9 July, 2006
That Botfly Story You’ve Heard From Me 10 Times Already
In the Peruvian jungle, along the Amazon, lurk mosquitoes carrying botfly eggs. Nothing exotic ever happens to me on trips, so finally, something interesting to write about. I’ve highlighted this post because since I first wrote about it, this page has been visited by over 100,00 people… who are probably somewhat more scared of jungles than they were before.
22 March, 2006
More on my parasite story
Well, my friend Peter confirmed it with a dab of vaseline, some patience and good light. I have a botfly. I’ve done a separate page about it here.
16 March, 2006
Ouchy Wouchy!
When someone says they want to see you at noon, your mind usually meanders to thoughts of lunches. A salad perhaps, or maybe some pasta. And a beer. Hmmmm… lovely lovely beer. Not Dr O’Dempsey. Nice bloke though he is, he had an ulterior motive. You see, since New York I noticed that a mosquito […]
7 March, 2006
Currency exchange when travelling
I’ve often wondered about this – a lot of travellers take out traveller’s cheques or buy currency from their bank in advance. They often then exchange at banks when abroad. As a regular overseas traveller I always felt, but hadn’t really researched properly, that ATM’s and credit card transactions were best – in spite of […]
27 February, 2006
Oh God
There’s a whole lot to catch up on isn’t there? The jungle, leaving South America, and New York. But you know, I’m feeling kind of lazy at the moment, so I’ll describe things in the way of a five year old. That might make for less typing: The jungle was dead brill!!! There were big […]
16 February, 2006
Ouch…
I thought a handy idea would be to carry some samplers of aftershave. Then if I wanted to smell nice I could just use that. Small and light. These samples tend to come in small glass vials. And in a rucksack, small glass vials aren’t so clever. They were safely inside my washbag, but sadly […]
La Cucaracha!
Sounds kinda sweet in the song. But not when one of the b*stard things turns up on your neck. And talk about big… I’ve seen plenty in France and Spain, but this one looked capable of carrying off a small child. Other wildlife I’ve met today includes a gian ant-eater. Comedy looks and big wet […]
The Motocarro (tuk-tuk)
Just a couple of days ago I was in Santiago, a city with a gleaming underground system purchased from the French. If you want to get a feel for the Santiago Metro, try travelling on line 1 in Paris. The trains are almost identical. The main difference is that the system is much much cleaner, […]
In the Amazon Jungle
I’ve just realised, in reading back through the various postings that I’ve missed out on fair chunks of the history of South America that I want to post. But I’m not going to do it here. Stuff like that takes a little more preparation because otherwise you can be exceptionally misleading. But I’m dying to […]
13 February, 2006
Sanhattan! Capital of Chile
If I’d woken up and been told that, due to a bout of amnesia I’d been flown to Madrid, then I could easily believe that’s where I’d landed. Seriously – Santiago is a smart, modern city with efficient public transport, occassional traffic jams, and lots of foreigners trying to make a buck. It feels like […]
9 February, 2006
Worms!
For a panicked moment I thought maybe I’d picked up worms. Perhaps from a cat, dog or llama I’d been playing with. Then I remembered, I’d earlier eaten spaghetti. And I’ve not long had a nasty bout of food poisoning. And it takes a while for the digestive system to work properly after being thoroughly […]
Another high altitude desert – San Pedro de Atacama
I must like them, because I think this is about my third. No more deserts from now, however. My tan is suitably well developed (at least on exposed skin – need to work on my back now) and I think I now understand what dry empty places are about. The Village of San Pedro de […]
5 February, 2006
Sick boy – Arica, Lluta Valley, Lauca National Park
So in Arica, looking for something to do, I found the offices of Raices Andinas (or something like that, maybe the other way round – I don’t have my notes on me) and booked myself on a four day expedition of the local national parks. And this was a fascinating trip indeed, although in the […]
2 February, 2006
Tacna-Arica
These two border towns are found on either side of the Peru/Chile border. Reasonably pleasant, they’re popular for their shopping and in the case of Arica the beach. There’s not a huge else to say about them really and my main reason for coming here has been because they provide the highest density of addresses […]
30 January, 2006
The other half – Partying in Peru
When you travel you try and do everything on a budget. It’s expensive, after all, to stay in a hotel every night, eat out all the time, and pay for buses and flights. But for the past few days I was invited to the beach house of the family I know in Lima (names preserved […]
28 January, 2006
Donkeys and Condors
Condors are scavengers – that means they only eat meat of animals that have died and died recently…. Now, in the Colca Valley the condor watching is a huge draw, although in reality the spectacular scenery should be enough for most. So, to keep the tourists coming and to keep them happy it helps if […]
24 January, 2006
Gin Tonic in Lima Central
It was Douglas Adams that suggested that wherever you are in the universe, asking for something that sounds like “Gin and Tonic” will usually give you the same drink. Of course I’ve only been able to test this theory on Earth, but so far it had proven unbreakable. So in a non touristy town in […]
Peruvian Food
Peruvian food can be quite easily categorised into the following sections: Salty and meaty. Egg based. Dangerous. Salty and fishy. Scary. Salty and vegetarian. Touristic. Lomo Saltado is one of the classic dishes – fried and salted beef, served in a big pile with gravy, vegetables and chips – all mixed together. There may be […]
Machu Picchu
This place is the jewel in the South American tourist crown. An abandoned town at the top of a mountain that never got destroyed by the colonials – partly it seems because it just wasn’t all that important and a lot because of its rather inaccesible location. I won’t bore on about the history of […]
20 January, 2006
Safety when travelling
A lot of travellers worry about being robbed, kidnapped, raped, or jailed for trumped up drugs charges. But they get on a knackered bus, driven by a coca leaf chewing driver for 12hrs at a stretch, along the most dangerous roads in the world, without a second thought. I´m pretty certain more travellers die in […]
19 January, 2006
On top of t’world!
This is a complete re-write of the original, hurried, posting which failed to cover any detail about the Colca Canyon or Arequipa… or anywhere much that had passed between postings. I hadn’t realised I’d been so scarce with information. Arriving High at Arequipa We took what could only be described as a mobile sauna masquerading […]
12 January, 2006
Sand surfing in Huacachina
Would have liked to, but the thought of falling in sand and filling every nook and cranny of my body with sand just didn´t appeal! So instead we climbed up to the top of the biggest dune we could see, watched the sunset, and then ran down using these comedy strides of about six feet. […]
