Well our friendly folk - cant wait to see some photos and have enjoyed the emails greatly. Especially whne at work and watching the rain altough not convinced of this technological business of web posting I shall try anyhow.

It would not be real travelling if you didnt have atleast a few bouts of food poisnoning.... just think a few other things to come;
- realise no film in camera or forgot to insert card
- loose keys to hostel
- miss train

Well has been reasonably quiet here to be honest. Would imagine it is partly down to the post xmas its freezing winter thing.... have spent a few hours recently in a warm environemnt as RM knows well and have been pondering the years travel which should be good. Although for all our planning is going to be a busy old year trying to fit it all in. Both our families are over, have 3-4 weddings as well as 2 sets of friends coming to visit.

Lookin forward to you next adventures - big up respect from the crew..... DJ

Greetings from Peru

Contrary to popular opinion, we think Lima is quite nice so far - lovely hostal - this said we haven't seen a huge amount of it as yet as we are once again struck down with food poisoning. We spent poor old Rich's birthday in varying states of unwellness and are still recovering today so must again take it a bit easy.

We had only just recovered from the last bout which we experienced in the tourist hellhole that is Playa del Carmen, from eating healthy bread from WallMart - the injustice of it all!!!! So we saw Playa del Carmen mainly from our room, thankfully it had it's own facilities..... I won't elaborate. When we did feel a bit better and ventured down to the beach it was like visiting another planet, 3 giant spaceship type cruise ships were looming just offshore it was all very eerie. So a bit of a crap end to our Mexican travels but we had been spoilt everywhere else we went so no bother really.

We leave Lima tomorrow for Cuzco, we managed to sneak onto the last tour of the season - they shut down for February - so thought it best to get there quick and recover properly and acclimatise to the altitude cos Rich had some problems with this in Mexico City, so we fly off there in the morning and hope we feel better by then.

So we'll bid you farewell for now, take care all.
Love Julia and Rich

Hi once again all. Just a quick one to let you know that we`ve landed in Peru and have spent the day wandering around Lima, which is a very nice city. No sightings of Paddington yet - perhaps we need to go deeper into some darker bars... I seem to be fully up to date with e-mails now thanks - don`t know what happened with all that. Anyway, love to all and will be in touch soon.

Hola, brave young spirits ! Just to let you know that we did indeed receive your birthday e-mail for Grandma and also your e-mail dated 18 Jan telling us you were in Playa Del Carmen recovering from probable food poisoning.Did you receive my reply in which I prattled on about moving boxes? I hope this will help you work out whether you are having any problems with your e-mail. Congratulations on the Residency ! I'm sure Mum is already planning visits/holidays in NZ ! Have a great time in Peru.Take care of each other. All my love,Dad/John.

Well well our intrepid explorers!! Off to deepest darkest Peru eh? Can you please get me a Paddington Bear and some honey please please pretty please! My Mums cat at my last Paddington Bear and hence I have been grieving for years and years.

Good to hear that the sun is giving you a good thrashing. The big news over here is that Glasgow - yes Glasgow is the centre of the UK for sun beds and little oik children have been skiving off skool to go and got hot and tanned (they don't seem to realise the teachers are brighter than they seem!) And so to fix the problem - the PE teacher invited a 'Fake Tan' company along to teach the wee kiddies the problems that the bright and Beautiful white light inside the sun bed can cause. Its a bit hit in Scotland!!

So maybe you too should take along your fake tan into the jungle and maybe you can find Paddington having a beer in the bar eh??

And so you can see thats its not actually been that exciting but now less than two weeks till we head to NZ (who knows if we will make it back) and take on the advise of the Scottish and look for the fake tan. In fact I have a book called 'Phaic Tan' which is a piss take of a travel guide - maybe you should read it for some great tips.

Well have a nice time and climb Machu Picchu and tell us all about it. Watch out for the food poisoning and the giant eagles that carry wee travellers away from the mountain, after all thats why noone lives there anymore!

Ciao for now

Love Dave and Rhian
PS Why is there a problem with your visa after all this effort?

Hi folks. Just a quick one this time as there is not really much more news to relate other than a brief bout of food poisoning, which has thankfully now passed. Mum, Dad and Jen - I´ve sent you all several e-mails recently but you don´t appear to have received them. It seems that I´m not receiving yours either, as I only found out from Monsieur Lambert today that NZ Immigration have made the monumental error of granting me residency (Dave told Jen over Xmas about this..!) Anyway, I´m going to see what I can sort out but in the meantime, any correspondence I´ll put on this site. All that aside, we´re back in Mexico at the moment as we fly out from Cancun to Peru tomorrow, which we´re of course looking forward to. Take care all, and will be in touch again soon...

Hi Ric and Hoolie (and Everyone Else, if you're interested!)
Why you back in Mexico? You bin there already! Silly things! Sounds great, as ever. Not writing for long as I'm (Ma, that is) going to Scotland tomorrow. You see - you're not the only intrepid ones in the family. Think of me and weep - battling my way through the Highlands, doing my best to avoid men in SKIRTS, knee deep in water and mud. Should be great... Will write you a proper email when I get back. Pa is looking at the map and says you are opposite Jamaica. Is this significant? Does anybody care?
Night night one and all. Sleep tight and stay safe.XXXX

Greetings again to you all !

Thanks for all your e-mails over the last few days - it´s always good to hear intriguing tales of the various going-ons across fair old Blighty. As for updates, I beieve it´s high-time we brought you up to speed on our recent adventures and current where-abouts, so if you´re all seated comfortably in a leather wing-back chair with a glass of sherry, then I shall begin...

As you all know from my dear wife´s most recent electronic correspondence, we had a particularly splendid time wading through cold water to look at dead people in a cave in San Ignacio, Belize. The following day, we ventured just up the road to be led on a short foray into the local woods to learn about the numerous herbal remedies which the Maya developed before they were ruthlessly slaughtered and opressed by the dastardly Spaniards (shame they didn´t have a royal navy to give the Spics a dashed good bloody nose, what !) Amongst many ailments and afflictions which they could cure using mother nature´s great dispensary was flatulence. I was initially taken aback to hear that this was deemed a problem when compared to broken limbs and venomous bites (feckin spiders), but upon reflection of the sizeable quantities of rice and beans which the natives consume to this very day, I realised that this was in fact a problem which was most likely more deadly than the spears of johnny-foreigner. Anyway, with this monumental conumdrum satisfactorally concluded, we pressed on to the local iguana sanctuary, where we were able to observe and hold some of these spectacular lizards. As far as I know they were not used for any natural remedy.....though I did wonder whether they could have been gutted and used as a cure for cold feet.

Having had a dashed ripping jaunt all over Belize, we decided that it might be rather prudent to venture across the border into Guatemala seeing as we were in the neighbourhood. So it was that with no further ado, we journeyed to a town called Flores which is situated in the middle of a lake. Not under the water, but on an island of sorts, handily connected to the mainland by a causeway. It was from here that we struck out to Tikal national park to visit the famous ruined temples in the middle of the tropical jungle. I can quite honestly say that I have never been anywhere quite so awe-inspiring in my life. The sight of towering temples protruding majestically through the jungle canopy was nothing short of wonderous. It was especially enjoyable when, having climbed to the top of one of these stone architectural behemouths, we spotted and heard rain approaching and had to scramble back down before we were caught in it on high. Thankfully, we got down just in time to get just as drenched on the ground as we would have done on the top of the temple. Hey ho...

As for our location now, we are in Tulum in Mexico. There are ruins of another ancient temple on top of the cliffs, looking out to sea. We visited these this morning, and promptly took the opportunity to get sun burnt at the beach afterwards (it being quite some time since we had last done this, and we were pleased to see that we had not learned from our last battle of sun vs skin). And so it is that I find myself glowing in front of a computer monitor and reating our glad tidings to you all.

I hope all is still well, and please accept my sincerest apologies for not replying to your individual e-mails. This is due to the fact that quite honestly I´ve been altogether too busy drinking cheap lager...

Very best regards,

Rich and Hoolie.

Hmmm - a mong. Well, a true demonstration of 'mong-ness' can be witnessed by trawling through the photo archives untl you come across one of Richard "doing the Clyde". These symptoms may appear peculiar but are simply friendly gestures that a mongoid may display from time to time. Usually the mongman will start an evening by exercising his range of movement, more commonly known as 'strutting his funky stuff' and then end up at 2am with a rubber chicken on his head! Happy new year to everyone, all the best to Rich and Julia, and congrats to Jen & Steve! Love, Lee & Lynds xx

Hi everyone!! Sorry, but we're the older generation...what's a Mong??!! Is the wee boy we nurtured so carefully for ALL those years truly something that sounds so strange? Our Ric strange? NOOO! Hope you all had a good New Year and having fun back at work. We lie in bed of a morning listening to all those commuters driving past our snug little cottage, then take a leisurely breakfast in the conservatory.....there are some compensations for encroaching old age.
Think this is a brill idea and was such fun to find on a dark and rainy afternoon. Well done Dave. Our best love to Ric and Hoolie, and to the newly engaged couple Jen and Steve. I'll leave it to you to contact them for the romantic details.Stay safe, travellers, and have the fun we wish we were having!

Hi everyone ! Thanks for all your e-mails and messages over Xmas. I know Hoolie's just beaten me yet again to sending out the group e-mail so I'll keep this brief. Have just looked at the added photos (cheers to contributors and Webbmaster alike) and they all make us both giggle and think of you all. Glad you all had a great christmas, and trust that you will see in 2006 in suitably drunken style. Apart from that, rest assured that we are still mongs and are still on tour......oh dear.... Oh yeah - being the mongs we are, we can't get the photos from our camera and onto the interweb - they're currently sat on a CD in Hoolie's rucsack. As soon as we've figured out what the f***'s going on, we'll post them here - just don't hold your breath. Retardedly yours, Rich and Hoolie xxx

Hello our merry tricksters!
Christams Eve today and we're about to nick off to my parents. Looking forward to blobin' out big time! Busy been trying to think of some silly Christmas games to play...haven't really been that inspired but probably because the Xmas grog hasn't been consumed yet! How about your Xmas grog? Tequilas-on-the-beach all round no doubt. Yum, we'll be thinking of you guys- hopefully Ricardo will have a gringo beard and hat and scaring the fish with his Mexican Santa impression.

Hey gringos!! I have a fantastic 11 days away from the grind and will be lapping it all up on the sofa or something like that. They reckon there will be heavy snow storms on Tuesday so fits in with the plans fine. A big merry xmas to you both and to Lee and Lyndsey and Steve and Jen and the crew in Londres - Tara, Spanna and Gary, Dave and Jay etc... and Jen - If you or anyone else wants to forward any drunken photies to me at [email protected], I will put them up for all of us and Hoolie and Rich to see.

Got an email from Jane - shes off to spend time with Rob and Con and Mikey for the xmas break - sure she'll have a good one.

Big fat Merry Xmas and enjoy the tequillas

Love Dave and Rhian (The two dudes)

PS Placed some pics of your going wawy on the site - enjoy!