cuzco, jungle

Quick note we're back from Rurrenabaque (lucky to get a plane out, they were all cancelled due to rain, which would make the 20 hour bus ride even longer!).

We headed to Cuzco, and are just leaving soon for a trip to the sacred valley before hiking Salkantay (inka trail alternative) for five days. Will post some pics later of the jungle. Somehow I missed the one of Simon swimming with the dolphins and caymans (aligators)... there's a cayman sunning with his mouth open approx. 2 m behind him. Had a good time, and we both got love nibbles on our feet from the dolphins (at least that's what I hope they were:)). Most of the day was spent cruising down the rivers watching thousands of cayman (crocs). Cool dolphins, monkeys, cafeyate. Tons of birds

Question: Anyone been to galapagos? We're sold on going, even though it will cost more than the rest of our trip combined. How bad are the economy boats really? (I see postings online about no running water, no toilet seats - still $1500 for the week - was that a one-off, or typical?). At last minute fares the gap between decent and economy boats narrows... trying to figure out if an extra $400 is worth it for the nice boats. Or are they all full of retirees who complain about the food? Any insights into cruises welcome.

New: pics

Our plane at the grass-strip airport

Our van struggled in the mud

Mellow in the boat

Calafate ... the largest rodent in the world. About the size of a big dog.

Monkey. Curious guys, but fortunately not pesky

Cayman

Yep, that's us. Swimming with pink dolphins, cayman and piranhas. Seriously, ten or more cayman slipped into the water just before we dove in.

Did I mention the Piranhas? Throw beef on a hook with just a few feet of line overboard, hold for two seconds, jerk and you have yourself a small fish with big teeth. Tried really hard not to think of them when swimming.

I promise this guy had big teeth just can't see them here.

This baby tiger loved Simon

sunset. nights here were amazing since we're seriously in the middle of nowhere, no electricity etc. we went on some night boat rides - lots of cayman eyes reflecting.

Still loving the 15cent fresh squeezed.

Lake Titicaca

Just a quickie as we're meant to catch a Military plane out to the Amazon jungle shortly! The next post I think should be interesting.

This one is on our trip from La Paz to Cocacabana - A small town that's on the shore of Lake Titicaca. We'll let the pictures take care of most of the words . . . . .


Below our bus to get us to Cocacabana (5 hrs), Si with his packet of freshly squeezed orange juice!

Views down on to La Paz from the bus. Remarkable city situated in a huge bowl.
Rocked up to Lake Titicaca thinking we've arrived in Copa, but, to only find out we had to cross a stretch of the lake via the ferries you see below!

Here's our bus on one ferry and us on another. It was touch and go at times whether the bus was going to make it.

5 hours later we arrive at Cocacabana. Touristy but nice walks down the beach made it lovely.

Three days in Coca, one of them spent walking across the Isla del Sol. We're at about 4000 meters now so the hike across was not easy. We decided it was good training for the Inca trail though so were determined to go across and back.


Si huffing and puffing above while the locals, pic below, went by without any sign of heavy breathing.

View from the Island of the Sun in the middle of Lake Titicaca. An island with lots of history , the terraces on the sides of hills were from the Inca times and used for their farming.
Below are Inca ruins that are still standing on the island.


Copacabana was fortunately very relaxing. We found the local handmade hats, gloves etc. much cheaper than La Paz so were happy to do a little shopping as well as relaxing.
No time for relaxing now as we have to find the military airport and get on a plane to the jungle. Hopefully there will be some great shots forthe next post.

Welcome to Bolivia!

Much as we enjoyed our time in Salta, we were planning many trips when suddenly we realized we had to get moving! We were in luck, and managed to schedule perfectly-aligned travel in notorius bolivia. Left on the 5am bus from Salta to the bolivian border at La Quaica, walked the 2km over the border to the train station, and just managed to catch the (4-times-a-week) train to Uyuni. Uyuni is the main starting point for the famous Bolivian salt flats tours, and our first experience of a 100% gringo-oriented town. Hated it. But we got in at 1am, and managed to organize a one-day tour starting 10:30 in the morning. It would get us back in time for the overnight bus to La Paz, the capital.

The salt flats are immense, and completely desolate (approx. 2000km in diameter). On our tour we watched how salt is harvested (the first 2 inches of the flats are soft enough to scrape into heaps, these are then crushed into finer grains, and packaged into Bolivian salt bags. No cleaning involved:) Mmmmmn, tasty! There's an island that rises from the salt, and is covered in cacti. Bizarre. Unfortunately our camera died so only a few pics.
Salt processing

The cactus island in the salt lake
It's cold (-10'C at night, 30 during the day)! Our frozen hostal room window in the morning.
Uyuni is the place where trains get retired... pics of the train graveyard outside town


Build with what you have... half the houses are of mud blocks, half of salt blocks.




We were happy to leave Uyuni, but enjoyed the salt flats. La Paz is a bit of a shock. It's massive, and life is lived on the streets. They even have themed streets... fruits over there, makeup over here etc.

Our favorite so far is the fruit. Everything here seems to be picked at the perfect time, and sold quickly, so the taste is amazing. We also love the 2boliviano (30c canadian) freshly squeezed orange juice you can get on every block. They squeeze it right in front of you.

Quick outline of plans:
- We're going to catch a small cesna plane to the jungle north (near Brazil) on Friday. The $130 round trip ticket compared well to 42 hour bus trip (bring extra food, last year it took 6 days due to rain).
- In the meantime I think we're headed to Soranta in the mountains on the north shores of lake Titicaca. It's a town of 8000 and known for the hiking around it. We were originally planning on going to cocacabana but the uyuni gringo trap has turned us off the must-see-gringo-trail scene. We'll likely check it out the way to Peru next week

Oops, there go the twins

We're really enjoying Salta. It's in the north of argentina, with sugarcane, catcti, ranches, tree-covered hills, rivers and the andes all together in one place. The hills are magnificent and surroundings gorgeous. There is also a good mixture of indiginous and european-background people, who have been so incredibly friendly. Big smiles, lots of help, kisses goodbye etc! Just bough 15 delicious mandarin oranges for 1 peso, about 30C US. Much cheaper than BA/Mendoza (our double room in a nice hostel is $15/night). After two consecutive overnight bus rides, and an amazing meal at this crazy local place our hostel guy pointed us to (think bad 70's bingo hall decor, waiters in bowties, $20 for an insane amount of good food, beer and wine), we slept brilliantly and woke early. Pics below:

and of couse for our dog friends...

We loved the hill above the city yesterday (yes, with the 1070 steps) so decided to run it this morning. My run quickly degraded to a fast plod (it's possible, yes) so I told Simon to run ahead, I'd meet him at the top.
There's only one way up and down. Somehow we missed each other (SOMEONE went off the trail) and he proceeded to go home while I climbed back down and back up and back down this bloody mountain looking for him. Finally, 1.5 hours later he showed up freshly showered eating an orange.

We then ran to catch a bus to a town nearby salta (30c, 15 minutes on the bus from center, but no houses in between) we had heard was beautiful. It lived up to its reputation! Gorgeous area in lucious hills with rivers, beautiful spanish-style estates on dirt roads under ancient trees. We found a place with the laziest horses, and got ourselves a 2-hour horseback tour of the hills. Super afternoon.

Simon had never ridden before, but these guys were on autopilot and you'd have to try to fall off. We went through some estates to the drier hills and even got the horses into a canter a few times! This was quite exciting as Simon wasn't as enthusiastic as his horse and was generally terrified, but survived, bouncing all over his seat and ruining our hopes of twins. Sweet revenge for the stairs.

Random aside - When we were little, I remember riding a lot, as a baby in Williams lake and later on Polka and Reggie around the ranch. My memory may be fooling me, but I have a strong feeling I took a horseback acrobatics course with cousin Michelle at some stage when we
were little, and learned how to stand on top of a horse, even with one leg out behind. Mom, am i crazy? I had the most amazing urges to try this today, but couldn't quite figure out how to explain this to our gaucho friend in spanish.

Not sure what's next; we're enjoying it so much we're not ready to head to Bolivia, but have to work around the border logistics... the simple connections are 1-2 a week. Likely at least one more day in Salta then maybe a few days in the small <1000>

Cordoba, Salta

We arrived in Salta this am after a quick day in Cordoba between overnight bus trips. Nice to have a shower after a stinky yesterday!

Dropped off Nanny at the airport before we left, we'll miss her energy! I hope at half her age I'm able to do half as much as she can. Thinking of you in Canada, nan.

We are excited about salta... so far argentina has been more about the towns + people than the scenery (think flat for 12 hours either way), but here there's gorgeous hills all around and the vibe is more SAmerican. Will spend a few days here also trying to figure out the logistics around the Bolivian border (no transport across, doesn't seem like the schedules align for busses on either side with only a few times a week from Bolivia) and enjoying the lovely mountains all around.

Okay quick post. Off to hike the nearest mountain (1200 steps!)... consider it training for MPichu.

Coast to coast

When in doubt, honk!

There's a whole new language on the roads here. Honk flash HONNNKKKKK left ticker honk. Pedestrians cross when safe, but if you get hit, too bad, wasn't safe. Definitely exciting and helps keep you awake when on streets & sidewalks (re. motrocycles consider the sidewalk part of the street!)!

Had a super last few days. Headed on a bus from Mendoza to Valparaiso, Chile after heeding advice to skip Santiago altogether. What a fabulous drive! 7 hours (incl. border) to cross from the flat pampas over the Andes, alongside the highest peak in the Americas, to the Pacific ocean (coast to coast in three days). The scenery was spectacular.

Valparaiso was a treat to explore, but really hard to capture on film. It's a city of angles, colours, glimpses and breathtaking hills, made all the more crazy because of the fact it lies on a fault line. The whole city is a unesco heritage site and it's a living, breathing, pulsing museum.

Mendoza

Caught the ´campa´(fancy) overnight bus from BA to Mendoza, wine country. Unfortunately South Africa´s beautiful wine route has forever made me sceptical to wine routes, but we had a good time. After catching the bus out to Bortega la rural we took a tour and hung out reading in the sun at the back for a while... the perfect after noon after our allnighter.

Some photos below, including our last day in BA. Everyone says that music is the heartbeat of South America. Si and I think it's the cats and dogs.

Simon loved the cat park (literally hundreds of cats).

I found the fishpond in the middle amusing... they must live in terror.