2012 is going to be a good year!

2011 was definitely one of the best years ever, travelling and generally loving life but I can feel that 2012 is going to be even better!

It's graduation year which is scary as hell but really excited too! After a long weekend in Paris at the end of January, I am even more encouraged to return after uni. My 5 months stay in 2010 was just not enough! But what to do....?
I've applied for a few things so far, all involving teaching English in Paris, but it's all a waiting game until April :S eeeeek! I've also applied to do a course for teaching English abroad in the summer, to open up even more opportunities....hopefully!!

This week is first week back in lectures and the workload has piled up already...wish me luck!!!!

Dum dum duuuuum....final year!

The prospect of a new house and new housemates lessened the dread of coming back for final year, a year that everyone deems as 'hell'. I'm now living with 6 girls from my course in a house-come-flat. We all have our own en-suites but the 7 rooms are spread across 3 floors, it's pretty shweeeeet considering all bills are included, so perfect for freeeeeezing cold Sheffield in the winter months!!

So...where to start?
Freshers week was amazing and exhausting! From day one, as a house, we were all getting on amazingly which is still true today!
HOWEVER, final year really is a bitch, do believe what they say about it! Work, work,work, lack of sleep, more work and some evil essays to do aswel! But sharing that / moaning with your housemates and course mates who are all going through the same, makes it all a bit easier. God knows what I'd do without my uni mates...yer, probably go insane!
Apart from uni, a few crap things happened last semester, my friend not being very well for one, which was hard, you can't help but worry and want to just swish your wand and make them better again. But I'm glad to say that she is all well and good now :)
In November, came some good news!! Apart from FINALLY receiving my student loan (thanks for that one, Student Finance....saracasm definitely intended), I somehow, miraculously, got myself a job as a part-time sales assistant for the xmas period. This did mean a very short 4-day Christmas break at home with my family, but also a nice 'few bob' in my pocket. And even more miraclously...they've offered me a permanent job!

Christmas 2011 was possibly one of the best, and yet shortest, Christmases that I've ever had. The Bartlett sisters were reunited as my sister returned from Oz and obviously, we stook to our Christmas eve tradition of getting drunk (this year maybe a bit TOO drunk) at the local pub. But, after all, that's what Christmas is about...family and getting very drunk with them.
New Year was also a good'un with a few sheff and scouse friends, not to mention, a Parisian visitor :) The night involved cocktails in Revolucion de Cuba (my new favourite bar!), Ring of Fire, lots of party poppers and David tonguing every girl in the room at midnight. Not to forget Caz falling over en route to the Harley at 3am...bless her! Even a very hungover New Years Day consisted of Nandos and cupcakes. 2012 had a great start!!

Final year has kept me away!!

Oh how I have abandoned my blog!

The past few months have not been short of travel, drama, new beginnings and being a busy bee.

Since my last blog, I've returned to the motherland from Peru and it was definitely a shock to the system! Despite it being so hard to leave Peru as I was going to miss my host family and the friends I had made there, 6 months without my family and friends had been tough, as was life without galaxy chocolate!!

But the travelling didn't stop there, two weeks after my return I jetted off to Barcelona, a place me and my friend Megan had been wanting to visit for years but had never got around to going.
It was even better than expected!! From mojitos freshly made by slightly odd Spanish men on the beach, to tonnes of sangria and my first ever Paella, all accompanied by some beautiful sun and a little top up of my South American tan. It was exactly the cheapest holiday but it was worth every penny. Getting accidently caught up in a street festival is always fun after a few too many mojitos in a Cuban salsa bar!
Early September I returned to my love, Paris for a week. I got to see my friends, eat cheese, drink wine, the usual Parisian treats. Then I jetted off to Portugal with friends from my old workplace in Paris...but my god, getting back into speaking French after 6 months in South America was TOUGH!! We stayed in a villa by Lagos, the villa of my friend's family and it was UNREAL. 4 double bedrooms, each with an en-suite and a private heated pool, we couldn't have asked for more. With a rented minibus for the week, lots of cheap supermarket alcohol, sun, beaches and our own pool, we has SUCH a good time. However, alcohol means drinking games, which meant a few skinny dips in the pool and embarassing dares for the majority of us. We were staying up til 5am in the pool and soaking up the sun from 11am, returning back to England for Freshers Week, I was already exhausted, but I had a CRACKING tan... see above ;)

Cusco POR FIN (finally)

So after 5 and a half months of every taxi driver asking me "have you been to Cusco?" finally I can now say YES!
I had waited so long to go to Cusco because over a year again, Shadia had organised this trip as a trip for volunteers of the VTP program.
The 23rd July we set off to Cusco, but to avoid the 22 hour bus journey we took the 1 hour flight instead. We dropped our stuff at the hostal (Marques de Saphy) which was ok for the price, it had a private bathroom at least despite Sarah's bad luck with the hot water.
We met Gian, Sarah and Jack in a little cafe off the main square as they'd arrived much earlier that morning and got some well-needed food down us!
We went for 'mexican' later on, however I use that adjective lightly as it didnt tatse very mexican to me, but it was tasty either way. Being Shadia's birthday, we headed to the bars afterwards. After entering the Irish pub and leaving pretty swiftly as it was packed full of drunk gringos in fancy dress and we definately hadnt had enough to drink yet. We ended up in a pub opposite playing 'Ive never' and downing too much fizzy beer. But we called it an early-ish night as we'd all been up pretty early.

The next day, somehow we didnt manage to get out of the hostal until 4pm but Shadia and Tulo had already been the market to grab some cheese, bread, coffee and a cheap-as kettle, breakfast/lunch was sorted! We then headed to the tour agency to see what prices we could get for tours to Sacred Valley or even water-rafting. Whilst we were asking about other tours, the guy asked us if we had bought our Entrance tickets for Machu Picchu as we were heading there the next day. DOOOOOOM. He told us there were no more left until the 28th, 3 days later! And we had already forked out 70 dollars for our train ticket...noooooooooooooooooo! What could we do?
Not only had we paid for the tickets, but Gian was flying back to England on the 28th, he couldnt postpone his trip to Machu Picchu.
The train to Aguas Calientes (the place where you stay the night before Machu Picchu) was that night at 9pm from a place called Ollaytotambo, 1 hr and a half away from Cusco, so Gian ahd to make a decision, he either had to go and risk it or not go at all. So after an evening of umm-ing and arr-ing, Gian decided to go solo and risk getting in the next day.
This was not just something that had happened to us, loads of other tourists alike had been faced with this problem and apparently there would be a protest the next day.

After all the stress of the afternoon/evening, we all needed a drink. Heather, Hannah and Lisa had all suggested a bar called Mythology in Cusco where everyone gets free drinks and dances on the bar, it sounded like just what we needed! A few hours later, me and Sarah were dancing on the bar getting Rum poured down our throats, classy birds of course!
It was a really good night, and we finally got off the bar so that Sarah could pratice her salsa moves with a few peruvians and I could teach Jack a few moves.

The next day we didnt have any plans other than to recover from our hangover and have a nose around Cusco. We actually made it out of the hostal at a reasonable lunch hour and headed to the main square to take a few photos not before munching on some amazing veggy food at Govinda despite its 45 minute wait. We then met Shadia who took me, Jack and Sarah to the market, a place of the locals and kind of out of the gringo trail. We picked up a few presents and then headed back to the tour agency to book some tours.

Sarah and Jack went that evening to Puno on a one day trip to see Lake Titicaca and so the next day, Shadia, Tulo and I headed to the Christ statue situated on a hill above Cusco, so we went up in taxi to catch a few birdseye snaps of Cusco.

The next day was the Sacred Valley trip visiting ruins in Pisaq, Ollaytatambo and textile works in Chinceros. It was just us four gringos who went on the trip but for 40 soles (about £8/9) it was really worth it. We got to pick up even more presents for family back home and saw some of the most famous ruins of Inca times, actually pretty interesting.

The next day , after having to pay 100 dollars for any train with another train company to Machu Picchu, me, Sarah and Jack said goodbye to Gian and headed off to Ollaytotambu to catch our train at 11.25am. To which we met another problem, the bus from Cusco wasnt going to leave for another half hour and would make us late for our train, we had to get a taxi. Thankfully, the taxi for an hour and a half trip only cost us £20 between the three of us and we couldnt risk missing our train. We arrived on time and full of relief at Ollaytotambu and stepped on to the lovely train. It was the best train Ive ever been on, amazing service, snacks provided and a beautiful toilet (the most important thing obviously), at least we have forked out alot of money for something worth it after all.

Arriving in Aguas Calientes, we dumped our stuff at the hostal, went to buy our bus tickets for Macchu Picchu and grabbed some lunch. The thing is about Menus including starter, main and drink for £2/3 is that its pot luck, sometimes they are amazing value for money, but other times, a pile of crap, where you get served cold veg with your meal or microwaved pasta...fail!

Later on, we headed to the Thermal Baths (its not called Aguas Calientes 'Warm Waters' for nothing) for a £2 entrance fee, not bad hey! Well I say Thermal Baths, theyre more like pools with naturally hot water in them, water which smells pretty funny too, but being able to order mojitos to the pool was definately worth it. It must have been an hour and half later when we left, slightly tipsy but majorly relaxed.
W went back to the hostel to disinfect ourselves from the grimmy water then headed to Govinda (the veggy restaurant chain that we went to in Cusco) and then went for a few mojitos and Jenga at a restaurant nearby. Note to all, 3 cocktails for £4 are never going to taste good.

We got into bed around 11 knowing that we had a 4.30am wake up call the next day for getting the bus to Machu Picchu :) Shadia and Tulo arrived around 11.30pm from Cusco and we all set our alarms for the next day.

It was DIFFICULT getting up at 4.30am, but with the thought of going to Machu Picchu and a cheese butty and coffee down us, we were ready to roll.
Even with a long queue ahead of us, we got in quite quickly, and headed up to the most famous view of Machu Picchu. (see below) We took an unneccessary amount of photos, jumping and planking and then took a time out to sit and relax and take in the amazing views! We then took a walk, sat down a few more times, took more photos and by the time we knew it, 7 hours had passed by. Machu Picchu really is incredible, the fact that nobody really knows why its there or the story behind it makes it so much more interesting. We didnt bother with a guided tour for this reason, we had Jack, his Lonely Planet Peru book and our guesstimations to entertian us.

We decided to call it a day and head back to the hostal after spending most of the day there. The day before we had bought only one-way bus tickets to Machu Picchu so that we could walk back down to Aguas Calientes. With amazing views, the aching feet thanks to wearing Converse and not walking boots and the intense heat.... we made it back down and were ready to eat asap!

Afetr eating, we were all feeling pretty tired, Me, Jack and Sarah went for a coffee then full-body massage whilst Shadia and Tulo searched for a room to nap in.
The massage was just what we needed, but Sarah and I paid a bit extra for a shower pre-massage after a sweaty day in the sun. Once we finished, it was time to get our train back to Ollaytotambo and after waiting for ages at the other end in a taxi, we finally made it back to Cusco around midnight, then popped the TV on and got into bed.

The next day was horse riding day, not that we hadnt done enough exercise in the past few days. The idea was to visit ruins but by horse, a bit nice than just being drove about. Sarah, Jack and I went for a quick breakfast then headed to the tour agency office only to be told that the horses were getting their yearly jabs that morning so it had to be postponed 2 hours, typical!
We went to the market to buy a few last-minute presents and then got a taxi to the horse place.
I was a bit nervous seeing as I hadnt been on a horse in a few years, but all the horses seemed pretty chilled until mine decided it wanted to bite Tulo's horse, but we survived nevertheless!

We got back and had lunch with Sarah who hadnt came on the trip. We went to Jacks cafe, a typical European restaurant, that has the most amazing Strawberry milkshake, huge sandwiches and WOW beans and cheese burritos.

Sarah headed to Arequipa that night to continue her travels and it was my last night. I packed up my stuff and we went for a cheap but tasty meal just off the main square before getting an early night before a 5am start for my flight back to Lima the next day.

I really enjoyed Cusco despite all the problems we seemed to have and all the money we spent. But as long as you enjoy yourself and are in good company, thats all that matters :)

Peru Luz de Esperanza volunteering

For my stay in Peru, I had set aside 6 weeks post-volunteering with VTP to travel. The volunteering I did in Lima was more aimed at helping to improve the level of english teaching in a good school, so I wanted to have a bit of a change and participate in a volunteer programme helping those in the poorer rural areas to have a deeper insight into life outside my Miraflores (gringo/tourist area) bubble in Lima. Also, im currently doing a project for uni about the education system in Peru and so this seemed to me as the perfect way to explore it a bit more.

The social volunteer project is called Peru Luz de Esperanza and is located in Chupaca, a district outside of Huancayo, a city to the East of Lima. I spent 10 days with the program, which I had found by randomly browsing google for volunteering experiences in Peru.
It is an absolutely lovely project which involves teaching English, helping with Kindergarten and even helping contruct the school that they are currently constructing.
The idea is to improve the teaching of the children in the are of Auhac, about 10 minutes from Chupaca, children who go to state schools where classrooms are unequipped and falling apart bascially. However, also, the project aims to involve the community and especially the parents to create a community spirit and connection to education.

Volunteers are housed, fed and welcomed into the family's home of those who run the program for $300 dollars per 2 weeks. At first I can seem a bit expensive but considering the delicious food, your comfort within the home and being able to see directly where the money goes (ie. to the children you work with), its certainly all worth it.

As I mentioned above, the project is not only supporting physically (teaching) and financially the various poor rural schools , but they are also currently constructing their own school to allow a more enriching and professional schooling for these children, and also for them to all be in one school together benefitting from new materials and a better environment for learning.

Within the community, the project has been helping out one family in particular lately. A family of 8 children but a house without a bathroom nor toilet, with one double mattress on the second floor for all the children to sleep on, not to mention the piles of dirty clothes heaped outside and within the house. Therefore, the program has been putting windows and a door on the second floor of the house and will shortly be creating an area for the family toilet, which is now a mere hole in the floor in view of all passers-by. (see below)



Despite the living situations of all the children who go to the schools that the program is involved with, they are all so loving and willing to learn, but most of all so thankful for the volunteers' teaching and involvement in the program. Every volunteer receives a welcome and leaving speech from a few of the children with words so lovely and so heart-warming, thanking you for coming so far to help and teach them.

The program had certainly touched the hearts of Evelyn and Werner, an Austrian couple who has managed to raise 6000 euros for the program. With the money, they were able to buy tables, chairs and whiteboards for the new school being built, something which allowed a huge progression in the construction which requires alot of time and especially money. The costs of that above itself came to around £1750!! for 50 students!

At first I helped out teaching to get an idea of the work level and also to be familiar with the kids. Teaching the present tense in English went well with kids about6/ 7/8, and as ever, when in doubt of a game to play, Hangman always works well! The next day however with more boys in my teaching group, it was a bit harder when they decided that they'd rather be under the table and/or scribbling in each others notebooks than paying attention to my lesson.

English lessons took place at 3.30pm at the 3 various schools alternately everyday and during a few mornings we worked at the construction site of the new school. And my god was it hard work!! Imagine yourself carrying sand bags (loaded with stones/rocks too) up a steep hill at 3400m altitude and in the sun, yep pretty hard work!! Thankfully it was only for 3 hours on 2 days, but at least we had the motivation that we were doing this for a new school for the kids we were helping.

On the Saturday, I checked out the local market in Chupaca where there was fruit/veg/household products and animals in bags or boxes as far as the eye could see! Then in the afternoon we went on a touristy trip to a village a few hours away taking in beautiful scenery en-route. We visited the house of a man who is making the metal window and door frames for the new school and he kindly prepared us some DELICIOUS trout and potatoes, but those typical of the area, a sort of sweet-flavored potatoes. He even took us trout fishing but unfortunately we were unsuccessful, the trout were definately onto us and stayed away.

The Sunday was an important day as I was party time at the new school. Using the money that Evelyn and Werner had raised, they wanted to have a party for the children of all the schools with games, food, drink and most importantly, fun as a treat for them. I have never saw children so happy and content with a few sweets and fizzy drinks, all of whom, as ever, were so grateful.

Monday and Tuesday were my last days with the kids at the schools so I bought biscuits and fizzy drinks for all. It was sad to leave but I know that I will want to continue to support and help the program in the future.

For my last night, I went with one volunteer and a teacher from the program into Huancayo to watch the Copa America as Peru and Ecuador were playing against each other. Being around guys meant a lot of beer drinking/downing and drunken debates but all in all a good night ending with Wantan soup to warm my freezing body up from the Highlands cold and a 3.30am return to the house.

What can I say, the 6am start to pack my stuff and jump my bus back to Lima wasnt the most pleasant but I had the most amazing and enriching (cliche I know) experience and would certainly recommend this program for anyone coming to Peru. A hard-working program of lovely people with hearts the size of the Moon.

Colombia is FIT

Sitting on the flight after being told that Quito's airport is one the most dangerous in the world already put the fear in us, and then the lift-off just topped it off. The most terrifying take-off EVER. The plane's engines roared as the plane set off down the runway (it had to get as much height as rapidly as possible due to its resdiential location...) but as it succesfully passed over the nearby buildings the engines quieted so much so it felt like they had failed and we were goin to return back to Earth with a bump. "What the fuck is happening?!" screamed Lisa, and I couldn't have put my fear in better words.

Reassured by the flight crew, Lisa continued to be petrified throughout the flight to Bogota, and to be honest so was I even though I was trying to give her constant reassurance that we were going to be fine. We arrived safely, thank god, in Bogota an hour and half later and e couldn't have been more relieved!

Thirsty and hungry (the benefits of a hangover) we headed for the ATM to get out some Colombian pesos but the machines said NO. Both of our usual cards had been declined, but thankfully I had my Natwest bank card so was able to take out some money and then we ran to Dunkin' donuts to get some food and drink down us.

After bumping into what we believe was the Colombian football team, we boarded our connecting flight to Cartagena, a city on Colombia's caribbean coast. After a much more smooth flight, we jumped in a taxi to the first hostel on the Lonely Planet list and hoped for the best. Luckily, they found us a room straight away so we whacked on the fans asap in the humid caribbean heat!

That night we ventured around the corner to find somewhere to eat, trying to stick to our diets always causes us problems, NO MORE RICE, a pretty hard thing to not eat in South America.

Walkign past a bar someone tapped Lisa's shoulder, it was Severin, a guy the girls had met on their travels in Cusco and someone who we had bumped into in Mancora the first time we visited. Then we found a cute, quirky restaurant which had a lovely menu so we went in, only to find a birthday party in mid-motion. But we were starving so sat there as the only un-vited guests haha! The next minute the birthday girl arrives as does some singing and dancing men with trumpets and guitars, awkward much? The best part was Severin finding us again and trying to talk to us over the trumpet guy who coincidently blew it everytime he tried to speak!!!

The next was true tourist day and after a hefty amaount of cath-up sleep we went to visit the walled city where there are restaurants, shops, etc and it was really pretty, even after a typical tropical rainstorm it was still really nice. But the men were definately intrigued by our blancita skin!

The next day was an early one, catching a boat to the islands of the coast with the plan of staying at Playa Blanca, a beautiful beach on the Baru island. Walking along the beach we took the advice of an English couple to stay at 'David's place'. We would be spending the night sleeping in a hammock.

After swimming in the gorgeous blue caribbean sea, we had a few beers with David and his friends who were all celebrating the Day of the Fisherman.

We bumped into a girl who asked if we were English and she only ended up being a scouser!!! I had only met one scouser in all my 4 and half months in South America and I ended up bumping into one, Cat, on a carribean island!! haha

Then nighttime came and the island was in darkness, David had gone back to his village and basically left us alone in his hammock place until the morning. Thats when the shit it the fan, me and Lisa got into our hammocks ready in the pitch black and got ready to sleep. This is when a big guy walked in and got in the hammock next to me.... "Alo?" I asked, He said that he had already paid and arranged everything with David, but David hadnt said anything to us.... weird!

So back to sleep we went...
THEN his hammock was touching mine as they were so closely placed together, I then felt his hand come underneath the mosquito net covering my hammock and he grabbed my arm, not with force but suggestively. I was so shocked and pushed his arm away, thinking that maybe he was sleeping and didnt realise. I then stayed wide awake to see if he attempted it and he did 20 minutes later to which I screamed "What are you doing?" He mentioned something under his breath that I couldnt understand and it had woken a concerned Lisa.

There were 2 tents next to the hammocks so I jumped in petrified, and after rustling in the kitchen and a missing said man, Lisa joined me in the tent worried that he was in the kitchen looking for a weapon or god-knows-what! We both more or less stayed alert all night and had never been so glad to see daylight. We told David all about it the next day to his utter shock as 1) he had no idea who this guy was and 2) this had never happened before. We couldnt wait to jump on that boat back the next afternoon, we were traumatised!

The next day we left on a bus for Taganga, and stayed at hostel Casa de Felipe, owned by a french guy. We got placed in a 3-bed dorm with a potential RAR after working that out from his Armani belt and shirts piled on the top of his rucksack. Our first night we took a stroll down to the beachfront, only being 5 minutes away, and grabbed a pizza.

Our first full day in Taganga we spent at the beach, we already liked Taganga better, it was more relaxed and friendly, and much less touristy than Cartagena. The next day was spent mostly the same, except for getting attacked by wasps whilst trying to eat. That night we went to a beachfront restaurant to have some local cuisine. We ate fish, rice with coconut in, plantain and salad, something we had already had on the island by Cartegena. But 3 hours later, Lisa wasnt feeling too good and spent the night vomitting continously, but she told me not to worry and to go asleep.

I was awoken at 2am by Lisa screaming for my help as she collapsed onto her bed coming back from the bathroom, she hadnt stopped vomitting all night. I tried to encourage her to drink sips of water but she couldnt keep it down, and the guy in our room was so nice, helpful and understanding too. She really wanted to go to the hospital but there was no way of getting there as there was noone at reception to help us!

I woke up the next morning andLisa was still really weak and ill. I also felt ill with the worst migraine ever and couldnt move from the bed, but i hadnt been sick. So i went to the hostel snack bar to get powerade and crisps to try and re-hydrate Lisa but it would not stay down.

That day we had planned to sort out Lisa's visa for the US. She had her passport stolen a month before so currently had an emergency passport from the British embassy in Lima but the US dont allow you to even fly through their country with this without having a visa. So after filling in an application you have to go to a certain bank (one which was in the next town) and pay for a pin which you use to ring up and get a visa appointment with the embassy in Bogota.

That day, this was NOT POSSIBLE. Lisa could hardly stand never mind queue up for this. I had to take her to the clinic, it was obvious food poisioning and sever de-hydration. As soon as we arrived, the nurse took her to the doctor straight away whilst i sorted out all the formalities. She had to be put on a drip for 3 hours.
Trekking 5 blocks from the clinic to call Lisa's parents in the burning sun was an effort but I didnt mind, I knew she'd look after me just as well if I was in her position.

We left a few hours later and went back to the internet cafe to call Lisa's mum and let her know that Lisa was much better. However, we left the internet cafe to find comotion and police cars everywhere outside. When jumping in a taxi back to our hostel in the next town, we found out there had been a shooting and a man was shot dead. Could this day get any more dramatic???

The next day we HAD to get to the bank to sort out Lisa's visa, feeling a bit better, it wasnt so hard. NIGHTMARE struck! Even after buying this pin, it wasnt activated for another 24 hours, but she needed an appointment the next day in Bogota!!! After ringing the embasy to explain the situation, the guy said she could pass through with a usual ESTA waiver visa, all seemed well until we got back and found that the ESTA visa wasnt applicable to emergency passports. The only thing she could do was risk it on Monday.

We had to pack as quick as poss and get down the bus station to catch the overnight bus to Bogota. Another cold chicken bus, but a vast improvement on the bus to Quito, took us 26 hours instead of 18 due to the tropical storms en-route. Finally arriving in Bogota at 6.30pm we went straight to the hostel after grabbing some enpanadas and coca cola at the bus terminal.

Our first day in Bogota we went to the Gold Museum, apparently the best in the world, but after one floor of gold bits we were bored already, was gold actually that interesting?! So we found a big centre of souvenir shops just around the corner and got some presents.

Trying to keep down on costs, we found a supermarket and bought pasta and chilli con carne in a tin which actaully turned out pretty tasty. We also got a load of colombian coffee to take home and I got some for my host family and Shadia.

For the saturday night, we had planned on going out, but still knakered from the overnight bus to Bogota we couldnt face it. Well-rested the next day we took a walk around the centre of Bogota, all shut off from cars on Sundays. Between the Edward Scissorhands statue man and people randomly paying for gos on karaoke machines in the street, the sun was shining and we were loving Bogota. We stopped at the park and had a cheeky sunbathe before going back the hostel to have some lunch. Later on we packed and got into bed at 9pm for our 3am start to go to the airport. I was flying back to Lima and Lisa was flying back home!

I checked-in and me and Lisa had our last breakfast together, both of us crossing our fingers for her to be accepted to fly through the US.

I returned to rainy Lima to find out that the US had refused Lisa to fly!!!
After being stuck in Bogota for a further 2 days and paying for another flight home going through Spain and not the US, this morning (my time) she finally got back to London!!! Thank the lord for that!!!!

Quito, Ecuador : a bizarre city

After swapping buses twice and successfully crosssing the Ecuadorian border, it was chicken bus sleeping time and thank god for Lisa's sleeping bag to protect me from not freezing from the ice-cold air con!

We woke up at 6.30am in Quito only to realise that my iPod had gone AWOL, shit! I searched down the back of my seat to find only my headphones, so it seemed as if my iPod had detached itself from them during the winding bus journey and flew across the floor giving someone on the bus a lovely present...brilliant!!! Lisa was shocked at my calmness but after all her trouble having her passport, iPod and bankcard stolen a month earlier, this was only a mere material loss.

Then we realised that we had no dollars (money used in Ecuador), oops. So we shared an over-priced taxi to the hostel with 3 swedes we had befriended on the bus all who had shockingly perfect English! When we were told that we couldn't get into our room until 12pm, we napped in the lounge, had some brekky, tried to keep ourselves awake in a coffee shop and found an internet cafe before checking-in for another 2 hour nap. Having a bed was heavenly!

We didnt want to waste one fo our 2 days in Quito so we took a taxi (despite heavy rainfall) to the Old Town to have a look around. And my god was it dead, everything was shut, even the cathedral. So we had a sandwich and the best jugo (juice) ever, Naranjilla, in a small cafe under the cathedral. But after two creepy men following and even police officers asking if we were alone, we decided to head back to the hostel.

We got to chat to the lads in the next room to us, 3 English and 1 Canadian (who was still high form crazy jungle juice) and they certainly didnt hadnt been creeped on, oh the joys of being a female!

Later on, we decided to go out for dinner to a place we had spotted earlier that day, named an Absolut Vodka restaurant, we were curious to try it out. We saw cuy (guinea pig) turnovers on the menu, a typical meat eaten in Peru especially, and after months of resistance not to eat an English home pet, we got 2 to share accompanied by mushroom curry which ended up as a literal plate of mushrooms covered in a drizzling of yogurt and curry powder, no wonder it was named "Most Healthy" on the menu.

In the restaurant, once again, we hit a drinking barrier, an unknown drinking law, no alcohol after 3pm on Sundays apparently to stop Ecuadorians drinking all weekend long. But just like Peru's 'no drinking on election weekend' law, it was easily broken for us gringos, beer in a cappucino cup for disguise...ok then.

After a long day we called an early night at 10.

For our second and final day in Quito we ventured to the equator. Tired after an hour and half bus journey, we finally arrived there. I didn't really know what to expect, just a line on the ground I guess, but it was much more than that, with restaurants, souvenir shops, a huge monument and even a bullring. Through the entire area there was a yellow-painted line indicating the equator.

Then we jumped a bus back to the centre of Quito where we got a taxi to the Teleferico, the cable cars which permit amaxing views of the whole of Quito. Despite her fears of heights, Lisa still joined me. When we arrived we thought we were at the wrong place, all we come across was a pretty dead theme park playing 60s creepy theme park music. Thankfully, we then found the cable cars and jumped on. After pausing at the top for some photos, we descended back to Quito.

Back to the hostel later on, it was nearly free rum and coke time. Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday the hostel gives out a huge bucket of FREE rum and coke to all and fill it back up for only $1 each, not bad hey?! Also its a really good way to get everyone soacialising in the hostel. Afetr the rum and coke had dried up for the third time, Lisa, I and the lads from the next room decided to go out.

The night then was filled with spinning around the pole positioned in the middle of the dancefloor, refusing cocaine numerous times, getting salsa-ed by numerous people, getting on th bar for body shots, finding Lisa asleep in the corner of the club and listening to the most tragic story ever in the toilets.
A lady about late 30s old me how her English husband had been killed whilst being mugged in Quito 9 months earlier and nothing was being done about it, so so tragic! :(

NB: body shot : when a girl lies on the bar and others take shots from their belly button.

After a razy and actually emotionally-ending night, we were up early to catch our flight to Colombia, hangover.com! But at least we got to the airport on time...