Lo Que Tu Quieres

Hola Muchachos,

How is everyone.. hopefully living exciting lives, and not too busy studying or working... its overrated..

So what am i up to you may ask??

Well right now im killing time on the computer looking up australian music that i so desperately miss. Since i no longer have a certain ipod to listen to, im having to make do with youtube, and learning the songs on guitar... Not a suitable substitute...

So what else. As some of you may know, i have started working here in Popayan. I now teach english at Vancouver college, with a class of 8 students. good fun, i love that i am qualified to teach purely because i speak english... what a world.. But in all seriousness its been fun, and i havnt fucked up too much, and all my students are really nice, and enjoy learning australian colloquialisms. i think ill be getting another class this week as well which is good.

Also my ever reappearing friends, Matz and Elaine have arrived here in Popayan, and i have co-orced them into staying for a month, and teaching english as well. So we have been having a grand old time here, trying to learn salsa and drinking Caucano.

Que mas???

Ive been pretty busy in the last week or so, and trying to adapt to working again, i even had to get up at 7am for a few days there. Luckily my boss has only given me night classes now, so thats lucky.

But a quick review of things i have done.
-Food festival in popayan. inc classic cars in the central plaza, and amazing italian food, courtesy of the loverly owners of L'italiano.
-Kareoke in Xamba cafe (an unexplainably popular place with younguns) with some cute Patojas(girls from popayan).
-Learning salsa with Matz and Elaine and realising that the best gringo dancer is still the worst dancer in colombia.
-Realising last night, that the above statement is not entirely true, sorry juan jose.....
-Enjoying beer goggles, and avoiding young stalkers.
-And the best- Seeing a classic 80s heavy metal band in a live concert last friday. Complete with iron maiden covers, marshall stacks, big mullets, leather jackets, and a rousing 'i was made for loving you' encore.
-Oh and eating the worlds supply of Almajabanas, The best snack in the world.

Ok, i will leave you now.. and get back to trying to find the drones and an horse songs on the net.

Hasta Luego

Feelin´ Retrospective

Hola friends and family (and potential fans from all over the world),

Today is exactly 5 months since i left Brisbane, and seems a suitable day that i finalise the plans for the rest of my trip. Which leads to the fact that it is also exactly 5 months to the day that i will return to Brisbane... Oh the symmetry is amazing.

More news for the day. I got a job! I start work on monday at the Vancouver English College here in Popayan.. So i will be here for another 3 months working dilligently so i can afford to travel a bit more, and of course to fund some more partying here in popayan.

So its been a crazy 5 months, and an even crazier past month or so, but also so amazing. And im mega glad i could do this, and stay away an extra 4 months and not estrange any family members in the process. So i guess thanks to everyone for being so awesome, lending me money when i was desperately poor in Peru, and letting me cruise around here for so long.

Plans for me for the next 5 months-
Im obviously staying in popayan for another 3 months, which will bring me to early December. From there im planning on flying to Mexico, seeing a bit of the country, visiting people etc. Then i will head south and meet the loverly calley (of brisbane fame) in or near costa rica for Christmas time. From there we will travel (or party) northwards for 6 weeks until the end of January and hopefully make it back to Aus for early Feb.

So until then or the next blog, See ya in Feb!!

Yo estraño ustedes todo, pero quiero viajar mas, quando puedo!

Ciao!

This is the Journey to date, 5 months after leaving brisbane.
Some long bus trips there.
























Enjoy!

Colombia

Hey Guys,

Its been a while, but ive been a bit busy here in colombia so i apologise.

I arrived safely from Quito, and had already met a bunch of freindly colombians before i even arrived in Popayan. People here are super freindly, so much more so than everywhere else i have been.

So i spent a week or so in Popayan which was great. Staying with my Aunt Fanny, in the giant house with a restaurant attached. Its been great, being able to eat awesome food again, and having a house to live in rather than dorms. Nice change. Popayan is a nice little city, but not a huge amount to do if you dont know some people. So to that end, last week, i went to some of the english colleges with expats i met to help teach some english. That was really cool, you just go in, have a chat to the students, then everyone invites you out for beers and to play soccer and everything. It doesnt hurt that all the female students are incredibly attractive either. Ive had a few offers to teach me salsa, but so far its a steep learning curve. I keep forgetting what ive learnt (may or may not be the result of innebriation at the time of learning...)

Ok so ive also been to cali for both weekends ive been in Colombia. The first i stayed with an old family freind by the name of Douglas Lang. Who has the best house and garden in colombia, and were so good to have me there for a few days. And of course, Isabella (my cousin) took me out a few times to celebrate, caleño style. Then i returned this weekend to hang out again with Isa and her freinds. I got taken out to see a band called Superlitio, who were actually really good, and have since found out are quite famous. They play a kind of funky, latino, rock thing. Good stuff...

Did some more stuff.....

Then last night i finally went out to the proper salsa district here in Cali, (the capital of salsa in south america). It was crazy, we met some locals who invited us in a taxi with them, took us to a club, and partied with us. And we only knew them for about 20 min before that. Anyway we ended up at a club called VIP, and i finally picked up a few moves. hahaha... yeh its still not pretty.

Ok so im off now, some freinds arrive in Popayan in a few days, so im excited to see them.

OH AND NEWS!!!

Im most likely staying in South and central America for another 5 months!!!! At the moment, im planning to arrive home lat January, early february. Which is awesome!!!

ok cya all in the not too distant future!

PART 2

Hola Todos!

As most of you probably already know, cami and i have split up, and will be travelling seperately from now on.

But all is well and i will keep you updated on my happenings for the next few months, or until i eventually make it home.

So i left peru a few days ago after spending a week with some freinds, Matz and Elaine, in Mancora. If you guys ever read this- Thankyou, you are amazing.

Anyway so i headed pretty much straight to Quito, in the north of Ecuador to stay with some more freinds we had met in Bolivia. Quito is amazing, it´s surrounded by mountains and is really clean and generally awesome. And they also have some semblance of road rules, which is a plesent change. So, Quito; i was given the city tour by Fer and her friend Sol around the old centre of Quito, which was awesome. Had some sweet empandas, found the secret passageway to a network of tunnels built by some crazy priests and nuns, and did some other stuff which i cant really remember. But all in all a good day.

Yesterday, Fer and i went up to Teleferico, a chairlift up to 4100m, on the highest active volcano in the world (dont quote me on that, but it has awesome views). Ill stick some photos up here later.

Telefonico. Dont you just love the pain of 4100m.

Later Fer, Rodrigo and i drove about an hour west to Papallacta. The most magic place in the world. They are hot springs with healing properties, in case you didnt already know... But seriously there were about 10 pools, a river, and a pool filled from the glacier up on the closest mountain. Anyway, feeling much better, we drove back home with beers in our hands ready for the best hot dogs in the world (according to Rodrigo).

Apparently this place was built from the ground up by some dude who used to sell hot dogs from a street cart on the side of the road. And now he has a bunch of franchises and is really rich. Good on him. But they were awesome Hot Dogs.

Los Hot Dogs de la Gonzalez Suarez.

Anyway ill update again when i hit Colombia, the salsa capital of the world or so i am told.

Cya later!

Part 2 da historia de Esteve.

Alrighty Then.

So since our first few nights in arequipa, post hot tub party, we have both been relatively busy working. I was on the bar every night until it closed and cami was doing some reception and lazing around and some shopping i think.. Not too stressful, i think she wasenjoying spending other peoples money.

So we did that for a week and a half, i got fairly sick of it pretty quickly, Cami is still loving it. But anyway we decided that i would leave and go to Lima for a week or so until after independance (another big party for cam to plan) and then cam would meet me in Lima. But first: Huacachina.

Huacachina is a crazy little oasis in the middle of the desert, mostly populated by backpackers and restaurants. But its the place for sandboarding and dune buggys and all that stuff. Its actually a really cool place, the desert is pretty amazing. Anyway so we splashed out and took the sandboarding buggy tour thing that everyone does. You basically scream around the dunes for a few hours doing dangerous things in a giant buggy, then hop out at the biggest dunes you can find and slide down them on a piece of wood. Usually face first lying down, the dunes were a little too big to surf down (about 200m up mas or menos) and freaking steep. Anyway that was awesome except i fell off the board when i was trying to surf it down and almost broke my thumb. The guide didnt seem too worried, so i must assume worse stuff happens all the time. Anyway so we finished and i went to the doctor, did all the x ray stuff, and im all AOK.. Just have a large thumb for a while and a big sandburn on my back. Good fun really.

So i left after that and headed North for Lima, Peru`s Capital. Cam is still in Arequipa, but she might have to let you know how she is herself. Lima is alright,big and polluted and rich (comparitively). It even has a shopping mall and a maccas and Kfc and everything. And its meant to be a beach city, but from what i understand it is constantly grey (worse than london atm) and the water is polluted, so not too much laying on the Beach. Ive met some freinds from Sucre here and should be able to kill another 6 days or so before we can finally head north and get to the nice beaches and hot weather again...

So until then Cya

Steve.

Arequipa Pt 1

Hey All,

How's everyone going?? I do want to know, but obviously i wont find out for a while, so here is what we have been doing.

We left Cusco the night after our Machu Picchu trail, because it was our only chance to make it through the road blocks surrounding Cusco. Even though we left early our bus was still forced to stop outside the city of Arequipa when we arrived the next morning and we had to walk for around an hour to get past all of the road blocks so we could jump in the back of a ute and get a lift into the actual city.

The first thing we did when we arrived was find a hostel which we could work at so we could stay for free. We rocked up at The Point hostel and were welcomed immiediately so we decided to stay. Steve is working in the bar every night and I am (supposed to be) working in reception. Steve works realy hard every night, whereas I have done only a bit of actual reception work and plenty of shopping (for the hostel though, not me...).
Carolina is a Peruvian girl the same age as us who is working here as well. She and I had the awesome job of planning a tropical party a couple of days ago for the hostel to celebrate the re-opening of their hot tub (it wasnt actually warm at all on the night but the party was still good).

Steve here now. We half wrote this a week or soago and forgot about it. So ill update you all in a sec..

cya