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Michael's Round-the-World honeymoon

a travel blog by The Happy Couple


Michael's view on the trip. This blog is really mostly for me, so that I'll have a clearer memory of the trip when it's done, like a journal, so please forgive me my obsessions like sampling and photographing all the local food and the booze. It's just my thing!

Also please forgive all typos, spelling mistakes and grammar mistakes. I'm usually doing this in a rush, and most of the time it's on such a slow PC that it would take even longer to check for mistakes and correct them.

The blog is usually 2 to 3 weeks behind, but I try to keep next few locations on the map up-to-date. You can see the schedule dates associated with the map if you go to http://blogabond.com/TripView.aspx?TripID=4517 and click "Show Newest First" or, if the maps are causing problems try http://blogabond.com/TripView.aspx?tripID=4517&slow=1
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Upsidedown Munro

Cabanaconde, Peru


We got up on schedule at 2:30am, although I was a bit confused when the alarm went off. Racing around to be ready for the guide arriving “between 3am and 3:30am”, we were interrupted by the hostel bell going then a knock on the door by the owner. Our pickup had arrived five minutes early! I know it's not much, but after getting up at 2:30am I want every last second to get ready. By three we were ready and stumbled out into the street to meet our pickup. It was just a young guy and no sign of any vehicle. We have to wait for the minibus he said. So after arriving earlier than our already early pickup time he is making us wait! Over half-an-hour we waited on the cold street for this minibus to pick us up, and when it did it was already half-full of people, which was odd because our young friend, who had since told us he was also going to be our guide, said it was only going to be us on the trek, and he only had enough walking poles for us.

The minibus climbed and climbed and it got colder and colder. For reasons I never worked out, not only did the driver not have the heater on, but he kept opening the windows. The only sensible theory I could come up with was that he had severe wind and was letting the smell out. So I froze the whole way up and over the pass at about 5000m so was completely unable to get any sleep, which was quite annoying. I was already asking myself why we had booked another tour when we always hate tours. At a (much too late for comfort) toilet stop, Joanne and I ended up swapping seats, and when she sat down she slightly missed the seat, which wouldn't normally be a problem, but this crappy old bus, possibly with no heating and faulty windows, was also missing the arms of the chair, leaving behind only a sharp bit of metal, which sliced a nice long rip right in the seat of Joanne's walking trousers. Now she was really annoyed too. How was she going to trek for two two with her bum hanging out? Having recently been on two tours with my crotch hanging out I had nothing but sympathy for her. She told the guide what had happened, but he clearly didn't know what to do and just chuckled a bit.

By the time we got to the next toilet stop, I had decided that I was going to tell him that it was the fault of his company's badly maintained bus, there is no way my wife can walk like that so, unless he can find some way to get them replaced or repaired, we would like to be driven back to Arequipa to have our full money refunded. I didn't know how it would go down, but the guide seemed like quite a nice guy, even if customer services isn't such a well defined concept in South America. There just didn't seem to be any other way, though, until a little later, I remembered that I had my trunks with me for the oasis at the bottom of the canyon. I told Joanne I could walk in my trunks and she can have my trousers. They would be too long for her, but they are the walking trousers I bought in Cusco, which have two-stage zip-off legs; taking the first stage off would make them short enough. They still had an unrepaired hole in the knee from Machu Picchu, but it's not too serious. Now that I had thought of a way out, there was no way I could maintain my anger at the poor wee guy, at least not as far as insisting on a lift back and full refunds. Joanne insisted that I couldn't possibly because it would be too cold, but now that we were lower again, near the edge of the canyon, the temperature wasn't too bad at all, and it was still early in the morning, so during the day, and as we got deeper, it was bound to be perfectly OK for the short shorts that my trunks are. Nonetheless, to prevent the risk of me being cold, she in turn came up with her own plan: she could wear he bathing costume under the trousers and it wouldn't be so embarrassingly revealing. However the tear would probably still grow when walking, so she still wanted to try and do something about it.

Soon we stopped at the first major point of interest: Cruz del Condor, where we had been pretty much guaranteed that it would be teeming with condors. I wasn't too bothered because we had already seen loads of condors since we arrived in South America and I didn't really consider them anything special, however I thought it might be rather impressive to see them in such large numbers. Most people on the tour, however, were very excited, and when we passed a group of maybe fifteen circling, people were jumping up and down with their cameras squealing to get out; there were already a few tourists there taking photos, but we continued on to the famous Cruz del Condor. There were literally hundreds of tourists here, yet not one single condor. It was bizarre: everyone had their camera in hand, looking out over the canyon. When a single condor came cruising down the canyon everyone went wild, snapping photos, myself included I must admit. It just seemed to be the done thing. Some time later a pair flew around for a while, but that was it! We had seen more condors in the main square of Arequipa the previous morning.

I was more interested in the Canyon itself, after it was so hyped by several fellow travellers, and I had since read that it was over twice as deep as the Grand Canyon, so I was really excited after that. But now that we were standing on the edge of the Canyon, I was not at all impressed. The Grand Canyon must be really boring, I said to Joanne. It didn't look particularly deep or breath-taking. Considering that the Grand Canyon is frequently voted the best thing in the world, I was very surprised. Oh well, no need to make it to the States then, I was thinking. Before we got back in the van, I asked the guide about the possibility of a repair. He said he knows a family at the bottom of the valley who can sew it up, if we can last to there. He didn't even have any Duck Tape for a temporary repair. Of course we should have had some tape: it's one thing that has been consistently wanting in our kit, though usually to tape over speakers directly above our heads on buses, but it had a million uses. Anyway, I reckoned the rip wouldn't grow much when walking down; it was when stepping up I thought it would get worse.

At the next stop our guide got off the minibus and said that the others should stay on to meet their guide in the Cabanaconde, the town we had stopped short of. Now it all made sense; apparently the others had opted for the three day trek, which was the recommended one, but we had decided that we couldn't really spare the time when Joanne was leaving so soon. Ours was going to be a bit tougher going apparently, but that's good: we needed to get fitter. We set off down a well-maintained but very dry and dusty path. We were all slipping a bit, but the new soles on my shoes, in particular, seemed totally inappropriate for the rugged path; more suited, perhaps, to a squash or basketball court. The view was OK, but nothing too different from the sort of views you see a hundred times a year if you are walking frequently in the hills of Scotland. The distance we were going to drop down to the bottom of the valley was just over a thousand metres, though I've since read that the valley is over 4000m deep. I don't know how they work the depth out: perhaps all of the downhill from the high pass we went over is included as well, but that's blatant cheating as far as I'm concerned. Anyway the drop is fairly typical of the ascent on a moderate day's Scottish hillwalking, so the view is fairly similar to the view of a valley between two hills. I decided that the whole concept of a canyon is cheating, since you get much larger valleys between mountains. Everyone else, especially Lucy and Zdenek, seemed really impressed though, so I kept my mouth shut to avoid being a killjoy.

While I was busy being unimpressed to myself, my shoes were slowly falling apart. I got my shoes repaired in Laos and they lasted an extra seven months, included several tough treks; I get my shoes repaired in South America and they only seemed set to last a few days! Typical! Every day I spent in South America seemed to be making me even more of a fan of Asia.

At the bottom of the valley, we stopped for lunch. It was quite nice and green at the bottom, in stark contrast with the parched side of the valley we had come down, where even the cacti seemed to be shrivelled and dying. At least it was a bit prettier here. There were several types of fruits growing, though the guide told us that purple corn was the most important crop. At a prickly pear cactus, the guide stopped and took what looked like some fungus off a leaf, but told us it is a beetle, which is very important for clothes and art. He then crushed what was presumably the chrysalis of the beetle and his hand was covered in a bright read colour. “Oh cochineal”, I said, feeling very pleased with myself when he said, si, cochinilla. What a swot!

After a little bit of climbing we came to drop where we could look down and see the oasis we were staying in for the night, and a little later we had taken the path down and were at the pool. We had asked the company recommended by the Lonely Planet for a quote for a tour and it was about four times what our company were charging. At the oasis, they had told us, they camp instead of staying in the cabins like all the other companies, because they have heard that they have bed bugs; the guy told us he didn't know what these “bed bug” things are, he just knows that there won't be any in the tents. This had made us all a little bit nervous, but I suspected it was just a little bit of industrial espionage, and nobody had reported bed bugs on the online reports of the tours. Nevertheless we checked the mattresses and found nothing. A swim, a meal, a beer, and (most of) one night's sleep later and the rip-off company were proved to be liars. There were no bed bugs.

The next morning we were up in time to set off at 5am. The guide had told us there was an option to start at 6am if we wanted to rent a mule to take us back out of the valley, but we had all bravely refused. The climb out of the valley was a bit harder, since we were going up, but near the top it really started to take its strain on all of us, because of the altitude. It's not so high we would have been bothered by it normally, but you feel it earlier when you are exercising hard. Joanne and I made it to the top before the first mules past us, carry all the lazy people from another group. Lucy was really struggling by the top, but she managed anyway.

Then it was a ten minute walk to Cabanaconde town for breakfast. We were taken to a really nice looking bar / restaurant, where the manager was running around clearing up glasses when we arrived. Sorry we had a big party last night, he said. While we were eating our breakfast a confused looking tiny old lady appeared at the back of the bar and hung around for a bit. Apparently she had accosted Joanne on her way back from the toilet, but she hadn't been able to communicate with her. The manager went to the door, shoed her away, and closed it behind her. Not long later she appeared again and this time he took her and led her through the bar out through the front door onto the street. As she was taken past us she was saying buenas, Señor to everyone she passed. The manager came back and explained that it was his granny, who was ninety-two. He said she sometimes gets confused and forgets things: she still thinks that this is her house. I don't know why he kept kicking her out though; she seemed harmless enough and very polite and friendly. And, after all, it is her house. Zdenek reckoned he was embarrassed of his old granny.

After breakfast, we went to the main square to wait for the bus, passing granny on the way, shuffling down a street, saying buenas to everyone. We waited ages for the minibus and other groups appeared. We wondered how on earth we were all going to fit into it. When it arrived one of the other two guides and the bus driver told our guide that he had got it wrong and there was no space for us; his bus must be at a nearby town getting repaired, so they prevented us from getting on the minibus and insisted that their groups get on first. Then it came out that our names were on the sheet after all, although it seemed like the company had messed up and booked one place too few. That meant crushing up a bit on the bus, and when I got on I couldn't see a seat. “Where should I sit?” I said, and the evil guide replied “ask your own guide”. What a nasty piece of work! It transpired that there was a seat for me at the back, crushed horribly between a fat guy, who couldn't help it, and a silly macho French guy, who seemed determined to win at shoulder jockeying. A nightmare!

Luckily it wasn't too far to the lunch spot, where we had been told we could choose our own restaurant on the main square. Instead, we drove right through the main square to the edge of town where we parked outside the only restaurant in sight. The evil guide told his people that they could have a look and decide, but our guide said nothing to us, he just looked bullied and crushed. Stitched up again! Typical of a tour! It was predictably expensive: there was a buffet, which I have banned myself from, especially at that price, and nothing cheap on the menu. Joanne opted for spaghetti bolognese, which was one of the cheapest things on the menu, and I refused to buy any food, settling instead for a beer for lunch. Lucy and Zdenek gave in and had the buffet but, apparently it was pretty awful. After lunch we made sure we were back on the bus early to get good seats to the hot springs (not included), then we left the hot springs early to ensure good seats for the long trip home.

Joanne was planning to go to the office when we got back to ask for compensation for her trousers, which, although she had got them free in China, were good walking trousers: possibly not fake North Face, and now they were ruined. Now she was also going to complain about the minibus and restaurant, and the other guide if he turned out to be from the same company. I asked our guide and he said that, no, both the other guides were from the same company, but not his. So they were ganging up on him and bullying him. And he was only twenty-one. Poor thing.

In the event, we arrived back much later than scheduled and we didn't have time to complain at the office, just head off for our bus to Nazca. Lucy and Zdenek were staying for another day to relax but, as always, we had to keep moving. The cheap bus company we had chosen was a shambles: they had no idea how they were loading the luggage and seemed to have a very complicated and pointless process for doing so. It took forever and the bus left more than an hour late. By this time everyone on board was getting very annoyed and stamping on the floor. The bus itself was fine. The seats themselves were fine. We had been a bit worried about these when we went for the cheap seats on the cheap bus, but they were both up to the usual standard. The problem we should have foreseen is that they had crammed 66 seats on the top floor of a bus that usually only has 40 seats on that floor. What fun! Remarkably, I got some sleep, but Joanne had a terrible night. We both had very sore knees by the morning.


permalink written by  The Happy Couple on November 14, 2009 from Cabanaconde, Peru
from the travel blog: Michael's Round-the-World honeymoon
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Arequipa, Peru




permalink written by  The Happy Couple on November 14, 2009 from Arequipa, Peru
from the travel blog: Michael's Round-the-World honeymoon
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Nazca, Peru




permalink written by  The Happy Couple on November 15, 2009 from Nazca, Peru
from the travel blog: Michael's Round-the-World honeymoon
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Etch-a-Sketch Popinjay

Nazca, Peru


As soon as we got off the bus in Nazca we were confronted by hoards of touts waving leaflets at us, all desperate for our business. We hadn't seen anything like this for a while, maybe since Asia, but it soon became clear that this really is a one-trick town: all the touts seemed really surprised that we had somewhere to stay. Often they are surprised you have somewhere to stay already, but here it was at all; the representative of every company offering their flights seemed keen to emphasise that they had luggage storage. Clearly most people do not have a hostel to store their luggage in. We had been thinking about staying for two nights, just to slow down a little before Joanne left, but the presumption was already making us have second thoughts. Walking through town to our hostel made our minds up: we would only stay one night after all. It wasn't that the place was horrible; it just seemed like there wasn't much to it.

At last we were near the coast, so for lunch we went our for cebiche; or ceviche, they don't seem to be able to make their minds up, but since they are pronounced the same way in Spanish it doesn't make that much difference. I ordered mixto and Joanne ordered simple or solo pescado. They were both delicious and came with a big pile of large white corn kernels, a few slices of some unusual Andean potato a bit like a sweet potato, and garnished with seaweed. At last decent food again! They also gave us a little pile of salted maiz cancha or “corn nuts”, which is like unpopcorn. That night we drank a bottle of Peruvian wine. It was OK.

As usual we were up early, not long after seven, and Joanne realised that she had misplaced the guidebook. This wasn't too serious for her because she was going home soon, but I was going to be in trouble without any kind of guide. We asked at the hostel but, even though she was sure she had left it at the internet PC the night before, nobody had handed it in. We went all the way to the cebicheria in case we had left it there, but they had found it either. The most likely explanation remaining is that some scumbag other traveller just put it in their bag.

We couldn't investigate further because it was time for our hostel pickup to see the famous Nazca Lines. First we were taken to a hotel where we were shown an introduction video all about the Lines. But before it was finished we had to go back to reception to be whisked off to the airport, which was very small, with lots of screen all round the waiting area, showing various videos about the Nazca Lines in different languages.

Soon we were bundled into a four-seater Cessna C172, along with a Brazilian guy. It's so small that we couldn't even take our bags in with us; they had to go into a small boot under the wing. As soon as we started down the runway I remembered that I love flying (though not flights), and I particularly enjoy flying in these little planes. We climbed a bit and flew for less than five minutes, then the pilot asked me if I was ready before banking sharply to the left, while chanting under the wing, under the wing, under the wing like a mantra. In fact he kept reminding me of the hypnotist character from Little Britain, saying look into the eyes, look into the eyes, not around the eyes, except this time it was look under the wing, look under the wing, not towards the tail.

Anyway there it was. The Whale.

After circling it a couple of times at what seemed to almost ninety degrees, and checking I'd seen it, he flattened out, turned back, and went around it the other way for the other two (I was on the pilot's side). Next it was the Trapezoids.

In fact there are loads of lines, shapes, and “runways” all over this desert. The stylised animals only make up a small fraction of the marks in the desert, though the vast majority are very long, very straight lines. Next up was The Astronaut.

I thought this was a bit silly. Why isn't it just a “person”? Anyway it is quite different from the rest in that it's done on a hill, and it's much messier. Maybe the hill made the work so much harder to do, maybe it's a fake later addition, though I think the archaeologists would know about it, or maybe it was made by aliens. Stupid aliens, who can't draw neatly. It's just not up to the same standard are the rest. Then it was the very impressive Monkey.

This is particularly impressive because the nearest monkey would have been even further away than the nearest whale for these desert dwellers. Next up the Dog.

People say, yeah, but how did they make them so perfect?. Well, I think they are incredibly impressive, outstanding achievements, but perfect? Have you even seen a dog that looks like that? It's got two tails apart from anything else, but maybe that's supposed to represent it wagging. Perfect? No. Next Spider.

This one's interesting because it's the first that it is so obvious that the animal shape leads on from other more usual straight lines. One of its feet has been started at a pair of parallel lines. Next the Condor.

A bit less obvious than some of the others, but not bad considering that it is maybe more than one thousand years old. The desert gets so little rain, that even small accidental marks made on the desert stay for a very long time; tyre marks made in the vicinity of the Lines in the 20s are still visible today. The Lines however were made deliberately and are even more resilient than the tyre marks. Next up was the incredibly clear Humming Bird.

I have some doubts about the names they have give all of these. I think the design for the “humming bird” is very similar to the “condor”. Anyway, the humming bird also has obvious construction features, starting at its beak. It reminds me an awful lot of Etch-a-Sketch, where it is not possible to lift the “pen” from the “paper”, so you have to sneakily connect all shapes with construction lines. In fact I wonder if some of the less distinct faded shapes all over the desert are first attempts that have been erased, in an analogous way to Etch-a-Sketch: agitating all of those cleared rocks back where they came from, would make a reasonable job of clearing the image. Next, we passed over some marks in the desert which the pilot did not point out to us. I took photos anyway.

Then it was another short flight and we were at the parrot.

Not sure how they know what it is. Doesn't look much like a parrot to me. It was one of the most obvious images from the sky though. Next I think it must be the Alcatraz or Heron Bird, but it doesn't really look like the image on the map they gave us, and it's very hard to make out.

Then the images they call Tree and Hands.

The tree I am happy with, but I think “hands” looks like it's supposed to be some sort of other bipedal creature, probably another bird. Between the two figures, they have built a viewing tower, and isn't it remarkable luck that they could build the Transamerican Highway right through this site and only skim past a couple of images without ruining any? For good measure he took us past the parrot again.

Joanne had been looking a bit green for a while, but had not needed the sick bag in front of her. On the return flight I started feeling slightly sick, but even before we landed I was feeling better again. I think it was all the looking at the back of my camera instead of out the window. When we got out of the plane the Brazilian guy in front was grey and sat with his head between his knees for a while. Even when the bus came to take us back to our hostels he didn't seem any better. Everyone we had spoken to before this had mentioned feeling very sick, so Joanne had taken a pill for motion sickness, thankfully, whereas I thought sheer machismo and bravado would get me through.

Just to prove that we were feeling sick, we went to a much cheaper, non-touristy cebicheria for lunch. We also ordered chicha morada which I had seen on menus for a while, but it was only on the Colca Canyon tour that I realised it means purple corn. It's really niced, not too sweet, and flavoured with lots of spices.

Then we took a bus to Ica. This time I opted to pay the extra S1 for ejecutivo to avoid the misery we had suffered on the Andoriña bus on the way to Nazca.

permalink written by  The Happy Couple on November 16, 2009 from Nazca, Peru
from the travel blog: Michael's Round-the-World honeymoon
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Huacachina, Peru




permalink written by  The Happy Couple on November 16, 2009 from Huacachina, Peru
from the travel blog: Michael's Round-the-World honeymoon
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Final Luxury

Huacachina, Peru


We had really splashed out for Huacachina, since it was Joanne's second last place, and we had already booked a hostel in Lima that we had been recommended, so this was the last indulgence. Imagine our disappointment to discover that the “hotel” has no internet facilities; not even ones you can pay for, never mind free wifi! Imagine our further disappointment when we realised that there aren't any power plugs around the bar or outside areas for you to plug your laptop into. Imagine us not quite being able to contain our disappointment when we realised there was no TV in the room. OK, we got towels and soap, which hostels didn't always supply you with, but the rest seem to be considered standard in a hostel. Strange. The more you pay the less you get.

Never mind, it was a very nice place, with a convenient HUGE sand dune just out the back gate, and it did have a swimming pool which hostels hardly ever do. AND it was sunny and quite warm, for the first time in Peru, which is ridiculous because we were rapidly approaching the equator, so I think it should have been warm all the time, if not sunny. We went to a nice chilled-out bar-restaurant nearby for dinner, which had lots of tiny cute kittens in the garden, who were chasing their mother's tail. Back at the hotel, the barman wanted us to try his version of a caipirinha, using vodka, passion fruit, and limes instead of the usual cachaça and limes. It was very nice indeed.

The breakfast was the same rubbish that you get in most hostels in Peru, though you could pay S5 to get eggs. We've had three-course lunches for S2.50 each! Anyway, it was an indulgence. We relaxed and sunbathed by the pool waiting for Lucy and Zdenek to arrive. I realised that this was the first time we have relaxed and sunbathed since the start of Cambodia. In February! Travelling is NOT a holiday. Since we were still quite near the coast, we tried the hotel cebiche. It was quite nice, but not as good as the stuff in Nazca.

When Lucy and Zdenek arrived they seemed delighted with the place; they had decided to spoil themselves here as well. The previous day we had booked all four of us places to go sandboarding. Tess and Liam had done this before we met up with them again in Cusco, and Tess has sustained a bloody nose and a black eye doing it (so Liam claims, anyway).

The sandboarding included a dune buggy ride, which I hadn't been that bothered about: I had been on a quad bike in the Namib Desert, so I'd been there done that. I had no idea! These dune buggies are fantastic vehicles: 3.5 litre diesel engine, or so the driver told Zdenek, and that means a lot of grunt. Totally unrelated to a quad-bike. Even racing around town to the dunes was fun, but as soon as we got on the sand it was brilliant. I could not believe how fast we were going over sand dunes. At several crests it really felt like we were going to take air, and all the girls screamed. Then the descents on some of the big dunes was like being on a roller-coaster. What a lot of fun! I want one.

When we came to a stop to admire the view with a big crowd of other people, I was disappointed it had come to a stop. We had paid for one hour and the clock was ticking! The drivers laughed when they heard me saying que mierda. But we were soon off again, but not for long. Next it was a stop to go sandboarding. By this time I really just wanted to keep zooming around in the buggy, but it was sandboarding we were here to do, so I thought I might as well give it a go. There were velcro bindings, but apart from that it was very like a snowboard. Which I have never used either, so that's no help.

I bound my feet in an stood at the top of the dune and set off. I went quite slowly then fell over. It was rubbish. The bindings were mostly useless, so that falling over once, means you have to sit there and velcro yourself back in. Meanwhile the girls went down on their bellies. Faster than I started off, I thought. There was a French couple there, who looked very stylish and technical as they went down standing up, but also very slow. At the bottom they confirmed that they were snowboarders when I asked. I walked to the top and I tried standing up again, thinking it might be better if I head straight down, like the people going head first, and it was a bit faster, but I just fell off even faster. It was exhausting walking back up, then I realised that most other people weren't doing it, before the buggy tilted over the crest and came down to meet us, picked us up and took us to a bigger hill.

At the next hill I had one last attempt (I decided) at standing up. It was useless. This time the hill was too big to try again and I just waited with the rest. For the rest of the increasingly large and steep hills, I went head first and it was a lot of fun and very fast if you didn't brake the whole way down. As it got steeper, Joanne and Lucy resorted to screaming the whole way down the slope, despite the fact they were braking the whole way down. Zdenek and I had competitions about who could get furthest by going fastest. Even the French snowboarder conceded that going head-first looked like much more fun and defected to the dark side. His girlfriend pursued her pointless, but elegant standing approach.

Before I really felt like I'd had enough face-first descents, the sandboarding was over. We were buggied to an oasis hidden between the dunes, after following rows of stones lined up together in what absolutely must have been an Inca or pre-Inca road, but nobody pointed it out or mentioned it; this was about fun, not culture. Then we parked up for sunset, in a most unusual place: most of the dunes were empty, but we parked in front of what looked like warehouses or factories; not the most attractive of sunsets. Someone asked a driver what the building were and he responded that they were cocaine factories, hidden in the dunes. I assume he was joking, but you never know.

On the way back to town, we past the main oasis that the town is built around. It smells a bit but it looks nice. Later we went back to the same kitten restaurant because Lucy is mad for cats, especially kittens. Then we got drunk: this was Joanne's goodbye with them.

In the morning, that was it: we had to leave and catch our bus before Lucy and Zdenek were up. Off to Lima!


permalink written by  The Happy Couple on November 18, 2009 from Huacachina, Peru
from the travel blog: Michael's Round-the-World honeymoon
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Lima, Peru




permalink written by  The Happy Couple on November 18, 2009 from Lima, Peru
from the travel blog: Michael's Round-the-World honeymoon
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Goodbye

Lima, Peru


The hostel in Lima we had been recommended seemed very nice, and the owners were very friendly, introducing themselves and remembering everyone's name. It was a shame to have to leave Huacachina so soon as it has been very nice to relax for a change, after getting over the shock of no internet.

We had been planning a big dinner out for our last night together but Joanne in particular was quite tired from the previous night's drinking then early rise and she asked me if I would mind giving the expensive meal a miss in favour of nice cebiche for lunch before she left. So we just got some food in a local place, where they at least sold litres of beer, and had a fairly early night. At least we had a double room.

The next morning was all very depressing, while Joanne checked out and left her bag in storage and I transferred mine to a dorm – a different place from her bag. It didn't seem right. And it wasn't, but that's life, eh?

I think we went out for ceviche but I can't really remember, because we had a few cocktails while waiting for Joanne's taxi, then I continued drinking after she left. Everyone else on the roof terrace was planning to go out to a club that night and I was planning to go with them. The problem was that they weren't leaving until midnight, so common sense dictated at that time, while I still had some, that I should probably just go to bed instead of going out, which is what I did.

I wasn't sleeping too well and my room mates didn't come back until about 6am, when they made lots of noise, which prevented me from properly getting back to sleep again, if I had ever been properly asleep.

So, really, I think that has to be the end of the Round-the-World Honeymoon, because you can't have a honeymoon on your own can you?

With Joanne leaving, I felt a similar fear to the one I had before going travelling, or again before arriving in South America after safe Asia and New Zealand. I didn't have a clue what I was going to do. We had been together 24 hours every day for more than eleven months and I was already feeling completely lost.

Lima seemed like a hole, too.

Fin



permalink written by  The Happy Couple on November 19, 2009 from Lima, Peru
from the travel blog: Michael's Round-the-World honeymoon
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