It’s pretty cool to know there are people in Irish government agencies actually loving web standards and not just putting it down as a requirement on their RFP to be ticked. More power to the people at Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann for hiring the super semantic Happy Cogs to help them create their fine new website. Art Director for Happy Cog, Rob Weychert gives a nice rundown on his experience with Comhaltas.
With more web agencies in Ireland you could shake a stick at it’s interesting, nearly alarming, to see Irish companies are looking abroad, as far as New York, to get the job done. I hope they know I’m in Sydney, mwaha.
Yes, still alive. I’ve just been very busy touring New Zealand, sunning myself in Fiji, meeting very nice relatives of Ciaran’s in Melbourne, looking for accommodation and work (again).
I’ve got some catching up to do but thanks to a shiny new laptop all of these things should get done sooner and not just reluctantly in one of those gamer-internet-cafes (my nostrils will be all the more thankful for). I think a to-do can’t hurt, something along the lines of:
Convert insanely large .mov files to something smaller and whack them up here. Lisa singing in the bathroom is coming!
In Australia and want to know what to read? Save some time wandering around the book shop and pick from this tailored list: http://www.booksalive.com.au.
I better share these photo’s with everyone. We went to an Angora Rabbit shearing farm in Waitomo this week. Granted, it sound’s alarming tying a bunny up by it’s fuwwy wittow paws but they stay remarkably calm throughout the whole thing – lasts about 2 minutes. The funniest thing is when they rotate the bunny to shave his belly. It’s looks a bit like some Dr. Evil torturing device. Our entire gang erupted laughing of course. And it really doesn’t hurt or scare the bunny at all. I know, I checked.
Hi everyone. Yesterday we arrived into Taupo, and headed straight for the airport. Leaving so soon? Not quite. I buckled up to total stranger and jumped out of plane at 15000ft. Photo’s to prove it are here http://www.flickr.com/photos/celineo/sets/72157600511300958/. I don’t know what I was thinking that it would be fun to freefall (that’s without the parachute) for 15 seconds. It might feel really fast I thought. It’s feels like falling out of a plane! You’re stomach boy-oings back up to the plane you’ve just jumped off. Still have the shakes thinking about it! I couldn’t breath when we were freefalling hence my terrified expression in some of the photo’s. Nice. I think I was just stupid enough to keep my gob wide open though. I had to scream somehow! It’s the most terrifying thing I’ve ever done and will do so I’m glad to have gone the full hog and jumped at 15,000ft. There’s now way in hell I’m bungy jumping now, no WAY! That’s just plain silly. Thoroughly recommend skydiving though. I can’t explain how much fun it really is though. Just keep your gob shut.
We didn´t have enough time to do a jungle trek in Bolivia, which was a pain because most people say it is the cheapest place to do it. And we didn´t do it in Cusco either…. so we decided that when we got to Lima we would search out and take a trip into the Amazon jungle.
It cost us a bit more then what we were hoping for, but seeing as it´ll be a while before we are back in this part of the world, we thought that it would be well worth it… and it was. The whole thing cost us about 580 US Dollars each.
Ciaran: Day 1
The morning of our flight we had to be up to get our taxi at 2 o clock! The flight to Iquitos was grand and only took about 1 hour and 40 mins.
Flying into Iquitos is like flying over the ocean, its hard to make out anything until you get a bit lower and can make out that its all trees below you. Of course you see a few rivers complete with ox bow lakes (I did listen in geography class afterall!). We landed in Iquitoas and were met by our guide Luis and the others who were on our trip – Flora and Heinrich, on honeymoon from Spain.
We headed for the Explorama office (which is the company we did the trip with). We were loaded into a fast boat that was going to take us 50 miles up the Amazon river. We started out on a tributary of the Amazon river and the water was black in colour, whereas the Amazon itself is brown in colour. So 5 minutes later we arrive at the site where the two rivers meets and its like a clear line has been drawn in the water – black on one side and brown on the other.
Near this place there was a large cargo ship getting loaded with exotic woods. It had come from Europe and had delivered drilling equipment. During the wet season the Amazon can be up to 40 km wide! So its no wonder that large ocean going tankers can make it this far upriver.
We reached our Lodge about an two hours later, and were surprised by the size of it. It has 2 bars, a dining room, 2 hammock gardens, showers and toilets and can sleep about 180 people! Its all built on stilts because during the wet season the water will rise by about 2 or 3 metres. The rooms are not fully closed in, and the beds are covered with mosquito nets.
We sat in the hammocks for about an hour or 2 before lunch – its something we would be doing a lot on our free time over the next few days. I am definitely going to buy one in the future. Lunch was excellent, lots of fresh water fish and vegetables.
Jungle Walk
After that we headed off on our first activity with Luis: a jungle walk. We first stopped at a few trees near the back of the lodge. The first tree he showed us had sap that they call “Dragonblood” and it looks just like blood! But when you rub it in your had it turns into a cream that can be used for sealing up cuts. Its cool stuff! He also said that if you put a few drops in water and drink it, its good for women who have just given birth.
Next he showed us a plant similar to lemongrass and its used by the river-people to combat insomnia. Then a wild garlic (that isn´t used in cooking) and its said to be good for asthma. Next up was a plant that will help to stop people being lazy. He also described how to make it and give it to your wife without her knowing! Those were his words – not mine!
He showed us a load of other trees and plants and described how they are used by the river people to cure a lot of illnesses or are used in daily life. Further into the jungle we found a few different frogs including the famous poison dart frog – its black and red in colour. We also found a few different types of ants, and yes there was a poisonous one there too! We got to see 2 different types of monkeys and a whole load of birds.
Nighttime Canoe
We got back to the lodge and had a big dinner before meeting Luis and two others for a nighttime canoe ride!!
This was really cool, we went up a stream with two guides shining the torches in the surrounding trees. We saw a pygmy kingfisher, an owl butterfly, a fishing spider (yes, fishing!) and luckily, a sloth way up in the trees.
Celine: Day 2
The second day we were due to get up at 6am to go and see some birds as this is the best time to see them. To my delight and a few others, it started lashing rain at 5.30. We were told not to even bother getting out of bed if it rained. Suits us!
Rum factory
It seems Peruvian´s know how to spend a rainy day just as the Irish would, head straight to the pub before it stops. Armed with our poncho’s we hopped onto our river boat and were taken to the local rum factory about 5 minutes down the river. It´s quite an old joint with a large contraption taking up most of the hut. Powered by a horse pushing the wheel it´s used to squash the juice out of the sugar cane which is then fermented for 4 days. It´s all a bit too open air for my liking but I guess the alcohol takes care of any bacteria. Luis then had to drag us into the local establishment that sells the rum. We met the owner of the factory and bar, who I think was called Hernando. He let us sample a few types: Ginger, a syrup based one and one called Seven Routes – which supposedly is the Viagra of the Amazon and the consumers of which I will not disclose without payment.
Dolphin´s
The rain started to ease a little so Luis zoomed us over to the other side of the river and up into a tributary of the Amazon. We seen a few pink dolphins who aren´t the friendly socialites we´d thought they´d be. Nonetheless they were a crazy shade of pink all over and we managed to get a few snaps.
Piranha´s
Despite the rain Luis was determined to take us piranha fishing. His fishing spot didn´t have any piranha´s that day though. They live in the black water part of the rivers by the way, not the brown, just in case you go swimming there one day. We stopped by a family on the river who´s mother was gutting fish in a boat. Alot of catfish were enjoying the fish innards she was throwing back into the water so we took full advantage and threw our lines in. Lisa got the first catch, a big catfish, and we all followed catching something or other. I had to throw mine back in because it was just a baby, still counts though.
Tarantula’s
We went back to our lodges and to myself and Ciaran´s utter delight a MASSIVE spider was waiting for us on our bedroom wall. I got one of the guys working in the lodge to help us move it far far away from our room. He sneered the both of us for being so terrified of something which in his demented brain wasn´t big at all.
We got up around 6am to get the boat to bring us an hour and a half up the amazon river to the Explor Napo lodge with the canopy walk. We had breakfast there and also met their pet Charlie a capybara the worlds largest rodent. After breakfast we set off for the forty minute walk to the canopy,one of the longest treetop walkways in the world.
Charlie the Capybara
Canopy Walk
The walkway was built about 15 years ago. When we arrived our guide explained that only two people at a time could walk on it. So off Ciaran and Celine went and I went on it with Luis. There was 18 tree stops along the way to view the rain forest with a bird´s eye view. I wont lie, I was a little scared and i held on the ropes so hard it was a bit difficult to walk. I guess it didn’t help that the guide , Luis was walking so fast that he was making it go from side to side.
Ciaran was just as bad, he wouldn’t let anyone walk on it while he was on it! We reached a height of 110 feet and the walkways became longer the higher up we got. It didn’t help that our guide told us that animals use the canopy at night and make holes but that two guys come down every morning to repair any damage that had been done, but i wasn’t convinced as i was searching for holes and working myself in to a a bit of a tizzy! But once i relaxed a bit i began to really enjoy it and took in all the amazing views. We didn’t see any animals but a few lizards, but the experience of walking that high up was enough for me.
We had lunch and a nice siesta before we left again for the ExplormaLodge. We got to take it easy that evening and after dinner Luis us brought us on a walk into the jungle to try and find tarantulas and listen to the sounds of the jungle at night and boy was i excited to see spiders
Nighttime jungle Walk
We walked in a row and me being smart walked behind Luis thinking that i would be safer. So we walked for a short while until we came across a tarantulas retreat, a small hole in the ground and Luis put a stick in to get it out. It was a small one , a light brown so it blended in with the leaves around it on the ground. We moved on then and Luis asked everyone to turn off their torches so we could all get a sense of the jungle at night and listen to the sounds (I was only too happy to be in the pitch dark in the middle of the jungle!!!!)
So while we were all silent all i kept thinking about was the snakes and spiders that could possibly be moving around me and the next thing i felt something on my leg, as calm as i could be I asked if anyone was touching my leg, Luis turned on his torch and burst out laughing he had a stick in his hand and thought it was the funniest thing, while i stood there with a pale face and a bead or two of sweat falling down from my forehead!
We kept on walking and my senses were heightened at this point so my darling brother thought it would be hilarious to throw a stick in my direction, which made a loud rustling sound. I jumped 10 feet into the air and even Luis jumped a bit, we both thought a snake fell into the bush or an animal was moving around. The rest of the group had a wonderful laugh at my expense!! Once everyone calmed down again we moved on and found a huge tarantula , the tarantulas were easy to photo as they just stayed so still and it seemed like they were frozen to there spot.
When we got back to the lodge and I was on high alert so i started looking around my room and once i was happy that no intruders were in the room i went into the bed only to see a huge tree frog next to me on the wall. So I got Ciaran to get rid of him and after all the excitement I didn’t have the best sleep.
Lisa: Day 4
Victoria Amazonia
We had to pack up and ship out to Ceiba tops that morning, but i wasn’t complaining, pool, enclosed room with air conditioning But before we reached the Ceiba Tops we went to the see the Victoria Amazonian Water Lily. We went down the river and were brought then to the lake where they were. They were huge! The flower that grows only lasts for two days. Luis told us all to be extra careful as we were in black water so it was invested with electric eels, piranhas, anacondas and more lovelies
When we got of the boat the locals had set up a stall and were selling some hand made crafts. There was also a Sloth with them, their house pet! So we got to take some great snaps and the next thing one guy just threw down an anaconda near us! He was hissing away and was pretty pissed off! They catch them and hold on to them for a few days for the tourists and then put them back in the water. None of us wanted to hold him for obvious reasons.
Monkey Island
We moved on to Monkey Island, we didn’t find Guybrush Threepwood on it though. Its a project set up by a local man Gilberto who saw that the number of Monkeys were decreasing and he wanted to help them. He has 9 species of Monkeys from Spider Monkey to Pygmy Marmoset. We were greeted by one monkey in particular who jumped on Ciaran and started pulling his ears. We found out that this monkey was the bold one and is famous around the amazon.
We got to feed the monkeys and the howling monkey was dying for attention, Celine held onto him for a while and then he jumped into my arms and that’s were he stayed for the rest of the day. I was upset when i had to leave! The guy who set up the project chatted with us for an hour and explained that the monkeys were being hunted, one reasons for one of the species being killed is for their tail. They have a long furry tail which people cut of to use for dusting!!!!!!
Flora was holding one of them in her arms and none of us could imagine why they were killed for such foolish reasons, haven’t people heard of cloths! We really enjoyed spending time with the monkeys who only loved visitors as most of them are orphans as there parents were either killed or taken away. So all they were looking for was love and attention and we were all happy to give it to them.
Yagua tribe
We got to Ceiba tops in time for lunch and we got to take a nice dip in the pool before our new guide brought us to see a local Indian tribe called Yagua. They dress in long skirts made from palm trees. The Yagua Chief displayed a blowgun technique, they use sharp sticks and prick the top into a poisonous frog so that when it hits there prey it will kill them. We got to have a go, they were impressed by Ciaran and Celine who hit the wood but i was a joke mine only went half way!
We ended our time in the jungle with a few drinks and a great local band played. I was a bit nervous about the amazon before i went, hearing some horror stories and so on. But i was so glad i did it, its one of the best things I have ever done in my life and I hope to visit the monkeys again some day.
It won´t be long now until I stop saying hello in foreign ways. Knowing only few words in Spanish I have to make the most of them. Chile being chilly (ha) and Dublin expensive we´re moving off to Auckland a little earlier than intended. We can´t wait. Everything south of Lima has been desert, which we´ve seen enough of already, and we´re thoroughly glad we endured (full cama mind) buses back to back to get down to Santiago.
Santiago isn´t the cloudy smog hole we were led to believe. We´re having a bloody nice time walking around here. The Santiago Tourist Board or maybe some wiley Transition Year students created a map of the city recommending things of varying interest on 4 tour paths. We´ve done the Red path and considering some Australian has just put our name down not against our will for the Conchya Toro wine tour tomorrow, I don´t see us doing the yellow, green or orange paths. UPDATE: mixed certain alcohols the night before and couldn´t join Ciaran and Lisa on the wine tasting. Not to worry, we were on the world´s largest ´incline elevator´ that took us to the top of a hill which hold´s daily Mass sessions and a fantastic view of smog infested Santiago. Needless to say we got the first cable car off the hill which to Ciaran´s amazment didn´t transport us horizontally but vertically. Shocker.
Fish Market
We bumped into our old friend Oireann from Luton, who kept a steady supply of the best Caprihiana´s we´d had in Brazil, in our hostel. He´d already sussed out the Fish market and took us down there for lunch on Tuesday along with Kylie from Australia. I had the Calamari (rings of squid in pink water and garlic – wasn´t as bad as it looked).
Careful if you´re squimish, my calamari
Last night turned out to be Brazilian night in the hostel thanks to Oireann teaching us how to make caprihiana´s and revving the whole gang up with his odd collection of Brazilian whistles and drums.
Our 5 layer (not sure what the other 2 layers should be) dip went down a treat too!
It´s been raining quite heavy for the past 2 days now so we had to skip going to see Valparaiso unfortunately. We´re off to Auckland tomorrow night. It´s about 2 degrees warmer there now which should be very nice indeed.
We left Cusco last Thursday on a 13 hour over-nighter. We thought now that we were in Peru we were safe from the suicidal mountain roads in Bolivia, shocker, we were so wrong. Cusco to Nazca was the windiest road yet. Ciaran, sensitive soul that he his, stayed within dashing distance of the bus loo all night while myself and Lisa just held onto our seats with white knuckles trying to sleep, not easy!
We hired the first tour guide to mob us as soon as we were off the bus in Nazca to take us for a flight over the Nazca lines as early as possible. Nazca really has nothing going on except the Lines so we were happy out getting our flight organised within an hour of getting off the bus! What we thought was $45 turned out to be something in excess of $60. I really enjoyed the flight until it started swaying from left to right so we could get the best view possible. Em, the windows on the sides of the plane were parallel with the ground for 90% of the time we were in the air. My empty stomach started churning so the best I could do was just aim out the window with my camera and hope it´s focusing somewhere near each line feature we passed.
Spaceman
Spider
Dune buggying in Huachachina
After crawling off our little plane we got a bus straight to Ica. We stayed just outside Ica for 3 nights in a lovely place called Huachachina. It´s touristy as hell but it´s an oasis in the middle of sand dunes and it was low season so who cares. We loved our hotel with pool and parrots and especially our dune buggy ride into the sandy dunes on our first night. We thought oh dune buggying sounds fun and slightly scary, something we can handle, buggies can´t be that dangerous. Then we seen our machine:
I couldn´t hold my camera straight on any of the bits where were driven over 80° dunes, sorry, but here´s a bit of the fun:
See Ciaran´s death slide: http://www.getjealous.com/getjealous.php?action=playmovie&movie_id=18441&go=ciarangarvey dot, dot, dot but he didn´t die.
My ankles and wrists were in pieces from holding on so tight, my throat in ribbons from screaming “oh my f$%&$%& god!” so much. Ciaran laughed his ass off.
Before we knew where our driver Fino was about take take us:
The doorbell at our hostel rang for us at 5.10 instead of 5.20 so we frantically through everything out of our rooms and got on our bus taking us to Kilometer 82. 2 hours later we hopped off the bus in Ollantaytambo for a quick breakfast. I got fleeced buying some shoelaces but hey we needed to tie our sleeping bags and mats on somehow.
At Kilometer 82 we were handed out our snacks for the day by the porters and had nervous feelings that we needed a porter to carry some of our gear. Most people had personel porters, bar 2 extreme hikers who had their full rucksacks, so we were the only ones carrying too much weight. Onwards through the entrance gates at Kilometer 82 we had our passports stamped with the Inca Trail stamp and started the journey.
We took in 2 ruins on day 1; Inca hill-fort of Huillca Raccay and the Inca ruins of Llactapata. Stopped for lunch which included some awesome avocado salad and super nutritious quinoa soup.
That night we camped in the small village of Wayllabamba. Our guides introduced to all of our 22 porters who we now know to be the strongest men on the planet. One of these guys was 63!
Day 2 – Wayllabamba to Pacamayo (12km)
Woken by our guide Gilbert wrapping on our tent with 2 porters serving cups of tea to help us wake up. We had heard too many times from other travellers that day 2 is the hardest part of the whole trek. Yep. However myself and Lisa eventually found our pace, if a rather ridiculously slow one, talking baby steps here. The only way to enjoy ourselves was to keep a steady pace without your heart exploding out of your chest. The urge to cry seeing endless giant sized steps was always knocked on the head when you keep being passed out by 63 year old porters carrying 20kg of gas tanks and kitchen stoves and they are running!
Without stopping for lunch, or oxygen masks we reached the top of Abra de Huarmihuañusca or Dead Woman’s Pass (4,200m
) in good time. The decent from the pass was steep so we plodded down carefully for about 2 hours to the campsite in Pacamayo (3,600m). For a race so small in size I really don´t understand the size of their steps, thankfully we bought wooden sticks on day 1 knowing my tendency to trip on level tarmac.
With no cloud cover in the campsite that night myself and Ciaran froze with our pathetic compact (what we thought were the bee´s knee´s) sleeping bags.
Day 3 – Pacamayo to Wiñay Wayna (15km
Thawed out in the sun walking up to the ruins of Runkuracay. The rest of the day was spent stopping off at more fantastic ruins; Sayacmarca and Phuyupatamarca, without any great effort to reach them. The 2 hour descent down to the campsite at Winay Wayna however tested our jelly legs a little more than we needed. Our other guide Victor preferred the mountain goat technique of jumping down 5 steps at time, loolaa.
Day 4 – Wiñay Wayna to Machu Picchu (5km)
Up at 3.45am for a quick breakfast to get to Machu Picchu before sunrise. The thin path up towards the Sun Gate turned in the most horrific set of steps I´d seen on the trip yet. 50 of the thigh burning feckers ledup to the final pass at Intipunku or Sun Gate. “Suddenly the whole of Machu Picchu is spread out before you in all its glory – a fantastic sight for all.” Foggy as hell, couldn´t see a thing. It didn´t matter though, at the end of 3 and bit days of full on hiking we were delirious to finally be there. I just wish we spent a night in the local town of Aguas Calientes so we could go back up and enjoy it a bit more for 1 more day. I think I´ll be back though.
In our group:
Rachel, Sean, Ciaran, Andy, Nina, Ashley, me, Robert, Lisa, Mike, Tony, Kiomi, Mai, Gabriella, Mo and Johanna. Thanks to our fab guides Victor and Gilbert.
It’s pretty cool to know there are people in Irish government agencies actually loving web standards and not just putting it down as a requirement on their RFP to be ticked. More power to the people at Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann for hiring the super semantic Happy Cogs to help them create their fine new website. Art Director for Happy Cog, Rob Weychert gives a nice rundown on his experience with Comhaltas.
