Here’s some photos on Flickr from our camping trip to Cornwall:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/paulandbecs/sets/72157600937723721/
Of special mention is this little video of Peter limbering up for the water:
Hilarious little video to go along with Daft Punk’s Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2cYWfq–Nw
We bought a Wii on Sunday. I’m not into gaming but the ingenuity of the Wii Remote controller and “Nunchuk” got me curious and, as they are relatively cheap, decided to buy one.
They are great fun =) Only got some basic games (Wii Sports and Wii Play) to start with – however these include boxing and tennis, which you play standing up using the controller like a tennis raquet or holding in your fist during the boxing. It’s energetic and the game play is excellent.
Here’s a video of Katia knocking someone cold in the boxing. More vids coming up soon. Unfortunately the one of Jon seems to have been deleted, not sure how!
Paul.
Hurrah for Google’s caching!!! It’s cached almost every post we’ve ever made! I will be copying the text over and repopulating the blog over the next few days. Meanwhile, take a look at this lovely link and click on the Cached link:
Phew!
EDIT 15/06: All content copied over. I have now worked out how easy it is to back up the database so will be doing so regularly.
Paul.
Hi everyone
This morning I received the following email from Web Mania, the people that I use to host our web site:
Unfortunately an attacker has been able to gain access to server 18 by using an exploit in a php script that was installed on a users website.
As a result they used the exploit to gain access to the server and delete databases from the server.
If you have been using a database, we would ask that you check your website and if necessary replace the database with a copy.
Unfortunately we do not take backups of user data, so we are not able to do this for you.
We have now reset all the mysql user permissions on the server and would also ask that you check any third party scripts that you have on your website to ensure you have the most recent versions.
If you run into trouble in trying to get your own backup restored, please let us know and we will do our best to assist.
We apologise for the inconvenience.
From the team at Web Mania
I didn’t realise that I needed to take back ups, so EVERYTHING that we wrote whilst we were travelling has GONE.
As you can imagine, we’re a bit upset.
Paul.
This yummy, hot and tangy soup is zero rated on the Weight Watchers scale. It’s also incredibly easy to make.
Sweat the peppers, onion and garlic in a covered pan over a low heat until softened – about 10mins. Stir in the tomato puree and chilli; add the stock. Transfer the whole lot to the processor and whizz until smooth. Add more stock if required. Just before serving, stir in the lime juice and rind.
After extolling the virtues of the Pisco sour upon my introduction to them in Chile, I have been meaning to put up the recipe for them.
First, though, it seems that getting Pisco in the UK might be tricky. I’ve tried in a couple of off licenses now (Thresher and Oddbins) and neither stock it. I’m not sure if this will be true of all Oddbins so I will keep hunting.
EDIT: googled some here although it’s v expensive.
In the meantime I will need to eke out the small bottle that, despite the best efforts of Madrid Airport’s delightful security, I was able to being back from Lima.
If you have Pisco, the rest of the ingredients are very easy to get and the whole thing can simply be whizzed up in a food processor in seconds.
Ingredients
60 ml (2 oz) pisco brandy
30ml (1 oz) fresh lemon/lime juice
10ml (1/4 oz) simple syrup (ie sugar dissolved in water)
1/2 egg white (more makes it v frothy and it’s not the same drink with none)
1 dash Angostura bitters
Preparation
1. Beat the egg white and sugar in a blender
2. Add pisco, lime juice, ice
3. Blend more and pour into glasses. Decorate with a dash of bitters.
We’ve been back for just over a week now. It’s been a little mad as in that time there’s been Charlotte’s wedding (more on that in another post), we’ve both managed to find jobs, bought a car, and come up to Newcastle to sell the house! I’m at Richard’s (Becs’ Dad) house whilst writing this.
We haven’t really had time to stop and think and reflect on the trip, which has meant that it seems like we never really went away, let alone for six months. I’m hoping that we do get some time to relax and go over the trip. Last night we visited the house which was a bit strange; we thought that we’d feel like moving back in but, because there’s none of of our stuff there, it didn’t really feel like our house.
Luckily I have had time to go through our Peru photos. These have now been uploaded to Flickr. So please take a look.
Hello everyone – if there is anyone left still reading this!
As we are nearly at the end of the trip, we thought we had better write something about Peru, so here goes!
Well, getting to Peru was a bizarre experience. We went overland from Arica in Chile to Tacna. On arrival to the bus terminal in Arica, we were met by numerous collectivo (taxi) drivers bidding for our business to take us to Peru. The guy we picked was pretty gruff, but he whisked us efficiently into the office to pay – then we saw his car! A massive and very old Ford complete with red fur seat covers, dashboard cover, and wait for it….a red fur-lined ceiling inside! Of course he drove very fast and played terrible techno music very loud all the way to Peru! That said, he did get us across very quickly and made sure we stood in all the right queues with our passports.
We immediately flew from Tacna to Lima nad then Cusco – this involved spending many hour in the middle of the night lying on the cold tiled floor in Lima airport – not recommended!
Things looked up considerably when we arrived at Cusco airport and Zoe and Steve (from Australia) approached us to see if we wanted to share a taxi. Big hello to Zoe and Steve! They seemed far more with it than us, and made sure we didn’t pay too much for the taxi. Anyway, more about them later as we continued to meet up and go places.
Cusco is really nice, if a bit nippy at night. Hmmm my time is running out so I will have to continue tomorrow! We are staying in a place that limits internet access – a place that feels like a ghost hotel in the middle of nowhere – it is pretty weird – and to top it all we are booked in two nights – aaarghh – BUT we should see some boobies (birds), penguins and sea lions tomorrow so hopefully that will make up for it! Then we will be back to Lima for our last night and day before the long journey home.
Looking forward to seeing you all!
Over the last week or so we’ve been to the driest place in the world (Atacama desert) and also the highest we’ve ever been (Parque Nacional Lauca – 4750m).
It was a bit of a change going from the wet and windy Rapa Nui to the barren and arid San Pedro de Atacama. The Atacama desert stretches over almost all of northern Chile and, because of a constant high pressure over the sea, it almost never rains. San Pedro is near the Andes and so nearby there are mountains, volcanoes and geothermal areas. It was a bit of whistle stop tour but in three days we’d been to the Valley of the Moon, taken a day tour to Lake/Volcano Miniques, spent a few hours star gazing through a Frenchmen telescopes and seen the El Tatio geyser field. Take a look at the photos!
I’m writing this in Arica, which is the northern-most city in Chile, just back from a 4 day tour to the Parque Nacional Lauca which is in the midst of the altiplano of the Andes. There were 6 of us on the trip, 4 of whom were from Belgium (hi to Inge, Brecht, Marc and Pia). We didn’t go below 3500m the entire trip, with 4750m being the highest point we reached. The scenery is spectacular, with barren basins and salt lakes framed by 6000m + mountains and active volcanoes. Becs wanted to take home a vizcacha (chinchilla that looks just like a rabbit), and we also saw plenty of the camelids – llamas, vicunas, guanacos and alpacas – as well as flamingoes, Andean condors (sorry no photos), woodpeckers and turkey vultures.
Or click here for the ones of San Pedro and Parque Nacional Lauca.
Next stop is Peru, where we’re staying for some time in Cusco as well as taking a trip into the Amazon jungle.
