanchaco, where we are now. After all that bussing and not much stopping we decided to stop here for a few days. Yesterday we saw the ruins of Chan Chan, and today we saw two ancient temples, which were quite cool, and thankfully nothing like the buddist temples I saw too many of in Thailand and China... It was all really interesting - they had a weird way of building stuff and then when they wanted to rebuild instead of knowcking it down, they filled everything in with bricks and then biult more on top, so loads of the art was really well preserved under the bricks. They have only be excavating th sitessince 1990, so loads of stuff was still under sand, but it was very impressive never the less. The king of chan chan apparently had 90 wives, all of whome were burried with him when he died, at the ripe old age of 30, including his head wife (who was in fact his sister). There were some lovely stories.

Whilst I did say this was a coastal town, we are actually in coastal winter at the moment, so there isn´t really much scope for swimming in the sea. Thought one Engish guy we were with did decided to go for a dip this morning, maddness! Thought as Jon commented, only the English would do that in this weather - having said that, I didn´t see Jon swimming.

Tommorrow we are off again. This time down to Lima. Lima is only on the very edge of the earthquake zone (for those who are worried) and there should be no issues there. And we are then flying to Cuzco, not getting the bus - so we will only be in the earthquake zone for about a day, before we are safely on the other side of Peru. Next time I write, you will be hearing about Machu Pichu.

xxxxx

Cucenca, Equador

After leaving Quito we headed south to Riobamba where we stayed for only two days, in fact spending very little "awake time" in the place. The first day was a Sunday and we arrived late in the afternoon so noting much was open. Instead of faffing arround we decided to take a taxi up to the first climbers lodge at the bottom of the near by volcanoe Chimborazo. The taxi ride up there gave some amazing scenery and once up there we could see the snow caped mountain, though there was a lot of cloud, it being very late in the day, we still had an awesome view. We spent about an hour up there, we had two cups of tea at the climbers lodge and we spent about 40mins walking a little way up the mountain in the snow. It was freezing!! Even with my ski jacket and it took ages to warm up when we got back but it was well worth it.

The following bay we did a day trip to Banos, a pretty (but very touristy) little town. Where we swam in some hot baths with a gorgeous view of a little water fall just above our heads and we generally wandered the town. We had an amasing chocolate cake and coffee in a little european bar, i bought another jumper and a wooly hat (I fear the cold!!) and i look quite cute in the hat if i do say so myself :-)

Anyways, so as the title says we are in Cuenca now and unfortunatly I spent the majority of the day in bed yesterday watching TV. I have manged to get myself a stinking cold and i had a stomach upset yesterday as well. Fortunatly I felt fine when i was lying down, it was just getting up and waling around which was not on. Jon was happy tho!! He enjoyed wandering round by himself for once and he also loved that he got to watch TV for the majority of the evening as well!! That was yesterday, today has been better (stomach wise) but not weather wise. We went up to the national park near cuenca and walked round a massive lake. The veiws were lovely however it was cold and raining and we didn´t spend much more than two hours there before returning home for a much needed hot shower (and an episode of CSI - damn jon!! It was a close thing that I convinced him to go out again after CIS, as we nearly had to watch ALIAS as well!!).

Oh, and we have found this amasing restaurant here. We have been there twice so far and I think we will be going there again tonight... We have the like best mixed grill the first night. Mmmmmmmm...... I stuck to something plainer the second night after my funny tummy... I should probably be good again tonight but steak is calling. They cook it infront of you and it smells so good.

Thats all for now,
Love you all,
Aims
xxxxxxx

Quito, Equador

Unfortunatly (for fortnuatly if you are getting bored of me already) the last post was unnaturally short as we only had a 15min stop at the internet cafe. Normally, I write quite a lot - this is mainly becasue I crave news from home and from freinds whilst I am away, as (believe it or not) I miss England and I miss you guys. And becasue I crave news from others, I assume (maybe mistakenly) that you guys crave news from me as well!! If you don´t, well you can pick and choose what you read!!!

To be honest I wasn´t all that impressed with Miami. It was ok as far as beaches adn restaurants go but after 2 days and then a 50min wait in a sweltering heat for the airport bus I was pretty glad to leave!!

Next on the long list of destinations: Quito, capital of Ecador. We flew in from Miami and got here on Thursday night. It is a very pretty captal city and as it is at an elevation of 2800m, we planned a couple of days here to aclimatise to the hight. The city is (naturally) surrounded by mountains and nice high points from which to admire it, including, as I called it - the telephone ride, a cable car up to 4100m, giving an awesome view of the whole city which we went up this morning. Amusingly there was also a fun fair at the bottom and Jon went go-karting!

In the few days we have been here we have investigated both the new town and the old town, the old town is prettier (and safer at night) so we have spent quite a while here. Having coffee in pretty squares or over looking nice views, viewing (and in some cases doing dangerous climbs up) churchs - it really was dangerous, I will add pictures later!! And just walking down the streets. Oh, and naturally eating food!! Set lunches are like $2 for three courses and a fruit juice, it is awesome!!

Hope that wasn´t too boring... send me messages, I love it!! If you send me messages in the comments I may reply too if you are lucky!! Thanks for the comments so far!!
Love Aims
xxx

Miami, USA

And the adventure begins!!

We are currently in Miami enjoying the sun and the beach, it is like mega hot here!! We have explored both South Beach and Downtown Miami and have just spent a relaxing morning by the sea.

Anyways, this really can't be a long post as Jon is waiting to use his half of our internet time. Just wanted to let you all know we arrived safely and with all our luggage. Will talk again from Quito where we are flying to this afternoon!!

Thanks for comments, it is nice to know people were able to find the place and are reading.

Loads of Love, Aims. xxx