Link: Julie's blog

For those of you that know Ju and want to catch up with her:

indiajourney07.blogspot.com

Silent Nuns and Ice Mummies

Next stop was Arequipa. A fantastically beautiful city nestled in the Andes and overlooked by the volcano El Misti. It is known as The White City because of the stone that all the buildings are made of. It’s surrounded by active volcanoes, snow capped mountains and thermal springs. The town has a very European looking Plaza De Armas on one side of which is a huge cathedral. This is earthquake territory - the last one was in 2001. The spires of the cathedral have already been rebuilt a couple of times apparently.

We went to see a huge monastery that was like a mini Vatican covering 20 thousand square meters. The nuns there keep silence and are not allowed to be seen by anyone. Now they choose that life. Back in colonial times the second born daughters of well to do Spanish families were sent to the convent without any choice aged 14. That would have been Nella in my family. Imagine not being able to speak to anyone or even see another human being outside the convent.

Inside the convent I saw someone that I perhaps shouldn't have - not a nun but Jacqueline - the ass ed from Breakfast. It was really freaky. It took me a while to place her. She was on a three week holiday with her husband. She gave me the low down on the office gossip. Suddenly I was thrown back to London, early shifts and the tube. It didn't take long to leave it all behind again though. There's way too much cool stuff to see and think about here.

One of the most interesting things we saw in Arequipa was the ice mummy Juanita. She was an Inca girl aged 14 that had been found perfectly preserved at the top of Mt Ampato - a volcano 6288 m high. She was discovered with 3 other mummies in 1992. She's been there for 500 years. The Incas considered the mountains to be Gods and would leave offerings for them. In times of drought, as people became desperate, those offerings would be human sacrifices, begging the Gods for Rain. Children were chosen pre-birth to become offerings. They would have to walk to the summit for days on end before they were given a strong alcohol to knock them out and killed by a blow to the brow. I'm so glad I was born in the 20th century.

Photo: Nazca Lines

Photo: Whose bones? Chaucilla Cemetary, Nazca

Photo: Gold Crush, Nazca, Peru

Rasta Mummies, Pissed Pilots and Aliens

On to Nazca, again by coach. A strange place - covered in the dry dust of the desert and virtually deserted when we were there. The town offers little other than the lines and we found ourselves quite glad that we had not arranged to stay overnight. The lines were only discovered in 1939 and I assume the local people saw very few visitors from anywhere at all before that. Now 60% of the population survive on them.

The other 40% is made up of agriculture and mining for quartz and gold. We visited a gold refinery. It was like stepping into the 17th Century. There were young boys and girls rocking back and forth on huge semi circular stones that were crushing rocks in a pool of water. The whole place, the people, the machinery, the air was red from the iron ore. We were shown how the gold was extracted using mercury. At the back of the site was a huge room that had a massive crunching machine in it which was spitting out the smaller rocks that would eventually go to the see saw grinders. The noise in that room was unbearable and it was so full of dust you could hardly breathe. I tried my best to disguise my horror and pity for the 4 men that were working in there. Only one of them had cans. The others must surely be deaf already.

Next stop was the Cemetery of Chaucilla. A strange place that I couldn't decide whether was peaceful or not. Out in the middle of the desert 12 open tombs lie in the heat. Inside there are mummies and remains of people from the Nazca civilisation who lived around AD 200. The actual Nazca period was 200 BC to 600 AD. Our guide said they were from the Nazca period about 1000 years ago. Frankly, he was clueless. You work it out! Grave robbers hungry for the ceramics and textiles that were buried with the dead had desecrated all the graves about 80 years ago and left bones and skulls scattered across the desert. Anthropologists have put the bones back together as best they could. Some of the mummies are whole. Many have a collection of bones beside them. Who knows if they really belong to the right skeletons? It's quite sad that these people have not been allowed to rest. First disturbed by thieves and now subject to coach loads of tourists ogling their tombs and taking photos. As you leave the site you can see thousands of bits of broken bones scattered on the desert floor. I'm not sure if they were just too small to collect or just left there for effect.

The mummies were cool though. Apparently the longer the hair the higher the status in Nazcan times so all of them were buried with their hair dangling down to the floor making them look like Rastas.

The lines were great to see and the plane ride was lots of fun, but a touch unnerving. the pilot looked like a 70's porn star. Was that alcohol I could smell? Tim and I were sat in the back. An American guy we had got chatting to was in the front having a complete nighmare. Every time the pilot told us to look left or right the plane would lurch sharply in that direction. Tim and I were strapped in but still falling all over the place! I feel awful because I cannot remember the name of the chap who was with us - he was a lovely guy too. Anyway, the poor thing looked green by the time the plane landed.

The geoglyths were a lot smaller than I had imagined but we could clearly see all of them. I still can't help thinking that the space man in a fake though. He is just too rounded compared to the others. The Incas always walked in straight lines for their ceremonies, so where does a round helmet suddenly appear from? I tried to video them on my phone. Failed of course. I hope the photos come out. Damn those stupid burglars and damn me for not getting a digital camera at the airport – what the hell was I thinking? I wasn’t clearly. Got to put that one right as soon as possible.

There are a million and one theories as to why the lines are there. Some say locals made them as offerings to the mountain Gods as they begged them for rain during a 50 year drought. Others say locals recreated what they had seen when they had been tripping out on the nectar that they had in the Amazon that makes you throw up and then hallucinate and fly. Others say aliens...aliens?? Whatever. Tourism? Who knows. Whichever way they were a must see and we thought the trip was well worth it.

Email sent from Peru

-- Original Message --
Date: Mon, 4 Oct 2004 04:11:00 +0200
From: "Tim Skinner"
Subject: Email from Peru


Don’t ya just hate those smug emails from people buzzing around the world
arriving in your inbox on a Monday morning when you’ve just had the worse
trip to work and the major deadline/presentation/months figures have
to be dealt with in the next ten minutes?

Well, if that’s the case with this and will be with any others, just reply
back with ´sod off Tim´ and I’ll take your name off my list.

Anyway - travelling´s great!

Below is a quick snapshot of what’s going down in South America and attached
are some crappy pictures from our phones and the full version of my travelling
diary if your curiosity has been whettened.

So (probably later), kick back, enjoy the read and let me know how things
are in your world whenever you can...

You know you are in the Venezuelan Caribbean when:

* The seas are lush and the beaches are a gorgeous white colour
* Hurricanes come too close for comfort
* Scary faces wake you up in your tent
* You are eaten by mossies

You know that you are in Caracas when:

* Gunshots go off by your hotel
* You are told to go eat across the road and GO NO FURTHER for your own
safety
* Everyone has a car the size of a house
* You are eaten by mossies

You know that you are in Lima, Peru when

* Loads of pan piping guitar guys hassle you for cash
* The folk have great Indian faces
* It looks like Spain
* Its colder than blooming London

You know that you are in the Amazonian jungle when

* You can’t get to sleep because of the animal noises
* Your mind is blown with smells
* Shamen try to get you tripped out with trees and herbs
* David Attenborough walks out of your restaurant (am not making this up!)
* The guides tell you scary stories of snakes and wild animals
* The local market sells prehistoric fish
* You are eaten by 15 different varieties of mossies

You know you are in Pisco when

* You get very drunk on Pisco Sours
* You see Sea Lions and amazing deserts
* You get a great internet connection

See you soon!

Tim xxxxxxx (kisses not for the boys OK)

Photo: Paracas - I hadn't realised just how stunning the desert could be

Photos: Isla Ballesta

Tuesday 12th October 2004 - Arequipa, Peru

We are on a coach heading for Cuzco. We've just set off. It is going to take 10 hours. It's not as bad as it sounds. The coaches here are fantastic. They put England to shame. My seat is enormous and reclines right the way back. I also have a foot rest. There are televisions every 4 - 5 seats with DVDs playing in English with Spanish subtitles. We get fed too. All for the princely sum of 55 Soles - about a tenner. My only complaint is that they have chosen to put Spice World on the DVD. The idea of noise pollution does not exist here - they obviously don't worry about it because of their choice of movie, but mainly it's the fact that all the buses, 1st class or otherwise have either music or DVDs blaring. You have no choice in the matter. And the sound is ALWAYS BLOODY DISTORTED!

We travelled to Pisco via Lima. The tiny town sits on the coast of Peru about three hours south of Lima. From there you can catch a boat to Islas Ballestas. Often called The Poor Man's Galapagos, the islands are a group of rugged rock formations rising from the Pacific Ocean to form natural caves and archways. They are populated only by Peruvian turns, white boobies, penguins, huge orange starfish and hundreds of sealions. And that's just above the surface. The sealions were great, really fat and lazy, just hanging off the rocks, obviously used to the speedboats arriving close in to see them. It was a fantastic morning, but it was marred. We were supposed to get off on one of the small beaches. As we were approaching we heard a gun shot. After much furious babbling by the guides we quickly headed back for Pisco. I assume they must have been poachers or something. Whatever it was, it was enough to make our crew head back full speed. There are no people on the islands. Not officially anyway.

We spent the afternoon at the Reserva Nacional De Paracas. I had never seen a desert before. It is truly beautiful. So quiet and so many colours. It’s unusual in that it’s a desert by the sea. The dunes and hills are brimming with minerals, salt, quartz and iron ore which add lots of rusty red to the shimmering white, yellows, browns and blacks. We walked to a cliff overlooking a rock formation called La Catedral - named so because that's exactly what it looked like. To the left of the Catedral we could see dolphins jumping into the air. I spotted a family - mum, dad and baby all swimming and jumping together. Lush.

Pisco itself is a fab little place. The same run down, graffiti covered box houses, with a main 'Gringo Alley' that reminded me a little of being on a package tour in Greece. Lots of bars, shops, restaurants and internet cafes with hundreds of touts begging you to come in. We went to a club one night. It was me, Tim and an Irish guy we met called Neil and 500 18 year old Peruvians. They are not into their dancing here at all. The few that do dance, just shuffle. Once again I found myself pining a little for Venezuela. So far the party people of South America.

Pisco is famous for its scallops. And we all know how much I love scallops. We pigged out on a huge platter full of them smothered with garlic and parmesan and decided that, since we were having one of those very rare occasions that we were treating ourselves we would order the best wine on the menu to wash them down with. It was vile. Sickly sweet like your gran's Sherry. Inca greatness and all that, but they seriously fail on the vino front - not even students would drink that stuff.

Photo: Amazonian animal friends

Photo: Spending a Sole.

Photo: Lunchtime in Iquitos. Warning! Some of these are pretty grim

Photo: Lotions and potions. Iquitos River market

Photo: Life in Iquitos

Oct 1st (I think), Finding David Attenborough amid the madness that is Iquitos.

Iquitos is one of the craziest cities I have ever seen with Tuk Tuks everywhere and some rather unsavoury ex pat locals who still seem to think they are in colonial India. We decided to spend a few days just hanging out before heading back to Lima. On our first night back we bumped into Ali and Damien purely by chance. They had taken a boat down through Venezuela and into Iquitos. They looked a little worn round the edges but it sounded like a really funny experience. They had to sleep on hammocks outside on the deck. Apparently there were so many people on the boat that hammocks were put up above and below their own so that you had a layer of people sleeping directly above and directly below you, with no room to move either way.

Anyway, while we were chatting, the owner of the bar came over wanting to be friendly. He asked us all our names and what we did at home (the first person to have done this since we got out here – bloody spoil sport). He’d forgotten that he’d asked us the very same questions just before we had left on our jungle trip and had made our breakfast's stone cold by insisting he sit with us and tell us all about his experiences there. I don’t know what it was – maybe the fact that his gorgeous local wife was at least 30 years younger than him, but something about him made me shudder. He kept on winging about the kids stealing and when he did so his eyes would really screw up in a Bush/Putin kind of way, but then went on and on about how much he helps them.

I made the mistake of telling him I used to work for the BBC. He dashed inside saying that there was someone else here from the beeb. About 10 mins later he came out with David Attenborough and a TV crew! How weird is that? It was really embarrassing. Blokie came up and introduced us. David and the crew looked just as embarrassed as we did - or at least me anyway. We swapped pleasantries. I sheepishly told him I used to work for Breakfast. They are working on a docco and will be staying in and around Iquitos for the next three weeks. I always find non TV people’s reactions to famous people amusing. The rest of the gang were stunned – and really excited to have spoken to him. I was just horribly embarrassed that the chap had clearly given them no choice but to come over and say hello. It was cool to meet him though – especially there – it was almost as if our jungle trip wasn't real after all and we’d just been watching it on the telly.

The next day, we all went to the Iquitos river market. Alongside slabs of raw meat, buckets of dinosaur like catfish, Amazon lotions, potions and hallucogens, stray dogs and a million people were pots of huge, fat transparent yellow slug type things squirming in bowls with a 'here's one we made earlier' stew by the side proudly displaying the end result of this particular dish. In addition to I'm a Celebrity style delicacies, my overriding memory of that market will always be trying to dodge the flying bits of fat and blood as a woman axed a huge slab of meat on a wooden table right in the middle of the main path through the market. Another stall had bits of chopped up turtle legs that were covered in blood. I was trying desperately hard not to let the horror show on my face.

Nearby the boat villagers put away their wares for the day. Hundreds of wooden shacks - some on sticks - some on huge logs - layer their way to the river. Wooden slats placed in a triangle and opening straight onto the river serve as toilets. Hundreds of tiny wooden boats lay idle. All of them come with a bucket or a cut off plastic bottle. They sail the boats in pairs. One paddles while the other empties out water leaking into the boat through the gaps in the wood.

We went to see a butterfly farm the other day that has also ended up being a small animal sanctuary. They have a fantastic jaguar – he was captured as a baby and used by the **nt to parade around for tourists. When the animal got too big to handle he begged the owners of the sanctuary to take him off his hands. I guess at least he did that. The owners say he could never survive the jungle on his own now. They’ve also got an ant eater and two fabulous monkeys. I love monkeys, but they do scare me a little. The first ones I had come across were in Bali and they were vicious little shits. Not these guys. They both had sad stories – both were found battered and beaten for some reason. Thankfully they were in perfect health by the time we met them. I’m not sure what type they are. One is dark brown and just plain cute. The other is completely ginger with a bright red face that looks like an old man and a very red bum. We did some serious bonding that day – the ginger and me. He started looking through my hair for nits. It was really funny. When he couldn’t find any he decided to rub his fur a give me some of his. So sweet. I can officially say I was in love with a ginger that day.

I learnt something else too. The average butterfly only lives for 48 hours. That’s so sad. They take so long to become the beautiful creatures that they are only to be free and beautiful for just two days. It hardly seems fair. Although I guess the Buddhists would say it proves their point that nothing, no matter how beautiful is permanent.

Photo: Caught in a downpour in the rain forest. The smells were amazing

Photo: Naycer and Tim - Jungle masters

Photo: Don't wee!

Photo: Tarantula!

Photo: Slapper Bird

Photo and Script: 29th September. Why am I swimming in a river full of piranhas?

We went to see the river dolphins today. I read that they
were the only river dolphins in the world but I’ve since found out
river dolphins live in five different areas in the world. The pink ones
only live here and on the Mekong in Cambodia.

The grey ones are lovely, like normal dolphins. The pink ones are strange
creatures. They have an odd snout and no fin on their back. They don't
jump up into the air so they are really hard to spot. It was very cool
to see them though. They are most found where the mouth of one river
meets another, so we went to where the Yanayacu meets the Amazon. There
is an island in the Amazon that villagers have populated. It has a
beach. We were with a group of 10. Tim and I were the only two that
dared to go for a swim. "For God's sake DON'T WEE IN THE WATER!"
shouted Kay as we ran to the river bank. They are great girls, and I’d expected them to dare it, but they are both doctors, so you can’t blame them really. Tim had dived in way before me, and so had the two guides – Naycer and the guy who was looking after the other group that had joined us that day. I trust Nacyer so much, and I figured if Tim was going to get ill I might as well suffer it
with him, so in I went. It was lush and warm, but the current was really strong. I was swimming with all my strength and going nowhere. I tried my best to savour the moment and
not think about the disease or the piranhas.


There are piranhas galore in there. I know - we went fishing for them yesterday just a few hundred meters downriver! I know they like to stay in the pond area, but what’s to say they wouldn’t come up this far? What if they could smell their little brother that I had eaten yesterday on me? Ok, that’s a little too paranoid, but come on, we’ve all seen the film. Naycer had giggled when I asked him and checked my legs ‘no blood, you’re fine, they won’t get you.’ I never know when he’s serious or not. I got the feeling this time he was winding me up about the blood bit, but sod it, he was in, so was Tim and there were lots of fishermen that were fully immersed with their heads in the
river reeds, so I ventured. I'm glad I did. Whenever am I going to get the chance again? It’s the Amazon after all– and anyway I’ve had just about every jab going. For once in my life though, I succeeded in keeping my mouth firmly shut, the piranhas didn’t come looking for revenge and no, I didn’t pee.

Last night we went out on the boat again to look for caimans - no joy again, so we went to visit the strangle trees - home of the tarantula. I still cannot believe that I went into the jungle in the dark with a million moths and mozzies flying at my face and stoodunder a strangle tree full of tarantulas. You are a brave girl, you might be thinking. WRONG. I was virtually hyper-ventilating!

They are very beautiful, especially the rosy haired tarantula that is pinkish in colour, but I still couldn't help darting when one of them moved. It wasn't long before I realised that I was probably much safer under a tree full of tarantulas with Naycer rather than in the jungle onmy own , so I made a sharp move back. What did they say about anacondas? Shudder.

Tonight we are going to try one last time to look for caimans and then we are on a junglewalk tomorrow before we set off back to Iquitos. This will be a bit boring if you are not into wildlife so skip if you like. Here's a list of what we have seen so far which we've been studiously ticking off our lists like the good little tourists we are:.

Fish

Red Bellied Piranha
Fresh Water Brycon
Peacock Bass
Small Mouth Fish (this is one of those that clearly isn’t
in Naycer’s translation book)

Birds

Amazon kingfisher
Black Capped donacobius.
Black fronted Numbird
Black Vulture
Black collared hawk
Blue Grey tanager
Boat Billed Heron
Chestnut eared Arucani - also known as a Tucanet
Chestnut Woodpecker
Cobalt Winged Parakeet.
Cocoi or white necked heron
Cormorant duck
Great common Egret
Great Kiskadees
Greater ani
Greater Yellow Headed Vulture.
Horned Screamer
Large billed Turn
Lesser kiskadee
Lineated Woodpecker
Pauraque Nightjar
Red Capped Cardinal
Ringed Kingfisher
Riverside Hawk
Rufescent Tiger heron
Scarlet Crowned Barbet
Short tailed parrot
Slate coloured Hawk
Striated Heron
Turkey Vulture
Wattled jacana (We renamed this the 'Slapper bird' – according to Naycer the only bird species known to ditch her mate after shagging and then leave her babies to be reared by the caiman while she searches for a new fella. Go on girl! )

White eyedparakeet
White throated Toucan
White winged Swallow
White eared Jamamar;
Wood Stalk
Yellow rumped carique.

Plus hundreds of frogs of all sorts of sizes and colours,

Iquanas, the coolest lizards - about a meter long with a big red patch
on their backs, Three toed sloths and loads of
monkeys.

Trees and plants of all descriptions with all sorts of uses
ranging from curing stomach cramp and diabetes to torturing Spaniards
and adulterers! (This is a tree that is nick named the torture tree and
houses what they call red 48 hour ants. They get their name from the
fact that when they bite you the large red welt that appears lasts that
long. During the Spanish invasion the tribes people would tie captives
to these types of trees to torture them. When you tap on the tree,
hundreds of them come spilling out of a small hole half way up it.
Since they are not allowed to torture Spaniards anymore, the tree gets
used a lot less, but, apparently if you cheat on your partner round
here you get rather more than the offer of marriage counselling.

We have spent almost triple our allotted budget on this
trip, but boy has it been worth it. I'm really glad we paid out for
something well organised. Just before we left Iquitos we met a guy who
had done a similar trip on the cheap. The guide dropped him off at a
local’s house who had 14 children. He said he saw nothing but spiders and mozzies and came back covered in blisters because all
he did was trek through jungle for hours with a guide that couldn't
tell him much about what he was seeing. He was close to tears.

We also struck lucky with Kay and Nicola. All our excursions
have been Naycer and the 4 of us and we have had a lot of laughs. The
rest of the tourists here are really quiet. Last night they cancelled
their boat trip to go out to try to find caimans preferring instead to
stay in!

28th September – Mayuna lodge - bed time.

We have just dined on fresh river piranha. They are not very meaty and reminded me a little of white bait on a much larger scale with much larger, sharper teeth. They were red bellied piranha which we caught on a fishing trip this afternoon. We went to an area just a few kms upriver from our lodge that Naycer called the ‘pond’. It was still the same river, but here is where the majority of the piranha’s hang out apparently. We stopped our boats and were given a quick lesson on line fishing. I couldn’t help noticing that two dogs were swimming across the river, but then I’ve learnt now – if Naycer doesn’t look worried, I don’t either – and I know he loves animals so he’d never let them come to any harm. Back to the job in hand then. I’ve only ever fished once - it was in England with my boyfriend and some of his work mates. It was nice to spend the day on the boat, but it was very smelly and I kept on pricking my fingers with the fish hooks. I also felt sorry for the fish. Silly I know – ok if I eat them but can’t do the dirty work. I wondered whether I’d find myself feeling sorry for the piranhas. I think we all know the answer to that. Anyway, every single time any one of us put our lines in the water there was a massive tug within 2 seconds. Most of the time the little shits just ran away with the bait (which by the way was raw pork - aren’t humans supposed to taste a little like pork?) Tim caught two and was scaring the life out of me because he insisted on taking the fish off the hook himself, while everybody else was sensibly leaving it up to Naycer. You have to see these things’ razor teeth chomping away while you are trying to take a hook out of their mouths to be able to appreciate the very real fear of losing the top of your finger. Anyway after a million tries I finally caught two. The first one I am currently digesting and the second one got put back in, because he was just a baby.

I’m sat at the little desk in our cabin. It’s way too early to sleep – even though we have been getting up at 6am each morning to go bird watching. If you are a light sleeper I would not recommend the jungle. Throughout the day there are all sorts of wonderful noises. Some of them we have learnt to recognize, but it's at night as the sun sets when the party really gets going. The moment night falls an orchestra begins to play and does not stop all night long. I allow my imagination to run wild and imagine them having wild parties in the trees. I wonder what kind of Amazonian Ecstasy they are all on. I want some. I wish I had a DAT with me. I tried to record the sounds on my mobile but only got hiss.

The loudest sound is the hissing. I think from grasshoppers and crickets and cicadas. Then there's the beep, beep, beep that you often hear in southern Europe from the fire flies. Then there's a constant squeaking sound. Do you remember having a plastic squeaking toy? That's exactly what it sounds like – no idea whether it’s insect or bird. Then there is the chirping of a million birds. There's something that whistles in a low, hollow tone for 8 beats and then stops for 10 seconds before sounding again. There are the horn screamers - they sound like a cross between a donkey and a goose. I laugh every time I hear them. They are amazing birds, huge black creatures - the largest bird species in this area. There is something that sounds a little like a seagull only it goes eeup and then eeoo in a lower tone. As soon as it sounds it is followed by what sounds like a bird laughing...ah ah ah ah. Then there is another sound - I think from a bird - that is a bit like a wolf whistle or someone saying wow wee. Another goes weeuw, weeuw and another bird (I assume) that goes diup di up up up up, di up, di upupupup. Percussion accompaniment is performed by the frogs. Many croak like normal frogs. There are five different types, all croaking in unison but all with their own distinct sound. Others sound like wooden pegs being racked with a baton. I absolutely adore that sound. Apparently the smaller the frog the louder the sound it makes. Add to that monkeys screeching every now and again and you really do have a deafening silence. It is so bloody loud. Of all the amazing things I have seen I think it is the night time sounds that I'll remember most. Three weeks ago I was trying to sleep to the sound of traffic and drunks on Haverstock Hill. Now I’m sleeping soundly in the middle of a Discovery Channel documentary. Sweet dreams.

Photo: Riverside homes

Photo: Very cool frog

Photo: Rubbish pic, but you can just see the tiger heron

Photo: Enter the jungle

Photo: Bring gadgets. the kids love them

Photo: Amazon Village

27th September 2004 Mayuna Lodge, Amazon Basin, Peru

I am sitting in a wooden hut on stilts in the middle of the Amazon rainforest. The lodge is comfortable. There is a small sleeping area and a bathroom with cold shower and a balcony area outside which looks out to the river. There is a hammock on the balcony, but it rarely gets used because it is a sticky 42 degrees during the day and at night there is an onslaught of a million different types of biting bugs and mosquitoes the size of my hand. I have been virtually eaten alive by all sorts of creatures. Hopefully I'll build up an immunity soon. Warning - 100% Deet does not make a blind bit of difference. Every bit of flesh, exposed or otherwise WILL be eaten. Last night the little shits bit through my jeans! Tight layers worn with baggy clothing on top helps. The only problem is that sweat is itchy too - especially by the gallon.

To get here we took a boat from Iquitos - the world's largest city that cannot be reached by road. We’d had a choice to get to Iquitos by plane or boat. I wished we could have taken the boat trip but apparently it takes days to get there, and we are fast realising that we’ve got so little time to do all the things we want to do. The plane we came across in was more like a private light aircraft than a proper plane. Slightly bigger than the one that took us to Los Roques – it seated about 60, but it was really old and knackered. I’ve never liked turbulence, regardless of how much I know it’s not supposed to be a problem, but this was silly. At one point the plane just dropped – I’m not sure how far down – I was too busy having a minor heart attack at the time, but it felt like one of those stressful nights when your brain is too active to sleep and you suddenly feel yourself dropping into the mattress – only we dropped a lot further. We were the only foreigners on the flight and no-body else even flinched. In fact the air stewardess laughed at me. Tim tried to explain that it was all down to the plane bouncing from one thermal to the next. I decided I was too jittery to get onto the subject that that was my idea of paragliding, not flying on a plane and spent the rest of the flight staring out of the window.

I remember reading that 1 ½ acres of rainforest are lost every second due to deforestation. The article was written about the jungle in Brazil and stated that you could see huge chunks that had been torn down to make way for soya plantations and the like. Not here or at least not yet, thankfully. I have never seen anything like it. One of the advantages of being on a toy plane is that we were flying quite low. For an hour and half we flew over nothing but trees, millions of them. I tried to look out for the river that would have taken us in by boat, but I didn’t see a single crack in the thick expanse of green. Let’s hope people manage to open their eyes before they reach to destroying this part of the forest too. Suddenly, any fears of our toy plane crashing vanished. It seems silly, but it had only just hit me – we were flying over the Amazonian rain forest! And what’s more, we were about to land in it too.

Once in the madness that is Iquitos (more on this later) we booked a 4 day trip into the jungle and we were off the next day. We travelled up the Rio Itaya which sits at the back of Iquitos, and then about 50km up the Amazon to Rio Yanayacu. We were with two really lovely girls, Kay and Nicola from Leeds. I am completely charmed by this place. Speeding down the Amazon was cool – knowing that we were on one of the greatest rivers on Earth, but it was when we got onto the Yanayacu that we entered Wonderland for real. We left the large speed boat that had taken us so far behind and hopped onto a tiny wooden fishing boat. With us came boxes of eggs, vegetables, gallons of water and a couple of chickens – live ones. We all knew what we’d be offered to eat that night, but nobody said anything. I guess you can’t get more fresh and organic than that can you?

I really don’t believe that my writing skills are good enough to properly describe what we saw next. Maybe it’s just me, because I am a London girl and I don’t get to flavour the beauty of the countryside enough, but I was gob smacked. Up till that moment we’d been swigging on Tim’s Venezuelan rum and swapping stories of things we’d been up to, but suddenly all of us fell silent. The atmosphere was so calm. It was really bright and all you could hear was birds rustling in the trees, the buzz of the dragonflies and the soft lapping of the water as our little boat struggled its way down in the meter or so of water that was left in the river. Trees of every description and every single shade of green imaginable. Some rising meters into the sky with huge thick trunks and then branches that looked like the trunks of normal trees. Others with hundreds of vine like tentacles dripping into the river. Since it is dry season the river banks are really high and quite bare - bar the hundreds of holes that are home to the catfish that plop in and out of them and the explosions of yellow and orange butterflies that group on the shore to eat the minerals then puff into the air, like a natural firework display. They fly around for a while before regrouping again on the bank to feed on a little more salt then explode into colour again. I don’t think I will ever forget those butterflies. The dragon flies are HUGE and they are everywhere! I’m a bit embarrassed to say this, but I was a bit scared for a second at first, because they fly millimeters away from your face. What the hell was I thinking?? They are so beautiful. Bright blue and red, they hover rather than fly. Now and again a bird would flutter out of the tress. None of us had any idea what they were and they were too quick to check out properly. Our guide was asleep so we decided not to ask. I found myself thankful that we’d decided to pick up a set of binoculars the night before.

At one point I looked down into the water and nearly screamed. A toothless massive grin was looking up at me. The local tribes fish for catfish by sinking under the water and catching them with little nets or by hand. I think the fisherman found my surprise quite amusing. I didn’t take my gasp long to turn into laughter. He rose from the water and waved. My first Amazonian friend.

When we first arrived at the lodge we dumped our stuff and went for a walk in the jungle with our guide, Naycer. He grew up in this jungle and has studied the area extensively. His English is also really good. I have a bit of a snobby gripe about using guides and a romantic image of always trying to communicate in the local language, but it would be horrible not to be able to understand any of the names of the birds, plants and animals, so I'm really glad of it.

It was raining (or course). We were wearing long shirts, long trousers, wellies and our raincoats. I cannot begin to describe how hot it was in there. The sweat was dripping from my brow and the bugs were horrendous. There are literally millions of them swarming around your face. I've started to get used to it now, but at first I was holding the collar of my raincoat so tightly to try to stop anything getting down the back of my neck that I could not balance.

The jungle is amazing. There was no trail. Naycer was hacking through with a machete. Hundreds of different trees, that I regret I cannot tell you the names of. It's the home of 11 different snakes, 8 of which are poisonous. Apparently they only bite if you step on them. We were warned to check all branches before touching them as many of the snakes look exactly like twigs or branches. As I hope you can appreciate, this rendered me too frightened to touch, or more importantly hold on, to any branches at all. That along with clutching at the collar of my raincoat and trying to swipe away a million mosquitos, horseflies and God only knows what else made for a rather difficult trek. Remembering the 15 meter long skin on the wall of the Iron House pub back in Iquitos I asked about anacondas. Nacyer laughed. ‘Yes’ he said, ‘but they don’t come out very often’.

That day we saw monkeys, spiders and termite nests (the residents of which, when crushed apparently make a good mozzie repellent, I've decided I like termites), and lots of mozzies. Back at the lodge we settled down for dinner (yup – you guessed it – chicken). The building is a wooden frame on stilts. There is no glass in the windows or plaster on the walls, just netting to keep the bugs (and the rest) out. That means that whether you are sat eating dinner in the main room, or having a shower, or lying on your bed it feels like you are in the middle of the jungle (which you are) having a meal/ shower etc under a huge, green mosquito net. It’s simply, simply fabulous.

That night we went out on a river trip looking for caimans. It was a fantastic boat trip. The 'dark' is hardly dark at all. The moon shines so brightly it seems like 4am on a June morning rather than the 'dead' of night. We all had our flashlights and searched the banks of the river for about an hour. Unfortunately no caimans in sight. You have to look for red eyes. We spotted quite a few pairs of red eyes but they always turned out to be either frogs or hawks – not that we were complaining – the frogs were really cool too.

In addition to an encyclopaedic knowledge of the jungle and good English the guides here all have x-ray vision as standard. Naycer spotted a frog in the distance and asked the boat driver to stop. We turned the boat and paddled a good ten meters to a spot on the river bank. After fumbling in the bushes for a few seconds Nacyer pulled out the frog. It was bright green and about 2cms long - a glass frog I think. I know that they do this all the time, and that they are looking out for the reflection of their eyes in the distance, but we were really impressed – especially because he told us what type of frog it was before we got to the riverbank and picked it up.

22nd September 04 – Lima, Peru.

We arrived in Lima late last night. What a difference to Caracas. The city has a real European feel and a very mellow vibe. I automatically feel safer here, although we are told it’s almost as dangerous.

Yesterday we got our first proper look at Caracas by day. When we first came in to the city from the airport it was night time. The airport is on the beach and you go high up into the hills to reach the city. Mountains are on three sides of you and are dotted with hundreds of lights. It's a beautiful sight - a bit like the Hollywood Hills on a larger scale. On the way to the airport yesterday the daylight showed them for what they really are. The slums. Layer upon layer of small brick houses cover the mountains. Almost all of them are square and either orange or yellow. Some had two or three floors where whole levels had crumbled. None of them had windows. Most of them had walls missing. Many didn't have roofs. Washing hung everywhere surrounded by debris. It rains in Caracas every day at 4pm for about two hours.

Away from the slums the Grande Sabana area is a hustle bustle of people, litter strewn streets and huge American cars - all with blacked out windows. There are traffic jams at every time of day and I'm certain even a London black cab driver would be terrified trying to drive through them.

It definitely has a certain charm to it. I liked the sense of confusion. Unfortunately we saw little more than that. We were warned so many times by so many people in the hotel and in Los Roques not to venture out – and we were always there at night time. The hotel Savoy (a mid range budget hotel) is surrounded by a huge wall, the top of which is spiked with jagged glass. The patio area is protected by razor wire.

I still regret not seeing it properly and part of me feels like a fraud for being too yellow to explore, but when every local you meet tells you not to go anywhere in the city you have to take heed. It was the porter that morning at the hotel that freaked me. Even the locals are shitting themselves.

According to Gabriel, last weekend 108 people were killed in the city. 108 in one weekend!! It's a real shame. The Venezuelan people are some of the warmest and most polite I have ever met. There has recently been a referendum in support of Chavas – the new President. He says he’s a man of the people. The country seems quite divided over it. The rich are in a panic. It will be interesting to see whether he does anything to help the poverty situation here. Pretty much all of those murders were between gangs in the slums. It makes me think of ‘Cicada De Dio.’ The cinematography made it all look so unreal in the film, even though we knew it was based on a real place in Brazil. It’s bloody real alright. And it’s not just Brazil.

Photo: Pancho. The only bird Tim will ever see smell his shoes with such devotion

Photo: London? Where?? Cala di Agua

Photo: The sun is back and Tim tries his hand at fishing

Photo: Let's all get totally pissed and throw ourselves off our boats.

Photo: The Virgin of the Valley. They thanked her for saving our lives

Photo: Crasqui - Lush by day....hell by night

Photo: Trouble in Paradise. Ivan's on its way.

Photo: Pelicans. I could watch them all day

Photo: Silly fish, great show

21st September. Time to move on

Back in Caracas. In the same hotel, picked up by the same taxi driver, ate at the same restaurant. They had a brilliant film channel on TV. We decided that was the better option. In Los Roques all the locals had been begging us not to go out after dark once we got back to Caracas. They had a point. We were sitting there chilling when gun shots went off outside the hotel. Tim tried to make out it was a burst tire or an exhaust. No chance. That was a gun. I've never heard one fired before, but I knew instantly. He admitted later that he heard more in the early hours of the morning. I know if we’d given ourselves more time here we’d chill and enjoy this place. There’s a real buzz about it. It’s such a shame. But then we can’t have it all. Plans considered we haven’t got long and the idea to stop at Venezuela was purely to go to Los Roques. Our original plan was to go straight to Peru. Once we realized our flight was due to stop at Caracas for a few hours we decided to make it a stop over and get some beaching in before we hit the Andes. Peru here we come then.

Saturday 18th September. Ok Dana, stop stressing, you are in Paradise.

Trying to use the phone and/or internet in this place is a f***ing nightmare. A very hit and miss internet connection is available at some posadas for $20 an hour! I've been trying to confirm our flights to Peru and no-one can give me the correct number for the airline. The one I have isn’t working. They got all secretive about it. One chap actually said ‘hold on, I’ll get my friend’. Said friend arrived and told me he wasn’t allowed to give me that information!! What the hell?? I tried, unsuccessfully for about three hours last night. Hopefully it will be ok.

We went to an island called Cala Di Agua today. Lush in a word. I've never seen anything like it. The beach ends in a thin strip of white sand about 5 meters in width and widens out to a beach of about 40 meters in width. To one side were rolling waves and gentle surf while the other side offered tabletop calm, clear water. It was perfect. The tip of the point ended, like a pier, in the sea pointing towards the next island. We walked past the tip and into the sea. Making sure we remained in the turquoise strip of water ahead we walked to the next island. Novel. The water only ever came as high as my waist. If ever you could imagine a Paradise island this would be it. No herons or pelicans to be seen, but lots of black gulls, frigates and lots of little birds I do not know the name of. I know that I have been spoiled rotten. I will never truly enjoy any another beach again.

We left the island at about 3pm to go to Los Mosquis. I don't need to tell you where the name originated - I was eaten alive within seconds of setting foot ashore. The only thing on the island is a turtle reserve. They look after baby turtles until they are about a year old and then let them back into the sea. One of my aims achieved already - well almost anyway. I saw lots of very cool turtles but not in the wild. It was a bit unsettling though because I had just finished the chapter in Life of Pie where he describes how to butcher a turtle. I think I really would need to be on death's door before I ate one of those beautiful creatures.

A few days ago we went camping on Crasqui - another of the islands in the archipelago. Talk about Heaven and hell. The beach during the day was stunning. There were so many seabirds it was amazing. Every now and again they would swamp one tiny area of water in a complete frenzy. All sorts of birds in a big bundle if you like. Swooping repeatedly into the water and hovering low and screeching the place down. It was amazing to watch, Apparently it happens when a huge fish comes along and tries to eat the little fish. They jump out of the water to try to escape the fish, only to be met by a mass of hungry beaks. Silly fish. Great show.

Here we were in Paradise with our trusty old tent and a whole day and night to look forward to on our very own island. It was just us and the family that have the only building and the sole restaurant on the island. The Milky Way - clear as a bell in the night sky. We had set up our tent close to some bushes in an attempt to get some shade. Big mistake. We’d just seen the last shimmer of a fantastic sunset when I noticed a cloud in the distance that was heading towards us rapidly. ‘What on Earth?’ The minute the sun went down they were upon us and they charged. Mosquitos – millions of them! We had to run into our tent. By this time everybody bar the restaurant owners had left the island. We were both slaughtered. - despite all the Deet we had smothered ourselves in. My back still hasn't recovered. It didn't get any better. Sleeping was damn near impossible. In fact, take out the damn near. It was down right awful. It was searing hot, there was sand in the tent which stuck to you like spiked glue and no air. Opening the front of the tent allowed a million more mozzies in. I didn't sleep all night.

In the morning - Paradise found. A table flat sea. A David Attenborough nature documentary happening live. A thousand different fish clearly visible from the shore. No-one on the beach except for us. Wow.

We moved the tent to the point of the island. It took us ages to put up, because it was so windy. This will be much better. I'll definitely sleep tonight. Yeah, right. We had a lush day just lolling around and come nightfall settled down to another horrendous, sleepless, sweaty, sticky, sandy, mozzie bitten, yuk, crap, I'm never camping again, what the fuck happened to all that wind??, night.

The strong wind that had made putting the tent up a real ordeal that morning had vanished. It didn't come back until about 4am. I tossed, turned, sweated and scratched until then and finally went to sleep at about 5. An hour later I woke up to Tim shouting "What the fuck are you doing???" at the top of his voice. I nearly jumped out of my hot, half eaten skin. He had woken up to find a man's face staring into the tent. We went out to look for him but he had scarpered into the bushes. The people from the restaurant said they would try to find out who it was, but I spoke to a lady back in Gran Roque later that day who lives in Crasqui. She was convinced that it was one of the people who owned the restaurant. They had been feeding us for the past three days. It made me shiver, but it's forgotten now.

That day ended well. On the way back the people of Los Roques were celebrating the last day of the fiesta. Sep 15th. There were hundreds of boats, each carrying a statuette of the Madonna parading around the archipelago. It was sheer madness. In addition to the Madonnas, the boats all had loud blaring salsa or techno music and were completely overcrowded with drunken locals of all ages. And I mean drunken! We watched them all come back - hundreds of boats - people spilling out of them - some unable to stand straight, some belly flopping into the water. The party continued in the Plaza Bolivar until 1am. We of course were shaking our hips with the best of them.

Having a chilled one tonight. Need to sort stuff out for Peru and Tim is in a grump anyway because he can't drink any alcohol. He's on antibiotics to cure an infection in his foot which he picked up during the floods caused by the hurricane. He's starting to get worryingly too used to that bloody Venezuelan rum.

We’ve met some really lovely people. I bumped into Robbie - one of the boys that works at one of the posada's on day one. I was walking around the island in dismay, because I had to pay for the posada in full and could not find anywhere to change my traveller’s cheques. He took me to about 10 posadas trying to get them changed for me. Eventually we managed to convince one owner to accept a few of them as a one off and found one place - Oscar shop, who would change them for us. Robbie became a mate - a quiet, loving, caring boy he turns wild at fiesta time. I will never forget him and an 'amiga' simulating oral sex on the dance floor of the Plaza Bolivar, all in the name of Salsa. We gave him our tent. After years of being sludged in Glastonbury mud, we figured it deserved to be retired on the most beautiful beach I have ever seen.

I’ve already mentioned Ali and Damian. After the horrible Brits left we spent a really nice night with them. Ali really makes me laugh. She reminds me a little of Jamie Lee Curtis. Damien is cut straight out of a magazine gorgeous, but gloriously, he has no idea, or least doesn’t play on it. They’ve been living in London for 4 years and now they are doing this trip before heading home. The met in the UK. He’s from Tazmania, she’s from Perth. Same country but a world away from one another. At the moment they are trying not to think of what happens when they reach the end of their trip – both want to go back to their homes. We are hoping to meet them in Sydney in December - provided they are able to shake off that horrid Brit couple who left saying they hoped to bump into us again….horror.

Richard - Essex Geezer - at the end of an 8 month trip of South America. Typical Essex bloke – bit of a tosser, but an ok one if you know what I mean. Best mates with Tim within minutes. I'm sure we'll see him again when we get home. I wonder whether he’ll ever get laid.

Gabriel and Anjelica - Venezuelan couple who were selling trips, snorkelling equipment etc. They became really firm friends. Gabriel’s hoping to come to work in the UK for a year. It would be lovely to see them again. We spent a day at the beach with their family and they ended up seeing us off at the airport. They might meet us in Caracas if they manage to get a flight back. If not we will definitely keep in touch.

There’s something really unusual about the dogs here. This is going to sound really odd, but ask anyone who’s been backpacking to Los Roques and they’ll tell you it’s true. We thought it was just us…maybe Venezuelan dogs liked our scent or something, but no, we weren’t the chosen ones. All the back packers we met had a similar story:

Every single dog on the island had somehow managed to get into their doggy minds that they have to protect non locals at all times. This might sound incredulous, but it really is true. They would walk up to you and follow you all the way home, looking about and then once you were in they would leave with no problem. Next morning they might turn up again, but wouldn’t really show interest beyond a quick stroke. As soon as it got dark however…..Now everyone knows not to feed a stray dog if you want to see that back of him. Protector, as we named our new pet, didn’t even seem interested when we offered him food. He was well fed enough. (Apart from one time where he almost did a somersault in the air when we gave him ice cream). He attached himself to us for a week or so. One night he was sat at our feet while we were on the beach having a spliff. Protector snarled at anyone who came anywhere close. At one point Gabriel and Anjelica turned up and we had to stand in front of him to assure him it was ok. He saw us off at the airstrip. I'm not joking. He seemed to know the point on the beach where he was no longer allowed to follow us and while everyone else said goodbye to friends we were saying goodbye to a flea bitten mut. Maybe they do it because they know they get the odd ice-cream. Who knows.

Before we leave this lush little place there’s one last bit of loveliness that I have to tell you about. Pancho. He deserves his very own chapter. The coolest parrot in the world. He lives in our posada. He flies round like he owns the place. Did I say ‘like’? I’m delighted to say that he doesn’t have a cage – he sleeps on the window porch. However his wings have been slightly clipped which is sad. Poncho not only says, ola to everyone that walks by the posada, he also say 'hello' repeatedly to anyone on a mobile phone. When the owner is in sight he mocks her by screeching his name in various rising degrees of distress- "Pancho, Paancho, Paaaanchooo, PANCHO!!!!", then cackles a laugh. He wolf whistles – at anyone he fancies and barks like a dog - seriously – when he sees a dog. One morning we found him I in our room trying to drag Tim’s hiking boots out of the door. He adores lime, loves sunglasses and shoe laces, loves having his neck scratched and eating marmalade (cheekily off our plates at the breakfast table). We are going to miss you Pancho.

12th September 2004

The sun is back again and the waters have finally calmed down. Flights have finally started to come to and from the island again and many people have gone. Los Roques is an archipelago of tiny islands protected by coral reefs. All bar Grand Roque and Crasqui are uninhabited - by humans that is. The whole area has been declared a national park and is said to be one of the best places in the world to dive and snorkel. We took a taxi boat out to one of the islands, Fransisqui, yesterday. It is truly beautiful. We arrived on a beach of white sand and multi coloured water - ranging from the palest blue to deep indigo fringed by the brown murky water of mango groves. There is a lagoon in the middle of Fransiqui, which, three days ago, hosted a beautiful beach and a snorkeller's Paradise. I was really looking forward to my first snorkelling session. As we reached the lagoon I wondered why no-one had warned us to bring shoes. The 'beach' was full of broken pink flecked rocks. I managed to get myself into and under the water - and then nothing - bar the millions of sprat type fish that are staple food for the pelicans and lots of bare rock. The coral had died during the hurricane and the one time snorkelling Paradise was no more. The beach apparently used to be sand - just three days ago. The pink flecked stone I mentioned was dead coral. They say it will take thousands of years to reform. It's a bloody disaster. Another of the neighbouring islands has been affected in the same way. It's so sad.

We decided we couldn't argue with Mother Nature about her plans and had a lovely day all the same. We first arrived on the island with just some water and a bag of crisps thinking that we would go for lunch at the one cafe that Fransisqui has. It turned out it was closed. Nobody had warned anyone. Stupid of us really, we should have thought. The islands had just been nearly blown away and there’s us looking for lunch. An American couple we were on the boat with had a quarter of a bottle of water and that's was all. Luckily we bumped into a French family that we had met during the hurricane and they invited us to their yacht for lunch. I felt really bad for the Americans. We left them all our stuff though.

We have met so many people – That bloody annoying Brit couple who were disappointed that the hurricane didn't hit full force. 'It would be bad of course for the locals, but it would have been wicked to watch.” Idiots. The lovely Ali and Damian who we are hoping to meet in Sydney in December. An Essex Geezer called Richard who has been travelling South America for three months and is completely gagged for a shag, and loads of locals...notably 'the three amigos’ who get pissed every day outside our posada and insist that we swig their rum every time we walk past them – including first thing in the morning.

The fiesta which was supposed to last 2 days is still going on. We've been dancing in the plaza and drinking with them every night. Strangely only we and our other foreign friends seem to be socialising -I have no idea where the rest of the tourists go at night. I can't believe they are lucky enough to be here when there is a fiesta on and they don't bother to come at all. Strange. I can only think that the posada owners are telling them it is dangerous so that they stay and drink in their bars. Crazy and drunken it might be, but dangerous it certainly is not. Not here. It's a world away from Caracas. I don’t think I will ever forget the moment I returned to the Plaza from buying some drinks to find Tim sandwiched between two ..shall we say ‘large’, laughing Venezuelan girls who were gyrating away. He looked absolutely terrified. That boy needs to learn how to dance!

The French family I mentioned earlier is amazing. They are a young couple with two gorgeous kids of 3 and 9. They have been sailing the world on their yacht for two and a half years. I got the feeling the woman was a little sick of it, but she said that they had sold their yacht to buy a house and settle down before and they hated it so they bought another one. Nice life. I would say no stress, but they have to beware of pirates - no joke. There are many tales of yachts being robbed at gunpoint - especially here in Venezuela. Apparently a boat followed them for ages and then came in really close, but backed off when the men on it spotted the kids.

My favourite bar here is called Arecife. It serves great Mohitos and looks out onto the beach. At night they put huge bean bags on the sand and you can slump into them and watch the stars. The sky is amazing. It’s so clear. You can see the Milky Way. The Queen Conch is really popular here. It’s actually illegal to fish for them because they are dying out, but we tried some the other day. We were on a boat on the way back from one of the islands when one of the drivers jumped into the water and came up with one. Once they had killed it there wasn’t a lot we could do. Everyone on the boat accepted a piece and we dare not really say no. I have to say, it was delicious. It tasted like coconut flavoured lobster. Everywhere you go on the islands there are hundreds of conch shells. They are huge and the locals use them for all sorts of things. On Crasqui there is a huge conch mountain at the point of the island. I was a bit shocked when I first saw it, because I thought it was conches that had been poached illegally, but according to Gabriel it is a natural mountain. The sea has washed them all up apparently. It’s mad. It’s about 10 meters high!

10th September 2004

Tim, me and all the rest of the travellers in our posada waited for the worst, then eventually went to bed. The Brit couple have been driving me nuts. Alison quipped that if Ivan hits during the night she’s coming into our room, because she doesn’t want to die with them. We both laughed out loud. Funny how you laugh at stuff like that. I guess you have to – a bit like the locals getting drunk. I was so worried about their houses. They are so flimsy. They’d never have survived it.

At about 2pm Ivan suddenly changed direction and started to head north. The Virgin came through for the people of Los Roques - and us - although many of the smaller houses are totally swamped with water and sewerage and what used to be a salt bed at the back of the village is now a small lake. It rained all day today and most of last night. It started again about half an hour ago.

On the brighter side, the rain held off in the early evening last night allowing us to attempt our salsa moves in the plaza until 1am drinking rum and Cervesa - Spanish for beer. (I obviously haven’t had enough cheap Spanish holidays because I seem to be the only one who didn’t already know that). But then I hate beer. It was the fiesta of the Virgin of the Valley after all and nothing was going to stop this lovely people having their fun. The minute they’d stopped emptying their houses of water, they were all straight out onto the square.

DJ Anthony was the star of the show. Hysterical. He starts off with Salsa and Merange music and then once it hits about midnight everything goes crazy when he starts playing a mix of salsa house and trance. Every now and again he booms "DJ Anthony!!" and the crowd goes wild.

The people here definitely work to live. Today, as we waded ankle and sometimes shin deep in water, every face we encountered, whether wading with us or scooping out bucket loads of water from their homes boasted a big smile and an 'ola' or a joke quipped about the rising water. Tim is concerned about the pelicans - their wings get waterlogged. They are really funny to watch lined up on the boats holding their wings up to dry out. I haven't seen any since the rain started though. No doubt they have found a good hide out.

We walked along the beach tonight as another 3 storms approached - all from different directions. It was a spectacular sight, but storms have always scared me. It reminds me of when I got caught out alone in a flash flood in Italy with jagged lightening streaking down in front of me. I was eight then. I’m a lot older now but they still terrify me. Back to the posada to drink more rum then. They swig it straight from the bottle here - that's when they are not dancing like lunatics.