Machu Pitcchu

Title – Machu Pitcchu
Date – October 2006
Location - Peru

Antipater of Sidon in the 2nd century BC made a list of the seven wonders in the world; none were far from the Greek capitol.

At Beyond The Blue we say “Antipater you missed a couple…”:

Angkor Wat, The Grand Canyon, The Great Barrier reef, Yogyakarta, Hagia Sophia, Mount Everest, The Serengeti, La Sagrada Familia, Angel Falls, Easter Island, Stonehenge, Rio Carnival, Victoria Falls, Glacier National Park, Heilala Festival, The Bay of Islands, Raffles Hotel, Table Mountain, The Skeleton Coast, The Northern Lights, Galapagos Islands, Sipidan Island, The Great Wall of China, The Haj, Uluru, Venice, The Taj Mahal, The Amazon River & Rainforest, Yap, Lake Titicaca, Necker Island, The Trans Siberian Express, St Petersburg, Mount Kilimanjaro, The Garden Route – South Africa, Halong Bay, The Pacific Coast Highway – USA, Lake Baikal, The Gobi Desert, Lhasa, Kodiak Island………

……….need I go on?

Oh….. and Machu Pitcchu

Our Gap Year and Independent Travel Safety & Awareness workshop allows those attending to draw up their own list with and with a little bit of help from us, to travel to their chosen destination with confidence and return home safely.

Please visit our website at www.safegapyear.com

Image – ©Heather Spalton

Salt Flats

Title – Salt Flats
Date – October 2006
Location - Bolivia

Yes this is a picture of a place on this planet.

Yes it is very possible to visit this location.

Yes you can.

At Beyond The Blue we don’t believe in insurmountable barriers; we believe barriers can be climbed, worked around and broken down. Our Gap Year and Independent Travel Safety & Awareness workshop can help you get wherever you choose.

Please visit our website at www.safegapyear.com

Image – © Heather Spalton

Alien World

Title – Alien World
Date – October 2006
Location - Bolivia

Bolivia’s massive salt flats leave you with the feeling of having visited another planet. The largest of the salt flats Salar de Uyuni is with its 4,085 square miles (10,582 square km) the largest in the world and roughly half the size of Wales.

This salt flat is used by the locals to collect and harvest the salt, an activity that in many places is still entirely done by hand without the help of heavy machinery. But with these harvests taking some 25,000 tonnes out of the flats every year, how long is it before the flats disappear completely?

Fortunately Salar de Uyuni alone holds some estimated 10 billion tonnes of salt meaning that the flats are set to be there for several hundred more years.

When travelling there always someone to tell you how good a place was when they visited it 10 years ago and how places have been spoilt in the last 5 years. There is no doubt the world is changing quickly, but like the salt flats, amazing sights are going to be available to the intrepid traveller for many, many, more years.

Beyond The Blue run workshops to help people explore a world that still has many secrets to reveal and our Gap Year and Independent Travel Safety & Awareness workshops are designed to teach individuals both the skills required to travel, as well as the ideal destination for their experience levels and personal preferences.

Please visit our website at www.safegapyear.com

Image – © Heather Spalton

The Andes

Title – The Andes
Date – October 2006
Location - Peru

The Andes is one of the world’s great mountain ranges and runs the length of South America’s west coast, for some 4,500 miles and up to 300 miles wide, making it the longest mountain range in the world. With the highest peak rising to 22,841 feet (6,962m), Aconcagua is the highest mountain outside of Asia.

With the average height of the Andes being above 13,000 feet (4000m) altitude sickness should be a real concern to everyone travelling in this part of the world.

It is not thought that altitude sickness is related to age, gender or physical fitness, although fitness will certainly help you overcome it more quickly. With high altitude defined as above 8000 feet (2400m), very high altitude as above 12,000 feet (3650m) and extreme high altitude 18,000 feet (5,500m), much of the Andes would fall within the very high altitude bracket. There is no full proof rule to avoiding altitude sickness and it can affect anyone at any height. The symptoms include; headache, nausea, vomiting, dizziness, loss of appetite, fatigue, shortness of breath, disturbed sleep, general feeling of malaise, decreased co-ordination (ataxia), confusion, tightness in the chest, and a persistent cough bringing up white, watery, or frothy fluid, confusion, and irrational behaviour.

The best way to avoid altitude sickness is to slow your accent rate when hiking, to avoid reaching heights quickly and rest to acclimatise at regular intervals. To treat it, sever cases should seek medical attention, but the first thing to do is descend a minimum of 300m and at least 600m for more severe cases, but generally descend as much as you can. In the milder cases this descent alone will eventually lead to the symptoms slowly disappearing.

Beyond The Blue was created on the basis that prevention is better then a cure and through our Gap Year and Independent Travel Safety & Awareness workshop we help individuals planning trip to a new part of the world to prepare properly for both the exciting experiences as well as those that would be better avoided. We also examine the subject of Travel Health and what to do in the case of an emergency.

Please visit our website at www.safegapyear.com

Image – © Heather Spalton

Roast Guinea Pig

Title – Roast Guinea Pig
Date – October 2006
Location - Peru

Guinea Pigs in the UK are usually the cute furry little kid’s pets that spend all day running pointlessly round a wheel in a small cage.

In Peru the Guinea Pig is more likely to be seen roasting on a spit in one of the countries many restaurants serving this local speciality. It is by no means a side dish or curiosity, with over 65,000,000 Guinea Pigs being consumed every year it really is part of the stable diet; served in a variety of dishes the taste (as everything seems to) is much like rabbit / chicken.

Trying something new is very much part of the travel experience, for many the travel experience alone is a new experience and some of these other new experiences along the way, are a step too far. Beyond The Blue run workshops to help individuals to make the most of their planned journeys. With the help of our Gap Year and Independent Travel Safety & Awareness workshop you can embrace the new experiences and choose for yourself, exactly how far you want to take them.

Please visit our website at www.safegapyear.com

Image – © Heather Spalton