Cusco and Machu Picchu

One of the main reasons anyone comes to South America is to see the magical once lost city of Machu Picchu. The Mavrix dont like to disapoint so after a little detour (we changed our minds about going to Puno - Peru while on the bus there, luckily they just chucked us onto another bus at a later station) we arrived in Cusco, the once capital of the Inca empire and the staging point for any assualt on the great city in the clouds.

Now Cusco is worth a visit in itself, there are tons of beautiful churches, Inca ruins that make up the walls surrounding the central plaza as well as the surrounding areas, cobbled streets and crafts markets, actually there are more markets than you can swing a llama at! We liked Cusco! Its really touristy, but for good reason, you feel like you are walking through Italy one moment with its narrow cobbled streets and over hanging balconies and then you realise that the stones the walls are made of, are bigger than a VW Beetle and the beanie the old lady is trying to sell you is probably made out of wool yanked out of the llama standing next to her. Surreal and beautiful with all the character of a real South American city! To pass the time while waiting around for our Inca trail we got to eat Guinea Pig (a delicacy in Peru and damn delicious), starred in a Peruvian Music video as the token Gringos and went horse riding through some pretty cool ruins! Sweet!

We had booked for the Inca trail 4 months before (the minimum when booking for high season) and were keen as chuck to get on the road the Incas built to the big MP! One problem though, the morning of the Inca trail, meeting time 6am at the plaza, the M started puking his dinner into the hostels big white telephone! Not good! This is something that happens to alot of Gringos in Peru and Bolivia and is caused by the water, the chicken, uncooked veggies etc etc . After Vix did a super girl styled run to the plaza to deliver the bad news we headed to the Gringo hospital in town to size up the problem. To say that the hospital had some experience with Gringos getting tummy troubles is like saying Bob Mugabe has some experience rigging elections. After a battery of tests the M and subsequently the V were diagnosed with having Salmonella and a stomach parasite. This meant a night on the drip for M and a course of antibiotics for the V. It also meant we missed the boat that sailed to MP, now what? Well the tour operator was willing to give us a whopping 0% of the price back, but was willing to let us pay an additional $45 each to catch the train to see Machu Picchu, what choice did we have but to ride the train, we´re lucky we didnt have to push the damn thing as it kept having to reverse and get momentum for the uphills, $45 train rides just arent what they used to be, Que serra, serra.

The day before MP we decided to explore a bit and go for a little hike, well what WE thought would be a little hike. We followed the train tracks and then began our assualt on a little mountain just outside of town which had been highly recommended by our guide. This was to prove to be a climb more than a hike with long wooden ladders, steep steps and much huffing and puffing. The real suprise for this hike however happened at the summit after about 1 and half hours. We made the peak and the world opened up to us, vast expanses of jungle and mountains were now visible including a long winding road with a giant city ontop.... we had stumbled onto the once lost city of Machu Picchu from a distance and got to see a totally different view to the one most of the rest of the world is privy to! Brilliant! Pity the walk down the mountain was like taking a hammer and hitting our knees with every step, but all worth it and beside there were hot springs in town which we used to soothe our aching limbs later that evening!

The next morning we woke up early for the true assualt on MP. The city is just as spectacular as it is made out to be and more! Its a giant organism that was placed ontop of a mountain so that its inhabitants may feel closer to the Gods.... and you do too just by being there! The houses in the city are inumerable, the towers grand. We stood were once the king would have woken up and looked about at the mountains that surrounded him. Throughout MP there is water delivered by an aquaduct system at the top of the world. Massive terraced gardens for agriculture running all the way down the mountain. There is a room with strange acoustics that allows those on the outside to hear you in perfect clarity (a sort of speaker box for festivals and public address) and also amazingly the stones are all warm to the touch! Really this is a spiritual place where you feel comfortable spending the whole day walking, exploring or just snoozing on the lawn.

We left Machu Picchu exhausted and happy! You can see why it has captured so many peoples imaginations and why it is now a New Wonder of the World.

Lake Titicaca

Lake Titicaca sits at 3800m above sea level and is one of the natural wonders of the world for good reason! This big bad boy was the next stop on the Mavrixs epic tour del Sud America and was a worthy stop if for no other reason than we got to eat seafood again for the first time since entering Bolivia. Actually it was some of the first decent food we got to eat since entering Bolivia, Bolivia thinks that every meal should have rice AND potatos...and maybe some starch for flavour too. Here in Copacabana (the little town on the shores of the Lake) we got to eat Trout, big ass Trouts like youve never seen or tasted, with roasted veggies and spicy sauces...yum!

All the normal tourists spend one night in Copacabana then take the morning boat to Isla del Sol (the mythical birthplace of the sun for the Incas) and then the afternoon boat back, but since when have the Mavrix wanted to do what everyone else does. We decided to use wind power instead and hire a little sailboat to the island, this would mean a 6am start with a 9am finish we were told, ¨great!¨ we said ¨we can watch the sun rise as the wind and spray hit our faces¨. Like this we would even get to the island an hour before the other sheep like tourists and have that much longer to explore.

6am the Mavrix got to the pier and were greated by our friendly sailor man Ernesto. We jumped in the little boat pushed off the pier and watched from under the sleeping bag as Ernesto started rowing to where presumably the wind would catch us and the smooth sailing would start. After some instruction in the art of sailing the M whose name Marino means ¨sailor¨in Spanish started steering the boat (heaven help us) and doing things like trimming the sail and changing the angle of said sail for maximum wind power, however no matter the direction we pointed it the wind would not cooperate and pretty soon Vix was called out of her slumber to steer the boat while M spat on his hands and set to the task of rowing with Ernesto...any moment now the wind will change he said so off we rowed using muscles the M didnt know existed or didnt care to discover....

So 4 hours later Ms blistered hands and stiff back with the help of some excellent steering from the V got us to Isla del Sol. In the meantime the boats we were supposed to beat by a full hour were all overtaking us with hordes of tourists leaning over the edge to take photos of the Mavrix hard at work (We hate Paparazzi!). As much as it was hard work though we really did enjoy it, its something we probably wont do again but still rowing our way through the worlds highest navigable lake (dont forget the altitude) and seeing the sun rise over it is something we wont forget!

After taking a well deserved breather the Mavrix climbed the 200 hundred or more steps at altitude to the top of the mountain ridge and started our walk. As beautiful as the scenery was we wanted to get back to Copa that day so when we found out from some passers by that the last boat was at 13h30 and it was already 12h30 and the boat left from the other side of the island our easy paced walk turned into some serious running. The Mavrix did a 4 hour route in about an hour of running and bundu bashing through forest, hillside and farm house with only a vague idea of where the port that was out destination really was! Luckly we made it with about 3 minutes to spare and actually ended up having a brilliant day of excerise and fun to remember, I dont think anyones ever done the Isla del Sol quite like that....

Welcome to the Jungle baby - Amazon

After mastering the Worlds Most Dangerous Road the Mavrix decided to go tackle the jungle proper so off we flew to Rurrenabaque a little Amazon river town with a grass landing strip and a laid back atmostphere we loved. This little town is filled with all the old cliches and some we had never heard of, tanned locals with pony tails and alligator necklaces, Mormon families trying to get away from it all and strange old men that offer to sell you freshly baked apple crumble and blueberry muffins. But we could not linger too long here we needed get going so the next morning we crammed ourselves into a Land Cruiser that had seen better days and traveled 3 hours down a head bumping road to the start of our tour. For the next 4 days our motorised transport would be a long banana boat and the Amazon would be the road.

The river, the guide and a troup of pink dolphins would all greet us together at the starting point, the river doing what slow rivers do, the guide speaking in hand motions and the dolphins breaching to take a peak at the gringos.

The next few hours on our little boat we spotted Alligators, Kayamans (BIG alligators), turtles, monkeys, dolphins and birds as big as teradachtyls! And we didnt spot them like you do in the Kruger from a distance with binoculars, the driver had the habit of zipping straight up to the Alligators and parking you within arm or jaws reach! Good fun was had by all pointing and making oooww aaahhh noises.

Sundowners were held on land at a river bar overlooking the Pampas (swamps and fields) while the M played football with a mixture of locals and gringos and Vix tilted her pinkie with a drink. Sweet.

Day 2 was Anaconda hunt time! Pull on your wellington boots and get ready to stomp through the swamp. Yes the swamp stinks, yes the object of our hunt was to literally stand on an Anaconda (thats how you find one), yes sometimes your foot gets stuck and only supreme effort and outside assistance finally frees you with some large suction noises like an Electrolux finishing a milkshake. Boy was it fun! After 3 hours of sweaty swamp slushing the tyipical looking Norwegian fellow in our group finally spotted an Anaconda and boy was it big... 2m of snake is a lot of snake! Yes I know they have been said to get up to 18 meters but when you are faced with something that is taller than you are and swallows its food whole, trust us its big enough!

That night we headed out onto the river in total darkness looking for alligators.....doesnt sound like a good idea but hearing all the jungle noises at night and seeing the alligators eyes shine red was pretty cool if a little spooky!

No trip to the Amazon river is complete without swimming with pink dolphins. These cousins of the normal dolphins realised thousands of years ago that pink is the new black and adapted to make it so. Ok the real story is that as the oceans fled from South America thousands of years ago the dolphins got stuck and therefore adapted to their new fresh water rather than salt water surroundings...still pretty cool. Swimming with them isnt a very personal experience though, they are by their very nature protectors so when you jump in the water rather than running to you to play, they circle to keep away all the nasties that call the river their home. We could see Alligators but they wouldnt come close because the dolphins were there. At one point thinking that there were maybe only 3 or 4 dolphins in the water we threw a ball in for them to play, this action scared the hell out of them and us as the water started boiling with what looked like 30 dolphins rushing around to investigate or get away from the noise whatever it was.

The day finished with a spot of fishing....for Piranas. These little guys dont attack the meat nearly as enthusiastically as we had hoped but we did manage to hook a few which made a good lunch for the group!

So we got to hunt and hold an anaconda, swim with dolphins, eat the pirana we caught and see a ton of wildlife. All good fun, so much fun that after leaving the Amazon the Mavrix are looking for ways to get back as soon as possible! Its an amazing place that 4 days just isnt enough to see, we will be back!

La Paz and the Worlds Most DANGEROUS Road

So we leaped up the breath taking and mind numbing 3400m from Villa Tunari jungle to La Paz Andeas in one not so fowl bus ride only to find ourselves in the capital at 6am without a hotel room and out of breath. After several wrong turns and knee grasping huff and puff moments we finally found a place to lay our heads.

The rest of the day was spent exploring La Paz, its markets, churches and the unending stairs that hit us like a brick in a pillow fight! Since the plan was to get to Cusco asap for the Inca trail we didnt have much time for much other than fact finding, how to get from here to there and with who, that type of thing. Not very exciting I know but even the Mavrix need to do admin sometimes.

The next day we got picked up bright and early for one of Bolivia´s biggest tourist attractions, ¨The Worlds Most Dangerous Road¨ (BAM BAM BAAAM)! The road was dubbed The WMDR because of its rather dismal safety record, it used to lose a bus a month on average but now tourists scream down it by mountain bike for sh1ts and giggles! This 64km stretch of road takes you from the clouds at 4200m to the jungle at 0m on part tar and part dirt (ok mostly dirt) on a single lane road with a sheer sometimes 300m drop just a meter away waiting to gobble you up. Although this road is pretty safe they tell us there have still been 8 fatalities in 10 years and many a broken bone, but the Mavrix are no strangers to danger so after some weeks of debate and a promise to behave all the way down we climbed aboard our double suspension, hydrolic brake mountain bikes and set off down hill with another 14 Gringos on bikes much like the flying monkeys from the Wizard of Oz.... fly my pretties!

The first thing that occurs to you is that pedalling doesnt do anything even in the hardest gear...your going too fast for it to matter, the second is that there are really big buses on this road and you have to figure out how to OVERTAKE them... trust me you dont want to mess with Bolivian bus drivers, they´re more hardcore than our taxi drivers and play worse music!

One thing about the sheer drops on the side is they give awesome views, one thing the guide warned us not to do was look at the pretty view as thats where most accidents happen and 1 life was taken....oooowww thats pretty, why am I flying? So the Mavrix tried to abstain from bird watching and view gawking until predesignated stops.

At the begining of this little adventure Vix was a little worried to say the least, but as the day went on she started leaving the M in her wake on the down hills, some would even swear they heard a ¨wheeee!¨as she flew past (Sorry Sandy), the M on the other hand was a lot more reserved (read chicken) on the downhill but was never last and always looked cool doing it....ok part of that last sentence was a lie, you figure out which part.

So after a day of spectacular views, dodging buses and pot holes we pedalled the final stretch into the jungle and another animal refuge (didnt we say we had enough of monkey poop?).

All in all it was a good experience but not nearly as extreme as all the brochures make it out to be and the Mavrix maybe didnt need the super duper luxury bike package, but then again we think the M´s package thanks him for the super suspension.

Villa Tunari - Inti Wara Yassi

The Vixens birthday was coming up and she had 1 big wish, she wanted to be in the jungle for her birthday and she wanted to be able to play with monkeys, apparently the M´s antics werent enough monkeying around for her anymore!

So off we headed to a little village called Villa Tunari situated about 4 hours drive outside of Cochabamba and into the Amazon jungle. This little trip would see us leave the heady altitudes of Potosi (4200m) to a mere 290m of the jungle - no more huffing and puffing up stairs for the Mavrix thank goodness.

Our main reason for coming to Villa Tunari was a place called Inti Wara Yassi, a animal refuge and park that houses Monkeys, Pumas, Techons (funny rodent things), Oselotes (funny cat things), Turtles (you know what those are), some cool birds, 1 Andean Bear called Baloo and a bunch of hooligan volunteers who would become our family for 2 weeks! This animal refuge takes in abused animals found throughout Bolivia in circuses, markets, homes and even resturants. They take them in, get them well and then slowly integrate them back into the wild through a careful system that needs many hands and lots of time.

After a toss of the coin and some serious arm wrestling with some Israelis, Vix managed to get stationed at the Monkey Quarantine (score!) and the M at the Clinic (double score), this meant that we would both be working with monkeys and not have to deal with squawking birds or boring rodent things. M would be working with the vets and helping treat 17 monkeys while Vix would be working in stage 2 the Quarantine with over 40 monkeys who were getting ready to go to the next stage just as soon as they were parasite free.

The next day would be our first at work so we kitted up in 80´s chiche and some Wellington boots from the second hand shop and got ready to save some animals. Little did we know that saving animals meant A LOT of poop scooping, we would however discover this rather intimately in the weeks to come.

Our days basically consisted of feeding the monkeys, cleaning their poop, their cages, their poops, their blankets (all covered in poop), feeding them again and cuddling the monkeys...while they poop on you. Basically there is a lot of poop but you get pretty used to it pretty quickly after all Vix was to become named ¨The monkey whisperer¨and M ¨Dr Quin, medicine monkey man¨.

Vix birthday rolled around while we were here at VT (Villa Tunari) and wasnt it nice even the president pitched up in the village just to say hi! There was a big parade with marching bands, military, the old, the young and the foolish Volunteers from VT. What a sight it was! The prez even gave Vix a little wave and a wink happy birthday or at least thats what we like to think. Later that night though she was also given an egg in the hair with some flour for colour as a bit of a VT tradition. She was also spoilt as best as Bolivia could with a Traveling Sponge Bob hair dryer (no girl should have to go 1 full year without proper hair care) and loads of chocolates which put a beautiful brown smile on her face! We also celebrated with a dinner in one of VTs few safe gringo restuarants with some of our new found friends, Benny boy from Oz the philospohical surfer type that doesnt surf, Anna the unshaved arm pit 80´s rocker, Jack and Louise the animal haters (why they´re at a refuge no-one knows but they´re cool) and Gussilicious - do we need to say more.

But with every big night in VT a hang over morning follows and trust us you dont want to deal with monkey poop with a sore head but somehow you just do!

But wait, we havent told you about all our friends yet, Vix made big pals with Eddie the smartest monkey on the planet, give him a brush and he washes his own plates and then his hands. This little sweetheart even grooms your hair and arms he is such a clean freak! Vix also wanted to adopt Abraham the cutest lost case you ever saw, he had no fur on his tail, ate his own poop, freakin skinny and needed a hard core case of finishing school, so adorable ek se. Then there were the M´s little friends, Tim Tim the crazy monkey who just wanted to play fight all day, luckly for M his Wellington boots were thick and his hat was sturdy or he would be without some skin, then there was little Dominita, the polar opposite of Tim Tims tomboy antics, she was daddys little girl and would hold on for dear life to the M´s neck for hours if youd let her always wanting a cuddle never wanting to sit alone. These were just some of the little animal friends we made but there were also some loco characters liek Oscar the little bitch that hated Vix and gave her a nasty bite the one day on the hand, lots of blood ek se and a scar she´ll probably carry for life. Or Chulpa the crazy monkey M had to feed every day as he tried to snatch and bite him...unless that is he was otherwise occupied with his favorite hobby, giving himself oral pleasure.....crazy monkey....crazy monkey love.

Then there were the partys, probably the stand out one would have to be the 80´s theme party inspired by Vix and the Guss´s vivid dress sense at work! From what we can remember there was a lot of booze, fun and crazy antics from all but once again life wasnt so much fun the next day at 07h30 when we all had to report to work again...ouch my head hurts thinking about it.

Life at VT was good, we had made good friends and had good times but we were running out of time and needed to get to the Inca trail and a bunch of stuff in between so we said goodbye to the monkeys, the bears the pumas and the party animals we called friends and hit the road again to La Paz. A whole bunch of new adventures would wait for us here but thats another story.