Boat trip, Glaciers and the National Park of Paine!

The boat trip was fun. 3 days of not doing much watching the scenery go by. Detoured to the face of Pio XI the largest glacier in South America and watched as some silly staff from the boat took the rubber-ducky out to collect a small iceberg for drinks ice!

Stayed two nights in Puerto Natales and we are leaving first thing in the morning to go to the Torres del Paine national park to do a 9 day trek while camping! Should be freezing cold and raining for much of it but there's an incredible glacier field and spectacular mountains.

Be back in about 10 days!

Chile photos

Off to Patagonia....

We are currently having a Coffee in a Cafe overlooking the harbour where a huge cruise ship is waiting to take it's passengers south in luxury. Not us unfortunately! We will be going in a converted container ship. Still we are excited and it looks like it will be a fun trip with georgeous scenery of snow-capped mountains, fjords and glaciers.
http://www.navimag.com/en/canales/sur/ruta_sur.asp

We bumped into Idka and Jamie, (a honeymooning couple we met in Cuenca back in Ecuador) while we were checking our bags in for the cruise. They will be on the boat as well so that will be fun. Wonder if they splashed out on a private room or are staying in one of the 26 bunk cabins!

So don't fret if there are no updates for the next few days! Probably not much internet access among the Fjords....

Hasta Luego.

Well we are off again! Currently it's midnight and we are getting up early to catch a 6.10am bus to Puerto Montt, 14 hours to the south.
We had a productive day, leaving the hostel to catch the metro to the office for a cruise company to book a 4 day boat trip for monday from Puerto Montt to Punta Arenas way down south. (I've marked the trip already on the map at the top of the page) Then to the bus station to book the bus. Tried doing that bit online but was just too difficult. The Spanish I could managed but not the info they needed to register with the website to book it as I don't have the required national ID number?!
We were aprehensive taking the metro system after our previous Mexico city experience but it was actually quite easy and not very crowded. Much cleaner than Sydney's train network and the trains were very frequent. As we arrived at one platform we just missed a train and the next one pulled in a minute later. The NSW government could take some notes if the Sydney North-West Metro ever gets built!
Santiago seems like quite a pleasant city. Lots of pedestrian malls around the Plaza Del Armas which is full of palm trees, statues and people including children splashing in the centre fountain. Very clean and people are friendly, haven't been hassled in the streets. Shame we aren't staying longer to see a bit more of the area.

A pleasant 24 hour bus trip!

A couple of nights in San Pedro was enough (nice enough town but also dry, hot and dusty) and we hopped on a bus bound for Santiago. Left San Pedro at 2.30pm and arived in Santiago at 1pm this afteroon. The bus trip was pretty reasonable on a big double deck bus with comfortable "semi reclining" seats. I stayed awake until 3am (playing games on the laptop. They had a 110volt inverter within reach of my seat!) and then actually managed to get 6 hours sleep!
The scenery changed as we went south with the barren landforms of the desert at San Pedro becoming less arid with Cactus and then shrubs, trees and even Eucalyptus plantations as we got closer to Santiago.
Arriving at the bus station we took a Taxi the few kilometres to the "Plaza de Armas" and got a room in a hostel on the 6th floor of a building overlooking the square.
Seems like a nice city although the Taxi driver warned us about pick-pockets around the Plaza.

Will stay here a couple of nights then take another bus south.

We made it to Chile and are staying a couple of nights in San Pedro de Atacama which is a small town "Oasis" in the Atacama desert. It actually rained for a couple of hours yesterday which only happens two or three times a year!













Working on the blog updates so will get more up in the next couple of days but here's some photos from the trip across Salar de Uyuni salt flat and the desert to Chile.

Bolivia Album II

La Paz to Chile via Salar de Uyuni salt flats and the Atacama desert.

Jan 16th.
We had a day of killing time (checked out of the Hotel at 10am, bus not leaving until 9pm) so had a long coffee drinking session at one Café and read books over lunch. We even went to the Coca Museum which had been recommended but was actually quite dull and depressing. Very mixed message about how great Coca is, the Inca and pre Inca people have been using it as a stimulant for 4500 years. They chew the leaves and drink Coca tea a lot and it reduces fatigue and is supposedly not addictive unlike the derivative Cocaine. Not addictive but the display proudly gave statistics that 86% of Bolivian women and 94% of the men chew it. The Coca industry was able to be controlled by the invading Spanish to subjugate the people and chewing Coca was a necessity in the hellish Silver Mines at Potosi where 8 million of the poorest Bolivians and imported slaves have died! Then it followed with the Cocaine industry which there is not much demand for in Bolivia itself, but the majority of the USA’s Cocaine comes from Bolivia. This makes Bolivia a problem for the USA with the DEA trying to stop farmers growing Coca while at the same time Coca-Cola is still buying thousands of tons of Bolivian Coca leaves to flavour Coke.
Article on current diplomatic state of Bolivia and USA.

We got to the Bus Station early and boarded the bus on time at 9pm only to be served a meal on board before the bus left as it would be “too bumpy” later! So 9.30 the bus pulled out and after half an hour of driving through the suburbs a movie was put on. The bus had two TVs and the one half way down the bus was broken so a middle aged French woman stomped up to the front of the bus and yelled at the bus attendant because she couldn’t watch the movie. She returned to her seat and then decided that she wanted to sleep and went back to demand the sound be switched off (so now no-one could watch the movie!) Then she decided she wanted to open her window and discovered it was taped shut. (All the windows were sealed as it was an air-conditioned bus and the tape was probably sealing a small gap to keep wind and dust out rather than the window shut.) After peeling off one large piece of tape she flipped out and had another rant to the attendant about how she was paying for a luxury bus and the TV doesn’t work and there is tape on the window blah blah blah and how she wants a luxury bus. There was some kind of attempt to appease her but she wasn’t having any of it. I think she was pushing for a free bus trip. The bus rep was offering a refund if she got off the bus. She threatened to call the police (because she had paid for a luxury bus and there was sticky tape on the window) and the bus rep and the other 35 people on the bus were getting pretty fed up with her so the bus stopped and a policeman came on and they tried to get the woman to get off. She refused as if she was getting a refund on her ticket she also wanted them to pay for a taxi and a hotel and a refund on the three day salt flat tour she was doing in Uyuni. Things started to get a bit nasty at this stage with the other passengers as it was now close to 11pm and we hadn’t even got out of La Paz and pretty much everyone on the bus was doing salt flat tours leaving shortly after we were due to arrive in Uyuni and this bitch was going to make us all late. There was quite a bit of “What’s your problem!” and “Just get off the f’ing bus” from some of the less reserved passengers. (Yes, they were Australians.) Eventually the bus rep got her to sign an agreement to shut the hell up and she could stay on the bus. I think in the end she might have got a partial refund on the trip because she was making a big deal of how we all paid too much when we got to Uyuni. (After complaining to the bus rep that we had arrived on schedual and not two hours late after they managed to make up the time she had delayed us!)
The bus trip was about 10 hours and the last 180km was on poor dirt roads and very bumpy and got pretty dusty inside the bus towards the end.

17th
We purchased our salt flat tour in La Paz and had been told that we would be met at the bus in Uyuni so when we arrived we walked a couple of blocks to the agency not at all surprised that no-one was waiting. There was a couple of hours until the tour was due to leave so we had a little walk around town. (Dusty desert frontier town) and waited until a battered 26 year old Landcruiser pulled up and we had our backpacks loaded on top wrapped in a Tarp so all 6 passengers could fit inside. Apart from the driver there was a Bolivian mother and daughter, a Japanese guy, a Brazillian guy and us.
The driver didn’t introduce himself or anything, just indicated for us to board and we headed off out of town.

A few minutes later we stopped at the Cemetario de Trenes “Train graveyard” beside the railway line. Dozens of rusting train engines and carriages dumped in the desert. Next we drove back through town and north towards the salt lake. As we left town I noticed the driver crossed himself and said a little prayer, perhaps for a safe journey for us I thought as he almost ran off the road putting his cap back on.
We stopped for a few minutes at a small village on the shore of the lake which was a drab adobe (mud brick) village where people who collected salt from the lake lived. There was a couple of tacky ’hotels’ built out of salt bricks and the street through town was lined with stalls selling things like dice and candle holders carved from salt.
A few minutes from the town we reached the salt lake Salar de Uyuni and left land driving over the flat white expanse with only puddles of water and occasional mounds of collected salt breaking the featureless landscape. Oh, and about 50 other Landcruisers.
We stopped and took a few pictures and continued on for about 30km before stopping at a “Salt Hotel” in the middle of nowhere. It was a one story structure built with salt bricks and inside the tables and chairs in the dining area were also made of salt bricks. We picked up a 7th passenger, another Japanese guy who had stayed the night and headed off across the lake again to Isla de la Pescado, Fish Island which apparently looks like the shape of a fish.
The Island was our stop for lunch and we had half an hour to go for a walk. The island was pretty amazing. Apart from some ground vegetation the only plants were huge cactus which grew up to 12 metres tall and lived for up to 1200 years.
After lunch we turned south and left the salt lake travelling across dusty plains for a few hours until we reached a small adobe village where we would stay the night. The hotel was mud brick and pretty basic but we were lucky to get a “matrimonial” room with double bed and bathroom. And for just 10 Bolivianos ($2) they switch on the gas water heater and we had hot showers!
The village was in a flat valley which had a large herd of Llamas and it looked much like I imagine the Mongolian Steppes would look like.(Except I suppose they would be Yaks there.) I had a walk around town and took some pictures of the Llamas and even found a mud-brick chook pen.


18th
Next morning we left pretty early and travelled across the plains with snow-capped mountains and a volcano now dominating the horizon. Stopped at a rocky outcrop for some pictures of said mountains and at one point in the journey the driver stopped and made us get out to walk up a steep hill that must have been too challenging for the 4wd with 8 people on board.

We had lunch beside a salt lagoon with lots of Flamingos and the dodgiest self claimed “eco-hostel” I have ever seen on the shoreline. I had a walk inside and admired the wood fired heaters and uninsulated corrugated iron ceilings. I suspect they pump their sewage straight into the lake as well!

Leaving the lake we went over a ridgeline and down to another lake with more Flamingos before crossing the windiest (and coldest!) plain I have ever seen and stopping at some rock outcrops including the “Tree of Stone” presumably carved by the relentless wind.
Another couple of hours drive and after an unscheduled stop which we though was a breakdown but was just a refueling stop involving a jerry can on the roof and a hose, we arrived at our destination for the night. The “Coloured Lagoon” was another salt lagoon and is meant to be quite beautiful with white salt and different coloured water due to algae but we didn’t get to see much of it because it was blowing a gale and it was painfully cold to go outside. The accommodation was pretty awful. A room with 6 single beds so one of the group had to sleep next door and the communal bathroom had 2 centimetres of water on the floor. There was a dining room with tables and chairs though so we bought a cheap bottle of Bolivian wine and played cards and celebrated Sarah’s Birthday.



19th
The next morning we were told to be ready at 4.30am to depart. It was sooo cold when we left the hostel and quickly got colder on the way to our first stop at dawn. A Geyser field! There was snow on the ground and we were freezing cold. I found out later that we were at 5000m asl which is a good reason to be cold! We tried warming our hands in the hot steam from a geyser which was quite nice and warm but being steam our hands got very wet and the rotten-egg stench of sulfur wasn’t pleasant! A short drive away we stopped again at some fumeroles which were hot water pools bubbling away in the snow.



Next we stopped beside another salt lagoon but this one had hot volcanic springs running into it. If our guide had bothered to tell us we were visiting we could have had towels and swimmers ready for a dip like many others. As it was we warmed our feet in a pool of hot water and watched the sun rise over the Flamingos and seagulls in the beautiful lake.
Last stop before the Chile border was at the “Green Lake” which was definitely more blue than green. Height was about 5050m asl with the nearby Volcano close to 6000m.
At the Bolivia/Chile border we paid an unexpected exit fee of 21Bs for an exit stamp and hopped on a mini bus to take us to San Pedro de Atacama in Chile. Across the border the first thing we noticed was there were roads! Still dirt but actually bulldozed at some stage and with road signs and stuff! After only a couple of kilometres we reached a paved road which we followed for an hour descending a gradual decline to arrive at San Pedro de Atacama. After stopping at the border control building to have our dirty underwear rummaged through by customs staff looking for contraband we were dropped off in town and found a hostel.
This was a bit of a shock as we had asked an Aussie on the bus what the exchange rate was and were told it was 600 Chillian Pesos to the dollar. We were thinking this was AUD for the first day and commenting that it was more expensive than Bolivia until we looked up the actual exchange rate and found it was 410 Peso to the AUD! That made our accommodation about $60AUD a night and that was the cheapest place we found!

Quick update so peeps don't think we got lost in the Jungle!
We are back in La Paz after a week in Rurre including two days in the rainforest. The boat trip there and back was fun but the Jungle itself was..... shall we say, underwhelming.


We had a 2.5 hour boat trip up the river to a pretty basic camp in the rainforest close to the river. There were two other people on the trip, an English guy who perpetuated the "whinging Pom" stereotype and an Australian guy who was travelling with him.
We went for a few walks through the rainforest. Sweated lots. Didn't see many animals apart from a cheeky spider-monkey who came into the dining room and stole some food and a Tarantula!

We were supposed to stay two nights but we were so dirty and sweaty, the water wasn't working in the toilets or shower and the bedroom was really dusty from the dirt floor so we decided one night was enough. In the morning before going back to town we went further up the river and walked 20 minutes to a cliff face with Macaw nesting holes. Then walking back to the boat we had to stop and be really quiet to not attract the attention of a group of white-lipped peccaries (Pigs). Luckily they didn't have any piglets with them so weren't agressive.

Back in Rurre we checked into the only hotel in town with a swimming pool and lazed around reading until our flight back to La Paz.

Heading off tonight to Uyuni in Southern Bolivia on an overnight bus to do a 3 day trip across the "world's largest" saltflat and then hotfooting it to Chile so not sure when the next update will be possible.
Sarah wants everyone to know that we will be on the salt flats for her Birthday and therefore uncontactable for Birthday wishes.

The Amazon part of Bolivia is 300km north of La Paz with the town of Rurrenabaque the main stop off point for tours etc. It’s a bumpy 16+ hour bus trip on appalling roads so we decided to fly both ways. Apparently almost everyone who goes there by bus returns by air the bus is that bad!
Took a taxi 20 minutes to the airport back up on the Altiplano. The airport is quite small for an international airport. Apart from a couple of regional airlines I think only Lufthansa flies direct to Europe.
Our plane to Rurrenabaque was quite small. Only 18 seats or so and everyone had a window seat. The aisle was narrow and not high enough to stand up in so quite tricky for some of the taller passengers to get to their seats.
The flight over the Andes was too cloudy to see any scenery and after a little turbulence over some ridges the 45 minutes flight was over quickly as we approached the landing strip. I could see the strip ahead through the cockpit and it was a bit unnerving to see a distant field of grass with a little brown strip running along it and the difficulty the pilot was having in keeping it in line with the plane!
We landed safely and had to wait for the bus with the next load of passengers to arrive. The plane couldn’t land at Rurrenabaque because the Landing strip was too muddy so we landed at Reyes, 20 km away.
After an hour waiting for the plane to leave for the return trip to La Paz they finally loaded us on a bus to Rurrenabaque and after a 20 minute detour into Reyes to pick up some cold drinks for the driver and airport staff we bumped our way towards Rurre for a dusty hour.
After the high altitude of the last couple of weeks, the lowlands were very hot and humid. Felt like 40 degrees with 100% Humidity. We found a hostel with a fan and after dinner settled in for a sweltering night.

I had the idea that Rurrenabaque was pretty much a “tourist town” but apart from every third shop selling tours to the Jungle or the Pampas (wetlands) there wasn’t a lot of typical tourist infrastructure. (Picture to the left is a friendly fellow we met in an Internet Cafe.) We practiced our Spanish enquiring about Jungle tours as 4 of the 5 operators we asked at didn’t speak any English at all. The Pampas are apparently where it’s at to see wildlife but the Mosquitos are really bad, it’s a 3 hour drive on the road we had arrived on from Reyes to get there and you spend most of the time on the boat so we had decided to do a Jungle tour. Found an operator who would arrange one for us but insisted that 2 days wasn’t enough time and a 3 day tour was needed. We had a week until the return flight to La Paz so we agreed on this and will be leaving Saturday morning.

Checked out of the hostel and had some breakfast in town. Had a couple of hours to kill before getting the bus so had a wander along the shore of the lake. Lots of garbage but it’s quite pretty along the shoreline.

Bus trip was about 4 hours broken by a ferry trip across part of the lake. The passengers all went in little motor boats but the bus was put on a tiny barge which looked worryingly top heavy.
It got to the other side without capsizing though and we continued our journey.
Leaving Copacabana we had travelled over some high mountains but now we were back on the flat Altiplano which continued with incredible snow topped mountains in the not so far distance until we reached the outlying suburbs of La Paz.
La Paz itself is down off the Altiplano so it was quite spectacular when the road suddenly plunged down the side of a previously unseen valley to reveal the city below.

We stayed a couple of nights in Laz Paz. We both were feeling a little sick (I think our breakfast juice in Copacabana might have been mixed with tap-water) so didn’t see much of the city yet. We were staying near the “Witches Market” which was a street with stalls selling all kinds of herbal remedies and potions and trinkets including dried Llama fetuses which are supposedly good luck.
There are also many Guitar shops and we bought one for Sarah as she has been missing playing. (It’s her Birthday on the 18th) It’s a little smaller than full sized and weighs almost nothing so shouldn’t be too inconvenient to carry.

Another early rise and we headed off across the island. The return boat was at 1.30pm and we had an 8 kilometre walk to the north end of the island and then return to the village of Cha’llapampa for the boat.
A kilometre along the path we came to another ticket booth and a man tried to sell us two tickets each. One for visiting the Temple of The Sun ruins (10Bs) which we were planning to walk to and another (5Bs) which I think was for the north part of the island but was covered by the ruin ticket anyway. I think he was just trying to rip us off so we paid for the ruin tickets and were on our way.
The walk was quite easy for the most part but had a few steep bits up hills. We were attacked by some kind of Plover at one stage.
After a couple of hours we reached the northern end of the island and explored the Chincana ruins which were quite interesting. Lots of little rooms and tunnels running between them.
Nearby was Titicaca Rock/Rock of the Puma which according to Inca mythology is the birthplace of the Sun God Viracocha and the first Incas Manco Capac and Mama Huaca. I expected the rock to be carved or something but it was simply a small overhang. On the walk back to Ch’allapamapa we stopped at the ‘ruins’ of The Temple of the Sun which was a nice high peak with views of the sunrise and sunset over the lake but no ruins! Not sure what happened there, they are marked on all the maps and they don’t mention that there is no actual ruins to see. The Spanish were pretty keen on destroying any kind of sun-worshiping temples as being blasphemous so they might have had a go at this one.
We arrived at Ch’allapampa with a couple of hours to kill before the boat left. The town was not as nice as Yumani as it was at lake level, built on and around an isthmus and was very sandy and hot. The beaches were not that clean with weed and pigs all over although the water did look inviting. A few backpackers were sunbaking in bikinis while waiting for the boat. We had some lunch and enquired about boat tickets. There were two boats leaving at 1.30pm and both would be stopping at the south end for an hour before returning to Copacabana via the crappy fake floating islands at 5pm! We didn’t fancy taking that long to get back and sitting around doing nothing for an extra hour on the boat. Luckily we found another boat operator who was charging the same fee (20Bs) for a direct trip which would only take 2 hours. We got back to Copacabana at 3.40pm feeling quite tired but happy with our achievement having walked 13km yesterday and another 12 today. On the way back to our hostel we stopped at a ticket agent and picked up bus tickets for Las Paz leaving 1.30pm tomorrow.
We gave Copacabana Coffee House another chance that evening ordering a couple of hot chocolates. They had strange names on the menu and I did check with the waitress that they were chocolat calientes (hot chocolate) before I ordered but mine turned up as an Iced Chocolate with mostly chocolate icecream and Sarah’s was a luke-warm chocolate drink made with what tasted like cooking chocolate. Such a shame because the first coffee we got there was quite good.

Isla Del Sol (Island of the Sun)

Woke up early and packed our bags to head for Isla Del Sol. We were able to leave our Packs at the hostel so just had day packs for the walk. You can take boats direct from Copacabana but we thought it would be more fun to walk 17 km along the lake shore to Yampupata and get a boat across from there.
We arrived at Copacabana Coffee House for our morning Coffee at 7.40am to find the guy who told us they opened at 7am mopping the front tiles. We went to walk inside and he yelled at us to not walk on the tiles. “Are you open?” We asked. “10 minutes” he replied. So we went elsewhere for our Coffee.

The walk out of town was initially through paddocks along the lakeside and through a couple of villages before climbing inland through Eucalyptus forest. We collected a small dog a couple of km from town who we named Foxy because he was fairly slinky when he ran. After crossing a fairly high ridge (*puff puff*) we descended back to the lake and passed another village with some fake Islas Flotantes, floating reed islands like are found on the Peru side of Lake Titicaca. However, people don’t live like that in Bolivia so these were the Disney version purely as a tourist trap. I think most of the boats coming back from Isla Del Sol stop there and we were harassed by three separate people from the village to come and see them.
Walking on having gone about 13 km we were greeted by Hilario Paye who features in Lonely Planet and is described as “a colourful character who will happily take you on a ride on his puma-headed reed boat, or for a trip in his motorboat”. Along with a couple of American backpackers who were there, we opted for the motorboat to Isla Del Sol option. Foxy, who had followed us for the last 10km sadly sat on the end of the dock as we pulled out. The boat was quite small and although enclosed there was only glass in 2 of the 6 windows so we got a little splashed on the half hour trip to the island.
Arriving at a small dock on the south end of the island we alighted and waved goodbye to Hilario hoping he would make it home ok as his outboard motor had stopped 3 times in the last 10 minutes.
A small boy hit us up for 5 Bolivianos ($1 AUD) each as we left the dock which is a fee for visiting the South End of the Island. We passed some uninspiring Inca Ruins which we barely glanced at as we were keen to get to accommodation and find somewhere for lunch. It was another couple of kilometres walk up the hill and along the ridge to Yumani which is the largest town on the island. It is quite high on the hillside and top of the ridge so most places have a great view out over the lake. We chose a place just over the ridge which had an uninterrupted view all the way back to Peru. We checked in and went to a nearby restaurant for lunch. Two small boys who were playing inside when we arrived came over after a few minutes and took our order. Was amusing to watch them fetch our large beer out of the fridge and discuss the best way to open it. We were wondering if they were going to cook our meals as well but they fetched mum from across the road for that.
Following a welcome afternoon nap we climbed the nearby hill (4068m) to watch the sunset. There was a small group of people doing the same thing along with a local woman armed with a Llama which she was pestering people to take photos of. (for a fee of course) When she didn’t have willing customers she started dragging the poor Llama into the background as people lined up their photo shots.
The sunset was magnificent and we watched the last of it from the hostel balcony.

We were happy to not have to set the alarm clock so woke up quite a bit later than planned at 11am. Guess we will be staying a second night at this hostel!
Had a walk around town and got some breakfast and a Coffee at Copacabana Coffee House. Great Coffee but lousy service. We asked what time they opened (7am) so we could come back early the next morning.
There is a prominent hill on the north side of town which has a great view from the top so we went for a climb. The hill is only 166 metres high but when the town is at 3800m it still takes a while to slowly gasp your way to the top!
The views were fantastic. We were overlooking the whole town and across Titicaca lake and had a good view of Isla Del Sol where we are planning to go tomorrow.
Going up the hill we passed lots of large crosses and the top of the hill is covered in little shrines where people can make offerings and further along the hill is a large number of stalls selling minature vehicles, cars, houses and money which you can purchase to take a little way down the hill with the beer, flower petals, confetti etc you purchased from the other stalls to pray that these items will come to you in the following year. We bought 1 Million Dollars! In a little case for Sarah’s brother Beau who collects notes from around the world. I wanted to go and bless it with the beer spraying pilgrims but Sarah wouldn’t let me. Sorry Beau.


Bolivia Facebook album link