brazilian flutterby

one of the countless stunning butterflies by igauzu falls on the border of argentina and brazil. this is one on the hand of elard, our guide originally from peru. butterflies are cool. i wonder how they got their name?

where we came from

day 2 of the inca trail. about 8 hours of walking the path of the ancient incas en route to machu picchu. the crossing over 2 mountain passes (while nearing the second, this photo shows mands pointing back towards the first one, aptly named dead woman's pass), and down into 2 deep valleys. moving through about 7 vastly different temperate ecosystems from tropical tangled thick jungle to open near barren plains on the flat tops of mountains. blazing sun, misty rain, white snow (the last sighted in the distance on mountain tops only, thanks be). and as i have said before, i would do it all over again.

can a bird actually hum?

this is one of the half decent photos i managed to get of the nazca lines - of the hummingbird geoglyph - as our tiny 6 seater plane rolled and banked at extremely high speed and low altitude over the nazca desert. while i managed to spot all the main shapes bar the monkey - mands, sitting beside me, saw the first few then spend the rest of the short flight barely holding down her breakfast while the woman in the seat in front of me (hi nicole!) lost hers completely. the shapes are quite amazing - some up to 200 metres across and completely indistinguishable as anything other than piles of rubble at ground level.

emulating kate winslet

we spent a good half an hour or so out on the uyuni salt flats in bolivia, taking photos that played with perspective - the vast expanse of white with nothing really visible on the horizon allows you to do this. so we took photos like mands pushing a 'giant' bottle of vodka on top of me, us standing on a 'giant' pair of dice, and me holding a 'minature' mands in my hand. i'm not sure what i was doing with this particular photo but i do like it anyway for its simplicity. the salt ridge mands is standing on is only a 1cm high or so. in fact in look at it now, it almost looks like a 'giant' mands standing on the top of a wave breaking at the beach! or maybe she is remembering the giant jebus from rio :)

salt on everything - just as i like it

bolivia was my favourite country in south america - i knew next to nothing about it before we went there and loved everything about it by the time we left. when we were planning our trip to south america, we had two must-sees - mands wanted to see the big jebus in rio de janiero and i wanted to walk the inca trail into macchu pichu. these two locations are pretty much on opposite sides of the continent so we simply booked a tour that stretched overland between the two. and when i say we simply booked it, we really did simply book it without looking in any great detail at what else was included in the tour. we were just happy about going to south america. so it was a genuine joy and surprise to do the tour and discover what we were seeing and doing as it actually happened. for example on the first day out of rio de janiero we were in a van going south down the coast and got on a boat only to discover we were going to stay on a brazillian island for 3 days - it was woot! anyway that is not what this photo is about, it's a photo of salar d'uyuni - the salt flats in south west bolivia. salt salt salt as far as the eye could see - it is the largest salt flat in the entire world at over 10,000km squared. i even licked the ground. 

bog of eternal stench

this is on par with what i imagine assaulted the smelling senses of jennifer connelly's character in the movie 'labyrinth' when she encountered the bog of eternal stench. ginormous geysers in south-west bolivia spewing out sulphurous 'rotten egg' gas. they bloody stunk. i can still remember that smell!

very very vertigo

i don't usually suffer a fear of heights but i don't mind telling you that when i had had my fill of the views over machu picchu from the top of huayna picchu, which is the little mountain you see in every classic machu picchu shot behind the main city, and turned around to make my descent - i was for a moment absolutely and utterly paralysed with sheer terror at the sight of the return journey, which is featured in this photo. on the climb (in many parts literally climbing) up i didn't take much notice of the lack of safety features - most likely because having trekked over 50km in the prior 3 days up and down mountains, it took every last scrap of energy (more sheer determination!) to make the final 360m vertical ascent up huayna picchu. i didn't have the energy on the way up to notice the lack of rails or ropes or anything resembling an obstacle to a near sheer drop to the mountain valley floor below. however as i went to make my way down, it was ALL i could notice. needless to say i did make a safe return down, but i'll never forget that sickening fear and imaginings of tumbling all the way down should i lose my footing or grip!

masquerade ball of sorts

this is one of my sisters, georgina, at my 30th which was basically a drinks and nibbles in the backyard affair but i required that people wore masks. if i remember correctly i think this mask was actually anna's (my other sister) but gina had borrowed it for a moment. anyway it's a pretty cool mask. mine was a jester (of the court) mask with the floppy hat points (the technical term being liliripes!) with jinglebells on the ends. 

what the quack

remaining on the topic of 30ths for another day. this is a present i was gifted with for my 30th. do you ever wonder how people come to associate a gift with you? don't get me wrong i honestly love this over-sized polka dot rubber ducky (you're the one!) but how did the friends in question know this! do they think i'm funky? colourful? or maybe just a big kid at heart (not to be mistaken for being immature)? because yes - this is all true. thank you!

llamas are not overly friendly creatures

they may look very pretty and soft but they are pretty tetchy and more than likely inclined to spit at you if they get annoyed. this one had a glint in his eye and a suspiciously wet corner to his mouth i remember noting as i quickly took the photo. although i guess having their owner pimp them out to tourists for the quinessential south america llama shot all day long - 'twere i a llama i'd be spitting too :)

colca canyon condor

we rose early on a bitterly cold windy morning and drove for a good hour or so through a hilly barren landscape to a rocky outcrop ledge on the edge high in the colca canyon, the world's second deepest canyon.there was nothing else we were there for except the hope of condors, not a promise as we were given no guarantee of even seeing one. we waited patiently in a steadily growing crowd for over an hour before we noticed someone down the far end of the ledge pointing excitedly - and desperately followed the rough line their finger indicated. and then we saw our first majestic andean condor with its wingspan of metres, soaring silently but at great speed on the canyon updrafts. it was a spectacular example of perfect nature. 

flamingo volcano

to justify the repetition (although i make no apology - there will be more photos to come from this day) the previous photo was about the flamingos and the lagoon, this shot provides some context with a snow capped inactive volcano in the background. it was actually very very cold on the day in question - despite the sunny clear blue skies and dessert-like environment. the ants on the far side of the lagoon are people. 

flamingo flamenco

a flock of stunning pink flamingos living on special plankton which grows in the high altitude lagoons in southwest bolivia. a day of 4wDriving over sometimes trecherous terrain (no road!) was required to reach this lagoon, including an extremely scary moment when one of the wheels literally fell off the 4wD we were travelling in at high speed down a hill comprised of rocks and shale.

day 2 inca trail

with the mists clearing to reveal clear blue skies, it was a fresh and breath-taking start to day 2 of the inca trail, looking up at the mountain peaks towering over us, and of which we had slept in the shadows the night preceding, our campsite halfway up the main incline to dead woman's pass. we were informed by our guide, wearing a sly love-scaring-the-tourists smile, that several hikers die every year attempting to walk over the pass. i loved every minute and every metre of the 45 kilometres of the inca trail, and would do it all again in a heartbeat.