Pisco to Paracas National Reserve & Isla Ballestas - Peru

From Lima we hugged the Atacama Desert coastline until we arrived in the town of Pisco, five hours south. Destroyed by a scale 8 earthquake 3 years ago, at first glance it does sort of resemble a war zone. 80% of the town was destroyed, so the people have and are working really hard to rebuild it (it was hard to see the shacks set up in the desert by people clearly still left homeless). We stayed near the plaza where everyone seemed to hang out, in a friendly little hostel that was miraculously not affected by the quake. Famous for the drink Pisco Sour (Pisco is like a grape brandy) our hostess served us night caps of the limey drink and I haven't been able to stop ordering them since - everywhere in Peru & delicious!

The next day we set off to Paracus National Reserve and the Ballestas Islands bright and early. The combination of rugged shoreline, mountains and dessert make for a really barren landscape but the wildlife was overwhelming. We set out on a boat tour of the islands and saw Sea Lions, Humboldt Penguins and an amazing number of birds (Cormorants, Boobies, Pelicans etc). The penguins were so cute to watch, hopping along the rocks, flippers together before elegantly diving into the freezing cold sea.

The Humboldt Current brings with it an amazing amount of plankton and fish (as do the fishing boats) so watching the hundreds of birds flying through the sky like long ribbons, ducking and diving into the ocean was like watching a David Attenborough documentary for real - pretty cool!

Peru - Lima

We arrived in Lima, after a luxury (beds & movies) 20 hour night bus from Tumbes on the boarder. Feeling refreshed we found a hostel in the nice part of town, Miraflores and set off on a whirlwind tour of the capital.

We took a guided tour of Haucha Pucllana ruins, dating from the Lima Culture (400AD), a civilisation who worshipped the sea. The site had been buried under a big mound of rubble until the 80's, a lady on our tour said they used to use the area as a bike track when she was a kid! Now the site of the pyramids are being restored to their former glory-ish (formerly 8 miles, now only 2) but it makes for a ore-inspiring but bizarre sight right in the middle of what is now downtown Lima.

After our archaeological fix, we took a walk along the Coasta Verde which was not too different from a windy day out in Brighton and shared a kiss in the Parque de Amor (when in Rome!). At night we discovered a traditional little bar serving up the tastiest pork & mint rolls and watched the world go by. Outside the streets were dotted with marble games tables full of people playing backgammon and chess... very nostalgic. All in all, a pretty good day out in Lima!

Colonial Cuenca - Ecuador

On our way south towards the Peru boarder, we made a stop off in the city of Cuenca. Known for its skilled Panama hat makers (they actually originate from Ecuador), we were looking forward to checking out the local hat makers creations. We'd be shown many a picture by travellers on our way. Unfortunately it wasn't to be, it was a Sunday and the whole city was in total lock down. So we entertained ourselves with a long stroll along the river Tomebamba, drank lots of cups of tea (it's chilly) and took many a photo of the general colonial loveliness. We passed through a gem of a flower market, as one of Ecuador's biggest exports they sure know how to make a beautiful rose!

Feliz Cumpleanos in Tena - Ecuador

I thought I would share some snaps from my 25th in Tena... I was spoilt with a stunning day on the river, trinkets from the market, exotic flowers cut from the river banks; not to mention the birthday cake of dreams.

As Pete said, kayaking is just the best fun - we passed gold panners, waterfalls, tackled new rapids and ended the days paddling we pulled into a little river town Misahualli to check out the resident cheeky monkeys.

In the evening we celebrated with some fab guys we met along our way in Ecuador (John, Jorgen, Sean, Gideon, Franzica) and who really sweetly said they would meet us in Tena for birthday celebrations and treated me to the cake. After steaks all round for dinner, we set off to Spider Bar down on the river to meet John, Jaime and the other local guides for cocktails and to share the love of the gigantic yummy cake - Tengo mucho suerte (very lucky)!

Ecuador - Kayaking School

After getting robbed on the Metro in Quito, and ripped off at every opportunity - even by the pharmacist for vitamins (its not $5 it says $2.55 on the packet!). Going to Tena in the Amazon basin was both refreshing and outstanding.

The refreshing bit was a wonderful hostel called Casa Abuelo, a small family run house with a rooftop pool table and a huge lounge complete with 40inch LCD Samsung. The town is set around a small square and split by a meeting of two rivers. The weather was balmy and on sunny days, factor 30 was more than welcome to relieve the farmers tan on the neck and arms. And in every shop and bar we were charged the same (nice and low) price as the locals, including the best restaurant in Ecuador - Marquis - where you got a bbq steak the size of two fists with all the trimmings on a table with fresh linen for $7. Bliss.

The outstanding part was learning how to kayak, we put ourselves through a 4 day course with local and world champion instructor Jaime. Also on the course was a very nice American guy from upstate New York, he was working in the area and was great company out on the rivers. We started off learning the ropes, getting into the water and balancing the 'boat', on calm water it was easy, on white water it was like balancing an apple on a plastic saucer in a jacuzzi. Very tough. We practiced getting into Eddies, Eskimo rolls and general navigation of the river.

The Eskimo rolls are the toughest, you have to tip the kayak over - WHY! - and re right it using a flick of your hips and the paddle. I found it ok in the calm water - but impossible in the white. Maudie faced an unknown fear - being strapped into a vessel in dark water, without being able to control the situation. I was very proud of her perseverance and patience, by the third day she had it in the calm water and on the forth day on the class 3+ rapids trip she raced down all the huge rapids and patiently waited for me to swim to shore having tipped over on the first FOUR!

It was an amazing experience - the scenery, the serenity of the river, watching people pan for gold on the shore, eating chicken sandwiches on rocks, falling in, getting through and making it to the end. We will be going again!

Volunteering at Alto Choco - Ecuador

We spent the last couple of weeks living and volunteering in a cloud forest reserve in the North of Ecuador. The NGO called Zoobrevian (http://www.zoobreviven.org/) was set up to help conserve the forest and wildlife in the area, WWF and world bank ranked it among the top 10 biological hot spots of the world so it's a pretty special place. A nice guy called Ramiro runs several of the reserves and headed up the camp, he did a great job of organising and knew how to have a good time too (he liked the local moonshine!).

Living in the middle of the forest was beautiful - if not a bit damp as we were literally living in the clouds! There were 10 of us in total, volunteers and biologists from Ecuador, England, America, France and Germany. It was a pretty big team to keep coordinated but it worked out. It was a great little camp and Pete of course kept the fire going to keep us all warm in the chilly nights.

During our time we planted sapling trees (needed due to mining companies), worked in the nursery and with some local farmers to dig vegetable gardens, laid a new lawn at the local hot springs (they were given the land by the government to create a business and needed help making improvements) and worked in the botanical gardens building new boxes for the different Orchids and Bromileads they have there. It was a good place to be as we could be creative with choosing our projects!

The charity is also big on protecting the Andean bears and work with the WSPA / WFF on releasing bears, tracking them and are also aiming to make a sanctuary in Alto Choco again. We didn't get a chance to get involved with the sanctuary as it is only just starting again but we did a lot of hiking around the reserve and monitored the bear activity on our way which was fun - like finding claw marks on trees (like the pic).

It was an action packed couple of weeks, we had fun visiting a local farm who made 'spirit of Ecuador' - a 95% proof sugar cane rum. Wow, it was strong stuff and at 50 cents a litre it makes a fiesta in Ecuador. It also came in handy when Jorgen was having trouble lighting the fire one night!

We hiked Lago Mojanda on a Friday afternoon, a volcanic crater lake, it was a crazy walk with Ramiro taking us through bogs, crawling under trees but we made it round just about - it was good fun all the same. Pete and I decided to stay the weekend on the reserve by ourselves, going for hikes up to the waterfalls, over the valley and making cosy fires which was a treat.

On the reserve we also had a heard of horses which I loved, we managed to 'tame' one nicknamed Loco (quite a saga) but in the end I had brilliant fun galloping around the reserve on him. For Pete and the boys, the local bar was the village bus stop a 1 and a half hour round trip where you could get a big cerveza for a dollar at the shop next door. Despite the distance, the trip was made quite a few times!

It was a great project to be involved in, the community was really lovely. At the end of the couple of weeks we were all looking forward to heading back to civilisation and caught the bus back to Quito. A couple of the other volunteers, John and Jorgen were really cool guys and have joined us down in Tena to hang out for my birthday!