Sorry everyone we have been lazy feckers and not posted anything for ages. In a quick run down - we ventured into one of the world’s deepest canyons - Colca Canyon, climbed up into Machu Picchu, visited the birthplace of the Incas on Lake Titicaca, hung out in the world’s highest city, La Paz, downhilled the world’s most dangerous road on mountain-bikes, visited the world’s largest salt flats at Salar de Uyuni (and went over 5200m). After that we tried to make our way south to Buenos Aires but faced huge delays due to flooding and landslides. ANYway. We’re in Buenos Aires now and we fly home tomorrow (Buenos Aires is super cool) so we’ll see everyone in the next few days.

¡Hasta luego muchachos!

¡Nos vemos!

We’re just back from Machu Picchu - can’t describe how cool it was but I’m sure Marianne will fill everyone in on it soon. This morning we arrived in Copacabana, Bolivia on the shores of Lake Titicaca. Tomorrow it’s off to the Isla del Sol - birth place of the Inca’s. Anyway just checkin in and we’ll be in touch when we get to La Paz Wednesday/Thursday.

I got on the phone to complain but it seems Iberia are content to hide behind their contract and bad English. Showing a complete lack of understanding they blamed me for not reading the Terms and Conditions we never received and also for not forking out for a more expensive ticket! I honestly couldn’t believe it - in these seemingly abnormal circumstances of 12 week waiting lists they completely refused to go the extra mile and try to accomodate us. I think I have annoyed them so much now that they won’t talk to us anymore. Our only hope is to get STA Travel to help us since they are the ones who gave us the bad advice originally after the same problem happened last year.

UPDATE: Marianne got in a verbal tussle with the Manager at STA Würzburg this morning but to no avail - apparently Iberia give travel agents the same shit shit as customers (in fact STA claim of all the airlines they work with Iberia are the worst.) ANYway, just as we were about to give up we got a call that some people cancelled their seats on the 13th and we got in! So the waiting lists worked and we’re going home in March but Iberia are still shite and STA are stupid for working with them.

After Huaraz we moved on to Huacachina, a beautiful oasis in the middle of the dessert. On our first day we did the dune buggy ride and sand boarding, both of which were really good fun. We also visited three of the very many wineries near Huacachina in Ica, were they not only produce wine but also the famous national drink of Peru: Pisco. After quite a few wine sample at every winery we felt quite dizzy. We had quite a few free Pisco Sours during our stay in Huacachina due to our good knowledge of Spanish, always very helpful when talking to bartenders during their boring nightshift. Pisco Sour is a cocktail with Pisco, lime juice and EGG! This was our first egg-cocktail! Weird but good.
                         
In Paracas we did a tour of the Ballestas Islands- wich was one of the most impressing things we did so far. We saw loads of loud, smelling and fat sea lions, seals, penguins and thousands of migrating birds on the islands - you can’t imagine the smell of the place! We continued to the Paracas National Reserve, where we saw some amazing rock formations and cliffs in the sea.

We went on to Nasca to see the famous Nasca lines. We felt that the Nasca lines are overrated though. We did not do the expensive plane flight over the Nasca lines as other backpackers said it wouldn’t be worth it. Instead we just visited the Maria Reiche museum, a crazy German woman who dedicated her life to research on the lines. We saw her room- she definitely was a real gig! We saw two of the huge figures etched into the sand from a viewing tower-quite intelligent, the old pre-Incas!

                                      
And then we finally landed in Arquipa, the most beautiful colonial city where we still hang about at the minute. Not far from Arequipa is the Colca Canyon, where we wanna do some days of trekking, cos we’ve seen too many museums lately.

In news that will surely hearten exponents of the mullet such as Kevin Keegan, Michael Bolton and Australia, GringoBlogo can confirm that the Mullet (Vokuhila) is alive and well in Southern Peru. Taking the 23:30 Cial Bus from Nazca to Arequipa on Friday night we were surprised to find 8 mulleted men in front of us in the queue. Judging from their swager we reckon they were Argentine, interestingly Argentines call the mullet the ‘Colectivero’ or ‘Cubano’. This isn’t an isolated incidence either - in the past few days we have encountered quiet a few Mullets. I’m currently considering a quick trip to the barbers in the name of cultural integration.

Me and Marianne stayed for a while and spoke to the Consul General, a friendly guy called Michael Russel. He told us that for the past 2 years Irish Citizens in Peru have lost or had stolen more passports than any other citizens from the EU. I also have still had no answer about whether the additonal $200 I had to pay for my passport (I was told I had to pay for the DHL charges between Dublin and South America) applies to all Irish Citizens or just me cos I’m a dirty Northerner - if anyone has ever lost their passport and has any experience of this I’d be interested to find out.

Hi everyone, I hope you all had a good Christmas and New Years, all is good here in Perú. We’re in the Cordillera Blanca at the moment in a city called Huaraz. I’ve had my monthly stay on the toilet bowl after yet another food poisining and Marianne is deciding on her future studies. We also had a very quiet New Years watching the Godfather Part II after our original plans foundered on the rocks of RipOff
Anyway the point of this post was to let me know your phone / skype numbers (email us or just post them here) cos we now have a Skype account meaning we can call you all for free / very little. Also for everyone in Germany we bought a German phone number so you can call us at local rate. The number is 09861 4033 81 (a Rothenburg number!)

Tut mir leid, dass ich es nicht geschaftt habe, allen eine Karte zu Weihnachten zu schicken, aber zu was haben wir denn den GringoBlogo?!

Ich hoffe, dass alle eine gemütliche Weihnachtszeit mit ihrer Familie verbringen, mit ganz viel leckerem Essen und Schnee (davon können wir nur träumen) und Weihnachtsduft und Weihnachtsatmosphäre! Vermisse die Arbeit auf dem Weihnachtsmarkt mit all den leckren Süßigkeiten, dem Glühwein, den Plätzchen und allem was dazu gehört!

Aber noch mehr werde ich vermissen, Weihnachten mit meiner Familie und Freunden zu feiern… Ist das erste Mal Weihnachten weg von zu Hause und Familie für uns beide.

Aber wir werden es uns hier auch gut gehen lassen, wie Ciarán bereits geschrieben hat, in Vilcambamba, einem süßen Dorf im Süden Ecuadors!

Wir werden auf jeden Fall in Gedanken an Weihnachten bei euch allen sein!

Wärmste Grüße!

well at least thats what John Lennon said but it doesn’t feel like it here. We’re off to Vilcabamba which will hopefully be really chilled out and hot, all very nice but I’d much rather be eating dried peas, turkey, cranberry and drinking shloer at my aunt sheenas. Ahhh, its a hard life…

I’ll try and make a few calls on Christmas day but by all accounts Vilcabamba is in the middle of nowhere so the chances of finding a phone aren’t all that high.

Anyway from Marianne and me, we hope Santa has been good (especially to Anna on her first Christmas) and that Radio Cracker hasn’t made yous all insane yet. We’ll be thinkin of you all hopin that you have a great day.

An alle in Deutschland (beinhaltet selbst die dicken Katzen ) und an unsere österreichischen Freunde auf der Halbinsel - Fröhliche Weihnachten!

UPDATE: It looks like José has massacred my work so whatever you see now isn’t a what a designed, c’est la vie

Sprachkurse Spanisch Quito

Cheap Spanish Courses Quito

The place is amazing and the 2.5 hour journey to it is also really cool climbing to our hostel on the rim at 3914m. We climbed down inside the crater and got a mule back up which was cool. The funniest thing though, is the little village on the edge of the rim which I’m pretty certain only exists for tourists. Its probably the poorest place I have ever been and its completely insane. It totally reminded me of when the fair arrived on Craigy Island.

Its the most half arsed attempt at tourism ever - no running water, toilets that dont work and a barrel of dirty water to wash yourself and your teeth. On top of that you get the feeling that everyone and anyone in the place just see’s you as a walking wallet ripe for the rip off. Anyway that said it is still one of the most beautiful places we’ve ever been and we’re glad we went. At the minute we’re in Riobamba and we’re going to Baños tomorrow.

All in all, good fun here!

On the twelve of December we’ll be heading down to South Ecuador, hopefully without getting robbed on the way!

At Christmas time Quito’s supposed to be really boring and dead, so we wanna spend Christmas in a little village called Vilcabamba and get pampered there, there are jacuzzies and massages and loads of that sort… 

For our non-tuetonic friends that didn’t read Marianne’s post we got robbed again on Monday. Ironically, on our way to report that last robbery some dirty fecker nabbed my rucksack while we tucked into a tasty Lasagne. In the rucksack was our passports (cos the police needed ID to report the first robbery) so we now have the whole hastle of getting new passports. Who said life with me isn’t interesting? Poor Marianne, I do kind of feel this is my special gift from above.
And before anyone says it the thieve’s here are real pro’s and the bag was between my feet and I didn’t even notice it.

Wir hatten beide unsere Reisepaesse in Ciaran’s Rucksack getan weil wir nach dem Mittagessen zur Polizei gehen wollten und den Raubueberfall von Samstag Nacht anzeigen wollten. Ciaran hatte den Rucksack zwischen seinen Beinen am Boden abgestellt. Erst nachdem wir gezahlt haben, ist uns aufgefallen, dass er Rucksack weg war- ich dachte, dass das nicht wahr sein kann und Ciaran den Rucksack bestimmt in der Spanischschule vergessen hat, aber die Wahrheit ist, dass er Rucksack gestohlen wurde.

Wir waren beide ziemlich wuetend und haben uns sehr aufgeregt. Wir haben noch nicht mal eine Idee, wer es gewesen sein koennte, der einige Verdaechtige, an den wir uns erinnern koennen, war ein Strassenjunge, der Suessigkeiten verkauft hat. Das Restaurant befindet sich jedoch in einem Durchgang, also sind ziemlich viele Leute vorbigegangen und es haette jeder sein koennen.

Nachdem wir gestern den ganzen Tag auf verschiedenen Polizeistationen verbracht haben, waren wir heute bei den jeweligen Botschaften, um unsere Reisepaesse als gestohlen zu melden und gleichzeitig neue Reisepaesse zu beantragen. Da ich keine Passbilder und kein Geld mit mir hatte, muss ich morgen nochmal zur deutschen Botschaft und Ciaran muss nochmals zum irischen Konsulat.  

Es wird hoffentlich nicht allzu lange dauern, bis unsere neuen Paesse da sind, Ciarans Pass wird ein paar Wohen dauern, mein Pass nur ein paar Tage, da ich nur einen provisorischen Reisepass bekomme, der auch nur fuer ein Jahr gueltig sein wird.

Es ist wirklich schade, dass wir jetz voll die Paranoia schieben und jeden verdaechtigen muessen, man kann hier ja noch nicht mal wirklich der Polizei vertrauen. Man kann sich halt nie wirklich sicher und relaxt fuehlen, weil man immer aufpassen muss, dass einem nichts geklaut wird oder man ueberfallen wird.