A Month in Peru, Part 1

I am sitting by the pool in beautiful, lush countryside 8 hours west of Bogota. I am still absolutely wired from overdosing on Columbia's finest and most famous export, which is absolutely everywhere. But this is, after all, the 'Zona Cafeteria' (you knew I was talking about coffee, right?). It really is stunning here, and I'd love to talk about it, or about our wonderful few days in Bogotá with Inder and Carolina, or our 5 day bus mission from Ica, fastidiously ignoring Ecuador from the bus window. But it has been ages since I posted anything and there is a month's worth of Peru to cover, so I must cast my mind back...

Our first taste of Peru was the town of Puno on the shores of Lake Titicaca. We hadn't planned to visit Puno, but after being denied the Isla del Sol in Bolivia we decided it was the only likely way we would get to see this famous lake. And we saw the lake. It is a high, big lake, and we saw it. It is blue, it is wet. I am not entirely sure what more there is to say.

Instead of visiting the floating islands (which we had heard and read- even in the town's tourist website- are agonisingly commercialised and touristy) we decided to kick off our Incan adventure early, by visiting a nearby site at Sillustani- a place of huge, stone burial chambers, both Incan and pre-Incan. The location was pretty lovely, but I couldn't help but be a little underwhelmed. Embarrassingly and ignorantly, I suppose I had always thought the Inca empire truly ancient, but it was really in full swing only five or six hundred years ago. This realisation weighed heavily on me, and as our guide eulogised about the mind-boggling exactness of the stonework, I couldn't help but think of better examples, from earlier, in little old England*. But that is lovely, because travelling around should make you aware of what you have at home, as well as what you find abroad.

* An aside: I have since mellowed on this rather jingoistic point of view. I suppose the quality of the stonework is surprising to us because it comes from a culture completely alien to a traditional notion of history, by people who were at one point (and, in some places, still) thought to be 'savage'. And if i may flirt with nerdiness, the sophistication of their drainage infrastructure and agricultural methodology was, actually, quite amazing. And finally, the magic of the places comes as much from the surrounding landscape, and the structures' interaction and relationship with such stunning scenery, which will explain more generous descriptions later*.

From Puno we descended to Arequipa, off the altiplano and into 'Canyon Country'. Arequipa itself is a lovely city, bustling and frantic yet friendly and fun. It has a big, slopey main plaza with empirically stepping arcades on three sides, all absolutely lovely in the local bright white granite. The market is a huge cornucopia of wonderful smells and sights, where I had a fruit smoothie made with dark beer and a plate full of delicious raw fish, rice, chicken and potatoes, like a plate from a proper-nice wedding buffet. And it has a little city-within-the-city, a convent which takes up a couple of city blocks and is a maze of squares, streets and stepped alleyways, all festooned with geraniums. It is now a museum, but until a couple of decades ago the nuns lived in cosy little houses, with kitchens out the back and guinea pigs on the roof, for food. It looked like a lovely place to live, I wondered why they had moved into their new, more modern accommodation. We went at night, and it was especially atmospheric, the hundreds of nun's homes, still containing original furniture and iconography, lit with gas lights and candles. Wandering around was so lovely, and reminded me of the hours we spent pacing around the cemetery in Buenos Aires.

The Colca Canyon, near Arequipa, is one of the deepest in the world. i struggled with this fact, a bit, because it isn't exactly clear to me when a 'valley' becomes a 'canyon', and this 'canyon' looked a hell of a lot like a 'valley'. But it was very jungly and pretty 'valley/canyon' and Hes got her closest yet view of Andean Condors, just a few metres above us and hugely impressive. I found the green, terraced slopes of the lower hills around the 'vallyon' more interesting- the landscape completely re shaped by the Incas into meandering terraces and bowls. Though the terraces would have been filled with different crops in their day, they now look beautiful covered in grass, like the sculptural efforts of my favourite landscape architects today.

We only had a day to scope out the area because we were hot-tailing it to Huaraz to go trekking in the Cordillera Blanca before our long-reserved Inca Trail (which, due to demand, must be booked months and months in advance). This area in central Peru is supposedly the range which features on the Paramount Studios logo, and I warn you, whenever I watch a Paramount-produced film I will be saying 'been there' at the start. It may get annoying but it will not stop. Alas the central mountain was completely obscured by cloud on the day we might have seen it, but this is by-the-by.

The four-day trek was not a complete success. I think for Hester it may have been a rather low point. It rained every afternoon, a situation not helped by the fact that our tour operator was, it turns out, a pretty shoddy outfit with even shoddier kit- all the tents leaked. Every evening the combination of dropping temperatures, wet tents and wetter trekkers was pretty grim. For me, though, apart from a particularly soggy few hours tramping through what could have been Dovedale on a drizzly February afternoon, it was a pretty amazing experience. Most interesting was the sheer difficulty of climbing to and crossing a mountain pass 4750m above sea level- though the path was not hard nor steep, the sheer lack of oxygen made it a Herculean task. There were tears in the group as almost everyone struggled with exhaustion and debilitating headaches.

On the night we got back into Huaraz we wearily climbed onto another nightbus, bound for Cusco to meet up with Eleanor, our mutual friend, who was coming to join us. Ah Cusco. I hadn't expected much from it, thinking it was perhaps just a jumping-off point for Macchu picchu. And it is true, Cusco is principally a tourist town, but what a beautiful place. Over the next couple of weeks we left and returned three times and it was always lovely coming back to a base which felt so homely. Its buildings are gloriously colonial but houses inca treasures, it is compact and mazey, safe and friendly. I really loved Cusco and I don't care how gringoey that makes me. I even ate a guinea pig there. You can't do that in London or New York.

Eleanor arrived jet lagged and sleep-deprived early in the morning- so what better than to whisk her off on a 48hr tour of the Sacred Valley? She coped brilliantly, and the sights we saw were quite stunning. My favourites were the terraced water courses of Tipon, a really beautiful and inspiring landscape. We also enjoyed the huge agricultural installations at Moray, if not our guide's utterly incomprehensible explanations of what exactly the site was for*. We spent a night in a beautiful little hotel in Ollantaytambo, the place whose name no gringo can pronounce, overlooking the huge fortress which looms next to the town, and visited various markets through the valley. The valley is a beautiful place and visiting the stunning structures constituted a good appetiser for the Inca Trail and 'main event' of Macchu Picchu.

* Another aside: we have had a lot of guides recently, after only two or three for the first six or seven months of travel. I suppose it is in the nature of the places we have been visiting- fewer expansive landscapes, more things of zoological or historical interest. Most have been lovely but I shall be glad to live my life without a guide for a while. There is a certain level of bullsh*t to be cut through from each, and it takes a certain amount of experience to identify when they are 'winging it'. We have heard directly contradictory 'facts' from different guides, which would be ok if they weren't delivered as gospel truths. And most seem to have a disconcerting habit of belly-laughing at my honest attempts at answering their occasional questions. At the same time, though, it has been genuinely sad to say goodbye to some of them because, as with our fellow tourists on many excursions, close bonds can be formed in a very short time when you are experiencing wonderful things.

With that I am going to go and get ready for dinner. The sun has dropped behind the mountain and it is getting a little chilly. Hester is wandering round, open mouthed, with her binoculars and camera, agog at the bird life here. It really is beautiful and we have all day here tomorrow, so I'll complete the Peru missive then.

To the jungle and back

We got stuck in La Paz. I was going to have a moan about how our plans had been ruined by circumstance until I realised how utterly churlish that would be. For someone in the middle of such a big old holiday to moan about an extra day or two in an exotic foreign capital borders on the immoral. 

So anyway, after leaving La Paz for the first time we descended 3500m to Coroico on mountain bikes, on what was, according to independent insurers, the world's most dangerous road. An alternative route has now opened so the road is mostly used by bikers, though the 100m drops adjacent to the 3m wide dirt road (without safety barriers) remain. The descent was incredibly beautiful and incredibly good fun. After a certain amount of nervousness before the ride I surprised myself at being able to forget about the drops to the side of the road and go for it. Now and again I had to remind myself to take it a little bit easy, especially when I caught a glimpse into the precipice from some of the waterfall- drenched hairpins.

As we had been so brave we rewarded ourselves with three nights in a beautiful open cabin, overlooking the Yunga valleys, doing nothing but loll in a hammock and look out for hummingbirds. Bliss.

After such fun and relaxation we decided that it would be a good idea to torture ourselves by knowingly taking one of the most dangerous and uncomfortable bus journeys in South America- through the rest of the Yungas to Rurrenebaque, on the edge of the Amazon basin.

A few other buses came and went during the three hour wait for our vehicle. They were extravagantly painted with mythical scenes of lions with flaming manes, dragons and busty, scantily clad warrior maidens holding big swords. They looked like teenager's pencil cases, and had evidently seen more of the artists than any mechanics. They were evidently not equipped with toilets- we saw several old men descending with cups full of yellow liquid, which they deposited by the roadside. Surely our bus- the gringo bus- would be better.

So I was disappointed when the driver confirmed that my ticket was valid for the bus which eventually turned up. It was much the same. Inside there was an incredible funk, no doubt caused in part by the aforementioned use and misuse of temporary pisspots. The seats were carpeted, the ideal material for remaining slightly dank, and the moisture mixed with the dust kicked up from the road to create a grey sludge which got everywhere and seemed to form a thin film over my skin. The seat in front was approximately thigh-length-minus-5cm. It had no back so my knees rested on whichever spring or bolt they found every time the bus lurched (which it did, often). The seat of my chair was not fixed down, meaning that the bumps constantly forced my legs forward. I didn't know real knee-pain before and I don't want to again.

Also, It quickly became apparent the the 'death road' had not really stopped in Coroico. As Hes said, the girl next to us was weeping uncontrollably for hours. The drops were precipitous and the driver bullish, but all this would still have been ok had the 'roads' not been in fact been simply quagmires of knee-deep mud. We saw a few large haulage vehicles completely beached, and came close ourselves.

After the worst of the mountain passes I slept fitfully, and when we reached Rurrenebaque at 6am we proceeded directly to the hotel to sleep. After that I frogmarched Hes to the airline office to buy a plane ticket back. Bravely, she agreed, and she coped magnificently.

Our pampas trip from Rurrenabaque was really very nice, for the most part. It involved a few river trips, in blissfully sunny, fresh weather, seeing birds and monkeys. We were greeted from the boat with cold drinks and the food in the lodge was great. It was what I had expected and wanted from the Pantanal in Brazil. One evening we tried to fish for Piranhas, but ended up just feeding the Piranhas. Unfortunately for me, they were the only thing which wasn't biting. During this 'fishing' trip, my ankles got so utterly nailed that I was scratching for days on end. Later that evening we stepped out of the lodge to see *some animal or other* in the dark, and I was happily trailing behind Hes and the guide (as per usual) when I felt a searing pain. Running back into the lodge I saw large black ants all over my feet- tenacious little buggers, I couldn't get them off. God knows how they had all got on there, I hadn't stopped walking.

My worst experience, though, was with the river dolphins. Hes had made me sit through a lot of wildlife videos before we came to this continent, and we had agreed that pink river dolphins were some of the most fearful, nightmarish creatures we had ever seen: take a normal dolphin, colour it weirdly humanly pink, make it practically blind and then give it A NECK so it can look around in a horribly exorcisty way. So imagine our surprise when we actually considered going swimming with these things.

Happily, we had forgotten our swimming things, and decided we would just nuzzle them with our feet, from our seated positions on the boat. After a bit of splashing around, I thought I saw something in the murky depths. Our guide grabbed my knee and shoved my foot further into the water 'mas dentro!'. Tentatively, two bony, pinky-grey prongs appeared on either side of my foot- I could see nothing but the thing's snout, and Its teeth looked pretty sharp. Then it bit me, hard. As I yelped in pain Hes and the guide started peeing themselves. Then it bit him and his foot shot out of the water. Even as Hes was telling me to pull myself together, the blood started flowing. I hope I don't have dolphin rabies or something, time will tell.

After our flight back to La Paz we learned that our next leg- to Copacabana on the shores of Lake Titicaca, had been stymied. You see, the town is accessed via ferries across another lake, and there is a community of people whose livelihoods depend on offering the ferry service. However, they are apparently capricious in their fares, and the residents of Copacabana demand a bridge. To this end, they blocked all roads between the town and La Paz. So we got stuck in La Paz for another night and bought a bus ticket to Peru, and as such missing the Isla del Sol. A shame but these things happen.

And then we got stuck for two more days in La Paz because we neglected to pick up our washing in the evening, believing we could pick it up on the next morning. Good Friday morning. Silly error, especially for a good Catholic boy. We had found ourselves immune to La Paz's charms, not quite being able to shake the first impression that the town is actually a bit of a sh*thole, catering for the younger gringo in the search for cheap booze and cocaine. However, in these extra, unplanned days, we really started to enjoy the place- for its extraordinary setting (filling out a wide fissure in the Altiplano all around, and dominated by a higher-than-high mountain), for the freshly squeezed orange on every corner and the beautiful and varied districts. And we spent our last night in a proper hotel- a beautiful converted convent in the centre of town- providing a much needed respite from the party-hostel-dorms we had been forced to take. You have to pamper yourself sometimes, especially when life is so hard...

Ps as we have now left Bolivia behind, a quick top 5 wouldn't-Bolivia-moments: (you all loved the pun-title of the last post)

Potosi: an old lady making full use of the traditional dress to squat and wee in the middle of the street, her huge skirt making it very subtle.

Coroico: aforementioned gentlemen leaving buses with cups of yellow liquid.

La Paz: party-hostels exemplified by Israelis with terrible voices and an acoustic guitar singing until late at night, followed by singalong-a-Alanis Morissette until the early hours

Uyuni: the bus driver opening the luggage compartment to reveal a big blanket, which moved to reveal a secret passenger sleeping with the suitcases.

Rurrenabaque: our guide opens up our first conversation by asking me why I have such tiny eyes.

Pps  just to even it up, I'd like to say that for all its rustic charms, Bolivia is a stunning place- incredible landscapes and hugely friendly people who are always willing to have a laugh with you. I'll miss it.

Buses, 3-toed sloths and wheat homebrew

Ah, the Amazon, our old Nemesis. In Brazil we spent five sick and delirious days sailing down it. Last night we jolted for 12 hours through landslides towards it. The road was single track down a mountain and precarious, the bus had broken seats and no toilet and the girl next to me cried into her boyfriend's lap most of the way. We are flying back, and those who know me know that I do not say this lightly. I am however in good spirits: we may see a 3-toed sloth tomorrow! And lucky Joe gets to see more birds too. I believe we will also be offered the chance to swim with pink river dolphins: strange blind creatures that loom out of the muddy depths to nibble your feet.

Bolivia feels much more like how I imagined South America: short people in big skirts, great knitwear, llamas with headdresses etc. Not to go over too much of what Joe has already said but there have been two particular highlights for me so far: the trip over the desert from Chile, and Torotoro national park.

The 3-day trip over the Atacama desert and into Bolivia had some truly awe-inspiring landscapes. The air on the high plains (sometimes 5km above sealevel) is thin and the sky is dazzlingly blue and clear. We went past one lake that was bright green from arsenic, and another that was bright red from algae. (NB lots of money is made from extracting borax for making porcelain by tipping lorryloads of sulphuric acid into the lakes, you judge how long that one will last.) The James's flamingoes that we saw were incredibly beautiful: like painted Chinese dolls, and the desert and the windswept-rocks are quite out of this world. The company was also fantastic: as Joe mentioned, we were an eclectic mix of nationalities in one jeep. I learnt several card tricks from our Costa Rican friend, that in Japan it is polite to ask a girl's permission before kissing her, and that unlike almost every other language, the English have no expression for 'Bon appetit!'. Not sure how well that reflects on our national cuisine. The Bolivians also seem to share the English sense of humour, or at least the one that originally put the Eurostar terminal at Waterloo. The national park on the Chilean border is named after Bolivia's greatest war hero, Eduardo Avaroa, who held out against the Chileans (unsuccessfully) in the 1879 war of the Pacific. Relations remain frosty to this day judging by the anti-Chilean rhetoric in the papers. For Bolivia, losing their coastline was a huge blow, particularly since Brazil and Paraguay have also helped themselves to pieces of the country. The ensignia on the naval base in Rurrenabaque (yes, a naval base in the centre of a landlocked country!) promises to reclaim it one day.

Anyway, my second highlight was Torotoro, a village deep in the countryside in central Bolivia. It's very high up, yet beautifully green and covered in potato and oat fields, and the hills are rich in fossils with incredible inverted strata of rock. Amazingly you can see footprints of Anklyosaurus, sauropods and pterodactyl in the sandstone - very moving. You can even walk on them, and there's no cover to stop water erosion. The local attitude seems to be 'there's more under the next rock.' The large number of tracks and the lack of palaentologists allows every guide to indulge his personal fantasy: this raptor was injured; this pterodactly jumped onto his elbows as a mating ritual etc. It was lovely to be somewhere so small that the taxi driver stops to says hello to everyone, and where people enquire after your health and how the coca tea has gone down. Quite like my visions of England say in 1930's. And we had a mini-adventure on the way back. We stopped in the countryside to try some 'chicha', the local maize brew that's trampled on the floor, where the better part is given to pigs and the humans get the toxic, alcoholic remains. As we entered the small house - marked only by a tell-tale white or red flag - it looked like Hogarth's Gin Alley. Sunday afternoon and everyone in the small, cramped front room was pretty far gone. We enjoyed two or three bowls of the (strangely garlicky) brew as a toothless crone felt up my thigh, it was really quite pleasant. Everyone was dying for us to stay, and the landlady was telling us about her five sons that now live in the US, quite sad as all the young people emigrate to make some cash. But I feared for my honour and our driver for his wife's reprimand, so our stop was only brief.

I am sure Joe will be blogging about our mountain biking down the 'World's Most Dangerous Road', so-called by the Inter-American Development Bank as so many vehicles fell to their death using it. Now almost exclusively used by bikes and Jeremy Clarkson looking for a thrill, it is a beautiful road and a lot of fun plunging down it on a thick-tyred sofa of a bike. Personally I think the butterflies were the best bit (some of them looked like mother-of-pearl) but then I'm a girl. The more disturbing part was the animal sanctuary we got taken to at the bottom. It was founded to look after wild pets that Bolivians have rejected - snakes, toucans, monkeys and the like - all well and good, but the volunteers are something else. Grubby and imperious are two words I would use. Standing without insect repellent on (forbidden!) watching flies draw blood from your legs while the monkeys clamour to lick it off is an experience I won't forget. Then the English volunteer tongue-kissed a baby monkey.

Volunteer weirdos aside, it has to be said that Joe and I are missing our own English friends and family
a little bit, and aware of the strange perspectives that being away so long can give you. I am very happy that Eleanor is coming out to see us in a few weeks, bringing us a taste of home (hopefully in Mini Cheddar form) and also, after months of being utterly selfish, a focus on someone else's holiday! Travelling is amazing, but there's something about not belonging that can be slightly sad when you see other people going about their daily business of working, shopping, bringing up children etc. Then the bus driver will shout loudly, alerting everyone's attention that you've arrived: "Gringo!! Plaza!"

Still, we're not too sad mind, and I have every intention of seeing some toucans tomorrow. This Rurrenabaque is a beautiful place and the pampas beyond it promises good things. More bird updates anon and goodnight all.

UPDATE: due to lack of wifi we are now back from Rurrenabaque and unexpectedly heading to Peru tomorrow, due to road blockades on the Bolivian side of Lake Titicaca.

So here are some of my favourite things about Bolivia, on our departure:

1) Traditional dress of the women: bowler hat, hair in twin plaits with curtain brocade sewn into the bottom, apron, multicoloured blanket tied on back (holding heavy load), wide-pleated skirt in metallic fabric, alpaca leggings, fleshcoloured tights and black heels. Come to think of it, this could catch on in Shoreditch.

2) Freshly squeezed orange juice from street vendors - 30p or 40p, and everywhere.

3) The flamingoes

4) The smell of the plants. For some reason the leaves have some lovely and strong scents, from green tea to camomile or mint.

5) Decorated buses. Normally a lion in flames or a futuristic jungle scene with bodybuilders and a dragon. Also signs inside: 'If I don't return I've gone to see God.'

Thank you Bolivia!

You could write it, but they wouldn´t Bolivia

UPGRADE! who said Bolivian buses were difficult? Ok, our last bus here had no toilet and deposited us at 5am in this slightly scratchy area of town, but we just paid £2.50 each for 7hrs travel and have just been upgraded to Full Cama (top class seating) because our bus was so empty it wasn't worth running.

Bolivia is a stunning, if slightly more difficult, place to be. But there earlier stuff to cover first:

From my birthday wine-up in the vineyards of North-Eastern Argentina we hot-tailed it back into Chile via 'traveller's favourite' Salta (c. lonely planet's pack of lies and exaggeration). We only stayed for a day-long enough to check out the Colonial Square (lovely) and a museum containing the naturally-mummified remains of three Incan children, sacrificed by means of getting them drunk and leaving them at the top of a nearby volcano (lovely). Ok, a bit grizzly really, but the exhibits formed quite a nice taster for the exotic world of lost civilisations we were about to enter.

The bus trip across the Andes- our second- was utterly stunning this time. I have harped on about colours before, and will again, but won't apologise here because the canyons in this bit of the world are famous for it: strata of rock are filled with different chemicals and ores which give them markedly different hues, and over time they have been stretched and folded and sliced to incredible effect, in terms of put aesthetics but also as a clear sign of the powerful tectonic activity here. As we dropped over the other side of the ridge the salt flats started: huge stretches of white in stark, barren landscapes which gave us our first glimpse of what the altiplano would be. And then gently down towards San Pedro de Atacama, and the shuddering halt of Chilean customs.

The Chileans do not want you to enter the country with a shred of organic material on your person. On previous entries (we will have made four by the time we finally leave the place behind) I have panicked about mere breadcrumbs in my bag, such a the warning signs of fines etc. It has taken a few hours to get through each time, yet after such build-up the baggage check at the end has on each occasion been disappointingly cursory, as if the guards themselves were bored of the wait.

But I should stop there lest I sound like anything other than the laid-back traveller I have become.

incidentally, my aforementioned imaginary bag of illegal things (see previous posts, which I have invented only to demonstrate the laxness of border controls when not flying) would have been at risk for the first time on our first entry into Chile, having made it all the way from london to the caribbean and down the Eastern seaboard without a single baggage check. Ironically, the sniffer dog would have actually been looking for contraband vegetables, something I am resolutely unlikely to be carrying.

San Pedro de Atacama itself is a funny little place, a lovely historic little village completely overtaken by tourism; where homes would have been there are now hostels, restaurants and tour operators. and more gringos than street dogs. in a slightly guilty way, I quite liked it. it felt quite cosy and safe. But of course it is all about the surrounding Atacama desert. One night we went on a stargazing tour. The night sky is impressive, and it was quite rewarding to see Saturn's rings pretty clearly through one of their telescopes. However, amongst all the other tourists I couldn't help but feel slightly smug that the view of the night sky from the deck of the Aristote in the middle of the Atlantic had been much more impressive.

Ah, the Aristote. I wonder how and where she is. It is an odd feeling, the nostalgia that creeps in for things at the start of this trip: the ship, Trinidad,  Roraima. In ports like Ushuaia and Valparaiso I have felt a real affection for the cargo ships in the harbour, and am really happy that we are (hopefully) heading back on a cargo ship too.

I digress. After returning from the stargazing at 1am we got back up at 3.30am to head out for a sunrise in a geyser field in the mountains. As Hes has mentioned, they have the antisocial habit of showing best at this unearthly hour. They were indeed impressive, simply as another manifestation of the...

*I am writing this on the bus. There is a guy who just got on to sell his books, and he is pitching to the entire floor from next to our seats. I have never heard a sound like it. He has not stopped for breath for about 15 minutes. I am inclined to shout something. My head is beginning to hurt and I cannot think straight. I am losing the will to live*

...remarkable geological nature of this place. *thank God that is over*

The best part, though, was a natural thermal pool, which was actually scaldingly hot in places. I was in there as the sun appeared over the uppermost peaks of the Andes, and lit up the steam coming from the water so that we were bathing in a hot, golden fog. It was quite a moment. A moment not at all undermined by the 'boff's and 'aw-haw-haw-haw's emanating from the Frenchmen around me. A pleased Frenchman is a wonderful thing, and they have a habit of sniffing out and congregating at the most beautiful places in the world, so you know you are on the right track when you hear those sounds. I like the French.

Anyway, after returning from the geysers Hes decided, sensibly, to catch up on a bit of sleep. However, there is a red-pen markup on my things-to-do-in-South-America map which says 'Valley of the Moon', so I had a cup of tea and went out to rent a mountain bike and pedal up there for sunset. The place is simply a pretty singular landscape of orange dunes and muddy pinnacles, all frosted in salt, which exaggerates the utter lifelessness of the place. I got a bit of a masochistic kick out of freewheeling down between the peaks at high speeds, not entirely trusting my hired bike and knowing that a salty graze would be doubly painful. Then we had a lovely evening with our new Romanian friend Paul, whom we had met on the Navimag and bumped into in town. Sometimes the 'gringo trail' is not so bad when the people you keep bumping into are so much fun. (he reads this blog).

The next morning we met our new friends for the next three days- a German couple, a Japanese chap and a Costa Rican fella, and took a bus to the Bolivian border where a 4x4 was waiting to take us across a 5000m high pass, across the altiplano to the salt flats of Uyuni. I mention them, and their nationalities, because it is so lovely when such a disparate bunch can bond so quickly and get on so well in just three days. It makes you feel optimistic about the world. Across the three days of travel we saw some pretty incredible landscapes. Richly coloured lakes in red, green, blue, all sorts (check the photos on facebook) which were full of flamingos- the new penguins in terms of Hester's interest and camera-memory-card devotion. There were boulders ejected from since-dormant volcanoes and strewn across the dunes, then sculpted into Dali-esque shapes by the wind. In fact it was all a little surreal, a sensation no doubt enhanced by the altitude, which induced a constant and slightly menacing feeling of approaching headache and nausea- like a kind of unfair hangover, without the preceding fun.

We visited an artesanal market on our arrival in Uyuni, where I started my long-intended stock-up on ethnic tat with a very gringoey woolly cardigan and some colourful throws, for which I had previously made room in my bag be sending home a few bits and pieces. Come to think of it the contents of my bag have changed quite a bit since September. I now have more pants than handkerchiefs, having bought a couple of pairs of the former in Brasilia, and lost all but three of the latter; chambermaids and cleaners all over Latin America have had the pleasure of finding a little 'tip' left under the pillow. Or, in more recent locations with lower standards, it was probably the next residents benefitted. I have also worn through the crotch area of both pairs of trousers, but have only been able to throw one pair out, as hes pulls a shocked face every time I point out a perfectly reasonable pair of ethno-trousers. Jeans ripped at the knee are acceptable, but this level of wear and tear is not. So I am resolved now to pick out the stripiest, baggiest, crustiest pair of traveller trousers when we get to La Paz, and see how she likes that.

The salt flats themselves were great but a little underwhelming, as we only visited them from Uyuni itself, and didn't go deep enough in for the full 360 panorama if nothingness- due to the fact it I still rainy season. nonetheless, it is quite a stunning place. Finally we spent a lazy afternoon drinking and playing cards with the tour group, before going for (what I humbly believe to be) the best pizza so far in South America.

Which is remarkable only because the food here has not been wonderful. The latest speciality is Pique- a big bowl of beef, chips, hot dog sausages and tomatoes- very much in the 'chorillana' vein of hangover grub. There is a lot if fried food and grey meat at the moment. Thoughts of food from home have started haunting me, in the following order:

5) beans and cheese on toast with Worcester sauce

4) a set 5 from the caff near work

3) a chicken biriani with extra Dahl from sweet and spicy, again near work

2)taste the difference Toulouse sausages with McCain oven fries, salad with balsamic dressing and loads of Dijon mustard

1) lasagne made by me or any other member of the Wrigley/Farrelly/Jarvis family, they are all good

From Uyuni we took the bus to Potosi, a town of faded colonial glory now famous for the hideous conditions miners suffer to glean the last scraps of silver from the nearby Cerro Rico- the mountain which made the town the centre of the Spanish colonies. Neither of us fancied the tourist trip down the mines, from fear of claustrophobia and death by mine collapse, as well as, I suppose, a slight unease about propagating the miners' status quo with our gringo dollar. Though it was probably mostly plain claustrophobia. I always feel a bit guilty about 'missing out' on stuff like that, until I remind myself that I am now too laid-back a traveller to care about 'missing out'.

So instead we just happily wandered around town, and took away memories of a pretty little place filled with cloisters and timber bay windows where the local dish is a delicious soup with a red hot rock in it so that comes burbling and popping like a mud geyser to your table.

We have done much more in Bolivia but i have digressed too much, and now I am tired and hungry and we are nowhere near La Paz yet and ergo less positive. So I will stop there and perhaps leave it to Hes to speak of some of the other places we have been, and get back to you soon.

Joe.

Hitting the desert, the pisco sours, and a moral judgment on Pablo Neruda

As Joe has gone out to watch the Man Utd match, I have a rare opportunity to get my hands on his toy - the iPad. We are in San Pedro de Atacama, a village in the middle of the desert in northern Chile, although we might as well be in Camden. The place is strewn with Brits, Americans, Germans and all manner of knitted Bob Marley hoodies and ethno-tat. Still, the surrounding landscapes are supposed to be stunning, and so we have a 4am start tomorrow to see some geysers that selfishly spout highest at sunrise. Not sure about the science behind that. We have also booked a 3-day jeep tour to take us across the salt flats to Bolivia: just us, the flamingoes and tin boxes full of altitude-sick gringos. Apparently alcohol and red meat do not mix well with crossing the high plains, so we will have to change our current lifestyle. 

A quick re-cap on Santiago, which really is a city that grows on you. There's no pressure to see such-and-such 18th century church, or museum of pre-Colombian art (we've swerved a few of those already), so you're free to wander the streets and parks guilt-free. The place is full of cyclists and has the most gorgeous public swimming pool on a peak overlooking the Andes. I felt right at home there, seeing as a) most of the Chileans were doing doggy-paddle or a typical Plumridge head-in-the-air crawl and b) I'm also almost average height for a Chilean. It also felt lovely to be staying with a family rather than in an anonymous hostel, and to be improving our Spanish. The city is rather heart-breakingly full of stray dogs - like much of South America - but of a particularly charming nature. One or two followed us round for ages, stopping with us at pedestrian crossings then trotting on ahead to scout the way. It almost made me like the little critters. Joe of course stops for a photo with any cat that hangs around long enough to be picked up. We will de-flea him in Bolivia.

From Santiago on to Valparaíso, with incredible perched houses, graffiti-decorated alleys, and views over a naval port. The reappearance of the sun may have helped my mood, but sipping pisco sour on a restaurant terrace and looking down on seagulls while a breeze ruffled the tablecloths was really perfect. It's the kind of city you can really get lost in, both literally, and metaphorically on the piscos. Joe has also mentioned our visit to (two of) Pablo Neruda's houses, Chile's most famous poet. The one by the sea in Isla Negra is absolutely beautiful. It is in his words 'narrow like Chile' and has a series of inter-linked rooms and long corridors full of ships in bottles, Easter island sculptures, astrolabes, paper mâché horses, tapestries etc. What no one mentions is that the man was clearly an absolute rat - he left two wives, and installed his mistress (eventually wife number three) in a house across the river in Santiago for some stressfree in-marital nooky. He also seems to have had rather cosy relations with a female artist called Maria, the mind boggles. Still, his poetry is rather good and his collection of shells unrivalled, so posterity forgives him.

Our Spanish meanwhile is improving, and I feel with a few more weeks' study we could have been "true proficients". Perhaps that is a convenient excuse, but it is certainly getting easier to communicate as we travel round. For a bit of linguistic fun, here are a few Spanish translations of people's names - yes, the hours just fly by in our company!!

Linda: lovely

Lisa: straight

Dolores: pains 

Mona: monkey

Clara: egg yolk

Camilla: small bed in an ambulance

Mona Lisa: straight monkey

That's all for now, am sure Bolivia will provide more than adequate fodder for our blog...

Birthday blog! Inching up through Chile, but can't quite let go of Argentina...

Hester was right about the ups and downs.

It is my birthday. I am drinking a nice coffee and eating some nice sweet croissants (called media-lunas here). But we have a two hour wait for our next bus and I have the runs after some dodgy food the other night. Ups and downs, backs and forths.

If I may, a quick note from me on Torres del Paine, a place that gave us ups and downs as accentuated as the mountains themselves. From the giddy anticipation of getting to Puerto Natales to the deflating news that we had missed the good weather, it was all a bit of a rollercoaster- but I wouldn't change it for the world. There were points when I felt a bit like Guy Pearce's character in Prometheus- having finally reached this place I had so looked forward to seeing, it simply turned around and kicked me in the nuts. On our first day we got half as far as expected, purely because of the incredibly strong winds. I was pretty pleased with my pitching of our 'summer' tent, and even congratulated myself that it is not the tent, rather the camper which defines the quality of a shelter. I came out after dinner to find both poles completely sheared through. Surgical tape came to the rescue and the tent struggled on, lumpy and bumpy, to the Glacier up the valley, a hugely impressive sight, despite glacier-ennui (see previous blogs). The next day we got soaked. stupidly soaked. there wasn't just rain, the wind was blowing the lake onto us. That night, putting up the tent in the last available plot (seemingly the camp toilet under less busy circumstances) with numb fingers was a particular low, topped only by spending that night in it. However, the next day, miraculously, we found there were spare beds in the refugio (warm, cosy shacks around the walk) and happily set out, knowing that whatever happened a warm bed would await. Cloud was covering the leaks as we started the ascent of the French valley.

Now, I'm not a religious man, but often when I set out for walks in this weather I fantasise about the clouds shifting and sun pouring through at the climatic moment. This actually happened. At the top of the valley, the mountains revealed themselves in their glory and I was left spinning like a bearded, grubby Julie Andrews.

Seeing dawn at the final site was another high point, just to finish things off. I was utterly knackered by the end, as it seems I had been so often around Patagonia. We needed a bit of a break.

So we boarded the Navimag ferry through the fjords of Chilean Patagonia. And wow. During our three days we saw markedly different conditions: one day of misty fog and rain, one crisp, clear, cold and sunny, and one simply blazingly hot- and the landscape stunning in all. It's not a huge boat, so thank God there was a really lovely bunch of people on board to share it with. The real High points were seeing whales (including blue ones!), otters, seals and penguins whilst chilling on the deck, and singing 'ziggy stardust' to a room full of bemused Chileans (and, it turns out, bemused young Brits. The youth of today etc...). Hes did her 'version' of Roxanne, too. I was beaming with pride.

Then back to earth with a bump. Puerto Montt, at the Northern extreme of the fjords, is a reasonably nice town, but the weather was closing in. We had a week to play with before hitting the capital so we hired a car in the hope that we could see as much of the Lake District as possible. As it turned out, we mostly saw clouds and rain. On the odd occasion that the clouds lifted the scenery was majestic- imagine central France but with huge, active volcanoes dotted around. I didn't get to climb my volcano- Mt. Villarica, because of the cloud, which was a little gutting. The town from which it is accessed, Pucon, suddenly seemed like a chintzy tourist trap, stripped of its main attraction. We were left following families around brightly coloured pools and shingley beaches, everywhere packed with guesthouses, cafes and bars. It was all a bit Skeggy School Holidays. We were also put up in the WORST HOSTEL SO FAR after our first choice messed up the bookings. And when she did have room for us, turns out she also had room for mice. Nice.

Chiloe was a disappointment, too. But we should know better than to trust these guides:

The Lonely Planet: 'encounter penguins, misty seascapes and mythical lore on the archipelago of Chiloe'

Reality: 'see a pikier version of the Isle of Wight and get pick-pocketed on the archipelago of Chiloe'

They have a speciality called 'curanto', which sounds lovely. It is a big pot (or, traditionally, hole in the ground) in which shellfish, meats and vegetables are all steamed together, infusing their flavours with each other over a day or so. What you get, in fact, is a big plate of grey things with various textures and levels of dryness, and a bowl of nice soup. I couldn't help but think that in another world the soup would be the output and the 'stock' items thrown away.

We didn't get on with Chiloe.

There were high points in the lakes too, though. Hes got to see a really old tree which made her, and by proxy me, happy. And she also got to see monkey puzzle trees growing naturally in the wild in an incredibly beautiful volcanic setting. And this made me independently happy because as i say it was beautiful. I am sure on a different week we would have loved the whole area. The combination of heavy, wet, humid weather and the fact that all of Chile seemed to have descended and taken up all the good rooms just got a bit too much. I was definitely in need of a change.

When we arrived in Santiago, early on a Sunday morning and not-so-fresh off a nightbus, I was initially disappointed. We seemed to have seen all the sights on our short walk from the bus station towards our accommodation. But from there everything just got great.

Hes had booked a week's language course, and through that a Chilean home to stay in. Diego and Keka, our hosts, were the sweetest couple you could possibly meet, and made us feel instantly at home in their lovely flat. Our teacher, Angelo, was a lovely chap and we laughed as much as we learned. And Santiago- ah, Santiago- is a blissfully relaxed, cheerful, sunny city. Every day when I woke up I felt genuinely excited about the day ahead. It doesn't have a load of landmarks and must-sees, but wandering the streets was a joy. And there's a swimming pool on the adjacent mountain, in which you would think you were in the middle of the Andes but for the tops of skyscrapers showing through the trees. Oh, and there's a drink called 'terramoto' (earthquake)- a pint consisting of cheap white wine, fernet and a blob of pineapple ice cream- a challenge which I of course rose to shortly before slurring my words, getting slightly argumentative and dozing off. They even have a decent curry house.

My Spanish did improve a bit- it is consistently improving. I was very pleased with myself when I confidently intuited to a waiter that we were ready to order- friendly, like, and with a smile, so he didn't think I was being rude. I said to hes how nice it was to be able to communicate, at which point she laughed and told me I had said 'we are clever to hit the food'. She is, of course, extremely good now, and people don't waste time telling her. Even with me in earshot, of all things! When I look pleadingly at them they just tell me I need more practice. Obviously I have the look of a man who needs straight-talking, though I'd prefer a bit of polite truth-bending. Oh England, I miss your ways.

We were gutted to leave Santiago, but were headed for Valparaiso, a Port so bohemian it hurts, and a lovely place to while away a few days. One day we went to see Pablo Neruda's house on Isla Negra- the tour was a genuine delight, from an architectural perspective as much as anything, but it was matched by the glass of wine and cheese sandwich in the museum 'canteen'- ie sitting on a terrace in the sun, watching pelicans swoop over the pacific coast. Having visited his house in Santiago, too, I have now seen twice as many of his houses as poems of his I have read.

In valparaiso we tried another Chilean speciality called 'chorillana'. To my mind, it is a bit rich to lay claim to a 'dish' which is essentially the dirty cravings of a hung over fat man: chips, fried onions, scrambled egg and beef, with chili sauce. It is, of course, delicious.

From 'Valpo' we crossed the Andes back into Argentina, on what should have been a stunning bus ride but, due to delays on the Chilean side was less so. We didn't quite get the stunning sunset on the pass, but the craggy faces of the andes and winding rivers lit by the full moon still gave a pretty stunning backdrop to the journey. There was one Brit on the bus who was almost cherry red with the 'shambles' of the border crossing itself. I felt a little embarrassed, but also a little proud of my by-now deeply-rooted-laid-back-traveller-vibe.

And so, Mendoza. On the first day I overdid the wine and I had a steak which nearly made me cry. The waiter could see I was having a spiritual experience, and I think he understood. Especially as I was sat next to a girl eating a salad. He felt my pain and gave me his personal card for the next time.

The next day we went out on bikes, round various bodegas, tasting their ware. A mixture of hangover, allergies, hot sun and refilling vino levels made this trip a little difficult for me but I pushed on through, and we bought a bottle of, ahem, 'the best South American red of 2007', which I shall be drinking later, in celebration of getting even more too old for this stuff. That night we ate sushi, which I believe to be the reason for my dicky tummy, and I drank a sprite. I should know better than this and from now on it is red wine and steak until we hit Bolivia.

Or at least tonight, in Cafayate, the second centre for Argentinian wine production. It is my birthday after all.

Salud!

Zzz

A rant about trees

This is going to be a rant about animals, trees and rubbish. So all those not interested in green things, nasty people poking armadillos and my plans for national parks, stop here.

Firstly, the trees. Brazil and to a lesser extent countries like Chile are well-known for their forests, but sadly the most impressive endemic trees are endangered. In Brazil, the national 'pau de Brasil' tree is a much-photographed rarity in the Rio botanic gardens. In Chile, the alerce has been logged almost to extinction, monkey puzzle trees that used to cover vast tracts of land have been reduced to a handful of national parks, and there are only an estimated 124,000 Chilean palms (featured on the country's independence declaration) left in the wild. A similar situation seems to exist with famous animals and birds like the macaw or jaguar: despite being national symbols that Brazil for one likes to project to foreigners. We have seen some pretty shocking treatment of wildlife even in protected areas across the continent. I'm not by any means saying this is widespread, but by Iguazu falls in Argentina we saw people poking an armadillo with a stick, a kid hitting a coati with a branch, and in Tierra del Fuego a boy picking up a gosling while his parents filmed him for a minute or more, while the geese were going crazy honking with alarm. There is also a huge problem with rubbish. In the same campsite in Tierra del Fuego, families holding barbecues left behind coke bottles and reams of toilet paper lying in the grass, while the gosling-tormenting devil left behind his crisp packet after dropping the bird (I could have killed his parents). It's heartbreaking to see rural towns in almost every country we've visited surrounded by slow-decaying strings of old plastic bags.

It seems to me that national parks, with trails for families to enjoy and information on wildlife and why it's important are the best tools for conservation, as well as bringing in much-needed revenue. The park rangers in such places are great, and have been almost universally long-suffering in my persistent questioning about birds. Some (bless them) have even spent time writing down the Latin names of trees I've photographed. All good so far. But most seem desperately understaffed. To give an example: in Los Alerces, Perito Moreno and Tierra del Fuego parks in Argentina, as well as Conguillio, Alerce Andino and Vicente Perez Rosales in Chile, there are only been a few walking trails, despite hundreds and hundreds of hectares of park. In many parks, trails have been shut with fallen trees even though it's the summer holidays. And in most, the trails are there-and-back rather than a more satisfying circular walk. In Chile you can't get a map of even the well-known parks in tourist offices, you have to go to a CONAF forestry commission office (not an easy task). Parque Pumalin in Patagonia, which was created by American conservationist and founder of North Face Doug Tompkins, has now gained national park status, but remains privately owned. CONAF lack the resources to staff it. 

This seems crazy to me, and you'd think that Chile for one would realise it. Torres del Paine national park must be a huge revenue generator for them. The park charges foreigners £25 to get in, and it gets more popular every year - around 150,000 people visited in 2012. The trails are incredible, there are mountain refuges at five locations where you can buy anything from toilet roll to a bottle of merlot and a 4-course meal, and there is no litter anywhere! This park alone must subsidise the rest, but why not try harder to turn more into major tourist destinations? Charge more for entry! Four of the parks we've been to have been free, and others with between £1-3 entry fees that wouldn't cover the ranger's salary that collects them (in one we were the first visitors that day). Foreigners will pay through the nose for the chance to walk up volcanoes, see glaciers, and possibly catch sight of a puma. Yet some French tourists we met said that the Chilean tourist board promotes the country in France for its cheese! 

So in short, I think that with more resources for national parks - more maps, more trails open, more leaflets on flora and fauna, and more widely available - wildlife and trees would be better protected. More money could come in via much higher entry fees, which could also be used for international promotion. Parks wouldn't have to allow damaging activities like logging and building dams, which many in Chile do at the moment, presumably to bring funds in. And tourism (well-managed, obviously) is a much more sustainable resource than copper-mining, nitrate production, and even many types of forestry. I think that in a related way, having more of the countryside better protected might help people realise that dropping litter is bad. But on that front I would also advocate high fines for offenders and banning plastic bags in supermarkets (which one in Argentina had recently done). But that's for another rant.