Friendly farewell drinkies...

For our friends we have a preception of our own for you!

Please come to our wedding celebration and farewell drinks

at the Nude Bar,

Australian Youth Hotel 19th December 2009

from 6pm

and remain clothed

RSVP for Machu Picchu trek ~ pronto pronto!

Machu Picchu ~ splendour awaits. As the sun rises, our eyes will reflect on the incredible, sacred city.

Adventurers, send on your exact name and passport number if you are joining us on one of our three trek options. Casey and I will be going on option one: the four day, three night trek.

We will need your information before December 19th if you'd like us to organise this through the Garden House for you.

HENS - Ideas, ideas...

Heya, this is an excerpt taken from my hens email string - if you're not on it and would like to be let me know so you can get involved!

I've had most people say they are starting their trip at the start of the hens which is roughly from the Friday 26th March - Wednesday 31st March (Check our blog here)

This gives us about 6 days to play with so I must narrow my big balloon ideas down to something more.... relaxing!

What to do...?

Here's what I suggest if we're to continue with Lima > Arequipa > Lake Titicaca > Cusco:

• If people would like to fly into Lima they meet me one or two days earlier than the 26th and we bus it to Arequipa. We meet everyone else in Arequipa (26th) if they get a connecting flight as part of their ticket or book it separately (LAN fly about $180 US one way Lima > Arequipa; $265 US return)
• We spend the weekend partying and sight seeing in Arequipa / Colca Canyon, then on Monday (29th) pack up and head to Lake Titicaca - Puno. Stay overnight?
  
• From Puno, we get a train (forums are saying around $220 US???) or a bus (Inka Express is around $50 US, with stops, food and coffee; Local bus is around $8-10 US - Thorntree Forums) up to Cusco.

Otherwise, the other option is pretty much what the boys are doing - Lima > Cusco
It would be good to do something different, but I know this is good value for everyone and there's lots to see and lots of fun to be had with you lot!! I'm sure what we plan is likely to be slightly different to them :)

• Meet in Lima 26th March and spend the weekend in the Lima surrounds - must look into in more detail.
• Head up to Cusco, by plane (today I checked Star Peru for our dates and it was $152 US return Lima - Cusco) or bus - the road between Lima and Cusco is a little scary, 20 hrs roughly $60AU - we can try and split this journey and stop on the way up the mountains; check out Thorntree
• Make it to the Festival of the Lord of Tremors in Cusco and check out the party capital of Peru whilst also visiting sites such as The Sacred Valley

This blog has a good rundown of the three places in Peru we've been talking about: Lima, Arequipa and Cusco

Also, I will definitely be starting from Lima for those already booking flights. There is currently a sale on which ends 27th November through Qantas. We have a friend you can contact Kylie from Flight Centre or let me know if you get a good quote elsewhere as we have people asking all the time :)

Still alot to discuss about post wedding, but hands up if you're interested and we'll start a separate email train for that so we can get the boys involved too. Alot of talk about heading up the North coast of Peru's beached to see places like Mancora and then onto either Ecuador or Columbia.

We are leaving iin 5 weeks peeps!!!!

Buenos Noches,

popopo

xoxo

We Love Bears!

After our wedding in May, Portia and Casey will be doing 5 weeks of volunteer work.

We have decided to invest our time in trying to save the Andean Bear. Basically it will involve setting up in a remote village in Ecuador, doing lots of hiking, tracking bears, some video work for Casey, and maybe some teaching for Po.

If anyone else has the spare time you should volunteer with us. Their website is;
http://www.andeanbear.org/index.html

We will be there from the 3rd of May to the 6th of June.



Bears are awesome.

Steve's Post Wedding Adventures In the Ol' US of A

Hey all.

One of our favourite wedding guests (Steven John Pack) will be heading to the US after the wedding and was wondering if anyone else was interested in joining him. He wants to do a driving trip that will encompass LA, Las Vegas, the Grand Canyon, and Yosemite National Park from the 17th of April to the 29th. Probably involving hiking and/or trekking.

For those of you who are not familiar with Steve he is a very responsible and respectable young man as the attached picture shows.



Please enjoy Steve responsibly.

¿Tiene usted alguna pregunta?

Or do you have any questions? We would like to answer any you may have here!

Rough itinerary and dates to aim for

For people planning to come to the hens and bucks week prior to the wedding, we'll most likely be traveling on these dates.

Hens and bucks - 26the - 31st March 2010

Cusco - 1st - 4th April 2010

We can fit 18 people in Garden house from the 2nd - 4th April and we've booked the villa out for us and us alone for three whole days!

Machu Picchu trek begins on 5th April and ends back in Cusco on the 8th April 2010

From here, we need suggestions on where you want to go! Case and I were thinking of going North into Ecuador and possibly Columbia for the adventurous!

Po
xx