Home Sweet Home

So the honeymoon came to an end at the end of September 2012 after an amazing 18 weeks / 127 days of fun and adventures we traveled a total of:

* 57,800km on planes * 2,080km on trains * at least 6,730km by road in buses, cars, tuk-tuks, motor and pedal rickshaws * 500km on the back of motorbikes * 18 boats, * 5 bicycles,

* 2 kayaks, * an elephant, * a horse,  * 2 funiculars, * 2 cable cars, * a toboggan, * a raft, * a quad bike, * 9 days of trekking, * an immeasurable distance walked and * a kilometre or two on our arses when we attempted to snow board!!! Back to reality and a resolution to now visit more of our own country!

The Last Hurrah

23rd - 27th September 2012

So after a boat back to mainland and a pretty short bus journey later we had left 'paradise' and were on the way to our last stop - Rio de Janeiro! We arrived about 6pm on Sunday 23rd September that evening but had no plans apart from a wander around the neighbourhood where we were staying and dinner. Slight disaster this turned out to be!! Firstly I hold my hands up - we had gotten plenty of advice from people telling us to stay in Copacabana or Ipanema regions so what did we do - ignore it! Well not exactly but we were struggling to find a place with availability for the nights we wanted with a private room and at a reasonable price so when we stumbled upon our hostel, sick of researching we just decided to book it. However the location was crap (for anyone who knows Rio it was on the outskirts of the Santa Teresa region) and there was nothing around! After walking for AGES we eventually found a globally recognised international restaurant to tantalise our taste buds - nah not really, we ended up eating in McDonald's! The shame. Bad food day! We didn't go any further afield than our own crappy area that night so it was not the most successful of days!

The next morning we were up at a reasonable hour (had rubbish breakfast in the hostel) and as the weather was good, we decided a visit to the Big Jesus was the order of the day.  On the way we dropped our last laundry load off at the laundromat - an embarrassing experience due to us having to stand there while a dude counted and sorted our dirty clothes - literally airing our dirty laundry in public, eww!!

Visiting the big JC was the one thing the location of our hostel was good for and we could walk to the tram to bring us to the top of the mountain. There was a pretty long queue and we ended up meeting a guy that we met in Iguacu while we were waiting. The views from the top of the mountain were amazing! Rio looked fantastic from up there.

View of Rio from Christ the Redeemer

Christ the Redeemer was pretty impressive but there were just too many people for such a small area. As we hadn't being in such a large city in weeks (probably since La Paz, Bolivia in August actually), our tolerance for large crowds was pretty low! Also I think the photos taken from helicopters above the statue are more impressive than the angle we had! Either that or after all we have seen over the past few months, we are hard pleased now!  

Typical tourist pose!

Afterwards it was lunch and collecting laundry time!  Then we got the bus to the Ipanema region which was a beach area. Now we did get advice to stay here (which was good advice!) but we couldn't find availability at a proper price. When we arrived and saw the area I was gutted we weren't staying here as it was fab! We messed around on the beach and watched the sunset before indulging in some beach-side caiprinihas.

Ipanema beach for sunset

And then begun the pilgrimage to find a restaurant for dinner. After about a 2 hour walk we found countless buffets and eat by weight 'restaurants'. I say 'restaurants' as according to Ronan, they largely represented the canteen at the mart in Ballinasloe! Obviously we weren't eating there. Finally we found stumbled upon a small backstreet Italian and actually ended up having an amazing meal but it came with a very large price tag! We got the bus back to our hostel afterwards which was an experience in itself due to the Brazilian style of driving. They basically have two ways of driving - either foot slammed down on the accelerator like a brick or foot slammed down on the brake like a brick.  Even if they are pulling off from a bus-stop and have to stop 10 feet away at traffic lights, they accelerate as quickly as they can before slamming on the brake just before the lights. So when I had to stand on the bus on the way home I was literally chucked about like a rag doll....

The next day was 25th September and we were doing the flavellas tour (tour of the slums).

Rocinha - the slum we visited

I was unsure about doing the tour as it seemed sort of voyeuristic - I wasn't sure if we should be making a tourist attraction out of other people's misfortune. I'm not sure what we were expecting from the flavellas but we had heard about the terrible living conditions, the poverty and the crime so we definitely weren't expecting a small community with shops, banks, restaurants, satellite tv dishes and even wifi!

Viewpoint in the flavellas - blue dots are the satellite dishes!

Flavellas version of McDonalds!

To be honest calling them slums or flavellas is an insult and they are really small communities. They weren't dangerous and just looked like a normal neighbourhood bar the fact the houses were super close together so no cars can drive down the narrow alleyways. We learned that the people who live in the flavellas are very often the people working in hotels, restaurants and all manner of service industries so all very respectable! It was fairly interested learning about the culture in this little communities even though the tour was nothing like we expected.

Graffiti in the flavellas - spot Cead Mile Fáilté

Narrow walkways through the flavellas

After the tour the weather was nice so we decided to hit the beach in Copacabana for the afternoon.  Afterwards we wandered around Copacabana and watched the sunset again before the rain started.

Copacabana beach

Amazing sandcastles

We begun the now-dreaded search for somewhere to eat dinner. Without going into details of how hungry Nicole dealt with walking around for hours in the rain looking for food, suffice to summarise with the fact we ate in KFC that night. I've never eaten in KFC before (even at home where there is one five minutes away) and hope I don't need to again!

Our second last day dawned wet and miserable. So after an equally miserable breakfast we decided to go back to bed for a lie-in seeing as there isn't much to do in Rio in the rain! We headed to a massive shopping centre called Rio Sul for the afternoon and by 3pm I was already dreading having to find somewhere to eat! When we got to the shopping centre Ronan declared he would love BBQ ribs! I replied asking if he remembered the last few days and he should count himself lucky to eat anything that's not fast food! We saw a sign for a steak house (Outback Steakhouse) on the way in but lo and behold do you think we could find it, no!! We continued looking around the shops for a while and when we reached what I think was the 7th floor we spotted the steak house! What was more it wasn't open but there was a massive queue so we figured it must be good. Then to my amazement they had BBQ ribs so Ronan got his wish against all the odds!!

On our last day we wandered around a few different areas of the city that we hadn't seen. My favourite thing happened as we wandered around the city centre - we found the Rio equivalent of Bewley's, Confeitaria Colombo - a really fancy beautiful art deco cafe! After a terrible few food days in Rio we had two nice meals in a row. Got a really fancy brunch and some speciality teas and passed a fabulous couple of hours people watching. It was pretty expensive especially when they tried to sell us paper placemats for €8 each but it was worth the expense for a lovely relaxing afternoon.

The Bewley's of Rio!

I think I look pretty happy to be here!

We visited Lapa which is where the famous street parties usually happen on the weekends but I can honestly say this was the first area in Rio that we didn't feel safe! Even in the middle of the afternoon. There was a massive police presence between police walking on patrol, on horses, in cars and the area still had a very bad vibe. We stumbled upon a really cool church though so it was worth it for that! So all way a really nice way to pass our last day in Rio with no hotel room!! It was time to leave for the airport around 7pm due to heavy traffic and we were in the air on the way home at 11pm.

The arches of Lapa where the street parties happens on the weekends

Cool church

Outside of church

The feeling of leaving for home was soooo strange. I was excited about going home and seeing everyone but also sad that our amazing adventure was over and that we would probably never do anything like this again!

This is the last photo taken on our honeymoon. I think it captures the excitement we felt at coming home but there was a tint of sadness there aswell!

Last photo of the honeymoon taken in the airport

Finally on our holidays!

18th - 22nd September 2012

We were flying from Iguacu to San Paulo in the afternoon of Monday 17th. We had heard pretty bad thing about San Paulo so we decided not to bother staying there and to leave directly for Paraty, a small coastal town which was 6 hours on a bus from Paraty. We had decided to have a little holiday in the midst of all the travelling and literally chill out and do nothing for a week so we had planned 4 nights in Paraty and 2 nights on an island Ilha Grande. 

There weren't many buses from San Paulo to Paraty. There was one at 4pm and not another until 10pm. We were due to arrive in San Paulo at 2.45pm which gave us over an hour to collect our bags, get from the airport to the bus terminal and find our bus in the largest bus terminal in South America!

The plane landed in time which was great, our bags came out fairly quickly so we were thinking great we'll make it! We decided to get a taxi into the bus station as it was only €6 more expensive than the bus and it would be faster. We were delighted when we arrived at the bus station at 3.40pm leaving us 20 whole minutes to buy bus tickets and get on the bus. Score we were thinking. Running panicked around the huge terminal we found the company that goes to Paraty and asked for our tickets only to be told - 'sorry bus is full 'NOOOO! This was something we hadn't even thought of! There was only one company that went to Paraty so we were stuck getting the bus at 10pm and had 6 hours to kill in this bus station! There was nothing around so we couldn't go anywhere. I was thinking surely the biggest bus terminal in South America has a McDonald's but no! There wasn't much there, not even wifi but we have gotten really good at passing time so eventually 10pm came and we got the bus. It wasn't a sleeper bus but it was fairly comfortable. The worst part of this is that we were due to arrive in Paraty at 4am but we had already booked our hostel for this night so at least we had a bed once we arrived.

We reached Paraty at around 3.30am and Ronan made a beeline for the only taxi in town before the rest of people getting off the bus tried to take it! He woke up the snoozing taxi driver aided by the local homeless wino who just happened to be hanging around. We had sent an email to the hostel owners at Praia Serena to let them know we were arriving at this hour so they were waiting for us. We felt bad but what could we do!

We got some sleep and got up around 9am Tuesday to an amazing feast of breakfast. Fantastic homemade juice, local breads, homemade peanut butter, ham, cheese fruits, three different types of homemade cakes and freshly made eggs! It was delicious and we spent about 2 hours eating and chatting with the owners, Simon and Helen, and feeding the monkeys that hang out in their back garden!

Ronan feeding the monkeys banana!

Evil looking monkey!

We had a really relaxed day just chilling in the hammocks and around the pool before heading into the town for the first time that evening. It's another UNESCO protected town and is extremely pretty! We went to a Thai place for dinner! Interestingly a tiny town like Paraty has two Thai restaurants - the first one was owned by a couple, she is German and him Brazilian, who separated and then she opened another Thai place with an almost identical menu!

Pretty little town

It was actually hard to walk on the cobbled streets!

Curries in our house will mostly be served in pineapple from now on!

It was good food but came at a hefty price tag. I realised what good value we were getting in Iguacu with Claudio's 12 riel dinners when we paid 50 riels for one main course tonight!! The caipirinhas were 18 riels here for one vs three for 12 in Iguacu! So this is the expensive Brazil that people talk off! We went to a bar with live music but the music was so bad we had to leave!

The next day, Wednesday, after another delicious feast we decided to go to the beach. The weather was fab so we headed out to a beautiful beach with typical white sands and blue waters. It was fabulous and as it was a weekday it was almost empty!

Beautiful beach!

We spent the day out here before getting the bus back into town. The hostel was located about a 2km walk  out of town so we walked back. Then we came back into town later for dinner and walked back out to a beachside bar to meet Jodi and Dave from Iguacu. Even though we were having a relaxing day we ended up walking about 8km between going in and out of town and around the beach! We had a great evening chatting to them and having a few drinks!

The next day was Nicole and Ronan's day of fun! We got up fairly early and had our amazing breakfast before heading into town to wander around and do some shopping. I think I was the only person in Brazil wearing flip flops that weren't Havianas so we needed to remedy that! I got two pairs of nice ones that were fancier than the normal flip flops for €20! So much cheaper than home but they are a Brazilian brand. So I was well chuffed with that. I had spotted two paintings earlier in the week that I loved so we bought them aswell. We had a good wander about before going for lunch complete with a couple of cocktails! Afterwards it was time to hit the Shambhala Asian Day spa! We had booked a couples package which started off with an hour of yoga. I had really been missing yoga and Ronan had never done it so an ideal place to start was a gazebo in the Brazilian countryside! However it wasn't like yoga at home where we ease our body into positions - if we didn't do it right she was forcing our bodies like we were contortionists, Ronan even attempted the headstand - twice but unsuccessfully! It was a really tough workout actually but we did get to relax for the last 20 mins! I definitely prefer our type of yoga so looking forward to getting back to it next week!

Converted!

After this it was time for my facial and Ronan's massage. Ronan was delighted that we were both in the same room for this as he gets a bit nervous having massages in foreign countries! Finally we had a beautiful hot tub to finish off and truly relax! It was a fantastic experience and was the first time we properly relaxed in ages!

Afterwards the spa owner dropped us back to the hostel (the spa is the top rated thing to do on Trip Advisor so the service was super). Then we had an hour to shower and change before heading out to meet Jodi and Dave again for something to eat and few drinks. Another couple had checked into our hostel while we were  there and turns out they were on a 6 week honeymoon through South America - the only other couple we met on honeymoon through our whole trip!

Breakfast took a long time in Paraty, partly as there was so much food and partly as we spent so much time chatting to the owners. They were lovely and made us feel so welcome, particularly as we were the only guests for 2 days so we really didn't want to leave as we had such a nice time. But Friday was time to go and it was off to a paradise island called Ilha Grande for two nights.

We were collected by our bus from the hostel in Paraty and brought to a port about 2 hours away (although it probably could have been done in a hour of they didn't keep stopping for toilet breaks etc!). We were hanging out at the port for a few minutes waiting for our boat and it started to bucket rain. The heavens opened and it rained and rained! We had to stand for an hour on the boat journey across as it was too wet to sit!

Ilha Grande should look like this.... (google images)

...but it actually looked like this!

We got to Ilha Grande and it had eased off a little but we still weren't seeing anything resembling a paradise island! We went out to grab something to eat as it was 4pm when we arrived and we hadn't eaten since breakfast but got stuck in the restaurant for about an hour because of another shower. Everything to do on this island is very weather dependant so being honest, it's a bit shit in the rain. We tried to have a bit of a walk around between showers. Later that evening  we went out in our rain jackets for dinner and that was the height of excitement on our first day on Ilha Grande!

The next day was Saturday 22nd. We got up for breakfast and had planned to do a boat tour but the weather had other ideas! So we didn't bother as we couldn't see past the end of our arms so just went back to bed for a while. We spent the day killing time before heading out for lunch where we met Jodi and Dave as they just arrived off the boat. We had lunch with them before moving to a beachside bar as it had stopped raining. A few caipirinhas and a paella later, 6 hours had passed and the waiting staff were looking to go home as it was after midnight! We aren't gonna meet them again so it was time for another goodbye!

Drinks with Jodi and Dave

Ilha Grande beach by night

Sunday it was time to leave 'paradise'. We thought we left too little time for here but it turned out just right given the weather!

The nicest weather we had was the day we were leaving - still overcast!

Iguacu - where three countries meet!

14th - 17th September 2012

We were collected by taxi from our hotel in Arequipa and brought to the airport at 5am. As we were so short on time we booked a flight from Arequipa to Lima rather than taking the bus of 18 hours. This was because our flight from Lima to Iguacu was booked in Trailfinders as part of our round the world ticket from home so we had to fly this day. We knew we were short on time but we really wanted to do Arequipa but as it turned out flying was $15 cheaper than the bus so double score!

Our plane landed in Lima at 9.30am and we were flying again at 1pm but we hadn't much time after collecting our bags,checking in again, going through security and eating! We were flying to Iguacu Falls in Brazil and we weren't sure of the time differences so we knew we either had a 4 hour flight or 9 hour flight and finally the captain announce it was 4 hours so we were delighted! We landed in Iguacu airport 7.30pm Brazil time. We had no Brazilian cash whatsoever and this tiny airport didn't have a cash machine so we were lucky that the taxi took credit card! This was the first sign that we were in a more developed country as we couldn't pay  for anything on the credit card before this in South America.

The town we were staying in is called Foz do Iguacu and is the intersection between three countries - Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay. We got to our hostel, Iguassu Guest House and were so impressed with our room. It was huge and had loads of towels, fridge, tv and wardrobes! We haven't had any fridge, tv it wardrobes anywhere in South America so it was fantastic! It was about 8.30pm and we hadn't eaten properly all day but the hostel had a BBQ on for 12 riels (€4.50) so we decided to go for that. They also had caipirinhas, a traditional Brazilian cocktail, on a special of three for 12 riels. I said no no I won't drink three, just the one please! We were sitting out chatting to the other guests and Claudio who runs the bar having a lovely time drinking away and before I knew it, I was three caipirinhas down! I said I'd had enough at this stage, there was only ourselves and an Australian girl left but then Claudio decided to give us a cocktail making class and a free drink! It would be rude not to.

Cocktail making class!!

Unfortunately I found out just how bad these drinks are for you when I had to heap two tablespoons of sugar in to counteract the harsh alcohol cachaca which is made from sugar cane. There is no mixer at all in the cocktail so they are pretty strong - its just sugar, lime, cachaca and crushed ice. So delicious! I couldn't be tempted by another and we went to bed after this one.

The next morning we were up for breakfast - not sure if I've mentioned how bad South American breakfasts are but they are pretty terrible with a stale bread roll and jam but this breakfast was a sight to behold! They had brown bread, cereal, ham, cheese, fruit and CAKE! Two types of cake for breakfast. I learned that the brazilians love sugar when I dug into my cereal resembling frosties and even realised the milk had been sweetened! I couldn't being myself to eat cake for breakfast, not being a big lover of it anyways (don't think I ate any wedding cake!) but Ronan enjoyed his chocolate cake even adding some caramel sauce which is usually reserved for pancakes!

After the delight that was breakfast it was time to visit the Brazilian side of Iguacu Falls. Iguacu Falls are a collection of 275 waterfalls which are 20% on the Brazilian border and 80% on the Argentina border. We decided to visit the Brazil side today so took a public bus - finally something we could do on our own!

The Falls were breath-taking, just spectacular! I will let the photos speak for themselves as words cannot describe them. Definitely one of the natural wonders of the world and the best natural site we have ever seen!

First view of the Brazilian side of the Falls

Afterwards we went back into town and went to the supermarket to buy stuff for lunch before heading back out to go to Paraguay! The nearest town in Paraguay is only 4km from Foz  is called Ciudad del Este and is known for having cheap electronics so of course Ronan wanted to go across. It used to be notorious for being dangerous for tourists and despite the hostel telling us it was perfectly safe I must admit I was a little nervous. We got the public bus across - no immigration control or anything so no passport stamp. Claudio had given us the name of a very reputable shop (Audiophone) and we checked the opening times online and it said 8pm. We got to Paraguay at 4pm Brazil time, not realising it was an hour ahead and everything was closed including Audiophone, despite what it said online! So it was a wasted journey but was pretty safe.

By the time we got back to the hostel it was about 6pm so we had some chill out time in the hostel. Claudio was cooking beef stroganoff so we decided to just eat in the hostel again and it was delicious! I did indulge in more caiprinhas also while we were sitting around chatting to other travellers.

The next day, Sunday 16th, we decided to do a tour to the Argentina side - we could have done it alone but it can take over 2 hours as the public buses leave you at immigration rather than waiting and the hostel said it was easier to take a tour. We were collected at 9.30am and driven 20km to the Argentina side of the falls. The immigration was hassle free as the tour guide sorted it all for us. When we got to the Argentina side we were walking with the guide for about an hour before we even saw any waterfalls as we had a couple of kilometres of a walk and he kept stopping to talk about plants and trees! This was annoying as the Brazilian side yesterday was instant gratification and we saw the falls straight away! We were in a large group of about 15 people so it was slow progress.

Where the 3 countries of Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay intersected

Start of the Argentinian side

 There was an option to take a short boat ride under the falls so we decided to do that! We knew we were going to get really wet so I had brought a change of clothes and a bikini. Ronan just brought a spare tshirt. I had decided I would just wear my bikini under the life jacket if there was anyone else in one. One other girl was in her bikini so I stripped off all my clothes and put them into the waterproof bags we were provided with. Ronan just had his shorts on but they were his heaviest pair and he had no change with him. We all got into the boat and got some close up photos before being told to put away the cameras as we were going in close. We went under the falls and the weight and sheer volume of water literally took our breath away!! It was crazy how difficult it was to breathe! We were soaked to the skin but it was amazing looking up from the bottom of the falls and seeing it coming down on top of us! Incredible experience!

Boat going under the falls

Afterwards!

When we got back to shore I was able to change into full dry clothes but Ronan was stuck in his wet shorts for the rest of the day. It was only 2pm. We decided to leave the guide at this stage having only done the Lower Trail with him. There were two more trails but we couldn't face doing them with the guide!

Our hostel had warned us to bring food with us as it was so expensive to buy anything here. We bought a bottle of water for €6 so they weren't kidding! We had brought sandwiches with us so ate our lunch before going exploring the High Trail.
While these trails were really good we weren't blown away the way we were on the Brazil side which we were surprised at.

The final trail was the Devil's throat. We had to get the train to this one as it's so far away so myself and Ronan went to the train station. We were surprised not to have seen any of our group in the last couple of hours. Once we got off the train we had a bit of a walk before we saw the Devil's Throat and then we understood what all the fuss was about! It was spectacular! We got some extra time here as our group finally turned up 40mins after we got there so we left at the same time as them.

The Devil´s Throat!

We were supposed to be meeting the bus at 5pm but with all the guides talking about trees it was after 5.30pm by the time we got back to the bus. The others in the group spent 5 hours in the park but only got 20mins at the most important part whereas we had an hour so I was so glad we went off by ourselves!

We were dropped back to the hostel wrecked after walking about 14km between all the different trails! We decided to have dinner in the hostel again as why ruin a good thing! Another fabulous meal! We met Dave and Jodi in the hostel this evening - the third day here and they were the third different couple we had met but they get names as we met them again (and Dave is a Leeds fan so him and Ronan got football chat out of their systems)!  It seemed to be the nature of Foz that people only stayed one night on this side of the border and one night on the Argentina side so we were unusual. We had a great night with them and they were doing the same trip as us for the next few week so we arranged to meet them in Paraty again.

We left Igassu Guest House at 11am the next morning to get the bus out to the airport for our flight at 1pm.

Off to the nunnery!

10th - 13th September 2012

After such a crazy few days on the Inca Trail you would figure that we would have scheduled some downtime, right?! Wrong! Monday 10th September was our last day in Cusco so we had a few last bits of souvenirs to buy and needed to post stuff home. We checked out of Loki at 1pm and headed off shopping and in search of a post office. This would be our fourth time posting home on the trip and it was by far the cheapest and easiest. Much easier than Australia where the people actually spoke English!! A lovely little man who owned a shop in the post office sold us a box, wrapped it in loads and loads of silicone wrap and used a roll of Sellotape to seal everything in for the grand sum of €1.50. Then he proceeded to march us around the long queue, through security and in behind the desk! We were standing there behind the desk and security panels extremely awkwardly going what do we do now until the lady behind the desk sorted us out with the necessary forms.

Afterwards we went for an early dinner before heading back to Loki and hanging around there for a while before getting our bags and heading to the bus station.

We knew it was a risk getting an overnight bus when we were still going to be wrecked from the Inca Trail but all we had heard from people was how good the buses in South America were, specifically Peru. We had paid the most we could for what we thought was a bed and with the best bus company (Cruz del Sur). Imagine our disappointment then when we only had seats. Yes they were comfy and reclined slightly more than aeroplane seats but they weren't the beds we were expecting! The sleeping buses in Asia were much better. Ronan had his seat reclined and was told to put it up half an hour into the journey so they could serve food. No chance of getting any sleep yet. Then imagine our horror after dinner when the bus bingo started with the numbers being read over the PA system really loudly! Finally bus bingo ended and they had the telly on with a South America documentary on really loud. It was awful! Eventually around 11pm the lights dimmed and with our earphones in we managed to get some sleep. Such an uncomfortable night though.

We eventually arrived in Arequipa at 6am but of course we couldn't get checked into our room in the hostel at this time. We were hungry so went wandering around town to see if there was anywhere open to eat. There wasn't. We ended up just wandering around the town for about an hour before coming across the only two places open at 7.30am - of course McDonalds and Starbucks! We went to Starbucks for a couple of hours seeing it as the lesser of two evils! At 9am things started to open so we went to book our 2d/1n tour to the canyon. We had such a short time in Arequipa that we had to do this tour tomorrow, Tuesday. To be honest another tour was the last thing we wanted to do - not being able to control what you do, what you eat as the lunches and dinners are always buffets so you can't order off a menu or even plan when you go to the bathroom!! But a tour was the only way to see the deepest canyon in the world (twice as deep than the Grand Canyon!) so we had to do it. One disadvantage of South America in my opinion is the fact that almost everything has to be done in tours and there isn't much scope for independent travel.

After getting our tour booked we went back to the hostel and got our room so we could shower and change. This is our only day around Arequipa so all sightseeing had to be done today so napping was not an option!

We headed out to Museo Santuarios Andinos. Now some of you may have noticed a lack of references to museums in our travels so far as its not something we are usually too interested in but this museum was fascinating! The Incas believed in human sacrifice of women and children to their gods after a big event like the death of an emperor or a famine. This museum  houses the body of Juanita, an Incan princess who was about 12-14 years old and was sacrificed. There were hundreds of sacrifices done by the Incans but Juanita is special because her body was frozen at the top of the Ampato mountain and preserved because of the ice. When she was found her hair, muscles, tendons, skin etc were fully preserved. This has allowed scientists to do many tests including DNA tests so they have learned so much from the discovery of her body. Another interesting fact is that her body was only discovered because of the eruptions of the Ampato mountain in September 1995 where the ice melted. Now her body is kept at -25 degrees to preserve it. There were no photos allowed in this museum and frankly you wouldn't want to see it anyways but the story was super interesting.  There are a couple of graphic pictures in this link if anyone is really interested: click for Mummy Juanita

After our museum visit, it was time for lunch. I wasn't sure if I would be able to eat after the gruesomeness of the museum but Ronan had found a creperie that was supposed to be amazing so I was tempted. We had the most amazing savoury crepes with a strawberry milkshake followed by a dessert crepe! We couldn't help ourselves as it was just so delicious!

Afterwards we wandered around the town looking at the main buildings. It's a really beautiful city all built from an unusual white stone called sillar. Then it was back to the hostel to change and head out to the Santa Catalina monastery at around 6pm. We got a tip from Jennifer (Mark's girlfriend who we met in Vietnam) to do this by night as it was extra beautiful. She wasn't wrong! We were lucky in that it only opens late Tuesdays and Thursdays and by coincidence Tuesday was the only day we had for sightseeing in Arequipa so it worked out well.

This was another fascinating story - basically the monastery/nunnery was set up by a rich woman who demanded huge sums of money from women to enter (equivalent of US $150,000). Women were put into this nunnery by their families as it was cheaper than allowing them to get married - in those days in Brazil womens´ families had to pay extortionate sums of money to the grooms family upon marriage so the nunnery was the cheaper option! It then became a bank of sorts loaning out the money paid by the 'nuns' and the nuns were given the interest earned as there spending money. They had very big opulent rooms and generally lived in luxury and had an easy life drinking and gossiping with friends - they even had personal slaves! Spirituality didn't come into it. We got a guide here as it wasn't expensive and it meant we could get the full background story but it was so interesting. Aside from that there was no electricity so the nunnery was lit by candles, lanterns and log fires so it was extremely beautiful and a great experience. For us Arequipa was worth the visit to see these two things alone!

Afterwards we went to an amazing restaurant called Zig Zag. Ronan got the trilogy of meats served on a hot lava plate and had to wear a bib cos it spits as it is still cooking on the lava plate when they bring it out! I had an antipasti which was delicious but I was still pretty full from the crepes earlier. I also had my first good mojito in ages!

All in all despite the tiredness we had a fantastic food day and cultural day! Loved it!

The following day was Wednesday 12th and we were collected at 8am for our 2 day canyon tour. Imagine our disappointment when first view of said canyon wasn't until 4.45pm that afternoon!! We spent almost 9 hours wandering about looking at llamas, alpacas, birds, vizchuas etc which was extremely boring to us as we had seen them all so many times before. Ronan has a photo of a llama in a shop in San Pedro de Atacama, so a tiny dot of a llama far off in a field that we weren't allowed walk near didn't come close!

Llamas were dots in the distance!

 We finally got to the canyon which was good but we had seen much more impressive scenery on the Inca Trail that this didn't even come close. There is a viewing point called Cruz del Condor where you can see condors - now this is something I hadn't seen before and really wanted to see. The company pride themselves on avoiding the large volumes of tourists visiting this area and when we got to the Cruz del Condor, we were the only tourists there. But there was a reason for that - all the condors were back in their nests for the night so we didn't see any! So despite missing the tourists we also missed the birds! I said to our guide that sometimes there is a reason for all the tourists to be about! We were finally brought to our hotel at 6.30pm after a crap, disappointing day and brought out for a crap, disappointing dinner before everyone headed off to bed! There were 10 people ranging from 22 to 35 in our group but everyone went to their rooms at 8pm. Right barrel of laughs, not!!

First look at the canyon

Waiting for condors to show up!

Thursday morning we had a crap breakfast before heading on a 'hike' which turned out to be a walk along a main road which was the same road the bus later drove along to collect us - pointless and bizarre I would say! Afterwards we went back to the Cruz del Condor at about 9am where we did see a couple of condors but most of them leave between 8 and 8.30am but again we were avoiding the masses of tourists! By the way I have loads of condor facts like the fact that they only eat once a month and then eat so much that they are too fat to fly but I won´t bore you with any more!

The eagerly awaited condor!

There were a few more stops on the bus to see more of the same and myself and Ronan didn't even bother getting off the bus! It was time for the hot springs which we were looking forward to but that ended up being a big heated swimming pool. After another disappointing meal it was time to head back to Arequipa finally! It was a terrible tour and definitely the worst one we had spent money on.

We felt we deserved a treat after two days of crap food so back to Zig Zag with us for another trilogy of meat for Ronan and a fabulous duck for me before going up to Crepisimo for dessert! Of course I also had to have a mojito to get over the shock of it all!

Back in the hostel it was packing again and an early night as our taxi was collecting us at 5am for the next chapter of the adventure!