I think I remember liking Lima

Yay! I'm in Peru!

After six days in Santiago with our own apartment and relatively not much to do or not wanting to do much, we hit the streets of Lima with a renewed sense of vitality. Perhaps knowing that we would soon be home took our moods to a more positive level. I think that it was mostly that Lima and Peru, in general, is a really interesting place.

We didn't have any luck couchsurfing in Lima but we didn't try very hard either. While it was our favourite way to travel it also became a chore to search for compatible hosts and compose individualized requests to each potential host. Instead, we stayed at a hostel in Miraflores, a popular area in Lima.

The hostel had a friendly and helpful owner but also some (ok, only one!) unwanted guests. The morning after we arrived, Jay was in the ensuite bathroom when I rolled to my side in bed and found myself face to face with a cockroach! OK, I'm exaggerating just a bit. The c-word was on the floor and I was on the bed but STILL it was closer than I wanted it to be. Now, normally this is when I would go into hysterics and scream for Jay to get rid of the thing...and that's exactly what I did! However, I then usually insist that we pack up our bags and move on but I guess I've matured? grown accustom? I'm not sure what has happened but I no longer needed to vacate the premises. And that, my friends, is how traveling around the world has changed me. haha...just kidding.

Once I recovered from my scare and showered, we set out to explore the neighbourhood. Not far away was a historical site, Huaca Pucllana, which was used from 400-700 A.D. as a ceremonial and administrative center. We were able to get a peek into the grounds even though it was closed for the day and Jay went back the next day for a guided tour. It was quite a sight to see all the small, handmade clay bricks stacked into pyramids and platforms.

Huaca Pucllana


in Miraflores

Another day was spent wandering in downtown Lima. It was extremely hot and sunny so we took a cab from Miraflores to the Historic Centre of Lima. Hailing a cab in Lima is easy and once you know the going rate it is easy to negotiate with the drivers. We say 10 pesos, the driver says 12 pesos and you say no, no, 10 (that's what the hostel guy said we should pay) and the driver says 12 and starts driving...so you pay 12 and get out at your destination, thankful that you made it in one piece.

The Historic Centre of Lima is an UNESCO World Heritage Site, much to the pleasure of Jason. Another one to add to the back of his travel notebook and eventually this blog (see previous entry). A hint of the city's colonial past is evident in the main square and a few surrounding blocks. It's quite beautiful.

Historic Center of Lima - Plaza de Armas

Cathedral of Lima


Plaza San Martin

After several hours of exploring the historic centrer and scouring bead stores for my friend, Emily, we had worked up quite an appetite. Luckily for us, Lima is very vegetarian friendly. We would pass vegetarian restaurants on the street by accident. In almost every other city we've been to, if we wanted to find an exclusively vegetarian place we would have to ask someone or find it on the internet first.

Jay looking forward to his vegetarian delights

View of the Pacific Ocean from Lima

We squeezed in one more stop just before sunset, sat in Amore park and strolled along the coastal path high above the highway and beaches below.

Chau,
Corina

THE NUMB3RS

We aren't quite done with this blog as we haven't even finished our accounts of South and North America. However, we are home and I have been going through things like: Where we went. I also noted other things that I like to keep track of. I am a little bit of a freak that way I'll admit. I'll start with the obvious: How many countries and cities we managed to visit. Now in order for me to count a country/city the consensus seems to be to count it if you slept there. Also, I debated whether or not I should count all of the countries we stayed in while in the U.K. as separate entities or just as one country. Well, if you ask any Scotsman they will give you your answer. All in all we visited 26 different countries, 27 if you include Canada, and 65 different cities and towns with populations as diverse as Tokyo's 32.45 million to towns like Trinidade and Anafi that I estimate to have a population of 200 to 400. Here is a break down of where we went, in the order we went there:

I) Canada -Vancouver (1)

II) U.S.A. -New York City (2)

New York's Guggenheim Museum

III) England -London (3)

-York (4)

IV) Scotland -Edinburgh (5)

V) N. Ireland -Belfast (6)

VI) Ireland -Drougheda (7)

-Dublin (8)

VII) Germany -Berlin (9)

VIII) Netherlands -Amsterdam (10)

IX) France -Paris (11)

-Bordeaux (12)

X) Spain -San Sebastian (13)

Bilbao's Guggenheim Museum near San Sebastian

-Barcelona (14)

XI) Italy -Rome (15)

-Naples (16)

XII) Croatia -Dubrovnik (17)

-Split (18)

-Plitvice (19)

-Trogier (20)

XIII) Switzerland -Geneva (21)

XIV) Hungary -Budapest (22)

XV) Greece -Athens (23)

-Delphi (24)

-Santorini (25)

-Anafi (26)

-Rhodes (27)

XVI) Turkey -Istanbul (28)

Istanbul's Blue Mosque

-Denizli (29)

-Izmur (30)

-Goreme (31)

XVII) U.A.E. -Dubai (32)

XVIII)China -Hong Kong (33)

IXX) Singapore -Singapore (34)

XX) Malaysia -Malaka (35)

-Pulau Penang (36)

XXI) Thailand -Bangkok (37)

-Koh Chang (38)

-Koh Maak (39)

-Chang Mai (40)

XXII) Cambodia -Siem Reap (41)

-Phnom Penh (42)

-Sihanoukville (43)

-Koh Russi (44)

-Kampot (45)

XXIII) Vietnam -Phu Quoc (46)

-Can Tho (47)

-Da Lat (48)

-Nha Trang (49)

-Ho Chi Minh Cit y (50)

XXIV) Japan -Tokyo (51)

-Shimizu (52)

XXV) Brazil -Sao Paulo (53)

-Rio de Janeiro (54)

-Trinidade (55)

Igreja de Santa Rita in Paraty, near Trinidade Brazil.

XXVI) Chile -Santiago (56)

XXVII)Peru -Lima (57)

-Paracas (58)

-Ica (59)

-Cuzco (60)

U.S.A. pt.2 -Los Angeles (61)

-San Francisco (62)

-Sonoma (63)

-Yosemite (64)

-Fargo (65)

As far as the usual "What was your favorite?" ...I don't think I can answer that. Far too many good times and very few disappointments. Honestly, disappointment is probably too harsh of a word... The overall feeling of "When's the next time we will be in 'X' " outweighed the

negative aspects. So suffice to say, nothing truly bad happened to us. I mean, sure, we got swindled in Istanbul and trying to get to Phu Quoc and I even had my wallet pick-pocketed in Cuzco. But we never felt like we were in danger.

We also added to my previous list of coveted UNESCO sights which I will recap... quickly. Once again, in order of appearance:

1) Statue of Liberty, New York City, U.S.A.

2) Tower of London, London, England

3) Old and New Town of Edinburgh, Scotland

4) Giants Causeway, Belfast, N. Ireland

5) Bend in the Boyne, Drougheda, Ireland

Passage tomb at the Bend in the Boyne

6) Palaces of Potsdam, Berlin, Germany

7) Rietveld-Schroder House, Utrecht, The Netherlands

8) Left and Right Banks of the Seine River, Paris, France

9) Palaces of Fontainebleau, Paris, France

10) Jurisdiction of St. Emilion, France

11) Works of Antoni Gaudi, Barcelona, Spain

12) Vatican City, Vatican City

13) Rome's Historic City Center, Italy

14) Naples' Historic City Center, Italy

15) Pompeii's Archeological Areas, Italy

16) Dubrovnik's Historical City Center, Croatia

17) Diocletian Place, Split Croatia

18) Plitvice Lakes National Park, Croatia

19) Trogir's Historic City Center, Croatia

20) The Banks of the Danube, Budapest, Hungary

21) Athens' Archeological Areas, Greece

22) Delphi's Archeological Areas, Greece

23) Rhodes' Medieval City, Greece

24) Istanbul's Historic Areas, Turkey

25) Pamukkale & Heropolis, Denizli, Turkey

26) Goreme National Park, Turkey

27) Malaka's Historic City Center, Malaysia

28) Ankor Wat, Siem Reap, Cambodia

29) Lima's Historic City Center, Peru

30) The Nazca Lines, Nazca, Peru

Nazca lines "The Hummingbird"

31) Cuzco's Historic City Center, Peru

32) The Lost City of Machu Pichhu, Peru

33) Yosemite National Park, U.S.A.

That's 27 countries and 33 UNESCO world heritage sights for an average of 1.222 sights per country in, as the song states, 525,600 minutes... Well, quite a bit fewer than that, closer to a paltry 432,000... as we had to cut our trip short 93,600 minutes or 2 months.

We will be back with more posts, I promise. And funner ones too!

Jason

it's worth the trip to turkey

those of you from winnipeg will recognize the slogan "it's worth the trip". usually it refers to the trip from winnipeg to steinbach when you are purchasing a new vehicle. in this instance i will use it to refer to the long, extremely expensive trip we made from greece to turkey. a long story that doesn't really make for interesting reading. what you need to know is that we made it...finally!

our first stop was istanbul. we spent 3 days there before taking a bus to denizli. we will tell you more about istanbul in a later post as we are due back in a couple of days before flying to dubai. denizli was a means to an end. it's not a tourist destination in itself but we stayed there because it was close to pamukkale (one of jason's coveted UNESCO sites). AND because we found a couchsurfer, patricia aka wizzy, to host us. so even though denizli wasn't the reason for our trip south it ended up being a memorable stop.

pamukkale, turkish for cotton castle, has been a tourist destination for many years...like a millenium! in the last 50 years hotels have been built and then torn down when UNESCO declared it a world heritage site.

our tour of the area started at the hilltop ruins of hierapolis, an ancient city. wizzy instructed us to stay on the domus until it reached the top, walk through the ruins and then walk down the travertines. good advice as it meant we could walk downhill all the way :)

ancient building surrounded by the cottony white travertine

theatre of hierapolis

spas are not modern inventions. the greeks, the romans and the byzantines all recognized the benefits of the natural thermal pools of the area. they settled here to take advantage of the curing properties of the baths. today, turkish people and visitors from around the world, come to swim and bathe among the ancient ruins. unfortunately we were not among them. we had to pay an entry fee to the hierapolis and pamukkale which did not cover the cost to enter the pools. due to budgetary concerns we did not pay the extra 23 lira.

thermal pool with ancient ruins

we did, however, walk sans footwear, down the travertine and dip our feet into the hot spring pools...well, the runoff of the hot springs. the pools in the travertine ranged from cool to lukewarm. some of the water running down the channels was quite warm but nothing i would call hot. by the time we reached the bottom my feet were tender from the rough travertine and pretty much frozen.

jay standing near a waterfall from the hot spring above

patterns in the travertine left by the water flowing downhill

stalactites formed by the calcium deposits

our next destination was izmir, a port city on the aegean sea. jason was not well while we were in izmir. he caught my cold and then it got worse. he ended up with a nasty chest cold that keep us both up at night. so during the day we lay low and only ventured out a couple of times. our cs hosts, barbara and jeff, were very understanding and help nurse him back to health.

our first day in izmir we wandered down through the traditional market place called kemeralti. as we walked through the streets shop owners and touts hollered at us to buy their stuff. buying stuff hasn't really been high on our list of priorities as it would mean we would have to carry it for months and months. we did stop and watch this candy man make colourful taffy pops. he had a few people waiting patiently as he skillfully piled six different colours of sweet goo on a stick.

candy man and his sickly sweet goo

how could we...i mean...I...pass it up? i couldn't do it. so for 2 lira i got my own pop and for the record it was disgusting.

me eating the candy pop...not exactly enjoying it

on our way over to the bostanli side of izmir to our hosts' place the first night we saw an incredibly beautiful sunset. the red was brilliant, rebounding off the mountains and reflecting off the water as we watched from the ferry. we went back the next night but sadly were not treated to the same beauty...but the fisherman made it an interesting shot.


gule gule,
corina

UNESCO, my not so secret obsession.

Hello folks. As we bid a fond farewell to Europe, not withstanding the European section of Istanbul, I look back at the truly awesome sights and experiences we have seen with a certain reverance and look forward to more of the same. Well, there is an international body that also thinks some of the places we visited are most definately noteworthy. There is nothing better, for me, than to have our choices validated. Of the twelve countries and one city-state we have visited so far, we have visited a UNESCO world heritage site in all but one. Sometimes our visit is planned (i.e. me, "oooooh we should go here, it's a UNESCO site!"), sometimes they are suggested and sometimes we just end up there by chance. Regardless of why we go, to date we have checked off 23 world heritage sites with more to come.

Without any further ado, in order of appearance we have seen:

*USA
1) The statue of liberty
*UK
2) Tower of London
3) New & old town Edinburg
4) Giants causeway


*Ireland (Republic of)
5) Bend in the Boyne
*Germany
6) Palace and parks of Potsdam


*Netherlands
7) Rietveld/Schroderhuis, Utrecht


*France
8) Banks of the river Seine, Paris
9) Palace and parks of Fountain Bleau
10) Jurisdiction of St. Emilion


*Spain
11) The works of Antoni Gaudi
*Vatican city
12) St. Peter's Bacilica & the Sistine chapel
*Italy
13) Ancient Rome
14) Ancient Naples
15) Pompeii & Herculaneum archeological areas
*Croatia
16) Old town Dubrovnik
17) Diocletian palace & old town Split
18) Plitvice lakes national park
19) Old town Trogir
*Hungary
20) City center/historic Budapest


*Greece
21) Acropolis, Athens
22) Ancient Delphi


23) Old town Rhodes

Wheew! (Sorry Switzerland we could not get to any of your world heritage sites.)

Some spots were more impressive than others but all in all the sites held their own with the exception of Naples (read my post on how much we "liked" Naples).

We even have a few more sites on the agenda! In Turkey we are going to Pamukkale and the UNESCO sites in Istanbul. We also don't intend to miss Ankor in Cambodia, and Machu Picchu in Peru. I know I'm forgetting some and we are sure to stumble upon more still. I for one can't wait!!!

To see the list in it's entirety the post title is a link to the UNESCO website. You have probably been to a few yourself. Let us know where, maybe we will add them to our "must see list". Or maybe we will be jealous because it will be impossible for us to go there (Boo-hoo hoo, poor us only 23 and counting world heritage sites). No really, I am interested. Recommend, comment, brag...where have you been.

My next post will be on another more secret obsession I am tracking. Hopefully "thunder stealer" won't spill the beans ;-) Jason

croatia

it has only been 10 days since we left croatia but i already long to be back. the pink-hued sunrise welcomed us after our night ferry from bari, italy. it was a long journey but we were anxiously up at the crack of dawn to capture dubrovnik from the sea view.


we didn't have the opportunity to meet any couchsurfing hosts in dubrovnik so we stayed in a private accommodation room. it was comfortable and came with a set of grandparents and a cat we named max. max came to visit us over the 4 days we were there and the last 2 nights he stayed the night. jay was beside himself with joy. i felt a bit like we were cheating on jake and midge...but if reports from home are accurate, our cats have pretty much abandoned all hope of our return and have settled in with my parents quite nicely...so i didn't feel that bad.

dubrovnik's city center is where all the action is but i found it a tad disappointing. many of the shops in the old town are conspicuously geared to tourists only. we wandered through the narrow, incredibly clean and polished streets but rarely ventured into these shops. once off the main streets we found the charm of dubrovnik...the daily washing hanging out to dry in the midday sun, a man singing along to the oldies from beyond his front door, and a terrace cafe with a view of the adriatic sea.

our blogging buddies from winnipeg, gadi & rebecca, strongly recommended plitvice lakes national park. much of croatia is part of UNESCO (something that jay is obsessed with btw) and this park definitely deserves the status. it is stunning. the colour of the lakes is turquoisey green and is so transparent that you can see the bottom in many of the lakes. the lakes are full of fish and they seem to revel in the attention that the tourists flourish upon them. they hover near the footpaths and boardwalks in the shallow water...possibly waiting for a morsel of bread from a passerby or perhaps they are avoiding being some other creature's lunch.

waterfalls are the main attraction in the park. there are hundreds of them. as you walk through the park there are signs that indicate what level you are walking on by showing a section view of the earth. i think we made it to the top level. the big waterfall was "2" km from our accommodations. i say "2" because there are mileage signs posted along the road and i saw at least 3 km markers along the way. maybe 1 km isn't much if you are driving but add that 1 km to the end of a long day of hiking trails and walking in the sun...i'm just sayin'...

the leaves were just starting to turn and the days getting shorter but the sun still shone strong during the day. it was perfect. warm during the day, wool socks & long sleeves in the evening. there wasn't much to do other than visit the park so our first afternoon we walked down to the big waterfall walking past the unattended rangers' station and had a drink at the restaurant. the second day we caught a ride to the main entrance and paid our entry for the day. the third day we were supposed to catch the 9 o'clock bus back to split but we met a lovely australian couple, jenny & mike, who offered us a lift. we got to spend another 1/2 day wandering the paths of the park which we boldly entered at the main entrance without a ticket...what can i say, it was our last day...what were they gonna do? kick us out?

jenny & mike were heading to trogir so that's where we went too. we spent a bit more on a hotel room than we might have if we'd planned the stop but it was definitely nice to have a comfy bed and an ultra clean and modern room if only for one night. we spent the next day exploring the tiny old town centre and had lunch on terrace underneath the grape-vine arbor.

back in split we hauled our backpacks to our couchsurfing host pascal's pad. it was a bit of a round about trip...all i can say is don't always believe google maps...especially if you already have directions from your host!

grgur of nin - this guy has a shiny toe because everyone rubs it for luck

...in love, in life...etc.

on our last day pascal took us for a ride in his convertible with another couchsurfer, celine (from france). we ended up at the source of a lake that i can't remember the name of. we ate a picnic on the shores and spent the afternoon wandering around taking picture after picture...the perfect way to end our time in croatia.

do vidjenja,

corina