Great time in Quito!

After our relaxing period to rethink and recover our trip and bodies we thought it`s time again to go back to civilization... Therefore we used Quito and two lovely ladies. Although our characters were absolutely, totally, utterly completely different we still managed to spend two fantastic days togheter! Maybe this was also because of the present of the large amount of Rum-Coke we got from the hostalowner Pierre... Headache and a strange feeling in the stomage is the result but we still managed to shoot some nice pictures of the things we`ve seen in the city!


Making a trip through South America, we believe integration is a very important thing! Berend is here trying to shoot a bear... For me it`s just cold in Quito what it`s unbelieveble after the sunburning time in Puerto Lopez!



Oh by the way, as you all may know, we are now very close to the Equator (evenaar voor de hollanders) and although we don`t understand why just here is the monument (because it`s a line) we had to go there and make really touristic photos... The egg is because our guide showed us the experiment that only on the Equator it`s possible to put an egg on a nail (cause of the gravity). He was trying for a very long time and Berend managed to piss off the guy to put the egg in five seconds on the nail haha, sorry guide!

Beach, ocean and jungle time

Now we are in Ecuador and we have been to Cuenca first. This is a very nice town with beautiful buildings and compared to Bolivia and Peru it is like we came to an increadibly rich country. Since today we are in Quito we know better and Ecuador is relatively richer, but still poverty is huge! But let me entertain you with Puerto Lopez and all the relaxing we did there.
So first our house, a little cabaña with hammock (hangmat) so ideal for relaxing, unless of course your back is completely burned, things that keep happening to Henk and me. And than on 50 meters from our house the beach, ideal for frisbeeing, swimming and drinking Zhumir.













We stayed quite a long time in Puerto Lopez, altough absolutely nothing happend there, ever, but the atmosphere was just great. One day we decided to go by bike (budget savings) to a place called Rio Blanca. Well this was absolutely a stupid idea, at 35° and no shade with too much climbing. We did not sweat this hard during the trip but we arrived anyhow. Here we did a short tour through the jungle, wich is actually secundary jungle and not that rich of animals and vegetation as the primary jungle. Still it was for Dutch standards increadible. We do go into the actual jungle soon. Well the pictures speak for them self, beautiful nature with quite dense vegetation, and some nice animals. Taking pictures of these animals is difficult since they do not always wich to stay put, as was the case with the monkeys.


Oh if you are afraid of spiders then do not go into the jungle, there are pretty nasty ones living there, but also nice butterflies!


Henk and I also went snorkling, seafishing and kayaking around and near Isla Salango. Due to the fact that we were very enthousiastic by it all, we sort of forgot to take pictures of the snorkling and the seafishing and the kayaking. Blame this on the fact that the sun cooked our brains during the trip.... But we did manage to make some nice pictures of the surroundings there.

The fourth time

Alas my friends, again it happened and this time it is the most amazing one. What happend one might ask, well we have been robbed again!!! Again you might wonder, yes again, the fourth time as the titel says. Hmmm what happened. Well we were on a night bus and this time we were cramped (ik geloof dat dat zwaar opgesloten betekend) in between the seats. So we were confidend with the bags between our legs, solid not able to move ourselfs. Well the next morning we woke up, trying to get something to eat from our bags and discovered that my mp3 player was stolen, next we discovered that Henk´s bank card was stolen and then Henk checked his bag and discovered that they took some cd´s. Amazingly only South American music, because U2 and Aerosmith were still there, they had good taste apparently!!!

Okay now we are in Cuenca, Ecuador and tomorrow we go to Puerto Lopez, that is the idea. This is a good thing, because we can now go to the beach, some islands and a national park! Pictures will follow soon within a week we hope, and if not than just bother us with emails!!!!

Last thing, which is quite important we are back to the two man team. We had a great time with Birgit, but we had to leave her in Ayacucho where she is now working with street children. We had a great time with her, especially Henk ofcourse, but me too, what a wonderful woman. Birgit enjoy your time in Ayacucho and see you in Holland.

Machu Picchu

Hmmmm, we've been there, finally one of the highlights of this trip. Seeing Machu Picchu and walking in the valley that surrounds the Machu Picchu, we have so many beautifull pictures that this time it was really hard to make a selection so the amount is a bit larger than normal. Hope you do not mind!

The first pictures shows the group, consisting of the guide Rene, two French New Yorkers Matthieu and Philippe, and of course Birgit, Henk's sweety and Berend le Chacal. The journey was pretty rough from time to time, crossing a big tumultuous river with a cable car, two by two. Or small ridges with 60 meters of space underneath you. Or crossing a river, bare feeted, because our guide could not find a bridge in the night. Or finding a big tree on the railway, which had to be chopped into pieces with axes, due to the lack of a chain saw. We just climbed the tree and continued, but for the train people, well they almost cried. You just got to love it!!





Walking trough valleys we saw a lot of different fruit trees. We never knew that avocado grew on a tree, that bananas had a really big flower (unfortunatelly it opens up in the dry season, what a shame) We saw trees with oranges, citrons, papaya, sort of tomatos (but not the real ones), bananas, avocados and many more that for us were unrecognizable. Henk became really happy when he stumbled upon a bush or tree with coffee beans, pfff look at his face!



Something about our guide, Rene, or the French way for people familiar with Alo Alo.. Rrrrrrenee. Our conclusion of our guide was that he was not a guide, but the most friendly and helpfull Peruvian we met! His physical condition was not what you expect of a guide as you can see on the following pictures. We even lost him at a certain time, but a nice cup of Ron 'Rum', coca leaves and his increadible good spirit kept him going till the end where he just collapsed on his bed. Thanks Rene!!













Finally, a few pictures of Machu Picchu. This place as you can imagine is just amazing so telling about the detailes we will skip and just give some eye candy! Oh the Llama, the holy animal of the Inca's, was making fun of us.... but we did not care, we conquered the Machu Picchu, whow as Philippe always says (the man with his tongue hanging outside).







The trip we did was visible from the Machu Picchu, which made it more special. We came walking from the top along side the river and crossed the river to continue on the railway track. This same track brought us later from Aqua Calientes to NOT Urubamba, where Rene was waiting for us.... silly us!

Lago Titicaca

After a really relax time in Arequipa we went to Puno to see the Titicaca lake. There we did of course a tour on the lake to see the floating islands. It's a very nice boat trip and aside the fact of the high rate of tourism (the family on the island even have song a Japanese song for us...) but it's very nice for the photo-album!! The islands (there are aprox. 25 of them) are completely made of cane, it's a sourch of food and building material. They make boats, houses, souvenirs of it












The boattrip continued to a fixed island called Island Taquile, a beautiful example of Pacha Mama. Just a nice little fact, the inhabints wear there hads just the way of there emotion of that period of about 3 hours. And not the mention if they are single or married which is give away in the size of the pompons on the clothing.










People on these islands are living of tourism for a big part of their life. Also the little children for instance ask about one nuevo soles for a picture. So I played a little bit the dumb tourist when one of these kids asked if I wanted a picture. She did not understand it but took it anyway.










After the trip the next day we went to Cusco/Cuszo. It is not neccesary to bring food on these trips because on the way people are always selling food. Things like pan con queso, choclo con queso, choclitos, or drinks and ice cream. Always for one soles (0.25 euro).













Trips also tend to be very interesting during election time. This trip included a strike half way and we did not have to pay more, amazing!! The stones on the road are from a big monument on a hill next to the road... silly Peruvians.