Back home.

Well thats the first week back home gone.Been pretty busy with herself out to at least one thing every day, like op shop, mind the local gallery, etc. and I had a board meeting on wed. and another on Thur, but 50% of participants didnt show. Lucas, (grandy no 11) came on Tuesday, only sitting him one day a week at the moment.
   Checked all the Sentinels while we were away for a letter I wrote before we left. It failed to get printed. A couple of people have told me that the letters to the editor may be vetted by some one before they are published. The latest omission certainly points that way. Surely not. I know local government is all powerful, but even they are not above criticism. Are they?
    Some one snuck daylight saving in on me while we were away. Took a couple of days to work out what the time actually was. I notice Sylvy Dolphin from Lock having her five cents worth again on the perils of daylight saving. Come on Silvy, its been in about thirty years now. Its time you built a bridge.
   Cricket season underway again with Horry, grandy no 5 I think, making it into the E.P. under 14 side. Good on you Horry.

Sydney to Adelaide

The transfer from Sydney International to domestic was painless enough and the 3 hour wait for our connecting flight to Adelaide went by quite quickly. Even the boarding passes for Qantas which were issued in Santiago worked OK. Arrived in Adelaide on time after completely missing Thursday and over 25 hours since we checked out of hotel in Santiago. Got to Craig and Anges, sat around for a bit, had a lovely dinner, meat and veggies, unheard of when dining out, crashed around 8.30 and slept for over 12 hours.  Feel better now. Traveling is certainly hard work for the not so young, but I guess someone has to do it. Had a great time, saw so much it is all a blur at the moment, will have to look at the piccies to remind us what we did. Great to be back in OZ.

Flight home pt 2

Arrived in Auckland and disembarked for around 2 hours.  Came time to re board and there is someone else in our seats. Excuse me hostie, we don't appear to have a seat. Hostie disappears with our tickets, leaving us standing around in a full plane like stale bottles of urine. Finally she returns, beckons us to follow and we head to the rear end of the plane where this poor bugger was moved for the second time so that we had a seat together. We had flown quite a bit with LAN on this trip but they certainly blotted their copy book on this leg, even to the point of overbooking the flight. It does seem though that if you spoke Spanish and smiled nicely at the hostie you could get you and your mates in the four seats in front of us, all together. Unfortunately, I'm a bit old for the smiling nicely and I don't speak Spanish. I almost forgot, more drama whilst boarding. For reasons unknown, it is quite OK to take bottled water on the plane in Sydney and Auckland, but not in Santiago, where we were relieved of our two unopened bottles of water.  bastards! Anyway we arrived in Sydney, safe and reasonably well.

The flight home. Santiago

Our guide picked us up on time and off we went to the airport. A dream run on the freeway and straight to the check in counter. The friendly smiling check in chick, handed Bob our boarding passes. She noticed that despite requesting our seats some four months ago we were given one seat in the middle of four row 21 and the other in the middle of four, row 15. We asked for two together and the check in chick replied, its a full plane, no can do. We said how can this be, we are one of the first people to check in. She shrugged, embarrassed because she probably hoped we would not have noticed the seating until we were gone, at which point we asked to see the supervisor, who said to ask at the gate when boarding. Its called duck shoving, and nobody wanted to know. Finally a young lady at the gate actually did something and managed to get us two seats together but in the middle of four. Although we had to climb over people to get out we were at least together for the  12 and a half hour flight to Auckland. As it turned out it was a reasonable flight and passed relatively quickly for 50% of us. But wait theres more.

La Paz to Santiago again

Fortunately we were now domestic passengers and we exited the terminal quickly where we found our escort waiting for us. A twenty minute drive on a great freeway brought us to our hotel Atton el Bosque where we had previously stayed but this time on the 17th floor with wonderful views of snow capped mountains and the city of Santiago. As we were pretty exhausted after the time in the higher alltitudes we had a long lie in and a late breakfast. So we didn't stay in the hotel room all day we ventured out and took a subway ride to the end of the line, walked one stop through suburbia and came back again. Our pickup tonight is at 8.40 for our 11.50 flight to Sydney via Auckland.

La Paz to Santiago

Picked up at  9.30am for the 2000 km trip to Santiago and the end of our holiday. Our itinerary said a six hour trip but we thought they must have made a mistake. Boy! were we wrong. We found out when booking in that there were two stops and after waiting for 2 hours found out the flight was delayed for another hour and a half.  Thirty minutes into the flight we landed at Arika, a town in northern Chile. As we had now left Bolivia we were now in Chile. We had to disembark, go through Immigration and then collect our luggage and go through customs. The luggage was then immediately placed back on the carousel and loaded back on the plane.  This all took almost an hour.  We then boarded the plane again and another 30 mins later we landed at  Equique, another town in the middle of the Atacama Desert. This time we got to stay on the plane while they re-fuelled, seat belts undone ( just in case) for thirty minutes to off load and board passengers. Finally we took off again for the 2 hour flight to Santiago where lunch was served at 4.00pm. Arrived about 7.45pm after leaving our hotel room in La Paz at 9.30am.....cont.

La Paz Bolivia

Dined out with Geoff and Vicki, two Australians from Newcastle who we first met at Galapagos and have re met at almost every city even though on separate itinerary's.
The next day we had a short city tour of La Paz, which is rather an incredible city down in a valley with a satellite city called Alto at the top of the hill where it is colder and windier where the poorer people live comparative squalor. The homes are invariably built of home made adobe bricks,no colour, extremely busy and not my cup of tea. Dined out on the rooftop again, this time with Noelene from Melbourne, another one we re met several time along the way. Nice relaxing 9.30 start tomorrow for our trip to Santiago.  (If only we had known what was in store)

Lak Titicaca and Bolivia

We were a little misled today as our itinerary said a full days lake crossing when in fact it began with a two hour bus trip during which we changed buses and went through Peruvian and Bolivian customs and immigration. This was fairly painless though comical as there was a ceremony going on at the border so we had to skirt the participants to make our way on foot to the Bolivian border control.The bus then continued on to Copacabana (not the real one) where we boarded a large catamaran for Island of the Sun on Lake Titicaca. A two hour tour of Sun island, which included 203 steps up. We saw the fountain of youth, it didn't work but, a display in an under ground gallery and right at the top, for a small fee there was an old man who conducted a ceremony which called on the spirits of the earth to bless us. Back down the steps to a smaller catamaran on which we were served lunch as we headed toward La Paz. The cat landed at an unremembered wharf and we continued our journey to La Paz in yet another bus. Arrived in La Paz about 7.30 at The Presidente 5 star hotel,14 floor, great.

Puno and Lake Titicaca

Pick up time today 9.30, a much more civilised time. We are going on a trip to Uros island, one of the floating islands on Lake Titicaca. As it happens,our guide lives on one of the islands and we meet his mother and father during our visit. We are shown the rooms in which they live and sleep and since the recent introduction of a small solar panel on a pole they now have enough power to run a small TV and a few lights. This has also resulted in less fires, a constant danger. They even manage to grow a few veggies etc in the decomposing reeds. We are then rowed (1oar at the back) to another island on a reed built boat where we discover that todays reed boat has up to 1200 plastic drink bottles encased in the reeds. Thats progress I guess. Then onto the power boat and back to the mainland. Had dinner at a Lima pedestrian street restaurant with Nancy and Louanne, from Texas, whom we first met on the boat at Galapagos and have met several times since. And so to bed.

Andean Explorer and Puno.

------of open ground should not be used, just because a train comes through from time to time. The train driver is constantly blowing the horn,generally to no avail, but the stalls set up on the track on a tarp are casually removed to let the train pass. I was told that some even leave them there for the train to straddle. The semi permanent stalls on either side sell almost everthing, one in particular having more nuts and bolts than I have ever seen. Car parts, hardware, TVs', electronic goods and electrical equipment to name a few, in semi permanent stalls which all but touch the train as it crawls past. WOW. By the time we reached Puno about an hour later it was getting dark and we were pretty much ready to get off. At the station when all others had gone, there was just us and a Condor travel rep left but the name on his card was not ours. A quick phone call by him soon concluded thet he had the wrong name written down and that in fact it was us he was to pick up. We were deposited at the Casa Andina Puno Plaza hotel, one of three with the same name in Puno and after a brief disscussion on the size of our room(small) we were found one a little better.

Andean Explorer cont.

At the station there was the ubiquitous but small market selling local and not so local wares. The stop appears to be nothing more than an attempt to assist the economy of the local community. Then back on the train for a 3 course lunch as we continued on to Puno. The remainder of the journey was through quite harsh and dry farming communities on a plateau in the Andes but all above 3200 mts. The sheep,cattle,alpacas and llamas are all tethered and watched over all day,sun up to sun down, mostly by older woman or children between 5 to 8, before being taken home at dusk. A feature of the train is the last carriage of which one half consists of a glass enclosed lounge and and the other an observation car which is also glass enclosed but the last meter or so is open, with brass railing to prevent accidental egress. The dining cars and the observation car are all fully refurbished in the manner of the Pullman cars of the 1920s. About an hour before Puno we passed through the town of Juliaca at about  2 kph. This is brought about because the train line runs through the middle of the market, and the locals being very astute, can see no reason why a perfectly good piece----cont.

Andean Explorer. Cusco to Puno Fri 30th Sept

Up early and ready to be picked up by a guide, despite wake up call being overlooked. Looking forward to, albeit with some apprehension, a ten hour train trip on the Andean Explorer. Our pickup arrived around 7.00 am to take us to the station. On arrival and within minutes we were on the train,our luggage was taken care of and we were seated in two lounge chairs(bolted to the floor)and our own table. We remet several of our prior travelling companions and away we went,right on time at 8 oclock. For the first twenty minutes or so the train picked its way through some of the poorest and dirtiest housing areas of Cusco, a real eye opener. The river alonside the rail track was not so big but it was choked with litter, consisting mainly of plastic bags and plastic drink containers. Once we cleared the city it became more rural and the river alongside became a bigger, cleaner river, flowing in the opposite direction. This river was to stay with us to about the halfway and highest point of the trip, from where it emanated. At the highest point, La Raya,4321 mts we were allowed a ten minute break, to wander around.

Cusco Sept 29th

Morning off from any commitments so did little and tried to recover. Not quite up to it by one oclock when it was time for the afternoon half day city tour, so Bob went anyway. Should have gone out anyway as they are building a new Marriott right next door and they jackhammered from 7 in the morning to 7.30 at night on an adjoining wall. Bob enjoyed her half day tour with "now old friends"that we keep re-meeting along the way. Feeling much better by now so went out for a light meal, then an early night in readiness for tomorrows early start as the train from Cusco to Puno leaves at 8.00 am.

Aguas Caliente Wednesday sept 28

Today turned into a bit of a downer. We had most of the day off to just wander the town, which was fortunate as during the night my complete aliamentary system said, enough, time to empty out. After quite a large meal at lunch time and then to find out that dinner was included in the tarrif, 3 courses,two beers and a white wine proved too much for the altitude affected digestion system. Doctor came, no carbs,no alcohol and no fizzy drinks for two days. Managed to stay in our room until twelve, and spent the time waiting for the train at about four-ish in the public areas of the hotel. Train back to Ollentaytambo, driver waiting for us to take us to Urubamba to pick up our suitcase and then for the two hour ride of our life back to Cusco. The road to Cusco is also the road to Lima going the other way and it was very busy. Many vehicles dont seem to have tail lights but almost all have headlights, unfortunately only high beam. The road contains a mixture of trucks,buses,cars, 3 wheel motor bike taxis, people,donkeys,alpacas,dogs and kids. Our driver was pretty quick but never took chances and we arrived at our hotel about 7.45, glad to be there.