South America 2005: October 2005

Salkantay Trail to Macchu Picchu

Five days. Exhausting, but exhilirating!

Peru!

After a brief stay in Bolivia, it was onto Cusco, Peru, Oisin and Briana's last stop before they head home. But not until we've taken a five day hike to Macchu Picchu. In the mean time, we'll take a day or two to wander round the pretty town of Cusco, and get ourselves ready for this next little adventure!

I made the billboards in Chile...

I just found out that our habitat team is going to appear all over Chile to advertise Habitat for Humanity there!

Death Road(s)

From Uyuni we travelled by bus to La Paz. The first of our near death road experiences happened a few miles outside Uyuni, when our bus, in typical Bolivian manner, crashed headlong into a jeep! Well, only as headlong as allowed for both vehicles to regain their position on the road and continue on their journeys without even so much as checking the damage!

Our next was our when we mountain-biked the world's most dangerous road from La Paz to Coroico. The road decends 3,500 metres in about 70kms! It's basically carved into the side of a mountain, and most of it's only one lane, with sheer drops of up to 1,000m on one side!

At the top it felt kind of like home; howling winds, sleet and rain, and you couldn't see more than 50 metres in front of you!

But as we descended, the weather started to clear, and we could see the beautiful scenery surrounding us... and the incredible drops below us!

That would have been the worst of it over, but we still had to cross back over the same road in our bus! And there happened to be a festival in Coroico, so we couldn't get the bus back through the town until after the parade, at about 9. Of course, we took the opportunity to enjoy the festivities!

By the time we finally left, it was of course pitch black and it took us 4 hours to make the return 100km journey to La Paz! Fantastic day though.

'The wierdest landscapes in South America'

... well, that's how my Footprint guide describes the landscapes you pass through on the overland jeep trip we took from San Pedro, Chile to Uyuni, Bolivia. And I think I agree!

Lazing in thermal baths at 4,000m surrounded by red mountains and white mineral plains; walking the shores of a pink lake amongst the flamingoes and llamas; sleeping in a hotel made entirely of salt; driving across the vast salt plains, feeling like somewhere between the moon and Antartica; walking through the thousands of cacti that crowd a small island in the middle of the endless white of the salt plains; phenominal.

Back to beloved Chile

It was ciao to Buenos Aires, and to Fanny, Geraldine and Lisa. Fun weekend had by all, but some had to go home, and we needed to keep moving on too. 20 hours later, we were in Salta, in the north east of Argentina.

It was a short visit. We spent one night in a city centre hostel before getting the early morning bus over the border to the small town of San Pedro de Atacama, and back to our beloved Chile! The bus passed over the Andes at 4,800 feet, and you could feel the effects of the altitude, headaches and shortness of breath, even in just the 10 hours the journey took.

San Pedro's a little 'Gringo' village packed with hostels, tour agencies, internet cafes, bars and restaurants, nestled by an oasis in the middle of the world's driest desert, the Atacama. We spent two nights in the HI hostel there, on our second day taking a tour to see the sunset over the spectacular moon valley.

On Sat 15 Oct, we were up at 7 to join our tour company for the three day jeep tour over the border into Bolivia. And so we bid our final farewell to Chile. Definitely my favourite country in South America so far this trip. I hope to be back to you again some day...

Buenos Aires, party capital of Argentina

20 hours bus ride from Puerto Madryn, and we arrived in Buenos Aires, a huge, vibrant city, kind of feels like a European version of New York to me.

We spent our first night in the St. Nicholas Hostel in the city centre. Went out for huge Argentinian steaks and had a wander through the maze of streets.

On Saturday, we headed a little further out of town, to the Habitat for Humanity Argentina offices in San Isidro, where we caught up with our good friends, Fanny and Geraldine from Santiago.

Argentina is in a different time zone from Chile, but Buenos Aires seems to run in time zone of it's own too! Our first night out I guess we thought we'd take it easy, so we ate out at 1.30, and hit the clubs at 3. Or maybe it was so that we could see the city by the light of the sun the next morning, to finally crawl into our beds at 8!

And so the celebrations continued...

Having a whale of a time!

Ok. I'm sorry. I'll apologise straight away for the whale joke. But you can just count yourself lucky that you didn't have to actually endure the day trip to the Peninsula Valdes with me to see the whales. I mean the opportunities were endless; the city, Puerto Madryn, where we were staying, was founded by settlers from Wales; our guide was playing Bob Marley and the Wailers! You can hardly blame me!

We toured the Penisula for the whole day, walking through huge herds of elephant seals, watching sea lions sunbathing, trying to stop laughing after seeing the penguin colony and, the definate highlight for me, going out in a boat to see the whales.

It was incredible to see the whales up so close. So graceful, and yet kind of awkward and ugly. One pair, a mother and her white baby (apparently 1 in every 100 born are white) swam right up to boat, and had a good look at us! Amazing.

Ciao Chile, Alo Argentina

Following our tiring few days in Torres, we had an early night in our hostel in Puerto Natales, got some laundry done, and took a bus south to Punto Arenas. Here, we found another great hostel where we chatted with the owner, Rodrigo, and his wife until the early hours of the morning. A really fun night.

The next day, 4 Oct, we had a wander up to Punto Arenas's huge cemetery; a eerie but interesting experience!

In the afternoon, we set out for Rio Gallegos, and finally arrived in our second country of the trip, Argentina! We had little trouble with our first few Argentinian encounters, missing the comfort of our new-found home of Chile, but things were soon ironed out, and we were on our way to Puerto Madryn, 18 hours bus ride north, and a haven for whale watchers!

'W' is for wow!

Upon arriving in Puerto Natales on 29 Sept, we quickly organised hiring some camping equipment and buying some food, and set off for Torres del Paine National Park.

Having done a bit of research, we decided to walk the 'W' route round the park, taking in some of its most famous sites, including the Torres themselves, the Horns, the Frances valley and the Grey Glaciar. We were blessed with 3 days of perfect sun, and no wind, pretty much unheard of in the park, especially at this time of year. As usual, you can check my Tagzania page to get an idea of where we walked.

I could probably try and spend days writing about the experience, but here are a few photos. It's enough to say it was a exhausting but stunning 3 days.

The Torres by sunrise...