Inglaterra ahoy!

Yes yes yes, it's been a while since my last post but you've had the fascinating photos of the Salt Flats to keep you entertained, so I don't feel I've been neglecting you too badly. Speaking of which, there's not much to say about the Salt Flats because it's all visual, and so that album shall represent that particular chapter of my travels. But I will say that it was lots of fun and Dave and Andrew had me in hysterics most of the time, and we played a lot of Yahtzee.

After the Salt Flats, we travelled a LOT. The bad kind of travel, where you spend a lot of time in bus stations, or on buses, or walking around dusty streets looking for the bus station. So basically - it was a marathon of bus activity. The Salt Flats tour ended in Uyuni, from Uyuni we got a night bus to Oruro, in Oruro we spent hours in the station then got a bus to Arica in Chile, in Arica we slept one night in a proper bed then got a taxi over the border to Tacna, Peru. From Tacna we got a over-night bus to Lima.

Ahh, Lima. My nemesis, my addiction, I cannot stay away. It lures me in like the cloudy, polluted web woven by a cunning spider that I shall call - Flying Dog Hostel. Arrived in Lima on Sunday, fully planning to head north to the coast on Tuesday. Unfortunately for those plans, but fortunately for having a lot of fun and meeting up with old friends, Steve and Mather and Nathan and Kaia were still in Lima because they were having serious car trouble. So I ended up staying for 6 days and finally heading coastwards on Saturday. In the interim, I didn't really do much except celebrate my first ever thanksgiving! Which was on Thursday - I baked an apple pie and a pumpkin pie and we all started drinking tequila at 12 in the afternoon. Ahh Thanksgiving, a wonderful celebration.

On Saturday, I bid farewell to all my friends and heading north, alone. All I had for company was On The Road by Jack Kerouac, and a white rose that an extremely drunk man had given me that morning. Yes, he was drunk in the morning. Such is hostel life. Mancora-bound I was, and on Sunday morning, in Mancora so I did arrive. The Mancora hostel was awesome, it had a pool! Nothing much happened in Mancora, but I did make some new friends (mostly Irish and mad, although one was German.) and dress up in not much more than coconut halves and a skirt made of palm leaves for an 'Anything But Clothes' party on the Monday night. On Tuesday, a huge group of us got on a bus for Montanita, which is very similiar to Mancora (surfer tourist beach resort) but in Ecuador. It was a very large group, let's see if I can remember all the names of the people I was travelling with:
Amanda, Paddy, Kevin, Ross, Heej, Hazel, Krishna, Kate, Kendra, Nick, Marian, Yvonne, Chris, Rory, Pierre, Tivo... and me. Yeah, I think that was everyone. In Montanita we stayed in a lovely place (although it possibly had bedbugs, definitely had at least one cockroach, and had power blackouts every evening) that was right on the beach and had hammocks. There was one street that was nothing but cocktail stalls - they looked healthy and good, because there was lots of fresh fruit in the front... and then your gaze drifted to the plethora of lethal-looking liquor bottles lurking in the back. One night we did a stall-crawl, taking photos at each one... by the 10th photo, Nick, Kevin and Ross were all naked, with nothing to protect their modesty but a cocktail menu. Don't worry, I managed to keep my clothes on. Another night, there was a beach rave, which was lots of fun and I didn't leave it 'til 8 in the morning.
Apart from partying (I do feel a bit guilty, it's not very cultural is it), I also tried body boarding, with a view to progressing on to surfing lessons. It was a complete disaster. I could NOT get past the white water to the place where you can actually catch waves. I'd manage to swim through 4 or 5 breaking waves, and then one huge one would come and sweep me all the way back again. It was hellish and undignified, and I eventually gave up after half an hour of bedraggledness, only to find that I couldn't get BACK to the shore because the damn waves kept dragging me out to sea, my flippers were making me fall over and the board kept getting wrapped around my neck. I literally spent about 10 minutes floundering and flopping in the shallows, swallowing far too much salt water and muttering angrily to myself.

From Montanita we headed to Banos, a mountain town with lots of adventure activites available. I was only there for two days, and we went quadbiking and did bridge-jumping (a bit like bungee jumping but with a rope, not a bungee). The quadbiking was fun; there was the stereotypical thing where all the boys want to drive and the girls look suspiciously at the strange machines and say 'yeah, I'll just be a passenger', but I did actually take over for about half an hour and it was awesome. So if I get another chance, I think I'll be brave enough to drive one all by myself. We got off the bikes at one point to hike up to a waterfall, that was AWESOME but my camera battery died . By this point the group had managed to get completely separated; some went up a mountain, some went down the valley.... so it was just Nick and I. We got a flat tire. Humm. Had to abandon the quadbike, hitchhike the half-hour back to Banos then get the rental people to drive us back so we could rescue the bike. Which was all fine. What was not fine, was when the rental guy pointed out that somehow the front axle had broken. And apparently that would cost $300 dollars to fix.

WHAT?! We did NOT have $300 to give these guys, and they had our passports as deposit. Panic. Spent about half an hour trying to explain in broken spanish that we didn't know how it had happened, we hadn't done anything risky or reckless that would have made it our fault, and it must have been weak to begin with. Then just saying 'we don't have enough money' over and over again and crying, and eventually persuaded them to accept $50 from both of us. Phew. They were probably swindling us, but I didn't care, this was on Tuesday, I'm leaving on Thursday, I really needed my damn passport!

Once my passport was safely back in my hands, I got a bus to Quito, a bus ACROSS Quito to ANOTHER bus station, and finally a bus back to Tory's house. Which took a very long time and was quite stressful and in the dark. But I got there, and here I am, checking up on the rescue-puppy, who is doing very well and has grown a LOT and can now walk on her injured leg. Today is Wednesday, which I'm going to spend relaxing, re-packing and generally preparing to return to cold cold lovely England.

Oh that reminds me. I land at 4.30pm Friday (fingers crossed the plane isn't delayed. It's so going to be delayed. Oh god.). At 6.30am Saturday, I have a flight to Italy to go to some big family celebration. So I land in Heathrow, and have 12 hours before I'll be back in an airport, Luton, heading off once more. So I'll be back in England and ready to visit people on Monday. Yay, aren't you all thrilled?!

Next time we speak, it will be through the magical medium of voice! Ahahaha, hurrah.

ps. This post covers about 4 weeks worth of stuff, crammed into one post. So only the highest of the highlights have been mentioned.

Look, no words!

Hello Bolivia, and hello lots of people I´ve met somewhere before

The Machu Picchu adventure was on Thursday the 5th (bonfire night! What were you guys up to?) and I spent Friday, Saturday and Sunday relaxing and ambling around Cusco and partying because it was the weekend. I danced in some clubs, saw a reggae band, played some pictionary, read my book, met some llamas, bought a really comfortable really touristy cardigan, sunbathed in the hostel courtyard... all lovely but not very riveting for you probably. Then on Sunday night we all said goodbye and I headed to Puno, a port town on Lake Titicaca. Arrived Monday morning, and booked a boat trip to the islands of Lake Titicaca and ambled around the town. The boat tour left at 7am so an early night on Monday and then I spent Tuesday on the lake. We visited the Floating Islands of Uros - man-made islands made from reeds - and Taquile Island. It was very beautiful and relaxing and interesting.
Puno isn´t a very lively or interesting town though, so having ticked Lake Titicaca off my to-do list, I hopped a bus to La Paz on Wednesday morning. Hello Bolivia! It was a bit of a mad border crossing due to strikes, and I bumped into two Canadians who I´d met in Cusco, Dave and Andrew, who were trying to navigate the border crossing and strikes and somehow get to La Paz, which for complicated reasons involved them getting on my bus at the border. So happy reunion, and we all finally got to La Paz n one piece.
And actually, in La Paz I´ve bumped into many people I know, including the Australians Naomi and Tina, who are working at the hostel to save some cash, and the moto-taxi guys (they´re alive!!), and Tim Ellis again! The reason I came to La Paz was to do a jungle tour, maybe some river rafting, but due to the rainy season and the fact that I´m travelling by myself and it´s a lot easier to organise tours if you´re in a group... unfortunately it was not to be. So no jungle for Josephine, instead tomorrow I´m going to the Salt Flats with Dave and Andrew. Not too sure exactly what the Salt Flats are, except a completely mad and surreal environment with a lot of salt lying around. From what I´ve heard, and read. So that should be fun. So far I´ve been in La Paz for 4 days, and it´s a nice city. Andrew and I went for an amble and we happened across a cool art gallery, and really I´ve just spent my time walking around the city and also trying to organise a tour of some sort. But all that is sorted now and I´m off again tomorrow. Don´t know what I´ll do after the Salt Flats but I´m sure something will crop up.

I think of you all often, and I demand you let me know what you´re up to. Ayesha - a detailed account of Bummit! Heg, have you gotten a job? Kate - have you settled intoYork? Charli - I thought of you whilst hiking up Machu Picchu - ´Charli would be running up this, the mad fell runner´I thought to myself. Hellen - Tim says hi, and give my nephews lots of hugs and did I see that Daniel has said his first word?! Taylor and Julian and James, how´re the foreign countries treating you.... and Liz, I really really miss singing with you!

For some reason it´s impossible to put photos up on facebook, so I´m going to struggle on in this internet cafe for a while longer and see if I can sort it out. Watch this space....


xxx

Ancient Mountain, Jungle Mountain (continued)

^^The promised photos. We biked down that valley! The other photo is from the 3rd day. Me in from of Machu Picchu ruins. In case you couldn´t guess.

So mountain biking was something of a baptism of fire, and I still have the blisters on my hands to prove it. Due to reasons I can´t be bothered to explain, at the end of the first day I was leaving the group I had started with (bye bye Kaia and Nathan) and skipping ahead to join a new group in a place called Santa Theresa. So, feeling battered and tired and seriously needing a shower, I was unceremoniously plonked in a taxi and driven about an hour away to meet the new group. It was a precariously winding mountain road, which I thought was great fun, and I had a conversation in Spanish with the taxi driver and we stopped to buy mangoes and I washed my face in a mountain stream and he let me drive the jeep for a bit! So the journey was great, and when we arrived in Santa Theresa I was then driven to the hot springs where my new group were bathing their weary limbs in the warm pools. Mmmmm. It was slightly tricky finding the group, because by this time it was dark and I didn´t know what my new guide looked like, so it involved a bit of wandering around, peering into various pools at scantily clad relaxers and saying ´... Juan Victor? - which was embarrassing and I was very tired and grumpy and a bit worried I wouldn´t find the new group and would be stranded in some random mountain town.

Luckily I found them and hurrah and oh my goshness - Tim Ellis was amongst them!! Now, I knew Tim Ellis was in South America and I´d met him briefly in Lima, but there he was again, quite unexpectedly, swimming around half way through a trek to Machu Pocchu! Oh, fortuitous circumstance, how glad I was to see him. Yet more suprises awaited me, though, because also part of this new group were Steve and Mather - you may recall, the very American Americans I met in Lima also. Yay! A lovely group full of old friends. (Tim Ellis is a family friend of old, known since I was... 8 or 9, and used to be Hellen´s best friend as a youngster, for those who don´t know)
So I was very very happy and tired and joyfully paddling about in lovely warm water. After the hot springs we had dinner (oh my god, I ate alpaca!) and then some Walter (a strange liquor we didn´t know exactly what it was so we called it Walter. Good ol´Walter) and then went out dancing ´til the early hours. Not sure that was the best plan, because we did have to hike at 10 the next morning, but oh well, good fun was had by all. There was a pole in the club. Pole dancing ensued.....

Umm, but the less said about that the better, and we ended up hiking at 1sh anyway, because Victor was a very relaxed guide, fortuitously. The hike was quite easy in a manner of speaking, because it was all flat, and beautiful surroundings obviously. I kept having to pinch myself - hiking through Peruvian jungle towards Machu Picchu, chatting to Tim Ellis about the good old days and reminiscing about my lovely sister and the mad times we all had when ´twere knee-high to a grasshopper. A most bizarre and wonderful situation.

We arrived absolutely knackered in Aguas Calientes, which also had hot springs to bathe in but these were somewhat smellier and uglier than the ones in Santa Theresa, unfortunately. Didn´t do much really, because we had to be up at 3am the next morning to hike to Machu Picchu. So early to bed, ridiculously early to rise.

We set off at 3.50am, into the darkness. Oh it was so so hard. It only took an hour-ish but it was all uphill, a ridiculously steep climb up up up, always up. And the high altitude made breathing a bit harder than it would be normally. My D of E training kicked in though, and we kept up a sturdy pace right to the top. The reason we had to leave so early is because the gates open at 6am, and the first 400 people through are allowed to climb another mountain -Waynu Picchu- that gives panoramic views of the Incan ruins. And we really wanted to climb it! And we were the first 14 people in the queue. Our group would have been the very very first, but two people beat us. Still - not too shabby. Bloody awesome actually. We sat on the steps and waited for the gates to open at 6, feeling very smug as the queue grew longer behind us. We were the first in, and we ran as fast as we could so we could see the ruins whilst they were empty and not crawling with tourists (Typical tourist trait, by the way, disdian and distaste of all other tourists). Photos photos, lots of photos, then a two hour guided tour of all the temples etc. Absolutely insanely inspiring, by the way. I know it´s THE most visited tourist attraction in all of South America but it deserves to be. Then we had lunch. Hmm. I say lunch. This was at 9am in the morning, but we´d already been up for 6 hours. Then at 10am we climbed Waynu Picchu. By the way, Machu Picchu means Ancient Mountain in Quecha (indigenous language), and Waynu Picchu means Jungle mountain. Hence the title.

Waynu Picchu was again ridiculously steep (you had to haul yourself up with rope in some places) but we took it easy because there wasn´t reason to rush as there had been for the other climb.

You can see how steep it is. It´s that ridiculously steep mountain in the background of the photo at the top. (tried to put the damn photo in the middle of the text but can´t). I climbed that! So we hung around the top and took in the view, and contemplated the absurdly steep climb DOWN.....

Reached the bottom at 2sh, with very very wobbly legs and quite happy to be on flat road again. Then we ambled back to Aguas Calientes and had lunch (proper lunch.) Then it was time to get the train back to Cusco. Which proved to be something of an unwelcome adventure. Steve and Mather and I had been rewarding ourselves with some wine, and were quite trampily swigging from a carton of wine whilst walking to the train station we´d seen, about 15 minutes walk out of the town. Then we got there (having already hiked up two bloody steep mountains, I might add) only to be told there was a train station IN the town and that was where we needed to be. We had about 20 minutes, but it was 15 minutes back to the town and we were knackered and a bit drunk and we didn´t know WHERE in the town the station was. No taxis, the only option was to leg it back to Aguas Calientes (still sipping the wine... hmm). Mad dash, mad dash, donde esta la estacion de tren? Donde donde, run run, panic panic, madly flap the ticket in the face of the guard, jump on to the train. Phew. Sleep.

Slept all the way back to Cusco, went to the hostel and sleeeeept. Right. Thus ends the mammoth blog about Machu Picchu. More to come, however. Wow, it really is very long. I´m sorry.

Blog, interrupted

Ahh, what a tantalising cliff hanger upon which to end my post, what masterful skills of suspense I have.....
Yeah, so the internet is being ridiculously slow and I have to do stuff, but will pick up my tale where it left off when I find a better cafe and have more time

xx

Ancient Mountain, Jungle Mountain

A lot has happened since I last wrote; here is a brief summary of my time in Huancayo:

Spanish Lessons - 3 hours a day, I now know how to conjugate about 20 verbs in past present and future. And how to talk about the weather. Hurrah!

I stayed in a really nice hostel that was more homely than the one I stayed in in Lima, which was more of a party hostel. Casa de la Abuela had home cooked meals every night, a dog, two cats, 3 kittens and a parrot. The only other guests were about 14 or 15 truly mad people who were waiting to take part in a Moto-Taxi junket. A moto-taxi is a motorised rickshaw basically - and they were taking part in a charity event which was driving a moto-taxi from Peru to Paraguay. Except moto-taxis only go at about 50kph, and they definitely can´t go uphill without a lot of encouragement, and they break down all the time, and most of the people taking part had no mechanical knowledge whatsoever and a lot of them also didn´t speak Spanish. So an adventure indeed... an adventure doomed to failure! Things kept going wrong with paperwork and insurance, so they were supposd to leave on Wednesday but were still waiting when I left on Friday night. But from what I hear, they´ve all finally left and no one has died yet. Which is good, because they were all very nice people.

So yes, I left for Lima on Friday night, planning to hop straight on the next bus to Cusco, the city nearest to Machu Picchu. Except I got really really sick on the bus there (oh what fun, running to a bus toilet once every hour, vomitting whilst being thrown around every time the bus went round a corner..). Thusly, I decided to rest for a day in Lima - return to the Flying Dog Hostel, to greet my old friends and celebrate halloween dressed as a lion (see facebook for more photos).

And on Sunday, finally, I headed to Cusco. It was a 20 hour bus journey, enlivened by the movie Twlight in spanish (yes ayesha, moody silences and weird eye contact is the same in Spanish as English). Arriving on Monday - I promptly bumped into two australian guys, Nathan and Kaia, that I knew from Flying Dog. This happens a lot whilst travelling, because a lot of people do the same route without realising. I spent the day booking a 3 day hike to Machu Picchu (YAY!!) and buying things for the trip, like hiring walking boots, then packed and went to bed early.

Tuesday - up at 7am, eventually picked up by tour guide at 9sh - off to go mountain biking! (I say 3 day hike... it ws one day biking, one day hiking and the next day hiking to and wandering around Machu Picchu). By chance and fortuituous circumstance (of which there is a lot in this particular post) Nathan and Kaia were on the same tour. The mountain biking was awesome. All downhill, luckily, as I´ve never done mountain biking before, and dislike cycling at the best of times. But it was beautiful. So so so beautiful. I can´t do justice with words or pictures, but here´s a couple

Estoy bien!

I realise my last post may have made some of you panic a bit for my state of well-being, so this is just a mini-post to reassure you all that I am perfectly sane and happy and enjoying the new turn my adventure has taken. Huancayo is a lovely town with a vibrant market everyday, that sells alpaca ponchos, live rabbits, dead chickens, counterfeit DVDs and much more. Many of the locals dress in traditional peruvian skirts and hats, and yesterday was the festival of the mircale man so there was fireworks and dancing and artwork in the streets. All of which seems much more interesting and exotic than the life I was living in Lima. I have gone hiking in the surrounding hills and seen the Torre Torre as well. The spanish lessons are going really well and tomorrow Iàm heading to Cusco to hopefully see Macchu Pichu and maybe meet up with a girl I made friends with in Lima too.

my ringworm is nearly cured, my jaw has stayed firmly where it is supposed to, I've gotten over my anger at the landlady and the masturbating tramp has not given me any mental scars - more an interesting travelling anecdote with which to entertain people. So all is well

:D

xx

Ok, don´t be mad....

... but I may have run away from Lima.

It was quite a bad week really. Monday - I dislocated my jaw, Tuesday - realised I have ringworm, Friday - some tramp masturbated next to me in the street at 2am in the morning (eeeww!), and THEN my landlady emailed me on Sunday (3 days before I was due to move in) to say that I couldn´t have the flat because her sister was homeless and needed somewhere to live. Even though I´d signed a contract and paid a deposit##. Bitch! That was the last straw. I contemplated returning to the hellish routine of circling newspaper ads and scouring Lima for a cheap but livable flat, and just couldn´t face it. I realised that Peru probably had much prettier places than Lima, yet here I was languishing in high-rise, pollution ridden, ridiculously cloudy hell.
So, it just so happened that a guy I vaguely knew in the hostel was catching a bus to Huancayo to take a week´s Spanish lessons here. He hadn´t booked a ticket or anything, was just going to turn up and hope for the best. I was still very angry at the landlady, which is not the best emotion for rational decision making, but there you go, I ran around packing my bags and found myself in Huancayo at 6am Monday.
To cut a long story short, I´m no longer working in Peru, I am now travelling in Peru. Which is really just a return to the original plan, via a long stay in Lima in which I realised that I don´t want to work in Lima for a year. If I´m going to stay somewhere for a year (which I still intend to do after Christmas) then I should find somewhere beautiful, I think.
So at the moment I´m in Huancayo, on Friday I´m hading to Cusco where I´ll get the train to Machu Piccu (I would love to hike the trail but you have to book it months in advance), then to Puno where I´ll see Lake Titicaca, then maybe in the Bolivian jungle or back to the Northern coast of Peru. I haven´t decided yet, but I´m having lots of fun thinking about it!

## Don´t worry - I got my deposit back

Also, yes, I did sort of run away from my job and leave them in the lurch with many lessons and no teacher. And yes, I did only alert my boss to this fact on Monday afternoon, when he had about 4 hours to sort it out. Umm.... I am quite ashamed about this, as it was irresponsible, selfish and cowardly. But in many ways, they were hoisted on their own petard - I mean, the reason I could leave without saying anything is because I don´t have a contract. The reason I don´t have a contract is because they can´t be bothered to sort out work visas so a lot of teachers get paid in cash and work illegally. So it´s partially their own blaggardly fault for trying to swindle the Peruvian government.

And I was in an emotionally precarious state, due to the reasons stated at the beginning. So don´t think too badly of me!!

xoxo

Lima part 2 - ´Nah nah nahnah naaah, everything´s great!´

Ok, the purpose of this post is a summary of everything I´ve done, for those too lazy to read lots (naming no names... Joe Sandys). And also to make you all jealous (except maybe James and Taylor, who are having adventures of their own).

Ahem, so....

The Summary of Cool Things Josephine has Done in Lima

Gone on a mini road trip to a beach with five Peruvian and three American surfer guys. A classic gap-year aesthetic, I´m sure you´ll agree, of tanned and muscular surfers piled into a rickety old VW van, stuffed in any ol´ how amongst the wetsuits and boards. Except also with a pale, redheaded English girl sat in the corner.
Ok, so it wasn´t sunny, but I still went swimming in the Pacific! It was really fun, and next weekend I hope to try surfing.

Gotten completely lost whilst trying to find an art gallery, and stubbornly refused to get a taxi even though I was by myself and wandering through a definitely dodgy area of the city, where EVERYONE was staring at me and it was really quite scary and the sun was setting and I didn´t want to be out when it was still dark. This was very foolish, but then I happened upon a beautiful park full of fountains, had a nice sit down and eventually got a taxi back to the hostel.

Eaten ceviche with chicha and salted maize. This is a traditional Peruvian dish of raw fish in lime juice, eaten with salted maize and also a sweet drink made from maize (chicha). It was very traditional and delicious, and I ate it with Sosina in Barranco, so it was in a beautiful setting too.

Gone on many long walks around Lima, looking for apartments with Neto or Beto. These walks invariably fail to find the apartment, but we end up doing something nice instead like meeting up with Beto´s friends or drinking exotic tea in a tea-bar (I´m very taken with the idea of a tea-bar, are there any in England? Someone should open one)

Drunk a lot of free beer, drunkenly told the man who owns the hostel that his spanish accent makes him sound sleazy (but he didn´t really understand the meaning of sleazy so I managed to insult him and get away with it, ahahaha), then gone out dancing ´til 4 in the morning. Apparently it was a lesbian bar, but I must have been quite drunk because I didnt notice.

Had a conversation all in spanish with a taxi driver! Ok, so maybe that´s not very exciting, but I was very proud. There was no English at all! Some miming, but no English.

Gone back to the pretty fountain park with some Australian girls, because at night it´s all lit up and playing classical music and even prettier. We got quite hyper, ran around in the fountains and then went to Bembos (Peruvian McDonalds type place) for lots of junk food and ice cream. Yum!

Chatted and had a beer with people in the hostel on the roof, looking out across the city and feeling very lucky to be in Lima. Then we went dancing ´til the early hours of the morning again.

I´ve had a meeting with my boss and organised my first teaching class, possibly hopefully found an apartment to rent and bought some shoes. That´s a summary of the boring necessary stuff.

And there have been a few times where I had to have a comforting cup of tea and some biscuits, curled up on the sofa and felt absolutely terrified, homesick and lonely. I really really miss you all. But I´m also having an exciting and fun adventure in Peru, and I think occassional lonely moments are inevitable. At least that´s what I tell myself. And then I give myself a little peptalk, congratulate myself for being so brave and actually coming out here, remind myself that it´s going well, and feel a little better. And of course the tea and biscuits help too.

###

Lima part 1- Óh dear, what have I gotten myself into?´

To pick up where I left off in my last post - for a 36 hour bus journey, it was actually quite nice. The bus was only half full so each person had two seats to stretch out on, we stopped every 6 hours or so for a meal and to stretch our legs, and I started reading For Whom the Bell Tolls. Not too bad, all things considered. I was a bit worried at the border crossing, because I´d taken my Twinings English Breakfast teabags out of the cardboard box and put them in a carrier bag to make them easier to pack. And I thought - what if they think they´re drugs?! Oh god, I´m going to be one of those girls that you read about, stuck in a foreign jail for years, wasting away, filth be-smeared and singing rubbish karaoke ala Bridget Jones. Luckily that didn´t happen. The most eventful thing that happened at the border was two lads trying to chat me up and then stealing my pen... and it was my favourite pen too. How very dare they.
The high point of the journey was our first glimpse of the ocean! All the South Americans on the bus started yelling and shouting, and I don´t know what they were saying because my Spanish is still appalling, but I like to think it was Óh my god, look, it´s the bloody ocean!´because that is what I was thinking.

As we finally drove into Lima, I started to panic a bit. It looked horrible; all grey buildings, grey sky and dirty shacks. ´This is where I´m going to live for months? Why did I do this to myself? How quickly can I leave and go somewhere clean?´ Those are some of the thoughts I was having. It was 3pm when we arrived. Jo and I unfolded ourselves, gathered up various possessions that had become spread around the bus and stood on a dirty Liman pavement, feeling quite at a loss.
As all travellers will know, the best thing to do when at a loss is the head for the nearest internet cafe. So that is what we did. And there is something about the internet that is warmly reassuring - you have facebook, BBC news, blogs of friends, emails from family etc. and so you just don´t feel so lost anymore.
Jo and I gathered our thoughts, girded our loins, and booked into a hostel - The Flying Dog Hostel, well recommended by guidebooks, cousin Claire and various others. And now I shall recommend it to you, although if any of you come to Lima you wont need a hostel because you can stay with me! But yes, it is a lovely place full of lovely people who have been very nice and welcoming. Although I suppose that´s their job. In which case, they´re very good at their job.
The view from the hostel balcony^^

The next few days, we ambled around Lima and realised that in fact parts of it are really really pretty and nice. So I stopped panicking about how I was going to cope whilst living here. We went to Barranco, a beachy suburb, and paddled in the ocean (and got sunburnt). I wrote a LOT of postcards. We saw some Inca ruin-y type things (see facebook photo album), and some posh palace-y architecure-y type things (ditto). Most interestingly, I signed up to a website called Couchsurfing.org. On couch-surfing.org, a lot of very kind-hearted and brave people offer their spare-rooms/couches for travellers to sleep in. Also, some people don´t have space for someone to stay, but are very happy to meet up for a coffee/tea/drink and a chat, and give advice and guidance and friendship. Right, I thought. I need friends. I am going to be in Lima for a year, and I can´t spend a year making friends only with people in the hostel, who promptly leave as soon as you get to know them. So I emailed about 10 different people explaining who I was, why I was here, and would they like to meet up for coffee and a chat.
Yes yes yes, it is a bit dodgy meeting people off the internet. But I´m not stupid; I only messaged girls, we met in public places and I told the guys at the hostel where I was headed and what time I thought I´d be back. So it was fine. And I met Sosina, who is really friendly and has offered to teach me how to cook Peruvian dishes (yay!) and her parents don´t even speak Spanish as a first language, they speak Quechan, which is the pre-spanish invasion language. So Sosina is a proper proper Peruvian, which I think is very cool and exciting. But Sosina speaks English very well, which is good, and maybe when I get spanish lessons I can practice with her. And I met Nohelia, who is also Peruvian and also really friendly, and she has been very helpful in my apartment-hunting endeavors. Although her aunt did give me egg soup for lunch, and I ate it and everything but good grief it was disgusting. Egg soup? Who ever heard of such a thing.

I have also made lots of friends with people in the hostel, although ´friends´might be pushing it because many of them have left now, never to be heard from again probably. But such is travelling, and I enjoyed meeting Jennifer (US); Tina and Naomi (Australian); Neve and Emma and the other I´ve forgotten the name of (Irish); Hannie (dutch); Thea and Arti (Norwegian); that Columbian boy I also can´t remember the name of; Joel (also columbian); and Steve, Prescott, Randy and Mather (US - but you can tell that just from their names. Randy?! Mather?! Ahahaha, ridiculously American. Of course they think I´m ridiculously English as well. Which is true. But they say ´dude´and áwesome´and stuff. It´s very funny.)... Umm, yes, well anyway, I enjoyed meeting them all however briefly. (See, Joe Sandys, I AM being friendly, I´m not hiding away under my covers with a book... OK, so I may have done that the first few nights. But now I´m well into the swing of things).
Slightly less temporarily, I´ve also gotten to know the people who work at the hostel, such as Beto (short for Alberto) who has been ridiculously helpful in my apartment-hunt. Because I don´t speak Spanish, he rings up all the landlords etc. for me to organise viewings, and then comes with me to the viewings so I don´t get lost. And Neto (short for Nelson) who I went for a walk with and ended up in this really cool tea-bar that did all sorts of different teas. And Harry, who is mad and takes groups of people out dancing every night, hurrah, I love dancing! Salsa, anyone?

Right, umm, oh dear, this has been a rather long post. My next one will be short and snappy, I promise.

Oh, and I have my first class tomorrow evening. I´m terrified, I´ve forgotten how to teach! But the place where I´m working seems really good, very professional and organised. Which is reassuring.

And here is another photo, because otherwise this post will be hideously text-heavy.
That´s me, that is ^^
Bye bye for now

Oh my, gosh, where to begin?

Ok, well, quite a lot has happened so forgive me if I jump all over the place chronologically and don´t give very detailed accounts. Oh, umm, I´m all of a fluster in my internet cafe, oh dear...

Right, ok, I´ll set the scene for you. At this precise moment (12.13pm in Lima, 6.13pm in England) I am sat in a fairly clinical internet cafe (I say cafe, but there´s no tea or coffe for sale!) looking at cloudy Lima sky and looking absurdly red because I got sunburnt yesterday. Humph. How annoying. Also, I guess Peruvians aren´t used to seeing sunburnt people because I keep getting funny looks. Dear oh dear, before I got sunburnt I kept getting whistled at and commented on in the streets. It was awesomely flattering (although yes, I do realise they probably do that to all gringo girls.... still enjoyable though...).
I´ve just spent the last two hours doing internet-ish errands, researching possible flat-shares, uploading photos, messaging people on facebook, helping Kate decide what modules to choose... So I feel a bit dazed and over-technologied. But for you, dear loved ones, for you, I shall struggle on and write this blog!!

I arrived in Quito on Tuesday. I stayed with Tory and Nick, and an australian couch surfer called Jo. On Wednesday Jo and I bathed in hot springs in a place called Papallacto. It was a really beautiful place; because it was in the mountains your head and shoulders were pleasantly cool and mist-enshrouded, but the rest of you was immersed in warm water. And of course the view was amazing.

On Thursday, Nick took me around Quito, and we ended up at his friend Andrew´s flat. Andrew´s flat has a balcony that looks over the whole of the city, so we stayed up there drinking beer, singing songs and generally having a lovely time. I felt really happy, and that I´d totally landed on my feet and was very lucky to be relaxing with nice guys in an amazing place, and generally pretty smug with myself for leaving all you suckers behind in England. Yes, alright, I´d had some beer and whisky which may have added to the warm, all-over glow of contentment.
Look, there they are ^^^
Then we decided to go out dancing. We went to a nice club called Bungalow, which does a mix of salsa and american pop. I danced madly like I usually do when the pop was on and Andrew attempted to salsa with me when the more latina music was played.
Friday was spent mostly being hungover and eventually buying a bus ticket to Lima. I can´t remember what happened on Saturday, I did write it down but don´t have my diary on me. Bugger.
On Sunday Tory took Jo and me to a market in a town about an hour´s bus ride away from the house. This was the usual bright clash of fruit and cheaply made clothes, clay trinkets and pots and people shouting at you. I bought a watermelon. However, we spent most of our time in the animal section ($2 ducklings and live chickens held in canvas sacks!) because Tory is animal mad. She already has Blackie, Phoebe, Mrs Pugley, Herman Penelope and four unnamed geese. We left the market with a ginger tom kitten and the cutest sharpei-boxer mix puppy. The reason we got the puppy was because it´s paw was hideously infected, and the owners had just left it in a box on the side of the market. We rescued her and took her straight to the vet!
Isn´t she GORGEOUS!!^^^
On Monday, Jo and I went for a walk along a nearby canyon to tire ourselves out before the mammoth coach journey. It was impressive, and quite interesting because there was some sort of tunnel dug into the otherside that we couldn´t figure out a purpose for. Unfortunately it wasn´t beautiful, because forest fires have ravaged the plantlife. It was mostly scarred and brooding, as perhaps all canyons should be. And then we had a farewell dinner, gave Nick and Tory some thank you presents, cuddled the injured puppy one last time and got in a taxi at midnight to the bus station. And I will recount the fable of the epic journey in a new blog, because this one is quite long enough and I don´t wish to over-tax your little brains.

Until next time,
xoxo, gossip girl...... (just a little pop-culture reference for anyone who watches trashy US tv. You know who you are!)

Ps. here is a photo of Tory and Nick, with Mrs Pugley and unnamed Sharp-pei boxer rescue puppy.


See, I told you they were mad ^^^

Brief update from a Mariscal Internet cafe

Dear beloved friends and relatives,

I´m going to write a proper entry when I get to Lima but for now I just thought I´d let you know that everything is going swimmingly. I´m having a lovely time doing lovely things, but it´s taken me longer than anticipated to sort out going to Peru. This is mainly because the people I´m staying with have made me feel very welcome and keep saying ´ohh, you don´t have to go to Peru so soon, they´re very relaxed in Latin America, it doesn´t matter if you turn up late...´
The people I´m staying with, by the way, are called Nick and Tory. They´re a brother and sister who my cousin knew when she lived in Quito and they are completely mad. They have 3 dogs, a cat and 4 geese, and a big house in Tumbaco (a valley town 12km from Quito centre). And they are very lovely. Though a bit mad.

However, I have now officially booked my ticket and will arrive in Lima on Wednesday afternoon. The bus journey is direct, so I don´t have to worry about changing and getting confused... BUT it is 36 hours long. THIRTY SIX. Cor blimey.
But never fear, for I have bought two books to read, I have my spanish textbook to learn from, and there´s an australian couch surfer called Jo who is staying with Nick and Tory as well and she is coming on the same bus. So we will learn spanish together and tell our life stories and see Ecuador pass us by through a bus window.

More details when I get to Peru

Farewell ´til then

Josephine

ps. something about the water in Ecuador has made my hair go into perfect curls! This makes me very happy, as it was the bane of my life in England.

Actual details of things I'm actually going to do

This is what I know:

I leave on Tuesday. That's 4 days away. I leave at 6.20 in the morning and it is a 16 hour flight.

I'm going to Miraflores, which is in Lima, which is the capital of Peru.

Well, technically I'm going to Quito, the capital of Ecuador.

I have to travel from Quito to Lima because I bought my flights before I knew I would actually get a job, and that that job would be in Peru, not Ecuador.

This will take some days and many buses.

But I do have a job teaching English to Peruvian businessmen. Ooh err. And hurrah!

Although, I am more scared than excited at this point in time, because this is what I don't know:

Where I'm going to live.

Whether the job will be any good.

How I'm going to make friends.

How to speak Spanish.

And I don't understand Lima's climate (it's not hot but it's also not cold and it is foggy but not rainy...), which makes packing a bit tricky.

In summary - I'm undertaking a solitary plunge into the unknown. I'm going to be very lonely and far away from everything I know and love: cups of tea; baking scones; Plug on a Thursday; losing at poker; relentless yet affectionate teasing; Heg's nervous worrying; Mark's cheeky grin; dancing and singing with my lovely girly housemates; Taylor and Jason's bickering; scrabble; crosswords; late-night essay panics; Sunday newspapers; the paternoster!; my dad laughing at episodes of friends he's seen 10 times already; my nephews trying valiantly to say my name (shoshofee); slouchy hangover mornings; the beautiful English countryside....

Well, goodbye everyone.

Why did I ever think this was a good idea?

Disclaimer

Yes, I have started a blog. I'm sorry.

I apologise for two reasons.
Reason no.1: The Year of the Blog Onslaught.

Alas, alack, here is another one to add to the ever-increasing pile of blogs that everyone is vaguely aware of but never read. I blame the recession. No one has jobs. Everyone is doing something vaguely interesting like travelling, or being amusingly unemployed and obersvantly watching TV. You know who you are. I'm in the former camp and will at some point in the near future be somewhere that is not England. I don't know where, which adds a piquant hint of suspense to this otherwise aimless 'web-log'.

Reason no.2: Well, It's Just a bit Self-Centred, isn't it?

Anyone writing a blog must be just a teeny tiny bit arrogant, I think. Because you're assuming that people actually want to read about the trivial minutiae of your life; assuming they will be amused by your cliches, witticisms and feeble attempts at stylish writing. How cringe-making. I cannot avoid this; I can only tell you I'm fully aware of the self-centred nature of my blog and hope you'll forgive me.

In conclusion, don't read this blog if you don't want to. Go away and do something purposeful with your time. Play squash. Help a charity. Read something self-improving.
If you do read this blog, thank you for indulging me.