First off, I would like to introduce the third and final video we have created for Pisco Sin Fronteras: The Challenge. The idea was to challenge the wanabe volunteer, while also showing the diversity of the international people that come through PSF.
Take a look: (if you see a freaky looking Italian a couple of times and a wind swept English slangy Cornish girl.. we had to make up the numbers.. apparently..)

After one month of volunteering with PSF and putting together some videos, photography and helping out here and there with projects, it was time to get back on the road again.. It was sad saying goodbye to the cool and interesting people we had met, they had made our experience even more unique.


A quick jump in, jump out of Lima and we were back on course, heading north following the Peruvian coast. Spending our nights again in the sticks, the first night in particular was spent on a towering cliff top over looking a bay and the open ocean.. it was a lovely spot with nothing but dunes all around. We had parked reasonably close to the cliff edge on a slight angle which didn’t bother me at all until we were tucked in to sleep that night, waves were crashing into the rocks and it grew very dark, I suddenly felt very disorientated and all I could picture was the van sliding off the edge into sea… I felt like every movement might plunge me to my death! Not the best night sleep as you can guess…


At sunrise we drove on, the scenery stayed dry and dusty with desert dunes, sometimes mountainous, sometimes bumpy and flat. We were stopped by ‘every’ police officer along the way… which made the journey seem to take forever, (we should change the colour of the van to look like a taxibus!) but on the final one that got us, Betsy’s wouldn’t start up… when we turned the ignition it just clicked over.. this turned into 4 days living in a mechanics workshop in Truijjo, with replacing the ignition itself, which technically should have taken… hmm, around 3-4 hours! but we had to wait for the part to come in.


Around one week after, we were crossing into Ecuador. Greeted at the boarder with a warm welcome and given gifts?! That’s never happened before.. we instantly had a good impression about this country. It was clean, green and the people were so friendly. We stayed west passing banana fields and mountains until we entered into the national park where the land became blander in colour, but the ocean came back into view with stretches of golden beaches and restaurants perched along them. Throughout this part of the journey there was a slow but definite tapping sound when accelerating, coming from underneath the van, towards the drivers back wheel.. it grew worse as we progressed towards the capital city Quito, and the taps soon became bangs… hence Quito becoming part of our agenda..


The mechanic changed two parts on the back wheels before finding out, that wasn’t the problem and the banging was still there.. They figured it must be the gearbox! As you can imagine, we were pretty upset hearing this, and it would honestly be the last straw if we had to replace. The diagnosis on Betsy’s gear box was a gear piece had broken into bits and was clanging around inside the gear box, and is not exactly a straight forward piece to replace either, you can’t just pick up a new from a store.. We have three options, SELL! Replace the gear box, or replace the piece.. We don’t want to sell for obvious reasons and the last two options cost $1000 and more. We cant afford that kind of money, so the mechanic proposed to take the broken part to a specialist and ask them to copy the grooves and nooks into another piece we found, to make it fit.. $150. Plus mechanic fees. So, we’ve spent the last 10days and nights on curfew to be back at the workshop by 5:30pm for when they lock up and lock us in. 7ft walls surround us with broken glass shards sprinkled along its edges! At home we call this prison. We sleep in the van that’s perched up on jacks, waiting for this new part to come in.. All fingers and toes crossed that we are good to go by this wknd so Carlo can at least see his 30th birthday out of these four walls and perhaps within four walls of a nice bar? Sounds reasonable.
I think we’ll keep you posted on that one ;)

The "scary view" which kept Adele awake..

Those tires signs on the sand are Betsy's. She was looking to commit suicide.

Carlo is cooking while Adele is taking this picture. The world up-side-down

A lonely man lost in the.. wait, oh snap. That's a woman.

Well, this is pretty cool, isn't it?

The answer is: I have no bloody idea..

On the way out of Peru, breath...

Jungle and bananas

An incredible morning, waking up in front of the ocean after one of the really few dinner out just off the beach... Priceless.

Our prison

In case you missed it in the previous one

The one on the left is the ma*a*uc*er which broke. The other one is our $150.

A series of shots for Angus' (a friend met at PSF) upcoming album. He's not just an amazing carpenter. He's a great musican too. n.1

n.2

n.3&4

n.5

We have never experienced such a diverse way of living.. From sleeping in a mechanics workshop for a week! To waking to the crashing of the waves on a rocky shoreline, to star gazing into a vast expanse of crystal clear sky – showing all of the beautiful milky way in the southern hemisphere and Orion’s belt in the north. After days of driving through the Atacama desert, the driest desert on earth, being able to dreamily take a walk upon the Atacama Salar and hearing the snow like crunch under foot from the crystallized salt… with nothing else but pure silence.. An eerie silence that is actually able to make a buzzing noise to your eardrum.. Life’s really all about taking the good with the bad or the bad with the good.. depending.. for instance, the hell Betsy puts us through some days, the last week makes it all worth while and even thanks to all ’16′ (yep, I’m counting!) mechanics we have had the pleasure of meeting, Carlo has managed to pick up a few mechanic skills along the way! Which of course has already come in handy, many a time.. Especially now, as tomorrow we venture into a new country, Bolivia. We have to acclimatize to being several thousand meters above sea level in landlocked La Paz and lake Titicaca before making another crossing by April into Peru!

Another motor to fix and these two customers also stay the night..

The Burbs of Vina

Neighborhood up the hills of Vina Del Mar

La Pangue observatory in vicuna, where we had a private tour with an astrophysicist called Eric! Thanks again Eric!

Telescope with 40cm diameter lens to observe the night sky in Vicuna, to the west of La Serena

Southern hemisphere, Milky way. Among these stars we were told by Eric, is one very unstable star that is dying and is turning into a supernova! (Which of course has already happened.. your always looking into the past when studying the night sky) and we are due to see this transformation happen within our life time, the effect will be like a 2nd sun and bring constant daylight to the earth and our galaxy for a couple of weeks! Good to know I think?! Eric told us, nothing to worry about though...!

Northern hemisphere.. Orion's belt (the polar bear..) visible on left of observatory

Osvaldo the mechanic in Chanaral, again very kind and fixed the accelerator cable. The list goes on..

Portofino beach at sunset

Hills of the Atacama Desert

It really is the driest desert on earth.. We kept hoping to glimpse a prehistoric geoglyph in the hillsides, to keep us amused.. but nothing but desert hills

The creation of a 'twister' in the distance, not quite as bad as the twisters in the movie..

The Salar de Atacama. An untouched part at least..

All deserts have an oasis

Just before reaching our destination of Arica, at the end of the desert, a prehistoric geoglyph?

Modern geoglyphs.. The new frontier of advertising for Coca Cola

Looking forward..