Flying home for Christmas

Yes, that means we're back early!

After ten months of travelling, we decided to call it a day. We were running dangerously low on money and energy, and while Christmas abroad would have been interesting, nothing beats Christmas with family. We changed our flights a few weeks ago, and on 19th December we started our last journey of the trip – the journey hme.

So very tired!

Flying home

It's quite ironic that we've managed to get ourselves around the globe without any real difficulty – 36 hour-long train journeys, broken down buses, battling sea-sickness on boats. And then, when we reach the very last tiny bit of travelling we have to do (the two-hour connecting flight from Madrid to London) our flight gets cancelled because of snow at Heathrow.

We were a bit miffed at first, but to be honest, we couldn't really complain. Our airline (Iberia) put us up in a four star hotel, we had an awesome room with a brilliant shower and a comfortable bed.

One of the best rooms we've had all year, courtesy of Iberia.

We had a free dinner with a huge assortment of desserts - Karl had cheesecake and chocolate cake, and then felt the need to steal a plate of more cake to take to our room. Even though it was free anyway. The following morning we made the most of a big fancy free buffet breakfast. They had a grill to toast your own bread and everything! Essentially we were handed an evening of luxury before heading home the following day on a new flight. I didn't mind one bit – at least we weren't like those unfortunate travellers sleeping on the floor in Heathrow!

The rain in Spain stays mainly on the planes.

Before we got back, we decided it would be a fantastic idea to surprise Karl's mum for Christmas, with the help of his sister Claire and aunt Keili. Karl's mum wasn't expecting us back till February, and was a little upset at the thought of spending the Christmas period without her son for the first time.

After a few lovely at days at home with my mum and brother (most of which was spent stuffing ourselves with foods we'd missed), we set off for Cardiff on Xmas eve. The three hour coach journey was a doddle after our extensive travelling experience, and before we knew it we were sat in the living room with Karl's sisters, aunt, uncle and cousins, waiting for his mum to come home so that we could jump out from behind the sofa and frighten the life out of her. I don't really need to tell you how it worked out – as expected, she was shocked and delighted and emotional. There were tears and hugs and more tears and loads more hugs, throughout the evening. I think Karl's well on his way to getting a hug for every day we've been away.

First hug of many...

Christmas has been exactly what we hoped it would be – food, presents & family.

It was very satisfying to spend Boxing Day sitting with my second family, with an overfull belly from an enormous lunch, wearing my yellow party hat, glass of wine in one hand, watching Karl scream at the telly whilst playing Mario Kart on the Wii. It really is good to be back.

(By the way, this isn't my last post! I still need to tell you about Machu Picchu and the food in Bolivia!)

Salt

Our Pachamama tour of Chile ended in San Pedro de Atacama, a little town that is quite nice despite the amount of tourists and dust (it's in the desert, after all). Everything is geared towards tourists, and is therefore overpriced and overdone. Still, it was a pleasant place to chill out and sort through the endless photos we'd taken over the past four days.

Once recovered, we hopped on a bus to Salta in Argentina where we were due to meet up with my lovely friend Henrietta, who very handily is practically fluent in Spanish.

The bus journey was long (12 hours) but had spectacular views of the mountains. It was interesting to see the gradual change in scenery from Chile to Argentina, going from huge expanses of dry desert to lush greenery, long tall trees, farms with horses and herds of goats.

Henrietta arrived a day after us. Once again it was great to sit out in the sun with a beer or a glass of wine and chat away merrily with a good friend, hearing about all the goings-on back home, catching up on gossip.

While we would have been happy to do this all day, we decided some cultural and sight-seeing activities were probably in order. We went to the Museo de Arqueologia de Alta Montana (High Mountain Archeology Museum), which has on display a real Incan mummy and a bunch of artefacts that were found with her. It's pretty terrible actually. Basically, a handful of attractive young children would be selected from a village (usually the children of a noble family). They would be taken on a pilgrimage, duped with some sort of sedative, and then abandoned in an underground grave in the Andes as a sacrifice to the gods where they would basically freeze to death. The displays and information booklet were intriguing, and although the mummy was a little spooky, it was kind of hard to imagine it as a real little girl. She was only about seven years old.

We also had a nose around a couple of cathedrals, which were nice enough on the outside but a little gaudily decorated inside. Unfortunately we couldn't take photos as they were in the middle of a service.

Never ones to turn down a ride in a cable car, we decided to go on a little expedition up Cerro San Bernardo, a ginormous hill with great views of the city. For me, cable cars are a little like aeroplanes – they're nice, a good way to get around, but I don't entirely trust that they're not going to fall crashing to the earth. I don't have a phobia, I just have to try not to think too much about the logistics of it all (mainly because it's something I just don't understand).

The views were as good as we'd hoped, and it was interesting to see the grid-structure of streets from high up.

We took a picnic of leftover chilli and guacamole, crusty bread, a huge bottle of beer, crisps and some apples.

Walking through a park on our way home, I was just thinking about what a pleasant afternoon we'd had when I got stung in the face by a wasp. Not just your ordinary variety of wasp either, this was an enormous red and yellow wasp, the size of a bird (practically). It just flew straight into my head, just above my left eye. At first I wasn't sure if I'd been stung or just headbutted, but then it started to hurt so bad it felt like my forehead was on fire.

The pain lasted about half an hour and then gradually went away. By the time I went to bed, I'd almost forgotten that I'd been stung. Until the next morning that is.

I knew something was wrong when I woke up. My head felt funny and I could see part of my own eyelid. I cautiously went to the bathroom, getting some funny looks along the way, and looked in the mirror. The elephant girl looked back. My sting had swollen up overnight. It reminded me of the time I got stung by a wasp on my foot when I was in high school, and it got so swollen that I could barely put on my shoes. Except I didn't mind that so much because it meant I got to miss PE.

This photo doesn't even nearly illustrate how awful I looked

I spent the next two days looking like I'd been punched, before finally waking up on the third morning with my old face back on. It was time to say goodbye to Henrietta, who was heading off to see the rest of Argentina. Meanwhile, we were headed north into Bolivia.

Bolivia has been one of our favourite countries so far. If India and Spain were to collide, Bolivia is what you would get.

Our first stop was a town called Tupiza, where we asked someone in our hotel to recommend somewhere tasty but cheap for lunch and got sent in a taxi to someone's house in the middle of nowhere, surrounded my mountains. It turns out that every Sunday, they transform part of their garden into a restaurant serving local food. The waitress came over and rattled off the names of three dishes that we'd never heard of. We picked one each at random and waited to see what we would get. Ten minutes later she returned with two huge plates piled high with food. I had barbequed goat with potatoes and some unfamiliar white beans. Karl had chicken and tongue in a spicy sauce, with potatoes and salad. Both dishes were incredible. I wish I'd taken my camera with me, but I hadn't anticipated anything quite this good. With stomachs full to bursting, we decided to walk off our lunch with a slow, half hour stroll back into town.

The following evening we were due to catch a train to a town called Uyuni. Before boarding we had dinner at a little stall outside the train station. Again, it was amazing. Pollo picante is chicken in a spicy sauce. It comes served with rice, salad and chunos, which are a little black variety of potato.

On the train they showed that Angelina Jolie film Salt, and served free cheese & ham toasties with a bottle of coke, which was pretty sweet. We arrived shortly after 1am, found a hotel and crashed.

The following day we went on a tour to see yet more salt. Except this time it was the real thing. One of the things Bolivia is best known for (apart from producing cocaine) is the Salar de Uyuni, the world's biggest salt flats. They are 10,582 square kilometers, at an altitude of 3,656 meters, and they supply salt for the the whole country. It's incredible to see, the sparkling whiteness just seems to go on and on forever.

It was almost confusing at times, standing out in the baking heat, surrounded by what looked so much like snow. In some parts, it's even like walking on snow, either slushy in the wet parts, or crunch in the dry parts.

Of course, we took the opportunity to take some more perspective shots:

It's astonishing how much fun you can have with a forknifespoon.

We also visited Fish Island, which is an island of fossilised coral from back when the whole place used to be underwater. The whole thing is covered by a forest of cactus, which again made for some good photos:

Karl and I join in with the cactuses

The llamas nearby seem unimpressed

I guess it's because they have better things to look at. Like this view!

Our tour also included a visit to another train cemetery:

After Uyuni, we went from salty to sweet, taking a never-ending bus journey to the lovely city of Sucre. We did some souvenir shopping, ate some mindblowingly amazing chorizo sandwiches at the market, and went to see the world's largest collection of dinosaur footprints.

They were discovered and excavated around 25 years ago by a cement company, and they actually go vertically up the middle of a hillside, which isn't what I'd been expected. It's because they date back to before the Andes mountains even existed - when the mountains formed, the tracks were pushed upwards. The hillside and tracks are a bit fragile (a huge section has previously crumbled off) so visitors can't actually get very close up. Instead we viewed them from a distance and used those binocular thingies to get a better look.

You see the row of dots running up the hill? Those are dino tracks. From afar.

On the plus side, the tour guide was really good at explaining how the tracks were formed and preserved, and about the geography of South America. Plus, they had this fantasically fun, life-size display of dinosaur models:

One way to get thin.

Look at the tiny arms!

One week later, after a few days in La Paz and Copacabana, we boarded a bus for Peru. We were on our way to see one of our most eagerly anticipated sights on this trip - Machu Picchu!

Our Best Eats - Chile

During our three weeks in Chile, we didn't feel like the food was all that impressive. There's a LOT of meat. Meat sandwiches, hot dogs, steaks, slabs of meat served with chips, more meat sandwiches. Not used to this amount of meat, my stomach was confused for a while, and it probably would have given up entirely if it wasn't for the fact that quite often we were able to buy great fresh fruit & veg from markets and supermarkets, and cook our own meals. On the whole, Chilean food didn't really seem very exciting.

But thinking back, I can actually come up with a surprisingly large number of great food experiences (although admittedly most of them do involve meat in some shape or form).

This one's written with the help of my beautiful assistant, Karl.

Pork & bean stew – A big, hearty bowl of bean stew, with chunks of pork and pumpkin, and a delicious spicy sausage. Possibly one of my favourite things in Chile, and something I'd like to recreate when I get home. In fact, I wish more of the food in Chile had been like this.

Karl's Chilli con carne – the markets and butchers in Chile were pretty good, and the hostels we stayed in often had a kitchen. After using our newly-learned Spanish to buy good quality minced meat and smoky, spicy dried chillies, Karl whipped up the best chilli I've ever had. He normally makes a pretty mean chilli anyway (no, I'm not sure how food can be mean either) but he outdid himself here.

This is actually a chilli con carne that Karl made later in Argentina,

where we took the leftovers as picnic food with crusty bread. But you get the idea.

Avocados – I often find avocados at home quite disappointing – they're never ripe enough. But here they were perfect. So good, in fact, that we had at least one a day. Karl made a tasty improvised guacamole to go with our chilli. Avocados are now Karl's new favourite non-fruity fruit. By the way, did you know that the word 'avocado' comes from the Incan word for testicles. Surely they could've come up with something less unsavoury!

Pasta with chorizo, asparagus & olives – When it was my turn to cook dinner, I whipped up a pasta dish with some chorizo, asparagus and olives – three ingredients that are normally expensive at home, but were really cheap and delicious in Chilean supermarkets and helped make a simple meal really excellent.

Chilean wine – We drank far too much of this. After a couple of weeks we realised we'd been averaging about a bottle every other day. Sometimes every day! It's just so good, and a bottle of decent red wine only cost about 1.50pound. Plus they have a really nice Chilean grape variety called the Carmenere which isn't grown anywhere else.

Pisco Sours – Pisco is a traditional Chilean and Peruvian liquour, kind of like whiskey. On it's own it tastes like weak whiskey (not particularly great) , but it's great in a pisco sour which is made with pisco, lemon juice, sugar and (if you want) frothy egg white.

Empanadas (Karl) – Like little pasties you would find at home, but filled like a pizza. They come either baked or deep fried.

Sometimes they were sold as street food, where they were hollow and deep fried, which were surprisingly delicious and simple. Best served with homemade chilli sauce. During our Pachamama tour of Chile, we stopped at Empanadopolis - aka the best empanada place in the southern hemisphere, probably northern too. Mine was called “something something dragon” and was spicy beef in a tasty gravy. Sheena had “meat”, egg and olive which was also very good but she probably still had food envy.

Cazuela – A meat broth with rice, a nice chunk of meat, potato, pumpkin and corn on the cob. We had this first at a service station in the middle of the Atacama Dessert with our tour group, and looked out for it whenever we could afterwards.

Pastel de choclo – This ceviche was the starter of a three course set meal I had ordered. The main was Pastel de Choclo, which is like a South American version of Shepherd's pie I guess. A delicious minced meat & vegetable sauce, topped with mashed sweetcorn and baked.

Pachamama BBQ – On day two of the trip, we all chipped in and paid for a massive BBQ. Chorizo sausage, chicken, steak, BBQ'd vegetables, salsa, salad, bread rolls. So much food that we only managed to finish half. The leftovers made for great packed lunches the next day though.

Churros with dulce de leche – Mmmmmmmmmm. So we were in a city called Antafogasta which is fairly grim and noisy and grotty. Walking home from the supermarket discussing what a shithole the place was, we came across a stall selling churros which is a sweet batter that has been deep fried.

It tastes a bit like doughnuts. You can have them as they are, fresh and hot from the fryer. OR (and personally I don't see how or why you would turn down this option) you can have it filled with dulce de leche. If you haven't had it before, it's something along the lines of caramel, toffee and butterscotch.

I could easily eat a deep fat fryers worth of these and get extremely fat. And then eat some more. And I don't even have much of a sweet tooth.

Completos (Karl) – Hot dog, ketchup, mayo and mashed avocado. I could eat about 15 of these if Sheena wasn't monitoring my intake. Chilean fast-food revolves around them, and two with a drink to share only cost about 1.50. In Chile you could order almost anything with the same combo of ketchup, mayo and avocado. Probably even dog food. It's called an Italiano, and is best in some form of sandwich.

Worst Eat (of our entire trip!!)

Karl says: Sheena and I went out for a nice meal on our last night in Santiago. We were going to “splash out” and treat ourselves, at least as much as you can do on a dwindling backpacker budget. We chose somewhere we had been before, where the food had been plentiful (we barely finished half) and the wine delicious (we finished it all).

Sheena ordered pork ribs, which she barely made a dent in (portions here are massive, and consist mainly of meat). I was feeling a little more adventurous and ordered “Cow's Hoof with onions, salt, lemon and coriander” on Sheena's recommendation.

The waitress, repeatedly asked Sheena if I was sane and knew what I was ordering. Of course I did, do I look like I don't? I can assure you I have done this many times before thank you very much.

It was absolutely disgusting and stone cold. Small square pieces of translucent gelatinous weird stuff, with the odd coarse dark hair protruding from each. It was topped with raw onions, a sprinkling of coriander and no lemon to my recollection.

Appetising, my foot!

I gave it a good go, not wanting to seem like I didn't know what the hell I was doing, and even convinced Sheena it was ok. But I eventually gave up feeling a little peakish and dove into Sheena's food instead. Between the two of us, we still didn't manage to finish off her portion.

We had a good laugh with the waitress when it was time to collect the dishes, mine almost untouched. But at least the wine was good. And we left her a good tip, at-least she tried to warn us.

Sheena says: I felt so bad when the waitress served up Karl's dinner, especially because I was the one who had pointed it out on the menu after noticing that it had some of his favourite ingredients (lemon & coriander). I suggested sending it back and ordering something else, but he was such a good sport and tucked into it with an impressive amount of enthusiasm. I would've been convinced that he liked it if the meat hadn't been hairy. A few mouthfuls later he was looking almost as grey as the hoof meat, and finally agreed to help me with my enormous slab of pork ribs. Just looking at the picture now makes me feel a bit queasy.

Our Best Eats – Australia and New Zealand

After six months of ordering every single meal off a menu - breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks – it was an enormous relief to finally be able to eat home cooked meals. Australia and New Zealand offered great backpacker hostels equipped with big kitchens and communal dining and chill-out spaces, which Asia had completely lacked. From day one, we were able to buy ingredients from proper supermarkets and cook our own food.

We rarely ate out as we often couldn't afford to, but when we did the food was generally pretty good. Like Britain, though, Australia doesn't really have a strong food identity of it's own, and instead everyone cooks and eats quite multiculturally. Supermarkets have a huge variety of spices and 'exotic' ingredients, and there are restaurants from every corner of the world.

Without a doubt, the best food we had was during the two work exchanges we did. It wasn't just that it was great to be eating home cooked food, the meals themselves were absolutely delicious, very varied, and made from home-grown produce.

So the list below of our best food experiences is a mixed bag. It included food we bought, food cooked for us, and food we cooked ourselves. I have to say, over the two months that we spent in this part of the world, we really ate very well!


Pie – Australia does good pie. It's different from the pie we get at home. Here, they eat it more as a snack food, something to grab on the go, and it has been designed with this in mind. The filling has lots of thick gravy that oozes out a bit when you take a bite, but not so much that it starts to escape the pie altogether. We had a lot of pie in Australia, and whether the pastry was thick and crisp or thinner and flaky, it was always delicious.

The best ones we had were at Tommo's Pies in Darwin (they do a great chilli steak pie, with big bits of chilli) and at the bakery in Glenreagh where we did our work exchange (Karl had steak and green peppercorn, I had cheese & bacon.Both brilliant). We also popped in to the renowned Harry's Cafe de Wheels in Sydney for one last pie experience before we moved on to New Zealand.

Fish & Chips – Almost as good as back home. In terms of the fish, it probably was better than home, actually. I had some good barramundi, with lovely soft, chunky white meat. Their chips aren't bad either, and they even have vinegar in their chippies! (Although they don't call them 'chippies' over there). You get a big wedge of lemon too, which is a great, posh addition.

Homemade paneer – Annie's homemade paneer is delicious, and I used some of it to make some spinach & panneer curry, which we ate with lentils and chappatis.

Masala dosas – Annie and I had a go at making our first ever batch of masala dosas, which were extremely successful.

Bundaberg Gingerbeer – The perfect drink to have with your pie. The same brand also does a tasty lemon & lime bitters drink.

Enjoying a few bottles of Bundaberg with lunch (pie!)

Strawberry cheesecake – Made by Annie, for Karl. Lucky bugger.

Campfire food – Delicious stews (one bean stew, one lamb stew), plus corn on the cob, and Lynney's fab spinach & cheese pie.

How awesome is this set up?

I definitely intend to have one in my garden when I'm grown up.

Apple turnovers – Hanks Bakery in Glenreagh does the best turnovers. Crisp and flaky pastry, big chunks of apple that still tasty slighty tart, loads of fresh whipped cream, and a generous dusting of icing sugar (enough to make you choke a bit if you accidently inhale a little before taking a bite).

Getting stuck in, no messing about

Burgers, Aussie-style – In Australia, apparently no burger is complete without a big slice of beetroot and an even bigger slice of tinned pineapple. The beetroot is pretty good, but not essential in my opinion. The pineapple on the other hand is incredible. We had them at Rick & Annie's, and also made them ourselves whilst camping at Woolgoolga.

Lamb chops – One of our first camping meals. BBQ'd lamb chops, served with a bean, feta, red onion and tomato salad. And a good squeeze of lemon.

ANZAC cookies – Australia, New Zealand Army Corps. These were made and sent to members of the army by their wives and girlfriends because they keep really well and taste fantastic. Maryanne (our second work exchange host) had a huge batch of them in her biscuit tin to eat with coffee twice a day. As well as some of the usual biscuit ingredients, they include oats and golden syrup which create a nice crunch.

Jan's homemade bread – Jan, at our second work exchange, makes bread from scratch every few days. Loads of different varieties, all delicious. While we were there, we had fruit bread, coconut & mango bread, and a yummy selection of buns flavoured with things like rosemary, garlic, olives, curry powder and rock salt.

Maryanne's dinners – Maryanne is a fantastic cook. While we were staying with her and Jan, we enjoyed her lasagne (with homemade pasta), risotto, mezze, pizza (with the base made by Jan) and quiche.

Passionfruit – Straight off the vine at Rick & Annie's. Greeny yellow on the outside, they looked a bit like crazy eggs. Inside they had britght orange flesh, really sweet and really tangy.

Mulberries – Considering the song (Here we go round the mulberry bush), you'd assume that these are a traditional British thing that are as easy to come by in the UK as blackberry bushes. But I'm sure I've never seen one, which is a shame because mulberries are delicious. Just as tasty as blackberries, if not better actually. Plus they're great for mulberry fights. The stains never come out.

There'll be a post on food in Chile soon, so keep an eye out! Xx