CHAPTERS

I think I can now say, at this point in my life, that I am experienced traveller. With this experience I have come to realise that when you go on a long journey it becomes not one solid venture, but journeys within journeys; stages, parts or as I like to call them: Chapters. So far on this adventure, I have had three chapters. Chapter one was my time in Nosara in Costa Rica. Chapter two was my time traveling the rest of Costs Rica and Panama with Angus and Chapter three was the time I spent traveling alone in Colombia. As Chapter three started more or less with Martin (I met him on my second day in Colombia), it seems fitting it should end with him too. I went back to Bogota to catch a flight and to see him one last time. Do you want to know what we did? Did we go to a fancy restaurant, to a bar, or a night club till the early hours of the morning. No. We stayed in, and guess what? It was the best thing ever. When you have been traveling for over three months, the thing that you miss the most is a place that feels like home, where you can be comfortable and have privacy (something you don't get a lot of, when you share a dorm with seven other people). We drank beer, ate microwave popcorn, got take away pizza, and lay together on the sofa with a blanket and watched a film (actually we only watched an hour of it as Martin realised he hadn't down loaded it all; so if anyone has seen My Blue Valentine with Michelle Williams and Ryan Gosling, I would really like to know how it ends). The next evening I left him to go to the airport. Was it hard saying goodbye? No, as I always knew I had to. Will I see him again? Who knows what will happen, but I like to say no, as then you can't be disappointed. Am I sad about this? If I am true; yes, but there is nothing I can do about it. It is the way of the world, especially the traveling world; people come into your life and then they go again. All I can say now is, Martin: Gracias. Me hizo muy feliz, aunque fuera sólo por un corto tiempo. Te voy a echar de menos.

So ends a chapter, another begins. Chapter four starts in Peru! Yes I know Peru. Some of you are probably wondering how I ended up here ( I keep asking myself the same question), as it was never in my original plan to come here. The original plan was to cross the border from Colombia to Brazil and head through the country via the amazon. Well, I changed my mind. Two reasons:

1: Brazil's economy is doing well at the moment, which is great for them, but crap for us travellers, as it's bloody expensive!

2: As I'm only just coming to terms with Spanish and getting by on it, the thought of having to start all over again with another language (Portuguese) sends shivers down my spine. I'll concentrate on Spanish thank you.

Anyway that's the good thing about traveling, you can change your plans when ever you want, the world is your oyster. So the new plan now is to cross the border to Bolivia, head down through the country and cross into Argentina, make my way to Buenos Aires and head up to Rio via some interesting places, and get my flight home. As simple as that? This is of course, all subject to change. I'll probably end up in Africa, or some place and go "Not sure how I ended up here"?

After getting a flight from Bogota via Lima, I landed in Arequipa, Peru. I had wanted to go straight to La Paz, but it was too expensive and probably wasn't a good idea to go straight there due to altitude sickness. I didn't really know much about Arequipa, but it's actually a really amazing place. Arequipa is surrounded by some of the wildest terrain in Peru, which consists of thermal springs, snow topped volcanoes and some of the worlds deepest canyons. Even the town itself, which at first does not seem that impressive, grows on you. I went to see a great convent ( I know me in a convent! I'm surprised I didn't set on fire from all my sins when I stepped through the door)! The locals are really friendly and as hardly anyone speaks English and I haven't really been mixing with Gringo's here, I have been practising my Spanish a lot!

Yesterday I took a trip to see the Colca valley, which was amazing, apart from having the dullest tour group ever. I had to get up and leave at 2.30am! Yes! 2.30am! Totally knackered, but it was OK, as I didn't need much energy to interact with the rest of my group as I have seen more personality in a dead corpse! Most of them were GERMAN. They would only speak in GERMAN. They would only talk to the other GERMANS. They did not laugh at my jokes, because they were GERMAN. They didn't really smile because they were GERMAN. Now I haven't got anything against GERMANS, I went out with one for two years (actually ignore that. I probably have after him), I have many good GERMAN friends who I really love, but honestly when you get a group like that, you do want to just get a cattle prod and blast them with it, just to see if you would get a reaction, and I bet you wouldn't! Actually better idea, I should of just got the Aussies on the tour. Now that would of shook things up a bit. I wish they had of been there, they do make life more interesting, even though I did want to kill them most of the time.

The highlight of the trip for me though was seeing the Andean condor in full flight right near me. It has the largest wing span of any bird in the world at 3.2m. It was an amazing moment, though would have been more amazing if the annoying American guy next me didn't keep saying "That's narly!" ever two seconds and "is it having a shit"! Where's that cattle prod again!