Aw Poo...
Loyal Readers,
A short post to let you know of an unexpected change of plans. We woke up this morning to see an updated warning for travel within Ecuador:
There is extreme risk to your security in the north-eastern areas of Ecuador that border with Colombia and Peru because of the risk of kidnapping and danger from organised and drug-related crime. We advise against all travel to the town of San Lorenzo in Esmeraldas province, the provinces of Carchi, Napo, Sucumbíos and Orellana.
Not exactly a softly worded warning, but one that gave us a bit of a fright - our 5 day jungle tour begins bang smack in the middle of Sucumbios province. It's a classic case of the old "tiny risk/enormous consequences" equation, and while we might be able to live with being mugged, neither of us fancy being kidnapped. Also, and realistically the most influential factor, our insurance would be completely invalid if we travelled to this area.
So, we've decided to take the safe decision and cancel that trip, boo :(
Definitely a conservative decision, but a safe one, and we're now just thinking what we'll do next. There might be a chance to get into the jungle again somewhere out of the trouble area, but we'll just have to see. We both know our Mums would have conniptions if they knew we'd travelled in spite of the warnings!
OK then, that's all from this end, we'll keep you posted.
Yours in great safety,
A
You Look Like A Schnitzel...
Greetings Loyal Readers,
We're coming atcha today from the capital of Banana-land, Quito in Ecuador. We've been here a couple of days now, and boy oh boy don't we have a lot of catching up to do! Where have you been, I haven't heard a lot from the outside world, but there's still a few of you out there who haven't forgotten about us (muchas gracias). My UK phone goes offline at the end of the month, so if you've anything that can only be said by text, then get in and get it sent...
So, we left you as we were about to head for Ica, on one of Peru's famous night buses. Once again we chose the fantastic CIAL, and managed to take a pic of Ana in 
full reclining mode just to show you how we've been rolling these days. It was another great trip, sad as we were at having farewelled Anita and Mike (who just turned out to be mates of my former flatmate in London, the dear Liv), and we arrived in Ica first thing on the 23rd. A quick taxi ride took us out to our hostel in Huacachina, an amazing oasis surrounding by towering sand dunes. The local attraction here is sandboarding and dune-buggying, which we were signed up for as soon as we were out of the shower and freshened up after our trip. 
The buggies are pretty hastily thrown together contraptions, with a 350cu Chevrolet engine in the front, about 8 racing seats (reassuringly with 5 point harnesses), then the whole shabang is wound in tubular steel. As rickety as it looked, it may well have been the safest vehicle we've been in to date! The village of Huacachina is very small, mostly hotels and restaurants clustered around the lagoon, the dunes rise hundreds of feet on all sides, so 
it was only a short blast on asphalt roads before the roar of our big engine took us shooting up the hill onto the dunes. There's no quietly easing into the ride, it's full throttle from the very beginning, and it was a good few minutes before I could loosen my white-knuckle grip and take in the fantastic setting. Once the town slips from view behind you, the dunes stretch on as far as you can see, looking like they've been trowelled smooth with lovely snaking ridges perpendicular to the prevailing wind. The sand is amazingly fine and quickly works its way into anything that's not hermetically sealed, passengers included.Over our two hours we blatted up and down dunes in various states of verticality and velocity, stopping along the way to try our skills at sandboarding. Now, having never done snowboarding I
can't really comment on the comparison, but don't let the picture lead you to think that I developed any skill at going down on my feet - we both spend the majority of our rides on our bellies! You really get quite a head of steam up going down the dunes, and this feeling is only accentuated by the fact that you're only a couple of centimetres above the scorching sand zipping beneath you. The Germans told us that it was the opposite to snowboarding, in terms of which foot you lend weight to in order to steer. Fat lot of advice that was to me, as soon as the nose pointed downhill I took off a little too quickly for my liking and very soon the natural relationship of my face with the sand was reestablished.
Ana had her technique down, dragging the tips of her toes to steer and brake. I just pointed down the hill and let the law of gravity provide the kicks. Due in part to this reckless attitude, the steepness of the dune, and veering off course by only a couple of degrees, I 'bit in' at what felt like 70km/hr, tumbling in a series of ragdoll rolls down the hill, and ingesting significant quantities of fine sand in the process. Once the Germans made it down and we gathered at the bottom, I was told by them, "You look like a schnitzel". Possibly the funniest thing a stranger has ever said to me. Period.
We was quite invigorated after that little episode, one of the more 'action sportsy' things we've done so far. I'd love to post the video I took of me pouring sand out of my shoes (unsurprisingly, it's too long to upload), but it'll have to wait until the family slide show. We retired by the pool (yep, we hit a luxury spot this time) got some washing don
e, and generally put our feet up after what felt like a very busy 24 hours. Resident in the grounds of the hotel were three parrots, two almost identical, and one very mentally unbalanced. We rapidly got friendly with one of the nice ones, and cruelly exploited it for a series of novelty photos - he didn't seem to mind. Actually, he grew rather fond of us, and after dinner managed to climb out of his tree (remember: clipped wings, no opposable thumbs, and certainly no ladder) and come visit us at our table. So fond in fact had he become that he nestled into Ana's towel-wrapped lap and performed what we could only surmise was a 'grown up friendly times' type of dance, cooing and spinning around. Anyway, he's on Facebook, so we're going to keep in touch...
After the belly-induced delay waiting in Cusco we were all backwards - down in Ica when we should already have passed through Nazca, so through our hotel we organised a trip back 2hrs in the direction we came yesterday to fly over the Nazca lines. These ancient scribblings are truly mysterious, and there's really not a lot known about them. Plenty of kooky theories abound, but they're really just so fascinating simply because they're a series of very beautiful abstract figures, which could not in any way have been seen by the people who made them. Not only are there the famous figures (such as the monkey, the hummingbird, and the controversial 'astronaut') but streaking across the entire plane are simple straight lines, perfectly set out and running all the way to the mountains.
Anyway, here we are in the back of our trusty bird, a tiny little early model 4-seater Cessna, just after takeoff. It was just Ana and I in the back, an Italian fellow up front, and the pilot. He'd clearly flown the 
route a lot, and was relaxed enough to take a call on his cell as we circled the first shapes. You fly a 30 minute circuit from the local airport, seeing 12 of the figures including all the big hitters. Some are harder to make out than others, some are criss-crossed with the straight lines I mentioned above, and the astronaut is actually scratched into the side of a hill rather than on the flat. It's a pretty bumpy ride; a tiny little plane, lots of heat creating turbulence off the desert, and very steep turns to make sure that both 
sides of the plane get to see each figure, so forgive the poor photos. These are only two of about 80 I took in 30 minutes! The monkey was one of my favourites, with his big curly tail, and the hummingbird (actually, all the birds: there's a condor and heron/flamingo as well) was particularly intricate and heavily abstracted. It's very hard to get a feeling for the scale, as there's nothing around them by which to gauge it, but for reference the hummingbird is 50 metres long from the tip of its beak to its tail. They really are awesome, and of course a World Heritage Site, chalk it up...
The nervous part of that expedition over we landed safely (all smiles post landing, as you can see at
right!) and girded ourselves for even more travel to make it to Lima. This involved some aimless wandering, bad Spanish (so bad that I asked for a bus at the place that sold flights), and a trip back to Ica, where we'd started that morning. There are actually departures from Ica to Lima every ten minutes 24 hours a day, so given there wasn't too much of a rush we stopped in at 'Norkys', the local chicken restaurant in the area, where we stocked up on batter and cysts. It was another 6 hours down to Lima, and we needed the sustinence. It was getting on we we arrived, but we had a booking and were well received at good old Hostel Pukara, who had great beds and hot water in abundance. We didn't plan to do too much there, except catch up with Emma, a friend of the troublemaking Ms Bowey. She welcomed us for delicious lunch, where her two young boys ran us ragged before we headed back home very full, going out again for delicious dinner in Baranco.
Lima, or at least the areas we stayed in and drove through, is FULL of security guards, literally on every corner. We didn't know if this means that it's really safe, or really dangerous, but it's certainly reassuring to know that you're never unobserved - beats the hell out of security cameras if you ask me.
So, now we're up in Quito, after a nice comfy (and scenic) flight up on the 25th. We're staying near the old town (much research was done to book a hostel after far too many reviews of places in La Mariscal complained about being held up at knifepoint outside their hostels), which is very lovely (WH Site, of course...), but spending quite a bit of our time up in the New Town as we go about our chores getting ready to head to the jungle (Thursday) and the Galapagos Islands (Nov 7th). We're planning to head up to the actual Equator tomorrow, where you can (apparently) see such unique feats as balancing an egg on a nail, and witnessing the opposite effects of the Coriolis Effect, depending on which hemisphere you stand in. Here's one of many videos people have taken if you're interested...
Big shoutouts to my Dad, who had his birthday this week, and there's a couple of you out there who I know have ones coming up. So, I saw this photo and really thought it was the best thing to leave you with. Clearly theft is a bigger problem even in our area than I thought. If it ain't bolted down...
A
And You Thought You Could Lay A Brick?
Hola Loyal Readers,
We're racing against the clock here, trying to tap into words the enormity and wonder of Manchu Picchu before we head for our overnight bus to Ica, which is near Nazca. The belly's been playing up, hence the day's delay, but thanks to wonder that is Loperamide Hydrochloride (or Immodium, to you non-chemists out there) things are stopped up and suitable for travel.
And so it began...
We left Cusco on the morning of the 17th, booked on a bus to take us up the Sacred Valley, which took us through various of the lesser (but nonetheless really impressive) ruins which culminate in Manchu Picchu. There were slightly fewer seats on the bus than tickets sold, but after a steamy confrontation with Walter, our guide, he came to understand that I wasn't happy sitting in the jumpseat perched only inches from the windscreen. After our first stop, he returned to tell me that his last name meant 'Golden Eagle', his grandfather was a shaman, and he was going to perform a miracle for us, which would solve our problems. I was understandably uneasy about this, no new bus was appearing, no-one was getting off, and there was certainly no apparent plans being made to lengthen the bus in any way. Turns out Walter's ingenious solution was to beg two other passengers to swap seats with us - giving us lovely seats further down the bus, while a very small Peruvian man and his wife (who came back to haunt us later) took up their spots in the front of the bus. A result of sorts, so we settled in until we got to Ollantaytambo.
This was a really cool set of ruins, much more so than Pisac (our first stop) due to all the mad astronomical planning that set out this former Incan city. The main part of the city consists of ceremonial baths at the lower levels, then huge agricultural terraces that step up the hill, culminating in the observatory at the top. This was the nerd highlight for me, 6 huge slabs of stone are beautifully adjoined, with bespoke tapered expansion joints (also in stone) set between them. In relief on these slabs are carved the heads of seven pumas, which correspond exactly to the Seven Sisters. This becomes particularly ridonkulous when you look off to the huge mountain across from the site. This features two adapted natural features, the face of a monster (in the picture at left, complete with the four pointed crown some poor bugger climbed up and made) and the perfect profile of an Inca face, set almost at the top of the mountain. At solstice time, the sun rises exactly behind this face, and that evening the Seven Sisters can be seen floating in the sky adjacent. Bonkers.
We left our bus here, took a little refreshment, and waited for our train up to Aguas Callientes, the village just below Manchu Picchu. All went smoothly, and we were met in the main square there and escorted to our hotel. Aguas Callientes is very tourist oriented, with strings of restaurants and bars, and all roads lead down to the main square with the obligatory statue of an Inca within.
After a quick nighcap we retired, ready for our early start the next morning. Super bed, awesome shower, and the sound of the river coursing in the background made for a pretty good night's sleep - all 4 hours of it.
We were up bright and early first thing, and waiting in an orderly queue for the superbly organised bus service to take us up to the ancient city by 5am. There are loads of buses, and it all went really well as we climbed up the Hiram Bingham highway in the growing dawn. Now, just a word about this fellow - Sr. Bingham - he's the chap who 'discovered' Manchu Picchu in 1911, and is rumoured to be the basis for the character of Indiana Jones. Turns out there are numerous claims to who was there first (well, that's a loose term, first meaning since the dastardly Spaniards drove out the Incas in the 16th century), but Hiram's story is that he was trekking up the Sacred Valley in search of treasure basically, when he stopped at Aguas Callientes to ask what the locals knew. Turns out one of the friendly residents said, "oh, an ancient city? yep, there's a cracker just up there on that hill." Bingham crossed his palm with 2 soles (the equivalent of about 70 cents) and faster than you can say, "South America's biggest tourism site and my name immortalised by the steely jawed Harrison Ford" he hacked his way through the jungle and into history.
Anyway, I probably sound jealous at this point, seeing as I wasn't the guy who found it.
So, we were through the gates just after 6am, and in reward for our early
start really did almost have the place to ourselves. We climbed straight up just after the entry to the Hut of the Caretaker of the Funerary Rock (never quite worked out what that meant) for the true postcard views over the site. That's the lonely caretaker's hut up there on the right. As you can see from the pic at left if was pretty empty, low clouds creeped over the ruins and it was all very eerie and beautiful.
One of the first things that strikes you is just how intact the place is, the layout, main spaces, and about 80 percent of the buildings are perfectly preserved, except for the perishable materials like the roofs of the buildings. The other thing that left me flabbergasted is the quality of the stonework. It's well known that it's considered the
best masonry in antiquity, but nothing prepares you for actually seeing it. They didn't just set themselves the goal of getting the straightest, tightest joins they could, they went all psychedelic and tried out all sorts of whacky stone shapes, just to see if some poor sucker could fit the next piece against it. Turns out they could, with truly humbling mastery. I've taken about 10 shots of this wall in various places, my million dollar idea being that they would make great placemats. Consider this a copyright for that idea, Berin.
Also prevalent, are the delicious, delicious llamas, which have the main square of the complex to themselves. Thanks to the swishy 'burst 'function of my camera I was able to capture
this fella in full chewing mode, and what a happy chap he looks. Gotta love a
ruminant.
So, I'll chew your respective ears off when we get home - I could gush on this place for hours - but for now the clock's ticking and we have to head back to pick up our bags before we leave to Ica on the previously recommended CIAL bus services. If all is well tomorrow (gastrically, I mean) we'll see if we can get to Nazca to fly over the famous lines there. If not, then it'll be a little dune-buggying and sitting by the pool before we head to Lima, our jumping off point to fly to Ecuador.
We've done a little Xmas shopping already, which we'll either carry or post home, and we'll fill the rest as we make our way across Ecuador and Brasil. The second round of postcards should have hit you by now, so the next will come from the Galapagos Islands - we even bought binoculars for it! Sign me up to the
RSPB and park me in the bushes for a morning of
twitching...
OK kids, take care out there and thanks for the emails, keep them coming.
Love and hugs,
A
Colca Canyon
Loyal Readers,
It's been a while since the last update and we've had some fun expeditions, so I'll try to bring you up to date. The first little trip to tell you about is our time in Arequipa, where we headed to after the Isla Del Sol, in Lake Titikaka. We made our way to Arequipa on a long day bus, with our kiwis, Mike and Anita in tow. Arequipa's a really lovely little town with a beautiful central square bordered one one side by the cathedral, cut from the porous white stone that many of the buildings in the centre are made from. We were staying at the highly recommended Casa De Avila, which used to be a cooking school. It surrounds a lovely little grassed courtyard overlooked on three sides with two storey galleries, and comes complete with a 70 year old tortoise named Paco, who slowly plods around nibbling on what he can find, toes included. Frequent visitors also included hummingbirds, which I didn't realise I was such a fan of until I actually saw one. They're completely mesmerising to watch as they hoon around from flower to flower, masterfully pivoting themselves into position as they systematically sup nectar. Pretty damn cool indeed, and another one to add to the inventory.
We met up with Mike 
and Anita for some lunch and thanks to their recommendations we booked a 3 day hike down into Colca Canyon, starting on the 13th. We were up at 3:30am to get picked up, and after a couple of hours of very bad sleep in the van our first stop was at the Cruz Del Condor, the world's best spot to see Andean Condors soaring while they hunt. We were very lucky in our timing, and got about 15 minutes of seeing about 4 of these huge birds circling nearby and below us in the canyon before they decided that better cuts of rotting carrion could be found elsewhere.
After leaving the condor lookout, we followed the ever deepening canyon
down to the town of Cabanaconde, where after learning the names of the rest of our 11 strong group we started the 9km descent into the canyon. Almost as soon as we left, a little yellow dog joined us. He ended up following us for all three days, and features in a commemorative portrait below. We descended over 1,200m over that distance, and despite being downhill all the way it really takes its toll on your legs. The views vary from perspective defying vistas down the valley, to impossibly vertiginous drops of several hundred metres over the sides of the trail, and you can see the various strata of the different types of rock curving down the valley. Our guides Carlos and Rousbel were excellent, full of facts and help with the descent. They had an uncanny ability however to keep appearing ahead of us after we thought they were at the back of the group. The route is thousands of years old, and is criss-crossed with alternative trails and sho
rtcuts. We got to the bottom of the canyon for a short rest, where we were then told we had to climb another 300m up to the village we were staying in! This last stretch was pretty hard going, but the legs were feeling the satisfaction of a deep, deep burn. We stayed under the full moon in a tiny little village, one of about 4 in this part of the valley. The untouched nature of these were the original reason people started hiking in to the canyon, and the locals quickly started renting out rooms to the tourists who came through, allowing them to earn factors more than their neighbours as farmers. As more and more people got in on the act, the villages emptied as whole families sent their children to Arequipa or Lima to study, having the effect of depopulating the villages. Strange to have this explained to us as we were walking through, seeing the closed schools and abandoned houses.
The next day we walked back down to the floor of the valley, to a little oasis
full of natural hot pools, where we bathed away the aches of previous day's hiking, and took a couple of hours rest before contemplating the 1,200m ascent back up out. Mules were available to hire for the climb, and Ana took advantage of the knock-down rate to leave us in her dust. We also hired another one to take our backpacks, it was a case of trying to shave off every kilo for the climb! We made plenty o
f rest stops on the way up, taking lots of photos of the scenery (just as good on the way up as on the way down), and our rocking little dog who after flirting with other groups was now firmly aligned to us. We did the climb in about 2hrs 20mins, a little under an hour longer than the mules, and got to the top just in time for sunset. I understand now the need to 'warm down' after exercise - I could feel everything seizing up very quickly!
Ana had obviously arrived earlier, and was clean and fresh when the rest of us rolled in. As rewarding as this climb was, after 20km I felt about 106yrs old and had a noticable hobble. Between Ana's saddle injuries and my prehistoric legs we made a pretty sorry pair and fell into bed after a few beers with our team in the bar. It turns out all but two of us were heading on to Cusco, so we booked our passage with CIAL on an overnight bus, and after a quick bite to eat settled in to what turned out to be the plushest bus journey we've taken yet. Leather seats, a waiter serving drinks, and tourist videos of our destination set the scene for a really good ride. My jaw hit the floor however when our bus attendant brought round blankets and literally tucked us in before killing the lights for the overnight stretch! We slept pretty well, which was just as well, as Anita told us the journey took in many winding turns around steep drops on the road to Cusco.
We arrived at 5:30am, in what felt like a bit of a hurry, being asleep up until about 5 minutes before pulling in to the station. We shared a cab to the hostel Mike and Anita had booked for themselves, and seeing there was a room free, and not being the time of day one likes to walk around checking the options, we took it and grabbed a few hours shuteye until a more reasonable hour.
Cusco is really lovely as well, nestled in a little valley, and a lot lower than where we're previously been. That's it in the picture to the right, the main square and the now requisite Jesuit Church. We had a nice little wander around - good to actually have the energy to do it now! - wrote our next ba
tch of postcards, and booked a trip up the Sacred Valley to connect with our train to Manchu Picchu. More on that adventure in the next post... We met up with our kiwi friends again later that day for some drinks at the reknown Los Perros bar, which was a welcome change from the slightly repetitive menus you find elsewhere in the town. Who knew you could actually eat Yukka plants, deep fried with tasty dips? The bar was very smooth, couches and the usual live-in dogs. There's Ana and Anita at left, with a visitor from the Hawkes Bay. We had a very fun night, knocking off a few pisco sours and three bottles of wine. The kiwis are good folk, and we're looking forward to seeing them again in NZ in the New Year. That was our last night in Cusco before we took off for Manchu Picchu, so get yourself comfy, grab a napkin, and tuck into the next installment...
A
Beardwatch, Day 53
Loyal Readers,
Today finds us having just arrived in Cusco, Peru, after a splendid overnight bus from Arequipa. We're doing a couple of chores today in preparation for the visit to Manchu Picchu the day after tomorrow, but otherwise we're just taking our time and doing well.
The trip to Colca Canyon was spectacular, and I'll try to get a post done with pics on that tonight. Hope you're all doing well out there, and thanks for the comments/emails we've got - always good to hear from afar.
Yours in full-facial-furriness,
Arch
Bye Bye Bolivia
Loyal Readers,
Just a short note to say hello, shout out happy birthday to my cousin Libby, and let you know that I've updated the blog with some pics from our Salt Flats tour.
We're just killing a couple of hours before we jump on the bus to Arequipa. We'll be crossing the border into Peru somewhere near Puno, and will be spending our first night in Peru tonight.
Copacabana's been lovely, we went on a day trip over to the Isla Del Sol yesterday, site of the Inca creation myth. Was a very fun day, but gruelling walking in the heat and height. We've fallen in with some Kiwis who will be sharing our journey down to Arequipa, and Ana's diligently searching for info on tours around the area. Near Arequipa is the Colca Canyon, one of the deepest in the world at over 3,300m, as well as some pretty good condor watching by all accounts. Loves me a good condor I do...
A
Her Name Was Lola...
Greeting Loyal Readers,It's a big hello today from Copacabana, on the shores of Lake Titikaka. Today's a rest day, after the adventures of the last four days since we departed La Paz to tour the south of Bolivia. It's low tech here in Copa, and I've updated it now to add some pics. Let's run you through what we've been up to eh?
We were all sorted and booked for our trip, including return transport from La Paz down to Uyuni, where the tour began. Thought I'd throw in a pic of La Paz for youse, this is the view coming down from the airport up in El Alto, pretty lovely huh? After pottering around La Paz for our final afternoon we made our way down to the bus station for the 12hr local bus down to Uyuni. This was our first local bus in a while, and a nice reminder of why it can be worth spending another $10 for slightly plusher modes of transport. This was best proved when we broke down literally one minute after leaving La Paz. We were stopped for about an hour and a half, the soundtrack to this being the constant clanging of spanners ourside our window. The fact that the guy who was lying on his back under the bus was smoking showed that the problem probably wasn't to do with the fuel system...We did eventually get under way, and the trip was around 550kms, with the final 180km 'unpaved'. We made a LOT of stops en route, usually picking up locals who were only travelling part of the journey, including the ubiquitous wizened old lady who sat in the aisle and slept on my legs. Sleep was briefly attained, but once the asphalt ran out we were subjected to some of the most punishing roads I've ever been on. Three hours of constant rattling left my teeth bare and such big gaps between my joints that I felt like one of these.Uyuni is a pretty barren little spot, in the middle of the Bolivian desert and miles from anywhere. There are a lot of folk offering tours and you are constantly 
harrangued on the way to the main street - one of the reasons we wanted to have our tour organised before we left La Paz. We left on time at 10:30, with two couples, one English, the other German. -Our steed was a Toyota Landcruiser, piloted by our guide, the diminutive Oscar. The first stop was the train graveyard, just 3km out of town. Rusty reminders of the might of the steam age are stockpiled here from the days when minerals were profitably extracted from the area. Now, you know I loves me a good train or two, so this was pretty fun, and set the pace for the number of photos I was going to take on this trip.
The next, longer drive was across the Salar; 12,000sqkms of evaporated salt lake. Once you cross the edge of it its horizons quickly disappear and it really does stretch on as far as you can see. The hills and mountains that ring its perimeter are all shimmering with the mirage effect, some of them almost mirrored along the horizon line. We stopped a couple of times to check out the taste (salty), and see how it's harvested (by hand, in antique trucks). We'd heard some stories, which we took to be exaggerated, about accidents that have recently occurred along this route when guides 
have let tourists drive the trucks. 
Turns out they were true, as there are some scary reminders in the form of skid marks and crosses marking the sites. Shudder shudder and we pressed on to the Isla De Pescadores, which sits very lonely surrounded by the salt flats. Altitude still made the climb to the top a little tough, but well worth it. The island is totally covered with gigantic cactii, the oldest we saw was over 1,000 years old. These are the really good, romantic ideal of a cactus - 9m tall, with two arms that come out at different heights. Oh, and 1,000 years old, in case I forgot to mention that...
We camped for the night in a salt hotel on the edge of the flats. It was pretty basic, but warm enough and a great spot, elevated above the flats so you could ponder their enormity. We spent the evening eating our fried chicken and playing quite a bit of cards with the Tim and Jude (the English), and quizzing Wolfgang and Meike (the Germans) for German tongue twisters. Here's the motley crew at left, can you tell it's cold?It was an early start the next day, creeping outside for my first sunrise of the trip at 6am over the flats. Try as I might I couldn't quite catch the famous green flash that Mike first told me of, but the setting still contributed to one of the best I've seen in a long while, and a good reward for getting up
so early. 
We hit the trail in good spirits and on our second day took in the famous Arbol de Piedra (a wind blown rock formation perched like a tree in the middle of the desert) and the first of what would be many lagoons. The real money shot here was Laguna Colorada, and its 
thousands of pink flamingos. I'm really struggling to convey what this place was like without some pictures (here's one taken from the top of the hill next to the lagoon), but we were completely gobsmacked as we wandered around. By now we'd seen these unearthly salt flats, huge cactii, giant salt lakes with borax islands and hot water bubbling up through them, and all these flamingos. I'm starting to form the opinion that Bolivia is really a rockin' spot, filled with some of the most spectacular natural wonders I've ever seen. I haven't even mentioned yet the active volcano we casually stopped to take pictures of...We stayed on the shores of Laguna Colorada, and our second night's accomodation was far less, um, accommodating. Six to a dorm (we're all getting on well now tho) and a kindof crappy spaghetti dinner in the cold dining area. No-one was too fussed as were told to be up at 5am, so everyone rolled into bed at a polite hour, and mostly fully clothed due to the extreme cold out here. We'd been up and down all day, but thanks to Wolfgang's altimeter (don't you just love that? He takes an altimeter on holiday, that's my kind of guy) we confirmed that we had reached a maximum altitude of 15,800ft...
We were all very cold for our final day, which we were told was mostly just a long drive back to Uyuni. We took a short detour south to see the geyser area, which we arrived at just after sunrise, and were completely blown away. This place is like the alien planets on Starship Troopers, and I've never seen anything quite like it. A giant steam geyser greets you on arrival, before you walk out over the geyser field where sulphurous steam seeps through the mineral encrusted ground. Health and Safety aren't great priorities here, so you get the whole place to yourself to just wander around the numerous craters, wondering how long before you were cooked alive if you fell in. We went a little mad wandering amongst the steam, and after realising that sulphur was poisonous we headed back to the jeep for our last leg south, to Laguna Verde. The pic below is of our group, Wolfgang, Meike, Ana, me, Jude and Tim.
Laguna Verde is at 4,300m and just on the Chilean border. From here we began the long trip north which would eventually bring us here. In summary, we drove until 6pm when we arrived in Uyuni, took the 8pm night bus back to La Paz (tourist class this time, and all the better for my shaken bones), then local bus over to the shores of Titikaka, where we arrived after 34 hours of travel.It was a truly amazing trip, and I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that put together, the sights we saw over the last 3 days easily outrival Iguacu Falls. We fell in quite chummy with the English, and are already hatching plans to take them over to the Coromandel in January when they arrive (any takers for a house over there around the 18th Jan please pipe up...) I saw my first flamingos, and met my first altimeter-carrier - all in all just bloomin' marvelous, and our consciences are clear for doing nothing much while we're in Copa.Next in line is a trip across the lake to the Isla Del Sol, then we'll wave goodbye (very sadly) to Bolivia and cross over to Peru to try one of their 4,000 varieties of potatoes. I'll do my best to add some pics to this post later, but till then - you folks look out for one another and keep an eye on the postbox, there was a large dispatch sent from La Paz.OK, off now to climb the little hill overlooking the town. Wish you were here ;)A
Sermon from the Mount, kinda...
Greetings loyal Readers,
Today finds us parked up in the highest capital city in the world, La Paz in Bolivia. We're finally more used to the altitude now after spending three days at 3,600m above sea level - almost exactly the height of Mount Cook, New Zealand's highest mountain.
The first thing to start with has to be the flight in from Santiago, quite an experience to say the least. We arrived at Santiago airport at 3:30am for our 6am flight, and after a little aimless wandering sorted out what was to be done and boarded the surprisingly plush LAN Chile flight, to stop at Iquique. This is in the north of Chile, and just a little stopoff to pick up some more passengers before rocking on up to La Paz. Iquique airport is easily one of the most barren otherworldly places I've ever seen, almost an exact replica of Tatooine from Star Wars. After marvelling at how many shades of light tan you could paint a desert with we were off, climbing over deserts and volcanoes up into the hills.
The landing at La Paz is pretty hairy, especially considering you're landing at the altitude most people skydive from. The airport's at 4,000m, and there's not really a lot of air up there, so you come in very fast, and there's no lovely little 'float' before touching down. We slammed into the runway and I was lucky to experience the first symptoms of the altitude... Let's just say that a by-product of digestion is a certain amount of, ahem, 'gas'. At higher altitude where the air's less dense, that 'gas' expands to take up a much larger volume. I think you can guess the rest anyway, enough said...
You immediately are aware of the height, and lifting our packs onto our backs was exhausting. But, we jumped into a cab and made our way down the hill. I should explain here, the airport is actually in El Alto, the plateau above La Paz. It's completely flat, sprawling with low houses ringed with little earth walls. The road from the airport takes you down the rim of the valley that rings La Paz, and the views are amazing. All the houses are the same red shade of brick, and there's a sort of commercial district at the bottom of the valley. The city is overlooked by Mount Illimani, and we were lucky to strike a clear day for our first views.
We made an executive decision to lay low for the first day or two, and just took a gentle amble round the area where we're staying. It's very hilly, full of markets, and crowded streets mean that the innumerable minivans never really get up much speed. This is a blessing, as even a couple of hops across the street leaves you out of breath and with your heart thumping. The Vice Presidential debate provided much entertainment, which I thought was pretty well summed up with this piece of genius from BoingBoing.
Anyhoo, by day three we're much better used to it, and took a day yesterday to head out to the ruins at Tiwanaku, 70kms out of town. This is a huge pre-Incan complex of temples, and is another World Heritage Site to rack up. Sorry Mr. Mason, I've stopped counting now, they're pretty thick on the ground in this part of the world! It's truly 'ruined' as the case would be, but was really good to see the scale of the whole thing, hear how it worked as a giant observatory and solstace calendar, and see the huge monoliths which are pretty fab.
We're on the night bus tonight down to Uyuni, to visit the world's largest salt flats down there, among other things. Expect lots of lagoons, flamingos, the famous rock trees, and a night in the salt hotel. Mr. Smith, true to tradition I will of course ask the question, "what about this, is this made of salt?"
As such, we'll be off the radar for a good few days. We overnight to Uyuni tonight, are touring the area until Tuesday, then get the overnight bus back to La Paz, so might have a chance to check emails on Wednesday. No photos this post sadly, but I'll do my darndest to get some of the salt flats, which most people say is one of the best things to see on the continent.
Big shoutouts to the birthday kids, Jodie Smith (nee Wickes), and the incomparable George Ferrari. Hope you had a good one, and we were thinking of you on your birthdays, timezones excused! OK then, that's all from Rakish Richard, I shall return salty.
A
