Argentina...all about the snow

The trip over the Andes was lovely, possibly the prettiest mountain pass on record, but the journey was very slow going and 12 hours later we finally arrived at our destination. It became obvious pretty quickly that it was not cold enough for snow in Bariloche and the constant rain was a give away that things on the mountain were not going to be good. With the pending arrival of family the next day (and the concern about the fact there was no snow) I hardly slept at all the first night and when we were greeted with more rain in the morning the concern developed into action. So good to see Andrew and Keith arrive safely in Bariloche the next morning and after some hotdogs and a serious conversation over the snow report, we changed our plans.



The problem with this whole global warming thing is that places that had LOTS of snow the year before are not guaranteed to have it the next, but the fact that all they currently had was rain didn't bode well for us and our boards. We cashed in our airtickets, quickly booked bus tickets and an appartment in Las Lenas (700km away) and headed off on an entertaining overnight bus journey. Simon and I are quite acustomed to long bus trip by now, but I am not sure the other two were as entertained by the movies in Spanish and bus bingo (also in Spanish) A connection into a minivan in San Rafael and we arrived in Las Lenas by noon the next day.



Las Lenas is Argentina's premier ski resort, so this means the prices for things are too!! They also only book accommodation Sat to Sat , so our arrival early on the Thursday confused them no end, but in no time we were dropping off our bags, into our snowboarding gear and off to the hill. The studio appartment we managed to find was good for us and the bunkbeds make it feel a little like a school camp. Most important is the kitchen as we are able to cook up a storm and save some cash in the process. Also good is that we are right at the bottom of the hill, so we come home for lunch and it is sometimes the only time we see each other in the day (the boys are so fast I lose them regularly!)


At 3000m we are guaranteed snow and that is exactly what we found. On day one they had 30cm of fresh powder for us to play on and within a few warmup runs we were back in the groove. One or two falls for me has turned into 7 or 8 and with injured ribs I have had to take it a little easy. Sunday was a bit icey and windy, so I stayed away while the boys did their thing, but being 5 days in with 5 days to go not much can keep us off the slopes now. Keith and Andrew do the very nutty boy thing and do a fair bit of off-piste-ing...Simon is trying a bit, but I stick to the runs.

That is all from me for now as the lifts have opened and it is a bluesky day...the slopes are calling.


On top of the world...at 3400m


view for birds


Andrew having fun


Family on the lift


At the end of a hard day


View at night from our flat

Chile - all a bit of a blur really

So we entered our last new country via the border control at San Pedro de Atacama, one of the most stringent places outside of Australia...we were a bit worried about our flamingo feathers and saw a rather irate South African couple have a lovely shaman mask confiscated due to it being made of goat horns!! After lucking our way through with Cath again charming security staff (she really has a knack that is lost in HR of diverting people's attention when needed) we continued into town and unloaded our bags from the bus. Given that Cath wasn't feeling too great my unintended diversion (map reading was never a great skill) didn't help either of our moods and we were glad to find some slightly overpriced accommodation and have a snooze.

We had arrived in the tourist mecca of San Pedro on the feast of San Pedro and San Juan, this meant parades galore and lot's of locals partying and drinking til late. We tried to keep up but after our exploits in the Salar we could not and retired at a very respectable hour.

The next few days found us trying not to spend too much money (San Pedro benefits from being one of the main routes into Bolivia and so prices are hiked considerably) as well as trying to build ourselves back up with as much nutricional goodness as possible...mostly from cuppa soup! One great trip we managed was out into the desert at night time to hear a very amusing French chap talking about stars and the night sky (and a bit better informed than dad and Brian in the back garden in Le Cellier!!) After taking photos of Saturn and her rings and looking at Crab Nebula we were invited in for hot chocolate and a further chat about our celestial blanket.

Next stop was La Serena, a cute little hostel and an overnight to break up the journey. The only thing to say about this place was that it was where I taught Cath how to play Cribbage...and she is still 5 - 2 up overall wins.

The capital of Chile, Santiago, was a bit of a mixed time for us, we had some fun at a wine farm (me a little too much although no golf balls involved this time) and some cool art museums but there was a lot of moving around due to some booking errors with the hostels were tried to stay at...and I finally got a decent haircut so I won't be coming home looking like a yeti!!

Valparaiso and Vina de Mar are both just outside Santiago and provided us with two days of great exploring, the first is a haven for artists and travellers alike and we walked the mural and graffiti filled streets snapping happily away. The hostel we stayed in is owned by one the of the writers for a well known travel guide book and so they knew all of the ingredients for a great stay...we were not disappointed!! Some good conversation and decent wine added to the experience and the next day we bravely set off on a mission to find the Chilean team set up due to a tour by my football team, Everton de Chile, in Vina. After arriving early-ish we trotted up to the stadium after a visit to the tourist information centre...then we trapsed to a shooping centre on the tip off that we might find a shirt...no luck but hot dogs galore!! Next was an even smaller retail outlet on a street quite a bit our of the way, success but still not an overwhelming result. After having given up the hunt we headed for the tube as we had to get back to Santiago...only to stumble on the headquarters and trophy room of the Chilean Blues!! Stunned we walked around for a few minutes before realising we were now about 15 mins late for our bus...PANIC!! With 5 minutes to spare we made it and no more excitement followed for a time.

After leaving Santiago we were truly on our way, we were headed for Pucon, a South American outdoors wonderland...just not while we were there. We arrived just after it started raining on a Tuesday and four days later we were still waiting for it to stop, more importantly we were waiting for it to snow as the South African boys were now only a week away and we needed to have something for them to snowboard on!! We were very lucky to have found a homely hostel (called Ecole) in which to hibernate for those four days; good food, some great company and plenty of reading and sleep allowed Cath to shake her persistent Chile cough and me to..well sleep lot's. Some evening hot springs and trips to the chocolate cafe were as exciting as it got but we had needed a break and got exactly what we were after!!

And so we say goodbye to Chile, travelling over the pass into Argentina and Bariloche hoping for some snow...although it doesn't look good...

The strangest end to a country yet!!

Coming to the end of our Bolivian leg and what a way to exit!! Firstly we hopped on a bus to Uyuni which I am sure you will not be surprised to know had small mechanical issue on route...I say small, one of the supports keeping the suspension attached to the back wheels decided to snap so we spent about an an hour deliberating and pointing before someone managed to get us patched up and on the road again. An honourable mention has to go to the passenger who was dispatched by the driver to find a particular sized piece of wood, when said size was not available he proceeded to try and split a bigger piece by placing it on the floor and hurling large rocks from a great height onto this poor branch...sadly to not much avail but at lest he was trying.

Once in Uyuni we realised that all of the guidebooks were correct, you don´t want to stick around!! It is not that it is particularly dangerous or nasty but, well, there just isn´t anything to do...as we found out. Cath had not been too well so we decided to take a day for her to recuperate and booked a tour out for the following day leaving us some time to chill...and boy was it cold. After finding out the the electricity going off in the middle of the day was quite normal and in fact something that most of the town was prepared for (by closing everything) there was only one thing for it and like Granny and Grandpa we hopped into bed with as many layers of clothes on as we could find!! There is not much more to say about Uyuni, we played some cards and had a couple of decent pizzas.


The mayor of Uyuni gets ready for a big night out


Yes, this place has a certain charm

The real draw of this dusty little town is the nearby salt flats and nature reserve that has all kinds of geological quirks. First we had to prepare for our border crossing and so went to the local migration office and got our post-dated exit stamps, three days later we would hop over the border into Chile.

The first stop on our tour proper was the train graveyard where a lot of the locomotives that powered the mineral export from Bolivia are now resting. It is like looking at a car park in a deprived part of UK and seeing a couple of Ford Sierras on blocks, but on a much larger scale!! There are about 15 shells in a barren expanse on the outskirts of this run down town, each bearing the scars of years of weather and neglect. Some great photo opportunities later we hopped back in our Toyota Landcruiser (vehicle of choice around these parts) with our 4 fellow passengers and headed for the salt.


Dead Train


The intrepid 6

The Salar de Uyuni (Salt of Uyuni literally) is the bed of a giant lake that was formed by the Andes poking up in the middle of what was then the Pacific Ocean, the water that was trapped dried and formed a crust of salt that is now 5m thick in most places and can therefore be walked, driven and built on. It is a strange experience when you first approach it, sunglasses are an absolute must as "snow" blindness is a real danger as is sunburn, it is so vast as to negate perspective to point of ridicule - allowing the creation of some amusing photo opportunities. After driving for about an hour and visit to the usual museum / gift shop we headed out first to see a salt hotel (more a rough bungalow created from salt blocks) and the freakish Isla de Pescadores where we stopped for lunch and to admire the rather suggestive hordes of cacti.


Salt "Hotel"


Cactusland


Massive nothingness


Some people trying very hard to get that photo - yes it is a caveman and spiderman!!


Ours was a little more sedate...but ahhhh!!

Onwards during the afternoon towards our saltside accommodation in one of the many salt hotels popping up, they are quite basic but in this hostile environment where temperatures get down to -15 and worse it is a welcome warm shelter for the night...and chance to catch up with some of the other groups over some old episodes of Heroes!!


Enjoying our warming dinner - and lollipops!

Day 2 started with the familiar Bolivian breakfast of hockey puck bread rolls and jam and coca tea with the added luxury of some scrambled eggs, boy were we treated!! The day itself was a study in the variation of landscapes available and lot´s of jumping out of the cruiser for snaps, we started on the flat white expanse of salt before moving to the loose rocky roads through the many peaks ending up in the desert-like sands leading into oases of blue, green and red lagoons where flamingos frolicked in their hundreds. I will cop out slightly as I don't have words to describe some of the things we encountered but hopefully some of the pictures will nearly do the landscape justice...but you really need to see some of this stuff!!!


This one is active!!


Gorgeous


Vicuña bottoms and scenery - they are related to Llamas


Flamingoes


7 coloured mountain

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Stone tree


Red lagoon


Snacking Llama

We all went to bed quite early that night with a swig of rum to send us off, this was firstly as it was again much warmer inside the 2 sleeping bags, rugs and duvet but also as we had a 4.30am start to get to geysers in time for their early morning blast. Despite the fact that we were all in varying stages of hypothermia we all bundled into the wagon and caught a few last minutes of kip before arriving at the lunar landscape that welcomes visitors to the highly active geothermal area around the Uyuni geysers. We all hopped out for the slightly staged photo where some clever soul had tapped into a vein allowing an impressive stream of steam to shoot 30ft in the air and then had some time to wander in the fog of the more natural hot pools and vents (I guess we were spoiled in NZ with our trip to Rotarua...or it could have been the temperature and hour but we didn´t spend too long looking around.) Given that it was now still only just after 5.30 next stop was breakfast, where our guide came up trumps with some freshly made cake (yes spongey goodness!!) topped with dulce de luce (spreadable caramel, we may have mentioned this before but YUM.) After filling our bellies we hopped in a hot pool to bring our body temperature up from 0 to a more pleasant 37 degrees!! It was so cold that when we got out our hair froze solid as we hadn´t dried it well enough in time!!


Getting ready for bed in the Salar Hilton


Steam


The natural environment


The only time we will get away with wearing a hat in the bath!!

Some more lagoons and spaced out landscapes raced by as we made the dash for the border post and waiting bus to take us down into San Pedro de Attacama, tourist haven and first stop in our last new country of the trip...we are definitely feeling the downward slope towards home now.


End of the line

This was one of the best trips we have taken in a very inhospitable but none-the-less stunning (to use my fave SA word) environments we have visited. Trying to take a photo of the 360 degree awe that awaits around some corners is impossble and you just have to stand and go "wow." The people that make their living in this corner of the world, whether it be from Llama herding, salt mining or the growing amount of tourism have my utmost respect for their determination and cheerfulness as everyone is always ready for a chat and joke.

I am sad to see the end of Bolivia, it has been a challenge in places but we have experienced so much and enjoyed almost every minute...barring a couple of journeys and sleepless nights!!

Potosi...the highest city in the world

In Potosi (highest town at 4100m) you can hardly walk up the stairs without getting out of puff. It is another very typical Bolivian town...lots of churches and old buildings. Scratch the surface, however, and a very interesting history is revealed. Once the largest & wealthiest city in the world - bigger that London or Paris in its day, Potosi produced most of the silver for money for the western world. A massive mountain (called Cerro Ricco) stands as a reminder to all in the town of their wealthy past. The hill has hundreds of kms of mines running deep into the ground and documentation of terribly cruel mining practises from the Spanish Conuistadores are well known. The interesting thing however is that although today almost all the silver has gone, the same mining practises are used and many people die in the quest for the metal. So linked was the Spanish Conquest to the mining of silver, that all the churches in the town face the mountain!

A tour of the mine is a very popular tourist attraction, but they do not recommend it for asthmatics or people with breathing issues. We had both (I had a terrible cold & cough) so we decided to give that one a skip. We did head off to the city mint instead. Fascinating history of Bolivia's relationship with Spain and how the role silver played.

Our first night in Potosi was the festival of San Juan (more fireworks and people getting drunk) as the Aymaran version of New Year. This went by fairly unnoticed, except for a few very hungover or drunk tour operators the next day! One guy was trying to sell us a very expensive Salar tour, but all he could do was slur a few sentences together about his boss...long blink (reveal very red eyes)...something about 'don't kill me'...another long blink...and then thankfully his phone rang and we made a swift exit!

Potosi was my turn to have the Bolivia belly...on top of a cold. Needless to say I was a very unhappy camper! Stupidly thinking I would be okay for the 6 hour bus to Uyuni, we stuck to our travel plan and sought out Diana Tour Bus for the journey! Lets just say that any 6 hour bus journey for GBP1 is unlikely to go well!

Dear old Diana Tours. Not only did I soon discover I was not fit for a 6 hour journey, but the bus was not fit for the journey either! Dirty, dusty, packed (they kept stopping to collect locals and their large bags to fill the isles) and smelly...and that is a complement! Worst thing were the women who got on and then stared at you in a 'please can I have your seat' kind of way - not today dear! Lucky for me a kind Israeli traveller offered to swap seats so that Simon and I could sit together. Not lucky for Simon as I had to sleep on his shoulder the whole way! The roads were TERRIBLE. The bumpiest dirt roads I have ever seen, but the bus driver thought he had some kind of 4x4 in his control and bounced right over them. Car sick. Me. Never! This kind of motion sickness deserves a whole class of its own!

2 hours into the journey I heard a loud crunch under the bus where I sat. 4 hours into the journey they decide to stop and have a look at it...a broken axial & suspension (I could have told them that) Much tutting and pointing under the bus, a repair job consisting of someones belt and some bits of wood and an hour later we were off again at the same breakneck speed. Oh to be in Uyuni and in bed! Feeling very sorry for myself we found the cheapest place in town to crash and crash we did. Funny thing is, Uyuni is the smallest, coldest 1 horse town I have ever seen, but I was ecstatic to be there.

Sucre...the real capital, but don't mention that in La Paz!

So after a few action filled days in La Paz (and a few chilled ones to get over Simon's little bug!) we reverted to 'flash packers' and flew to Sucre. We were very happy with our decision to fly as the bus journey would have been 20 hours on some of Bolivia's worst roads and we found out afterwards that along the route there were roadblocks! Taking off from La Paz is amusing as the airport is at 4000m, so once you are in the air the plane flies suspiciously low over the Andes all the way down to Sucre (a mere 2800m).

The nice thing about being at a lower altitude is that the sunshine is warm and not just light! Sucre is the administrative capital of Bolivia and a very pretty little town. They have a law that all buildings need to be white-washed once a year, but I think this only applies to the central buildings because as you leave town there are nothing but dirt walls. This does make for a very clean, tidy and pretty touristy part of town which we explored at leisure - to be honest, there is hardly anything to do here!

We discovered the very picturesque San Francisco Cathedral and on a recommendation went about trying to get in and have a look. You have to know to visit the Santa Teresa school next door and ask to visit the now closed church, but the faf of doing so was well worth it. Not only was the woman who showed us around on a private tour for two hours very knowledgeable and full of interesting facts about Sucre, but the views from the roof were simply stunning. No better place to see Sucre from.

The rest of our time was spent watching Euro 2008 football (I read my book while Simon was glued to the TV) eating local specialities (this included ordering a soup which was shamelessly a Knorr pack mushroom soup! - I was outraged) and finally catching our first film in 6 months... nothing up-to-date, but a film none-the-less. While staying in Sucre we discovered that Potosi, our next destination, was surrounded by miners roadblocks and the town was running out of food as no supplies had got through in 10 days! Great we thought...the only way out of Sucre was back via the route we had flown to avoid, or wait (which was what everyone seemed to do) After some very scary stories about buses going to Potosi being torched etc, we waited until the worst was over and headed off.

The journey was in fact uneventful as the miners had called off the strike 2 days before our departure (after storming the tax office and burning things!) and they were now in 10 days of negotiations. We took the 10 day window to visit Potosi and get out!!! We did however see lots of evidence of their roadblocks (burnt buses etc) along the 3 hour journey and I was glad to be there safely.

La Paz - Bolivia get´s better and better

Arriving in La Paz by bus (or indeed any form of road transport) is quite an experience as despite the city being mostly at around 3500-4000m in altitude it sits in a canyon created by thr Choqueyapu River that is now mostly covered over through the city itself. The bus that we were on (along with quite a few other gringos, most notably a guy who had lost at poker / drinking the night before and had paid a "haircut forfeit") approached from the desolate altiplano where you see nothing for miles except small mud bricks houses, donkeys and dogs. The first signs you are entering a large centre of population comes with the satellite town of El Alto where the hustle and bustle of those arriving from the countryside creates a giant collectivo (minibus taxis with various mispelt stickers emblazoned on them - Johnnys Cab, Speed Deemon etc) stop a mile long. Also in El Alto is the highest commercial airport in the world, a facility we made the most of on our departure, replacing an 18hr bus journey with a 45 minute flight. Once our driver had made his way through the chaos we were treated to our first view of La Paz, it is like someone has taken a normal city and pulled up the Northern and Southern outskirts by their edges in order to pour everything out of the Eastern end! High up on the sides of the canyon is a patchwork of part finished houses, a result of the law that no tax is paid until the completion of building meaning complete stories having no windows or houses finishing just below where the roof should be. In the base of the canyon sits most of the tourist areas, commerce and administration meaning most things worth seeing are within walking distance...needless to say that those that can afford also live at this slightly lower altitude.

Fearing a gasping walk with our backpacks (4000m plus 15 - 20kgs can really take it out of your lungs) we were delighted when the bus pulled up 2 streets away from our hostel right amongst the llama foetuses, charms and potions of the Witches Market.

Our good friends Dan and Dom had warned us about how La Paz can pull you in and keep you for a little longer than you intend and we realised why pretty much straight away why, it has a great combination of everything a traveller might need...some great food, good watering holes, plenty of things to see and do and some pretty friendly locals. In the end we only stayed a day longer than planned but felt as though we did the city justice.

Our biggest day out was to go and ride the "Most Dangerous Road in the World", not before a quick call to my sister to check our insurance policy covered such stupidity. This road is a 70km stretch of dirt that runs down into the town of Coroico got it´s name as a result of the fact that an estimated 200-300 people perished trying to navigate the twists and turns. This is a result of the lack of grip on a "road" that is just over 3m wide and has a drop of up to 600m on one side and a solid rock wall on the other. Normal road rules don´t apply with those coming downhill having to take the outside line in order to stop the speeding head-on crashes that caused most tragedies. Nowadays a slightly more modern (although equally badly paved in places) bypass means that the road is mostly the domain of tour groups like ours.

We tried not to dwell on the horror stories we heard about the ride, some companies cut corners with bike safety and group size meaning there have sadly been some 13 deaths of tourists. We also listened very carefully at our briefing and before each of the 9 sections - with enticing titles such as Collarbone Alley.

At the start of the ride we gave on offering to Pachamama (goddess earth) in the form of some neat alcohol on our front wheel followed by a small amount for ourselves (no doubt for courage.) We get used to our bikes during a short tarmac section at the top testing brakes and suspension as there is no room for error once we hit the dust and rocks that await. Each section is approximately 15 - 20 minutes long after which we all regroup and excitedly chat about how we nearly "stacked it" or just made it past "that" rock. I must admit to getting in the support bus for the short uphill section but my logic was that we were riding down the road, the tour comapny were called Gravity and my lungs were going to be saved for gasping at the views!!

After a very tiring day (I haven´t concentrated so hard since trying to finish the Rubiks Cube) we settled down for a slap up meal and a beer before the nerve jangling ride home in the bus.

A slightly more sedate outing was to the ancient pre-Inca site of Tihuanacu, a city that is thought to have once been one of the most important in South America with anywhere between half and one million inhabitants at it´s height that rather impressively lasted from 1200BC to 1000AD when it was misteriously abandoned (some theories given by our guide were loss of faith in the local religion, invasion, large scale crop failure or his favourite of meteor strike.) This was a good day finding out a bit more about the local indigenous population and how they suffered at the hands of the Conquistadors - for example they were forced to take down huge stone bricks from this important temple complex and carry them around a mile to the nearest settlement in order to build a church which they were then forced to attend.

Around these tours we did quite a bit of walking, visiting some pretty squares a decent little art gallery and some cute coffee shops as well as quite an eclectic mix of restaurants. On our first night we went looking for some uncomplicated local food...and stumbled on one of the best curry houses we have been to, Cath couldn´t resist the Llama Tikka Masala and I plumped for what turned out to be quite an impressively hot Chicken dish,a great start! After a couple of days of Bolivia belly (which we attribute to a dodgy breakfast) and a diet of Gatorade and water I was ready for solid food again and so it was off to the much recommended Sol Y Luna which turned out to a specialist Dutch restaurant...soup and meatballs and a great almuerzo saved the day. Not wanting to lose the international flavour we decided to splash out opting for a place called Vienna with appropriate specialities...I sadly opted for the seafood special (forgetting that Austria is landlocked!!) prompting a slight relapse but Cath enjoyed her saurkraut and sausage. Just to round things off, on our last night we popped into Olivers Travels...a 100% fake English pub that none-the-less served proper PG Tips tea and delivered a mighty Bangers and Mash that saw us on our way to our next destination!!