Southern Italy (or, 'The Cheese Binge')

Our second week in Italy, we spent two nights in the southern town of Sorrento, renowned for its pretty cliff-top views of the Bay of Naples, and for its alarming lack of traffic lights.

We spent a day wandering the ruins of resurrected Pompeii, in the shadow of Vesuvius (which is, by the way, still very much active), hopping across the stepping stones in ancient streets that spent more than a millennium and a half suffocated beneath ten metres of ash. Remarkably, some of the frescoes inside the houses survived.

We had two fantastic meals in Sorrento: gnocchi alla Sorrentina at a cute little restaurant, and take-away pizza on the roof of our hotel, from which we could see the whole bay, as well as the volcano's bare slopes.

From Sorrento, we hopped aboard a train to Rome. I'd worried that I would find the Italian capital to be too flashy, too aggressive - maybe it was because we'd rolled in during the off-season, but I was pleased to find it relaxed, a confident seductress.

La famille Hartholt explores the Colosseum

Now, it was time for a history blitz. We roamed the battered Colosseum, its pock-marked shell covered in opportunistic plants. The underground chambers have been excavated and you can see right into the labyrinth of rooms and passages in which animals and people waited out the final moments of their lives.

We wandered the Palatine, where the red-brick remains of Roman palaces are scattered on the hill overlooking the Circus Maximus racetrack.

We spent a day between St. Peter's Basilica and the Vatican museums, both of which are dripping with wealth beyond comprehension. St. Peter's, built on the site where Roman Emperor Nero had Saints Peter and Paul crucified around AD 67, is stunning. The pink marble walls are decorated with lavish amounts of gold leaf, stunning frescoes, and masterful sculptures. The place is so large, so enveloping, that the crowds weren't even a hindrance.

Me and St Peter's - for Gran!

The collections in the museums are also astounding. The Vatican owns heaps and heaps of priceless ancient Greek and Roman sculptures, paintings, Renaissance-era sculptures... and that's before you even discuss the frescoes by Renaissance masters like Michelangelo and Raphael, which are in themselves priceless. The sheer volume of the collection rivals the British Museum, and exploring it took the whole afternoon. Obviously the Sistine Chapel, where each new pope is elected, is the star of the show, where Michelangelo's frescoes of muscular men and women show the creation of the universe and of man, but I found Raphael's frescoes to be just as beautiful - maybe more so.

All that said, it's hard to know that a state run by a religious organization that preaches charity has untold masses of wealth hoarded within its walls. How many Greek statues would buy food for a starving village, or a whole country? There are some very poor people out there who need the wealth more than the Vatican needs to store it.

Our remaining days in Rome were spent walking the medieval centre, enjoying the fresh air at the delightfully green Villa Borghese, eating all of the pasta and pizza and cheese I could get my hands on, and of course, enjoying each other's company - because at the airport, we left John and Val for another six months. It was fantastic to spend the two weeks with you two - thank you for everything! We miss you!

And finally, leaving Rome for Malaysia, it was time to find some new adventures.

S.

Sun and Ruins - Fethiye and Pamukkale

We're flat out on the wide stones of Turkey's Oludeniz beach, on the Western Mediterranean shore. The sun beats down, still hot in the late afternoon. Above us, paragliders swirl in the thermals, spinning up and then float down to land up the beach behind us. The fishy-salt smell of the ocean blows over us, the waves, white-foamed in the brilliant azure water, smash again and again against the cove.

Eventually we overheat and speed-limp across the scalding stones to plunge into the ocean, just cool enough to refresh us, but so salty that I surface with teary eyes every time I put my head under water.

When we get out, I consider: should I reapply the waterproof SPF 50 sunscreen on my face when it's already four o'clock?

Yes. Yes I should. Ginger kids burn fast. And I'm not alone with my pale skin - this corner of the coast is practically one big British resort town.

That evening, on our way back to our hotel in Fethiye, we stopped at one of the many tour boats in the harbour to arrange a Twelve Islands tour. Fortunately for us, Ramadan meant a lull in domestic tourism, so an eight hour boat trip with swimming stops and provided lunch was running at twenty-five lira - thirteen bucks. Yes please!

So we spent a whole day lounging aboard the Princes Serap with about fifty other people - not bad on a boat with two levels and 150 person capacity. Drinks are expensive on-board, and outside drinks are forbidden (we were able to sneak some water on), but even with the drink tab, the day was cheap.

We swam in five little coves, some with other tour boats, some alone, and the Captain lent us his diving mask for free so that we could explore underwater.

The next day, we grabbed a dolmus from Fethiye to the Saklikkent Gorge, where we spent the afternoon wading along the polished, white canyon floor.

Dolmuses are driver-owner minibuses but the fares and routes are predetermined by the regional authorities. So a driver will linger as long as he can before leaving to get as many fares as he can, and then troll slowly along the route, honking at prospective customers because more people means more money.

So it takes a while to get anywhere.

Dolmuses are decorated with everything the drivers can think of: evil eye pendants and stickers, Turkish flags (Turks are a very patriotic bunch), photos and business cards taped to the windows. In one, we saw a shag dashboard cover. It was magnificent.

We moved north a few days later to the little town of Pamukkale, which sits at the foot of two impressive attractions.

Visible from across the wide valley are travertines, a shiny, white hill that to our Canadian eyes looked strangely like snow. Rather, the hill is a series of calcium terraces deposited by thermal springs. The mineral-rich water runs down the hillside, forming pools and painting a thick crust as it flows.

There's no shoes allowed for the hike up the hill, just bare feet on the little ridges and in the slimy calcium mud that builds up in the pools.

At the top of the hill is the partially preserved ruin of Hieropolis, built as a health resort when the Romans found the mineral springs. The steep theatre has been partially reconstructed, the necropolis is in impressive shape, and you can pay to use the baths near the white cliffs. We visited at sunset, when there aren't many people, so we wandered the site without the crowds, examining columns and fountains and tombs until the night-time call to prayer rolled over the hills and it was too dark to see properly.

But just one ancient city is never enough, so the next day we packed into a hired car and drove two hours into the dry hills to see Aphrodisias.

The Temple of Aphrodite, to whom the city is dedicated, stands partially reconstructed, and a few of the other major buildings have been excavated and somewhat restored - a hilltop theatre, the massive house of an evidently important man and the baths are in decent shape. The city gate stands tall and glorious in the middle of a field. But just to the north, the stadium reigns king of the ruins.

It's set into a hillside so that you approach from the top of the seating - you pass a line of trees and the enormous oval stretches suddenly before you. It could hold thousands and thousands of people and is in remarkably great shape. The rows of stone seats are warped and crunched, but some are still usable. The ground-level, where I can imagine chariots racing before a roaring crowd, has been excavated and re-established.

Best of all, because Aphrodisias is so far from any major towns, there were only a few small tour groups and a few independent travelers around. We sat alone in the carved seats of the two-thousand-year-old stadium, contemplating chariots, awed by the enormity of it.

We ran into difficulty leaving Pamukkale. Whereas earlier in the week, Ramadan had proved to be a cost-saver, now it was ruining our plans to head up the coast. Ramadan had given way to Beyram, the festival celebrating the end of the fasting. Which is when everyone in Turkey goes on holiday, and the buses are booked.

So we ended up heading right back to Istanbul, because the night bus wasn't full. We spent two days doing nothing but wandering the crowded streets and eating kebab, and then loaded onto another night bus, destined now for the Bulgarian border and the Balkans.

S.

Peruvian Flat

It turns out mountain biking is hard. I mean I should have known that, but it is really really hard.

Our first day on the MP trek was entirely biking. Granted it was all downhill and such, but out of 5 hours of biking, the last 3 and a half were on bumpy, rocky dirt roads. My bum is still sore. My hands were practically bruised from gripping the handlebars. It poured rain all day and I hav enever been so soaked and dirty.... and it was amazing.

There were moments when I was just pissed off that I was biking in the jungle in a downpour, but at the end of the day, when we rode up to the hostel... I am glad that I didn´t wuss out and take the bus half way through. I am proud that I finished the day in style.

We biked maybe 50 km, to a town called Santa Maria. Dinner was apparently traditional Peruvian (meat and rice.) and tasty, especially after a day like that!

Our group had 7 people in it, which is fairly small. There was a dutch couple, a Belgian couple, a New Zealander and a Brit. I spent most of the time hanging out with the Brit, he and I got along really well. We also made friends with some of the groups doing the same trek at the same time but with different companies. Really social atmosphere, for being stuck out in the Peruvian jungle.

That night I got my own room! Delightful.

Day two was sunny and hot, which was amazing for trekking (rain is less than ideal, shall we say...) although after a while its a bit much. We did 7 hours total. First flat, then up a mountain where we followed an Inca trail (not THE Inca trail.... there are a bunch of them) and then climbed down the mountain.

Now. When a Peruvian person says to you, the next two hours is flat walking, don´t ever listen. The problem is that Peruvians have no idea what flat is. They live in the mountains. Nothing is flat. Peruvian flat, from what I can tell, essentially means it´s not straight up, and the ups will eventually equal the downs. I had a few fights with our guide about this... he laughed at me, mostly.

The other problem with trekking is that bugs love me. Especially sandflies, apparently. I cant so much as look at my legs anymore, they start to itch and it drives me crrraaazy. Yes I used bug spray, yes it had deet, but I think they´re into that sort of thing. Uhg.

But at the end of a long day, we got to spend a couple hours in the hot springs at Santa Theresa, which was divine. I expected just a hole in the ground with hot water, like what we had in Bolivia, but it was a full on resort. Amazing, and just what my muscles needed desperately.

We went out for a few drinks that night, because the hiking day three isn´t too hard, but were still in by midnight. Life is tough when you have to get up at 6.

Day three was mostly flat (remember, Peruvian flat....) and not too tough. A couple of the other groups got to climb up a mountain right near machu picchu and view the ruins from afar, but our giude apparently doesn´t do that in the rainy season, so we relaxed in the town at the base of the mountain, Aguas Calientes, for a few hours. Dinner was Mexican food and bed, in a decent hotel, was early.

And then, on saturday, I got up at 3:45 in the morning for the first time in my life.

I will not be doing that again, let me tell you.

It takes about an hour and a half to make it from Aguas Calientes to the ruins at the top of the mountain, so we started walking just after 4. The site opens at 6 and only the first 400 people in get permission to climb Waynupicchu, the sister mountain that juts off machu picchu, which is a magnificent view.

It´s dark when the walk starts. All you can see is little clusters of people lit up by flashlight, hardly anyone speaks because we´re all too tired and too caught up in the magic of the pilgrimmage. Dawn broke half way up the mountain, and I´d tell you it was magical as well, but quite frankly, I was just trying to drag myslef up the 2000 stairs. It was a tough but fairly short climb, totally worth it over taking the bus. I was within the first 40 people up the mountain, I made it by 5:30 or so, which is a fantastic feeling. The mountain climbing accomplishment, not the 5:30, lets not kid ourselves.

Macchu Picchu gets a lot of hype, and in my travels I´ve heard people tell me both that it was stunning and that it was just a buch of rocks on a hill. I side with the people who claim it deserves its status as a new world wonder. The place is 80 per cent original. The craftmanship of the entire city is phenomenal... massive earthquakes and 500 + years of wear have yet to bring down the Inca architecture. The focus on symbolism, on shape, on knowledge and learning and spirituality is awe -inspiring. Everything means something... although we don´t always know what that something is, everything means SOMETHING. Amazing.

Our guide for the tour was okay, nothing spectacular. The best was just wandering the city and imagining the civilization, the priests who spent their lives in this place, the riches it held once. The climb up Waynu Picchu, 45 minutes of essentially straight up stairs, was taxing after the morning climb, but was worth it for the overhead view of the city. I have some fantastic pictures.

We took the train (and bus) back to Cusco with only a few hitches - some of the tickets were for later than they should have been, and my name somehow got left off the bus list, but there´s nothing a good hissy fit won´t fix... hah.... I am not one to play the throw-a-fit card, but when I´m about to be stranded an hour from cusco anything is fair game. In any case, I got back just fine, showered and drank and danced til 4:30. Which is when I realized, standing in a bar in downtown Cusco, that I had been up for 24 hours, and perhaps this was not the best life choice. Hahah!

Today I leave Cusco. I´ve joined forces with my British guy from the trek - Nathan - and his friends, and 12 of us are descending on Arequipa on a night bus. There, hopefully we can hook up a canyon trek. I´ll stay in Arequipa til saturdya night, get a night bus out, spend one night in Lima and fly home.... scaaaary.

I´ve sent approximately a billion postcards home, to nearly everyone who gave me addresses now, but as far as I know none have arrived. Hopefully soon? Ha.

Take care, everyone, and wish me luck on the last leg of my trip. xo.