Plodding

After almost two years of silence I have finally plucked up the courage to write another blog post. This follows numerous semi-pissed conversations with various 'ex-followers' and several pretty crap drafts. 

The bottom line is, why would I write when I no longer have a story to tell? 

But for the past two years something has been playing on my mind. And it is going to sound ridiculous, because it probably is ridiculous. When I was first diagnosed with HL

I did some inadvisable googling to see what the hell the next 6 months were going to be like. I noticed something...

People were in remission. Lots of them. But then the posts stopped. And rather than assuming, as one would, that they were just too busy/well to blog, I assumed the worst. I realise now what a stupid and irrational thought process this was. And I have, for two years, tried to figure out how to write a post explaining this whilst also reassuring any new cancer diagnosees that I am still alive, without sounding like a total plonker. I failed. 

And on that note, I should probably mention where I'm up to. 

Last September was my 2 year 'chemoversary'. 

I have a job. And hair. I live in London. Dizzy is nearly 3 and still as cute and fluffy as ever. My cancer no longer defines me. I rarely think about it. I have 6 monthly check ups until the 5 year mark. I still worry about the little things. Since being in remission I have had 5 different jobs. And visited more than 14 countries. 

Basically, life is good. 

Long overdue pictures!

Bolivia

I'm in Uyuni, and I'm not stranded here! To most people, I appreciate that that means nothing, but to those of us who have been travelling around South America (specifically Bolivia) it is a wonderful thing. Uyuni is the well known start point for salt flat tours, which take roughly 3 or 4 days to travel around the beautiful national park that sits on the border of Bolivia and Chile.

Up until a few days ago the towns roads were blocked due to protests with regards to a bus terminal in the town. Something to do with them wanting or not wanting a bus terminal and then when it was put there they were unhappy with the location or the standard (my Spanish is still not up to scratch so it's hard to say how accurate my translation is). Anyway, these protests were the cause for a lot of travellers grief as it is difficult to do a salt flat tour from elsewhere. After several days of investigation and deliberation, myself and Aya managed to organise a tour from Tupiza, a different Bolivian town, which could either end in Uyuni or back in Tupiza. Given that we did not want to be stuck in Uyuni with no way back out, we decided on the latter. Fortunately the blockades were lifted during our trip so we have successfully found ourselves in Uyuni with plans to head to northern Chile early tomorrow morning.

The salt flat tour was fantastic, but I would like to paint a realistic picture of the events so as not to pull the wool over your eyes. Travelling is not all buses and beauty and fun and exploration and frolicking in the sun. Almost 8 weeks in I was unlucky enough to have my first bout of food poisoning on the first day of the salt flat tours. This consisted of 10 hours in a jeep with me yelling stop to vomit out of the vehicle whenever the feeling came over me. Nice. I blame a vegetable lasagne consumed in a small mining village called Potosi, but I shouldn't point fingers. 24 hours later I was back on form, despite being extremely cold due to the freezing conditions on and around the salt flats (who knew South America could be so cold north of Patagonia??). After my stomach had settled I really enjoyed the tour, which consisted of an array of stunning scenery and volcanoes and thermal spas and much more. As ever.. Photos will have to wait I'm afraid! Bolivian wifi is not up to international standards so photo uploads to a blog could take a lifetime.

I realise my last post was actually in Peru so I've skipped over the whole of Bolivia! We started at lake titicaca on the floating Islands which were very interesting (and technically in Peru but that's neither here nor there). We then went to Copacabana and visiting Isla Del Sol, which I suggest they seriously consider renaming Isla Del Rain due to false advertising. From here we travelled to La Paz, the main city of Bolivia. We spent 4 days here eating like kings, shopping like princesses and drinking like... Brits. It was a lot of fun and the markets were incredible. They sold jumpers, scarves, gloves, and just about everything you could possibly make from 'alpaca' wool in just about every colour and colour combination imaginable. We were also prewarned (not the right word??) that there were tons of leather shops in which you could design and have custom made leather jackets at a ridiculous price. Needless to say, we explored this possibility, and 2 days later were handed over our perfect fitting and perfectly 'us' leather jackets at only 30 pounds a pop. AMAZING!

As ever I've been unable to actually post this on my blog due to the desert lacking decent wifi (unsurprisingly I suppose!). So I am now in chile but I will write about chile after Easter island (which we leave for tomorrow!!!!!!)

The inca trail to Machu Picchu

I'm sat in my tent on night 2 of the inca trail knowing full well that I won't be able to post this online for another few days. But I have marginally lost the plot, emotionally, as a result of the altitude and exhaustion, so this should make for a humorous read for those of you who have the elusive 'plot'. Here goes. Today has been remarkable. It is the second day of hiking today, which is notoriously known as the most difficult. Well I can confirm day 2 of the inca trail is a b**ch. But a challenging, spiritual, emotional and overwhelmingly beautiful b**ch, so we can forgive it. We left camp this morning at about 6.30am in order to complete 6 hours of hiking uphill around 1300m and 2 hours downhill before eventually reaching our camp for the night. But I didn't want to write this post to moan about the distance or to complain about the ridiculously early wake up call. When I was about 100m from the top, and delirious from the altitude and exhaustion I has a mini break down. But the good kind of break down (if there is such a thing?). When you're hiking it's so easy to get lost in your thoughts and I began thinking about this time last year and how far I've come since then. I was reminiscing about my friend Michelle telling me about the inca trail and sending me the infamous 'f*** you cancer' picture of her at the top of Machu picchu (found many blog posts ago.) I decided that my aim would be to go to Machu picchu this year as part of my travels, but I don't think I ever truly believed it would happen. So here I was, so close to reaching the peak before the 2 hour decline and I was overcome with emotion! When I eventually reached the top I felt so proud and happy to have actually reached this goal. Both mentally and physically. Because boy, it takes some serious mental strength to convince yourself to continue onwards on the seemingly never-ending steps. I also didn't know if my lungs would be able to handle the altitude after the beating they took from the Bleomycin last year, but they pulled through.

Through my tears I looked around at the incredible views. It was absolutely breathtaking and dare I say...worth the pain and tears?? I was greeted by a member of our group, Ahte (sp??) who pulled out a sly 6 pack of beer which he had hauled up the mountain with him, unbeknownst to us. It was exactly what we all needed I think, and we drank the beer and the beauty of our surroundings in for about half an hour before getting started on the 2 hour hike down to camp.

So I've now completed the trek and am back in a hostel in Cusco, with aches and pains in muscles I didn't even know I had! The third day of the inca trail was much easier than the second, despite being a full 10 hour hike. I suspect this was partly due to the lesser incline of the journey, but also due to the distractions provided by the beautiful views we were faced with as we turned almost every corner. We arrived at camp at about 4pm and got an early night due to the early morning start the following day. So day 4... To the sun gate and Machu Picchu. We were woken up at 3am to leave camp by 3.20am to reach the checkpoint, about 5 minutes from our tents, where we would queue up until 5.30am for the gate to open and the journey to the sun gate to begin. Luckily we were the first people to the checkpoint meaning we had both shelter (provided for the first 40 people) and a head start on the trek. By the time the gates opened there must have been about 300 people behind us and myself and our guide led the walk along the side of the mountain, head torches on, trekking poles to hand. As we walked along the bumpy terrain and up and down multiple sets of steps in the pitch dark (health and safety??) I turned back to see hundreds of lights behind me as people followed the path we led. It was quite something! Several hot and sweaty hours later after scrambling over around and up rocks we reached the sun gate and could see Machu Picchu ahead.

Eventually we reached Machu Picchu, which was incredible but surprisingly not a patch on the hike. The feeling of arriving there was amazing and the city was very interesting but the journey to reach it is so spiritual and beautiful, it can't be beaten. A once in a lifetime opportunity which I'm so glad I experienced, despite the expensive price tag.

The Galapagos Islands

Wow. What a week. The Galápagos Islands were absolutely fantastic. I'll start from the beginning.

We arrived on Baltra island, the island with the airport and nothing else on it, with absolutely no plan whatsoever. Some people may call this stupid, but it ended up saving us a lot of money and giving us 6 days of near perfection. Almost immediately upon our arrival at the airport, whilst waiting to board a bus to the boat dock, we were approached by an Ecuadorian man (whom we would later know to be Paddy) trying to sell us something in broken English. Aya and I understood that he was offering us a 6 day cruise for 680 dollars, surely too good to be true? It was. What he was in fact offering was luxurious(ish) hotel rooms on various islands with day tours and 3 meals a day included. After getting a boat to the main island and a 45 minute (free- courtesy of paddy) taxi ride to puerto ayora and weighing up our options we decided to go for the first deal.

The 6 day itinerary was basically ours to select and we managed to bag ourselves a 'discover scuba dive' on the second day as part of the deal. Pretty handy as this probably would have cost about 100 dollars if done independently. The dive was amazing. We took a boat out to Bartolome, a small island north of Santa Cruz. Along with about 8 Israelis who were diving with us we were prepped, equipped, instructed and finally pushed backwards off the boat into the ocean. I absolutely loved the whole experience. Despite not seeing a large range of animals, I found that just swimming deep underwater with hundreds of beautiful, colourful schools of fish was fascinating. My first dive, but definitely not my last!

The following days were filled with visits to Islands to see the infamous 'blue footed boobies', numerous sea lions, penguins, and finally the tunnels tour from Isla Isabela. This was the highlight of the trip, and an experience that words will not suffice to describe, but I will do my best.

So the tunnels were created by an eruption from one of volcanoes on the island. And they are now submerged in water and are home to a diverse array of sea life. The tunnels tour was both land based and sea based. From the boat on the drive to the tunnels I spotted a killer whale diving out of the ocean. It was so out of the blue and no-one else caught it but I have ingrained it in my memory as it was such a phenomenal sight. The highlight of the day though, was the snorkelling. We swam in a large group (about 14 of us) around, underneath and over the tunnels, looking for different animals. First we saw a sea horse, which was nice but marginally underwhelming, especially as we knew what was to follow. With the help of a couple of guides we discovered the main area in which the galapagos 'white finned' sharks slept. And in some cases, were not asleep but instead swam the waters both beneath and beside us. It surprised me how 'un-scary' this was, as the sharks swam so gracefully and it all felt very tranquil. At points they were both face to face with me (when the guide insisted I swim down and peer into a tunnel in which about 10 sharks were napping), and within touching distance swimming past me. Amazing! Next we were to try to find the giant sea turtles - fortunately, this was not a difficult task due to their size. I must have spent about half an hour swimming with different turtles and just marvelling at their sheer size and grace. Move over dolphins, I have a new favourite animal! Finally we swam with more playful sea lions and penguins and eventually got back on the boat for the bumpy ride back. One for the bucket list, people!

Now I am in a small town in Ecuador called Baños, having returned from the Galapagos to Guayaquil and then got an overnight bus here for a couple of nights. We went to the 'end of the world swing', the Sunday market (which was huuuuge) and the hot thermal springs today. Tomorrow morning we are off white water rafting before getting a bus back to Guayaquil in preparation for the long journey to Lima (30 hours) in a couple of days. It's non-stop, this travelling malarky, but I'm loving every second of it. Even the buses. Everything is a new experience and I feel so fortunate to be able to be here. Ciao for now!

Montañita ay yai yai

Crossing the border was much more eventful than I could have expected. It turned out that the border between Colombia and Ecuador was closed for the weekend due to the Colombian elections. Only in South America would they close a major border for more than 24 hours without it being widespread knowledge! Fortunately we had left Medellin a day later than planned and therefore arrived at the border on Sunday morning (the border reopened at 4pm) so only had an 8 hour wait at the not-so-luxurious bus station in Ipiales. Crossing the border was an experience in itself, as we sat waiting with hundreds of Colombian/Ecuadoreans. When eventually given the go ahead by the police everyone half-ran/half-walked across the border lugging our bags/children/lives with us. I can't quite paint the picture with words but it was definitely up there in my top 10 surreal moments.

Anyway, 72 hours after leaving Medellin we eventually reached our destination for the week - Montañita, Ecuador. Keeping in mind that we had planned this to be a detox week (consisting of exercise and healthy eating), I am now sat in a dorm whilst sipping on lemsip in an attempt to quell the symptoms of a self/alcohol-induced cold. Both myself and Aya have 'burnt the candle at both ends' and are paying the price now. But it was worth it. Montañita is a cool, hippy beach town, full of surfers and very lively night life. The hostel we stayed at for the first 4 nights was known to many as 'the party hostel' which we were unaware of until the drinking games began the day we arrived. Other than consuming our body weight in alcohol we did actually go to one of the local surf school's for a lesson. Annoyingly I got stung by a jellyfish about 15 minutes in and spent the rest of the lesson watching Aya surfing and trying to decide how to broach the awkward 'will you piss on my leg' subject. Luckily the sting only lasted a few hours so our friendship was not put to the urine test.

Now we are back in Guayaquil for a night before our flights to the Galápagos Islands tomorrow morning. To say I am excited would be an understatement. Not many 22-year olds get this opportunity so I am going to throw myself in (quite literally), despite having been told by a dive master today that there are hundreds of sharks everywhere. I will post again in a weeks time, hopefully with my limbs intact.

COLOMBIA

I know there are hundreds of useful and extensive travel blogs on the internet. For that reason (combined with my laziness) this blog will just include what I'm up to and some ocassional musings. I aim to keep my relatives happy in the knowledge that I've been safe in Colombia and contrary to popular belief it has MUCH more to it than a history of drugs, violence and Pablo Escobar.

I arrived in Bogota, the capital city of Colombia, to a rainy and grey looking city and felt a slight sinking feeling in my stomach. Que a scary taxi drive to my hostel (Colombian driving is ridiculous!) and I checked in and settled down almost immediately to a 12 hour sleep. The following day my friend Aya arrived and we went on a bike tour of the city. It was a bizarre tour and it rained almost constantly but the graffiti we saw was pretty darn cool. Still, Bogota left a lot to be desired. That night we went to a student house party (a friend Aya had met in the north of Colombia was studying in Bogota). This was by far the highlight of the city and we had a fantastic time partying with people of all nationalities including French, Americans and a large group of very cool hipster Colombians.

After another rainy day on Bogota we eventually escaped on a 10 hour overnight bus to Medellin, another large Colombian city, well known for being the home of drug lord Pablo Escobar. On our arrival we had planned to spend only 2 nights in Medellin.. but ended up staying 5 full days. Our hostel was really fun and sociable, the weather was perfect and we saw and did a lot in the time we were there. The highlight of Medellin for Aya and I was a day in Guatape, a town which is roughly a 2 hour drive from the city. We travelled there by taxi with a group of about 8 friends we had made at the hostel. Our taxi drivers were fantastic and stopped off at several beautiful locations during the drive to Guatape to let us explore and take pictures. When we eventually arrived in Guatape we climbed the large rock, which is the main attraction of the town (670+ steps), to the top to see the absolutely breath taking view of the national park. We then went down into the town, which is painted an array of wonderful and very bright colours, and had a late lunch (I had a traditional Colombian dish which was very carb heavy but delicious all the same). I'd love to post some pictures but am unable to do so from my phone so until I can access a computer you will have to use your imagination... Or give it a google. Either or.

In addition to the day trip to Guatape we did a highly popular 4 hour walking tour of downtown Medellin which was extremely informative and the guide gave us a great insight into the city and its history. We also took the cable car up the mountain on another day which was marginally underwhelming after the views from Guatape, but all the same worthwhile. The night life of Medellin is not to be left out. We had drinks at our hostel every night and made lots of friends from all over the world. On  a couple of nights we then went out properly, to the 'parque', (not a park but a square of pubs, bars and clubs) which was a lot of fun. One night we returned to the hostel and booked an extra night there as we simply couldn't bring ourselves to leave the following day. It's safe to say Medellin stole our hearts!

Now I am sat in a 'dunkin donuts' at Cali bus terminal, awaiting an overnight bus to the border of Ecuador/Colombia. The Colombia vs Greece match was shown on a TV here so it has been very loud and busy and suprisingly fun! Now to stay for the England/Italy match and then onwards to Quito, Guayaquil, Montenita and the Galápagos Islands. An exciting couple of weeks ahead!  I'll keep updating as I go.

P.s. No one has questioned my short hair since I've been travelling! I am just a normal (but slightly edgy) girl travelling around South America. Perfect!