Moving offices

Back on the road again.
I was supposed to be in Mexico now, traveling, but just coming back from guiding a trip in Madagascar I got asked to guide a trip to Peru and a trip to Cuba, for Joker travel. After some reflexion I decided to go for it so that I could visit Annelies in Lima and to keep my travel costs down, so I cancelled my Mexico flight (at a cost of 100 Euro) and flew to Lima. Just two days ago Joker finally took a decision about the Cuba trip and say that they found somene else from within the company who will guide the Cuba trip. Mother........s!!!!! Why ask in the first place if you don't want someone from out of the company to guide that trip???

Anyway, now I have time to travel till January 14 and I am in the process of deciding where to go after guiding the Peru trip which will start tomorrow evening and last till nov. 22. So, here are my options:

1. fly to Iquitos and travel all the way down the Amazon to Manaus and Belem and then head to some nice beaches. This trip is long, uncomfortable boat travel - sleeping in hammocks - and might seem boring but I think it could be a real adventure and great to be relaxing in my hammock with some good books. Also this is the hot weather option, which I love, and it is BRASIL :-)

2. head South from Peru and travel through Chile and Argentina to Patagonia. This is the cold weather option (at least down South) but must be beautiful!

So far I am balancing more towards option 1 but I still have some weeks to think about it.

So, since being in Lima I have mainly been hanging out at Annelies' place and helping her out with moving the office to Cusco as she will also start providing Inka Trail treks. So, on Friday we dismantled the Lima office, shipped the big things to Cusco and flew there ourselves on Saturday morning (VERY EARLY) with lots and lots of bags full of sleeping bags, mattrasses and also some boxes with computer, printer etc. Then we spent 2 days taking taxi's around Cusco (never been that much in taxi's in my life all together) to shop shop shop shop... From plastic plates, cuttlery, wash basins etc for the inca trail, racks to put all the stuff on, bunk beds, matrasses, blankets, etc for people staying over in the Cusco office and then finally when the big stuff arrived from Lima we put the desks and racks together. Sunday night the new office was installed and we were ready for a good party at Mama Africa. Mama Africa is a dangerous place, it is hard to get out early and sober so eventually, as we had a 6am flight again we arrived back in Lima more zombie like than human.

Now I still have a day to get ready for my group to arrive. Still have some stuff to do as Joker travel doesn't book anything in advance, so all hotels, tours, busses etc still have to be arranged by the tour leader who normally never gets payed (I am an exception - as I am anti voluntary work for a company that makes profit).

In a seperate post I will try to put some pictures from last weekend. Annelies doesn't have internet right now so I have to use a weak signal from someone elses network so I am not sure if uploading the pictures will work.

Keep an eye on the blog as I will be posting more in the next months!