Hi all, just a quick note to say please be patient - there is much more to come and possibly a new direction to keep this Blog alive!!!! Unfortunately I have been busy buying a car, moving into a new house, starting work and sorting all of those incredibly mundane things that go hand in hand with "normal" living.

Ecuador is ready to go, there is plenty to tell about Mexico and the USA and lots of pictures. PLUS, I am hoping to change the archived pictures page to a summary of our journey, particularly some stuff about how far we travelled and how we got so far without flying.

Should the stars aline I am also hoping to enter into a charity motorcycle ride to the corner of NSW, Queensland and South Australia - I just need to find a bike worth less than $1000....................

So we left Peru by ship - our new way of saving the planet whilst seeing the world! I'll get around to some detail on our destinations shortly, but firstly, let me explain the ship.
Holland America Lines run quite a few ships and the MS Rotterdam is considered their flagship - not the biggest, not the most exclusive, just a good example of everything the line stands for. Apparently that means "floating care home and retirement village".
Actually, that is unfair, but it is certainly the first impression we got. 
In fact, when getting the port shuttle bus to the ship in Callao, the driver asked me if I was a member of the crew. At first I thought he meant because I wasn't well dressed so just took it on the chin. A day later, having been asked by other crew members if I was with the crew, I realised that we just stood out - at 40 I was way too young to be on this ship apparently. 
So we boarded on a Sunday with a sail away on Monday afternoon. That was good as we had 2 cabins and the 4th member of our party, Shelly, wasn't due to arrive until Monday morning.
Monday morning Molly and I went down to the dock to greet Shelly, but after an hour we gave up - you can only spend so long watching old people get onto buses and Chinese fishing trawlers unloading big, frozen fish onto the docks. So we went back to Molly's cabin to diiscover Shelly's bags there - wow, she had magicked herself onto the ship before our very eyes. By the time we had sailed away, the four of us had become a small item of amusement to many of the other passengers.................within a few days we had helped fuel all sorts of gossip and wonderment! 

The day had been excellent but we still had to get back to Cusco. Our train didn't leave until after 18:30 and took 2 hours to get to the half way point (and our intermediate destination) at Ollantaytambo. The train was entertaining......to say the least. There was bit of food offered, then drinks, then it got kind of weird.
First we got a story about local spirits and folk-lore - that is what I worked out when I looked up from my novel (sat at the front of the carriage) to find a masked demon staring at me, very pleased with himself. Fortunately I wasn't the only one on the train entertaining themselves - a look back down the aisle found a bunch of people who were less than interested with my new reading buddy.
But that wasn't the end of the entertainment. You see we were in Peru, not far from one factory or another that made fine clothing from Alpaca wool. So why not get the stewards to give us a fashion show - after all, the aisle of an old Peruvian train is pretty similar to a Parisian catwalk...........isn't it??!! Well, it is straight.
So we arrived in Ollantaytambo in what felt like minutes - slow train but lots of time passing entertainment! As we expected there were plenty of taxis, buses and mini-vans offering transport to Cusco so we found a good looking, modern, mini van with a couple in the back waiting for a few extra passnegers. We jumped in and hoped that the combination of western tourists, mini van sportiness and an uphill, mountainous drive would all add up to a sedate trip back to Cusco.
Unfortunately, this was kind of the last trip of this type we were expecting to under take this year so the Travel Gods wanted to make it memorable! I mean frightfully memorable to the point that I think I could have just as easily had a full on anxiety attack (or throttle the driver - both not appropriate behaviour but hey, this guy was nuts!). In less than an hour we covered the same route that other vehicles take over 90 minutes to cover - buses take more than 2 hours. Our saving grace I believe was that the moron could actually drive and did know the road. He didn't miss a corner, used the road well and never had to over-brake - but jeez, what a way to earn a living!?
I have learnt this lesson so many times in the last 20 years - negotiate a good price and then save some money to bribe the driver to SLOW DOWN when he drives like a lunatic - kind of like buying a little bit more of his time (as well as saving him some fuel) and buying yourself a life time! 

Getting to Macchu Picchu had become a priority for us by the time we got to Western Argentina. We had to be in Lima, Peru, by 7 November, to get our cruise to the USA. Plus we wanted a couple of days in Lima to look around and get some stuff for the cruise so our travel had revolved around getting to Cusco in time to relax, see Macchu Picchu and then get a "safe" bus down to Lima. 
So from Cusco it was ashort taxi to the train station for the morning departure to Aguas Calientes, the town at the base of the mountains and ridges that are home to the Macchu Picchu ruins. 
We could only book a return train that brought us half way back down to Cusco, so that was a small bridge we would have to cross in the evening - but we figured a lot of people must have to deal with these transport shortfalls at an internationally renowned tourist destination so we were just focused on getting up to the ruins.
The train is probably the slowest form of transport we have taken this year - I think the dying Chinese tuk-tuk driver with the dying Chinese tuk-tuk, sputtering through the rain and smog in Xian was capable of greater speeds........but it was very scenic!
We had considered staying at Aguas Calientes but without a guide book we were relying on the internet and there didn't seem to be a reassuring number of accommodation options available. As it turned out, we could have stayed for at least one night and had a really good time there - we would recommend it to others, as long as you still have a couple of nights in Cusco to enjoy that city.
At Aguas Calientes you get tickets for entry to the ruins and a bus ticket to get you up there. The buses are fairly new 30 seaters which is reassuring as you take in the terrain that you are about to ascend. The road looks pretty crazy on google maps. 
For me this was the part of the journey I wasn't looking forward to. Winding, dirt, mountain roads in an area of landslides, with multiple buses going up and down all day without (as we would discover) any safety measures such as blind spot mirrors, timing controls or radio communication. I think we passed 13 or 14 buses coming down as we went up!!
But was it worth it?? Oh, Yeah!!!!!
The girls liked the views, thought the Alpacas were cool and thought the ruins were magical - but they couldn't shake a feeling of vertigo. For me, I didn't notice the heights (at least not as much as on the bus!) and thought that this was probably the highlight of the year.
It is not just the work that went in to the buildings and terracing to create agricultural fields, the location or the scenery. Standing at Macchu Picchu and imagining a community that accessed it along the Inca Trail, worked the fields daily within feet of hundred foot drop-offs and thousand foot cliffs and experienced weather as dramtic as the scenery - it is truly awe inspiring. It is not as grand or as old as Angkor Wat and it doesn't have the enduring charm of the old European cities..........but it is such an adventurous destination with continuing mystery surrounding it's history and purpose.
Towards the end of the afternoon I went and explored the original trail as far as the Inca Bridge. There are a couple of pictures below that sum up just how perilous the journey to Macchu Picchu used to be. The Inca Bridge was a section of cliffside path that was completed through the bridging of a span of about 6 metres with two tree trunks. As a defence the trunks could be dislodged into the valley below, leaving a vertical drop to be traversed across the cliffside rockface.
There are only a few places that we have been lucky enough to see this year that I have really thought "I want to come back soon" - Macchu Picchu was definitely one such place.
 

Cusco is a really lovely little town, despite actually being a city of over a million people. We arrived at 6 in the morning to find revellers still in the streets after various Halloween parties, yet there was still a peaceful atmosphere and several tourist police keeping an eye on things, particularly Molly and Julia whilst they sat in the town square when I went in search of a hotel.
As with Arequipa, the focus in town was the main square, surrounded by classical spanish styled buildings and several huge churches. I expect that it would be a big destination even if Macchu Picchu wasn't close as it is a very nice climate and very relaxed. Despite the altitude, we found it easier going here than in Arequipa, possibly as the air was more moist? It was great to see green hills and mountains after over a week of desert environments. But in an effort to get through the backlog, I need to leave the photos to tell the story...........

We took a morning bus from Tacna near the Chilean border, heading North to Arequipa through more desert and more mountains. It remained spectacular but we were looking forward to seeing some green mountains closer to Macchu Picchu.
Arequipa is at 2400 metres so our plan was to stop for a few days, soak up some Peruvian hospitality and adjust to the altitude before climbing around the ruins at Macchu Picchu, also at 2400 metres. Our main concern was that the town of Cusco, where trains depart from bound for Macchu Picchu, sits above 3300 metres, high enough to make overnight stays uncomfortable.
Arequipa was beautiful - lots of old European influenced architecture, a magnificent main square surrounded by balcony restaurants and cafes and a backdrop of two huge volcanoes rising out of the dry desert landscape. We decided we needed 3 days to soak the place up and left on an overnight bus to Cusco.

From Calama we had hoped to go by train to Bolivia but Macchu Picchu was calling and we had a deadline to meet - our next cruise left Lima in only 10 days time.
So we took a bus to the Pacific coast of Chile, destination Peru via Antofagasta. We arrived to a fairly dreary part of town and managed to organise an overnight bus to the Peruvian border, departing in about 4 hours time so a chance to explore a Chilean city.
We got a taxi to the boardwalk area and then walked back toward some large shopping malls. Basically, once in the down town area we could have been in any modern city anywhere in the world. It was a buzz to see the Pacific Ocean again and before dinner we watched a sunset over the Pacific Ocean for the first time.
After a traditional Chilean dinner at TGI Friday's, we headed back to get our rather luxurious business class bus to Arica, the last chilean town before the Peru border.
At the border in the morning we organised a taxi to run us up the coast to Tacna in Peru, crossing the border just after it opened for business and joining the queue of old American cars running people and goods to the North. Tacna was quiet and we were able to organise a bus to Arequipa without too much trouble and a leisurely wait. On to arequipa.