The 3 A's... Africa, Asia & the Americas
Click to View Virtual Tours of India 29may07Hi, Well after a 31 hour jeep, train and the most hair-raising auto rickshaw journey we finally got into Varanasi. We left Darjeeling at 12 midday and got to the train station at 3.30pm nice and early for our train which was leaving at 5.30pm..... or so we thought!!!! In actual fact after many delay updates it left at 9.30pm, so already it was 4 hours late. We fought through the THRONGS of people, found our carriage, and boarded our train and found our beds for the night. In 2 tier AC class there are little curtained off compartments of groups of 6 berths, stacked one on top of the other - we were sleeping in 2 of these. Well, if you could call it sleeping!!!! One man snored SO loudly I could have sworn there was a PIG on board!!!! Well I was woken at 4am by his animal like noises - i was SO ANGRY. I lay there trying to block out the horrific snorts by putting my hands over my ears, a pillow over my head, but nothing worked. In the end I got up out of my bed, put on my shoes and went in search of the guilty assailant. When I found him I pulled back his curtain and knocked firmly on his head to awaken him!!! He looked up very dazed and confused. I asked him kindly but firmly to please be quiet. When he looked at me confused I realised he couldn’t understand me, so a firm SSHHHH did the trick. Funny enough, I didn't hear from him for the rest of the night, although during the next day when he was safe in the company of his awaken family he did grab half an hour or so's snorting!! WE were meant to be off the train 15 hours after we boarded, 8am . Instead we were on there till 6pm the following night - 25 hours after!!!! The day passed slowly as simon and i hid in our little curtained off 2 berth just staring at the sights out of the window. Honestly, sights they were. The locals just wee directly onto the track from the platform. So we sat at each station trying to not look at them weeing onto the tracks!! There was an infestation of cockroaches on the train as well. They were crawling all around us!!! Up the walls, around our heads, over our beds - It all sounds really quite horrific, but I must admit we both really took it in our stride..... There was a big argument and shouting match (we've seen a few of these revolving around trains and train stations) further down our carriage. Turns out that one local guy was so horrified with the state of the carriage (apparently it's not usually quite as bad as this - so we had a BAD train for Indian standards) that he complained. He wrote a letter of complaint and got all the passengers to sign it. So we rolled in to the train station just outside of Varanasi at 6pm and then had to travel 15kms. We got in an auto rickshaw (tuk-tuk) for this. WELL, Simon and I had our eyes closed for most of this journey!!! You know the latest James Bond movie has a rickshaw chase through the streets of Bangkok ?? Well our driver was the driver from this movie _ i'm SURE of it!!! We swerved in and out of the throngs of traffic, nearly kneecapped several cyclists and narrowly dodged several lorries and cars!! It was one scary ride. We got to our hotel at 7pm, 31 hours after leaving darjeeling - Great Fun !!!!!! Varanasi is on the banks of the Ganges river and is said to be the most holy place in India. Thousands of Indians come daily to bathe in the holy waters of the river Ganges. too bad that there are over thirty sewage inlets into the river as well. there are over 1.5 million faecal bacteria found in one 100ml sample of water - to be safe for swimming there should be less than 500. it's very interesting though - seeing the people pray at the side of the water and bathe etc etc. We've only properly seen it this morning and that was a brief walk as it is over 40 degrees here !!!! Our hotel room overlooks the river so if the weather proves too fierce then we can always watch all the goings on from our nice air conditioned room!! Well, we shall go out and brave the heat now, more to follow soon Lots of love wendy Click here to View Virtual Tours of Nepal 4may07I now have the firmest buttocks in the east!!!!! and so I should have!! Simon and I have just returned from doing the Annapurna circuit - a trek of the Annapurna Himalaya range in Nepal. It's meant to be a 17-21 day trek but somehow we managed to do it in 13 days!!.... It was an amazing 13 days as well. WE walked though Beautiful landscape, passing though Tibetan villages which I'd only dreamt of experiencing. Every day the scenery just got better and better. The Tibetan villages were just like I'd only seen in pictures before now - Prayer flags blowing on the wind, chortens (archways) at the entrance to each town, and prayer wheels all around. The people were lovely and we had quite a few of those moving interactions that will stay with us forever. It really was a lovely 2 weeks. Physically it was the most challenging trek we'd completed so far as we both carried our own packs over 320km and we went up to 5416m - the highest we've been so far. It was VERY cold up to say the least! We walked through snow and ice of the day of the high pass. Luckly we suffered very little effects from the altitude. Now we are probably the fittest we've ever been - and well my buttocks, I think I've said enough about them!! So we're now in Kathmandu enjoying all the trappings of semi-civilised life. So that's our news of the last few weeks... Hope everyone is well Lots of love wendy xxx Click here to View Virtual Tours of Kenya 11apr07Hi all, hope you are all well... wARNING: for fear of falling asleep at your computer, please print this off and read when you ahve time - it's a long one!! Well it's absolutely aaaages since I sent an update of where we're at and what we're up to!!! We've actually just arrived in India after nearly 3 months travelling from Cape Town to Nairobi.... I think the last time I wrote we were just leaving Vic Falls to head on up through Zambia and Malawi to Tanzania and then finally to Kenya. Well we had Many adventures along the way..... Travelling through Zambia, Malawi & Kenya we really found out what rough travel was about. They didn't have many bus services as such, just little mini buses that they call matatus. On the whole these are small minibuses that are meant to hold about 16 people!!!! We very quickly learnt the key phrase in matatu-speak - "there's always room for one more" !! These things might be crammed with about 30 people on occasion!!!! and with a backpack on your lap that's not much fun. Not to mention the fact that you really take your life in your hands when you get into one of these things. Because the driver only gets money for the no. of passengers he carries means that the more he can cram in and the more he zips back and forth on his route, the more money he gets. This equates to the matatu screaming along, often on 2 wheels as he rounds the corner - on the OTHER side of the road from the one he's meant to be on!! It was terrifying. One other frustrating fact about this mode of transport is that they will not leave until they have enough people. On one occasion this meant that we waited about 3 hours to get somewhere.... that somewhere we didn't end up getting cos it was going to be too damned late by the time we got there!!!! Through Zambia and malawi we took to hitch-hiking to avoid the frustration of waiting 3 hours for the car/van to fill up... This led to quite a few experiences - one ride was with the guy who was the cousin of the tribal chief of the whole area - that was interesting.... In Malawi we stayed right on the lakeside in a beautiful bamboo hut. That was bliss for a few days.... White sandy beaches, beautiful crystal clear water to swim and snorkel in... In north Malawi, Chitimba, we took our life in our hands and went abseiling, gorge swinging and rap-jumping off a 1000 metre escarpment. Abseiling was great, easy! Rap jumping - for the uninitiated is effectively abseiling down the rock face front ways - so in actual fact you walk down the rock face - that hurt!!!!! The gorge swing, WELL!! I don't think I have ever been so damn terrified in my life!!!! We first of all had to abseil down an overhang, until we got to the end of our rope- YIKES!!!! THEN we simply had to let go of the abseiling rope - as easy as that. Then you fell 25 metres into mid-air before the ropes took up and we started swinging in mid-air!! TERRIFYING!!!! I'd NEVER do it again!!!! We're now pretty much in the middle of no-mansville as far as public transport is concerned. We'd arrived into Chitimba on the back of an open lorry which we'd hitched on, along with a pig and several other livestock. The only thing that passes regularly along this road are overlander trucks - these massive lorries fitted out with seats and the rest of the business to truck 28 people across africa for the period of 32 weeks at a time.... We didn't really like the whole overlander thing as it seemed just to be a great excuse to have a piss-up every night in a different african town!! Not my idea of travelling, But when needs must.... We met one of the drivers who'd jacked in his job and was carting his lorry back up to the company. We asked if he minded giving us a lift and her very reluctantly agreed to take us part of the way. This was not the most easy of rides we'd had. Sat in between Darren, the driver and Simon, I tried for about 2 hrs to make polite conversation. In the end when I realised that he just was not interested, I just gave up. He dropped us off where he said he would, on the side of the street about 10 kms from where we wanted to be. We were very lucky though as another car driven by a dutch doctor and her friends picked us up and took us right to our destination. Click here to View Virtual Tours of Tanzania That was us now in Tanzania.... In Tanzania we based ourselves in Arusha in the north. Here is the best place to get to that Serengeti & Mt Kilimanjaro. Our plan was to do both of these..... until we realised how much they were going to cost. Do you know, to climb Mt kilimanjaro costs $750 per person - for 4 days hiking!!!! Needless to say, we didn't do that! We did do a 4 1/2 day safari to the Serengeti and Ngorogoro Crater though. What an amazing experience. If you're ever going to do a safari in Africa, you should not go past the Serengeti. We'd been in the reserve for less than half an hour when we saw a lion and a lioness lying dosing right at the side of the dirt track. We were so close to them and they just lay there oblivious to everything.... It was an amazing sight. After a while they woke up and he decided that he was going to try it on with his missus.... Until she gave him a bat around the chops that is!!!! WE saw many many lions, leopard, cheetah, hundreds of zebra and wildebeest, giraffe, elephant. That night we camped in the park. Now unlike Kruger there are no fences that seperate you and the animals.... and that night was very entertaining to say the least.... We had lions around our camp. The low pulsing roar was like nothing else I've heard before.... and it haunted us for most of the night!!! At our camp in Ngorogoro there was a massive bull elephant, just wandering around at his leisure. Elephants are sooo dangerous, they could crush you with one footstep, or one flick of their trunks. It was hilarious when, sat down to dinner, this massive elephant appeared right at my back. He was on his way to the 5000 L water tank which services the showers etc for the whole site. He stuck his trunk in and proceeded to drink all the water from the tank!!! WE just watched in amazement as he marched on his merry way once he'd finished - truly an amazing sight I'll never forget!!!! Then there were the very cheeky baboons that came into the campsite and SWITCHED ON the water tap to drink from it!! Cheeky things never switched off the tap though!! We had the most amazing experiences in the Serengeti and the crater... It was so lovely to watch herds upon herds on zebra and wildebeest frolicking by the water. Oh and then there were the hippos - I've never smelt such a stench - their water hole stank to high-heavens - and they just wallowed and played in this cess-pool. They were amazing to watch too. After spending some more time around Arusha in Tanzania, we headed across the border to Nairobi, Kenya. We heard so many bad stories about "Nairobbery" and we weren't too enamoured about being here. But because it cost us $50 for a visa to get into the country we were damned if we were just going to sit in our hotel rooms until we had to catch our flight like so many other travellers we talked to had done. In actual fact we were very pleasantly surprised with Nairobi - we didn't have any trouble at all, in fact everyone was VERY pleasant to us. Apparently the new President has really cleaned up the streets and is doing some really great things for the city. As we didn't get to fulfill our dream of climbing the highest mountain in Africa, we settled for the second highest... Mt Kenya. Apparently this trek is meant to be alot more scenic and a bit more difficult than Kili.... WE did a 5 day trek. The first 2 days were very easy going - a walk in the park. WE stayed in huts along the route up the mountain. These are nothing more than corrugated tin huts with a few bunkbeds in. Day 3 was the biggie!! We left our camp at 3.30am and walked in the dark in order to reach the summit for sunrise. It was a steep old climb but we were too fast! We reached there too early and had to stop and wait until the sun was ready to rise. Despite the fact we sheltered in the rocks of the mountain, it was SO cold even though we had about a 101 layers on.... It was amazing though when we got to the summit and watched the sun rise. We felt on top of the world!! We'd achieved so much !! However, the days trekking had only begun at this point ... we were still to do a circuit of the whole summit!! This was a long old day of going up very steep faces and then coming down... going up again... coming down again!! Oh I was SO exhausted when we finally got back to our camp 9 1/2 hrs later!!! It was exhilarating though and it was such a big achievement for me, both physically and emotionally... After Mt Kenya we treated ourselves to a week on a paradise island - Lamu. This is a very old island which is predominantly islamic. Stepping off the boat onto the island feels like you've stepped back 100's of years. The town itself is a maze of sand-covered narrow alleyways. The bustling seafront is a buzz of commotion. All the dhow boats - some used for fishing others used for transporting the very few tourists that were on the island - lined up along the harbour. Some of them loading the most extraordinary wares. We saw one poor cow, up to his knees in the water, surrounded by many men trying to entice the poor cow onto the dhow to be transported to one place or another. The goods that were offloading were even more interesting! One boat had just offloaded 4 baby tiger sharks!! These sharks didn't really resemble babies - they were between 1 1/2 - 2 metres long!! The fisherman would have spent most of the night and all of the morning catching these and getting them onto their boats. And now they lay motionless on the waterside. We stayed by the beach 40 mins walk from all the bustle of the town. For most of the week we lazed between the gorgeous breezy seafront balcony of our hotel room, shading from the very warm pre-monsoon days, venturing out to the white sandy beach when it felt a bit cooler, to swim in the crystal blue water. Lamu is also a place where the jetset crowd come... Prince Michael (?) of Monaco has a house here, as does Princess Stephanie. Bryan Adams was also a recent guest in the local hotel. Lamu really is a place where Islamic women cloaked in black, young african men aspiring to be Bob Marley, old weathered fishermen and the jetset crew rub shoulders. It was an amazing place!!! One I'd definitely go back to. Now we're in India - and WOW I love it.... We've been here for 3 days now and really I am so in love with the place.... We're staying in a really travel-y area of Delhi. We step out of our hotel and every one of our senses is bombarded!! We're in a narrow street lined with market stalls - rickshaws, motorbikes, tuk-tuks, cows, dogs and pedestrians vying for any inch of space there is on this busy busy street. WE stop for a freshly squeezed juice which costs 25p before going out for our delicious feast of mouthwatering indian food which costs us all of 70p a dish!!! We visited the Red Fort today. What was so nice is that the place isn't overrun with foreign tourists - it was mainly Indian visiting their own country. What's so funny as that the locals spend more time staring at us than anything else. So many of them today came up and asked if they could have their picture taken with us. One little group of 4 ladies all wanted to touch me and hold my hands... they were quite taken with me. I must admit I did feel like a piece of meat as they pawed me and exchanged remarks to each other as they smiled at me and shook their heads. It was very sweet though. The people are just so friendly and gentle... I've been doing a bit of shopping now.... In Nairobi we went shopping in an street antique market. We came away with an African door!!! Yes a door!! It is not a full size door - more a window shutter door. So we'll have hours of enjoyment deciding what we're going to do with that!! In Delhi the purchases have been more of a personal nature - ie for me!! I've bought shoes, bags , some hippy clothes..... and I haven't even got started yet!!! Anyway, thats all from me folks. You're eyes will be hurting if you've managed to get this far. I hope everyone is well. Take care, Lots of love Wendy xxxxxx Hi all. Well after our chilled out time in Mozambique, we stepped up the pace again and made our way to Vic Falls. This meant travelling into and out of Jo'burg (which we managed to survive despite warnings from locals that we stood a good chance of having our limbs cut off if we went there) and also through Zimbabwe.... Zimbabwe was a bit strange.... We arrived off an overnight bus (we started our journey at 8pm from Jo'burg and arrived at 11.30am) into Bulawayo. We had no currency as, with the political situation in Zim at the moment, the currency is in a real mess (along with everything else in the country). So the first thing we had to do was get some currency......somehow. Now the official bank rate is 250 Zim dollars to $1 US. On the blackmarket however the rate is anything upto 20000 Zim dollars to $1 US (seriously.....). You have to be very careful who you exchange money with as you can imagine crime is rife here... So Simon set off with a guy we'd met that had been on our bus with us... He knew of somewhere to get a good reliable exchange. So off he went down the road with this guy leaving me there looking after all our bags. I must admit that I did worry just a little as you don't really know who to trust and you hear so many horror stories. 20 minutes later though he returned 780,000 dollars richer!!!! One thing that has struck us while in Zimbabwe is all the shortages - honestly there are queues about 1 mile long outside the petrol stations. As there is so little petrol, these cars wait in these queues for about 4 days!!!! In the shops, you cannot get milk, and bread is like gold-dust. I've seen people having to up to the office of the supermarket to pre-order loafs of bread!! It's a shame!!! We weren't going to hang around in Bulawayo for long as our plan was to get to Vic Falls as quickly as possible and get out of there. So we booked ourselves on an overnight train out of Bull to Vic Falls for that night. It cost us all of $7 to get a sleeper cabin to ourselves.... It was like something out of a James Bond Movie only just a little less luxurious.... So we hung out in Bulawayo for the day until our train that night. All in all it was quite painless really - we went to a fantastic steak restaurant for Sunday lunch and that, Beers and pudding cost us about $5!! for the 2 of us.... Now the train journey was interesting as only 3 weeks prior the train had crashed and 50 people had died.... The train boss was onboard, actually in the cabin next door to us. He told us to lock our doors and double lock them, and DO NOT open them to anyone until we got to Vic Falls - he also told us to bang on the wall should we have any problems - Just what you want to hear before settling down to a cosy night sleep!! WE rolled into Vic Falls at about 11am on Monday morning though fresh as daisies.... we'd had a lovely night's sleep!! WE visited Vic Falls that afternoon - amazing!!! Yesterday, Tuesday, we went white water rafting on the "mighty Zambezi". I must admit, I was pooing my pants at the thought of doing this - what with my "white-water experience" when canoeing in Finland, (do you remember that Debbie and Rob??!!) I'd formed an irrational fear of any water upwards of mere frothy!!!! But it was one of those things that had to be done!! So we did it!! And it was fantastic!!!! We had such a good day.... WE were flipped about senseless by the river, but on most occasions I managed to hold on to the boat - whether inside or outside.... It was FUN!!! Today we are having a restful day. Tomorrow we are heading off up to Zambia, then we go on to Malawi and onwards through Tanzania and Kenya - stopping on the way to have a bit of fun of course. Will keep you up to date and informed of our adventures...... Lots of love WEndy xxxxx 22feb0 Hi All, Well here's our latest tales ...... We've actually been stranded on a deserted island for the last week or so. (Actually it wasn't an island as such, it was still part of the mainland of Mozambique, but not accessible by car so it was totally shut off from.... life basically). 700 people live here in little huts made out of palm trees. We stayed in a similar hut with 2 single beds in it and that's all. No floor, just sand. There was no electricity & no running water - which meant no lights, cooking over a flame, no fridge, so no cold drinks and food having to be caught fresh every day (fish), water drawn from a bore on the island ( so it tasted a little concrete-y, shower under a makeshift shower which was a hosepipe rigged up to a tank of water in a little hut under the stars - we're talking basic living at its base-est.... It was lovely though - for a week.... any more and we'd have gone mad!! The place was owned by a fisherman who would go out fishing each day or night to provide for the family and us his guests. We definitley had a Valentines day that can never be repeated..... we went out on a tiny boat with Lucio the owner...... we caught a shark !!!!!!! I'm serious a real live shark!! Granted it was a baby, but it was still a metre long!!!! It writhed and splashed as we tried to pull it in.. well while Lucio tried - I made my way to the farthest end of the (10 foot) boat (not far enough by any of my standards!!) and Simon, well he tried..... Thank goodness the shark got away cos apparently it would have eaten part of the boat away as well as a few of our limbs!! So, anyway, on the way back to the bay a group of dolphins swam past us.... very romantic indeed. At another paradise beach on the same bit of coast we stayed in the honeymoon suite (no reason apart from just wanting a bit of privacy and relative luxury though it still was totally basic) , it had panoramic "windows" (actually flyscreens) overlooking the ocean, we could see and hear the ocean from our bed..... WEll while we were sitting there at the bar overlooking the ocean we looked out to see.... a shark fin!! The dark spot surrounding this fin was huge - this shark was at least 10 feet long!! and it was just off the coast!! Needless to say we didn't do much swimming at that beach!! Anyway we're back in semi-civilisation now..... Jo'burg. I say semi-civilisation cos although it has all the western delights of anywhere in the UK - retaurants, shopping malls etc etc, we keep having people coming up to us and warning us of how dangerous it can be here - We're staying right out in the 'burbs though and are getting out of here tonight - Heading to Victoria Falls... I wonder how that'll compare to the lovely time we had at Iguacu?? Anyway, better go. LOts of love Wendy xxxxx ps would love to hear your news..... 7feb07 Hi all, I had to write and tell you about our experiences at Kruger Park !! We stayed in a 'safari tent' for 2 nights - basically this was a great big green army number straight out of MASH.... It was right on the perimeter of the park, which means that we were separated from the wildlife by a 2 metre high electrical fence!!!! mmmm can't see that stopping a 2 tonne elephant on the rampage.... Our first night we were just about to turn in when we got to our from door and turned on the outside light and there was a hyena on the other side of the fence not more than 5 feet away - absolutely NO exaggeration. He was sitting there just looking straight at us!!!! Now this hyaena looked quite cute actually and I thought it was especially cute when he looked straight at me, then slowly walked away giving us a little sidewards glance - I thought he was maybe a little shy and had gotten a bit of a shock to see us there, in his territory... But then Simon decided to let me in on a few secrets he'd just read in the info booklet we;d picked up. Hyena's are scavengers - they are the first ones at the dead animal as soon as the lions have taken what they want - they frighten off the vultures and don't let them have a look in till they've taken what they wwant. They're jaws are built to rip flesh apart, and they chew up the bones - cute eh?? So for the first night that was all we'd seen of him... I really hoped that he'd be back the second night - be careful what you wish!!! At 8pm when we got back to our MASH tent I got some veggies out and started making a salad outside on the table - he obviously smelt it a mile off and the next minute he was there !!! Sniffing...though this time he wasn't shy and retiring, he just stood there, staring , we had to end up taking our food inside to eat !!! He then realised that we were getting upset with him - something about us shining the torch in his eyes and shooing him away .... So he decided to hide!! He crouched down very low on the ground so that he was camouflaged by the trees - but I could see him... He was freaking us out !! Anyway, my next thought was that hyaenas are renowned for their laughing - I wished that I could just hear him laugh a little - be VERY careful what you wish!!!! We went to bed and honestly the sounds of his shrill laughter haunted our ears - this was a little bit scarey. Here we were in our little MASH tent, no more than 5 feet away from a mad laughing animal - which had decided that it wasn't going to get any of our Greek Salad and would have to go out and fend for himself!!! Well, he must have set upon a bushpig or a warthog or something cos the sound was horrifying!!!! Right outside our door!!! The bushpig shreiking and the hyaena laughing away - and he went on laughing through the night!! Oh p-leease.... That was the hyena saga!!! Then there was the electrical storm. On the first night of our stay, just after we saw the cute hyaena for the first time, an electrical storm came over..... The thunder rumbled and the lightening came on strong. It wasn't long before the whole sky was being lit up and our MASH tent as well ..... It was like the hyena was standing outside flashing a strobe light around - I mean the whole place was lit up by this storm... We didn't get wet, but our little tent didn't save us from much else... We got up at 4.30 am and took our little corsa out on a game drive of our own. Kruger Park is massive, in fact it is actually the size of Wales itself!! That's a LOT of mileage to cover, while driving at 40 km an hour while both looking out either side for animals!! We drove from 5.30 am till 3.30pm !!! and THEN got on a sunset game drive at 4.30 until 7.30!!! It was worth it though, we saw a massive bull elephant quite close up, giraffes galore - so close, a massive buffalo, again really close, another couple of hyaenas, hippos, crocs, lions, it was a GREAT day - it was that day that we got back to our tent to make the Greek Salad that the hyaena so wanted - so you can see why we were a bit narked off.... So that is our real safari experience !! You could say that we were very close to nature !!! VERY indeed !! we're off to Mozambique tomorrow - some beaches and snorkelling to be had !! lots of love wendy xxxxx View virtual tours of South Africa 4feb07 Hi Everyone (you might want to print this off and read it later when you've got time) It's been AGES since I wrote with our travel adventures. I can;t believe just how quickly 4 months in C&S America flew by. We finished off S America with 3 weeks in Rio where we rented an apartment one street away from Copacabana Beach (did I already tell you that?) and vegged for the whole time. We had to drag ourselves off the beach to go and see Christ the Redeemer on Corcovado mountain and Sugar Loaf mountain!! It was worth it though. 5 Days in London getting spoilt with delicious home cooked meals from Simon's Mum, sitting in front of the fire eating choccies and drinking a good old cup of english tea, and visiting our old Noth London haunts went by VERY quickly indeed!!! And then we were bound for South Africa!! We were joined by Simon's mum and dad for the first 2 weeks and so that was very much like a holiday - we had a lovely time. We started our adventures in CapeTown where we spent a few days visiting the sights - Table Mountain, Cape of Good Hope/ Cape Point, the beautiful beaches round the city, the new Waterfront development - a big shopping area with restaurants etc. CapeTown is a lovely city, very clean, lots of new developments and some really posh houses. View virtual tours of Cape Town There's an area called Camps Bay and Clifton where the houses are something else. Sprawling mansions overlooking the ocean. Some were set high on the mountain so they had their own funicular railway up to their house from the street. This is luxury city!! Now we'd managed 4 months in C&S America without getting 1 upset tummy and were feeling very fortunate indeed. I realised that it had to catch up with us at some point, unfortunately my time came in CapeTown! I'll spare you the details..... I was very lucky that it only lasted 24 hrs though. After CT we headed down the famous Garden Route towards a beautiful little place called Wilderness - it has a beautiful white sandy beach that sprawls for miles and miles... It really reminds my of around West Coast Australia where I grew up. We stayed in a lovely hostel called Fairy Knowe Backpackers. It was right out in the country set right by the river with an old steam railway that ran by at the end of the garden. It felt like something out of 19th century england... The beaches all along the Garden Route and further along are all wide sprawling, white sandy beaches..... one thing though, they are sooooo windy. Honestly, you get sprayed by wind everytime you step onto the beach - and it hurts!! We had an amusing day in Wildernesss when we went for a nice walk in the counrty and got chased by Baboons - they even threw stones at us!! I didn't quite realise how bad the situation was so was calm as you like, but Simon jumped down off the path onto a dry river bed, and dragged his mum in a fireman's lift behind him. It was quite funny afterwards, but we were all pretty shaken at the time.... We left Simon;s parents at Wilderness but only for a few days. They were heading for the Stellenbosch wine area and then were getting a flight from CT to go to a game reserve right past Durban. We would meet then at the game reserve in 4 days time. So we had 4 days to travel over 2000km !!!! We hired a car to do the journey and to be honest it has been a godsend!! We travelled from Wilderness to a place called Port St Johns on the Transkei coast... This is a beautiful area - very wild with beautiful beaches again. We stayed oin a lovely little backpackers place which was a cottage that takes 6 people, set right on the ocean. It really was idyllic. WE took a walk along the coast to a nature reserve. Here we saw our first zebra!@! It was amazing, we just walked off the coast into the reserve and there, about 5 feet from us was a couple of zebra grazing. He didn't bat an eyelid.... We were gobsmacked!! So that was baboons and zebra we'd seen!! From PSJ we travelled to this place called Gringdolovu, where we were told there was a great backpackers place .... We slept in little zulu huts. They had an aromatherapy bath which we were very jealous we didn't get to try cos it looked amazing!! It was an old-style freestanding bath under the stars, with just frosted glass partitions around - an open wood fire was lit next to you and the bath was filled with herbs and aromatherapy oils..... it looked very romantic indeed. Another couple were having a bath that night so we missed out.... Next stop was Hluhluwe Game Reserve - the highlight of our trip so far. We'd booked accommodation in the reserve so we just drove into the reserve. Our jaws dropped when we drove in there and saw a herd of zebra just munching at the side of the road!!! We drove a little further and we saw buffalo and wilderbeest!!! We went for an afternoon drive in the car and saw a family of giraffe less then 2 metres away from us. I was just astounded!!! More was to come.... We went for a game drive that night and oh my god..... we saw a lion walking along the road towards us. We got a bit scared when the game driver switched off the lights.... the bloomin' lion was right next to us!! He carried on walking towards us and went down the side of the car, back on the road and walked away from us, stopping now and again to mark his territory!!! THEN we saw.... a leopard!!! it was stalking a herd if Impala. Again we almost pooed our pants when the driver insisted we switch off the lamps so as not to disturb him. There we were, sat in an open game vehicle, a leopard, not more than 20 metres away and we can't see a bloomin' thing!!!!! Aren't leopards one the fastest creatures on land???..... mmmmm. After that, everything paled into insignificance - baboons, getaway!, zebra, pah! rhino, seen those, hyena - oh . It was an amazing couple of days.... We're now in Swaziland, chilling out. Si's M&D have gone home after a great holiday... We're heading up to Kruger Park, the biggest game reserve in S Africa where we'll hopefully see lots more animals. We haven't seen an elephant or a cheetah yet..... Fingers crossed. Apartheid may be abolished, but it certainly isn't dead in S Africa. It's an amazing country which has come an awful long way politically, however there are still a few generations that hold their very strong views and these will not disappear overnight.... Will stay in touch whenever we can (internet is not as prevalent as in America) Hope you are all well.... Lots of love , wendy xxxxxxxxxx 05 Jan07 Hi Everyone > > And a Happy New Year to you all!! > > Thankyou for the various emails sending Christmas > > and NY wishes ... > > Well it´s been ages since I sent an update email.... > > My apolgies... We´ve ben too busy motoring around South America. > > I thought I´d write an email though to tell you about our very special Christmas (Iguazu Falls, Argentina and NY Rio!!). We absolutely broke our backs travelling on 26 hr bus journeys, overnight trips the lot cos we had decided that we wanted to be in these 2 places for then. It was worth every bit of it though.... New Year In Rio they put a LOT of effort into NY. Lined all along the water in Copacobana beach were big barges, carrying thousands and thousands of fireworks which were let off at midnight. On the beach were 3 big auditoriums where live bands played all evening from 8pm until early hours of the morning. The beach was absolutely packed with people, many of whom had brought candles and flowers and they made this little kind of ´altars´in the sand. The tradition here is to wear white (or less commonly red) and I was very surprised when we stepped out of our hotel room (me in my white outfit - Simon in a blue and white shirt) to bump into other couples dressed > > entirely in white. It really looked very romantic... especially when we got out into the street and hundreds of people wandered about, all wearing white. People had really made an effort... So, after a nice meal on the seafront, we wandered down to the beach ready for the countdown to midnight. The fireworks were really amazing and went on for at least 20 minutes, when, after the barges had let all there fire off, a couple of the bigger hotels, one at either end of the beach, started some kind of firework competition - seeing who could out do the other..... The one nearest us won hands down when they set an inferno of white ´fairy lights´ tricking down all 4 walls of the building - it looked amazing. After all the firework excitement, we set off, battling through the crowds to listen to the live bands...... We turned in around 4am, after I´d tried desparately to find a nightclub to have a boogy .... Rio is an AMAZING place. It´s such a beautiful city, with the beaches running the length of the city. The whole place is buzzing. We went running along the beach road at sunset a few nights ago - that was nice. Now that we no longer have the gym in the hotel, we´ll be doing that every night. Surrounding the city are all these big rock like mountains - Sugar Loaf mountain being the most famous. The massive big statue of Jesus (called Christ the Redeemer) looms over the city on Corcovado mountain. And there´s just this beautiful skyline of all the exclusive hotels that line the beach road. It really is somewhere I would love to live - only the language poses a bit of a problem for that!! For the last 3 months we´ve really come on with our Spanish and were actually starting to get quite good, to come here where they speak portugese!!! It´s such a difficult language - they sound as if they´re speaking scandinavian! Christmas That too was really special, in a different way. We stayed in the Sheraton Hotel. Our room looked directly on the the Iguazu Falls. The falls are 20 m higher than Niagra and 1/2 as wide again. We were there for Christmas eve, until the 27th. Each of those 4 days, we visited the falls, seeing it from different angles, yet we never tired of it. They have built these amazing walkways that took you so close to the falls. You could walk above the falls, or right up to the base where the falls tumbled down. So close that we got soaked by the violent spray..... On Christmas day we took a boat ride that starts down river from the falls, and takes you through the rapids right up to the base of the falls. They told us that we´d get a shower like none other we´d had before, and they meant it!! We got well and truly soaked from the spray of the falls. We were so close to the base of the falls - it really felt exhilarating!!! That was VERY special day indeed!! A very different Christmas.... Made all the more special by the place that we were staying. It was LUXURY to have white fluffy towels, cotton sheets and fluffy blankets and....... a hairdryer!!!!! It really was!!! It´s amazing what a bit of deprivation can do for ones appreciation of simple things!! We didn´t get the typical turkey and trimmings for Christmas dinner, instead we had a lovely 5 course meal, with steak for the main, and not on Christmas day, but Xmas eve - that´s the tradition here. So that was our Christmas and New Year... Argentina is THE place to come for a holiday right now. With the way the economy is it isd SOOOoo cheap!! Our 5 course Christmas meal would have been $45 pp at the old exchange rate.... not including the champagne we drank. Instead it was $14 !! Can you believe it!! I even had a mini- shopping spree when I bought my white outfit for NY - that felt very good !!!! And I only spent about $15!!! I defintely recommend it for a holiday with a difference.... We´re just gutted we can´t spend more time here!! We fly back to the UK for a fleeting visit on the 14th Jan, before we head to S Africa...... Oh well, bye for now everyone.... Lots of love Wendy xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 25oct06 Hello Friends Well since we last spoke we've become fully fledged travellers. Yup we got the badge, got the t-shirt < actually wish we had, I could do with something new to wear!!>. What I mean is that we've crossed not one but two fronteras < country borders>. After the last time I emailed we left the internet cafe and bundled ourselves onto a bus. 3 buses later we were at the border. First we had to go to the Guatemala immigration office to get our exit stamp, then another bus took us to the Honduran immigration office. Now when I talk of immigration offices, dont be thinking of airconditioned offices with tiles on the floor and computers on the desks! These are huts out in the sticks, with a little man in there, puffing on his cigar, waiting for the next innocent tourist to come along and charge $5 to cos he was '" working overtime" or something like that. It was all very exciting though. We spent just over a week in Honduras altogether. What surprised me about the country was the lack of poverty. That's probably the wrong way to put it. But on reading about Honduras, it is meant to have one of the lowest GNP's of all the Latin American countries, so I was expecting really basic standards and to see really impoverished people. However, driving along on the bus, we could see lots of houses at the side of the streets - yeh there were some little wooden huts that families lived in as we'd seen elsewhere, but the number of nice houses surprised me. The chicken buses of Guatemala were replaced with nice, less cramped buses. And they weren't full of people wrestling their wares onboard - chickens etc . No the people getting aboard wore jeans and nice tops and carried burberry handbags <fake, I checked> and had blowdried hair. Those of you who know me really well, ok you haven't got to know me that well to realise, that fashion crises started erupting in my head! Nah only joking..... I am more than happy wearing my khaki shorts and walking boots every day.... Anyway, back to Honduras, why do clothes and handbags always get in the way??!! So I was saying that Honduras was pretty refined for a 3rd world country. The only major telltale sign to me was the road network. You can't just get a bus directly from one city to another, there are not necessarily any roads connecting them. No you've got to travel via where the they have built the roads. and that can mean dotting all over the place. So in Honduras we headed for the Bay Islands which are off the northern coast in the carribbean sea. We went to Roatan, the bigger of the 3 islands that has beautiful white powdery sand and crystal clear, turquoise water. Some may say that they can see a pattern forming here, what with Denny's Beach the week before and hammock lounging in Flores before that - but they'd just be taking a snapshot of our month so far - a 3 week snapshot!! Roatan was just like I imagined a small carribbean island. In fact it put me in mind of how I would picture Jamaica, even though I've never been there. The island was about 55km long and about 2 - 3 kms wide. Most people spoke english, a sort of Afro-carribbean english, " hey mon, whaccha dooin" - kind of thing, you know what I mean.....OK I'm embarrassing myself now... I'm laughing anyway. OK, so Roatan, where was I? Yeh we had lovely weather and went and lay on the beach every day - oh and did quite a bit of snorkelling!! That was great. So our general day went like this- 7.30-8am - get up and out on our sun tan lotion 9am - cook pancakes in the shared kitchen 10.30 head off to get a water taxi down to West Bay, the beach. 11am - get in the water to cool off as we're a bit hot and sticky by this time 11.30 We've cooled off so we get our snorkel gear and go for a long snorkel in the coral reef which runs right from Belize across the top of Honduras. The first day we stayed out pretty much all day. But as the novelty wore off this would get shorter.... 12.30pm - Laze in the shade, reading our books and munching on the sarnies we made earlier, perhaps have a beer. 4pm - start to get our stuff together to get a water taxi back 5.30 - sit on our balcony, maybe with a beer, and watch the sun set 6.30 Head off our to Twisted Toucan for happy hour and have a couple of margaritas and their fantastic fish and chips. 9pm head home to our lovely airconditioned room and to bed - cream krackered from our hard day. Roatan was expensive though. Meals were in the price zone of a meal in London. We tried a Thai restaurant one night and I was sorely disappointed. It bore no resemblance to the Red Thai curry I get in the Prince of Wales pub in Highgate. BUT it bloomin' cost more!! Oh well, when in Rome... We did treat ourselves on the accommodation front though. Well it only cost about $7 more a night to get a gorgeous cabin on the beach which had airconditioning, a white tiled bathroom with Hot water and fluffy white towels and lovely white cotton sheets on the bed. We were in paradise. ..... paradise............................. So we stayed in Roatan for 6 days - our tans are looking pretty good now. Didn't need the St TRopez that I bought in the duty free afterall!! From Roatan we set off on a two day bus trip to get to Managua, the capital of Nicaragua. We punctuated it with an overnight stop in Tegucigalpa, the capital of Honduras. The journey wasn't too bad this considering it was about 16 hours on a bus. The border crossing was very easy this time as it was all handled by the bus company. They gave us the forms to fill out and took our passports to immigration etc. We did have to get off at the border though and walk over the border. About half an hour there for them to check all the passports and to check over the bus, then we were off again. I broke the toilet on the bus. I think I was the only person that attempted to flush it. The problem was that it didn't stop flushing. It flushed and flushed and flushed for the remainder of the journey. I was a little flushed in the face to say the least! It made such a noise and all the passengers around were bothered by it. So that was last night . Not like a city at all. It was all kind of waste land, grass, amd nothing really. Not far from the shopping centre there were little huts that the poor people lived in. These were literally little wooden slatted huts at the side of the street. The irony of it is, not more than 1 km away is this great big shopping centre with designer shops and cinemas and restaurants. Yeh there was a Liz Claiborne shop, Bennetton, Levis, a dept store selling Ralph Lauren etc etc. Baseball is the big thing here, so we've bought ourselves some tickets and are off to see that tonight. Quite exciting really. I've no idea what the rules of baseball are , but I used to play softball when I was a kid in Oz - is it the same? I will tell all next time I write.... Or maybe I won't cos it will all be in Spanish and I won't have a bloomin' clue hat's going on!! I'm sure we'll enjoy it. It's at the national stadium which is HUGE. We're sitting with the home team. Oh well I'm sure you've had enough of my ramblings... Until next time ... Lots of love to everyone. And don't be afraid to write and tell me your news . Lots of love Wendy 20oct06 Hi all !! well last time I wrote was the day before we were heading off to Tikal, the ancient mayan ruins in the north of Guatemala. Well we set off at 6am and had a good look round. It was quite an amazing sight really. These pyramids, some as high as 70 metres, date back to 400 AD, and some even earlier. What struck me the hardest though was the way that they excavate these ruins. Here we have a world heritage sight right. Now I thought, given this, that the worlds top resources would be on the job of excavating these ruins, top archaeologists, the best tools etc - silly me! We stumbled across one of the temples which was in the process of being excavated/restored. They had a very makeshift pulley system hauling all of the materials up the edge of the pyramid ' very makeshift indeed! It was a motorised by ...... a motorbike. Yup at the bottom of the pyramid, sat a guy on a jacked up motorbike revving the engine, which in turn powered the pulley system! Can you believe it? I couldn't. There he was sat on the seat of the motorbike just revving the engine. In fact that's all I've taken away from my trip to Tikal, as well as the amazing sights. Amazing! Anyway, our original plan was to go across to Belize from Guatemala at this point. Instead we came a bit more south so as we could hit an official border crossing. We found this fantastic place to stay called Denny's beach which was on the edge of Lake Izabal in the South east corner of Guat, near to the border with Honduras. We stayed in what is effectively a treehouse in the jungle. Don't worry, the mosquito net did wonders. It was being run by a couple of south africans who have been sailing round the world for the past 5 years. Basically all the yachties who travel round the world come to shelter in this bay for the hurricane season. So Mary and George entertained us with their travel tales and more - they were good fun and Mary was an excellent cook. So we ate very well indeed! We spent 3 days there.... Now I don´t want you guys to think we have been overdoing it so i´ll give you a taster of our routines for the last few days.... 7.30 am...wake up to the sounds of the waves on the beach from our treehouse 7.40 am...go for a swim....the water even at this time in the morning is about 25 degrees...it´s amazing. We set a little course for ourselves....swim out from the beach to the anchor buoy of the catamaran (not sure if this is correct spelling) and swim back 8.30 am...stroll up for breakfast and have Mexican Huevos...scrambled eggs, onions, peppers, tomatoes... 9.30am to 2pm lie in hammock with occasional dips in the lake 2pm...have some lunch 3pm to 5pm lie in hammock with occasional dips in the lake 5pm to 6pm go and shower ready for dinner 6.30pm to 9pm Dinner, drinks and then off to bed.....god it´s tough. It was very quiet with tourists, just a whole load of yachties dropping in now and again for a cuba libre ar 6! Very chilled scene. So today, Tuesday, we're venturing on to Tela in Honduras. I'm not sure how much email will cost from there as it is not very developed. So will email as soon as we can. Lots of love to you all. Wendy and Simon xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 15oct06 Hello friends, I can't belive that we've only been here for 2 weeks - not even!! We've done and seen Sooo much. After our first few days of high adventure, climbing live volcanoes, travelling in chicken buses, we went and chilled out in Casa Del Mundo. The hotel that claimed to be the nicest in Latin America. Well it was paradise - and all for 28 pounds for 2 a night. It was set on the cliffside of Lago (Lake) Atitlan. The lake is surrounded by volcanoes (inactive ones you'll be pleased to hear). Most of the time the volcanoes are cloaked in mist and when they are it looks as though you could be in scotland with the lochs and the mountains. But when the mist and clouds disperse to reveal the craters of volcanoes, you know you're somewhere quite different. Our room looked right on to the lake and we awoke each morning to the wonderful sight of the lake and the surrounding volcanoes - an amazing sight! The lake itself is about 14 miles long and wide and is 380 metres deep! We would wake at about 6am each day and go down to the lake for a swim - it was beautiful and refreshing. As the rain would come each day about 12.30 / 1 (you could set your watch by it), we had to get all our activities done by then. We did walks to neighbouring villages mainly. At night, dinner was 'family style' which meant all the guests sat around the big tabe and ate together. We met a lot of nice people that way. An ozzie couple that we travelled a bit with after. So we stayed in the lap of luxury for 4 days in total and totally wound down. That took us till last friday, when we set off on a very big adventure!!! Tikal is the biggest attraction in Guatemala - it's the ancient mayan temples that look like pyramids. It's at the north of the country. The main way to get there is to go back to Guatemala City and take the road up from there. As we didn't want to go back on ourselves, we decided to take the back road. This journey would take us quite a few days of chicken buses and roads like you've never known before, but it would also take us past quite a few very interesting places. The journey plan was; Jaibalito (where the hotel was) to Panajachel by boat, Panajachel (on the lake) to Chichicastenango by bus, Chichi to Santa Cruz by bus then Santa Cruz to Uspantan by bus. Overnight in Uspantan. Next day (starting at 2.30 am, yes 2.30!!!) we would go from Uspantan to Coban. Where we would also stop over. Then from there, another early morning (4.30am) to get upwards to Flores near Tikal. Well we never thought we'd see a journey like it. The roads to Uspantan were dirt tracks, in fact that is an exaggeration. We're talking 1;1 gradient of continual hairpin bends on tracks that were so rutted and troughed by the rain that they were non existent!!! All this in a chicken bus - the old disused school buses that had long ago been discarded from America, deemed unusable!! The bus tipped precariously from side to side as it edged over the troughs in the road. Landslides also meant that the road disappeared in places - that was a bit scarey. That's what was happening }outside the bus, inside, people are piling in and piling in, the driver stopping to pick up more and more people, no regard for passenger number limits. We sat 3 sometimes 4 abreast on a bench seat meant for 2 school children!!!! On one journey we had the wheel arch which meant that Simon's knees were up around his ears - that's chivalry for you. Well I didn't want to sit there!! On that journey we met a huge diesel lorry that had grounded and couldn't move. After much consultation between the driver of the bus and the lorry, all the men were called off the bus to push the lorry - PUSH!! We're talking a 9000 cc motors here!! Simon got out and helped and tried to talk in pigeon spanish, half enactment, to persuade them to get a tow rope and try and pull it . No go. ..... So after the first day travelling from 10am we rolled in weary into the only hotel in the town, which was not kitted out for tourists at all, at about 7.30pm. We recognised 2 faces - the aussie couple frpm the hotel - we'd bumped into them unplanned. We travelled the next few days with them. The next day of travel was much of the same except it started at 2.30am. When we got to Coban, the plan was to take a sidetrack off our route to Tikal to go to a close-by town (well 3 1/2hrs away) to visit some really amazing places. The town was Lanquin. Close to here was a place called Semuc Champey, some water pools which were at different gradients with smallish waterfalls in between that you could jump off and swim in. But the most amazing thing was that the torrids of water that came down from the mountain side actually ran under the peaceful pools above. We went up to see just hundreds of gallons of water gushing under the rock into the caverns beneath the pools. The water was at such a force that you would NOT want to get anywhere near. Also in this area were the most amazing underground caves that we walked into for about 1/2 km. Most of the caves are unmapped - this was also amazing to see. The bats lived in here and flew around the top of the cave as we walked through, We had to watch out for the bat poo. So that little detour puntuated our trip north to Tikal by a couple of days. Yesterday ( Tuesday) we made the final trip to Flores (the town nearest Tikal). We're going to visit the temples tomorrow. We've just spent the remainder of yesterday and today chilling out in Flores which is a sleepy little island in the middle of a lake, joined to the mainland by a highway. It's a bit like a european fishing, seaside town. All the buildings have brightly painted facades and low slung red corrugated iron roofs. we're right into this travelling malarkey. Staying in hotels that cost between 4 - 10 pounds for the 2 of us. Food is relatively expensive though. We're paying close to what we'd pay in London for meals. So we're off to Tikal tomorrow, them}n on to another place, Poptun, that has been recommended. A farm with jungle lodges on stilts in the jungle, where we can horseride, swim and lots more. Then we start our adventure to get to Honduras. We plan to pass from Poptun into Belize, to get a bit of sunning in Placencia, an island , Caye as they call it. From Placencia, the plan is to get a boat to Puerto Cortes in Honduras. Watch this space............ Love to you all. Wendy & Simonxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx See Virtual Tours of South America 30sep06Hello Friends Well we're 4 days into our adventure and here's a little taster of what we've been up to; We arrived into Antigua Guatemala after a 23hr journey. Pretty exhausting stuff. Sat 28th We've met another couple of travellers who are 1 month into their trip. They're doing Central & Southern America only and taking a year to do it. We're going to move from Antigua (the old city) today with them and go to the lake where we can relax and trek and swim (hopefully). So this is our first time we're going to don our backpacks, and hobble to the bus station and get on a bus. I'm psyching myself up for it. I'll let you know how it goes!!! We had a few beers with Chris and Laura last night. They've done a year trip before in Central & South East Asia and Oz. I get the feeling that they're on a fairly tight budget, though they did enjoy a few beers and margaritas with us last night!! On our second day we booked a trip which left town at 6am to drive us to a volcano which we were then to climb. It was a very steep ascent - VERY steep indeed. As we neared the top all the vegetation had disappeared and was replaced by black grit which slid down the mountain as you stepped on it. At the very top it was like being on the moon. All burnt rock which was hot to touch and sulphurous gas pouring out of the crater. We didn'0t realise it at first as we couldn't actually see a thing, but we were right at the edge of the crater. We had to put our jumpers over our faces as the gas was stinging our eyes and was choking us!!! It was really good fun though!!! hee hee. It certainly wouldn't be allowed in the UK - health and safety would have forced us to stay half way down the mountain. It was quite amazing though. I had a bit of a cold and was a bit blocked up - not after I'd inhaled half the volcano though! It did the trick. So next time dad your sinuses play up, don't bother about chinese medicine, get yourself up the nearest volcano. On the way down it was absolutely hilarious. Remember I said that it was all loose grit on the really steep bit? Well basically you just slipped down. We just had to dig our heels in and 'moon walk' all the way down. I giggled hysterically - it was really good fun!! So that was yesterday and today we're off on our travels to the next town. Mon 30th Sept We got to Panajachel (have you got an atlas?) yesterday after a hair-raising 3hr bus trip on a 'chicken bus. There was bus showdown on the roads as a pullman coach vied with our little chicken bus (thay're basically old american school buses) for first place. It kept trying to overtake us and our driver was having none of it! He'd come back - around corners, up hills you name it they go for it!!!! Eventually he got his come-uppance when his tyre blew - probably cos he went round a corner too fast! So we got here and it was p"ssing down. I mean constant torrential rain. We're right up in the highlands you see. The lake is absolutely beautiful and it looked so mystical yesterday as it was swamped in looming clouds. WE checked into an alright room. It was 9 pounds a night for the 2 of us. It had cable TV and claimed to have a hot shower. Though it was quite a precarious looking setup with electrical wires feeding into a plastic shower head. Each time Simon tried to adjust the hot water, the lights in the room dimmed!!! So we've decided to go and have ourselves a little bit of luxury in a town just round the lake. It has a hotel which is claimed to be one of the nicest in Latin America. Sounds very romantic with hot tubs overhanging the lake and swimming ponds in the lake. So we're getting a boat and heading there after this email. Panajachel is quite a 'hippy' town - though a bit contrived. It's not that nice actually - not helped by the torrential rain last night!! So that's us. We'll email in a few days time to keep you posted Lots of love W & S xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx |