Bolivia - Maps and pictures of the Pampas

Hey kids!! Barb is going to use her fantastic writing skillz to fill you in on our trip to the Pampas, but I thought I would upload some pictures since it always takes forever to do so. Here is a map of Bolivia so you can follow along if you´d like. We crossed the border around Lake Titikaka, headed to Copacabana, then to La Paz. We flew to Rurrenabaque for the Pampas trip (very scary flight, with lightning flashing outside of our window when we were in the air, Phil´s arm was probably tingly because of my amazing grip on it), then yesterday we flew back to La Paz. We are taking an overnight bus to Sucre (dinosaur footprints!!) tonight, then going to Potosi (the world´s highest town), then to the Salar de Uyini to do a 3 day tour of the Salt Plains which lets us off right down by Laguna Verde so we can cross into Chile. From there, Barb and I set off in different directions, Barb is going down through Chile and we´re going right over to Argentina to check a few things out.

Okay, picture time! We saw heaps of wicked animals in the Pampas. First off is my personal favorite, the capybara. They are about 1 m high and are the biggest rodents in the world. When we were cruising down the lake, we saw two big ones come tearing out of the woods and dash directly into the water at top speed, about 3 m from our boat. It was awesome. We saw heaps of aligators (we even went on a night cruise where you can see hundreds of their eyes reflecting the light off the flashlights) and loads of different birds. We saw a tree full of spider monkeys and had a group of howler monkeys sit in a tree directly above our bathrooms and howl for about half an hour. Anyway, it was a wicked trip and well worth the state of complete ming we were in when we got back.

Isla del Sol

Bolivia!
We made it to Copacabana, still on Lake Titikaka, with a very painless border crossing (the boarder guard guy who stamped our passports was actually chair dancing!). We hung around Copacabana for an afternoon, met up with Jon and Ave for a drink and dinner (they were on their way to La Paz), and enjoyed the beautiful scenery that the lake creates! Copacabana is a great little town, small and very touristy but with a laid-back attitude and lots of freindly people.

The next morning we hopped on a boat for Isla del Sol, and hiked from the north end of the island to the south... took about three hours at a VERY leisurely pace. The views were absolutely gorgeous, as you can see from the photo above, and we got to the south end of the island around 2pm, where we promptly parked on a balcony and drank wine and beer and ate snacks until the sun went down. Very relaxing! The sun was shining, and we were sitting around in t-shirts -- very much a luxury these days, being at such high altitude and all. Of course the nights are still very very chilly. The next day we caught a boat back to Copacabana and spent some more time... yes, that´s right... relaxing! We were catching up on journal-writing and book-reading and all that very important stuff!

Today we caught a minibus to La Paz, where we´ve met up with Jon and Ave once again, and tomorrow we head up to Rurrenbaque for a pampas tour! (grasslands, rivers, and wildlife). It´s supposed to be 20 to 30 degrees up there all the time, so we´re all anxious to soak up some more warm weather!!

What else to say about Bolivia... the people so far seem very friendly, and man oh man is it cheap! That´s all for now...

Islas Flotantes - Uros

Yesterday morning we went to the Floating Islands of lake Titikaka (we learned "Titi" means "puma" and "kaka" means "rock" - ouuu, ahh, what a wealth of information, I know). The Uros people made and moved to these islands in the time of the Inca, but according to our guide a big reason for staying on them was to avoid having to work in the inhuman silver mines in Potosi (Bolivia) in the time of the Spanish Conquistadors. The islands are made up of reeds that grow on the lake. The Uros people harvest the reeds "roots" (about 1.5 m deep) and pile another 2 m of cut up reeds on top, giving the islands a depth of 3.5 m (the water around there is about 15 m deep). Walking on the islands is pretty funny, very spongy and I was glad to hear they´re are deep as they are because it feels like, if you stomped, you would punch right through and end up with a foot in the lake. About 10 families live on each island, living off of fish, water fowl and the white parts of the roots (which is probably similar to sugar cane). The islands are tied to wooden pillars, but they´re untied and move around the lake each year (pulled by motorboats). They make these cool reed boats each fashioned with a puma head at the front - I think Phil took half a film of just the boats! Some of the heads used the bottom of pop bottles as eyes, really cool. The tour was pretty good, though the guide wasn´t great and the last two islands were just places to buy handicrafts (needless to say, we all came away empty handed). There was also this hilarious museum that had a collection of poorly taxodermied birds with their eyes rotting out - another classic example of non-first world museums. One of the little girls on the first island took quite a shine to Jon´s sunglasses and wore them around for about 30 minutes, getting her sticky hands all over the lenses. Cute. I hope everyone is well! Andrea

Colca Canyon

We took the bus from Arequipa to the tiny town of Cabanaconde. The town was great, I have rarely ever been somewhere so friendly. All the people would say hello and wave (even from inside their little stores!). The main draw is the steep walk down Colca Canyon to the little oasis at the bottom. The walk down gave great views (a bit better than the continuous fog of the Inca Trail!) but took ages. I must have strained my knee on the Inca Trail because after about an hour it was complianing loudly and had to take a mule (Paloma) the last 15 mins down and all the way back up. The oasis was awesome (as can be seen in this photo, though of course this isn´t any of us and is just lifted from the web). The water was gorgeous - nice and cool and a way to wash away some of the dust we got covered in from the trail. For the low price of 10 soles (about 3 dollars) we got to swim in the pool and got a nice two course meal. The walk up looked hot and sweaty (my poor mule wasn´t even too happy about it) but everyone was thrilled to get back to our gorgeous hotel for a hot shower/bath and a few drinks (the usual price was 170 soles but we got rooms for 40 soles! Well done, Ave!).
We made it to Puno, a city on Lake Titicaca after a long 8-10 hr day in rickety buses on dirt roads. We will be touring around the floating islands tomorrow, then heading off to Bolivia (Copa-Copabana). Much love from all of us!!

More maps and photos! (not ours though)

So, the first night we camped at Wayllabamba, which was about 3000m. After climbing over the first pass on day two, and coming down a very steep trail, we camped at a very muddy riverside base, 3700m. Day three we climbed over two passes, to descend 1000 stone steps (hard on the knees and feet!) to Wiñaywayna and a beer and lukewarm shower, for those so inclined. This camp was at 2600m. The last day started at 4am, and we hiked along a relatively level trail to the Sun Gate, where we had great views of Machu Picchu! And on down to the ruins for a tour and a well-deserved sangwiuche (sandwich).

Machu Picchu and the Inca Trail

We did it !!!!!!!!! And aren´t we glad we did! It was an amazing four day trek. It did rain pretty much the entire time, however the weather cleared on our last morning, when we hiked the final two hours to Machu Picchu, and the SUN! was actually out for a few hours while we had our tour of the ruins. Couldn´t ask for anything more! Our group consisted of ten people, us five, plus a couple from England and three American gentleman. The three americans were just on vacation for 10 days, so they inevitably ended up having a bit of trouble with the altitude, and with their knees. We all had our complaints, of course!, but all in all it was a wonderful four days. We had porters to carry all our stuff (except for a day pack with water and a sweater), which made all the difference. One of the highlights was that, because of the rain, everyone was wearing these cheap, brightly coloured plastic ponchos -- so seeing all these ant-like people in plastic ponchos below you from various viewpoints along the trail was pretty neat. Our porters were amazing, they´d come barrelling down the trail past us and breakneck speeds with giant loads on their backs, wearing sandals no less. We took every opportunity to give them sweets and fruit when they were resting along the trail. The food was amazing, and our guides did a good job as well.

Machu Picchu itself was amazing, I was glad we were able to spend some time there! The Incas certainly sound like they were cool people ... they had a sundial which told them when to start planting and harvesting, and the stonework was absolutely amazing.

that is all for now, we are off to Arequipa (the white city), and I will likely write more from there!

Nazca Lines!!

We were indeed following just a day behind Barb, Jon and Ave. We saw the Poor Man´s Galapagos, and as Barb said, it was great. There were hundreds of thousands of birds and thousands of sea lions, you could see them popping up everywhere in the water, it was amazing!
We were planning on heading back to Lima Oct 3 and having a day in Lima to check out a few museums, but on the way to book our bus ticket, we saw a few pictures of the Nazca lines which are located about 3 hrs away from Pisco. We´d heard the flights to see them (they can really only be seen from the air) were over $100 so we´d never considered going, but we found out that they were being offered for the low, low price of $40. We decided to head on over and it was well worth it. The lines were amazing, as clear as the pictures. We flew in a little 5 person cesna. We´d cruise around the lines in tight circles until everyone had had a good view (and I wasn´t even sick!). Anyway, well worth the time and the money (what made it even better was that you could take these old American cars from the ´60s as cabs from Nazca to Ica, about 2 hrs. We fit 6 people, plus the driver, very comfortably - sweet ride).

Huaraz and Pisco too!

Hey everyone,

Can you believe we´ve been gone for three weeks already?! I can´t. I know that Andrea told you tidbits about Huaraz, I will fill you in on the overnight hike we did to Lake 69, which Andrea most unfortunately missed in order to recover and be in tip-top shape for our Inca Trail trip next week.

The mountains around Huaraz are two ranges called the Cordillera Negra (no snow on these because they get the pacific winds off the ocean) and the Cordillera Blanca (with snow and glaciers, because they are blocked from the pacific winds by the cordillera negra). We were hiking in the Cordillera Blanca. First we did a day trip up to a glacier (I stink because I can´t remember the name of it ... sorry!), which was very high altitude for us (over 5000m, i do believe!). It was a great day but sure knocked our socks off with tiredness.

Then up to Lake 69, with our guide Hilbert. The first day was a ride on a tourist bus (not the quickest way of getting anywhere... lots of peruvian tourists who think the idea of a good bus tour is to stop somewhere every hour at least), and then a hike up to a viewpoint. For all you philfolks it was comparable to schwacking up the Copper Park side of Baldy, but at 4000m altitude, and with slippery bunchgrass underfoot instead of talus! Definitely a good way to break us in, thank goodness we didn´t have to wear packs! It hailed and rained on us that night, and apparently the guide (who was hiking down from the veiwpoint in the rain with us) was the one who knew how to set up the tent, because upon our arrival back at the camp we discovered an extremely wet tent.... i guess the cook should really just stick to cooking!! So we fixed the tent up as best we could (granted it was quite a complex tent), and had some dinner in the smokey cookhouse (a treat, out of the rain!). The next day we did a leisurely 3 hour walk up to lake 69 (we got to use a trail this time, quite a treat when you are gasping for everybreath -- okay okay, so I am a little out of shape!). The views were absolutely stunning, I can honestly say these are the most majestic mountains I have seen, the glaciers are fantastic! And the lake was also beautiful (I´d like to say I´ll post a picture, but I think we all know my capabilities don´t range that far just yet.... patience, my friends, patience!).

Andrea managed to get on a day tour that day, she was feeling well enough, however she didn´t end up on the day trip she signed up for.... she was hoping to see the glacier and the 10-ft tall flowers we saw on our day trip, however she ended up on a trip to Lake 67.... pretty funny! It was great to meet up with her after two days apart, see her looking so chipper, and catch up!

After another recovery day in Huaraz, Jon, Ave, and I hopped on a night bus to Pisco to check out the Islas Ballestas and the Paracas national marine reserve. Phil and Andrea will follow us, I think just a day behind. The Islas Ballestas are known as the poor man´s galapagos, and made for a great, relaxing day! We saw sea lions (apparently they are also known as sea wolves here...), cormorants, boobies, terns, dolphins, and the cutest penguins ever! All in all a great day, the desert here is beautiful especially with the contrast of it meeting the sea.

Tomorrow we are off to Lima (yikes big cities are scary!), and then fly to Cuzco on tuesday to acclimatize and get organized for our Inca Trail trip! Okay, enough yammering from me...