Copacabana – Bolivia – Copacabana, Bolivia
Jump to the full entry & travel map Copacabana, Bolivia Music and fashion was always the passion at the …………………….. The original Copacabana (after which the famous Rio beach was named) is a quiet little town on the banks of Lake Titicaca (at 3,600m one of the highest lakes in the world), and is better known as the gateway town to get to the little island of Isla Del Sol in the lake itself. Revered by the Incas as the birthplace of the Sun (their main deity), it is a laid back, little touristed island with a few hospedajes and places to eat with fantastic sweeping views of the snowcapped mountains one side and the vastness of Lake Titicaca on the other, with Incan ruins dotted over its length. We thought we had regained a bit of our lost energy from being sick and decided to walk from the town along a 14km peninsula, and take a little boat across to the island and then spend a couple of days walking the paths between the bays and ruins to the other end. Being around the lake meant there was plenty of trout which made a great change from the bland food we´d had for the past 2 months in Bolivia. Not sure if we´ve mentioned it, but the Bov´s love a carb. A meal’s not a meal without at least 5 carbs plus your piece of meat – think rice, plus potatoes (often chips plus boiled), pasta, beans, quinoa grains, oh and a slice of tomato! They do however do a great soup which comes with every set meal for the grand price of $1-2, so who are we to complain? The peninsula walk was gorgeous, sun shining over the bays, inviting water glistening, small local boats made of reeds bobbing at the edge. We also found out we weren´t as re-energised as we thought though, and really struggled up steep Incan paths and over the hills, Brad doubling over at the side of the road a fair few times with cramps, but once we´d started, we had to finish. We met a couple of other tourists walking the route too and shared a local boat over there. They dropped us at the base of this massive Incan staircase with original water channels on either side, which proceeded to climb for hundreds of metres at what seemed like a 60 degree angle. The last things our achy, brakey legs needed was to climb up another thousand steep steps. Feel da burn! Mind you, we got to the top of the ridge just in time to sit with a beer and witness one of the most beautiful sunsets we´d ever seen.
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Copacabana – Bolivia – Copacabana, Bolivia
Jump to the full entry & travel map La Paz, Bolivia Well, we had no choice but to hole up in La Paz for 3 days due to our first seriously bad case of gastro on this leg of the trip. We were able to make short forays into town, but always within striking distance of home. Brad´s whole bag of antibiotics he was carrying finally came to good use. One place we did go to that was fascinating was the Coca Museum. Coca is a legal and commonly used leaf in most of the Andean countries, and is either chewed or put into tea bags which you can buy from shops. The effect is not really what you would think. As I think we´ve mentioned before, it’s a very mild stimulant (way less than a Red Bull, more like a cup of coffee) and is used to suppress hunger, improve stamina, and to open up the lungs to help acclimatise to altitude. It has been used by the indigenous population for thousands of years. When the Spanish first came they tried to ban it, until they realised it was incredibly valuable to improve the output of the slave labour in the mines and fields, so they just taxed it instead. The medical information at the museum was really interesting. As has been known for centuries, it has no long term negative health effects, it is non addictive, yet the US spends millions trying to stop its cultivation. The key is to separate what is used for local legitimate consumption, and that that gets used for the manufacture of cocaine. Interestingly, the US is one of a few countries outside Latin America which grows coca in its own country (not widely talked about) and one of the worlds largest importers of Bolivian coca is……………….the Coca Cola company. Yes, true! So when the side of the can says “contains vegetable extract” you now know exactly what they mean. Coca Cola is apparently a knock off of a French drink invented in the turn of the century called Coca Wine, and the original Coca Cola did have processed cocaine in it, though this was removed in the 1920s, but coca leaves are still used in the formula today for “flavour”. No wonder the Bolivians feel the US is a little hypocritical in trying to get the world to ban coca use in their country (just wait to see how long before some nerdy Coca Cola employee does a web search, finds this, and sues us for slander now!!!!) In the museum there is a little cafe where we bought a coca beer (wierd, green), coca and chocolate cake and coca coffee. We did feel a bit more alert after, but maybe because it was the first food we´d eaten in 4 days!!!! We caught up again with Janiis and Martine (who´d also been crook) for our first proper meal in days - plain boiled rice and potatoes all round!!!! Karen also finally got her hair cut´n´coloured (not her normal fine subtle streaks, but ended up with about eight inch-wide very blonde stripes. Looked OK as travelling hair, but wouldn´t recommend the look for a job interview!) Due to the fact that we had been sick for so long, we were still pretty weak and had to unfortunately skip one of the things we were looking forward to the most in northern Bolivia, cycling down the World´s Most Dangerous Road without going over the edge. As a substitute, though, on our last night, when we were finally up for some proper food, we went back to the Indian restaurant we found when we first got here, and had what they call “The Worlds Most Dangerous Vindaloo” – yes, and got the tee shirt for it too. Sh*t, it was hot. If that wasn´t going to kill off any remaining lurgies, don´t know what was!!!! On our last morning, we went into the centre where one of the years biggest festivals was taking place. Most of the major streets were blocked off for a procession that lasts from 10am to 2am the next day. Thousands of Paceñas (La Paz locals) dressed up in all their traditional regalia, some as mythical creatures, hundreds of marching bands, all singing, dancing and drinking. Great fun. We also went up to the rim of the valley that La Paz sits in to get an awesome view, and went past the shaman and witch doctor stalls, which was pretty spooky. If you´re ever in the market for a shrunken llama foetus to bury in the foundations of your new house for good luck, this is your place!!!
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La Paz – Bolivia – La Paz, Bolivia
Jump to the full entry & travel map Galway, Western Ireland, Ireland Our morning began with a presentation regarding Community Education. Our afternoon lecture was presented by the archeologist from the day before. Today she took us through Ireland in the Middle Ages. I then had the rest of the afternoon to work on my paper. Time was running out. I “finished” the second paper by 7:30. A break was necessary so two of us walked into town and had dinner at Busker Brown’s.
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Katy’s Arrival – Galway, Western Ireland, Ireland
Jump to the full entry & travel map Rurrenabaque, Bolivia From cold La Paz (not surprising at 3.8km above sea level!) to the jungles of the Amazon. Oh, quick factoid. Did you know that La Paz, as the highest capital city in the world, with the highest international airport, can´t have jumbos land there because of the altitude – they´re too heavy, the air is too thin and they would need a 5km long runway to take off again! The planes that do land here have to have specially designed tyres as the planes have to make a descent so steep that normal tyres would likely burst with the force. Probably absolutely useless information to most of you, but we thought it was interesting.
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Rurrenabaque – Bolivia – Rurrenabaque, Bolivia
Jump to the full entry & travel map Galway, Western Ireland, Ireland The morning lecture was given by an archeologist. I learned all about Pre-Historical Ireland. I’m finally getting a better picture and understanding as to what life was like during each of the significant periods in history. The afternoon lecture discussed the Great Famine and Emigration in Ireland. It was the first time I could fully understand just exactly what the potato famine was and why/how it so severely impacted the country. Our afternoon presenter talked to us about the Early Childhood Learning experience. It’s refreshing to see that early intervention is a big push over here. The majority of the children attend some form of school by the age of three. The rest of the day and even into the evening was committed to writing and research. What a L-O-N-G day!!! I left the campus at 10:15, ran into the little convenient store near the dorm and purchased a packet of “add water and microwave” pesto noodles. I didn’t have anything else back at the dorm and I was sick of peanut butter. After eating while Skyping with Terry, I returned to my paper. Luckily they had given us an extension since the internet was almost non-existing for a few days and the printers being down. I had one more day to work on it.
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Research Paper-Crunch time! – Galway, Western Ireland, Ireland
Jump to the full entry & travel map Galway, Western Ireland, Ireland Hello! I am attempting to catch up on past dates since I have not had the opportunity to post in days. On this particular date, nothing of significance happened. We attended a morning lecture pertaining to the Third Level Education (college) and Adult Education. Our afternoon was an extremelly interesting presentation regarding the Travelling Community, as distinct ethnic community of people in Ireland whom have a very private life. After class, I stayed on campus and worked away at my 2 required papers. I got the first one done and headed home at 10:15 PM. UGH! (The great thing is that it doesn’t get dark until almost 10:45 in the summer here.) It was peanut butter and yogurt for dinner, back at the house that night.
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Class, class and paper writing – Galway, Western Ireland, Ireland
Jump to the full entry & travel map Havana, Cuba CUBA Day 1-2: Habana Rach and I spent 10 days together in Cuba – pretty long 10 days! We didn´t really know what to expect going over there and we sure had an interesting time. We started off flying in to Habana where we went to the house of Romy´s cousin (the girl we met in Peru). The taxi dropped us off in what felt like the middle of the suburbs, just 2 storey sqaure houses everywhere. We rang the bell and were greeted, as we would be many more times during our stay, by a shirtless hairy bellied man. He ushered us in to wait in their porch for Isel. She was a shock to the system from the moment she arrived, she spoke so fast and just could not slow down. We didn´t understand a word she said the whole time we were there. She said it was too early to find a casa particular (private home that offers rooms for short term stays) so she said we could stay in her place for 25 pesos. OK! That first afternoon was the real deep water introduction to Cuba. We were stuck who knows where, very hungry, thirsty and unable to communicate with anyone who might be able to help us! I asked Isel where there might be some shops and we followed the gist of her ramblings and ended up going right round the block seeing more and more of nothing that had anything to do with food. And it was HOT, 100% humidity and about 38 degree C. Not to mention it being the hottest time of the day too! Just when we were about to give up entirely we found a small shop that we selling pizzas. Frozen pizzas, they put them in the microwave. We had a beer too. It was at this point that we started to realise that we didn´t have anywhere near enough money on us to survive nearly 2 weeks in Cuba. For some reason, there are 2 currencies in Cuba. The CUC and the CUP. As foreigners we got CUC (convertible pesos). We were not sure but apparently they are worth about 25 times as much as the local peso. 1 CUC is abut the same value as 1 Aussie dollar, so we were spending a lot more than we had been in any other country. My credit card would not work in Cuba so we were hoping that one of Rachy´s would since it became obvious that everyone would try and get as much money out of us as possible wherever we went. Anyway, pizza down, we felt slightly better. We visited a small bakery we had seen before and bought some chocolate cupcakes for dessert. Best cupcake ever, however, the woman who served us was the most sullen worker I have ever seen! Well, up until that point I mean, we saw plenty more after her! She just sat there watching us, chatting away to her mates, making no move to come and serve us until another local came in and shouted at her to get him something.
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Cuba Libres and bocaditos – Havana, Cuba
Jump to the full entry & travel map Vinales, Pinar del Rio, Cuba Viñales The morning of our walking tour we had crackers and jam for breakfast. Turned out not to be the best plan as in the tobacco farmer’s house I had to sit down for a while to prevent faintage. Oh well, we gave the el cheapo brekkie a crack… The walking tour was great because the guide, Sandra, spoke very good English and we also got to visit some farms and hear about how things work here. The government dictates who grows what where. Viñales is for growing tobacco so every farmer has to send a certain amount of tobacco to the government each year. Depending on the size of their land they are given a quota. The farm we visited had to give 4000kg of dried tobacco leaves each year. In order to produce that many leaves they have to plant over 100,000 plants, by hand! Anything they produce over the quota they can keep for themselves. Recently the government changed its policy so that farmers could keep some of their own produce and sell it to tourists, or other Cubans, as motivation to care for their crops properly. Previously the farmers could not keep much tobacco for themselves to make their own cigars and the limit for tourists was 23 cigars so they didn´t earn much money selling them on the side anyway. The quality of the crops started to decline as farmers didn´t care for them since they wouldn´t be smoking it anyway! Now tourists can buy up to 51 cigars each from farmers. The quality of the crops has now improved. Each farmer has their own special family recipe they use to ferment the tobacco leaves in. In the factories they just ferment them in water, but the farmers add honey, pineapple skins, mango skins or RUM (of course) and many other things to produce a flavour that is unique to their farm. As with wine etc, the longer you leave the leaves to ferment the better the flavour. 7 years is the longest fermentation time. The farmer we met showed us how to roll a cigar and then how to smoke it. So now Rach and I are experts on cigar quality, knowledge that Rach put into good use over the course of our trip… We walked to another farm where they fed us pineapple. Yum!! I ate heaps. THEN we were taken to another farm where we were fed mango!!!!! MANGO. It was very exciting for Rach and I as we´d not eaten fresh fruit for some time, plus the mangos in Cuba fantastic. I don´t eat mango too much at home because it is quite pricey and usually they aren´t that flash, but in Cuba they are so fantastic! We ate ourselves silly, nevermind all the other people trying to get some too, they were staying in hotels with buffet breakfasts! Oh it was so good!!! We asked Sandra about buses to the coast, just in case the tour guy had been just trying to get us to pay for his tours. Unfortunately she confirmed the story, you can´t get to the coast unless you pay through the nose. She said there are no local buses at all! Seemed very strange. We really wished we could afford to hire a car. Oh well. That was it for the walk. Oh! We think Rach got bitten by a flea. There was a very mangy dog following us around for the walk. Sandra said they follow the tourists because we feed them. Every country we went to in South America had street dogs all over, but never as thin and worn out looking as in Cuba. They were really starving. Lots of them had raggedy ears or an eye missing, or some weird skin disorder. Cuba is the country for size 0 animals! We got back to town and had some awful pizza for lunch then siesta-d it up until early evening. Oh the siesta is so good! I think this was the night we started the Cuba Libre fest. We discovered that you can buy Havana Club rum for only 2 pesos. Considering we were paying that for the awful “napolitana” pizzas this was a bargain. We mixed it with anything we could find really: a big bottle of Cuban Fanta (Naranja), peach juice – anything! We hit the local club in the evening, donning our rain ponchos to get there as it was pissing down. We couldn´t afford to drink there, but were planning on just riding out the rum high. Straight away we had a young Cuban man at Rachel´s elbow asking her where she was from etc. He invited himself to sit down with us but the conversation ran dry quite quickly
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Cuba libre cont´d… – Vinales, Pinar del Rio, Cuba
Jump to the full entry & travel map Baltimore, Maryland, United States Ah . . . nothing starts a better day than breakfast at the Cheesecake Factory! It was delicious and we enjoyed the splendid view of Baltimore’s Inner Harbor and some lady a few tables away feeding bread bits to the cutest little birds (although in truth, you shouldn’t feed wild animals)! After breakfast we decided to tour some ships and bought an all ship pass from the Baltimore Maritime Museum for the both of us to see the following ships housed in the Inner Harbor: USCGC Tanney (Coast Guard Cutter) USS Torsk (A Naval Submarine) Lightship Chesapeake (Lightship) Will and I both love touring ships for some reason and found these three equally fascinating to others we have seen in the past
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Navel Ships and Baseball – Baltimore Day #1 – Baltimore, Maryland, United States
Jump to the full entry & travel map Edinburgh, Scotland, United Kingdom SCOTLAND – Wild, rugged scenery, good single malts, trains, great seafood, picturesque villages, how can you go wrong? We flew into Edinburgh on June 14th, and spent a couple of days staying with my friends Paul and Eleanor, who I met on my climbing trip to Ladakh in 2004. Or rather, we stayed with Paul. Eleanor was off early the next morning for a week-long belly dancing class in Egypt. Bill and I spent the days doing the tourist things in the old part of the city, then met up with Paul for beers at the pub – that has been there in one form or another since the 1500s!!! – and dinner. Edinburgh is a surprisingly ethnically diverse city. We had “Mexican” food, which was recognizable as Mexican, but they had their own take on things. Went to a fabulous Indian place that had their Indian menu “translated” into Scottish. I wish I had written some of it down, because it was hilarious, but I can’t begin to recreate it. Also had lunch at the Elephant Bar, where J.K.
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The big city – Edinburgh, Scotland, United Kingdom
Filed under: Swimwear and Lingerie , Steals and Deals Whatever your body type, one of these trends is right for you!. Photos: ShopChantal.com Shoshanna Lonstein is a NYC born and bred designer that discovered a serious need in the over-saturated bathing suit market, and made herself a huge success when she filled it
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Shoshanna Bikinis to Flatter All Figures, Plus a Discount!
Jump to the full entry & travel map Uyuni, Potosí, Bolivia Buenos Tardes!! Hello from Bolivia and what an amazing week it’s been! Anyway I’ll try not to get ahead of myself and will start from leaving Santiago… A 25 hr bus ride brought us into the north Chilean city of Calama, we the then took a further hour and a half bus to San Pedro de Atacama. This is a wonderfully inca-themed oasis village in the Atacama desert, bursting with travellers and unfortunatley this also means stupidly high prices! We checked into a cute little hostel, grabbed some dinner, then collapsed into bed
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The Atacama & an Exciting Excursion to Bolivia – Uyuni, Potosí, Bolivia
Jump to the full entry & travel map Santiago, Región Metropolitana, Chile Buenos Dias Amigos! Apologies for taking so long to get these up nowadays as struggling to ever find internet access! After leaving El Calafate (from last blog) we took a short 5 hr minibus to Puerto Natales in far south Chile, just above Tierra Del Fuego. This was a weirdly attractive and mysterious town, with rows of multicoloured corrugated iron houses perched along empty streets emerging through thick fog.
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Feeling Chile… – Santiago, Región Metropolitana, Chile
Filed under: Style in the News , Jeans Country western musician Jason Aldean stars in the new Wrangler Retro ads. Photo courtesy of Wrangler Last time we saw Wrangler in the news, it was over the denim company’s European ads that one photography contest judge said ” screams raw sex .” Now the denim line is appealing to Americans by going back to its cowboy roots and tapping country western star Jason Aldean as the exclusive face of the new Wrangler Retro line! The Retro line takes Wrangler Western Wear classics to a contemporary level including using new trim materials, lower rises and updated fabrics on boot and straight leg cuts. Continue reading Wrangler Retro Goes Country Western with Jason Aldean Wrangler Retro Goes Country Western with Jason Aldean originally appeared on StyleList Fashion Blog on Tue, 21 Jul 2009 15:29:00 EST
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Wrangler Retro Goes Country Western with Jason Aldean
Filed under: Celebrity Fashion Mistakes Barack Obama: Style strike-out with his jeans at the All-Star game? Photo by Tim Sloan/AFP/Getty Images It’s a problem a lot of professional men have: They know how to wear a suit and, boy, do they look good. But come the weekend, when they have to mix and match less tailored separates, the polish fades and the inner little boy is revealed
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President Obama and His Mom Jeans
Filed under: Style in the News Meet the new face of Biba: Peaches Geldof. Photo: Gareth Cattermole, Getty Images Biba founder Barbara Hulanicki may not be in on the Biba relaunch , but Peaches Geldof is! The British socialite extraordinaire has landed herself a gig as the face of the new Biba , the Mirror UK reports. Peaches is no newbie to the modeling game, having previously modeled for underwear line Miss Ultimo .
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Peaches Geldof is the New Face of the Biba Relaunch
Jump to the full entry & travel map Athens, Attica, Greece Out of all the places we visited during this trip, Athens was the one place that really dissapointed. It was overcrowded, very hot, very smelly, heavily polluted, and the local people were exceptionally impolite, viewing tourists as people to make money from. Arriving from Sparta on the early morning bus, we only spent one day in Athens, visiting the Acropolis and the other sights, before we decided that one day was one day too much, and immediately booked the late evening flight to Rhodes….
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A let down 
– Athens, Attica, Greece
Jump to the full entry & travel map Tokyo, Japan How did we decide to go to Japan? I think it’s a good question as we both (especially me) are planning to travel a longer time in Asia and the money we spent in Japan in three weeks would have allowed us even a few months in the cheapest countries in South-East Asia or for example in India. However, as I had studied in China and Aapo in South Korea, both having also visited each other, we both agreed that it would be a good time to visit the third giant of the region, comparing and getting better understanding of what North East Asia is about
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Our Japan – Tokyo, Japan
Jump to the full entry & travel map Concord, North Carolina, United States I could not sleep last night. I just got home from a trip to New Orleans to bid my grandmother farewell, as she passed away this past week, and the anxiety surrounding this event inhibited my ability to snooze. My husband originally set our alarm clock for 6:45, so that we could get a nice head start on our road trip, but when I tossed and turned, he adjusted the alarm to give me more sleep, thereby postponing our early arrival in Charleston. During the 4 hour road trip, I slept about 2.5 hours…possibly more. I hope my inability to sleep does not preclude our enjoyment of this romantic American city!
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On the Road – Concord, North Carolina, United States
Jump to the full entry & travel map Istanbul, Turkey After arriving in Istanbul, and absolutely knackered from the previous night, we hit the streets immediately! – Blue Mosque (Sultan Ahmet Mosque) – Hagia Sophia (Ayasofya) – Cannon Gate Palace / Old Palace (Topkapi Sarayi / Eski Saray) – Roman Underground Reservoir – Across the Bosporus to Asia and back – To a travel agent to get fake student cards so that we could get cheaper flights to Rome And one thing which I vividly remember are the boats moored against the side of the Golden Horn Harbour, which caught fish on one side, grilled it immediately, and then handed them over to me on the other side of the boat to eat – all within five minutes! – that is fast food!!!
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Grilled fish in the harbour – Istanbul, Turkey