BuggslifePhotography, Homebrew, Canoe, Travel, Nature…

“La mano de Dios” = “The hand of god”.
I just had to have a pic of an Englishman stood next to that…even if it wasn’t in Argentina.

We went to a town called Mompos, which involved some of the most effort to get there of any town so far. Of course buses, then pick up truck, a boat ride upriver (they boat’s engine messed up after 15 mins so we took another 45mins instead of 10 or so), then the most intense motorbike ride yet over a dusty road – the type you’d look for to mountain bike.

The town was full of cool old architecture and worth the visit.

The pic below is another real nice village in a different region. We camped in a cool site; a small field shared with big white rabbits and a sheep.

Above is a scene from that village’s main square.

Paragliding was awesome fun. Starting up a hill overlooking farm fields, beyond them a big canyon and on the horizon were a few small table top mountains.

Once set to go I looked down and saw a group of vultures circling way below me but still high above the valley. We were waiting for the right thermals to set off. Then suddenly the vultures caught one and soared way way above us. A few seconds later and I was gliding above everthing!

The photo to the left was snapped up on the Colombian coast in tropical forest. We walked down a stream as the quickest and easiest way to get back to the beach (the path meandered loads).

I’m about to jump a log with a cool line of leaf cutter ants running along it.

That day on a walk to a pre-hispanic settlement up the mountain, I came face-to-face with a snake. Climbing up the boulders I was leaning forward because of the steepness and looking up it was right in front of my nose – luckily just as scared of me as it had started to crawl off…

We also saw bats in daylight, great big bright green iguanas, various coloured crabs and lizards, squirrels and a big rodent called an Agouti as well as the acient settlement hidden among the forest.

That was all a while ago now. We’ve now been in Venezuela about 3 weeks or so – a country full of fantastic countryside but people who are “generally” a bit daft and/or annoying.

The pic below is another real nice village in a different region. Camped in a cool site

The time we spent in the Galapagos was just fantastic.

We did some big day trips on different types of boats, numerous day trips on land by walking or biking and saw such an amazing variation in countryside – for example wild cliffed islands, paradise style beaches, lava flow areas with cacti forests – constantly changing vegetation and of course the most awesome wildlife you could imagine.

The marine life was definitely a major highlight since we saw things I’d wanted to see all my life but some I never thought I would. Pods of dolphins diving in and out of the sea passing our boat, a group of killer whales also diving in and out later that day or the ocasional sea turtle – I even swam about with one – but more often seen when coming up for air. One night we were sat at the bay of the most populated town in the islands and I thought I saw something in the water with the streetlamp light; a few seconds later a turtle popped up right in front of us for a gulp of air and dived back under!

That’s the way it was pretty much. There’s life everywhere, of course far more in the less accesible parts but even right on the edges of populated places.

Without a doubt our favourite island was Isabela, the largest, even thought we only saw a relatively tiny fraction of it. From the port village walking along the beach we found the most idyllic individual beaches I’ve seen; and some less than an about 40mins walk. What adds superbly to these quality, secluded beaches is the life. You’re usually only sharing it with big marine iguanas, some sealions, bright crabs and, with luck, penguins or rays! On the main beach I watched a group of at least 20 penguins hunting in front of me whilst I was chest deep in the water. Until then we had never seen groups of more than 8 or so! Plus the birds and sealions would get in on the act and take easy pickings among the feast. It was natural events like that that made it such an awesome experience.
I think what surprised me most, and ended up being my favourite animals to see, were the rays. On the first boat trip we watched the ‘wings’ of huge Manta Rays flipping about on the sea surface, then soon after we watched them leaping well out of the water and belly flopping or sometimes flipping and back flopping on the surface. Then one passed right by the boat at the surface and i saw its shocking size and beauty as it drifted by. After that we saw rays loads in various situations – often the big mantas jumping and flipping whilst we chilled on the beach. Occasionally, however, we saw beautiful Spotted Eagle Rays swim close to shore and a few times we swam with them including a time when we were snorkelling with loads of Galapagos sharks and Reef Sharks on a day trip and a group of 5 Eagle Rays came along and drifted around proper peaceful. So cool to watch them ‘flying’ through the water. Then there were the smaller sting rays we’d see hiding in the sand in the shallows which were cool to snorkel with and once we saw a school of Golden Rays off a boat – a stunning sight.

Getting between the major islands we took what was probably the worst boat ride experience of my life – thank f*ck it was only 2 and a half hours – and after that dodgy journey we decided on a flight to skip 2 more similar boat trips. The plane was a cool 8 seater with 6 people. I jumped at the chance to ride up in the co-pilot seat like the little child that I am. It was coooool!

As you can probably tell, this was all ideal for me. An amazing trip and still sooooo much more I could say.

Oh well, hopefully the snapfish pics will say more than a thousand waffled words….

Viajando durante los ultimos 6 meses he conocido bastantes mochileros de los paises latinamericanos y por eso decidi que, de vez en cuando, voy a escribir en castellano – para se puede buscar informacion y, quizas, encontrar lo que se busca aca en este Blog.

Para empezar tengo que recomendar la “Huaca del la Luna” cerca de Trujillo en el norte de Peru. Todavia estan descubriendo cosas nuevas y, como un turista, se puede recorrer por el sitio y ver los muros impresionantes de la pyramide pero los mas increibles son las grandes pinturas – que existen como pescadores, aranas, guerreros y disenos de dioses distintos. Tambien, enfrente esta la otra mucha mas grande Huaca (del Sol), pero actualmente esa es para mirar no mas. El guia fue bien informativo y ademas el ingreso economico. Muy bien recomendable – descubrela!

Lo siento mucho que los accentos (que incluye la tilda) sobre las letras no funccionaron.

As well as visiting some of the coolest sites I’ve ever seen recently, we also went out the other friday night as most other nights – restaurant, local licors – and ended up in a cool club with a circular balcony looking over the dancefloor. Chatted with a few randoms (you always get approached by curious locals in the more remote towns with few gringos) including a big group of coppers out on a bender for their captain’s birthday! They were sound enough even though whilst drinking with them one was quite keen to offer us any type of ancient artefact you could think of. His pride and joy was a pure gold necklace of Inca origin that he “got” (assume confiscated) off a grave robber, which work all over the country especially in the areas we’ve been recently.

We didn’t show too much interest and managed to move onto the next subject everytime – not wanting a free long-term tour of a south american prison – but classic that they probably have hordes of this stuff tucked away earning them a decent 2nd wage.

As I said, these filth were actually sound and real friendly and the other 7 or so guys were just having a laugh and not on a sales pitch. Twas a good night but agony early the next morning when we had a 3 1/2 hour drive up winding mountain rough dirt track roads…

Although all photos have, so far, been taken by me; I was advised not to take my camera (or anything of value!) to this match and so the pictures in this entry have been randomly borrowed and are not necessarily from this particular game.