Yosemite, Lake Tahoe and the Joshua Tree

After spending a few weeks getting to know San Francisso I went on a wee road trip. I drove to Yosemite National Park and camped there for 3 nights. The park itself is really beautiful; there is a river flowing through the valley floor. There are many huge waterfalls that flow into the river and lots of big rock faces and mountains. I climbed to the top of the biggest waterfall, called Upper Yosemite Falls. It was 4 miles uphill and really hard work in the heat but the view made the effort well worth it!

My next stop was Lake Tahoe which is a very big lake surrounded by forests and mountains. In the winter people go there to ski, but it is nearly the summer now so people visit it to lie on the beach and sail boats on the water. The lake is very pretty with really clear water. I went on lots of trails around the lake and climbed to some view points.

While I visited these places I was camping in a tent which was really good fun. However; you had to be really careful about cooking food and keep it in a special box when you have finished cooking and eating. This is because there are bears in these areas and they can smell food from miles away and come looking for it! I didnt see a bear in either of the campsites but I did see one running through a field in Yosemite.

My last special place I visited before travelling back to Edinburgh was the Joshua Tree National Park. This is down in the south of California, not far from LA. It is a big area of desert wilderness which has lots of Joshua Trees, which are actually large Yucca plants, and these incredible rock formations. It looks like somewhere that dinosaurs should live but I didnt see any! I did see a lot of lizards and small aquirrels.

Now, my trip is at an end. In a few days I will fly to London then get the train back to Edinburgh. I have had such a wonderful trip, full of experiences that I will never forget. I am sad that it is coming to an end but I have missed home and I look forward to seeing everyone when I am back.

Hope you've enjoyed reading about my journey. Maybe I have inspired you to see some more of the world when you grow up, I hope I have!

Mexico to California (USA)

My last few weeks in Mexico were very busy. I visited a few more historic sites built by the Incas and the Zapotecas and spent time in the towns of San Cristobal and Oaxaca. There are really interesting places with good museums and festivals in the squares at night with traditional music and dancing.

As you know I then travelled to the capital of Mexico, which is called Mexico City. It is a very big and very interesting city and I was really looking forward to spending time there. Unfortunately, the H1N1 Virus had just been recognised so the whole city was shut down to prevent the virus from spreading. This meant I had a very boring few days before flying to Los Angeles which is on the west coast of America.

LA is a big city and hard to get around but I enjoyed time in an area called Venice beach. I also went to Hollywood and saw the street which has stars in the pavement which have the names of famous actors, musicians, directors and performers on them. I did see someone famous too, Simon Pegg who is a British actor in Hot Fuzz and Run fat Boy Run!

My next step was to drive from LA to the city of San Francisco up the coast road. It is a really beautiful drive. The most exciting thing I saw was a beach with a huge colony of elephant seals who had come ashore to rest and shed the thick layer of fur on their skin. They lie on the beach in groups, or pods, and flick sand over themselves with their flippers to keep cool.


My travels are very quickly coming to an end now. I have just a month left. In my remaining time I will visit some of the famous National Parks here: Yosemite and Lake Tahoe which are meant to be very beautiful. I hope to post one last time before I fly back to Edinburgh, see you all before the end of term, I can't wait!

Mexico

I have spent the last 2 weeks in Mexico. It is very hot here so you have to take life at an easy pace. I have seen some fantastic places around the city of Merida in the region called Yucatan.

A few days ago I had a very interesting journey, it started on a normal local bus, then I travelled in a little cart attached to a moped which was driven by a Mexican driver. Finally, I got on a cart which was pulled along the railway tracks by a horse! It was a new way to travel. And why did I do all this? I was going to see some cenotes. A cenote is a pool that is formed under the ground in a kind of cave. Water seeps up through the earth, eroding the limestone rock over thousands of years until a cave is created with a pool of water in it and lots of strange rock formations. You climb down steep ladders to get into them. They were really cool and the water was perfectly clear blue and lovely to swim in.

I also went to see more Mayan ruins at a site called Uxmal. There were lots of carvings in the stone there which were very intricate and delicate. I also saw some wildlife at this site, there were big iguanas sitting on the rocks and there was also a long, shiny, black snake slithering in the bushes. He gave me a bit of a fright!

It is Easter week now, which is called Semana Santa, and they have lots of celebrations here in Mexico. I have seen a lot of traditional dancing, including one where the dancers have a bottle of beer balancing on their heads while they spin around. I was dizzy just watching them, and no, not one bottle got dropped! I hope you all enjoy your well deserved Easter holidays back in Edinburgh, I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Guatemala

After I visited Copan Ruinas I travelled into Guatemala. I spent some time in the city of Antigua which is very pretty. It has cobbled streets like the Royal Mile but the buildings are very different to Edinburgh beacuse they are all painted different colours on the outside.

I then travelled to Lake Atitlan. It is a very big lake with lots of villages around it. In one of the villages I spent some time with a friend I met at University. She works in a community project that is a kind of activity club for local children to go to after school. They do lots of art, drama and music and seem to have a lot of fun.

As I travelled north towards Mexico I visited 2 beautiful places. One was called Semuc Chempey and this is a river that has lots of shallow pools full of really blue water and little waterfalls. It was really pretty and great to swim in, not too cold. However, the best bit was when I saw howler monkeys up in the tree tops. I say saw, but really I heard them first as they make a very loud noise which is like a tigers roar!

The second place was the spectacular Mayan ruins of Tikal. They were deep in the jungle and it took archaeologists many years to clear away all the plants and vines from the ruins. The site is mainly huge temples which you can climb up and get great views over the jungle. I also saw spider monkeys there, I got a sore neck from staring up to the treetops to look at them!

So, now I travel into Mexico which is the last country in Central America and by far the biggest, I am sure there will be more adventures there to tell you about soon.

P.S. I cant wait to see your climate change video, it sounds fantastic.

Panama - Costa Rica - Nicaragua - Honduras

First of all I have to say I have LOVED reading your comments. I miss you all very much and it is lovely to hear from you all when I am so far from home! I am really glad that you are all enjoying Primary 4 and I cant wait to see you all again when I am back. Just think, you will be starting Primary 5!

I have done A LOT of travelling since my last post. After being in Panama I spent a few weeks in Costa Rica. It was a lovely country where they grow a lot of coffee and bananas. In fact, next time you eat a banana check where it comes from as many of them are grown here in Central America. I visited some waterfalls and I cycled along some very pretty beaches. The best thing in Costa Rica was a crazy zip wire that I did over the forest in a rainy wee hillside town called Monteverde. It was much higher and longer than the one I did in Argentina. I have a DVD with pictures and video of it to show you when I get back!

The next country I visited was Nicaragua. In the past this has been quite a dangerous country with lots of fighting between the different people who lived here. However, now it is at peace and it is a very friendly, beautiful place. I stayed on an island which has 2 volcanoes, called Isla Ometepe. There was also lots of areas of rain forest and I was lucky enough to see the howler monkeys, and lots of birds and lizards. There are very pretty towns in Nicaragua with many beautiful buildings that were built long ago when the Spanish had travelled there.

Now I am in Honduras. I am staying in a town called Copan Ruinas which is near to the border with Guatemala. There are some very famous ruins here. They were built by an ancient civilization like the Incas but this time they are called the Mayans. The site is incredible. There are pyramid buildings and lots of carvings of the ancient Mayan Gods. The site was re-discovered over 200 years ago and a lot of work is beig done to re-construct and protect it. When I was there I was also lucky enough to see macaws flying through the trees (see photo).

The Inca Trail

I had a fantastic last few weeks in Peru. Cusco was a brilliant town to explore with stunning buildings on the main square; huge churches and cathedrals made out of red stone. The city was founded by the Incas and there is a lot of evidence of this in the buildings and walls, it was really a fascinating place to just walk around.

Cusco is in an area of Peru called the Sacred Valley which has lots of other towns and villages linked to the Incas. I visited a small town there called Pisac, the local market was big with lots of different produce; people were selling everything from wool dye, vegetables, arts and crafts, to jewelry. So many sights and smells!

The Inca Trail itself lasted 4 days and 3 nights. It was pretty hard going, you walk about 26 miles in 3 days and you are very high up so it is hard to get your breath. It is so high you are walking in the clouds sometimes! The trail has lots of steep steps up and down which had been built by the Incas, carved out of the stone in the ground. It is a beautiful trek, with waterfalls and lots of lush green trees.

There were 15 people in my group and they were all great people. You eat breakfast in the morning, then walk many miles, stop for a big lunch then walk more miles to the campsite where you have dinner. At night you sleep in tents. These very strong Peruvian men carry all the tents and food etc from one place to another each day, they are incredible!

On the morning of the 4th day you wake very early, 4am, and walk the last few miles to the lost Incan city of Machu Picchu. It is truly amazing, a wee city built in the mountains. The Incas lived there over 500 years ago, when their civilisation fell Machu Picchu became covered by grass and trees. In 1911 it was re-discovered by an American called Bingham and now many people go every day to see it. It is a wonderful experience to explore all the buildings made in stone and think about the people who built them and lived there so many years ago.

After the trek I travelled to the capital of Peru, Lima, which is a huge city. I was there very briefly before I flew to Panama which is a country in Central America. It is very different here, the weather is hot and it is not such a historical country as Peru or Bolivia but the people are very friendly. It has the Pacific Ocean on one side and the Caribbean on the other. The country grows a lot of bananas and also coffee. I will now start travelling through Central America to Mexico, where there are also a lot of historical ruins but this time built by the Mayan civilisation. I am sure there will be lots to see along the way!

Bolivia to Peru

Isla del Sol (Island of the Sun) is on the Bolivian side of Lake Titicaca. There are ruins from an ancient civilisation called the Incas who lived over 500 years ago and ruled a lot of South America, including Colombia, Peru, Ecuador and parts of Chile. It was very beautiful, with a big Incan staircase and ruins on the edge of the island.

On the Peruvian side I went to Islas de Los Uros which were floating islands made entirely of reeds. It really was incredible, the people who live on them use the reeds for everything, even builidng their houses (see photo). They travel on boats that look like viking ships. The people there do weaving with wool and make beautiful crafts.

After Los Uros I went to Taquile Island. There I met the family of a friend of my mum´s. You can see them above in their traditional dress. The men on the island knit and the women weave and they make beautiful textiles. All the men wear hats and if their hat is red, they are married, if it is red and white they are single! I spent a night on Taquile Island which is very different to home, no cars and not a lot of electricity so people use candles and torches. There was a big thunder and lightening storm that night but we were all safe!

I have spent the last few days in the city of Arequipa which is very pretty with many buildings built by the Spanish hundreds of years ago. I went to a museum and saw a mummy that was 500 years old. The mummy was a 12 year old girl, who they called Juanita. She had been a part of the Inca´s and she was a sacrifice the Incas made to their Gods. She died on the top of a mountain and then was covered in ice for 500 years. The ice melted when a nearby volcano had a volcanic eruption and she was found soon after. It was very interesting.

My next stop is the city of Cusco where I will begin my journey on the so-called Inca Trail where you trek for 3 days to the Incan site of Machu Pichhu, an ancient city that was discovered high up in the mountains. It will be a tough trek but I am very excited!

Chile to Bolivia

La Serena was a lovely wee town on the coast. I stayed there for a few days, including New Year which I spent watching fireworks on the beach, very different to the cold Edinburgh New Year!

Then I travelled to San Pedro de Atacama which is in the Atacama desert of Chile. It was a small town with lots of interesting things to do. I visited a lake called Lago Tebinquinche, which had so much salt you could float easily, without even trying, even on your tummy! I also went to valley of the Moon where the land has been shaped by the wind and the rain over many years to look like craters on the moon and big dinosaur skeletons.

My jouney then took me through the salt flats of Uyuni in Bolivia, or the Salar de Uyuni. This is a huge lake of salt, over 12,000km squared. You can walk and even drive on the salt as it is 35m deep. It is very beautiful. There was an island in the middle, created in a volcanic eruption many years ago, it was covered in cactus plants! Really tall ones, over 3m (photo). I also the árbol de piedra´(see photo)which means tree made of stone, it was created by an ancient volcanic eruption.

I then went to the capital of Bolivia, La Paz, highest capital city in the world, it is a big, bustling, hectic and interesting city. As it is so high above sea level there is less oxygen in the air so you can get out of breath quite easily. There were demonstrations as there will be a political election here and people are unhappy with their government.

Now I have made it to a wee town called Copacabana which is on the edge of Lake Titicaca, the highest lake in the world. Half of the Lake is in Bolivia and the other half is in Peru. Tomorrow I go to an island on it called Isla del Sol. Soon I will cross the border into Peru and head to the town of Cusco to climb the Inca Trail to Macchu Picchu.