Megavalanche

It's has been an eternity since I posted anything on here, I'm very sorry my adoring fans but I've been so busy! Yeah right!......... in fact our lives generally revolve around eating, drinking and catching buses to the next place to eat and drink.

We've had some great times in Peru, starting with the beach town of Mancora. Although it was full of 'beach people', they generally stayed out of my way and I stayed out of theirs.

After 7 days of laying around, watching sunsets and doing as little as possible it was time to see some familiar faces...........

We hauled ass down the Pan American highway for a marathon effort of two 25 hour bus rides which would eventually get us to Cusco in the Peruvian highlands. Our friends Oliver and Kate 'see the radness' Hoschke were there in the final days of their volunteer program. It has been fantastic seeing them and they certainly have been the cure for any home sickness we may have been experiencing.

Oli and I promptly got back to the roots of our friendship and went mountain biking.

This was no regular roll in the park though, it was Peru's own Megavalanche course located high in the Andes, just two mountains south from machu picchu.

The drive up took around an hour and a half as our four wheel drive negotiated countless switchbacks I knew we were in for a very serious ride. You could see the trail crossing the road and dropping off into narrow rocky chutes, which did nothing for my nerves at all!

Starting at a whopping 5000 meters above sea level, we descended down to 2000 meters in the space of only 25 kilometres. That's damn steep! The trail was rocky and very demanding on the arms with massive boulders and cat food tin sized loose stones randomly scattered in inconvenient places the entire way down.

I managed to have only one crash and was pretty happy to walk away from the trail almost unscathed as it was one of the most difficult rides I've ever done.

Here's Oli's friend Paul, who was also volunteering at Peru's Challenge, showing some big balls as this was one of his first ever mountain bike rides.

Here's Oli, who looked as comfortable going down steep shit as when I met him ten years ago.


Three happy boys feeling lucky to be alive!

Volcanos and Vitamins.

As well as my usual daily quota of doing 'cute' things to keep Gabby amused/interested, we have been getting a little bit wild lately in a town called Banos, which sits just under a 5500 meter high Volcano in the Ecuadorian Andes. I've been here before, about 3 years ago with my friend Josh, except this time I'm not depressed and lost which is quite a thing.

The town contained a rock 'n' roll bar, which we both frequented. The owner was a cool dude who even let me programme my own playlist, which he played every time I was there, which was a lot, which was awesome, which made me come back a lot, which now makes me realise he was pretty clever. I'm also a bit of a local legend now after winning a game of pool in the most awesome of fashions. I was playing a local guy with the bet of a bottle of beer as the winnings. As it was, I was actually out of money and couldn't pay for his beer should I lose. He broke and sunk one ball, I then proceeded to win the game by sinking every single one of my balls in one turn! It was glorious!

Anyway, we got outside and did some stuff including a tour of the regions waterfalls in this amusing vehicle.

Among the waterfalls were many families basking in the earthly minerals they provided....... And to be seen!!!!


Next day it was time to ascend this great big volcano, this time on quad bikes. I've never been one for 'lazy bikes' as I like to call them, but at this altitude there is no way I was going to ride a mountain bile up there. It was great fun and we went pretty bananas on them, it just cracks me up that you can rent an extremely powerful quad bike over here, capable of going well over 100kph and just ride it wherever you like - off road, up volcanoes, amongst traffic etc. Close to the top was a really neat swing over a steep drop which really gave you the sensation of flying. This is Gab flying off into outer-space.


The sight of two men in their 40's pushing each other on a swing, giggling like school girls was one to remember.



This is an interesting one, I haven't touched up or cropped these pics at all by the way, just shot them in sepia. This is the most bizarre lens flare I've ever seen.


Tomorrow we head south for more mountain related activity then into Peru within a few days, see you soon Oli and Kate!

Mugged!

Shortly after having 'Republica Del Ecuador' stamped into my passport for the second time in my life, I found out why the gringo's generally seem to consider Quito, the capital, one of the most dangerous stops in South America.

I'm generally pretty confident walking the streets by myself and in hindsight it was a stupid thing to be doing in this area, after midnight. But I was only 2 blocks from our hotel and figured that nothing too bad could happen in such a short distance.

2 reasonably big guys, lets say roughly the size of Elvis in his later days, tackled me to the ground (pretty rude seeing as I said 'good evening' to them). They held me there while another 3 guys, roughly the size of Dustin Hoffman, completely ramsacked me for everything that I had, tearing my necklace off my person. Even my scarf wasn't spared!

Here is an artist's impression of the desperate scene.

They even removed my shoes to make sure I didn't have any more cash in there, so don't believe that ol' trick fellow backpackers. The scene came to an abrupt halt when one of the Dustin Hoffman's tried to steal my wedding ring and I gave him a very nice elbow to the nose, which immediatley started bleeding (in hindsight, I think this may be the only limb I've ever thrown in anger). For whatever reason, the attack stopped at this point (I'm quite sure it had very little to do with my magic elbow, these guys could have easily killed me if they wanted to), I put my shoes on and continued my walk home.

All in all I got off very lightly, there was no intention of serious harm and I walked away with only a few bruises and scratches. I would like to thank my attackers for not being too over the top, it may seem as though I consider the whole thing a joke but I actually did learn my lesson (ok mum).

Sweet Salento.

It was time to head to the coffee growing region of Colombia for some rest and to be back amongst nature again, after way too many concrete jungles. So we made haste for a town called Salento for a few nights of peace, love and music.

This quickly turned into a few weeks as we fell in love with the town, it's great food, cool bars, friendly people and a kitten called Janet.

Our hostel was pretty spectacular, with panoramic views(above)and a good crew running the place. The owner was a cool New Yorker who kept on telling me to 'forget abowd id' and whenever he gave directions, it always started with the words 'ok, whatcha wanna do is go down here.....'.

I actually read a whole book during our stay! I know what you're thinking 'that's pretty damn impressive Freemo, you're the man and I will name my first born son after you'. Well, wait till I tell you that it was a leather bound book! I won't mention it now though, you're obviously over stimulated as it is.

This pic was taken late one Saturday night, the man third from the left has obviously never seen a camera operate in the evening before.

The greatest coffee shop I've ever bean to (that's actually what I wrote in their guest book), not only did it serve the best coffee I've had in South America, but they do the whole process themselves- from the bean to the cup.

Interestingly, they were one of the only coffee growers to keep their best beans in the country. The coffee in South America generally tastes like a Macca's coffee from Australia, mixed with Tabasco sauce and fertile soil. This is because all of the best beans are exported to fastidious coffee drinkers in places like Australia and North Eastern Russia, according to a very knowledgeable horse I was talking to after visiting the Valley de Cocora.

The valley de Cocora was a surreal place. It featured deep jungle, big ol' waterfalls, smart mouthed hummingbirds, massive palm trees, a Gloria Jeans, goats wearing spectacles and apparently it's also dubbed 'The valley of mushrooms' for reasons unbeknown to me.

There was plenty of live performers getting around, pictured is an example of the average Colombian coffee region type dude, which have to be some of the coolest dude types on the planet. Kinda like cowboys, but smaller and more approachable.

So, after about 2 weeks of hanging out, drinking beer and talking to animals we decided to hit the road and do the same thing somewhere else, it was time to change countries and head South to Ecuador via the dodgy and often hijacked bus to the border. As you boarded the bus you were patted down, your luggage searched and they filmed everyone for the record. It seemed pretty intense, but it was all fine/dandy and 15 hours later we were finally in another country.

Medellin

We pulled into Medellin bus station at 6 am after a crazy, 'close your eyes and hope for the best' style bus ride. They really don't hang around these Colombian bus drivers and I'm sure they're taking in 2 of Colombia's biggest exports to keep them on their toes and to nicely control the 4 wheel drift of a 20 tonne vehicle.

Speaking of one of the above mentioned exports, Medellin is probably worst known for it's relationship with the cocaine trade, particularly in the 80's and 90's where it was also regarded as the most dangerous city in the world mainly thanks to a man called Pablo Escobar. He caused chaos and pandemonium in the town by offering $500 for the head of any policeman in the mid 80's, which was a successful campaign apparently.

The most interesting thing we did in Medellin was certainly the Pablo Escobar Reality Tour. Which was a short tour showing some of his old residences, the places he blew up, the site of his execution and eventually his grave.

The reason why this tour was so interesting was the tour guide. At first it seemed that he was only furthering Escobar's false iconic status, but over the course of the tour he managed to completely erase that status. He is without doubt one of the most horrific people to have ever lived, as all the killing he did through the hands of others and other shocking exploits was for nothing but the expansion of his empire and personal wealth - which was quite considerable, so considerable in fact that he offered to pay off Colombia's national debt (a sum of approximately 20 billion at the time) for the simple favour of legalising cocaine.

The CIA and the Colombian government eventually collaborated and formed a squad of 1500 men to capture and kill him, which they eventually did after a whopping 500 day search in 1993.

Sorry for the nasty image, but it really shows how much this execution was a success and a great day for Medellin's and Colombia's future.

These days Medellin is really quite safe if you stay in the right places and we had a few great nights hanging out in the fantastic bar and club scene it offer's, with over one hundred bars in a 3 block area!