South America June 2003

It has been 6 weeks of glory travelling to s. america, a continent that is so far & almost alien to many of us.

Rio is as exciting & colourful as we expected. The famous beaches of Copacaban & Ipanema were full of locals who seem to have nothing else to do but walk around half naked & bake on the beach.! Our visit to Brazil would not have been complete without watching an exciting soccer match in the famed Maracena stadium.  

 The Iguasu falls on the border of brazil & argentina were even more spectacular than  niagara !! There were countless rainbows reflected in the spray which looked almost magical  & millions of butterflies around us.  Buenos Aires was  elegant & more european; they were doing  the tango everywhere, on the sidewalks, in cafes & restaurants, in shops & even in food courts!! 

A ranch stay in the Argentinian pampas is a must - we were fortunate to stay at one which was over a 100 years old , checked out their cattle on horseback & savoured the famous argentinian BBQ.

In Peru we found gentle people whose ancestry was a mixture of inca, spanish, japanese, chinese, african , portugese etc. 

It was from here that we explored the amazon basin along one of the 15,000 tributaries of the mighty amazon - in the subtropical jungles we saw thousands of macaws, went fishing for piranhas ! & said hello to a giant tarantula guarding his nest . 

From Cusco, which is the capital of the Inca empire, we followed the inca trail to the sacred valley of Machu Pichhu, the only Inca citadel that the spanish overlooked & was saved from destruction - it was a magical sight nestled in the Andes mountains, & an ancient engineering feat.

Our last adventure in Peru was to journey on a luxurious train, which was a subsidiary of the Orient Express, to Lake Titicaca which is the highest lake in the world at nearly 13,000 ft . Nestled among the giant reeds on the shores of its turqoise blue waters, are reed islands which are man made & on which a large community still live - they build  their homes with reeds, they eat it, drink its tea, build their boats with it & live happily fishing off the lake.  They too are of Inca origin & believe that the sun rose from this lake. It was unimaginable that people still live like that in this day and age !

All in all it was a fascinating & magical journey that we wish all of you will be able to make someday too. 

love & good wishes 

Shirin & Moiz