Weeks 6 & 7 - Another bank holiday weekend & another pair of shoes... and some river rafting!

Hello everybody, I'm not exactly sure why I have put off writing this last entry, maybe it's because I have lots to say, maybe it's because I'm enjoying a slower pace of life this week, or maybe it's because the electricity went off this morning, leaving me to have a ridiculously cold shower, and my fingers have only just regained enough movement to allow me to type anything!

Normality has definitely entered my life in small doses. I know the people in the local shop, after having a very entertaining conversation about why I would to buy the whole box of tea bags (only 12 bags) instead of a single one.... I mean who would buy one tea bag? Evidently the answer is a Colombian person... this country is famous for coffee. I use the crowded 'Transmilenio' bus service, and have been joining the rush hour fun on many occasions. I know where to buy different things around town, electricals, dvd's and wine! I have even felt comfortable enough to get my hair cut at the local hairdresser, and she did a grand job too! But before I start to get into my perceptions of normal life here, let's recap on the past week.

Ok, so where to start? Hmm.. lets go back to the end of week six and after two very informative meetings with the National Universities, including me giving a lecture to the Occupational Therapy students, I found myself visiting the very reputable private ECR University, and the Occupational Therapy department there. I was picked up in town by one of the lecturers and driven to this impressive little building, in nice grounds, where I was introduced to a lovely bunch of OT staff, who shared their thoughts on their education system and asked a fair few questions. Here's a little picture of them...

After an invitation to have lunch with some of the staff, including a very good English speaking speech therapist, I returned to the University for a little tour of their facilities and a meeting (a surprise meeting) with the head of the OT course. She was good enough to spend close to an hour talking with me about the curriculum and exactly how the OT students were expected to work, in a 4 year course (as opposed to the standard 5 years elsewhere in Colombia). I was even given a little present, and asked to write an article for the University Journal! The teaching methodology and philosophy appears very different from my understanding of the UK system, and the students seem to respond well to the demands placed upon them. UK Universities again please take note, the Universities here in South America are keen for international collaboration, and can offer a lot of new and differing ideologies regarding OT... get in touch and start working together! I also had to rely far more heavily on my Spanglish, than I have had to in previous days, and found that I could actually start to get the theme of most of the conversations happening around me I was very proud of myself! That particular day was finished off by a little trip to the movies to watch 'Prince of Persia' in Spanish of course, and dinner at TGI Fridays, with a live band! They had some funny toilets though, one room, with a partial partition for the men's urinal, and a cubicle within the same room, for women... strange! looks like they just ran out of space to build different toilets for men and women.

So to the main event, the second bank holiday (public holiday) weekend in a row here in Colombia. We decided to do a little traveling, a 7hr coach journey to the area of countryside known as San Gil. The journey itself was uneventful, that was until about half way, we were stopped by a military checkpoint, and all the guys were ordered (ok well they were asked) to get off the bus and produce some identification. Two things struck me as odd, firstly as they only check men, and slightly intelligent group would smuggle stuff etc using women right? Secondly, the soldiers looked about ten years old, well that's a little exaggeration, but they were kids... here's me having a little chat about their somewhat questionable policy!

San Gil had a range of adventure sports (of which I'll talk about later), and some stunning national parks, and beautiful little hillside towns in the close vicinity.
We traveled on the Saturday, during the England vs USA game, though had a food and toilet stop just at the wrong time, as I go to see the moment when the England goalkeeper Robert Green decided to throw the ball into his own goal. Never mind, we don't like to do things the easy way! Got to give the Americans some hope right?
So we arrived at the the hotel which was set in the hillside as you can see...

... and without wanting to waste the first day solely on the bus, we took a taxi with a nice driver called Aurellio, to the town of Barichara. It was well into the evening when we got there, and the the town was illuminated with beautiful churches, plazas and little streets, like a scene from 100 years ago. The street pizza sellers, and the modern boutique hotels were well disguised as to not lose the atmosphere of the place. Here's a few pictures...


The first full day was spent travelling to the main attraction, or so I thought at the time, to 'Parque Chicamocha'. This place was situated across two mountain tops, with a canyon in the middle, allowing for stunning views, especially with a cable car running across the valley! I won't bore you with details when you can see views like this....




Of course you can't escape the sight of little churches in such a catholic based continent, so here's me and Vibi outside a pretty little church on the other side of the valley.

The parque's centre piece was equally impressive, it was a kind of monument that looked like it was a broken ship, with a series of spikes and statues protruding from the centre, this allowed people to take some quite amusing pictures including some of the following...




We saw a little zip wire thing, so we decided to have a little adrenaline rush and speed along a zip line, and at some speed smash into a big crash mat, that was waiting at the bottom to stop you! Unfortunately I couldn't take my camera whilst I was doing it so I don't have photos, but the adventure sports don't stop there, so just hang on. The next day which was to be a relatively short one, was packed with fun. We decided we couldn't leave San Gil without doing some kind of extreme sports, so we decided that despite the rain clouds, we would head to the river for a spot of rafting!



As you can see we were joined in our boat by 4 nice ladies, who also volunteered to take the 'rough route' and our great guide Sergio. I was just about able to remember the Spanish commands in time to see the first rapids hit!



In fact the first big set of rapids (Grade 3) had us lose our first crew member...


As we recovered our crew, we started to get the hang of things, and even had a little voluntary swim (well I should say float) down stream, it was bloody cold though! And as the title of my blog suggests, this was truly the death of my latest pair of trainers. I bought them in Santiago, and they have been through, Chile's desert, Bolivia's salt, Peru's mud and altitude, and now Colombia's river. So I think it's about time to lay them to rest and get some new ones, I am trying to dry them out in hope that they will not be too smelly! I'll keep you posted.

After the rafting we enjoyed our last hour or so walking around the 'Parque Gallineral', I wasn't going to include this, but the pictures are too nice not too.. does anybody think 'Avatar' when they see these photos??






So how to end this week's blog? Only one way really, with a video of the rafting! Enjoy, and regards from Colombia!

Week 6 - From Peru to Colombia - Partying in Peru & University lectures in Colombia

Hello everyone, I'd love to get straight into talking about Colombia, as the four days I have been here have been more than eventful, but there are a few things I'd like to share about the remaining time in Peru before I get onto Colombia, and the intriguing city that is Bogota.

So after the spectacular scenery at Machu Picchu, I returned to Cusco for two nights, to do some laundry, blog, email and just relax for a day or two. Ha, no chance to relax in Cusco as a seriously huge festival was taking place the exact two days that I happened to be there for! What Luck! The town was swollen with both national and international tourists, there was music, food and colourful parades all over town, all day and night! I was woken up one morning about 0900 by a passing parade complete with band!!! Enjoy the photos below, but before the photos, I have to share one sight which I didn't catch on camera. One evening as I just enjoyed walking through the crowded street, I could hear a rather out of tune, (possibly quite drunk) small band in the street. There was a small group of people (30 or so) surrounding the band, I'd like to say that they were showing their Latin American dancing style. However, as the music sadly lacked any kind of rhythm, the same could be said for the dancing.. and the scene looked like one huge giant seizure, as people's arms and legs seemed to move in no correlation to the music or the other parts of their body.... it was quite a sight to see this group of people having a great old time in the street, entertaining me to no end!





So after a fond festive farewell to Cusco, I decided that I would learn my lesson and pay the extra couple of pounds for a nice comfortable seat on the bus ride to Lima, now the distance isn't that far (by South American standards), but at 22hours... comfort was going to be required! And this is what I got.... oh a picture from the journey (Cusco to Lima)...



We arrived in Lima mid-late afternoon, and another random meeting with a fellow bus passenger (Alana), had us sharing a cab to a hostel in the more upmarket area called Miraflores. The hostel was cheap, had warmish showers, an extraordinarily large TV in the living space, right next to our room! We took a dorm room, which we shared with a really lovely French couple, who had literally only arrived in south America that day! After sorting out my flight check in for Colombia, I gave in to a craving for unhealthy food and found KFC!
My time in this busy city was short, and to be honest consisted of only one major event - meeting up with Lizardo. Lizardo was the young guy who saved me from the very rude and scary old woman in the hot spa... (read the previous blog entry). Lizardo met me the following day and not only took me to a fantastic student party, but got me on the guest list avoiding a reasonably expensive 'cover charge'. He also introduced me to some of his student friends, who partied the day away with me. Yes you might have noticed I said, 'day' and not 'night', as the party started at 3pm!!! Normally here it's 11pm at the earliest! I wasn't about to complain and so me, Lizardo and his friends, enjoyed some beers, and some excellent live Latin music! More salsa practice for me, and by 9pm, I was ready to drop! Here's some pictures!





PART 2 - BOGOTA, COLOMBIA
Now, Colombia was not place I had ever imagined coming to, on this trip, or any other, but after meeting two Occupational Therapists at the conference in Santiago, Chile, and after listening to many backpackers rave about Colombia, I could not refuse the invitation to visit. My host for this stay is Vibiana, and her friend and colleague Alejandra, and here they at the viewing point overlooking the city of Bogota.

The fight was 3 hours from Lima (Peru) to Bogota (Colombia), to give you some idea of how far the distances are here, and some of the views from the plane were once again spectacular, here's my favourite...


The time here in Bogota has been pretty eventful, as I have had two meetings at the 'Universidad Nacional De Colombia', one meeting with staff, and one lecture (yesterday) with the OT students. I have also had the pleasure of visiting my host's work place and seeing a very entertaining children's end of year graduation 'show',

related to the work of Vibiana. Vibi and Alejandra have also taken me around the city and I'm getting a feel for the place. Bogota is an interesting place, that seems to have multiple identities. You can find, all kinds of architecture from one building to the next, there appears to be a friendly atmosphere to the place, but some real hussle and bussle when using the seriously crowded, but excellent trans-milenio bus service. There is obvious poverty (as in any big city) contrasting with areas of wealth. Visual security forces are not as evident as I thought there might be, but there remains evidence of the past political and violent struggles. I have to say that the city feels safe enough, the people friendly, and I think I have worked out why people here are quite comfortable in each other's personal space. When you use any of the crowded buses, and have at best an armpit in your face for 20 mins, or at worst, someone's crotch just 2 inches from your head for the duration of the journey, a hand shake to introduce yourself must seem almost rude and distant! Here's a couple of shots of Bogota.



and a quick sign I saw on the bus...

Oh a quick funny story about how the smallest things can cause confusion in a new place... I wanted a cup of tea (nothing new there), and I got some matches to light the gas on the stove. The matches were quite small, and when I put enough pressure on the match to get a spark, it would instantly break... the matches are much thicker that I have seen in the UK. After using 5 mathces (breaking them all) I thought about asking for help, but didn't want to seem stupid. After another ten failed attempts I had to ask Vibi to show me how to light the bloody match! Vibi and her little boy, found this very amusing! This is the exact expression I had at the time...

So much for an intelligent therapist eh?
Ok almost there, just keep reading a little longer. The main part of this week has been visiting the 'National' University here in Bogota. I have again learned so much about the OT education and health system here in Colombia, and how the focus of OT in education seems far more widespread than I am aware of in the UK. The OT education process if 5 years, as in Chile, compared to just 3 years in the UK, and 4 years in Australia. The time spent on fieldwork education is far greater, as it would appear is the teaching of practical 'therapeutic' activity skills. The complex issue here (and in Chile), is the number of private Universities, which run alongside the government Universities. Yes there are jobs for therapists in hospital, but just like Chile, there seems to be a much larger emphasis on private practices, and with difficult health reforms, the incentive to work in a hospital seems to be variable. Are the students here actually receiving a far more rounded experience than their UK counterparts? People pay for University here, most students spend 5 years studying! I am starting to understand how the social and economic demands of a society, definately reflect the kind of work environments that are proving the therapy jobs. Also I feel the concept of 'community working' can be very different here. Elements of community/social projects here seem to focus on less direct one on one health care, and more community liaison work. But it is early days and I have lots more to learn!
Here are some pictures of me at the University and visiting some OT related work places! Oh and I must say a huge thank you to Vibi for arranging the meetings with the University, the staff for taking the time, and the students for coming in, during a 'holiday period'. A special thanks goes to a student called Raul, who acted as my translator, you were brilliant, good luck with your studies!



I could write so much more but think the blog is not really the best place to go into much further detail, so I'll say goodbye for now!
Regards from Colombia... oh and come on England in the world cup!
Dan

Week 5 - Peru (Cusco and Machu Picchu) Land of the Inca Empire!

The Inca Empire will be the focus if this week's blog, but I have to say that even in one of the world's most famous and incredible places, some of my experiences this week have been almost too bizarre to believe!

So we are now in Peru, home of the Inca Empire! The centre of the Inca empire, (which didn't actually last very long in terms of historical times) is a city names Cusco! This is where I am writing from as I speak, well type... you get the point I'm sure! So I arrived in Cusco around 7pm, after another epic coach journey! I do mean epic! Having left Bolivia's 'Copacabana' at 0830 and been through a quite bizarre border crossing into Peru, we continued to follow Lake Titicaca's shoreline to Puno. The border crossing, was something like this. Everybody pile off the coach, go to the Bolivian immigration office, get your paper stamped, then walk through a little archway above the little road... and hey, you are in Peru! easy eh? Well not quite, you then have to go the Peruvian immigration office, and hand in a form and get a nice little stamp from the friendly man (America take note!) All that seems ok right? So you get some money changed at some very questionable rates by a little woman sat on the side of the road. Ready to get back on the coach? oh, hang on, just hang on... everybody now has to get their rather full backpacks from the coach, and walk over to the side of the road. Two security people open up the bags in full view of everyone, and seem to look at the top piece of clothing, shove their hand down the side of he bag, then tell you it's fine you can go now! Ok, welcome to Peru!
Here's a few shots from the coach of the Peruvian landscape...


So at Puno bus station here was the scene....

...and the next bus, with luxury seating downstairs seemed perfect! Then I remembered how I though I would save 10 Bolivian pesos (1 pound) and sit in the normal seats, upstairs! What had I done? It was just one bloody pound! I spent the next several hours, with a quite large Peruvian lady, (who really could have done with a shower) and her child of about 5, sleeping on her lap, well within what I would consider my personal space! Still she was pleasant enough, as was the child after I gave her one of my chocolate cookies!
Arriving in Cusco at night at the bus terminal could have been problematic, but as so often happens a fellow traveler (backpacker) comes to the rescue. The only other Gringo (term for foreigner here) on my bus, asked where I was going. She had already been here 'Couch surfing? and knew how to handle the taxi drivers! We shared a cab into town at less than 1 pound! Bargain! I found a lovely little hostel for 25 soles (around 6 pounds) and then headed back into town for dinner and to book some tours and plan how to get to Machu Picchu. Cusco was buzzing with some kind of festival, and here were the scenes when I arrived...


The following day I went on the 'City tour' which basically was a nice little introduction into the Inca ways, and saw some of the ruins around Cusco.. see below!


On the tour I spent most of I with some lovely people England, and three American girls, who were equally entertaining! I also me a girl from Singapore, living in the US, and we headed out for dinner and drinks that night, where I finally got my hands on some cheesecake! Here's the proof!

Oh I must mention the market breakfast of soup with chicken, vegetables and noodles that I had for 7 soles - (less than 2 pounds). The stall holder was called Claudia and here she is with the lovely breakfast!

So the next day was the our of the Sacred Valley, with a night at the base of Machu Picchu. I met some really nice people on the tour, including a trio from England, who spent the next day or two with me! The Sacred Valley is a valley (obviously) which contained many of the Inca cities and towns. Set in front of stunning mountains it gives you some idea of how the Inca civilisation lived. There are three stops along the way, but at the risk of keeping people up all night with this blog, I´ll just show a few pictures from the Sacred Valley



So after the last stop along the Sacred Valley, we were dumped in the little town square, and told to head for the bus station, which would take us to a train station so we could get the train to the base of Machu Picchu (a town called Aguas Calientes). This town is basically a necessary stopover to get up to Machu Pichhu early enough, so you get one of only 400 daily passes to climb the mountain Waynapicchu, which is the big mountain you always see when you first enter Machu Picchu. As I said the town of Aguas Calientes is purpose made for backpackers and travelers, unfortunately it is nothing short of a rip off hole! The hostels are expensive and lacking quality service, the food in the restaurants is poor, but hey, when needs must!
Getting to this place took mammoth amounts of patience and calm. The train line had been damaged by a landslide, so mini buses were being used to ship people part of the way, and with the time on the tickets being clearly different to the operating buses, people were getting confused and being told all kind of incorrect information by their tour guides. After a fleet of buses took us through some very random and remote villages, we arrived at a train station, which was like a holding pen for backpackers! There was free 'tea' hmmm.. coca tea... and coffee, which was a welcome sight with another hour plus to wait for the train! So the train finally arrived and some of the coaches (mine included) got a little free meal...

Once we finally arrived at our destination, me and a few others were hoping we'd be met by a representative from the hostel... the others names were there, but mine wasn't! A mystery name 'Ray' was there, so pretending to be 'Ray' I got to the hostel. After convincing them I did indeed have a booking, I was shown to a reasonable room, despite it lacking a towel, toilet paper or soap.. but hey, it was a room! After a truly awful dinner I went to bed knowing that I would be up at 0330!

MACHU PICCHU MORNING;
0330 Wake up and shower
0400 Breakfast (roll with butter/jam and cup of tea)
0420 Set off to walk up to Machu Picchu
0430 Find bridge that leads to path
0500 Regret idea of walking as it's pitch black, following people with torches!
0530 Getting high now... sweating way too much for this time in the morning!
0535 Yeah! At the entrance to Machu Picchu!
0600 Enter Machu Picchu with ticket stamp for Waynapicchu

I'll let the pictures tell the rest of the story!










After several hours of sweating , panting and climbing I returned to town, to try and shower! The hostel wanted to charge me 10 soles (2.5 pounds) to shower.. ha! For the same price I went to the hot springs where all kind of funny things started to happen. After being charged for the use of a towel and locker, I was minding my own business in the hot spring, when a rather older lady got in the same little spa. She didn't seem to be wearing a swimming costume, rather she was wearing just normal underwear, which she suddenly began to point at, speaking in Spanish and pointing to her knickers! Not knowing what to do I just smiled politely and tried to turn away! Another women then got in the spa, a bit younger this one, and was thankfully wearing appropriate clothing! They both then starting trying to talk to me in Spanish. Luckily I was soon joined by a friendly young Peruvian guy, who spoke English and began translating things at the request of the older woman! The translation had the young Peruvian guy blushing, and was basically very private questions and sex and relationships. When the woman then offered me 'free' accommodation in Lima I thought it was soon time to leave, as the word 'free' didn't quite seem to be true! I couldn't quite escape without the younger woman getting her camera, clinging a little too close to me for my liking and getting a quick photo! The only positive thing to come out of this expèrience was meeting the Peruvian guy, who I will try and meet up with for some beers in Lima this weekend!

Another poor quality meal, and semi decent massage later filled my time before a 2145 train, then mini bus, then coach took me back to the safe haven of Cusco, and my previous lovely hostel!

Ok that's definately enough for this blog post! Thanks for reading, hope you have enjoyed it, and as always, happy travels to all those who I have met on this part of the journey!
Regards from Peru