Stuck in Peru

Don't worry - we're not stuck in Peru. I can tell from the fact that I have cold feet, I must be writing this from England. But we did ALMOST get stuck in Peru:

From Nazca, we overnighted to Huaraz, a small town in the Cordillera Blancas, just north of Lima (and back at altitude again). We chilled for a day to reacclimatise and then headed out on The Santa Cruz trek with a friend from Nazca, Jami. She had a flight back to the States soon, so we decided to do the trek in 3 days rather than the usual 4 - as the weather was unlikely to be great, we felt 3 days would be preferable. Although you can hike it independently, we splashed out on a guide and mule, which would help us maintain the faster pace.

Day 1 was a stupidly bumpy bus ride over some insane, but beautiful, mountain passes, the a charming 4 hours walking through rural villages and verdant valleys, with occasional teasing glimpses of white capped crags above us. We met a guy who'd been gored in the neck by his own bull (not too badly).

Next day was the Punta Union pass, a vertical slog from 3,600m up to 4,750m. At sea level, it wouldn't have been too serious, certainly not as sheer as the Colca Canyon trek we did the week before, but at this height, every step was painful. Jon was having trouble catching his breath, and Kate was already off colour, so was suffering under the weight of multiple ailments. Although the hardest climb either of us have done, we made it, and were in good spirits at the top, as the clouds parted and we were afforded a truly jaw-dropping view. I wouldn't put down my sandwich though:




The Lonely Planet hyperbolically describes this area as 'the most beautiful place in the world'. It's pretty good.

Last day, early start and a 5 hour descent through more breathtaking scenery, and we arrive in some small village. There's another group of trekkers waiting there - they were doing it in 4 days, so had shorter legs of the journey, so had already arrived 2 hours ago. And not gone anywhere. Because Peru - all Peru, as far as I still know - were on General Strike.

I later learned that they were striking with good reason - the government wants to sell their farmland to other countries. Whilst I am vaguely socialistic and support valid strikes when they are the only means of demonstration, especially for the mostly illiterate and disenfranchised 'campesinos', that's cold comfort when you're stuck without food.

We teamed up with the other group, whose moron guide had gone to get drunk, and eventually, after several hours, we found a single taxi to take us to Caraz, the nearest town. The journey passed largely without incident - a few raised fists and stern looks, but none of the promised rock throwing. We arrived at Caraz, and discovered that we were definitely going no further - the town was barricaded, every road closed with rocks and trees, and we were told by one local to steer clear of the main Plaza as the Campesinos were rampaging, pitchforks and flaming brand style. We were the only Gringos in town.

Rocky road:



We managed to find one hotel, who after initially giving us a stupidly high rate - because of the strike - eventually conceded a reasonable group rate. And there we stayed for the next 3 nights. Kate and I had barely enough Soles for the room, no plastic, none of us could find any more food than rice and tuna anyway.

Eventually, the strike ended. Actually it had ended the previous morning, just no one in Caraz had been told. We gladly fled the town in a variety of transports - a bus, a taxi, a lorry, weaving our way through debris strewn roads and occasionally reaching a little village which hadn't been told about the end of the strike either, which was more than a little scary. But we made it and with time to spare (though Jamie missed her flight).

Escape:



So, with hearts heavy to be ending our trip, but light with the idea of getting the hell out of here before we got stuck for ever, we headed to Lima. It was hot and had good food, but otherwise, not much to tell there. We flew home 2 days later, after a spot of souvenir hunting.

And here we are, one year after heading off. We've been to 14 countries on 3 different continents and entirely circumnavigated the earth. We've walked on snow and ice, in jungles and in deserts and on the floor of the ocean. We've seen whales and penguins, seen wild elephants, penguins, monkeys, apes, spiders, and snakes, and we've swum with dolphins and dived with sharks and stingrays. But it's good to be home. It was a fantastic trip and a wonderful opportunity, and we are eternally grateful to everyone who made it possible, especially our families.

Thanks for reading.

Love Kate and Jon.

Manu National Park, Arequipa, Nazca

Our trip to the jungle was perhaps not quite as succesful as it might have been. We knew the journey would potentially be tough, with it being rainy season and all, and we weren´t disapointed. The journey out, we got stuck behind a landslide for several hours, but made it to our first lodge in the cloud forest at a reasonable hour. The next morning, we awoke at 9am ' at which point we remembered that we should have been getting up at 4am to see the Cock in the Rock (ha ha), national bird of Peru. Our recalcitrant guide informed us that having arrived too late the previous night (8pm), so we had to skip it. Sadly this was to be a theme of the trip. We proceeded to travel by boat to our second lodge, deeper into the rainforest, spotting some tamarind monkeys on the way. The lodges were beautiful, if a little ´roach infested, and that evening we all went on a night walk, spotting tarantulas, scorpion spiders, giant toads, processions of leaf cutter ants, and a rather cool false coral snake.



The following day, at a late breakfast, the guide finally asked us what we wanted to do, and Kate and I, and the group of 8 Americans we were with, all wanted to go camping deep in the rain forest, as per the itinerary. As usual, he wasn´t keen, but we basically forced him. Unfortunately, we were leaving too late, said he, and we would have to rush to get there ' we then basically ran through the jungle looking at nothing, to arrive at the campsite after 5hrs, instead of the 8 it should have taken, at 2pm. Hardly late.

This type of crap pretty much formed the pattern for the rest of the trip, but gripes aside we did get to see some cool stuff, like spider monkeys (see blurry shot above), giant otters, howler monkeys, piranhas, loads of birds (mainly macaws), and we are fairly certain that while walking in the jungle alone, we heard a large cat, perhaps a Puma, growl from not that far away. The next day we saw it´s tracks, so possible.

It took us 3 days to get back to Cuzco, as the road ou had suffered many more landslides, and the guy who drove the digger had the day off for the local carnaval. As we had to stay in the local village for an extra night, we got to sample the carnaval, which in typical South American fashion, mainly consisted of throwing water balloons at each other.

We still had a great time overall, mainly because the guys we were with were great fun, but when we vented our gripes to the agent, they didn´t give a crap. If anyone is reading this DO NOT use Machete Tours in Cuzco. You get what you pay for.

So, on we went to Arequipa, which for Peru, is a relatively attrractive city, as many of the old buildings are built from white sillar, the local volcanic stone. We spent a day touring the local churches, then took a 3 day trip to Colca Canyon, the second deepest canyon in the world, at 3000 and something metres deep. The deepest is nearby, and only 116m deeper, but I guess is less accessible. Day 1 involved descending 1000m and staying in a small village at the bottom, day 2 we trekked to an Oasis, then ascended over 1000m in scorching sun. Tough stuff, but very rewarding, with stunning views. That evening we stayed in Cabanaconde, who were having there rather more civil carnaval. No water balloons (well, not many), but lots of music and dancing in the square which was great fun.



The final day, we went to Cruz del Condor, to view Condors, and got some rather awesome photos, Chivay for lunch with some hot springs, and then back to Arequipa. A far more professional trip than the jungle, and significantly cheaper.



One more day in Arequipa, and we visited a vast and beautiful monastery, which was more exciting than you´d expect.

The next day, and we finally headed back down from altitude and ended up in Nazca. The heat was oppressive compared to the altiplano, but comfortingly reminded us of being in the tropics of Asia again. We arrived early in the morning, and in the afternoon headed out to (forgotten the name) an old Nazca cemetary in the desert, where graverobbers had disintered many corpses, which are left strewn all over the desrt. And I mean all over, you walk along the paths and there are piles of skulls, shin bones and ribs just sticking out the sand. There are some crypts which have been reconstructed containing some mummies in better condition, grinning skulls with hair and clothes intact. All very eerie.



The next morning, we took hopped in a small Cesna and took a flight over the mysterious Nazca lines in the desert. I knew about all the petroglyphs, but the sheer amount of simple lines they constructed are equally as bewildering. Were the ancients divining water sources, mapping the cosmos, signalling aliens, or were they just bored? Nobody knows.

A marathon bus journey dragged us halfway across Peru, and up to Huaraz, for our penultimate stop on this journey, in the Cordillera Blancas, the second highest mountain range in the world. We´ll do some trekking and then off to Lima for our flight home. Next time we write, we´ll probably be back in Blighty, bored, and desperately seeking employment.

Kate and Jon.

Inca Lands

So from La Paz we went to Copacabana on the shores of Lake Titicaca, probably the most tourist driven town in Bolivia, but an attractive little place nonetheless. If you can ignore the hordes of gringos, (especially Argentinian hippies) there are plenty of nice restaurants, small plastic chaired eateries perfect for a sunset beer on the shore, and some good walks around town. We killed a couple of days here, before taking a boat out to the Isla del Sol, legendary birthplace of the first Inca. Although the Inca trail which leads across the island was stupidly busy at first, most tourists are too lazy to walk the length and we soon found ourselves almost alone in some breathtaking scenery. We overnighted at one of the nicest little hostels we´ve stayed at, then headed back to Copacabana, and a bus to Cusco, Peru.





We are still in Cusco, in fact. We were a little early for our booking, so we killed a couple of days here, seeing the sites of town, before heading out on the Inca Trail with Peru Treks. It was a great group of people we were with (bar one whiny American girl, who hated every minute, inexplicably), great guides, absolutely amazing food. A thoroughly fantastic experience. Yes, it´s a cliche to do it, but there IS a reason it´s the most famous trek in the world. The scenery is just jaw-dropping, moving from wet heaths to rich cloud-forest, winding rivers to vertiginous cliffs, all along an ancient path which thousands died to build, ascending and descending over 1000m in places, for no other reason than the Incas thought it should be hard to get to Macchu Picchu - which it is, but with a group of 21 porters, 2 guides and a (talented) cook serving a group of 16, one of the most luxurious treks we´ve "endured". The weather wasn´t the finest, but most of way we were still rewarded with views of spectacular mountains wreathed in mist. Sadly, on the final morning after a 4am start to get a first light, pre-hordes, view of the site from the Sun Gate, the cloud had descended to form a solid white curtain, barring us from getting that classic shot. Luckily, by 10am or so, the sun was shining, and all was forgiven, and we could enjoy the place unfettered by rain - and wonderful it is.

We´re off for 6 days in the jungle next - wish us luck.

Love Kate and Jon.

Lucha Libre

La Paz is an absolutely insane city, like a slightly more Western Bankok, only colder and with less oxygen. Here, the tuk-tuk drivers are replaced with minivan drivers, machine-gun shouting their prices and routes on every road in the city. Small stalls line every pavement selling anything and everything, from watches and sunglasses to love potions and dried llama foetuses. We´ve done a nice amount of souvenir shopping here - thought it might be a bright idea seeing as how we´ve managed to almost circumnavigate the globe while steadfastedly accumulating nothing but photographs.




However, the true highlight of this city had to be yesterday, when we got in one of the aforementioned minivans and headed up to El Alto, a seperate city, which perches on the top of a hill, overlooking the rest of La Paz to dramatic effect. We were here to see ´Titanes del ring´ the famed Cholitos wrestling of La Paz. After being ripped off by being forced to by the tourist ticket - on the plus side it gave us ring side seats on the minus, it cost literally 10 times what the locals paid. Luckily, there are many Bolivianos to the Pound, and it was still cheap. It´s great here - it´s like being in Asia again. A good hostel is 2 or 3 GBP, a big beer is less than 1. Why we spent so long in Argentina and its stupid hyper-inflation, is anyones guess - mind you, they did at least have normal levels of air density there.



Sorry, back to the show. The first fight, and yes, that´s Spiderman
putting the smack-down on the Skeleton King. I know he´s looking slightly chubby these days, but even super-heroes let themselves go. M-J kicked him out, he turned to drink and fast-food, and now he´s gone back to wrestling. Initially, the Skeleton was winning, but Spidey turned the fight around:



But, in a last minute turn-around, the Skelton King got the jump on Spidey and pinned him for the count. Sorry kids. Next up, apparently the favourite of the kids, the oldest wrestler in the world, Mr. Atlas!



Mr Atlas fought some young upstart wearing a beaked mask, who was clearly a bad guy. The ref sided with the bad guy (as became the theme for the evening it seemed), by getting in sneaky punches on Mr. Atlas, and ignoring fouls, but Mr. Atlas soon beat up the beaky guy, and then the ref. The ref declared the beaky guy the winner, but the crowd knew who REALLY won.

Next up, some guy in silver, who seemed to be called Barry, according to the crowds adoration, versus a guy in a military outfit. He´s the bad guy.



Same idea, ref sided with bad guy, good guy beat up both of them, this time the ref was so badly beaten, ´Barry´ won by default. Next up, one of the ladys, Alicia someone, versus some guy in a convict outfit. I think Alicia is a new name to the sport - she was rubbish at the fake punches and the kicks, but her acrobatics were amazing. And yes, she fought in full traditional indigenous Bolvian outfit, though she did take her tiny bowler hat and earings off. Disturbingly, this match didn´t seem quite so fake as the others:



Choked by her own pigtails, and this was shortly after being thrown, hard, to the floor outside the ring, and shortly before being thrown in to the barriers, and then given a piledriver which for once, looked like it REALLY hurt. Luckily after seeing the one-sidedness off the match, the ref, who after initially siding with convict, changed allegiance and helped the girl, who eventually won, albeit on her opponents three fouls, not on a pin. Boo.



Lastly, we watched ANOTHER skeleton (who was clearly the same skeleton as earlier, in a different outfit) fight a guy in silver with a condor on his chest (who I´m pretty sure was Spiderman). The skeleton won again.



Although really good fun, we´d sort of had enough by now, and with no idea just how many fights were left, we beat a hasty retreat. We definitely missed more women fighting, and a tag-team event. We may or may not also have missed at least one midget wrestling, according to rumours, but I don´t want to dwell on that possibility. We were sated with the 4 hours of wrestling we´d had.

Jon, for ESPN.

Bolivia

So from Salta, we took a bus to the Bolivian border and headed into Villazon, for our first breathless taste of life at altitude. I think the border is around 3000m. Not content with that, we took a bus north to Tupiza (around 3,500m), to book a tour of the far South-West. First, however, we sort of accidentally (Spanish failing us) went for a days horse-riding around the incredible landscape surrounding Tupiza - bright red mountains, craggy spires, canyons, peppered with cacti and goat-herders. This is more the South America we imagined, indeed this is the area where Butch Cassidy met his demise.



So the next day, we bundled into the back of a rickety old Toyota Landcruiser, with an Argentine, Noel, and 2 German lads, Jan and Alexis, and our 2 guides/drivers/cooks for the next 4 days, Perfideous and Franklin. Apologies for spelling probably all their names wrong. It´s almost a little difficult to describe in full what we did - it was a surreal tour around some of the strangest, most beautiful landscape we´ve ever seen. Such variety - deserts of sand, mountains of red, green and yellow, lakes of blue, green and red and studded with flamingos, peculiar rock formations and smoking craters. The weather was properly 4 seasons in one day, and we achieved the drivers personal best for flat tyres: 10 in one day alone.



The final day of the tour was the famed Salar de Uyuni, the vast salt flats, remnants of a prehistoric lake. As this is the wet season, the flats were uniformly covered with a couple of inches of water, further adding to the surreal affect, but stopping us from driving clear accross the flats. Finally we visited a rather cool graveyard for locomotives.



The tour ended in Uyuni, where we spent the night - after not showering for 4 days, we were less than amused to find that flooding had cut off the towns water supply. So, smelly, we bussed it to Potosi, to see the harrowing silver mines. Something like 6 million African slaves died in these mines, along with countless indigineous people. After bloody struggles with American magnates and an uncaring government in the early 20th century, the mines are now co-ops, but the conditions are still harsh, and the average miner dies at 40. Our tour took us to the market to buy coca leaves, dynamite and 96% alcohol as gifts for the miners. Then we visited the treatment plants, then spent an hour or so crawling round the claustrophobic tunnels of the mines. Incidentally, Potosi is the highest city in the world, something like 4,100 metres - the air is pretty thin here, but down a mine, it´s really thin, and stiflingly hot. Our time down there was hellish, but for the miners, it literally is hell - they worship their own devils to keep them safe and give them good minerals. The previous day, a miner had died falling down a shaft, which was acause for sadness for the miners, having losta colleague and friend, but a cause for celebration as well, as the devil had eaten him and was now full, and would give them good minerals.

Once we left the mine, we blew up sticks of dynamite, which is great fun as I´m sure you can imagine.

Tonight we overnight it to La Paz, the highest capital in the world. We really can´t wait to be breathing proper air again, but that´s still a few weeks away yet.



I´ve published 2 posts at once today, so don´t miss the previous thrilling installment below.

Love Kate and Jon.

Filling in the gaps

So...cast your minds back to 2 posts down, and we were in Chile, at the beginning of December, and moving on to El Calafate in Argentina. We did just that, and first visited the Perito Moreno glaciar. To be frank, it craps all over the ones we have seen anywhere else (I´m looking at you, New Zealand) - it´s one of the few in the world that is still advancing (2m a day), which means that as you watch, huge chunks of ice explosively calve off. Which is pretty cool. I can´t show you photos though, as that CD doesn´t work, so have some waterfalls instead.



From there we went to El Chalten, for 3 days trekking in the Fitz Roy park, which is similar to Torres del Paine, but not as tourist-ridden. Unfortunately, the weather was pretty cack, we got caught in force winds and ice-rain, and we couldn´t see the mountains we came to see. Nevertheless, it was still enjoyable, just damn cold.

Back to El Calafate, to catch a paltry 32 hour bus ride to Bariloche in The Lake District of Argentina. Picture Switzerland, but with more stray dogs and steak. We actually spent about 6 days here, which is some kind of record for us - the scenery is beautiful, lakes, green mountains, log cabins etc. We did an awesome bike ride, and spent the remainder of our time hiking through forests and up mountains.

From Bariloche, back to Buenos Aires for Xmas. Casa Esmerelda, the hostel in which we stayed, had a great party on Xams Eve - all the guests (who were all sound) either cooked a dish or brought booze (we roasted a huge chicken), and the hostel owners family and friends brought more, including barbecueing a whole pig. We ate and drank well in to Xmas day morning, had some sleep, then Kate and I got up, had a proper Xmas lunch, and vegged in front of movies. Proper Xmas.

So, from BA on Boxing Day, to Puerto Iguazu for the famous falls, and pretty amazing they are too. Difficult to describe really - they´re just really, really big waterfalls. Have to see them really. On the first day we did the Argentine side, where we took a short boat ride under a fall, walked a fair way around the complex, and saw some great wildlife: vultures, monkeys, lizards, reptiles, a toucan, raccoons, loads of birds... it´s great being in the tropics again.



The next day we headed to Brazil, to see their side of the waterfalls - although you can´t walk amongst them, you get a good overview of the whole system. And we got another stamp in our passports for a half day trip to another country. We can say we´ve done Brazil as well now.

From Puerto Iguazu, another mammoth 30hr bus journey took us to Salta, where we spent New Years Eve. It was a bit of a let down really - it seems the Argentines don´t really celebrate NYE out - they spend the moment with their families and then go out at say, 3 or 4am, which quite frankly, is too late for us. Argentina was great, but we won´t miss their ridiculous meal times. Breakfast is bread and coffee, only, if you´re up in time, then a big lunch, then a 4 hour sleep, some snack, then dinner around 10pm, maybe as late as 1 am, THEN you go out. They think they´re Italy, only they can´t make pizza.

From Salta, we headed to Bolivia, but I´ll start a new post for that - see above.

Happy Xmas and New Year

As usual, not updated in ages, and not really doing so now, as the internet here is pap, and I need the loo. Big glacier in El Calafate, Swiss mountains in Bariloche, booze at Xmas in Buenos Aires, MASSIVE waterfalls in Iguazu, and NYE in Salta. We are now in Bolivia at 4,000m above sea level, after horse-rising around amazing geological valleys all day. We{ll put pictures of all this up in a few days, but for now, a belated Happy Xmas and New Year to everyone. To family, the phone doesnt work in Bolivia, so dont try and call. To friends, we tried to send some texts out on NYE, but only a few went because the phone is cack.

Lots of love, have a great New Year and all that,

Kate and Jon.