Ok, so we have had some random experiences since we said goodbye to Iquique...we headed down south on a night bus to a middle of nowhere port town of Chañaral to acces a national park called Pan de Azucar - just as much in the middle of nowhere. The idea that this park was lush was a complete dilusion as we still found ourselves very much surrounded by sand. The size of the desert is just unbeleivable, we have travelled more than 17 hours by bus and the desert still keeps on going, there is nothing but sand, rocks and a few sad looking bushes every now and again, which is explained by the fact that it really never rains - the last rain here was 5 years ago.
Well, back to Pan de Azucar - we had to take a taxi there which was the only way to access the park if you don´t have your own transport (which by the way we don´t as we let go of the dream of buying a car after we counted the cost and the kilometers we´d have to drive), we got dropped off to a bay which was inhabited by a handfull of fishermen who live in tents or in very modest wee shacks - where there was sand, a beach, camping facilities and rocky hills (with which we had an encounter I´d rather forget..) - oh plus a pack of pelikans waiting for easy treats from the returning fishermen.
The second day we decided, although feeling very lazy and really just wanting to lie on the beach and read, to head for a hike to a lookout on top of the hills. We had been told that the hike was 9km one way, but you could return by following the ridge line much quicker. So the walk to the actual lookout was not that bad, if a little boring with the scenery being, you guessed it: sand, rocks and more sand, and as we got there we were greeted with a beautiful view of the bays and the pacific ocean - and a few desert foxes who surrounded us in hopes for snacks.
Sitting at the top of the hill was very ´tranquilo´ as they like to say here, but then we banged our stupid heads together and decided to climb down the hill to cut our walk back just about in half. Well, what looked like an easy climb turned into pretty much a life threatning decent of a vertical hill where each rock was just waiting for your weight to start rolling down to the valley...I don´t know how we managed to scramble our way down without slipping and turning into mush on the way down - Brett´s scout skills came in handy ;) - but after 1,5hours of skipped heartbeats we were on safe ground. Whose idea was it again to do what we did? Oh well, you live and you learn...there will definately be no more scaling mountains on this trip...
So we lived to see another day, which was quite appreciated...;) and we headed for the next adventure of Portofino - yet another middle of nowhere town - well ghost town to put it right - where the only attraction was good surf. Well, this place was something not far from a horror movie, and yet again just to dramatise our experience, we can be happy to have nothing happen to us. So where to begin...
We rented a bach of our taxi driver, who very helpully took us to this deserted beach settlement, which supposedly is packed with people during the summer, but with the winter only behind the corner all the houses had their windows nailed shut with planks of wood and the only one inhabitant of this eerie settlement was a legendary surfer Chico Christian, who lives a very bohemian lifestyle in Portofino with his pack of dogs. We had been told about this charater, and the fact that he was ´un poco loco´ had been mentioned as well, but as we went to talk to him about renting a board for Brett he seemed quite normal.
Well, with the money he got for the board rental he had headed to town and got back with tons of beers, with which he was waiting to meet us when Brett got out of the water. We were offered a few beers, and then invited for luch at his wee shack - ok so we won´t say no to a free feed - mistake. Well, not really, the food was delicious - even if I was a bit suspicious of the fact that he didnt eat, but watched us eat - turned out though that the food must of been fine ie not poisoned...as we were fine. But what we did get to witness was the reason why Chico is called ´un poco loco´, I don´t think he stopped to breathe between the words as he was talking to us about his visions of the world, demonstrating it all to Brett with imaculate body language, as he didnt quite trust my translation skills...it was a sight indesrcibable by words, and to keep track of all he said was quite impossible. But we did accomplish to understand that he lives in paradise, and god lives in the ocean as just the few topics of his rantings...
After a few hours we escaped back to the batch, where we hid for the rest of the night away from the sight of Chico...;) But something quite disturbing happened that night. In the pitch black middle of the night I woke up to a sound as if someone was knocking on the window - only to wake Brett up to say ´it´s a person, i can feel feet´- which kind of freaked me out a bit, untill I realised he´s talking in his sleep...after a few somewhat hard nodges I got him up, and there was the knock again, well actually a bang, this time sounding like it was coming from the back door. Not a very pleasant situation when you know you´re in the middle of nowhere...we were too scared to open the door and find out who was there and what they wanted, but just waited a bit after finding a bat and a hammer to hold on to - after which there was nothing but dogs barking like crazy, and car lights circling around the settlement...well, whoever it was, and whatever they were after never came back, and we got a few more hours of sleep after our hearts strated beating at a normal rate again. In the morning we were thinking it was possibly just some poor person whose car had broken down or something, and there we were waiting with weapons... Chico told us he had heard nothing all...maybe it was him wanting some company at night...hmm...
So yes, we decided that perhaps we have seen enough of these deserted places for a wee bit and headed down to Bahia Inglesa where we camped a couple of nights - a beautiful place of white sandy beaches and cristal clear water - if only the sun would´ve come out for a bit to warm the bitterly cold days we spent there. From Bahia we hopped on to a bus to the city of La Serena, where we are staying at the moment in a friendly family run hostel, which is a very welcomed athmosphere after our somewhat lonely, though interesting experiences...
Monday, April 27, 2009
Monday, April 20, 2009
Chile - Norte Grande
chile..
arica by night
iquique, nestled in amongst giant sand dunes
the guy we are staying withs surf machine
With our latest adventures being predominantly inland, it was a refreshing feeling to see and smell the ocean.. We arrived in arica, 20kms from the peruvian boarder, to an endless summer, apparently it never rains and the surf is pretty much consistant all year round.
We stayed at an awesome hostal that was run by a rather random guy, but i guess you have to be a bit strange to paddle out into 40ft surf.. The hostal had a boxer running around, and massive chill out area, and no roof. We fired up the barbie most nights with some great group cook ups with some californians who were rather amused at the Kiwi accent. Especially the word "veggie".
We spent 5 days in arica and moved on to Iquique, the wave paradise in amoungst a desert of the north. Enjoying a solid 4ft with perfect barreling peaks 100m from where we are staying.
Iquique is like wave paradise, there is about 10km of reef coastline with perfect breaks and sunny days CONSISTANTLY all year.
These are a few shots from what has become known as "toms reef". ´Nick named after one of the californians we have been hanging with, who took his first nasty reef beating. Props to the veggie sam for surfing this place on a fun board with only one fin left... It was a gnarly right over shallow rock bottom..
The next few days we surfed the actual surfers spot, we found out toms reef, is pretty much a body board wave.. This other one, is pretty famous in front of the Vertical surf shop and competition tower, a punchy left that has spitting barrels that swallowed me occaisionally.
It doesnt look it but the set waves were easily stand up overhead classic blue barrels..
Today is our last day in Iquique, we are off for our first taste of chillean camping in the lush national parks of the 3rd region.
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Machu Picchu
Where to start with Machu Picchu - from the herds of people racing and fighting to be the first to get their piece of this lost Inca city; or the view from the top of Wayna Picchu when the mist suddenly cleared, like pulling the curtains open on a view of all of the city in its incredible might and height? Being at and seeing Machu Picchu was definately an experience of a lifetime.
We got to Aguas Calientes aka Machu Picchu village on thursday night, ready to get our few hours of sleep before the wake up at 4.30am when the race started. We had thought about walking up to Machu Picchu instead of taking the oh so touristy bus - but as we got teh tickets free with the train and hostel booking we couldn´t resist but not - walk that is. At 5.10am thinking we were quite early as the first bus doesn´t head up the mountain untill 5.30am - we found ourselves standing at the back of a huge line in the moring drizzle along with the rest of the world - except Peru... I don´t think I´ve ever witnessed so many people lining up for anything - it was like waiting to get into a rock concert where all the fans are fighting to get the closest view of the star. Just unbelievable. Well, we did make it up in one piece, only to be greeted yet with another huge line of people now waiting for the gates to open, ready to pour in.
And that wasn´t the end of it. As the gates opened the next race was to get to the line of Wayna Picchu, as only 400 people a day get to climb the mountain providing a panoramic view of Machu Picchu. Luckily we´d been coached by our guide for the quickest route - and got tickest number 285&286...phew...;) what a place - but oh so worth it!!
The early morning was very drizzly and cloudy, we could hardly make up anything from further than a few meters away - but just as we started our climb to Wayna (a pretty much vertical climb of stairs with a drop of I´m guessing about a 1000m only inches away...) the clouds started to clear and literally as we got to the top a breath of wind blew the remainder of mist away and uncovered all of Machu Picchu infront of our eyes. The view was just amazing - and I know that doesn´t say much, but how to describe it? You are standing at the top of a mountain of 2400m looking down at a huge city that was built hundreds of years ago which looks like a scale model from the height your at, on both sides of the skinny mountain top your standing there´s nothing but a vertical wall of rock untill it touches the ground deep down in the valley. All you can do is stand there with feelings of vertigo and amazement mixed with a little bit of fear...
The rest of tha day flew by as we explored the ruins, we had spent 8hours at Machu Picchu when it was time to head down to catch our train back to Cusco, but could´ve easily spend a lot more. As we made our way down the drizzle came back as if to close of the show.
Here´s a few photos to accompany my desperate description of the wonder we wintnessed...
We got to Aguas Calientes aka Machu Picchu village on thursday night, ready to get our few hours of sleep before the wake up at 4.30am when the race started. We had thought about walking up to Machu Picchu instead of taking the oh so touristy bus - but as we got teh tickets free with the train and hostel booking we couldn´t resist but not - walk that is. At 5.10am thinking we were quite early as the first bus doesn´t head up the mountain untill 5.30am - we found ourselves standing at the back of a huge line in the moring drizzle along with the rest of the world - except Peru... I don´t think I´ve ever witnessed so many people lining up for anything - it was like waiting to get into a rock concert where all the fans are fighting to get the closest view of the star. Just unbelievable. Well, we did make it up in one piece, only to be greeted yet with another huge line of people now waiting for the gates to open, ready to pour in.
And that wasn´t the end of it. As the gates opened the next race was to get to the line of Wayna Picchu, as only 400 people a day get to climb the mountain providing a panoramic view of Machu Picchu. Luckily we´d been coached by our guide for the quickest route - and got tickest number 285&286...phew...;) what a place - but oh so worth it!!
The early morning was very drizzly and cloudy, we could hardly make up anything from further than a few meters away - but just as we started our climb to Wayna (a pretty much vertical climb of stairs with a drop of I´m guessing about a 1000m only inches away...) the clouds started to clear and literally as we got to the top a breath of wind blew the remainder of mist away and uncovered all of Machu Picchu infront of our eyes. The view was just amazing - and I know that doesn´t say much, but how to describe it? You are standing at the top of a mountain of 2400m looking down at a huge city that was built hundreds of years ago which looks like a scale model from the height your at, on both sides of the skinny mountain top your standing there´s nothing but a vertical wall of rock untill it touches the ground deep down in the valley. All you can do is stand there with feelings of vertigo and amazement mixed with a little bit of fear...
The rest of tha day flew by as we explored the ruins, we had spent 8hours at Machu Picchu when it was time to head down to catch our train back to Cusco, but could´ve easily spend a lot more. As we made our way down the drizzle came back as if to close of the show.
Here´s a few photos to accompany my desperate description of the wonder we wintnessed...
The Inca ´death´Bridge...
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
photos
Heres a few shots from our journey so far.. at the moment we are stuck in cusco for a week, and holy crap is this place gringo´vill. It is a nice city but full of tourists, and after barely seeing any toursits for 3 weeks, its quite a shock. If your wondering were the rest of NZ and australia is, they are in bolivia and peru, actually along with quarter of the states and canada.. Cusco is like a little north america, everything is priced in US dollars, and the prices are to match.. luckily we have found a sweet little hostal with million dollar views of cusco to spend our time in.
All the people here in the hostal are pretty freindly, with the stay kicking off to a great start, arriving 2 hours late to the hostal boy waiting at the bus terminal to give us a free lift to the hstal, followed by a free feed from a canadian chef, who has proceeded to cook us world class feeds each night.
So heres a few photos from argentina to bolivia.. we will put more after our bankrupting trip to machu `pichu in a few weeks..
petra at the salt flats.
some cactus´s
View from the mystical fish island.
punamarca aka ¨mars¨
All the people here in the hostal are pretty freindly, with the stay kicking off to a great start, arriving 2 hours late to the hostal boy waiting at the bus terminal to give us a free lift to the hstal, followed by a free feed from a canadian chef, who has proceeded to cook us world class feeds each night.
So heres a few photos from argentina to bolivia.. we will put more after our bankrupting trip to machu `pichu in a few weeks..
petra at the salt flats.
some cactus´s
View from the mystical fish island.
punamarca aka ¨mars¨
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Bolivia
We are now in Uyuni, Bolivia in a dark internet cafe, spending time as we are waiting for a train to Oruro which leaves at midnight... I will try to catch up from where I left with writing last time...So, from Cafayate we headed north to Salta - a city of beautful colonial building with streets swarmed with people...there we visited the most interesting and disturbing museum I think I've even been in...it was about Inca sacrifices of children, and on display were two of the real actual children found at the top of the highest peak near Salta (can't remeber the name now...), it was such a bizarre feeling to see these doll looking characters of actual real people of more than 500years old...the first child on 'display' was a 15year old girl who looked like she was sleeping away peacefully, where the next one had a frozen cry on her face with mouth wide open...I'm surprised I haven't had nightmares as I normally can't stomach anything like that...however, it was an interesting visit and just incredible to imagine a life so different from our that existed not so long ago...
From Salta we headed towards more small towns, firts stop being Purmamarca ' a town of 500 people hidden away in a valley of Humahuaca. The town lay surrounded by a hill called 'the hill of seven colours' - which tells it all, the hill had shades of green, red, orange, yellow...add a few more to make it seven and you have it! Such a beautiful wee setting for the town, where all the houses were built of bricks made of the very ground they stood on, thus blending into the nature perfectly. Here we were lucky enough to find a camp ground, which however turned out to cost almost as much as a hostel - go figure, but there's nothing quite like camping is there...well, with thunder closing in on the town we were thinking the hostel wouldn't have been such a silly choice...luckily it did just brush past and only after we had retired for the evening... the town was covered in craft shops and people selling scarves, gloves etc on the streets, and as we arrived there was a small concert of some sort on the plaza which was cool, though by the time we had sussed out the camp ground it has finished...
The next stop after Purmamarca was Tilacra, pretty much a clone of the first except in larger size. Very pretty and peaceful, and it also had the first campground with grass that we've witnessed in Argentina!! What luxury... Brett unfortunately got sick from possibly some salami that was a bit old he had for lunch...and we ended up just taking it easy not doing much but relaxing at the camsite - which actually was quite nice after being on the go for 3weeks.
The next morning we caught a bus to La Quiaca, a town which seems to exist only for the purpose of border crossing to and fro from Bolivia. Which was also the very reason we found ourselves there. As Brett was still recovering and there was really not much to do in this town of empty streets and closed down stores, we ended up spending a bit of time in our wee room with cabel tv...haha thats exactly what we came here to do right...but oh well, Blades of Glory along with other cheesy - the only type - of movies in English that were on offer...
Early saturday morning we once again lifted our packs on our backs and started our walk to Bolivia. Was such a weird feeling to be able to just walk down the road, cross a bridge and be in another country. At the border we had to actually ask to get our passports checked, it would have been just as easy to walk across without anyone blinking an eye. Also as we got to the side of Bolivia it was merely a quick stamp in the passport, no-one was interested in checking our bag or anything - which we cursed as being used to NZ border control we had left all our fruit behind...
After 7hours wait at the train station on Villazon we finally hopped on the train and started our shaky journey towards Uyuni. The scenery was beautiful with hills filled with cactuses, mountains far in the horizon and the occasional pack of llamas munching on nonexistent grass. We arrived to Uyuni at midnight - the same train that we are waitig to catch tonight up north- and visely for once had booked a hostel just across from the train station, to prevent a laborous walk around looking for a place in the middle of the night...yeah no.
The next morning as we walked out of the hsotel we were literally surrounded by people trying to get us to go on their tour of Salar de Uyuni - we had to just brush past from all of them as it was way too overwhelming...we took our time to go into travel agents and talking to people trying ti find the best company to go with - but in the end decided to go with the first company we talked to and eneded up getting a nice discount of 100B as they were desperate to fill the group. Before we knew it, we were crammed in a 4x4 heading towards the salt flats... and how to describe it...I think we will have to put up photos to speak for themselves, as the scenery was just indescribable...just something out of this world. Just whitness and complete flatness as far as your eye could see, and in the horizon everything looked as if it were not touching the ground but floating in the air, it was not untill we got closer when the reality of it all was visible.
The first night we were pleasantly surprised to stay in salt hotel - yes, everything was made of salt including the bed, tables etc...it was amazing. On the tour we had our own cook who prepared the meanest meals for breakfast, lunch and dinner - its the most we've eaten since been away!!
The second morning we had a wake up call at 6.30 to head towards laguna colorada where we would spend our next night. Along the way we visited an active volcano, which however has not erupted for over 400years. We were also lucky enough to see flamingoes in many of the lagoons that we visited along the way. The landscape was just amazing, and a feeling of being in the middle of nowhere like never before. The size of these countries is just so immense, its hard to grasp... We spent the second night in a veryvery basic accomodation with all of us on the tour in one room. The night was freezing and I found it cery hard to breathe with my nose blocked and being at the altitude of 4200m...the wake up call for the next mornig came at 4.30am...wow, that was hard. It was pitch black and freeeeeeezing!!! I would guess it was at least -5C, our snowboard jackets - which had annoyed us with their size and weight in the heat of Argetina - came in handy for sure.
The reason for the early wake up was to catch the sunrise by a site of gheysers (how to spell...) which was amazing - and even more amazing was the fact that you could actually walk rigfht up to the gheysers and touch the hot air coming out of them! There were people jumping through them, but I was only brave enough to warm my frozen fingers on the hot air. From the gheysers we headed to another lagoon, had a bath in natural hot pools and started our longlong journey back to Uyuni. We arrived back at 6pm, exhausted but happy. Had dinner with our co tourers, two British girls and a couple from Oz - and crashed into bed...
Hopefully we can catch a few winks in the train tonight, as we arrive to Oruro at 7am having to find our way to La Paz from there...there's a game of soccer on at the mo - Argetina vs Bolivia, and its getting a bit heated...lets hope for the best!!
From Salta we headed towards more small towns, firts stop being Purmamarca ' a town of 500 people hidden away in a valley of Humahuaca. The town lay surrounded by a hill called 'the hill of seven colours' - which tells it all, the hill had shades of green, red, orange, yellow...add a few more to make it seven and you have it! Such a beautiful wee setting for the town, where all the houses were built of bricks made of the very ground they stood on, thus blending into the nature perfectly. Here we were lucky enough to find a camp ground, which however turned out to cost almost as much as a hostel - go figure, but there's nothing quite like camping is there...well, with thunder closing in on the town we were thinking the hostel wouldn't have been such a silly choice...luckily it did just brush past and only after we had retired for the evening... the town was covered in craft shops and people selling scarves, gloves etc on the streets, and as we arrived there was a small concert of some sort on the plaza which was cool, though by the time we had sussed out the camp ground it has finished...
The next stop after Purmamarca was Tilacra, pretty much a clone of the first except in larger size. Very pretty and peaceful, and it also had the first campground with grass that we've witnessed in Argentina!! What luxury... Brett unfortunately got sick from possibly some salami that was a bit old he had for lunch...and we ended up just taking it easy not doing much but relaxing at the camsite - which actually was quite nice after being on the go for 3weeks.
The next morning we caught a bus to La Quiaca, a town which seems to exist only for the purpose of border crossing to and fro from Bolivia. Which was also the very reason we found ourselves there. As Brett was still recovering and there was really not much to do in this town of empty streets and closed down stores, we ended up spending a bit of time in our wee room with cabel tv...haha thats exactly what we came here to do right...but oh well, Blades of Glory along with other cheesy - the only type - of movies in English that were on offer...
Early saturday morning we once again lifted our packs on our backs and started our walk to Bolivia. Was such a weird feeling to be able to just walk down the road, cross a bridge and be in another country. At the border we had to actually ask to get our passports checked, it would have been just as easy to walk across without anyone blinking an eye. Also as we got to the side of Bolivia it was merely a quick stamp in the passport, no-one was interested in checking our bag or anything - which we cursed as being used to NZ border control we had left all our fruit behind...
After 7hours wait at the train station on Villazon we finally hopped on the train and started our shaky journey towards Uyuni. The scenery was beautiful with hills filled with cactuses, mountains far in the horizon and the occasional pack of llamas munching on nonexistent grass. We arrived to Uyuni at midnight - the same train that we are waitig to catch tonight up north- and visely for once had booked a hostel just across from the train station, to prevent a laborous walk around looking for a place in the middle of the night...yeah no.
The next morning as we walked out of the hsotel we were literally surrounded by people trying to get us to go on their tour of Salar de Uyuni - we had to just brush past from all of them as it was way too overwhelming...we took our time to go into travel agents and talking to people trying ti find the best company to go with - but in the end decided to go with the first company we talked to and eneded up getting a nice discount of 100B as they were desperate to fill the group. Before we knew it, we were crammed in a 4x4 heading towards the salt flats... and how to describe it...I think we will have to put up photos to speak for themselves, as the scenery was just indescribable...just something out of this world. Just whitness and complete flatness as far as your eye could see, and in the horizon everything looked as if it were not touching the ground but floating in the air, it was not untill we got closer when the reality of it all was visible.
The first night we were pleasantly surprised to stay in salt hotel - yes, everything was made of salt including the bed, tables etc...it was amazing. On the tour we had our own cook who prepared the meanest meals for breakfast, lunch and dinner - its the most we've eaten since been away!!
The second morning we had a wake up call at 6.30 to head towards laguna colorada where we would spend our next night. Along the way we visited an active volcano, which however has not erupted for over 400years. We were also lucky enough to see flamingoes in many of the lagoons that we visited along the way. The landscape was just amazing, and a feeling of being in the middle of nowhere like never before. The size of these countries is just so immense, its hard to grasp... We spent the second night in a veryvery basic accomodation with all of us on the tour in one room. The night was freezing and I found it cery hard to breathe with my nose blocked and being at the altitude of 4200m...the wake up call for the next mornig came at 4.30am...wow, that was hard. It was pitch black and freeeeeeezing!!! I would guess it was at least -5C, our snowboard jackets - which had annoyed us with their size and weight in the heat of Argetina - came in handy for sure.
The reason for the early wake up was to catch the sunrise by a site of gheysers (how to spell...) which was amazing - and even more amazing was the fact that you could actually walk rigfht up to the gheysers and touch the hot air coming out of them! There were people jumping through them, but I was only brave enough to warm my frozen fingers on the hot air. From the gheysers we headed to another lagoon, had a bath in natural hot pools and started our longlong journey back to Uyuni. We arrived back at 6pm, exhausted but happy. Had dinner with our co tourers, two British girls and a couple from Oz - and crashed into bed...
Hopefully we can catch a few winks in the train tonight, as we arrive to Oruro at 7am having to find our way to La Paz from there...there's a game of soccer on at the mo - Argetina vs Bolivia, and its getting a bit heated...lets hope for the best!!
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