Short stop in Montevideo

The initial route that we had planned out to go through Uruguay, get us upto Iguazu and over to Rio, was to go via Montevideo, up to Salto (which is a border town), cross over to Concordia (the Argentine border town), take a bus upto Posadas and then from there a bus upto Puerto De Iguazu on the Argetinian side. Then see Iguazu from the Argentina side, cross over to Brazil and then see it from that side also and then make our way over to Sao Paulo, then onto Rio.

What we hadn’t anticipated, is getting so many suggestions to visit Punta Del Diablo and South Brazil instead of going through the nothingy route that we had initially planned out. This in theory did sound fine and sounded a lot better than just sitting on long 8-12+ buses for no end, however we had been a bit pro-active and booked our bus ticket when we arrived in Montevideo for 3 days time and therefore were a bit fixed on our route…….or so we thought.

Thanks to our lovely hosts from the Caballo Loco Hostal (yes I am name dropping, because they deserve it), who kindly rang the bus company up, asked if we could come and get a refund and helped us get all of our money back with no questions asked!!! Thanks to their help and advice, we were now set for a new course, heading East to Punta Del Diablo, which is an old fishing village on the Uruguyuan costline and then make our way north into Brazil and upto Florianopolis, which after a bit of playing around and taking some days off Montevideo, it looked like we were going to be beach bound sooner than we thought!

As our stay in Montevideo had been limited to 3 days, which one of them was spent getting our refund, buying a ticket for 3 days time and then sorting out our route from Punta Del Diablo onwards, we were only really left with 2 solid days to look around Montevideo. Which, thankfully as we had an absolutely awesome hostel, when we ran out of things to do around the city, retreating to the hostel was kind of enjoyable.

Montevideo was a beautiful city, but nothing like the likes of Colonia and as we had spent so long travelling through big cities for a while, it was slightly difficult to find the motivation to do the standard look at this building, look at this church and then go eat here! Instead we took ourselves for a big walk around the main centre and delved into our favourite past time…..eating good food and drinking coffee whilst people watching!

The short time we spent in the city was really enjoyable and it was very easy to get around. If we had more time there was lots to do like nice bike rides along the sea front, open top buses etc etc. As we were entering Brazil earlier, we decided to penny pinch at every corner and unfortunately avoided the extra cost that tourist attractions have and stuck with the free ones instead……..walking.

—ACastling—

Bustling Buenos Aires to Calm Colonia

After checking out of our apartment, we jumped onto a ferry across the Rio De La Plata to Colonia Del Scramento, waving goodbye to Argentina and saying hello to Uruguay, making it our 13th country in 10 months on our trip!! Not bad going at all. Thanks to the gail force winds and thunder and lightning storm the day before we set off on the ferry, the crossing was similar to climbing inside a washing washine and set it on spin for an hour and a half!!!

When we arrived off the bouncy boat, feeling a bit rubbery in the legs, we were met with a quaint little sea port, with cobbled streets and lots of golf carts wizzing around! As the town is so quiet and small, this is the norm here and if it wasn’t for the hefty $50 a day price tag, we would have definately got involved, which some of them were really pimped out. Colonia is a UNESCO world heritage site and when you take a walk down any street in and around the old town, its really easy to see why. The place is so rich in historic architecture from when the Portuguese had a colony here. It was also taken over by the Spanish, Barzilians and then eventually taken back by the Uruguyuans, which again lends itself to the rich blend of varied architecture. Coupled with beautiful seaside views and tree lined streets, you can easily see what all the fuss was about. As well as admiring the old streets, remains of the old fort, lighthouse, piers and many old buildings. Colonia is also very famous for its artisan products such as mate cups, leather gaucho products such as hats, boots, jackets, knifes and ofcourse food products such as dulce de leches, breads, hams and cheeses.If your really lucky, aside from the old cars which I think have now became a permanent feature of the old streets and don’t move on a daily basis, you might also catch a glimpse of old american cars such as cadillacs, just cruising around the streets and taking in the sun.
The town is a picture perfect place and so often missed by travellers, who even though are only 1 hour away from Buenos Aires (making it an easy day trip) completely miss this tranquil old port town.

—ACastling—

 

Argentina in 2 words: Maté and Parilla

Just a quick explanation of what these two things are. Mate is a hot drink well known in south america and is always argued which country actually started the obsession. A parilla or asado is a BBQ. Simple things done to an art form here in Argy.

Photo courtesy of: queretarocity.olx.com.mx/parrilla-argentina-iid-513967528

 

Photo courtesy of: http: mateovermatter.com/daily-routine-yerba-mate/

Whilst travelling through Argentina, two things have been a constant in an ever changing scenery. These two constants seem to be a favourite pastime, no scratch that, an obsession with Argentinians wherever we go. Due to constantly seeing people either drinking mate or eating a parilla we have seen some pretty interesting situations where these have occurred, in which we would like to share, we only wish we were able to capture some of these with our camera. But this is the way with spontaneity, it always strikes when you don’t expect it.

So the art of mate drinking is not just a person drinking from a disposable takeaway coffee shop cup. Oh no. This would be far too simple. To drink mate whether you are on the go or not requires a wooden/metal/plastic (individual preference) drinking cup, a metal straw (which always burns my lips no matter how long I wait), a thermos of hot water and a  KG bag of yerba mate. So please bear this in mind when imagining these situations.

• We first really took notice of people drinking mate constantly was upon our re-entry into Salta when we saw teenagers hanging out in the park passing around a cup of mate. Not smoking or slyly sharing a bottle of cider, but mate. Where else but Argentina, ay?
• At a market we saw hordes of people carrying around the full mate set whilst browsing the stalls and having their cup topped up from their backpack
• A women whilst driving. She was also talking on her phone at the same time. Thats real multi-tasking
• Just walking around the streets on a hot day. As you do.
• A teacher on a school trip with many, many students
• German beer festival. Kind of counterintuitive, but each to their own.
• Players of a local football match drinking in a break
• Tango dancers drinking in between their dances

The parilla/asado/BBQ to us Brits is a rarity. We love a good barby but can only do it when we have the weather, and when we do have one we nip to the supermarket and pick up cheap burgers, sausages, plastic cheese and some limp salad and put it all on top of a disposable BBQ. If any Argentinian, or South American saw this they would probably give us a well deserved slap. Having a parilla is a way of life, normally done on a Sunday (like our Sunday Roast, I guess) families stock their open air grill with half a cow, the best bits of the pig and whole chickens (plucked of course.)

Now, I did say that most people have them only on a Sunday but we have managed to see them everwhere at all times. For example…

• Our favourite: Workmen in Rosario laying tar on a new road, half of them were working, the other half were setting up their asado right next to the lovely smell of burning hot tar. Mmmm, can anyone say ´healthy fume inhaling lunch´? But atleast they don´t have to eat soggy sandwhiches.
• workmen at a car wash starting up their smokey asado next to a nice clean pickup. Hmmm…?
• in a late night garage with music blaring
• public parks
• national parks with built in half drum asados ready to be used
• oh, and if your balcony or rooftop terrace doesnt have one built in then there is no point moving in (so I hear.)

If anyone else has seen other interesting asado-eating or mate-drinking situations, we would love to hear them. It has been a constant source of amusement wherever we have been trying to spot the weirdest occurance, and for me, I am not too sure which one I like the best.

Living like Porteños, Buenos Aires

When you go to Buenos Aires and google what to do, the most popular things that pop are tango show, Asado, tango show,drink mate,tango show, watch boca, tango show, Evita museum etc etc. what the guide books don’t tell you to do, is rent an apartment in a non touristy part of town where all the locals hang out and live for a short while like the locals do. We did exactly that, we hired ourselves a really nice 6th floor apartment in San Telmo which is sandwiched between the very touristy Centro barrio and La Boca.

After our first weekend staying in a hostel, so we could orientate ourselves with the city and hopefully meet some people, we checked into our apartment, which happened to be walking distance from our hostel. The street that we stayed on doesn’t immediately jump out at you as ‘luxury’ living, but neither does it as slum living, instead what you get is beautiful old buildings and a mix of tarmac and cobbled streets, which help San Telmo become the historical and bohemian area of Buenos Aires, where all of the arty, student and quirky types hang out. Throw in a few historic local cafes and cozy local bars/pubs and you have quite a nice living environment. As we had been travelling for so long, the novelty of not only being able to fully unpack our bags, but also flush paper down the toilet and have our own space, almost made us house bound for 2 weeks, so we could soak it all up before moving on again and hostel reality kicking back in.

There was a big city to be explored though and it wasn’t going to do it on its own. The first stage to becoming a Porteño (port people and name given to people living in BA) was to adopt the argentine clock, which is eating at 11pm and starting your night out at 12/1am! Or if its a work night, calling it a night at 2am, obviously for us this didn’t really apply, so our nightly schedule involved us eating at 10:30-11pm every day and then going to bed at 3am! This obviously means you can’t get up until at least 10am, at earliest, which means the day really starts at about 11:30am once your fed and ready to go. In terms of exploring such a big city, this obviously doesn’t leave you with much time to explore, without missing meal times, which is obviously as big as breathing to Argentinians as every meal of the day is a big fuss and should be never rushed or missed, friends don’t just say hello and have their sandwich to go, friends order a litre of beer and finish that before their food arrives and then treat themselves to another whilst they wash down the grub, all the while completely engaged in conversation and I know this might sound crazy to modern British society (possibly US too) but this was all done without ever removing their phone from their pocket, checking their friends sitting opposites Facebook or updating everyone else about what their eating! Fascinating! Its also impossible to live this lifestyle without indulging in the practise of ‘cafe y medialunas’ or in English ‘afternoon tea’ every day, which again is a staple diet of the social needs of Argentines, retreating to the local cafe or where you were for lunch 3 hours ago, as obviously your next meal is after 10pm, so you need to curb the hunger somehow.

The area we stayed in gave us easy access to some of the best free attractions BA has to offer, either accessed by foot or by Subte (BA underground network) this included visiting La Boca area, which is mostly famous for Boca Juniors football club, where some of Argentinas most famous players including Maradona played at, not to mention the best football ground atmosphere in the world. Unfortunately without selling all of your worldly goods and paying somebody off big time, getting tickets to a Boca home match is as easy as getting into Oxford, where money opens the right doors. We just so happen not to be millionaires and do care about every penny, so couldn’t justify the ridiculous fee that was involved to only ‘maybe’ get us a ticket, no guarantees though!!!! Walking around La Boca though is a free affair and although recommended not too by every guide on the planet, we decided to make our own way there and back to Caminito, which is an area famous for painted corrugated iron houses and said to be the birth place of Tango. Now there is a open top tourist bus which takes people from the centre district and drops them right at the bottom of the only policed street in La Boca, Caminito and they can frolic with cameras around their neck, purses open and handbags in plain sight!! Yes, that is a little dig at stupid tourists. We however hid our valuables, took little cash and hid my camera, so as not to draw attention and took in some of the sights of the less seen streets of La Boca and the old transport bridge. Ending up at the Caminito street, where every other person is hassling you to enter their restaurant and German men think its fine to walk around in creme suits and smoke fat cigars!! Each to their own I guess, but this did actually happen as were walking through!

Within walking distance to our apartment as well, was the Puerto Maderno, Montiserrat and Constitucion barrios, which were really nice to just walk around, take in the general sights, dine in new areas and if we were really, really lucky…….eat Sushi! We were craving asian food since leaving and had heard of the quality of asian food in BA, which unfortunately for us we only had Sushi, but when you have been eating beyond your body weight in Asado, Sushi is the perfect alternative and was actually really good, just do your research before going and there are two great choices in San Telmo called ‘Shokudo’ and ‘Comedor Nikkai’, selling lots of authentic japanese dishes. As well as the local ‘medialuna’ shops selling various pastries and the fruit n veg shop, we also had the delight of having a very uninviting shop on or corner which as well as sold beers and the standard corner shop affairs, also was fully stocked with coffee beans from around Latin America and an in house roasting machine!! So you could pick your favourite beans, how roasted you like them and then have them grinded down or just order a cup with your favourite choice. We stumbled across a gem of a cafe/resteraunt too, which served the best salads and sandwiches, so much so we went there twice for lunch and treat ourselves to a beautiful dinner, accompanied by a fine bottle of wine, which they have a vast selection of. If anybody is ever in Buenos Aires, I recommend trying ‘El Refuerzo’ in SanTelmo, you will not be disappointed. Aside from food and coffee, we also had some really cool quirky bars in our neighbourhood, including ‘Gibraltar’ which was decked out like an old English pub, along with wooden seats, the subtle smell of stale ale and beer on tap, including ales!! Usually we would avoid these places as their full of traveller louts who are simply trying to recreate their local, however Gibraltar blasts out latin tango and salsa music on the speakers and nobody in there is English, as its out of the main stream tourist scene, so for brits, creates quite a weird atmosphere, like the local boozer has been taken over by a Latino landlord.

As we were in BA for a fortnight, we had agreed that we would ‘try’ and do some much needed fitness, in anyway we could. After searching many gyms and finding out exercising in BA is a costly affair, I managed to find a company called Futbol Amigos Buenos Aires, which organise weekly 5-a-side games for expats and travellers in different areas and it has a very user friendly online system to find info and sign up. We also managed to find a gym on route which was a lot less than all the others we had found, so it all fit in perfectly. I got to meet some great people, which the majority were expats or students from around the world who were now living in BA semi permanent, as well as a few locals thrown in the mix, making a great mix of people and a very funny game of football given the different languages being used. The football games were mainly in the Palermo area, so it gave us a chance to explore that area of the city for the day before heading to the gym/football. This area is classed as the richer side of BA and certain streets can be laced with multimillion pound houses and VIP night clubs, to give an idea of the area, a kind of Kensington/Chelsea of BA if you like. It also is the neighbouring barrio to Retiro, which is home to the ‘Cementerio de Flores’, which people know more widely for the ‘Duarte’ family tomb and where Eva Peron is buried. It sounds strange to walk around a cemetery, but this is like no other you will ever see in your life! The cemetery houses the Argentina once mega elite and their family tombs, which some of them are bigger than a 3 bedroom house and have more marble and roman columns than Tony Montana’s mansion.

We really enjoyed our time in BA and contrary to popular reports, we weren’t mugged and we didn’t need to stay in our hostel to have fun (mainly because we didn’t have a hostel!), we went where the locals went and did as the locals do, rode the Subte nearly every day and wined and dined like a true Porteño. Partying from 12am onwards and people watching in cafes with medialunas and coffee was a daily affair. If I was to return to BA, my only change would be packing more cash, as (same for all of Argentina) it ain’t cheap and unfortunately aside from the free attractions and walking around, to fully enjoy the city, cash needs to be parted with, to put it in perspective we survived on £60 per day for two of us including rent and we just managed, if we had £60 each per day, we would have left very fat and very hungover!

Now we are taking a quick ferry ride across the pond and will be arriving in Colonia De Sacramento, Uruguay for yet another new adventure.

—ACastling—

A Quick Review: Salta – Buenos Aires

I have decided to lump this all together as one, as to be honest we have not really done too much.

We returned to Salta and decided we liked it a lot more the second time round. Possibly because it wasn’t winter anymore, or because we didn’t stay in a dive this time round. Either way we had a much more enjoyable experience going out Argentinan style which includes not going out to gone middnight and not returning until the sunrises. Sadly though, we did get US$360 stolen from our locked backpack from our dorm room. But this is not a reflection upon the hostel who very kindly took us to the tourist police and helped sort everything out. It is just bad luck that we were sharing a room with a robbing b@*!**d who had the time and patience to get into our backpack whilst we were out partying.

Apart from that incident the other major disapointment was that we didn’t get to see the mummies of the incan children (who have been all over the global news) as it was closed due to polling….another strike of bad luck. So we left Salta a bit down hearted and angry. Oh well, on to Cordoba…

Cordoba, we loved! We pretty much got a personal tour of the city as we were the only ones on the free walking tour that day. We learnt about the very recent troubled political history of Argentina and Cordoba in particular and of the ‘baby snatchings’ which was particularly sobering and distressing to hear about. Our lovely tour ended with us having lunch with our fantastic and chatty guide! The rest of our time here we spent milling around, looking in shops and finding good bars to go and drink in.

Oh, one thing in particular that we did was go to Octoberfest, which is about an hour out of Cordoba, and seems to be a pretty big deal around here as they have a massive German community. So we got the bus over and 3/4’s of the way through the drive it felt like we had been magically transported into Germany. All the buildings and houses changed design and style and we saw people walking around in lederhosen. It was a beautiful area surrounded by lots of greenery, and then you drive into the town and its just crazy. Crazy busy with so many people stumbling around in silly hats, fancy dress and steins attached to them. It. Was. Great. Probably not a touch on the actual Octoberfest in Munich, but boy did they give it a good go! We wandered the streets for a bit looking for a good place to buy a stein and then find some food before we entered the festival. Tickets were ARG$100 each (about £10) and the beer was, well, just OK. Not as tasty other German beers we have had before. But it did the trick. To top the day off, when waiting for our bus back we saw an older lady who had just had too much to drink and insisted on vomiting everywhere. This included the seats next to us on bus, which her husband thought was a good idea to put her on. Poor bus driver had to mop it all up and ask them to leave. And society and the media make you believe its only the younger generations who can’t handle their drink…. :s

Our next stop, Rosario. Nice city with some good parks and shopping centres, but with everything pretty spread out. We managed to get on the very confusing bus system one day and went out a bit further. But apart from that, nothing too special occured.

After all the excitment in Peru and Bolivia with all the treks, mountain biking and monkey cuddling (please see previous posts for more), city life seems, well, just that. A city. And another city. Nothing too special, but of course nothing too bad. It is just what it is I guess. I do miss the monkeys though 😦

Next on our stop off of cities, the big capital Buenos Aires. Hopefully having our own apartment and space will make this city just a little bit different.

Riding the World’s Most Dangerous Road (Bolivia)

When people thinking of riding the Death Road the words that come to mind are usually downhill mountain biking, Top Gear, worlds most deadliest road. What they don’t usually talk about is climbing down the cliff side which gives the death road its name and rescuing a dog!!!! It was certainly a more unique experience to say the least.

The day starts with an early set off (7am) driving through the always at rush hour La Paz, to reach the police check point, before heading off into the mountains and racing ahead of the 20 or other so buses heading in the same direction. The start point of the ride is at about 4,800metres, where the majority of the biking companies will start, with some (from what i can gather) cheaper companies starting further down. Once the bike preps and briefings have been made about how to ride the tarmac section of the ride, its down to blessing our bikes and giving thanks to the ‘pacha mama’ or mother earth. This comes in the form of not only pouring 92% proof alcohol on your bike, but also having yourself a little swig!! Remember this is 9am in the morning and were about the hurl ourselves down a road at 40-50mph!! Only in Bolivia.

Once we had all blessed our bikes, geared up, briefed and got liquored up, it was time to hit the ‘easy’ section of our ride for the day. Which was a downhill tarmac road, giving us plenty of time to get used to our bikes, smooth out any issues there might be with the bikes and get our adrenaline flowing and wake us up. We also got to take in some awesome scenery and as the road was a nice easy ride with not too much traffic, you could actually see some of the scenery as well, unlike what we would on the Death Road where our absolutely every bit of our attention would be needed. Our guide even took some down time to show off a few wheelies and supermans, which it was tempting to try, but I did actually want to make the deathroad!

We reached the start of the actual Deathroad around about 10:30am, as we had made really good time, took over some other groups and luckily nobody had fell off or give up. So we were given a good briefing about how this road would be different a) being completely gravel, therefore punishing on the arms and b) its the death road, ‘death’ meaning its fairly dangerous! Where we started also gave us a great view down the valley, where we could see a huge chunk of the ride we were about to do, including the lovely trucks, coaches and vans we were going to be running into! My initial thought was, they shouldn’t be a worry because obviously they will go snail pace, along the tiny one track dirt road with a massive drop on one side, how wrong I could of been, how stupid of me to forget that this is Bolivia and nobody EVER drives slow!! Instead what they do is drive as they would on a normal tarmac road but stick to the inside, away from the drop, which means when two cars meet, its all about slamming on the breaks as fast as you can or swerving and not driving off the cliff like a rally car driver!! Still can’t see where the name comes from huh!

Luckily for us the guide had split the ride into small sections, so that we didn’t ride for any longer than 15mins at a time, which trust me on a gravel road were you either go fast and don’t break or break the whole way, either way its punishing on the legs and arms. I opted for the bat out of hell, shut off a stick, no breaks approach were any hiccup resulted in the backend sliding out and me constantly fighting with the bike to keep it in check. It was fun as f*ck though and got the heart racing to say the least. The stops we made were usually places of significance or awesome view/photo points, one of the first stops being where a Canadian girl managed to over judge the corner, ended up at the bottom of the cliff and after 3-4hours of silence came through, started screaming and was rescued by guides from different bike companies! They were all astounded that she was intact, let alone alive! Another stop was a awesome photo point, where the ledge overhangs the cliff, so you can dangle your bike over, sit on the edge or just do your favourite ‘trend’ holiday pose. Just before we were about to set off, before all of the other companies turned up, our bus driver and I thought we could hear barking, which I thought nothing off, but then when the driver said the nearest village is over 1hrs drive away, it caught our attention a bit more. It turned out that there was a big black Rottweiler at the bottom of the cliff, which as soon as we started looking down at it, stopped barking and just sat and looked at us! Before we knew it, everyone was intrigued to know what we were looking at and once our guide saw, it was action stations, after obviously getting the all clear from all of us, to stay around and try and rescue the dog from the bottom of a 100metre high cliff, which has no obvious way of getting down or getting a dog up!!!

After our guides and and the driver pulled out the climbing ropes from the back of the van (saved for a rainy day), Scooby (as he goes by) took it upon himself to go recce the situation, as from above it looked pretty plain sailing, but if that was the case why the hell was the dog not coming to us! As this was a popular spot, he said his walkie talkie had fell down this area before and he had climbed down a small section with no ropes, by small section I mean the first 20-30 metres of flat rock face! After reaching this space, he found that indeed the next part was not flat, as seen from above (as expected) and was a sheer drop with different levels all the way down. We just so happened to have a guy from NZ, who was a climbing instructor and got stuck into the action along with the driver, to help set up a rig for the ropes, so that once Scooby had reached the bottom, we could winch the dog back up. After about an hour, he finally reached the area with the dog and thankfully it didn’t bite him, runaway or worse! Instead the dog was placid and relived to see somebody. After making acquaintances and checking he wasn’t going to be savaged, Scooby went for a look around, as for a dog to be all the way down there, so far away from any villages, the only explanation could be that a car had gone over and the dog was in the car. After searching for about 30mins around the surrounding area, we were relieved to hear that it was only the dog, which obviously made it a greater mystery as it was completely unharmed, but at least there was nobody hurt or worse.

After spending about an 1 1/2hours getting Scooby down there and checking the area, it was now time for the monumental task off getting the dog back up the sheer cliff face. Firstly Scooby tried putting the dog in his bag, throwing it on his back and then having the kiwi, driver and other guide winch him up, however by the first ledge, the dog ripped the bag because it was so heavy! So Scooby re-rigged the dog into a homemade harness and it would be dog first, throw the rope back and he would work his way back up using knots and footholds. I was getting itchy feet by this point and had done so well to not get myself involved and try climb down the cliff, but enough was enough and i couldn’t resist, it was only a matter of time! Plus the guys were really struggling with hauling up the dog, as that motherf*cker was heavy! To put it in perspective, it took 4 fairly strong guys 45 straight minutes of pulling and winching the rope to get the dog to the top (well to where we were!). When we eventually got him up, the poor thing was absolutely terrified and wouldn’t come near us, which I wouldn’t blame him. While waiting for Scooby to winch himself back up, we slowly got the dog used to us and although he was still very jumpy, he did allow us to give him a stroke and get really close, which was definately going to come in handy for the next part of the challenge.

The final section was the last 20-30mts that we had all scrambled down ropeless to get to the first ledge. Thanks to the awkward shape of the rock face and lack of options for anchors, we could only winch the dog about 30% up, which thankfully was the steepest part, however after that it was all going to be by hand, with brute strength and a lot of stability! We had the winching down to a T, so he was up in a matter of seconds, as we simply pulled up the rope without setting up an anchor and again went for the brute strenght approach. We then had to leapfrog up the cliff and two people would push the dog from behind while the other (precariously above) would heave him up. After about 20mins or so of this process, we finally got the dog to the top and he was very relived to have all his harnesses removed. It was a great effort by all 5 of us, but more so by Scooby our guide, who literally threw himself down the cliff, pretty epic experience and definitely not something I expected to do on the Deathroad! Scooby said he was going to take the dog in as his pet if he couldn’t find its owners and he would be called Rocky…nice.

As we had spent 3 hours rescuing a dog and all of the other companies had now long gone, we had to make up some time. Therefore our stops were very limited, although still happened and unfortunately our time at the bottom was now shortened, as we had to leave before it got too dark and cold on the mountain pass. We had anticipated going back to La Senda verda, as it was across the river from where Barracuda finish and therefore we could bob in for a few hours, see our old friends and our old monkey friends too. Now our time was down to 30mins and would be a very flash visit. The rescue mission was worth it though and its slightly ironic that in the process of rescuing a dog, we ate into our time at the animal rescue centre! It turned out perfect in the end, as the owner Vicky had just returned from La Paz as we were knocking on the door and had we turned up earlier, we would have missed her. So maybe it was meant to be. We still got to see all of our favourite animals, including my little favourite Combo, the baby capuchin.

It was certainly an eventful day and when I signed up for the Deathroad, definitely not was I was expecting. The ride itself was awesome and I would happily do it again, although I would advise anybody who decides to adopt the shit of a stick approach to get ready for a all out pounding on the forearms and legs, good workout to say the least! Please also make the effort to go and visit if not stay at La Senda Verda as well, not enough companies push it doing the Deathroad, but they all finish in the village next door and its shame that so many people pass every day and don’t know it even exists.

Its now safe to say that I have survived the Deathroad, done that and got the T-Shirt….

—ACastling—-

La Frontera y Volvemos a Bolivia

Before arriving in La Paz to do the death road, we had ourselves a very interesting journey to cross ‘la frontera’ (border)! The idea was to leave Arequipa on our pre-booked bus, which ‘would’ arrive on time to catch the connecting bus at and only at 2:30. Luckily for us, our travelling luck was in and we had the privilege of following trucks on all of the single track roads, leaving us hoping that the ‘Tortoise and the Hare’ story was going to come good……….which it didn’t! We arrived exactly at 2:40pm, which once again our travelling luck was in and ALL of the connecting 2:30pm buses left nice and sharp that day! We therefore seeked out the next pausible route to get across the border. Which was a joyful 2 and 1/2 hour ‘taxi’ ride thats takes you to a very, very non touristy border, unlike the one when coming from Copacabana. Only in SA is it possible to grab a 4 person taxi for 2 1/2 hours!! Love this place.

Again our luck was on top form and we were (for the first time I might add) pulled into the customs office to be questioned, patted down, bags searched, individually while the other squirmed outside. After a slightly (used very lightly) smoother re-entry into Bolivia, we jumped on the next mini-bus bound for La Paz, which again was a delightful 2 1/2 hours on a very over crammed 6 person mini-bus. We ‘were’ meant ti be dropped off at one of the smaller more local bus depos, however as our luck was on tip too form that day, instead the driver thought it would be better to drop us in one of the most dangerous neighbourhoods in La Paz, as there was potential fares to pick up! So after being refused to be taken anywhere by a few taxis, as we were too far away from anything, we finally landed our first bit of good news that day and got one of the happiest, most helpful drivers we could of asked for and possibly had in South America this far. The guy wasn’t sure on where our hotel was, but said this was not a good neighbourhood for us to be in, so would help us find it anyway he could, which after his many questions to police officers and standers by, he managed to find it down a quiet little street in the safest and nicest neighbourhood of La Paz! Which we also had one of the nicest rooms we have had since being in SA and genuinely felt like the day hadn’t been a total right off, even though there was only 30mins of it left and it started at 7am!!

Safe to say it was one of our most interesting border crossings and was definitely not without its drama. What a difference a day makes though, as in the morning it turned out we were the only guests in the hotel and had possibly theeeee best breakfast we have had so far in SA and all to ourselves, complete with fresh bread, various fresh fruits, fresh juices, coffee, serrano ham and fresh cheese…….mmmmmmm. Strange how easily your happiness can be changed with a good lodge and good grub, making me nice and relaxed and ready to throw myself down the worlds dangerous road…..

—ACastling—

Huacafuckingchina

I couldn´t resist naming this blog post what I did, after seeing a huge glittering, lit up sign inside a bar there with these words written on. Kind of rolls right off the tongue.

Now to all the geographers out there, your probably already thinking what a strange route to go, up into Peru and then come back through Bolivia “again” to get to Argentina. Well this might make you have a meltdown. As we had heard so many bad things about Lima, we literally couldn´t be arsed to make the 25hour bus journey to get there and realise it was everything, eveybody had told us. We were however willing to spend 18hours on a bus, which would take us 7 hours away from Lima to Ica, to then travel back the way we have came to Arequipa, back to Puno, La Paz and end up in Salta, where we first set off for Sucre!!. In Ica there is a desert oasis to be found, called Huacachina, which is nestled inbetween monstrous sand dunes and sits at the gateway to the sandy badlands of endless dunes. 

Some clever dicky came along to Huaca and decided that taking a dune buggy, loading on a few sandboards and driving out into the huge dunes, could turn out to be an exciting adventure. This person wasn´t wrong. Its pretty much the only draw to Huaca, as the lake is not exactly Oasis like, thanks to its influx of swan boat peddling tourists and no doubt the residents sewage running straight into the lake!!! (just a theory, but where else would it go?).

The town consists of one street, which curves around the lake and every building is either a restaraunt, hotel, hotel/restaraunt/tour agent or restaraunt/bar/hotel/tour agent. Essentially its a nothingy town which can be explored in all of 15minutes. Having said that, after being in Sucre, La Paz and then Cusco, the peace and quiet (apart from the occasional buggies until 6pm) do make this the oasis it is. A typical day involves eating breakfast around the poolside bar at your hostel, sunbathing by the pool until lunch, strolling around the lake to stretch your legs and get some cheap lunch at the only cheap restaraunt and then fall asleep back at the pool until the sun goes down. Quite similar to a beach resort routine, which to be honest, with everything completely covered in sand, your only a fish and chips away from the full package.

The biggest highlight of Huaca, is ofcourse the dune buggying and sandboarding. Which essentially is the exact same principle as snowboarding (you can even use snowboarding gear), the only difference is that before each slope you need to wax your board, else the friction just brings you to a hault. Before you can reach the sandboarding dunes though, you obviously need to get out to them first, which is where the buggying comes in handy. Depending on your group size, the buggy will have enough seats to accomodate everybody and you all get your own bucket seat, complete with made shift 5 point harness (two seat belts tied together!). 

Once everybodys arms and legs are inside the ride, its time to tear-off into the dunes, where the driver isn´t to shy to slam the pedal to the floor. The only thing I can liken the experience is to a roller coaster, as you tear up the really steap dunes, perch on the top and then slowly creep over the other side and (sometimes) go as close as you can to vertical, where you can feel the back end kick up. These dunes aren´t the ones you find at south shields either, were talking 80foot high dunes where instead of breaking the driver just trusts the sand! 

Then once you reach the drivers “best spot” for sandboarding, everybody hops out, waxes down the board and waves bye to the driver, as he tears down the dunes to meet us at the bottom. Then the shit hits the fan and you realise that these things are really steap and really huge, but one by one everyone straps up and throws themself down. Which can also be done lying flat on your belly, which I only discovered on the last hill, is actually the way to go, as unless your Shaun White of the sandboarding world, you aint going fast, friction will not allow it when you stand up. Lie down and distribute your weight right, go dagger straight and your off like a rocket. I don´t mean this in a “I couldn´t even get fast, because I´m really good”, I say this because I tried, kept falling over and thought it was just me being shit, until two canadian snowboarders, who had hired snowboards, told me it was nothing like snow and you can´t get the same speed up. Which is weird because all of the people on their bellies where saying they couldn´t slow down!! So the obvious choice was belly down, face first and feet up in the air. The result is like shit off a stick, much better than standing up, apart from the fact that at the bottom, the footprints of previously people, become landmines and destroy your man parts. 

If your also as crazy as we are, you can climb up the huge dune, which incases the oasis and you can do this by two options. The sensible but longer route up the gradual incline, which is slightly more solid thanks to lots of people walking up it or the stupid tiresome route straight up the steapest part of the dune, which is soft, crumbles under your every footstep, but is a much shorter route……yeahhh. So obviously as were both dumb as, we chose the straight up approach and literally went straight up the steepest part of the dune! After what felt like hours, when we made it upto the top, we were met with awesome panoramic views of the surrounding area and a great view of the distant sun setting. We aso met a really nice guy from the US and his dog, who were about to hitchike all the way back to California!! Epic roadtrip and very much so, since he had very, very little spanish!

 

It was nice to have an inland beach holiday for a few days, but paradise certainly came with a price and it was not a cheap place to eat and drink. Great for recharging the batteries though, after spending so long in the cold of Bolivia and Cusco. Also great to try our hands at something different, although its safe to say, next time I will try and just hire the buggy and leave the sandboarding to the pros.

—ACastling—

Inca Jungle Trek to Machu Picchu

We always knew we would not do the normal trek up to Machu Picchu, mainly because it books up 6 months in advance (and we hate being tied to a schedule) and because it sounds boring as hell. Walking for 4 days straight. Just walking, nothing else. Zzzzzzz….

So we tried to research some companies who do a more varied trek. In the end we opted for Lorenzo tours who offered downhill mountain biking, trekking, ziplining and rafting. It costs half the price of the normal trek with a lot more excitement. So we got picked up at 5.45am the first morning and taken for some breakfast when the bikes were loaded on top of the van and everyone got to know each other. We were very lucky as there was only 7 of us on the trek. After brekkie we jumped back in the van and headed for our highest point to start the downhill mountain biking, at 4,300m above sea level. We felt OK at this altitude, just a bit cold, but others felt dizzy, vomited etc. Lucky we didn’t stay at that height for long. We got geared up and started our quick descent down the mountain accompanied by beautiful scenery.

This first day was comparatively easy upon reflection. We biked for around 5 hours, majority of it downhill before we ended at our eating place for lunch. The rest of the afternoon we got to relax and explore the local village. We relaxed in our semi-open air room for a bit before heading out, I say ‘semi-open air’ as our windows did not actually meet the ceiling, so once it got dark we decided to not turn any lights on. Didn’t want any unwanted guests in with us!

The next morning we met at 7am for brekkie before our big day of walking began at 8am. Our guide was fantastic the whole way, giving amazing insight into history and answering all of our questions that we had. We started on the flats and as the day progressed the mountains got steeper. Firstly we walked around a small mountain side trail and stopped in a coca leaf farm where we had a try of the chewing of the leaves. It was OK, just tasted like chewing on a tea bag really, just a bit fresher. We carried on our trek and started going up some really steep hills, but stopping every so often for our guide to run up a tree and pick some fruit, or fish for termites for us to try! At the steepest parts we also stopped at some local villages to be shown some local traditions and foods.

The trek was truly amazing as we walked through such varied terrain, from a dusty mountain side, to the lush jungle mountain, to an original Inca trail which had only been discovered by the founder of the company we were trekking with (Lorenzo) in 2003 or something close to that date. The beauty of this was that we only saw one other group our whole 4 days, unlike the normal trek where you fight for space to walk against extremely aggressive walkers with sharp pointy walking sticks. Not my cup of tea.
So after a good 4 hours going up at a horrible degree we were rewarded with beautiful views of the valley we just trekked through. After that it was mainly downhill, which is not as easy as it sounds on 600 year old wonky steps with a 400m drop to your immediate left. After lunch we finished the walk off through some long reeds, travelling over a river in a hand pulled cable car and then scrambling over rocks to end our day in natural volcanic springs. Perfect end to a hard but rewarding day. Its safe to say I hobbled to bed that night.

The third day comprised of ziplining in the morning which I thought would give my legs a break, but we still had to hike up a steep mountain to our starting point. This walk was a lot slower than the day before that’s for sure! So we did our first zipline and I was bricking it. I do not like heights, so this was a big deal for me and I was very close to backing out, but after I did the first one, i just wanted to do more and mote! It was a great feeling flying through the air above lakes and forests. Adam did one in the superman style, but I was happy sticking to the normal way you fly through the air on a piece of wire. However that is. In total we did 4 ziplines, the longest being 1KM long and 400m high. It was sooooooo much fun! After lunch we had an easy (flat) walk through the jungle and along the train tracks to end our day in Aguas Calientes. Again, hobbled not only to bed but also to dinner…

Can you see the dot in the middle? That’s Adam!

We woke up on our last morning at 3.45am to meet for our walk to the gates at 4.15am. This walk took us about half an hour, with me hobbling at the back, smacking my head-torch (whilst on my head) to make it work. We also had some canine companions accompany us pretty much from our hostel and waited with us at the gates. I was walking so slow, even the dog with the limp was infront of me!

Once waiting at the gates, we had a little snack and just quietly waited…then some overly pumped up young North Americans loudly entered and pushed their way to the front of the gates stating loudly how the were going to be the first ones there…bla bla bla bla…Zzzzzz… Any-who, the gates opened at 5am and we began our last ascent up the 1,800 steps to Machu Picchu. I’ve got to say, with our legs in bits, we took it nice and slow but still did it in 50mins and it was meant to take an hour. I have 2 favourite parts to this last walk. 1) seeing ‘limpy’ our dog mascot meet us at the top and 2) overtaking some of the arrogant North Americans about half way! No, but really, reaching the top was amazing! After 4 days, you realise you are actually there and its a great feeling. I also expected to be greeted with the sight of Machu Picchu, but instead was greeted with a public toilet and large entrance queue. Still, the loo was a happy sight!

So we entered Machi Picchu with our group and our tour guide gave us an amazing 3 hour tour around the sight. We still had more steps though, every single step felt like a colossus effort. I was promised no more steps after the last 1,800 and someone lied to me…! It was all worth it though, the history, the architecture and the views were truly awe inspiring. The massive groups of tourists which turned up about 10am were not. After our tour ended, we spent a few more hours wandering around and trying to find a secret spot to eat some brekkie/lunch with the best views in the world without being caught. We achieved both and left happy. Only 1,800 steps down now…no biggy… 😥

We finished a great (hard) 4 days with a couple of beers and a massage, perfect!

The One Good Thing about La Paz

We got the post-monkey-blues bad. Real bad. I even dreamt about them swinging around our dingy room a few times.

It also doesn’t help that after leaving a beautiful jungle we entered possibly the ugliest city we have come across so far. La Paz, although is impressive with its altitude (it sits 3,640m above sea level) that is about as good as it gets. The city is ridiculously over crowded, we watched people trying to enter and leave the city for work, literally fighting to get on a tiny minivan/bus, so that they wouldn’t have to queue for another 2 hours. Not a great start to the day. Traffic is horrendous 24 hours a day and crossing any road, even those with pedestrian lights, is a bit of a life gamble. Also, the food sucks. We took a free walking tour and we were shown “traditional food” from La Paz and were shown a fast food chicken restaurant. How depressing, the chicken wasn’t even that good.

La Paz is so bad, that the prisoners at the infamous San Pedro prison, prefer to stay in there than to leave, as their quality of life is better in there. To give a quick insight into San Pedro, it is the only prison sponsored by Coca-Cola and has its own cafes, restaurants, gym and the prisoners can live in there with their family (if they can afford the rent…yes, you heard correctly…they pay rent…) And only recently did they close the prison to tourists as people were going in, but not as many were coming out. Although we were kindly offered a tour by two lovely prisoners on day release… :s

The one thing that we loved and saw all over the city were the old ‘Dodge’ buses with beautiful paint jobs. We really wanted to get on one, but had no idea where we would end up, and La Paz is pretty big. Wouldn’t want to end up in the wrong end of town!

Llama fetus found at the witches market…for good luck when building a property…