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!!
Friday, November 9, 2007
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...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)