Saturday, December 22, 2007
2007 - the best bits
Its been a really hectic but fun year so just going to make a quick note of all the best bits before we forget what we did.
Hiking
Did some fantastic hikes this year. Here´s some of the best.
Sport
Hiking
Did some fantastic hikes this year. Here´s some of the best.
- Road trip from Brisbane to Sydney after Xmas. Visited, camped and did lots of day walks in Border Ranges NP, Girraween NP, Bald Rock NP, Washpool NP and Gibraltar Range NP despite finding the only rain and cold weather in all of Australia which was in the grip of drought.
- Kosciusko 3 day hike with Matt on Australia day weekend. Fantastic loop walk starting at the power station near Charlotte´s pass, camped near Jagungal, climbed it next day, camped near Valentine Falls (it was freezing there) and then also bagged another 2 mountains over 2000m but cant remember which ones
- Corang Peak, Budawangs 2 day hike with us, Matt, Laura and Bridget in February. Camped in a cave, beautiful walk with some lovely creek swimming, views and a little bit of bashing (think Laura and Bridget´s opinion is slightly different on this walk)
- Mt Anne Circuit, South West Tasmania with Matt. 3 day turned into 4 day hike (start of April, easter). Very heavy rain and mist on the first day, heavy rain on 2nd day but intermittent clear spells allowed us see some fantastic views. 3rd day over the ridge towards Mt Anne was also cloudy, very cold and one of the hardest days I have ever done with plenty treacherous edges, boulder hopping and clambering. Made it to the hut before dark so saved the last 2 hours back to the car for the next day. Dinner on vegimite, tea and limited stake bread. Delightful ;) end but what a walk.
- Walls of Jereusaleum, Tasmania. Super 5 day hike with Matt. Easy going, fab views, cold at night tho, the eastern spotted quolls stoll the show.
- Cradle Mountain day walk with Matt. Not a cloud in the sky, perfect day after a brilliant week in Tasmania.
- 3 peaks in 48 hours, Kanangra-Boyd NP in June with Matt. About 80-90kms, 5kms of ascents and descents up and down Cloudmaker, Paralyser (very apt name) and Guouogang, 3 hours sleep on the 1st night, 10 on the 2nd night, many mental and physical highs and lows. Highly recommended. Still managed to play football on the sunday, the day after we finished.
- Central Australia (August) with Matt, Ian and Debbie. Lots of day walks including around Ayers Rock, the Olgas, Kings Canyon (awesome), Mount Sonder, Ormiston Gorge (stunning) plus lots of other canyon
- Inca Trail. See the october blog for that one.
Sport
- Had a fantastic season playing and training (and drinking) with Waverly Old Boys and winning the league and cup double with the SW1s. Wahooo.
- Rogaining (with Matt). Did a 24 hour in April in the Turon Gold Rush. Did pretty well and came 5th in our category. Very hilly course with lots of knee pain afterwards (and during). Matt had to encourage me lots on the last hill of the day as I refused to beleive or want to walk up another bloody hill. Also did a 24 hour in Central Australia in the Eastern McDonnell Ranges which was the Australian Championships. Think we came 20th overall (out of 100+ teams), but stuffed up somewhere during the night so didn´t do as well as we wanted. Was an amazing course tho with fab scenery, canyons, desert, wildlife etc.
- Mountain biking - did some good rides around Sydney
- Horse riding - Dunk learnt how not to take corners ;)
- finishing work for 6 months in august
- Mik and Shannon´s wedding
- Tara and Colins wedding (and gate crashing their honeymoon)
- trip to Ireland in Sept (and catching everyone there)
- lots of trips with Dunk´s family (to Canberra, Brisbane, Maleny, Tassie, etc)
- did I mention not working since August
- leaving Sydney (this was very sad for us thou saying good bye to all our buddies there)
- obviously all our travels in South America
Thursday, December 20, 2007
Buenos Aires
After another long 17 hour bus journey, arrived into BA at 5.30am about 2 hours before schedule. Decided to find a cafe to hang out for a couple of hours before waking me auntie up a more respectable 8 or 9am! Its a strange first impression of a city when you arrive just before everyone wakes up and nothing is open but once we eventually found coffee and fresh croissants we were much happier.
Phoned Helen at a decent hour an turns out she´d been awake all morning anyways as her visitors had an early flight to catch - doh! She has a fantastic (seriously its cool!) 2 bed colonial apt in San Telmo right in the heart of the city. The apt is really fab, high ceilings, huge rooms, plenty room and really feels like we´re living a couple of centuries ago (except for the tv, nice kitchen!). Spent the last 2 days sorting out things for heading to Patagonia after xmas so been a bit stressed (I can feel waves of sympathy from ya here) altho its helped that we been eating like royalty. The food here is by far and away the best so far .. anything we have eaten in the trip so far doesn´t even register compared to here. The meat is incredible (melt in the mouth), coffee (caffeine high and associated Grace shakes and hyperness here for the next 7 days - poor Dunk!), chocolate - REAL chocolate (I´m fattening like mad - its great, I can leave the belt off now), fresh food (ahhh I love salads and fruit!), and alcohol. Ok wine is so cheap its stupid. We got a decent bottle for 3 euros last night. Beer is 80 cents (euros) per litre ... its cheaper then bottled water.
Also the city is lovely, people are sooo friendly, welcoming and delighted to see tourists, great parks and architecture, if you liked shopping you´d be in heaven so think we´re going to be very happy for xmas!! The next week promises to be just food glorious food and beer and wine and coffee and of course chocolate!! We´re staying til the 28th and then off to Bariloche for a night before crossing to Puerto Montt in Chile. Plan is 6 weeks hiking and bussing down the Carretas Austral, then back into Argentian Patagonia.
Hope you all have a wonderful festive season. Email me if you want a number to catch us on over the hols!
Phoned Helen at a decent hour an turns out she´d been awake all morning anyways as her visitors had an early flight to catch - doh! She has a fantastic (seriously its cool!) 2 bed colonial apt in San Telmo right in the heart of the city. The apt is really fab, high ceilings, huge rooms, plenty room and really feels like we´re living a couple of centuries ago (except for the tv, nice kitchen!). Spent the last 2 days sorting out things for heading to Patagonia after xmas so been a bit stressed (I can feel waves of sympathy from ya here) altho its helped that we been eating like royalty. The food here is by far and away the best so far .. anything we have eaten in the trip so far doesn´t even register compared to here. The meat is incredible (melt in the mouth), coffee (caffeine high and associated Grace shakes and hyperness here for the next 7 days - poor Dunk!), chocolate - REAL chocolate (I´m fattening like mad - its great, I can leave the belt off now), fresh food (ahhh I love salads and fruit!), and alcohol. Ok wine is so cheap its stupid. We got a decent bottle for 3 euros last night. Beer is 80 cents (euros) per litre ... its cheaper then bottled water.
Also the city is lovely, people are sooo friendly, welcoming and delighted to see tourists, great parks and architecture, if you liked shopping you´d be in heaven so think we´re going to be very happy for xmas!! The next week promises to be just food glorious food and beer and wine and coffee and of course chocolate!! We´re staying til the 28th and then off to Bariloche for a night before crossing to Puerto Montt in Chile. Plan is 6 weeks hiking and bussing down the Carretas Austral, then back into Argentian Patagonia.
Hope you all have a wonderful festive season. Email me if you want a number to catch us on over the hols!
Iguazu Falls
From Miranda we headed to Foz Do Iguazu and the straight across the border to the Argentian town of Puerto Iguazu. After the 24 hour trip from Miranda to Foz Do Iguazu we ran out of steam so didn´t see the falls from the Brazilian side. Had no problems with passports either - I dont think the brazilians looked at Dunk´s visa once!
Stayed in Puerto Iguazu which is a nice little town full of good places to eat. First impressions of Argentina were that its slightly poorer then Brazil, but very friendly, courteous and helpful and also (important for us) WAY cheaper. Stayed at Colonial Hostel for 70 pesos (18 euros) for air con, ensuite room and a proper brekkie! Dunk sampled a legendery argentian steak and morcillo (blolod sausage like blacl pudding) that night and it was goooood - way better then Brazil where the beef is tough (from the type of cattle they have there are indian cross), always very salty and very well cooked (almost crisped). I tried the pasta (my poor tummy is still recovering from some dodgy food) and it was fresh and sooo tasty. Already liking Argentina a LOT!
Next day we spent the entire day at Iguazu Falls. I´m not even going to try and explain how good the falls are cos its impossible to do justice to a place thats so naturally beautiful, huge, powerful and overwhelming. It is just as good as ya read and the photos dont do the place a tad of justice! Bring lots of water tho, they charge extorionate prices for liquids of any kind which is a bit crazy really as the heat this time of year is dangerous. We were just drenched in sweat all day long! Was definitely one of the highlights of our trip so far and would highly recommend everyone to go out of your way to go there!
Next stop ... Buenos Aires.
Stayed in Puerto Iguazu which is a nice little town full of good places to eat. First impressions of Argentina were that its slightly poorer then Brazil, but very friendly, courteous and helpful and also (important for us) WAY cheaper. Stayed at Colonial Hostel for 70 pesos (18 euros) for air con, ensuite room and a proper brekkie! Dunk sampled a legendery argentian steak and morcillo (blolod sausage like blacl pudding) that night and it was goooood - way better then Brazil where the beef is tough (from the type of cattle they have there are indian cross), always very salty and very well cooked (almost crisped). I tried the pasta (my poor tummy is still recovering from some dodgy food) and it was fresh and sooo tasty. Already liking Argentina a LOT!
Next day we spent the entire day at Iguazu Falls. I´m not even going to try and explain how good the falls are cos its impossible to do justice to a place thats so naturally beautiful, huge, powerful and overwhelming. It is just as good as ya read and the photos dont do the place a tad of justice! Bring lots of water tho, they charge extorionate prices for liquids of any kind which is a bit crazy really as the heat this time of year is dangerous. We were just drenched in sweat all day long! Was definitely one of the highlights of our trip so far and would highly recommend everyone to go out of your way to go there!
Next stop ... Buenos Aires.
The Pantanal, Brazil
The Pantanal is a massive swamp area that covers about 220, 000 square kms, mostly in Brazil but also in Bolivia and Paraguay. Orginally we wanted to do a trip in Bolivia as its more unexplored and less exploited then in Brazil (and LOADS cheaper) but we couldn´t find a tour operator except for one but they couldn´t bring us as they couldn´t source enough petrol for a 3 day trip! This part of Bolivia is well cut off from the rest of the country altho there is a new road being built which should help open up the region.
Instead we decided to go with Explore Pantanal tour group based in Miranda which is run by Marcello (a Brazilian with 16 years guiding experience) and his wife Mirjam (Swiss) who is the organiser. We paid more then the usual backpacker odds (660 reais ie about 350 eur each), for a 5 day trip as the backpacker tours tend to be much shorter and bigger groups. Bit of a price shock to the wallet after 3 weeks in Bolivia but we reckon it was worth it. Mirjam was really helpful with info in getting there, local things to do and also booking our bus onto Foz De Iguazu after the tour ended.
So off we set on a melting monday morning .. dunno what the temps were but probably mid 30s at least. Its the rainy season so the weather tends to be either very hot, sunny and dry or else very hot, humid and lashing rain. The roads are mostly MUD, large holes of either mud, water or something in between or else dry and bumpy as hell if its stayed dry for a few days.
On the first morning we saw a giant anteater ... for me this was the best creature we saw of the entire trip. They have crazy long hairy tails, big long snouts (all the better for eating ants) and kind of lope along in a cartoon-ish fashion. We also saw LOTS of caiman (alligators) and I mean LOTS. One place we stopped at had at least 200 of all sizes, and this was typical of what we saw over the trip. At this time of year they congrugate in the remaining water holes and eat the last of the fish, smaller caiman and anything else they can catch. We also saw heaps of birds including the massive jabiru stork. The pantanal is flat as a pancake ... actually its flatter so most of it is grass or swamp land punctuated by little islands called capones which have bigger trees and are the only places that dont get flooded in the wet season even tho they´re only about 1-5metres higher then the surrounding land.
We saw lots of cattle being herded by real live and kicking cowboys. This place is seriosuly wild west territory!! The cattle get moved out this time of year to drier plains so its busy times for the cowboys. They ride mules mostly as they have more stamina then horses and ride saddles that are mostly sheepskins with a bit of leather on top. Also they curvy long horns (made from cow horns) to call the cattle, lassoos and drink mate (herbal tea drank cold or hot which is hugely popular in southern brazil, paraguay and all of argentina) like it was going out of fashion.
The first 2 nights we stayed in a very basic fazenda (cattle ranch) which dorm bunk beds, basic facilities which leaked like crazy in the downpour on the second day and eat reasonably basic food (some of it was pretty hard going like dried beef in rice which tasted worse then it smelt and looked - will be giving that a miss in future). Did some walks where we say loads of hyacinth macaws (very cool blue, 1m long macaw), capybaras, deer, loads of birds and a LOT of cattle). On the 3rd day we headed to another fazenda which was much better quality in all respects and run really well. We stayed in hammocks on the 3rd night and it was such a cool way to sleep in the heat. The drive to the 2nd fazenda was a bit more adventurous then we all wanted as we spent 2 hours bogged in a deep waterhole in the track. Thankfully Dunk had some experience (or just a brain) to help get the 4wd out and would have helped it the tour guides had brought a shovel and some better implements (which we would have thought obvious since its the wet season). Digging with sticks SUCKS.
We went piranha fishing on the 3rd afternoon (nice and peaceful after the early bogging) and we all caught some. The caimans were a bit scary thou as they lurked very near us and occasionaly approached us if we had caught a fish. The piranhas were very plentiful, easy to catch and have vicisous teeth so had to be careful taking out the hook not to loose a finger! Very tasty also (or maybe it was relative to the basic food of the prior day or 2).
On the 4th day, the cowboys on the fazenda were doing a cattle muster and we were invited. It was brilliant, spent 7 hours out on horseback watching them working (very skillful and they work so hard under the savage heat of the sun), plodding along on our well trained (bored of tourists) horses, staying well out of the way of bulls and caimans of which there was plenty.
On the last night, the tour guides decided we should go camping (which is fine as that was what we had booked) and it was a beautiful night except for one thing - plagues of mosquitos - the worst I have EVER seen. It was unrelenting and made the whole camping affair pretty awful really (and thats compared to a lot of camping nights we have had). We basically sat in the fire smoke (and sweated buckets), made the occasional dash around to try and lose the mossies and eventually just got in the tent. The tent was melting tho and surrounded by the whine of mossies made it a slow night to sleep. Next morning was just as bad even at 5am (altho at least it was cooler) as we headed back early with another 4wd from the fazenda (so as if we got bogged again we´d have more help).
All in all we had a fantastic trip. In hindsight, we shouldnt have gone camping (sleeping in hammocks under mossie nets is cheap and better fun at this time of year) and the tour guides should have known better altho in fairness they are just still testing the waters with what kind of trips they can do at this time of year. I´d highly recommend the 2nd fazenda we stayed at (Rio Vermelho I think) as the food was fantastic and the people who run the show were brilliant ... really genuine, friendly, helpful. We´d still go with the same tour again altho would hope they could do a few things a bit better (like bring a bloody shovel!, maybe better food on some of the days and less of the husband-wife fighting on the last day would have been good as well). It sounds like the backpacker tours in general are very badly run, we saw some of them and they all stay in a boat on a river in the same place, are brought around in large groups and allegedly feed awfully so considering that I think we picked well.
Would highly recommend a trip to the pantanal, probably to a fazenda. The wildlife is just incrredible. Like every day we say 100s of caimans, birds, lizards, etc and also the lifestyle there is worth a look at too.
Instead we decided to go with Explore Pantanal tour group based in Miranda which is run by Marcello (a Brazilian with 16 years guiding experience) and his wife Mirjam (Swiss) who is the organiser. We paid more then the usual backpacker odds (660 reais ie about 350 eur each), for a 5 day trip as the backpacker tours tend to be much shorter and bigger groups. Bit of a price shock to the wallet after 3 weeks in Bolivia but we reckon it was worth it. Mirjam was really helpful with info in getting there, local things to do and also booking our bus onto Foz De Iguazu after the tour ended.
So off we set on a melting monday morning .. dunno what the temps were but probably mid 30s at least. Its the rainy season so the weather tends to be either very hot, sunny and dry or else very hot, humid and lashing rain. The roads are mostly MUD, large holes of either mud, water or something in between or else dry and bumpy as hell if its stayed dry for a few days.
On the first morning we saw a giant anteater ... for me this was the best creature we saw of the entire trip. They have crazy long hairy tails, big long snouts (all the better for eating ants) and kind of lope along in a cartoon-ish fashion. We also saw LOTS of caiman (alligators) and I mean LOTS. One place we stopped at had at least 200 of all sizes, and this was typical of what we saw over the trip. At this time of year they congrugate in the remaining water holes and eat the last of the fish, smaller caiman and anything else they can catch. We also saw heaps of birds including the massive jabiru stork. The pantanal is flat as a pancake ... actually its flatter so most of it is grass or swamp land punctuated by little islands called capones which have bigger trees and are the only places that dont get flooded in the wet season even tho they´re only about 1-5metres higher then the surrounding land.
We saw lots of cattle being herded by real live and kicking cowboys. This place is seriosuly wild west territory!! The cattle get moved out this time of year to drier plains so its busy times for the cowboys. They ride mules mostly as they have more stamina then horses and ride saddles that are mostly sheepskins with a bit of leather on top. Also they curvy long horns (made from cow horns) to call the cattle, lassoos and drink mate (herbal tea drank cold or hot which is hugely popular in southern brazil, paraguay and all of argentina) like it was going out of fashion.
The first 2 nights we stayed in a very basic fazenda (cattle ranch) which dorm bunk beds, basic facilities which leaked like crazy in the downpour on the second day and eat reasonably basic food (some of it was pretty hard going like dried beef in rice which tasted worse then it smelt and looked - will be giving that a miss in future). Did some walks where we say loads of hyacinth macaws (very cool blue, 1m long macaw), capybaras, deer, loads of birds and a LOT of cattle). On the 3rd day we headed to another fazenda which was much better quality in all respects and run really well. We stayed in hammocks on the 3rd night and it was such a cool way to sleep in the heat. The drive to the 2nd fazenda was a bit more adventurous then we all wanted as we spent 2 hours bogged in a deep waterhole in the track. Thankfully Dunk had some experience (or just a brain) to help get the 4wd out and would have helped it the tour guides had brought a shovel and some better implements (which we would have thought obvious since its the wet season). Digging with sticks SUCKS.
We went piranha fishing on the 3rd afternoon (nice and peaceful after the early bogging) and we all caught some. The caimans were a bit scary thou as they lurked very near us and occasionaly approached us if we had caught a fish. The piranhas were very plentiful, easy to catch and have vicisous teeth so had to be careful taking out the hook not to loose a finger! Very tasty also (or maybe it was relative to the basic food of the prior day or 2).
On the 4th day, the cowboys on the fazenda were doing a cattle muster and we were invited. It was brilliant, spent 7 hours out on horseback watching them working (very skillful and they work so hard under the savage heat of the sun), plodding along on our well trained (bored of tourists) horses, staying well out of the way of bulls and caimans of which there was plenty.
On the last night, the tour guides decided we should go camping (which is fine as that was what we had booked) and it was a beautiful night except for one thing - plagues of mosquitos - the worst I have EVER seen. It was unrelenting and made the whole camping affair pretty awful really (and thats compared to a lot of camping nights we have had). We basically sat in the fire smoke (and sweated buckets), made the occasional dash around to try and lose the mossies and eventually just got in the tent. The tent was melting tho and surrounded by the whine of mossies made it a slow night to sleep. Next morning was just as bad even at 5am (altho at least it was cooler) as we headed back early with another 4wd from the fazenda (so as if we got bogged again we´d have more help).
All in all we had a fantastic trip. In hindsight, we shouldnt have gone camping (sleeping in hammocks under mossie nets is cheap and better fun at this time of year) and the tour guides should have known better altho in fairness they are just still testing the waters with what kind of trips they can do at this time of year. I´d highly recommend the 2nd fazenda we stayed at (Rio Vermelho I think) as the food was fantastic and the people who run the show were brilliant ... really genuine, friendly, helpful. We´d still go with the same tour again altho would hope they could do a few things a bit better (like bring a bloody shovel!, maybe better food on some of the days and less of the husband-wife fighting on the last day would have been good as well). It sounds like the backpacker tours in general are very badly run, we saw some of them and they all stay in a boat on a river in the same place, are brought around in large groups and allegedly feed awfully so considering that I think we picked well.
Would highly recommend a trip to the pantanal, probably to a fazenda. The wildlife is just incrredible. Like every day we say 100s of caimans, birds, lizards, etc and also the lifestyle there is worth a look at too.
Monday, December 17, 2007
Slow train to the brazil-bolivian border
SO last time we wrote we were waiting for the train in Santa Cruz which was delayed by 10 hours. Finally it left at around 10.30pm, 10.5 hours later then the schedule. WE had ¨first¨ class seats so didn¨t have to queue to get a seat or anything altho we did cos everyone else was so we thought we better as well. The train is pretty grubby but good leg room and the seats were ok. ALso could open the windows all the way so was great for sticking your head out and looking around. Managed to get some sleep in between ticket and drug checks which happened every couple of hours or just when we had always managed to fall into a deep sleep!
There was quite a few Mennonites on the train as they have population centres around San Jose De CHiquitos and places like that. Quite strange seeing them all dressed up identically in their nice smart overalls and shirts and hats and dresses for the women. THink they found us strange too as they stared at us a bit and there wasn{t that many backpackers on the train maybe 4 of us all up.
The train stopped at EVERY little place for the 600kms between Santa Cruz and the border. AT every stop, hoards of local kids and women got on the train to sell lemonade which was really good and a variety of empanadas, bbq meat, and other various dishes. GOod entertainment!
THe highlight of the trip was passing by the area of Chocis which has got an area of sandstone plateaus that look really cool. WOuld love to check that area out for walking sometime. Reminded me of a cross between KIngs Canyon and the Budawangs in Australia but really green since its the wet season. Very beautiful tho and will post photos at some stage. THis was the bonus of having a late train otherwise we would have passed this area at night time!
EVentually got to Puerto Quijarro around 8pm on the friday night after a long hot day sweltering on the train. WE stank and were pretty exhausted. FOund an ok place to stay and some dodgy food to eat and slept like logs. Puerto Quijarro is a hole - typical dodgy border town with plenty dodgy characters and just not a nice place to be. IT was dusty as hell when we arrived and an hour later got a huge storm so everything turned into rivers of mud.
THe next morning we headed to the border early. WAs stinking hot ... probably mid 30s at 8am and we got covered in mud walking across the border. HEaded to COrumba which is in BRazil and experienced a kind of time warp sensation as Brazil and COrumba is clean, dry, well off, nice cars, paved streets, no mud, happy well dressed people and just about as far from BOlivia and Puerto Quijarro as you could imagine. Was really strange feeling. Of course the prices jumped about 600percent once we crossed the border as well!
GOt our brazilian passport stamps at the bus station after having to walk about 2kms wityh out backpacks as the taxi prices were outrageous. Arrived drenched in sweat and stinking. THey stamped my australian passport, didn-t even look at DUnks visa and off we went.
Booked a bus to Miranda where our pantanal tour started on monday. MAnaged to miss the bus as I had gone to town looking to an ATM as we had no reais. We forgot that BRazil is an hour ahead!! anyways the very sweet and amused ticket seller changed our tickets no hassles! COst us 15 euros each for a ticket which is about 10 times more expensive then BOlivia BUT when we saw the bus we knew why. I have never been on a better bus anywhere in the world. IT was amazing! Air-con that was properly cold, beautifully clean and loads of space with the most comfy seats ever.
HAd a great view of the pantanal from the bus, managed to see caiman, jabiru storks, spoonbills, deer, etc and we hadnt even started the tour. In Miranda, the tour guys picked us and we stayed with them for sat and sunday. THey cooked us some great traditional food and it was good to chill out after the epic journey from Santa Cruz. WAs ridicously hot on the sunday gain ... probably getting near to 40C and humid too. I was melted!!
OK next post will tell ya all about the Pantanal!
BTW we did a tour with Explore Pantanal.
There was quite a few Mennonites on the train as they have population centres around San Jose De CHiquitos and places like that. Quite strange seeing them all dressed up identically in their nice smart overalls and shirts and hats and dresses for the women. THink they found us strange too as they stared at us a bit and there wasn{t that many backpackers on the train maybe 4 of us all up.
The train stopped at EVERY little place for the 600kms between Santa Cruz and the border. AT every stop, hoards of local kids and women got on the train to sell lemonade which was really good and a variety of empanadas, bbq meat, and other various dishes. GOod entertainment!
THe highlight of the trip was passing by the area of Chocis which has got an area of sandstone plateaus that look really cool. WOuld love to check that area out for walking sometime. Reminded me of a cross between KIngs Canyon and the Budawangs in Australia but really green since its the wet season. Very beautiful tho and will post photos at some stage. THis was the bonus of having a late train otherwise we would have passed this area at night time!
EVentually got to Puerto Quijarro around 8pm on the friday night after a long hot day sweltering on the train. WE stank and were pretty exhausted. FOund an ok place to stay and some dodgy food to eat and slept like logs. Puerto Quijarro is a hole - typical dodgy border town with plenty dodgy characters and just not a nice place to be. IT was dusty as hell when we arrived and an hour later got a huge storm so everything turned into rivers of mud.
THe next morning we headed to the border early. WAs stinking hot ... probably mid 30s at 8am and we got covered in mud walking across the border. HEaded to COrumba which is in BRazil and experienced a kind of time warp sensation as Brazil and COrumba is clean, dry, well off, nice cars, paved streets, no mud, happy well dressed people and just about as far from BOlivia and Puerto Quijarro as you could imagine. Was really strange feeling. Of course the prices jumped about 600percent once we crossed the border as well!
GOt our brazilian passport stamps at the bus station after having to walk about 2kms wityh out backpacks as the taxi prices were outrageous. Arrived drenched in sweat and stinking. THey stamped my australian passport, didn-t even look at DUnks visa and off we went.
Booked a bus to Miranda where our pantanal tour started on monday. MAnaged to miss the bus as I had gone to town looking to an ATM as we had no reais. We forgot that BRazil is an hour ahead!! anyways the very sweet and amused ticket seller changed our tickets no hassles! COst us 15 euros each for a ticket which is about 10 times more expensive then BOlivia BUT when we saw the bus we knew why. I have never been on a better bus anywhere in the world. IT was amazing! Air-con that was properly cold, beautifully clean and loads of space with the most comfy seats ever.
HAd a great view of the pantanal from the bus, managed to see caiman, jabiru storks, spoonbills, deer, etc and we hadnt even started the tour. In Miranda, the tour guys picked us and we stayed with them for sat and sunday. THey cooked us some great traditional food and it was good to chill out after the epic journey from Santa Cruz. WAs ridicously hot on the sunday gain ... probably getting near to 40C and humid too. I was melted!!
OK next post will tell ya all about the Pantanal!
BTW we did a tour with Explore Pantanal.
Thursday, December 6, 2007
Still in Santa Cruz waiting for the train ... SIGH
Ah here´s a little rant to show that it its not all fun and games on our travels. Been in Santa Cruz for 5 days now and beginning to get a little tired of ´wasting time´trying to get to Brazil.
Firstly we had to wait for 3 days for Dunk´s visa for Brazil as Aussies have to get a visa for entry there. Presumably cos the Aussies dish out the same treatment to Brazialians. Going to chance me switching from using my aussie passport (in married name and Bolivian entry stamps) to my Irish passport (in maiden name and no south american stamps at all) all in the name of saving 35 US dollars ... well every buck counts and anyways its the principal. Hopefully I wont have to go back to Bolivia and wait for another 2 days in Puerto Suarez for another visa. Maybe bribery or tantrums will be used!
Next delay was yesterday when we went to get the train. Couldn´t get a ticket without a passport so all the trains were booked up yesterday so got a ticket for today. Back to the hostel (stayed at Hotel Magdelna which has a pool, tv, huge rooms, hot water! for about 90 bobs ie 9 euros!) which was slightly embarassing as I´d had a little hissy fit when they returned our laundry SOPPING wet yesterday (ya ya I know its raining but if you couldn´t get our laundry dry why did ya bloody wash it in the first place - wet stuf tends to ferment nastily in backpacks especially when stashed for 24 hours!).
Turned up this morning and saw this omnious sign saying train to Quijarro departs at 22:00 (obviously in Spanish so am beginning to hope my Spanish is more crap then I think) when we´re supposed to depart at 12:00. Ohhhh nnooo we thinking lots of bad words now. SO we go the info booth and ask what time the train departs and the girl looks at us like we´re from outer space (ya ya my Spanish is bad and my accent is worse) and then after about 1 minute staring as us says the train leaves at 10 tonight and when I ask why she gives an even worse your a f%%%ing alien stare and blabs off 4 words in Spanish that gave us no clue. SO we asked a nice policeman what was going on (in the same pigeon Spanish since I didn´t have time to relearn my accent in the 30 seconds from the previous encounter) and he miracously understood me perfectly, explained what was going on ie train is delayed for 10 hours cos of the rainy weather. BUGGA.
So we´re now in an internet cafe burning up time as its cheaper then drinking beer or sitting in a cafe eating chocolate cake (which is what I really want to do!!). Am really hoping the train goes tonight as we want to get to Corumba, Brazil for saturday night so we can see the locals party (we´re too much of 2 pot screamers these days), then do a 5 day tour of the pantanal and then Iguazu Falls before heading to Buenos Aires. Pretty frustrating sitting here waiting but not much else to do. Other options are the road which takes MANY days this time of year or a flight for 500US (I dont think so!!).
Anyways I can imagine you all have stacks of sympathy for us sitting here on our asses with very little worries aside from how long will the train take IF and when it does go! Dont worry too much about us tho cos we have eaten our little asses fat in the last 5 days. There´s a great cuban just off the main plaza), bakery (behind the cathedral on the main plaza), german restaurant (called Casona - yummo food), Tia Lia brazilian lunch place (all ya can eat for 2.5euros and the best chorizos ever), vegie place (Su Salad) I dont think we ever eat so much vegtables in one sitting! The irish pub is pure cac tho ... full of wanna be posers drinking cocktails altho the location is nice looking out over the square.
Also Santa Cruz is famous cos of its beautiful women - the most in Bolivia ... this is a bit strange cos their not that beautiful (maybe its just cos I´m used to hanging out with such beautiful people all the time - compliment to you my friends!) or maybe its relative to the girls in the rest of the country who wear that horrible traditional dress. At first its a novelty, but then as you observe, smell, sit near, behind, get brushed closely, very closely on buses by ´ladies´in this attire you learn that this costume is a costume that masks a 1000 bad smells (llama, sheep, baby, BO, food, etc I wont get too uncharitable) and inner fat layers and that girls just tend to grow out to fill into this costume. Anyways suffice to say the dress sense here is WAY better then anywhere else we been so far.
Ok been in here now for 3 hours looking at bus timetables and trying (failing) to get cheap flights anywhere so going to console ourselves with chocolate, coffee, beer, and anything else tasty we can fit into the next 3 hours before the train leaves (fingers crossed).
Also the weather has lashed on us for the last 2 days so pretty glad we piked out on Amboro (altho mostly we did this cos of time reasons). Will have to come back in the dry season for that one!
Firstly we had to wait for 3 days for Dunk´s visa for Brazil as Aussies have to get a visa for entry there. Presumably cos the Aussies dish out the same treatment to Brazialians. Going to chance me switching from using my aussie passport (in married name and Bolivian entry stamps) to my Irish passport (in maiden name and no south american stamps at all) all in the name of saving 35 US dollars ... well every buck counts and anyways its the principal. Hopefully I wont have to go back to Bolivia and wait for another 2 days in Puerto Suarez for another visa. Maybe bribery or tantrums will be used!
Next delay was yesterday when we went to get the train. Couldn´t get a ticket without a passport so all the trains were booked up yesterday so got a ticket for today. Back to the hostel (stayed at Hotel Magdelna which has a pool, tv, huge rooms, hot water! for about 90 bobs ie 9 euros!) which was slightly embarassing as I´d had a little hissy fit when they returned our laundry SOPPING wet yesterday (ya ya I know its raining but if you couldn´t get our laundry dry why did ya bloody wash it in the first place - wet stuf tends to ferment nastily in backpacks especially when stashed for 24 hours!).
Turned up this morning and saw this omnious sign saying train to Quijarro departs at 22:00 (obviously in Spanish so am beginning to hope my Spanish is more crap then I think) when we´re supposed to depart at 12:00. Ohhhh nnooo we thinking lots of bad words now. SO we go the info booth and ask what time the train departs and the girl looks at us like we´re from outer space (ya ya my Spanish is bad and my accent is worse) and then after about 1 minute staring as us says the train leaves at 10 tonight and when I ask why she gives an even worse your a f%%%ing alien stare and blabs off 4 words in Spanish that gave us no clue. SO we asked a nice policeman what was going on (in the same pigeon Spanish since I didn´t have time to relearn my accent in the 30 seconds from the previous encounter) and he miracously understood me perfectly, explained what was going on ie train is delayed for 10 hours cos of the rainy weather. BUGGA.
So we´re now in an internet cafe burning up time as its cheaper then drinking beer or sitting in a cafe eating chocolate cake (which is what I really want to do!!). Am really hoping the train goes tonight as we want to get to Corumba, Brazil for saturday night so we can see the locals party (we´re too much of 2 pot screamers these days), then do a 5 day tour of the pantanal and then Iguazu Falls before heading to Buenos Aires. Pretty frustrating sitting here waiting but not much else to do. Other options are the road which takes MANY days this time of year or a flight for 500US (I dont think so!!).
Anyways I can imagine you all have stacks of sympathy for us sitting here on our asses with very little worries aside from how long will the train take IF and when it does go! Dont worry too much about us tho cos we have eaten our little asses fat in the last 5 days. There´s a great cuban just off the main plaza), bakery (behind the cathedral on the main plaza), german restaurant (called Casona - yummo food), Tia Lia brazilian lunch place (all ya can eat for 2.5euros and the best chorizos ever), vegie place (Su Salad) I dont think we ever eat so much vegtables in one sitting! The irish pub is pure cac tho ... full of wanna be posers drinking cocktails altho the location is nice looking out over the square.
Also Santa Cruz is famous cos of its beautiful women - the most in Bolivia ... this is a bit strange cos their not that beautiful (maybe its just cos I´m used to hanging out with such beautiful people all the time - compliment to you my friends!) or maybe its relative to the girls in the rest of the country who wear that horrible traditional dress. At first its a novelty, but then as you observe, smell, sit near, behind, get brushed closely, very closely on buses by ´ladies´in this attire you learn that this costume is a costume that masks a 1000 bad smells (llama, sheep, baby, BO, food, etc I wont get too uncharitable) and inner fat layers and that girls just tend to grow out to fill into this costume. Anyways suffice to say the dress sense here is WAY better then anywhere else we been so far.
Ok been in here now for 3 hours looking at bus timetables and trying (failing) to get cheap flights anywhere so going to console ourselves with chocolate, coffee, beer, and anything else tasty we can fit into the next 3 hours before the train leaves (fingers crossed).
Also the weather has lashed on us for the last 2 days so pretty glad we piked out on Amboro (altho mostly we did this cos of time reasons). Will have to come back in the dry season for that one!
Tuesday, December 4, 2007
La Paz to Cochobamba to Santa Cruz
Spent 7 hours on the bus from La Paz to Santa Cruz, as per usual just turned up at the bus station and paid half the price they asked for. Also incredibly the bus left on time but as per usual with La Paz buses spent an hour filling the bus in El Alto (which is a really poor city on the rim overlooking La Paz). First 3-4 hours was driving along the vast expanses of the altoplano (not very exciting) altho did get a very tasty kind of mashed pototo filled with something snack from one of the local vendors who get on the buses along the way. The drive then heads over a high pass (damn cold, bits of snow lying plus raining) before descending down to 2500m to Cochobamba.
Cochobamba is a friendly little place, some good bars and restaurants. Spent a couple of hours in the square (well it was more like a roundabout with gardens) watching the newly married couples getting all their photos done plus watching out for the local shoeshine boys didn´t swipe nything from us (dodgy little muppets). Stayed in Hostel Jardina which was basic but fine. Got good mexican for dinner!
Next morning headed to the bus station for 6.45am ... managed to just about get on the 6.30am bus for a cheap 25 bols (we could have got the 7am but it costs more the earlier yo buy your ticket!) for the trip to Santa Cruz. Its 10 hours but the first 4 hours are incredibly spectacular. Cochobamba is still very dry and sparse and brown but has a few trees and from there head up over another ridge of mountains until suddenly everything turns green and from sparse altoplano landscape into cloudforest. Really sudden and surprising. The road then winds down thru steep valleys of cloudforest until a couple of hours later it hits the lowlands which is all very tropical and green. The temperature also goes from about 10C in La Paz, a pleasant 20Cish in Cochobamba (called the city of eternal spring) to a humid 30C in the lowlands. Bit of a shock to the system but nice to be back in hot weather and shorts again!
Santa Cruz is a lovely city, very modern, clean and feels more like a 1st world city then anywhere we have been so far. Staying in a great hotel for 9 eur per night for an ensuite, pool, fan and cble tv (which is pure awful 100 channels of poo but occasionally I get to see premiership highlights). Food is great here too. Huge portions tho - it baffles us how much food they can eat here in one go!! speaking of which off to some brazilian style buffet for lunch to stuff our faces for a couple of euros each and then it will be siesta for the afternoon!
Leaving on the train to the border tomorrow ... 20 hours on the so called ´death train´as its so slow and boring you risk dying of boredom! From there trying to sort out some panatal tour which could be interesting as sounds like lots of people trying to rip off gringos there.
Cochobamba is a friendly little place, some good bars and restaurants. Spent a couple of hours in the square (well it was more like a roundabout with gardens) watching the newly married couples getting all their photos done plus watching out for the local shoeshine boys didn´t swipe nything from us (dodgy little muppets). Stayed in Hostel Jardina which was basic but fine. Got good mexican for dinner!
Next morning headed to the bus station for 6.45am ... managed to just about get on the 6.30am bus for a cheap 25 bols (we could have got the 7am but it costs more the earlier yo buy your ticket!) for the trip to Santa Cruz. Its 10 hours but the first 4 hours are incredibly spectacular. Cochobamba is still very dry and sparse and brown but has a few trees and from there head up over another ridge of mountains until suddenly everything turns green and from sparse altoplano landscape into cloudforest. Really sudden and surprising. The road then winds down thru steep valleys of cloudforest until a couple of hours later it hits the lowlands which is all very tropical and green. The temperature also goes from about 10C in La Paz, a pleasant 20Cish in Cochobamba (called the city of eternal spring) to a humid 30C in the lowlands. Bit of a shock to the system but nice to be back in hot weather and shorts again!
Santa Cruz is a lovely city, very modern, clean and feels more like a 1st world city then anywhere we have been so far. Staying in a great hotel for 9 eur per night for an ensuite, pool, fan and cble tv (which is pure awful 100 channels of poo but occasionally I get to see premiership highlights). Food is great here too. Huge portions tho - it baffles us how much food they can eat here in one go!! speaking of which off to some brazilian style buffet for lunch to stuff our faces for a couple of euros each and then it will be siesta for the afternoon!
Leaving on the train to the border tomorrow ... 20 hours on the so called ´death train´as its so slow and boring you risk dying of boredom! From there trying to sort out some panatal tour which could be interesting as sounds like lots of people trying to rip off gringos there.
Friday, November 30, 2007
More photos - jungle and Isla Del Sol
Some day soon we´ll get organised and add photos inline to the blog!
Onto Bolivia - Isla del Sol and Copacabana
On tuesday we left Cusco and headed to Copacabana in Bolivia. Spent the usual 10 hours on a bus and the border crossing was easy altho for some reason we only got a 30 day visa. Think there`s some tightening up of visas in Bolivia at the moment. Should be sufficient for us I think.
Stayed in Copacabana on tues night in the ambassador hotel which boasted hot water which was one of the selling points (altho at that stage any bed was beginning to look good). Was relishing the thought of a nice hot shower to wash the accumulated day of bus grime but when we turned on the shower, hot it turns out is relative. The tap water in this town is freezing .. about 6C SO the electric shower managed to heat this upto a massive maybe 14C ie bloody freezing. Had a very quick dip and hair washing as that would have taken me at least 20 mins to get wet hair not to mind rinsing.
Next day got the ferry out to Isla del Sol which is an island on Lake Titicaca. Ferry is also relative. Its a boat carrying way to many people with a small outboard that moves at approx slow walking speed. Took 2 hours to get to the north of the island and from there we walked back to the south. Stayed in Yumani which is a nice little village on a ridge with great views. Very pleasant place to chill out and heaps of places to choose to eat from and stay. Was some spectacular lightening, hail and rain storms that night and we had only just missed snow a few days before.
Returned the next morning on the Inti Kala boat (name of place we also stayed which was friendly and great views, good food too) which was `muy rapido` well at least 20 minutes faster! Got the bus to La Paz and staying here in Hotel Fuentes which is lovely and cosy since its cold and raining. Off to get some lunch of saltenas now.
From here the plan is vague. We are going to Buenos Aires to my aunt Helen for xmas so we have 3 weeks to get there. The rough plan is Chochamba (maybe for one day), Santa Cruz (hopfully get to Amboros NP and if we win the lotto a trip to Noel Kempff NP would be awesome but thats a dream-on scenario), Roboro (on the way to Brazil might do some hiking there weather permitting), border with Brazil, Panatal (4 day tour) either side of border depending on whats available, and the Iguazu Falls and then BA. If anyone has any tips for anywhere along that route fire them this way!
Stayed in Copacabana on tues night in the ambassador hotel which boasted hot water which was one of the selling points (altho at that stage any bed was beginning to look good). Was relishing the thought of a nice hot shower to wash the accumulated day of bus grime but when we turned on the shower, hot it turns out is relative. The tap water in this town is freezing .. about 6C SO the electric shower managed to heat this upto a massive maybe 14C ie bloody freezing. Had a very quick dip and hair washing as that would have taken me at least 20 mins to get wet hair not to mind rinsing.
Next day got the ferry out to Isla del Sol which is an island on Lake Titicaca. Ferry is also relative. Its a boat carrying way to many people with a small outboard that moves at approx slow walking speed. Took 2 hours to get to the north of the island and from there we walked back to the south. Stayed in Yumani which is a nice little village on a ridge with great views. Very pleasant place to chill out and heaps of places to choose to eat from and stay. Was some spectacular lightening, hail and rain storms that night and we had only just missed snow a few days before.
Returned the next morning on the Inti Kala boat (name of place we also stayed which was friendly and great views, good food too) which was `muy rapido` well at least 20 minutes faster! Got the bus to La Paz and staying here in Hotel Fuentes which is lovely and cosy since its cold and raining. Off to get some lunch of saltenas now.
From here the plan is vague. We are going to Buenos Aires to my aunt Helen for xmas so we have 3 weeks to get there. The rough plan is Chochamba (maybe for one day), Santa Cruz (hopfully get to Amboros NP and if we win the lotto a trip to Noel Kempff NP would be awesome but thats a dream-on scenario), Roboro (on the way to Brazil might do some hiking there weather permitting), border with Brazil, Panatal (4 day tour) either side of border depending on whats available, and the Iguazu Falls and then BA. If anyone has any tips for anywhere along that route fire them this way!
More stuff we forgot to add about the jungle trip ...
Hmm as you can tell we REALLY really liked our 2 weeks from Los Piedras. Some stuff I forgot to mention in the first blog is below ...
Sounds
Sounds
- Frog Chorus .. seriously this was incredible (and we did have a sound clip which some langar from Cork accidently deleted from the camera ... sigh). We stood on the edge of the swamp one night after rain and the chorus of frogs was so loud we had to talk loudly to hear each other. It was deafening and it was cool when we saw the frogs which did make the sound as they had these massive puffed out air sacs to help them make this sound.
- Rain on the way - its really very special to lie in a hammock in the hunidity and listen to a storm approaching. You know its really near when ya can hear all the rain drops on the forest canopy and its just gets louder and louder until it reaches ya. Not so nice if your out in the jungle and have to walk back!
- Falling trees ... lots of this happens this time of year as the ground gets soft and the winds in storms knock anything unstable over.
- Mosquito whines, and bats! ahh the pleasure of hearing a mossie whine near your mossie net and then a bat flutter and then no more mossie whine!
Other stuff
- Bats ... we saw heaps of these. Some had really pretty faces NOT especially the ones that flew out of the termite nest on a tree.
- Turtles ... saw a few of these too ... poor sods get an awful time from the mossies.
- Frogs ... think my favorites are the clown frogs!
- Snakes. Saw a small snake trying to swallow a frog one night ... really cool
- Opposum .. saw a cool little fella one night!
- Brazil nuts come from a BIG shell .. if it fell and hit ya on the head then that would be the end. Be kind of ironic to get nailed by a brazil nut when there´s so much other dangerous stuff out there!
- Dunk climbed the platform and was watched by Howler monkeys - that was very special!!
- Banana mash called Taracha (I think) which we had in Puerto Maldonado. Made from green bananas, bbq´d then mashed with pork rind and fat (very healthy for the heart) - yummo!
- Peccaries (small black bush pigs that eat nuts) - good god they smell awful, sound weird (make this clacking noise) and travel in large groups that can be dangerous so you need to be able to climb trees just in case they attack!
Ok there`s heaps more great stuff that we saw, did, heard, smelt, learnt, etc but its lunchtime here so the rest you will just have to go and experience yourself!
Specific details on Las Piedras Biodiversity Station
I´ve just copied this from a trip report I´ve written for South American Explorer´s:
See http://www.tambopataexpeditions.com/ for information on the research station. They offer volunteer placements, as well as tours.
We went to the biodiversity station for 2 weeks as volunteers. Most days consisted of getting up early, and helping with research work being carried out at the station for the morning. Some examples include mammal surveys, observation of mammals and parrots at a colpa, and vegetation surveys. Aternoons were spent with a siesta, walking, birdwatching, and the odd bit of fishing and log surfing on the river...
Emma and JJ (the owners) were extremely knowledgeable and friendly and more than willing to share their knowledge. This is a small lodge, so we weren´t one of a crowd. There is also a small and very good library which we found very useful especially when trying to identify birds and frogs (there is an aweful lot at this time of year).
There is a large and very good network of walking tracks around the lodge, a bird watching platform, mammal colpa hide, and tree top platform.
The lodge is located in small clearing 1.5 days from town on the Rio Las Piedras. One night of camping is required in each direction unless Emma uses an outboard instead of a peke on the boat. The lodge consists of lovely, open rooms with 2 beds in each, a large, open common area with dining table, couches and hammocks, and a kitchen. There is enough electricy to run a HF radio and light in the kitchen (and perhaps to charge a laptop), but thats about it.
If you love being outdoors, and in the rainforest, this is a fantastic place.
See http://www.tambopataexpeditions.com/ for information on the research station. They offer volunteer placements, as well as tours.
We went to the biodiversity station for 2 weeks as volunteers. Most days consisted of getting up early, and helping with research work being carried out at the station for the morning. Some examples include mammal surveys, observation of mammals and parrots at a colpa, and vegetation surveys. Aternoons were spent with a siesta, walking, birdwatching, and the odd bit of fishing and log surfing on the river...
Emma and JJ (the owners) were extremely knowledgeable and friendly and more than willing to share their knowledge. This is a small lodge, so we weren´t one of a crowd. There is also a small and very good library which we found very useful especially when trying to identify birds and frogs (there is an aweful lot at this time of year).
There is a large and very good network of walking tracks around the lodge, a bird watching platform, mammal colpa hide, and tree top platform.
The lodge is located in small clearing 1.5 days from town on the Rio Las Piedras. One night of camping is required in each direction unless Emma uses an outboard instead of a peke on the boat. The lodge consists of lovely, open rooms with 2 beds in each, a large, open common area with dining table, couches and hammocks, and a kitchen. There is enough electricy to run a HF radio and light in the kitchen (and perhaps to charge a laptop), but thats about it.
If you love being outdoors, and in the rainforest, this is a fantastic place.
Monday, November 26, 2007
Into the jungle
Have just returned from an incredible 2 week trip into the jungle. We did a volunteer working trip on the Los Piedras with Emma and JJ from http://www.tambopataexpeditions.com/. Just flew back into Cusco today so its a bit of a shock to the system after spending most of the last 2 weeks out in the jungle in the middle of nowhere so excuse this entry if its a bit scattered!
Getting there
We flew into (and returned from) Puerto Maldonado with LAN from Cusco. This is a 45 minute flight from 3500m dry, altiplano Cusco in the Andes to Puerto Maldonado at 350m in the heart of the amazonian jungle. The flight is incredible (the road trip is supposed to be as well but 18 hours on a truck just didn´t appeal!). From out and over the the snow capped peaks near Cusco and then hitting the clouds and then the next thing we saw was huge flat rainforest that stretches as far as we could see only broken up by lazy winding S-bend brown rivers.
Puerto Maldonado
The town itself is pretty remote and hard to get to so most people get around on motobikes and motokars (which is a 3 wheeler motorbike with a cabin for 2 passengers) and the odd car or tourist bus. Its sooo cheap compared to Cusco and so relaxed too. Hardly any tourists or gringos as most tourists get whisked off to expensive lodges up the Madro Dios or Tambopata rivers. Great local places for icecream, local bbq fish, pork, banana dishes, chicken etc and beer is only 1 eur per litre bottle AND ICY cold ... agggghhh so blissful!!
Boat trip up the Los Piedras
To get to the lodge where we were staying is a good 8 hour river trip (with an outboard motor) or 2 days with a peke peke motor (more basic but much slower motor). We left Puerto early- ish. Its hard to explain how large the rivers are and these ones are onyl small compared to the Amazon when it really gets going! Mostly the river is anything from 50 - 100m wide and the current depends on the rain in preceding days. There heaps of debris, logs, trees etc washed down too in the bigger rains this time of year. Saw lots of birds (herons, toucans, etc - sorry I cant remember all the names and left my little notebook in the hostel!), capuchin and squirrel monkeys, a capybara (worlds largest rodent '- its like a hairy pig) and the rainforest along the way is very impressive. The trip back yesterday was much faster (as its down stream) but we had the added excitement of torrential rain which made it difficult for the boat driver to see sand banks (a potential boat turning over hazard) so slowed us down a bit and then about 1km from the port the engine seized. Luckily some local fishermen kindly steered us back using their boat and the afternoon wasn´t spent sitting in torrential rain desperately wondering how we´d get back!!
Los Piedras Research Centre
The lodge itself is really cool ... set up about 300m from the river with lots of outdoor light, hammocks, and bedrooms set up with mossie nets and such that it never got too hot at night. Really tropical and lovely feeling around the lodge. Its pretty basic as there´s no electricity so cooking is done by gas or the clay oven. There´s 2 little farms nearby which supply fresh bananas, herbs, avocados, limes, pineapples and more when the season is right. I have to say fresh banans are the BEST .. how will we ever go back to that muck they sell in shops at home! Dunk also had to get converted to the thought of eating bananas as a main part of a email ... yummo fried bananas with eggs or dinner or in a curry type sauce!
There´s lots of trails out from the lodge, along with a mammal colpa, macaw colpa, 20m viewing tower (with stairs), 50m platform in a big tree (for this you had to be hoisted in a harness onto the platform so my stupid head for heights prevented me doig this) and just heaps of birds, mammals, frogs, insects, more birds, monkeys and interesting stuff to see.
The Work
In comparison to my normal office job this is not work. The main work was
Would HIGHLY recommend this trip. Its complelty allowed us to get a proper feel for the jungle and at the same time learn heaps from Emma and JJ. Was an incredible experience.
Highlights for me were:-
Speaking of which ... next stage is onto Bolivia where we´re going to spend a couple of days around Lake Titicica and then onto La Paz before heading east ... well not sure exactly yet what the plan is but will let ye know when we get to La Paz!
Getting there
We flew into (and returned from) Puerto Maldonado with LAN from Cusco. This is a 45 minute flight from 3500m dry, altiplano Cusco in the Andes to Puerto Maldonado at 350m in the heart of the amazonian jungle. The flight is incredible (the road trip is supposed to be as well but 18 hours on a truck just didn´t appeal!). From out and over the the snow capped peaks near Cusco and then hitting the clouds and then the next thing we saw was huge flat rainforest that stretches as far as we could see only broken up by lazy winding S-bend brown rivers.
Puerto Maldonado
The town itself is pretty remote and hard to get to so most people get around on motobikes and motokars (which is a 3 wheeler motorbike with a cabin for 2 passengers) and the odd car or tourist bus. Its sooo cheap compared to Cusco and so relaxed too. Hardly any tourists or gringos as most tourists get whisked off to expensive lodges up the Madro Dios or Tambopata rivers. Great local places for icecream, local bbq fish, pork, banana dishes, chicken etc and beer is only 1 eur per litre bottle AND ICY cold ... agggghhh so blissful!!
Boat trip up the Los Piedras
To get to the lodge where we were staying is a good 8 hour river trip (with an outboard motor) or 2 days with a peke peke motor (more basic but much slower motor). We left Puerto early- ish. Its hard to explain how large the rivers are and these ones are onyl small compared to the Amazon when it really gets going! Mostly the river is anything from 50 - 100m wide and the current depends on the rain in preceding days. There heaps of debris, logs, trees etc washed down too in the bigger rains this time of year. Saw lots of birds (herons, toucans, etc - sorry I cant remember all the names and left my little notebook in the hostel!), capuchin and squirrel monkeys, a capybara (worlds largest rodent '- its like a hairy pig) and the rainforest along the way is very impressive. The trip back yesterday was much faster (as its down stream) but we had the added excitement of torrential rain which made it difficult for the boat driver to see sand banks (a potential boat turning over hazard) so slowed us down a bit and then about 1km from the port the engine seized. Luckily some local fishermen kindly steered us back using their boat and the afternoon wasn´t spent sitting in torrential rain desperately wondering how we´d get back!!
Los Piedras Research Centre
The lodge itself is really cool ... set up about 300m from the river with lots of outdoor light, hammocks, and bedrooms set up with mossie nets and such that it never got too hot at night. Really tropical and lovely feeling around the lodge. Its pretty basic as there´s no electricity so cooking is done by gas or the clay oven. There´s 2 little farms nearby which supply fresh bananas, herbs, avocados, limes, pineapples and more when the season is right. I have to say fresh banans are the BEST .. how will we ever go back to that muck they sell in shops at home! Dunk also had to get converted to the thought of eating bananas as a main part of a email ... yummo fried bananas with eggs or dinner or in a curry type sauce!
There´s lots of trails out from the lodge, along with a mammal colpa, macaw colpa, 20m viewing tower (with stairs), 50m platform in a big tree (for this you had to be hoisted in a harness onto the platform so my stupid head for heights prevented me doig this) and just heaps of birds, mammals, frogs, insects, more birds, monkeys and interesting stuff to see.
The Work
In comparison to my normal office job this is not work. The main work was
- macaw colpa observation - counting how many macaws (and other birds) visited the colpa (which is a clay lick by the river that the birds visit to get missing minerals for their diet - in human terms its like the pub except they go early in the morning!) over a 6 hour period on a given morning. We saw 130 mealy parrots one morning and the highlight was 130 green & red macaws with about 50 feeding on the colpa. Incredible.
- transects. This is a 4 hour slow walk (YES I learnt to walk slowly!!) along a 4km trail counting mammals mostly but also some birds. Really cool as we usually saw monkeys (howlers, dusky titi, squirrel, spider or capuchins), squirrels, heaps of birds, deer (well Dunk did), Saki monkeys (Dunk did), frogs, etc.
- Vegetation - probably the equivalent to writing documentation ;) someone has to do it! Would have been fine except for the plagues of mossies that descended on us (especially on the last few days after some really heavy rain). This involved counting and marking trees.
Would HIGHLY recommend this trip. Its complelty allowed us to get a proper feel for the jungle and at the same time learn heaps from Emma and JJ. Was an incredible experience.
Highlights for me were:-
- macaw colpa
- seeing monkeys on a daily basis
- beautiful walks on the trails
- chilling out and not having to think about normal travel hassles for a whole 2 weeks
- seeing SO many cool looking frogs on night walks
- seeing all the bizarre insects and fungi out there - incredible stuff!
- just being in the rain forest for so long - and having such great local knowledge at hand all the time. Thanks Emma and JJ and also Vicky, Holly and Edgar for sharing all that with us!
Speaking of which ... next stage is onto Bolivia where we´re going to spend a couple of days around Lake Titicica and then onto La Paz before heading east ... well not sure exactly yet what the plan is but will let ye know when we get to La Paz!
Friday, November 9, 2007
New Photos
I´ve uploaded pictures from our trip around the Salar De Uyuni. Some of these include links to google maps which show the approximate locations in which they were taken...
Off to the jungle for 2 weeks
Reached Cusco (Peru) just before mid night local time last night after a long day on many buses. Got the local bus to Copacabana where we lunched on local trout from Lake Titicia. Yumm! From there booked the `tourist` bus across the border from Bolivia all the way to Cusco ... big mistake. We should have just booked to Puno and then sorted another local bus ourselves to Cusco. After we crossed the border (which is not very border like!), back onto the bus where the tourist agent informed us there was a strike and we wouldn´t be able to get a bus from Puno to Cusco until 8pm that night or 8 am in the morning. The strike was ONLY during daylight hours lucky for us - ya right?? Also LUCKY for us he could organise us a tour on the lake during the extra 6 hour wait we had for a SPECIAL price and even LUCKIER again he could arrange accomodation in Cusco for when we arrived. Lets rush out and do the lotto ... how lucky are we NOT. Anyways we decided not to take any of the above options and miracously just before we hit Puno he told us we could get a normal ie local bus to Cusco immediately but it would take an hour longer. Dunno what happened the strike etc but we got the local bus ... which was very local ... but did the job and got us here to Cusco.
Stayed in a cheapo hostel that touted us at the bus station. The lady was lovely, the room was ensuite and had cable tv etc but was very basic with the hardest bed I have evcer slept in. Seriously I think it was a sheet on concrete. Tonight we´re staying in a lovely place off San Blas called Koyllur (about 70 soles for the `confidential`price which we got when we started to walk off). Its awesome compared to last night so think we will spend the afternoon watching tv and sleeping!
Tomorrow we fly to Puerto Maldonado which is in the amazon jungle just west of the peru/bolivia border. On monday we head to the jungle for 2 weeks volunteer work in the Tambopata. Check it out here http://www.tambopataexpeditions.com/ and we´ll chat to ye all when we get back!!
Stayed in a cheapo hostel that touted us at the bus station. The lady was lovely, the room was ensuite and had cable tv etc but was very basic with the hardest bed I have evcer slept in. Seriously I think it was a sheet on concrete. Tonight we´re staying in a lovely place off San Blas called Koyllur (about 70 soles for the `confidential`price which we got when we started to walk off). Its awesome compared to last night so think we will spend the afternoon watching tv and sleeping!
Tomorrow we fly to Puerto Maldonado which is in the amazon jungle just west of the peru/bolivia border. On monday we head to the jungle for 2 weeks volunteer work in the Tambopata. Check it out here http://www.tambopataexpeditions.com/ and we´ll chat to ye all when we get back!!
Chulumani - 4 hours from La Paz
After we recovered in La Paz, we had about 5 days to `spare` before we had to be in Cusco. We decided that hiking was out of the question (again sigh) since I was a snot factory and the dodgy chicken sandwich was after aflicting us both with an unease at being far from public toilets plus carrying a pack and eating camping food on an already quesy belly is no fun.
Chulumani was decided as our next destination. Its similar to Coroico (of death road and mountain bike fame but we didn´t really fancy falling into another tourist trap and figured that the death road was probably way easier then any biking we´d done for free in Aussie - memories of wiseman´s ferry and the great northern road which nearly led to overheating a couple of years ago pop to mind!). So off we headed on sunday. The bus is a local bus from Villa Fatima in La Paz. It goes when its full and whilst you wait you get the opportunity to sample local `delicacies´ - dunno what any of it was but we refrained.
The bus drive is incredible. Ascending out of La Paz over a high pass (must be 4500m) surrounded by massive peaks of granite like cliffs and small glaciers and fantastic looking side valleys, the bus then starts the looooonnnggg descent into Chulumani. Most of the road is not paved ie its gravel/dust and clings (seriously it defies belief) to the side of the valley walls. Since I´m afraid of heights sitting next to the window was NOT a good idea. Of course at the start, we saw them retrieving a 4WD from down one of the many preciptious cliffs along the road .. afterwards we found out 2 people survived ... dunno how many didn´t tho but in the last year 240 people have died on this 120km stretch of road. We also had picked a really busy day to travel as it was a long w-e and all the La Pazians were heading back up the valley against us. Some of them have obviously NEVER driven anything wider then a bike. Thankfully the bus driver was a steady and careful driver (most of the time) and always made sure the bus was perched safely on the side of the road with at least 2-3 inches to spare. He even stopped the engine and got out once and refused to back up when this silly 4WD refused to go back. Behind us was a 150m chasm!! So 4 hours later we had descended down to a least 1200m and then back upto Chulumani at 1700m, and I had used up more adrenalin then all the trip so far! The scenery was amazing thou. Massive peaks towering overhead, waterfalls, cloudforest, coca fields perched in seemingly impossible locations.
We stayed in the Country House Hotel (50 bolivianos pp) with Xavier as our very hospitable, informative and great cook! Its a really nice place to relax and we spent the afternoon sitting in the reading room, overlooking the mountains, sipping beer. Ahhhh its tough being a backpacker sometimes! We eat dinner and breakfast at the hostel and it was soooo good. Dinner (40 bolivianos pp ie 4eur!) was always some great stew with potatos (droool), quinoa or rice, plenty of bread and salads, dessert and of course beer (not included). Brekkie was bread with local honey and home made jam, loads of tea, sandwiches, fruit, juice, omelettes and yoghurt ... ahhhh so good! We didn´t need to worry about lunch!
The first full day we did a walk down and into the valley exploring some streams and seeing the local farmers planting coca, banana or coffee crops. The next day we climbed to the top of the hills for a fantastic view. On both days saw heaps of birds (more hummingbirds and parrots!) and butterflies, no traffic and just a few locals. Would highly recommend Chulumani for the scenic (even if scary) drive in, the walking (well its more like rambling about really) and relaxing in the hostel above! If your looking for anything else tho you wont find it in Chulumani!
On the downside, coca is a major growth plant in the valley which unfortunately means a lot of the cloudforest is being destroyed to allow farmers to met the demands for coca. Allegedly there´s 300 trucks of coca leaves a night leave the valley and its under constant satellite supervision by the US: its hard to know how much of this is true but it does seem like there is coca plots everywhere!! The coca is made into cocaine elsewhere and allegedly most of the locals dont even know what cocaine looks like. In fairness why bother cos they chew huge amounts of coca!! Heard lots of other conspiracies and rumours but hard to know whats going on just pretty sad to see the cloudforest getting destroyed so rapidly.
Chulumani was decided as our next destination. Its similar to Coroico (of death road and mountain bike fame but we didn´t really fancy falling into another tourist trap and figured that the death road was probably way easier then any biking we´d done for free in Aussie - memories of wiseman´s ferry and the great northern road which nearly led to overheating a couple of years ago pop to mind!). So off we headed on sunday. The bus is a local bus from Villa Fatima in La Paz. It goes when its full and whilst you wait you get the opportunity to sample local `delicacies´ - dunno what any of it was but we refrained.
The bus drive is incredible. Ascending out of La Paz over a high pass (must be 4500m) surrounded by massive peaks of granite like cliffs and small glaciers and fantastic looking side valleys, the bus then starts the looooonnnggg descent into Chulumani. Most of the road is not paved ie its gravel/dust and clings (seriously it defies belief) to the side of the valley walls. Since I´m afraid of heights sitting next to the window was NOT a good idea. Of course at the start, we saw them retrieving a 4WD from down one of the many preciptious cliffs along the road .. afterwards we found out 2 people survived ... dunno how many didn´t tho but in the last year 240 people have died on this 120km stretch of road. We also had picked a really busy day to travel as it was a long w-e and all the La Pazians were heading back up the valley against us. Some of them have obviously NEVER driven anything wider then a bike. Thankfully the bus driver was a steady and careful driver (most of the time) and always made sure the bus was perched safely on the side of the road with at least 2-3 inches to spare. He even stopped the engine and got out once and refused to back up when this silly 4WD refused to go back. Behind us was a 150m chasm!! So 4 hours later we had descended down to a least 1200m and then back upto Chulumani at 1700m, and I had used up more adrenalin then all the trip so far! The scenery was amazing thou. Massive peaks towering overhead, waterfalls, cloudforest, coca fields perched in seemingly impossible locations.
We stayed in the Country House Hotel (50 bolivianos pp) with Xavier as our very hospitable, informative and great cook! Its a really nice place to relax and we spent the afternoon sitting in the reading room, overlooking the mountains, sipping beer. Ahhhh its tough being a backpacker sometimes! We eat dinner and breakfast at the hostel and it was soooo good. Dinner (40 bolivianos pp ie 4eur!) was always some great stew with potatos (droool), quinoa or rice, plenty of bread and salads, dessert and of course beer (not included). Brekkie was bread with local honey and home made jam, loads of tea, sandwiches, fruit, juice, omelettes and yoghurt ... ahhhh so good! We didn´t need to worry about lunch!
The first full day we did a walk down and into the valley exploring some streams and seeing the local farmers planting coca, banana or coffee crops. The next day we climbed to the top of the hills for a fantastic view. On both days saw heaps of birds (more hummingbirds and parrots!) and butterflies, no traffic and just a few locals. Would highly recommend Chulumani for the scenic (even if scary) drive in, the walking (well its more like rambling about really) and relaxing in the hostel above! If your looking for anything else tho you wont find it in Chulumani!
On the downside, coca is a major growth plant in the valley which unfortunately means a lot of the cloudforest is being destroyed to allow farmers to met the demands for coca. Allegedly there´s 300 trucks of coca leaves a night leave the valley and its under constant satellite supervision by the US: its hard to know how much of this is true but it does seem like there is coca plots everywhere!! The coca is made into cocaine elsewhere and allegedly most of the locals dont even know what cocaine looks like. In fairness why bother cos they chew huge amounts of coca!! Heard lots of other conspiracies and rumours but hard to know whats going on just pretty sad to see the cloudforest getting destroyed so rapidly.
Saturday, November 3, 2007
The Salar De Uyuni
Taking a tour of the Salar De Uyuni is the reason we (and nearly every other gringo) went to Uyuni.
The Salar De Uyuni is the worlds largest salt flat, and is at an altitude of about 3600m. We went on a 3 day tour, which covered the Salar, situated close to Uyuni, several high altitude lakes, many of which are inhabited by several species of pink coloured flamingos, and spectacular volcanic landscapes, situated south of Uyuni, as far away as the Chilean border. The tour included the Eduardo Avaroa National Park.
There are 101 agencies in Uyuni offering tours, and many of them are reputed to be crap (although which ones depends on who you talk to). We scoped out 4 or 5 places, and settled on Oasis Tours, based on the fact that we'd heard good reports of them and their food, that they were good to deal with, and promised that we'd be riding in a late model landcruiser (there are HJ60 model landcruisers still being used - most of these appeared to come complete with a mechanic to get them thru the 3 days).
Tour, Day 1:
We rocked up at the oasis office on tuesday, and were told that there was only enuf room for 1 of our 2 big backpacks on the roofrack (would have been handy if they'd mentioned this the day before), so we had to hastily repack. Oasis had 2 tours going that day (and luckily, the 2 groups shared a cook, meaning we had 7 people in our landcruiser, rather than a very squashy 8). Our tour group consisted of an American Couple, Rick and Holly, and a French Canadian couple, Melanie and Mark. We all had a common interest in the outdoors, and everyone was a good laugh, so this contributed heaps to the tour being such good fun. Fuel, stoves and our backpacks went up on the roofrack, and food behind the back seat.
We left around 10 or 10.30, and made a quick stop at the train cemetry outside Uyuni - this is basically a graveyard of old Bolivian, Chilean and Argentian steam trains which seem to have partly been used for scrap metal, and partly left to rust (which takes a long time in the dry, cold climate). From here, we drove to the Salar De Uyuni, and stopped to take a look at the 'salt mines'; the salt miners scrape the top layer of salt into heaps to dry (its quite damp just under the surface, although it feels very hard), and later cart them off to market. Each wet season, the lake is covered in a foot or so of water, which later evaporates to leave a new, clean salt layer. During the dry season, the surface of the lake is made up of hard salt (very soft around the lake edges).
After a stop at a now defunct salt hotel (they shut it down due to effluent disposal problems), we drove out to Isla Pescado, one of several islands that dot the lake. (If all roads in Bolivia were as flat as the lake, is would make for much more pleasant bus journeys). The islands are former coral outcrops, and the limestone structures built by the coral are still clearly visible. Isla Pescado is covered in Cacti, and has a population of small birds - its really quite unusual given the surrounding salt lake, which stretches almost to the horizon. After a good walk around, we had a great lunch of steak and other tasty stuff.
At about this point, we realised that we had a great guide/driver; he was very informative and interested in the place (between everyone in the group, we could usually figure out his explanations in spanish), was a skillful and careful driver, and had a a good sense of humour. The cook was also fantastic!!
The Salar De Uyuni is the worlds largest salt flat, and is at an altitude of about 3600m. We went on a 3 day tour, which covered the Salar, situated close to Uyuni, several high altitude lakes, many of which are inhabited by several species of pink coloured flamingos, and spectacular volcanic landscapes, situated south of Uyuni, as far away as the Chilean border. The tour included the Eduardo Avaroa National Park.
There are 101 agencies in Uyuni offering tours, and many of them are reputed to be crap (although which ones depends on who you talk to). We scoped out 4 or 5 places, and settled on Oasis Tours, based on the fact that we'd heard good reports of them and their food, that they were good to deal with, and promised that we'd be riding in a late model landcruiser (there are HJ60 model landcruisers still being used - most of these appeared to come complete with a mechanic to get them thru the 3 days).
Tour, Day 1:
We rocked up at the oasis office on tuesday, and were told that there was only enuf room for 1 of our 2 big backpacks on the roofrack (would have been handy if they'd mentioned this the day before), so we had to hastily repack. Oasis had 2 tours going that day (and luckily, the 2 groups shared a cook, meaning we had 7 people in our landcruiser, rather than a very squashy 8). Our tour group consisted of an American Couple, Rick and Holly, and a French Canadian couple, Melanie and Mark. We all had a common interest in the outdoors, and everyone was a good laugh, so this contributed heaps to the tour being such good fun. Fuel, stoves and our backpacks went up on the roofrack, and food behind the back seat.
We left around 10 or 10.30, and made a quick stop at the train cemetry outside Uyuni - this is basically a graveyard of old Bolivian, Chilean and Argentian steam trains which seem to have partly been used for scrap metal, and partly left to rust (which takes a long time in the dry, cold climate). From here, we drove to the Salar De Uyuni, and stopped to take a look at the 'salt mines'; the salt miners scrape the top layer of salt into heaps to dry (its quite damp just under the surface, although it feels very hard), and later cart them off to market. Each wet season, the lake is covered in a foot or so of water, which later evaporates to leave a new, clean salt layer. During the dry season, the surface of the lake is made up of hard salt (very soft around the lake edges).
After a stop at a now defunct salt hotel (they shut it down due to effluent disposal problems), we drove out to Isla Pescado, one of several islands that dot the lake. (If all roads in Bolivia were as flat as the lake, is would make for much more pleasant bus journeys). The islands are former coral outcrops, and the limestone structures built by the coral are still clearly visible. Isla Pescado is covered in Cacti, and has a population of small birds - its really quite unusual given the surrounding salt lake, which stretches almost to the horizon. After a good walk around, we had a great lunch of steak and other tasty stuff.
At about this point, we realised that we had a great guide/driver; he was very informative and interested in the place (between everyone in the group, we could usually figure out his explanations in spanish), was a skillful and careful driver, and had a a good sense of humour. The cook was also fantastic!!
A couple of hours drive took us to a cave in a coral outcrop near San Pedro. The formations in the cave were made from calcified sheets of algae, which were suspended from the ceiling. Very pretty, and very unusual. Next to this cave was another, filled will small, man made caverns. The ádversiting´outside the cave reckons it is filled with graves, but according to our driver, no-one really knows what the story with it is. He grew up in a small pueblo nearby, and used to shelter in the cave during hail storms as a child.
We spent our first night in a small hostal in San Pedro. A lovely place, and the sky was unbelieveable clear. Couldn´t see the Southern Cross tho - I think its only visible for some of the year at this latitude. Dinner was great, and a few drinks and a game of cards made for a great finish to the day. Everyone in our Landcruiser voted to smell together rather than try the ´hot´shower...
Day 2:
Our second day consisted of a long drive south to Laguna Colorado in Eduardo Avaroa National Park, stopping to look at lakes full of pink flamingoes, massive volvanoes in a multitude of colours, strangely shaped lava flows, and unusual rocks scattered in the desert landscape. Basically, we spent the time gaping at the view. Its amazing how pink the flamingoes really are - apparently, the pink colouration comes from something in the water of the lakes in which they spend most of their time. Most of the lakes we saw flamingoes in looked fairly inhospitable; they were muddy and somethimes salty, often stank of sulfur, and looked like they contained a lot of minerals that had just come out of a volcano. Defo not somewhere I´d like to go for a swim...
Laguna Colorado is massive, and coloured a stunning dark red. Its surrounded by volcanoes, and filled with pink flamingoes- what a mad sight... Its also bloody cold there - I´m not sure I´d like to be there in winter...
We spent the second night in a simple hostel which accomodated about 10 tour groups, a kilometer or 2 from Laguna Colorado. It was cold, but dinner was great! Unfortunately, Grace started coming down with a cold in the afternoon, and she was helped by the combination of altitude, cold and dust.
Day 3:
We began at 4.30 or something - can´t remember because it was too early... We jumped straight in the car and headed off to a geothermally active area to look at bubbling mud pools and jets of steam. Personally, I thought that looking at the landscape as the sun rose was way more interesting - the colours were muy bonito. Breakfast was by a thermal pool - I chickened out cos while the water was about 30 degrees, it wasn´t much above zero outside, and there was breeze...
After brekky, we drove south to the Chilean border to drop off our 2 Canadians, stopping at the arsenic filled Laguna Verde (a mad green colour), and Laguna Blanco. We drove down a long valley to the border, surrounded by snow capped volcanoes. Everything appeared in shades of red, white or black, and the valley floor was a couple of kilometers wide in places, and filled with red gravel, and the odd herd of Vicunas (got knows what they were eating...). This was, in my opioion, one of the most scenic parts of the journey.
The rest of the day consisted of a very long drive back to Uyuni, with a few stops to look at the mad scenery. Not nearly as interesting as what came before, but quite nice all the same.
Afterwards:
All in all, we had a superb trip. I would recommend Oasis tours for the professionalism, friendliness, and great tucker! I think its worth noting that many people we met seemed to find 3 days in a 4wd on rough roads (or no roads), and staying in basic accomodation to be too much. Many people also seemed to get a bit bored with the scenery. I think these things may contribute to the negative comments some of the tour agencies receive. The Salar is best appreciated if you love to look at lots and lots of unusual scenery and animal life, and don´t expect that doing so will be like going for a trip to the park.
We caught the train back to Oruro, and then a bus to La Paz where we stayed in a much swankier Hostal than usual (Hostal Fuentes - really nice, and great views from the top floor) while Grace got rid of her cold, and I got rid of the the runs given to me by a dodgy chicken sandwich...
Monday, October 29, 2007
Arequipa to Uyuni, Bolivia
Left Arequipa at 8.30 on saturday morning, spent 6 hours on the local bus to Puno which is the same time as the tourist bus takes except 4 times cheaper and lots more interesting as its all locals! Saying that could have done without the chiuld puking in the seat in front of us. Was a very scenic drive over the altiplano which is high altitude plains that are basically desert. Mostly its just all huge flat valleys, with hills on the rims and not much there except the odd llama/alpaca/sheep farm ... these people seriously live in the middle of nothing in the middle of nowhere. There´s the odd river of green with little lakes and we saw our first flamingos!
From Puno, we got the bust to Cocabana .. well after a ritual of ´theres no bus until tomorrow´followed by ´there is a bus and its 30 soles´ followed by us saying we we leaving tothe other bus terminal and then ´miracously´ there is a bus ALL the way to La Paz for 25 soles! Saying that we had to sit on little stools for 2 hours to Cocabana (which we will stop properly at some time later as its really nice looking there). Also Cocabana is in Bolivia so we had to cross the border which is all very relaxed. Had to get off the bus and get 2 stamps in Peru, then walk over to Bolivia for 200m and get another stamp there. There´s stalls and stuff for sale all the way and locals pushing bikes both ways. From Cocabana we had to change bus to La Paz which was another 5 hours ... 2 hours of this was spent waiting for the ferry across Lake Titicaca. BTW ferry is the largest exageration todate. For the people on the buses there was little boats with a motor smaller then a lawnmower and for the buses there was large floats/barges with a slightly larger motor that held a bus each. Throw in the added bonus of nighttime and NO lights on any of the boats increased the sense of adventure lots ... especially when our boat driver couldn´t start the motor. Anyways we made it. Got into La Paz 2 hours later then we were told at 11pm so that was a bit dodgy. The police met all the tourists, get ya a taxi, take his number etc (which isn´t the safest feeling) and then we went straight to the hotel (which we actually had the foresight to book).
Stayed in Tambo de Oro which is right next 2 the bus terminal and worked out very handy for the next day. Spent another 4 hours on a bus to Oruro. The drive there is much less spectacular then in Peru or maybe I was getting tired of seeing nothing but desert with the odd llama and unbeleivably remote looking village. In Oruro booked our train tickets to Uyuni but then got ´latched onto´ by this kiwi fella - now its good meeting people along the way and I have no problem talking to someone travelling on their own BUT not if they turn out to be one of those tight arse, ´I carry 2kgs of stuff´, ´only use the toilet when its free´´ kind of blokes. We were STARVING ... seriously had no hot food in 2 days and had only eaten biscuits, bread and snacks the day before SO we wanted to get a nice hot dinner before the train. Yer man tags along and suggested this place outside the train station ... now I dont have a weak stomach but jayus the food looked like it had been frying in the oldest oil in Bolivia for 4 days continously .. so we said NO. Eventually found a lovely little pizza place open and went in there. So we ordered pizza and he said he{d have a bit of ours cos he had already eaten (ok fair enough we´re getting a big pizza). After that he vanished to the toilet for 15mins and then came back and said dont use the toilet as he stunk it out! and then he proceeded to tell us on ways to save backpack weight for the next half hour .. eg dont bring a change of clothes just wash them every night - like seriously what a muppet ... we didn´t say too much as really no point. He was ASTONISHED when Dunk ordered icecream for dessert ... like I mean how extravagant are we ... must have cost us all of 1 euro .. seriously like. Anyways in fairness he did throw in some cash for the meal and then told us to use the toilets as they were free!!!! Baffling. After that we managed to lose him on the train but did see him lurking about Uyuni today ... we made sure there was no kiwis on our tour just in case!
So ye we made it Uyuni. The train trip was really good (altho screaming brat of child was annoying but was worth it to see the bolivians telling the mother to shut him up - no words spared seriously!). It was like being in a wild west movie as the moon was full and we could see the plains going on and on and on. Uyuni is grand. Got an unbelivable good brekkie (fresh fruit and yoghurt and the best pineapple juice, Dunk got an omellete that much have had 5 eggs in it!)this morning (the kiwi would have freaked at the price) and 3 day tour to salt plains sorted so we´re all good and happy. Have had a post brekkie nap and think a post lunch nap (altho dont think there´s room yet after brekkie!).
Booked our 3 day trip with Oasis but all the tours here are allegedly unreliable so could be an interesting few days. Watch out flaming flamingoes here we come!!
PS we´ve started to met the ´extreme backpackers´ and I dont mean the ones who do extreme sports BUT the ones who harass, are rude and horrible to all the locals they met just to get the best deal ... is arguing over 2 bolivianos(about 20 cents euro) REALLY worth p1ssing off that many people. Ah well as long as the locals dont think we´re all like that!
From Puno, we got the bust to Cocabana .. well after a ritual of ´theres no bus until tomorrow´followed by ´there is a bus and its 30 soles´ followed by us saying we we leaving tothe other bus terminal and then ´miracously´ there is a bus ALL the way to La Paz for 25 soles! Saying that we had to sit on little stools for 2 hours to Cocabana (which we will stop properly at some time later as its really nice looking there). Also Cocabana is in Bolivia so we had to cross the border which is all very relaxed. Had to get off the bus and get 2 stamps in Peru, then walk over to Bolivia for 200m and get another stamp there. There´s stalls and stuff for sale all the way and locals pushing bikes both ways. From Cocabana we had to change bus to La Paz which was another 5 hours ... 2 hours of this was spent waiting for the ferry across Lake Titicaca. BTW ferry is the largest exageration todate. For the people on the buses there was little boats with a motor smaller then a lawnmower and for the buses there was large floats/barges with a slightly larger motor that held a bus each. Throw in the added bonus of nighttime and NO lights on any of the boats increased the sense of adventure lots ... especially when our boat driver couldn´t start the motor. Anyways we made it. Got into La Paz 2 hours later then we were told at 11pm so that was a bit dodgy. The police met all the tourists, get ya a taxi, take his number etc (which isn´t the safest feeling) and then we went straight to the hotel (which we actually had the foresight to book).
Stayed in Tambo de Oro which is right next 2 the bus terminal and worked out very handy for the next day. Spent another 4 hours on a bus to Oruro. The drive there is much less spectacular then in Peru or maybe I was getting tired of seeing nothing but desert with the odd llama and unbeleivably remote looking village. In Oruro booked our train tickets to Uyuni but then got ´latched onto´ by this kiwi fella - now its good meeting people along the way and I have no problem talking to someone travelling on their own BUT not if they turn out to be one of those tight arse, ´I carry 2kgs of stuff´, ´only use the toilet when its free´´ kind of blokes. We were STARVING ... seriously had no hot food in 2 days and had only eaten biscuits, bread and snacks the day before SO we wanted to get a nice hot dinner before the train. Yer man tags along and suggested this place outside the train station ... now I dont have a weak stomach but jayus the food looked like it had been frying in the oldest oil in Bolivia for 4 days continously .. so we said NO. Eventually found a lovely little pizza place open and went in there. So we ordered pizza and he said he{d have a bit of ours cos he had already eaten (ok fair enough we´re getting a big pizza). After that he vanished to the toilet for 15mins and then came back and said dont use the toilet as he stunk it out! and then he proceeded to tell us on ways to save backpack weight for the next half hour .. eg dont bring a change of clothes just wash them every night - like seriously what a muppet ... we didn´t say too much as really no point. He was ASTONISHED when Dunk ordered icecream for dessert ... like I mean how extravagant are we ... must have cost us all of 1 euro .. seriously like. Anyways in fairness he did throw in some cash for the meal and then told us to use the toilets as they were free!!!! Baffling. After that we managed to lose him on the train but did see him lurking about Uyuni today ... we made sure there was no kiwis on our tour just in case!
So ye we made it Uyuni. The train trip was really good (altho screaming brat of child was annoying but was worth it to see the bolivians telling the mother to shut him up - no words spared seriously!). It was like being in a wild west movie as the moon was full and we could see the plains going on and on and on. Uyuni is grand. Got an unbelivable good brekkie (fresh fruit and yoghurt and the best pineapple juice, Dunk got an omellete that much have had 5 eggs in it!)this morning (the kiwi would have freaked at the price) and 3 day tour to salt plains sorted so we´re all good and happy. Have had a post brekkie nap and think a post lunch nap (altho dont think there´s room yet after brekkie!).
Booked our 3 day trip with Oasis but all the tours here are allegedly unreliable so could be an interesting few days. Watch out flaming flamingoes here we come!!
PS we´ve started to met the ´extreme backpackers´ and I dont mean the ones who do extreme sports BUT the ones who harass, are rude and horrible to all the locals they met just to get the best deal ... is arguing over 2 bolivianos(about 20 cents euro) REALLY worth p1ssing off that many people. Ah well as long as the locals dont think we´re all like that!
Saturday, October 27, 2007
Photos of Peru are up!
Check out the link on the side bar or
http://picasaweb.google.com/grace.cantillon
We´re off to Bolivia and the salt plains for the next week or so. More news when we get back from there!
http://picasaweb.google.com/grace.cantillon
We´re off to Bolivia and the salt plains for the next week or so. More news when we get back from there!
Friday, October 26, 2007
Arequipa, Colca Canyon and studying!
Yes so we arrived safely to Arequipa which is Peru´s 2nd city. Its got perfect weather ... seriously like ... sunny 300 days a year, cool at night so nice to sleep, no mossies, cheap beer, nobody harassing us to buy finger puppets, paintings, etc, good food and its just a normal real town which is a relief after 12 days around Cusco and mass tourism!! Staying in an ok hostel (PS in case your wondering why I keep mentioning hostels its for anyone else who´ll be along soon after us!) Hostal Nunez. The ensuite rooms were great but we´re going cheapo now so in smaller non-ensuite room. Saying that hardly any backpackers about so have the top floor to ourselves. Really nice rooftop for brekkie.
Doing a spainish course with CEICA and I have to say its brilliant. We´re doing 5 hours a day and its all beginning to make sense in shops, restaurants, etc. Would highly recommend this place to learn spanish. Its in a little house, with lovely garden and room, about $10 us per hour for us both and really good, professional and keen teachers. Did a cooking course last night with them and made cerviche (Peru´s national dish of fish cooked in lime - really nice!), cuasa papa (which is like a potato castle made from egg, spuds, avocado and mayonaise mixed in layers - its ok), and some yummy dessert made from purple-black corn syrup with fruit. Tell ya what tho - the Peruvians are seriously sweet toothed. All of them out 3- 8 spoons ofsugar in tea ... really they do!! there´s cake shops everywhere and ya its a bit of a tubby place (altho not obese just well rounded). Oh and the meals here are MASSIVE ... did I say this before? Like I can eat for Ireland and I find I leave half my food frequently as they just serve way too much.´Oh and its about 2-3 euro for a litre of beer .... yummy!!
What else is in Arequipa ... nice main square and buildings. Think its called the white city cos of the stone they use. Found awesome coffee (well for Peru) too in Manola just off the square.
Annoying things are the little taxis, buses and colectivos (hiaces with lunny drivers which are local buses really) that continously beep the horns ... and I mean all the time ... not just at each street corner but every 10 metres ... really. And if someone stops, everyone behind the car just beeps the horn even if its for a red light (all about 6 of them!!). Also the beds here are the lumpiest things ever ... I think they went out of their way to make our pillows and bed lumpy. But aside from that ... we´re happy being spanish students (altho learnt the irregular verbs today and that sucks!) until tomorrow.
Think we´re going to head to salt plains in Uyuni (Salar del Uyuni), Bolivia on saturday via either aArica in Chile or else La Paz. Will decide on beer tonight!!
Colca Canyon ... did the trip last weekend. The plan was to do the 2 day tour and see what it was like and go back for more this weekend after spanish course. Decided tho not to go back as its savage dry - suppose it is the Atacama desert for a reason - hence the plan to head south.
The tour was ... well VERY touristy. It was cheap out us$20 but jaysus they did their utmost to squeeze every last sole out of us. The drive is amazing (could also have done in public transport), over the desert, passing by ChaChani, El Misti and other volcanoes I cant remember the name of. The highest pass was 4900m and the view was incredible. The road was a bit wild tho, drove thru an (extinct) volcano at one stage, the driver was a headcase - I wouldn´t put him drivign nails, and in some parts drops of 1000 (ya 1km) straight down. Stayed in Chivay (with obligatory Irish pubs - was alright, the most irish thing was the name McElroy!), had to do tourist lunch, dinner and again lunch the next day but in fairness the food was good. Didthe hot springs as well which were really good and clean ... recommended!
On the sunday we got dragged out of bed at 5am to go and see the condors ... supposed to go early as best time of day. So off we went, and then we stopped at not 1 but 3 little villages on the way so it was 9am by the time we got to the condor lookout. I seriously thought that was pulling the p1ss like. In one place there was little boys danvcing around a fountain at 6am for the tourists ... jayus whats that about. And the usual hawkers selling stuff everywhere but I suppose at least they didn´t follow us. Its a cool drive (altho a bit scary) out to the highest part of the canyon which is 3700m or something AND we did see condors AND they did make the trip worthwile as did the scenery but we could have done with less ´sheep tourism!´ Oh also seeing llamas, alpacas and vicunas in the wild is very cool!
One last rant for the week. There´s a delicacy here called ´cuy´which is guinea pig. Now I´m no biologist (I cant even spell the word!) but dotn guinea pigs look a little like colourful rats??? We´ve all seen road kill ok (especially in Oz) and you know the flattened look it gets after a day or so ... well thats what cuy looks like on a plate except the head is fully intact and not squashed, the little paws have all the nails etc but apart from that everything is flattened as they cook it under a big stone. Our spanish teacher said check the tail before eating as if its long then its RAT!! yummo ... on that note I´ll sign off and have a good w-e all!!
We´re off to Chile or Bolivia or both .... wahoooooo!!
Doing a spainish course with CEICA and I have to say its brilliant. We´re doing 5 hours a day and its all beginning to make sense in shops, restaurants, etc. Would highly recommend this place to learn spanish. Its in a little house, with lovely garden and room, about $10 us per hour for us both and really good, professional and keen teachers. Did a cooking course last night with them and made cerviche (Peru´s national dish of fish cooked in lime - really nice!), cuasa papa (which is like a potato castle made from egg, spuds, avocado and mayonaise mixed in layers - its ok), and some yummy dessert made from purple-black corn syrup with fruit. Tell ya what tho - the Peruvians are seriously sweet toothed. All of them out 3- 8 spoons ofsugar in tea ... really they do!! there´s cake shops everywhere and ya its a bit of a tubby place (altho not obese just well rounded). Oh and the meals here are MASSIVE ... did I say this before? Like I can eat for Ireland and I find I leave half my food frequently as they just serve way too much.´Oh and its about 2-3 euro for a litre of beer .... yummy!!
What else is in Arequipa ... nice main square and buildings. Think its called the white city cos of the stone they use. Found awesome coffee (well for Peru) too in Manola just off the square.
Annoying things are the little taxis, buses and colectivos (hiaces with lunny drivers which are local buses really) that continously beep the horns ... and I mean all the time ... not just at each street corner but every 10 metres ... really. And if someone stops, everyone behind the car just beeps the horn even if its for a red light (all about 6 of them!!). Also the beds here are the lumpiest things ever ... I think they went out of their way to make our pillows and bed lumpy. But aside from that ... we´re happy being spanish students (altho learnt the irregular verbs today and that sucks!) until tomorrow.
Think we´re going to head to salt plains in Uyuni (Salar del Uyuni), Bolivia on saturday via either aArica in Chile or else La Paz. Will decide on beer tonight!!
Colca Canyon ... did the trip last weekend. The plan was to do the 2 day tour and see what it was like and go back for more this weekend after spanish course. Decided tho not to go back as its savage dry - suppose it is the Atacama desert for a reason - hence the plan to head south.
The tour was ... well VERY touristy. It was cheap out us$20 but jaysus they did their utmost to squeeze every last sole out of us. The drive is amazing (could also have done in public transport), over the desert, passing by ChaChani, El Misti and other volcanoes I cant remember the name of. The highest pass was 4900m and the view was incredible. The road was a bit wild tho, drove thru an (extinct) volcano at one stage, the driver was a headcase - I wouldn´t put him drivign nails, and in some parts drops of 1000 (ya 1km) straight down. Stayed in Chivay (with obligatory Irish pubs - was alright, the most irish thing was the name McElroy!), had to do tourist lunch, dinner and again lunch the next day but in fairness the food was good. Didthe hot springs as well which were really good and clean ... recommended!
On the sunday we got dragged out of bed at 5am to go and see the condors ... supposed to go early as best time of day. So off we went, and then we stopped at not 1 but 3 little villages on the way so it was 9am by the time we got to the condor lookout. I seriously thought that was pulling the p1ss like. In one place there was little boys danvcing around a fountain at 6am for the tourists ... jayus whats that about. And the usual hawkers selling stuff everywhere but I suppose at least they didn´t follow us. Its a cool drive (altho a bit scary) out to the highest part of the canyon which is 3700m or something AND we did see condors AND they did make the trip worthwile as did the scenery but we could have done with less ´sheep tourism!´ Oh also seeing llamas, alpacas and vicunas in the wild is very cool!
One last rant for the week. There´s a delicacy here called ´cuy´which is guinea pig. Now I´m no biologist (I cant even spell the word!) but dotn guinea pigs look a little like colourful rats??? We´ve all seen road kill ok (especially in Oz) and you know the flattened look it gets after a day or so ... well thats what cuy looks like on a plate except the head is fully intact and not squashed, the little paws have all the nails etc but apart from that everything is flattened as they cook it under a big stone. Our spanish teacher said check the tail before eating as if its long then its RAT!! yummo ... on that note I´ll sign off and have a good w-e all!!
We´re off to Chile or Bolivia or both .... wahoooooo!!
Thursday, October 18, 2007
Off to sunny Arequipa
We had planned to head off and do a 6 day hike around Mt Ausangate but the rainy season has well and truly hit us here in Cusco. Yesterday poured all the day and the clouds were down on the hills here so decided it would be miserable at 1000m higher. Bit of a pity cos looks like a fantastic hike.
We´re off to Arequipa tonight instead. Going to learn Spanish there and wander about Colca Canyon for the next 3 weeks so that should keep us out of trouble.
We´re off to Arequipa tonight instead. Going to learn Spanish there and wander about Colca Canyon for the next 3 weeks so that should keep us out of trouble.
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
Eating, sleeping and drinking in Cusco
There´s over 200 places to stay in Cusco. So far we have tried 3 of them all near San Blas on Carmen Alto.
Hostel El Grial - very clean, cosy and friendly place. Free internet, ok brekkie included, had cable tv in our room, but there was a stink of sweage in the toilet and we had a very noisy room but possibly all rooms noisy as face over the balcony and since people arrive-leave at all hours then quiet sleep impossible. US35 so expensive for what it was.
Hotel Marani. Stayed there for 6 nights with tara and colin. got a deal for 30us per room per night so was well worth while. Spotless clean, new towels and room cleaned everyday, good staff. Continental brekkie included. Nice cafe area, very sfe, stored all our stuff when went on the inca trail plus they made us brekkie at 4.30 am also on the morning we left for inca trail. Only reservation was that it was slightly clinical and I got the feeling if I was Dutch-german then it would have been more welcoming as its run by a dutch lady.
Hospedaje de San Blas - US20 including brekkie, staying here cos its near the last place we stayed and cheap ;) bit disorganised and water seems to be a problem. Very friendly tho and free internet when the kids aren´t using it!
Restaurants abound in Cusco. I think there is more then there is tourists. have tried some peruvian but also falling back on more western type food as the peruvian food seems to be very carb driven.
Jacks cafe - gringo place. great comfort food, steak sandwich rocks, so do there fries, coffee and shakes. medium expensive. 15 -20 soles per person
Fallen Angel - fantastic bar restaurant. Steak (35 soles) is incredible but dont get the hot one as its too hot. Fries are amazing - seriously! great pisco sours - think thy add some dynamite!
also salads and desserts are very good. Decor is funky. Has baths with goldfish as tables!
Chez Maggy and a millin other pizza places like it. good italian pizza in Cusco.
Inka Panaka, on 140 tandapata, just before the right hand corner ther´s an amazing peruvian
restaurant. try the banana wrapped in bacon and the ceviche. Also the
veggie curry and alpaca were excellent. go hungry tho cos the portions
are huge. about 40 soles for entree and main.
On corner of Calle garcilaso and Plaza San Francisco
theres a great cheap local place. he menu of the day is 4.5 soles and
is massive. 3 courses for 1 euro! and tasty also. They serve the quioa
soup which is yummy!
El Buen Pastor is good bakery and very cheap.
KM 0 is a good bar with live music and the muse also is ok.
Cusquena is yummy beer and pisco sours are a must!
Great bakeries down Tullymayo - 3 in a row together as you head towards the pisac bus station.
On the inside corner of Teqoscha and Wayna Pata, there{s a great cheap peruvian place which is really cheap. Its something Baieche Trattoria. Great feed for 7, 12 or 20 soles. Their Lomo Saltado is good.
Hostel El Grial - very clean, cosy and friendly place. Free internet, ok brekkie included, had cable tv in our room, but there was a stink of sweage in the toilet and we had a very noisy room but possibly all rooms noisy as face over the balcony and since people arrive-leave at all hours then quiet sleep impossible. US35 so expensive for what it was.
Hotel Marani. Stayed there for 6 nights with tara and colin. got a deal for 30us per room per night so was well worth while. Spotless clean, new towels and room cleaned everyday, good staff. Continental brekkie included. Nice cafe area, very sfe, stored all our stuff when went on the inca trail plus they made us brekkie at 4.30 am also on the morning we left for inca trail. Only reservation was that it was slightly clinical and I got the feeling if I was Dutch-german then it would have been more welcoming as its run by a dutch lady.
Hospedaje de San Blas - US20 including brekkie, staying here cos its near the last place we stayed and cheap ;) bit disorganised and water seems to be a problem. Very friendly tho and free internet when the kids aren´t using it!
Restaurants abound in Cusco. I think there is more then there is tourists. have tried some peruvian but also falling back on more western type food as the peruvian food seems to be very carb driven.
Jacks cafe - gringo place. great comfort food, steak sandwich rocks, so do there fries, coffee and shakes. medium expensive. 15 -20 soles per person
Fallen Angel - fantastic bar restaurant. Steak (35 soles) is incredible but dont get the hot one as its too hot. Fries are amazing - seriously! great pisco sours - think thy add some dynamite!
also salads and desserts are very good. Decor is funky. Has baths with goldfish as tables!
Chez Maggy and a millin other pizza places like it. good italian pizza in Cusco.
Inka Panaka, on 140 tandapata, just before the right hand corner ther´s an amazing peruvian
restaurant. try the banana wrapped in bacon and the ceviche. Also the
veggie curry and alpaca were excellent. go hungry tho cos the portions
are huge. about 40 soles for entree and main.
On corner of Calle garcilaso and Plaza San Francisco
theres a great cheap local place. he menu of the day is 4.5 soles and
is massive. 3 courses for 1 euro! and tasty also. They serve the quioa
soup which is yummy!
El Buen Pastor is good bakery and very cheap.
KM 0 is a good bar with live music and the muse also is ok.
Cusquena is yummy beer and pisco sours are a must!
Great bakeries down Tullymayo - 3 in a row together as you head towards the pisac bus station.
On the inside corner of Teqoscha and Wayna Pata, there{s a great cheap peruvian place which is really cheap. Its something Baieche Trattoria. Great feed for 7, 12 or 20 soles. Their Lomo Saltado is good.
The Inca Trail
This is the reason we´re in Cuso, really... The Inca Trail is a 4 day walk, following an old Inca road, which finishes at the Inca site of Machu Pichu. It´s compulsory to use a guide to walk the Inca Trail, and we went with Peru Treks, who were superb.
We (Tara, Colin, Grace and Dunk) were picked up from our hostal at about 5.30 (a sign of things to come), and headed off to Ollantaytambo on a bus with the 13 others in our walking group. After a stop for some strange luke-warm coffee we drove along a dirt road to "km 82" to the checkpoint which marks the start of the walk. Along with the 15 walkers, we had 2 guides (the cheif guides name was bobby), 18 porters and a cook - i think they needed all the porters to carry the mountains of food we were fed!
We followed the Rio Cusichaca for a few hours, stopping to check out the Inca site at Llactapata - Bobby gave us a 30 minute description of the site, its purpose, the reasons for it being built where it was etc. He was very knowledgeable. Not long after starting the walk, we began to see some of the 13 species of humming bird which inhabit the Machu Pichu National Park - I´ve never seen them before and they´re pretty unusual. The smallest looks more like and insect than a bird...
Lunch was had across the river from Llactapata. We had a dining tent and 3 course meal - a bit of a change from sitting under a tree and munching on a sandwhich like we usually do at home! From here, we walked a couple of hours to the village of Huayllabamba, where we camped. A couple of beers from the village shop broke the ice; we had a great group of people on the tour, most of who were fairly fit, which made for a great trip.
Day 2 consisted of a climb up to Warmiwanusca Pass (Dead Woman Pass) at 4198m, and then down to camp at a site named Pacamayo. The walk was made difficult by the altitude, but was otherwise short, and easy going on a rock-surfaced track. Much of the walk up to the pass went thru lush cloud forest. This reminded me a bit of the rainforest in south west Tasmania, and was beautiful. Views of the surrounding mountains were obscured by high cloud for most of the day, but Mt Veronica cleared in time for sunset. The view from our tens was stupendous - we looked across a massively deep rainforest filled valley surrounded by huge and precipitously sided mountains. No beers for sale nearby this night, but we were entertained by Bobby´s card tricks, and fed a huge lunch at 3 in the arvo (at the camp site), followed by afternoon tea at 4.30 and then dinner at 6.30 - no chance of loosing weight on this walk! Myself, Grace and Tara spotted an Andean Deer (quite common apparently) whilst going for an afternoon stroll.
Day 3 began at some ungodly hour of the morning, and we finished walking at 2 or 3 in the arvo. It was very misty in the valley where were camped, with a lot of low cloud which pesisted for the day. This was very atmospheric, but prevented us from seeing the apparently majestic mountain views this days walking is sposed to provide. We stopped at the Inca site of Runkuracay on our way up to the second pass at 3998m, where we each added a stone to the collection of cairns on the pass. Spectacular high mountain scenery... From the pass, we walked several hours thru cloud forest, and open alpine areas along an original section of Inca trail. This is a rock trail built by the Incas which clings to the mountain side in some unlikely places, providing people who dont like heights (won´t mention any names ;)) with a few nervous moments. We stopped at the Inca site of Phuyupatamarca, which provided a spectacular view of Machu Picchu mountain and the surrounding peaks before descending to camp at Huinay Huayna - this ´research station´built by the cusco university years ago seems to have been transformed into a Gringo service station, equipped with cold beer and hot showers. The researchers have been replaced with walkers in (I can only assume) the name of profit. This is a real shame, but we had a few coldies anyway...
The final day began sometime before 3 and 4 in the morning (you´d think we were off to climb a mountain or something!). We walked for 2 hours to Machu Picchu through beautiful cloud forest with yet more majestic views of the hugely deep valley below us, and massive moutains above. It was too cloudy to see anything from the Sun gate (the point at which the trail enters Machu Picchu), so we walked down to the site itself and were shown around for a few hours by Bobby. It was great to have a guide to explain the place, and I don´t think it would be half as interesting without. The train arrived in the valley below at about 10.30 and the crows descended at about 11, at which time we bailed to Agus Calientes.
Macchu Picchu is an interesting spot, but I think its location is really what makes it, rather than the history of the site itself. It sits on top of an improbably steep mountain in a rainforested valley, bringing back memories of Indian Jones.
We caught the train back to Ollantaytambo, and then the bus to Cusco, where we promptly went for an awesome streak at Fallen Angel - thouroughly recommended!
All in all, this is a very enjoyable walk. The spectacular mountain scenery, cloud forest and humming birds made it for me, and the Inca sites along the way, and particularly Machu Picchu at the end add an interesting cultural aspect to it. The distances are short, and the track has a hard rock surface for most of the walk, making life easy indeed. The altitude made for hard going about about 4000m. Going with a tour group was not as bad as I thought (it was great fun actually), although I suspect we were particularly lucky in having such a good guide. Also, I think I mave have become a walking pole convert - i took a wooden pole on the walk as my knee is giving me grief at the moment, and it helped a lot...
We (Tara, Colin, Grace and Dunk) were picked up from our hostal at about 5.30 (a sign of things to come), and headed off to Ollantaytambo on a bus with the 13 others in our walking group. After a stop for some strange luke-warm coffee we drove along a dirt road to "km 82" to the checkpoint which marks the start of the walk. Along with the 15 walkers, we had 2 guides (the cheif guides name was bobby), 18 porters and a cook - i think they needed all the porters to carry the mountains of food we were fed!
We followed the Rio Cusichaca for a few hours, stopping to check out the Inca site at Llactapata - Bobby gave us a 30 minute description of the site, its purpose, the reasons for it being built where it was etc. He was very knowledgeable. Not long after starting the walk, we began to see some of the 13 species of humming bird which inhabit the Machu Pichu National Park - I´ve never seen them before and they´re pretty unusual. The smallest looks more like and insect than a bird...
Lunch was had across the river from Llactapata. We had a dining tent and 3 course meal - a bit of a change from sitting under a tree and munching on a sandwhich like we usually do at home! From here, we walked a couple of hours to the village of Huayllabamba, where we camped. A couple of beers from the village shop broke the ice; we had a great group of people on the tour, most of who were fairly fit, which made for a great trip.
Day 2 consisted of a climb up to Warmiwanusca Pass (Dead Woman Pass) at 4198m, and then down to camp at a site named Pacamayo. The walk was made difficult by the altitude, but was otherwise short, and easy going on a rock-surfaced track. Much of the walk up to the pass went thru lush cloud forest. This reminded me a bit of the rainforest in south west Tasmania, and was beautiful. Views of the surrounding mountains were obscured by high cloud for most of the day, but Mt Veronica cleared in time for sunset. The view from our tens was stupendous - we looked across a massively deep rainforest filled valley surrounded by huge and precipitously sided mountains. No beers for sale nearby this night, but we were entertained by Bobby´s card tricks, and fed a huge lunch at 3 in the arvo (at the camp site), followed by afternoon tea at 4.30 and then dinner at 6.30 - no chance of loosing weight on this walk! Myself, Grace and Tara spotted an Andean Deer (quite common apparently) whilst going for an afternoon stroll.
Day 3 began at some ungodly hour of the morning, and we finished walking at 2 or 3 in the arvo. It was very misty in the valley where were camped, with a lot of low cloud which pesisted for the day. This was very atmospheric, but prevented us from seeing the apparently majestic mountain views this days walking is sposed to provide. We stopped at the Inca site of Runkuracay on our way up to the second pass at 3998m, where we each added a stone to the collection of cairns on the pass. Spectacular high mountain scenery... From the pass, we walked several hours thru cloud forest, and open alpine areas along an original section of Inca trail. This is a rock trail built by the Incas which clings to the mountain side in some unlikely places, providing people who dont like heights (won´t mention any names ;)) with a few nervous moments. We stopped at the Inca site of Phuyupatamarca, which provided a spectacular view of Machu Picchu mountain and the surrounding peaks before descending to camp at Huinay Huayna - this ´research station´built by the cusco university years ago seems to have been transformed into a Gringo service station, equipped with cold beer and hot showers. The researchers have been replaced with walkers in (I can only assume) the name of profit. This is a real shame, but we had a few coldies anyway...
The final day began sometime before 3 and 4 in the morning (you´d think we were off to climb a mountain or something!). We walked for 2 hours to Machu Picchu through beautiful cloud forest with yet more majestic views of the hugely deep valley below us, and massive moutains above. It was too cloudy to see anything from the Sun gate (the point at which the trail enters Machu Picchu), so we walked down to the site itself and were shown around for a few hours by Bobby. It was great to have a guide to explain the place, and I don´t think it would be half as interesting without. The train arrived in the valley below at about 10.30 and the crows descended at about 11, at which time we bailed to Agus Calientes.
Macchu Picchu is an interesting spot, but I think its location is really what makes it, rather than the history of the site itself. It sits on top of an improbably steep mountain in a rainforested valley, bringing back memories of Indian Jones.
We caught the train back to Ollantaytambo, and then the bus to Cusco, where we promptly went for an awesome streak at Fallen Angel - thouroughly recommended!
All in all, this is a very enjoyable walk. The spectacular mountain scenery, cloud forest and humming birds made it for me, and the Inca sites along the way, and particularly Machu Picchu at the end add an interesting cultural aspect to it. The distances are short, and the track has a hard rock surface for most of the walk, making life easy indeed. The altitude made for hard going about about 4000m. Going with a tour group was not as bad as I thought (it was great fun actually), although I suspect we were particularly lucky in having such a good guide. Also, I think I mave have become a walking pole convert - i took a wooden pole on the walk as my knee is giving me grief at the moment, and it helped a lot...
A trip to Pisac
The day after Tara and Colin arrived we headed out to Pisac which is a village in the Sacred Valley. Went on the local bus which was pretty interesting and very cheap (2 soles). Decided to walk UP to the inca site as I thought it was only 20 mins - well turned out to be a very steep hot climb in altitude to the top but the view was magnificient and the inca ruins were pretty impressive as well perched on top of a precarious hill side. We should have brought more food nd water but found a nice little cafe to have dessert at the bottom ;) probably not the best preparation for th inca trail either!!
There´s a massive tourist market there selling all the usual peruvians tourist treasures - think its just the same ole same ole stuff everywhere except more expensive out there. Well overloaded by that now.
Recommend the trip and climb up the hill tho!
There´s a massive tourist market there selling all the usual peruvians tourist treasures - think its just the same ole same ole stuff everywhere except more expensive out there. Well overloaded by that now.
Recommend the trip and climb up the hill tho!
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Cusco, Peru first impressions
Arrived into Cusco on Sunday afternoon. Bit of a shock to land in a mountaineous region after being accustomed to landing in large open spaces in Aussie - the sharp left into he valley was a bit stomach churning! First day was spent mostly suffering from altitude sickness unfortunately - horrible headaches and short of breath but had some coca tea the next day and that set us right!! Stayed in a nice atmo hostel calld El Grial altho it was pretty noisy and the toilet was stinky even tho looked spotless. Woke to the sound of bells/siren at 7am. Thought the whole street was n fire or the police were raiding the biggest drug baron in peru - it was th garbage men who ring a siren as the streets are so narrow people ya cant put the rubbish bins on the streets.
Cusco is a lovely little town altho very tourist driven which is good for the locals. Touts everywhere trying to selll hats, finger puppets, massages (dunno if they have a happy ending!), paintings, etc which gets a bit annoying after awhile. The range of food and restaurants here is amazing - today we had lunch for 21 soles for 4 people (3 of us had the menu of the day which was soup plus a main of steak with rice - the soup had me full!) which is about 5 eur for us ALL! There´s also good pizzas, italian, mexican and basically anything ya want here. For anyone visiting Jack´s cafe on Chocheura, El Coccilora (cheap place mentioned above) on Calle Garcelisoa cnr with San Francisco plaza are tops so far and some pizza chain place which had yummy pizza altho the guy also gave us some evil local spirit/brew (think that contributed more to th altitude sickness then anything).
Have walked about the place a good bit. Its all cobblestone narrown streets, crazy taxi drivers i this tiny little cars, inca stone walls, spanish churches and museums. The market near San Pedro was worth a visit altho I hope they dont source the meat in restaurants there cos there is NO hygiene. Fruit there is ridicusly cheap - like 1 eur for 4 apples, 6 bananas and 2 oranges. Lots of weird looking spuds and unidentifiable things - think there was llama foetuses dried and hanging out to sell as well. Presume some local ritual. The locals tend to dress like westerners ie jeans ad jumpers but some of the women wear the full peruvian kit especially if they trying to flog ya something! Hiked upto Sachaysun (!?) ruins from inca times which the spanish thrashed so nooe is fully sure what is the story. Pretty impressive (once we got our breaths back from the 300m ascent) .
Also spent lots of time in South America Exlorers club which is brilliant source of info for treks, trips, accomodation, volunteering, spanish courses, etc. If your spending any time at all in SA probaby worth joining!
Colin and Tara arrived this morning so brilliant catching up with them. It rained again today so hoping it will clear up for the inca trail in 2 days time.
Cusco is a lovely little town altho very tourist driven which is good for the locals. Touts everywhere trying to selll hats, finger puppets, massages (dunno if they have a happy ending!), paintings, etc which gets a bit annoying after awhile. The range of food and restaurants here is amazing - today we had lunch for 21 soles for 4 people (3 of us had the menu of the day which was soup plus a main of steak with rice - the soup had me full!) which is about 5 eur for us ALL! There´s also good pizzas, italian, mexican and basically anything ya want here. For anyone visiting Jack´s cafe on Chocheura, El Coccilora (cheap place mentioned above) on Calle Garcelisoa cnr with San Francisco plaza are tops so far and some pizza chain place which had yummy pizza altho the guy also gave us some evil local spirit/brew (think that contributed more to th altitude sickness then anything).
Have walked about the place a good bit. Its all cobblestone narrown streets, crazy taxi drivers i this tiny little cars, inca stone walls, spanish churches and museums. The market near San Pedro was worth a visit altho I hope they dont source the meat in restaurants there cos there is NO hygiene. Fruit there is ridicusly cheap - like 1 eur for 4 apples, 6 bananas and 2 oranges. Lots of weird looking spuds and unidentifiable things - think there was llama foetuses dried and hanging out to sell as well. Presume some local ritual. The locals tend to dress like westerners ie jeans ad jumpers but some of the women wear the full peruvian kit especially if they trying to flog ya something! Hiked upto Sachaysun (!?) ruins from inca times which the spanish thrashed so nooe is fully sure what is the story. Pretty impressive (once we got our breaths back from the 300m ascent) .
Also spent lots of time in South America Exlorers club which is brilliant source of info for treks, trips, accomodation, volunteering, spanish courses, etc. If your spending any time at all in SA probaby worth joining!
Colin and Tara arrived this morning so brilliant catching up with them. It rained again today so hoping it will clear up for the inca trail in 2 days time.
Sunday, October 7, 2007
its all in spanish!
Ok we need to learn Spanish FAST. First encounter with no english speaking person was of course the demented taxi driver we got from Madrid airport to Madrid city centre (via all the suburbs outside of madrid). He asks us where we´re going so we show him a piece of paper with the address and a map of the nearest large streets clearly marked then sticks its into his GPS (which was directly in front of his head - dunno how he saw anything but tahts another story), then off we head to some unpronounceable madrid suburb. We get there, he cant find the street, meanwhile were thinking hang on this is a VERY small city centre so we show him the address again. After about 15 mins of arsing about, asking locals etc he asks us are we sure the hotel is in dfjghdfghdajk and we´re like NO its in Madrid (you clown). So he gets pissed off with us at which point I did want to strangle the braindead first time ever in a taxi muppet. Why do new taxi drivers INSIST on doing airport trips - grrrrrr. Eventually we did find the hotel after he finally managed to find the centre by GPS - hopefully the dumbo is still trying to find his way back to the airport for next unsuspecting victim.
Aside from that Madrid was good fun altho jaysus the smoke is awful. Just about everything that moves including the dogs (which leave plenty poo smells in the small narrow streets) has a fag dangling at all times. Dunk reckoned the coffee was awesome and so did I altho didn´t have too much! The beer was either very cheap or very expensive if ya got caught in a touristy place which we figured out quickly enough. Number one backpacking skill has been rediscovered!!! Visited the palace, did the bus tour and admired all the really funky architecture (even tho some of the palace rooms had the tackiest decor ever). Also the pastries are awesome and so are the tostados! and the ham Dunk says!
Next headed to Madrid aiport by Metro (for 4 eur about 20 times cheaper and easier then the taxi langar) to be told we were on standby cos the flight was overbooked. Not very impressed but we managed to be the first on standby so did get a seat. Arrived into Lima last night. First impressions of Lima from the bus to the hostel was pretty intimidating place to arrive at night so we just stayed in the hostal (really nice place called Mami Panchita, they picked us up and dropped us to the airport which was great as didn´t really have the brains to fight Lima transport after the 12 hour flight). We now in Cusco.
First impressions are that its great - really nice, friendly place. Even the street sellers go away after 4 ´No por favor´s! Staying in a lovely hostal called El Grial Hotel on a really narrow cobblestone street. Got a HUGE lunch for about 2 euros so happy out now. The altitiude is knocking us about a bit - must start walking slower :) Right off for a beer now - must practise for Colin and Tara´s arrival on Wed!
Aside from that Madrid was good fun altho jaysus the smoke is awful. Just about everything that moves including the dogs (which leave plenty poo smells in the small narrow streets) has a fag dangling at all times. Dunk reckoned the coffee was awesome and so did I altho didn´t have too much! The beer was either very cheap or very expensive if ya got caught in a touristy place which we figured out quickly enough. Number one backpacking skill has been rediscovered!!! Visited the palace, did the bus tour and admired all the really funky architecture (even tho some of the palace rooms had the tackiest decor ever). Also the pastries are awesome and so are the tostados! and the ham Dunk says!
Next headed to Madrid aiport by Metro (for 4 eur about 20 times cheaper and easier then the taxi langar) to be told we were on standby cos the flight was overbooked. Not very impressed but we managed to be the first on standby so did get a seat. Arrived into Lima last night. First impressions of Lima from the bus to the hostel was pretty intimidating place to arrive at night so we just stayed in the hostal (really nice place called Mami Panchita, they picked us up and dropped us to the airport which was great as didn´t really have the brains to fight Lima transport after the 12 hour flight). We now in Cusco.
First impressions are that its great - really nice, friendly place. Even the street sellers go away after 4 ´No por favor´s! Staying in a lovely hostal called El Grial Hotel on a really narrow cobblestone street. Got a HUGE lunch for about 2 euros so happy out now. The altitiude is knocking us about a bit - must start walking slower :) Right off for a beer now - must practise for Colin and Tara´s arrival on Wed!
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Back in Ireland
Well we made it back to Ireland safe and sound on an extremely uneventful flight for a change! Thai airways has just so much leg room but their entertainment system is possibly the worst in the world - slept instead tho so no complaints!
Found out that the best cure for jet lag is going to Tara & Colin's wedding and staying there til 5am! Had a super time and between big and baby guiness's I seriously hope Dec & Sean lose that video diary or at least cut us out!!
Other then that good to be home - there's new roads, houses and shopping centres everywhere so might need that new GPS after all - just to find our way home!
More soon!
Found out that the best cure for jet lag is going to Tara & Colin's wedding and staying there til 5am! Had a super time and between big and baby guiness's I seriously hope Dec & Sean lose that video diary or at least cut us out!!
Other then that good to be home - there's new roads, houses and shopping centres everywhere so might need that new GPS after all - just to find our way home!
More soon!
Monday, September 17, 2007
Leaving Australia
Well this is it, all our goodbyes have been said and we fly out this afternoon. Still have to squeeze everything into the backpacks and not sure if its all going to fit. We're really going to miss everyone here but 2 weeks of fun in Ireland beckons and then onto South America. Thanks to everyone who joined us on our adventures in Sydney and Australia in the last few years.
The 'plan' is to keep this relatively upto date so you can see what we're upto. We thought it was better then spamming everyone on monday mornings with tales of adventure ;)
Hopefully it'll be a bit more exciting then this post but suffering from 2 weeks of flying all over the place, saying goodbyes, playing soccer, late nights (I never want to see the courthouse again!) and packing. At least we should be able to sleep on the plane!
The 'plan' is to keep this relatively upto date so you can see what we're upto. We thought it was better then spamming everyone on monday mornings with tales of adventure ;)
Hopefully it'll be a bit more exciting then this post but suffering from 2 weeks of flying all over the place, saying goodbyes, playing soccer, late nights (I never want to see the courthouse again!) and packing. At least we should be able to sleep on the plane!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)