La Serena & Santiago

" We used to build civilizations. Now we build shopping malls."
~Bill Bryson

Wednesday, November 27th 2008

I spent 3 days in the beach town of La Serena and longer than I planned in Santiago. The stop in La Serena was planned ahead, but getting there at 23:00pm wasn't so it was no wander that the hotel we depended on was full and we had to crash the night at another one, slightly more expensive, that our helpful taxi driver helped us find. I didn't do much in the the town proper other than to walk the beautiful streets around the city center, catching glimpses of the white beaches and shopping around for various bits and bytes. My visit had three peek points - the first one was a simple lunch of fresh bread, Philadelphia cream cheese and German pickles which was pure joy in the small hostel garden. The second attraction was a visit to a nearby star observatory, called Mamalluca, where between 23:00pm and 2:00am I got a great guided tour of the sky and had a chance to peer down powerful telescopes and see first hand the magnificent views of outer space. The third peek point was a visit to the local shopping mall - a place I usually dislike but looked like a modern wonder after the long months of small shops and markets of Peru and Bolivia. After soaking enough sun and civilization (and buying a tent) I joined Kathy and Dennis for the bus to Santiago.

I enjoyed Santiago mainly due to Sammy. Or more precisely Charles, who use to own Sammy, an Australian Cattle Dog, until he lost him to cancer few years ago. Charles came to Santiago from the US five years ago and started Hostel de Sammy in Santiago where he successfully achieved to live up to his vision of staying at the hostel that is much like staying at a friends house where you have a comfortable place in which you can rest after a long trip. For a moderate fee I got a great bed, great free breakfast, pool table, table football, at least 4 actually working computers with fast Internet, and a living room with hundreds of movies to choose from - making Sammy the best Hostel I stayed in South America so far. Add a short excursion to a nearby park for a few days, great subway system and the best places to gear up for my second part of my adventure where I expected to carry everything on my back - and the time flow a lot faster than I anticipated. I played a lot of pool, got hooked to the Internet and said goodbye to Kathy and Dennis after more than a month of traveling together on the morning of December 6th when they left for the Easter Islands. I found new friends in the hostel and went to the bohemian town of Valparaiso with them, where I met old friends from Huaraz: Gilli and Harel and returned to hostel Sammy after one night disliking the town despite the praise it got from the lonely planet and different web sites. I stayed another 2 days in Santiago and continued south with Gilli and Harel as my new/old traveling companions. It was a well deserved stop and if you ever come by Santiago, I hope that Charles and his hostel will still be there for you as well...

Pan de Azucar

"Ocean: A body of water occupying two-thirds of a world made for man - who has no gills." ~Ambrose Bierce

Monday, November 24th to Wednesday, November 26th 2008

I left the desert town of San Pedro de Acatama on early Monday morning with Dennis and Kathy in a surprisingly comfortable bus that drove us 10 hours to the small fishing town of chañaral. Our destination was the Pan de Azucar national park which was chosen due to it's location about half way between the Atacma desert and Santiago. As the bus dropped us in the small bus terminal we were approached by a friendly man who offered information and transportation to the park. Being a little suspicious we ask about an economy hostel instead and he offered to take us to one - a short drive away. Having nothing to lose we boarded the banged up van and found ourselves in a very nice hotel, with a little quirky owner and nice recently redecorated rooms with good shower. Feeling safer we sat down with José, our driver, in the small kitchen and accepted his reasonable offer for transportation and camping in the park for the next morning. After a visit to the town well stocked supermarket for provisions and buying the bus tickets for the town of La Serena 2 days ahead, we ate a good spaghetti dinner and retired to bed. We boarded José's van again next morning, stopping briefly for water and gasoline for the stove, for the 40 minutes drive to the park entrance. At the entrance we were given a short tour of the excellent camping site and were left to our own devices looking at the breaking waves and the Pan de Azucar island 2km away.

We set up our tents and after a short visit to the CONAF information center we headed down the closest trail that led to the park mirador. We left the main road to the left preferring the small trails amongst the rocks above the stormy sea below - a great feeling after being away from the sea for long I forgot how good it is to fill your lungs with salty air... the small trail ended after 20 minutes on a small cliff above a bay filled with boats from a nearby tiny fishermen village. After admiring the view we descended to the village, passing it and the goals who filled the beach feeding on leftover fish and joined the main road again. What followed next was a long boring walk on what seemed to be an endless dirt road. Although passing in a familiar desert scenery (the ocean was obscured at this point) I wanted the road to end and walked as fast as I could to the intersection with the narrower mirador trail where I waited for Kathy and Dennis. As we hiked up the gently climbing trail the scenery started to change and we found ourselves in a huge cacti field - a weird place considering that the ocean was less than 1km away over the hill we climbed. Finally we got to the top and found that our efforts were worth it - we had a great view of the shore line with the Island on one side and towering cliffs on the other and waves breaking on the granite reefs below us. We ate a little and rested on the top and decided that we prefer to walk along the shore, a much difficult unmarked route, than to walk down the dirt road again. The descend down to the beach was much harder than it looked from above with few sections of loose rocks that clamored down as we stepped on them, but we made it safely to the bottom. The next 3 hours were pure pleasure of traversing the granite rocks that the beach was made of - walking between colorful crabs and giants lizards and with big waves breaking mere meters from were we stood. The rocky beach was finally replaced by soft sand which we crossed as we headed back to the small village and our camping site. After another great spaghetti dinner (this time cooked on Dennis new gasoline stove) we went to sleep in our tents. With soft sand below me, the sounds of the ocean and a little tired after the long walk I slept soundly for more than 12 hours waking up at around 11am just in time to get organized, pack up and board the van back to to chañaral where our bus to La Serena waited for us...

Chile

"The end of the human race will be that it will eventually die of civilization." ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Saturday, November 22nd 2008

Shortly after I left the Bolivian border post at the edge of the crazy desert plateau, the road changed from bumpy dirt road to a modern highway clearly signed and with emergency stops at regulars intervals during the steep descend from the Altiplano to the Atacama desert. And just like that with a touch of black asphalt, I found myself in Chile. The Chilean border post was orderly and as my baggage was thoroughly checked I wondered where I am and what happened to South America... I write this blog more than month after the events detailed above and by retrospective I can tell that the crossing point into the small town of San Pedro de Acatama was a turning point in my South American adventure. Coincidentally almost in the middle of the trip, I left the Andean countries of Peru & Bolivia and entered a completely different realm in Chile and Argentina. The first change was noticeable as soon as I hit the town in the searing afternoon sun looking for a cold drink. The prices were much higher than in neighboring Bolivia and the fact that 1000 CLP is about 1.5 USD made all the prices look even much higher. The next sign of change happened when I went to the ATM to withdraw money, the ATM booth was air conditioned! something that wasn't available even in the sweltering hot city of Rurrenabaque, Bolivia. In the following days I found that Chile is much more "civilized" with shopping malls, well marked national parks and well stocked supermarkets. My eating habits were changed from eating in restaurants to buying products and cooking in the well equipped hostels kitchens - and my stomach was thanking me for it (and for those who know me, yes that means that I made a heck of a lot spaghetti bolognese...). I also found that the organized attractions such as rappelling, body rafting or horseback riding no longer hold interest for me and I prefer the basic hiking in nature with camping equipment and food on my back and a few good friends at my side. Last but not least, another big change was separating from Oded, who was travelling with me since Lima and wanted to explore north Argentina, and continuing south with Dennis and Kathy. The only thing that remained the same is the my broken Spanish since even in Chile almost no one speaks English (The Chilean although very nice warm people, insist of speaking incredibly fast without opening their mouth - making them impossible to understand). And so I went on, traveling in comfortable buses (another change) to tour the wild coasts, glaciers, volcanoes, mountains, lakes and forests that Chile has to offer... details coming soon....

Salt flats, colorful lagoons and volcanoes

“When life hands you lemons - break out the tequila and salt”
~Anonymous

Thursday, November 20th to Saturday, November 22nd 2008

The 3 days 4wd ride from the small town of Uyuni, Bolivia to the Chilean border is usually referred to as "The Salar" although you spend only 1 day in the Salar itself and the trip includes a lot more. It is incredibly popular and breathtakingly beautiful, one of those places where nature did such a great job that even tourists can't spoil it... It is also, in contrast to other places I've been, amazingly accessible to everybody - it's cheap, comfortable ride and the only hardships on the way are the altitude and the harsh cold air when you leave the heated car. I shared the car with 5 others: Oded, Kathy and Dennis, my old travel buddies, and Gili and Harel, who I trekked with at Huaraz, and joined us in Potosi to the uncomfortable bus ride who dropped us in the middle of the night in the small cold town of Uyuni. After knocking on some doors and finding a place for a short sleep, we woke up early and by 9:00 we already closed the deal with an agency recommended by other Israelis we met in the small town square. We bought water, loaded our bags to a rather new red colored Toyota land cruiser and got a stamp in our passport that we left Bolivia on Nov 22nd - 3 days in he future...

The first day started with a short drive to the locomotive cemetery near Uyuni. Dozens of old steam locomotives who once carried the mineral wealth of the Andes to the rest of the world just stand there at the end of the tracks as they were left many years ago, preserved by the dry desert air. We wondered between the relics, climbing on them and trying to reproduce classic western scenes by running on top (harder than it looks..) finally returning to our jeep. Our next stop was at the salt processing fields where locals mine the salts for local use - building small heaps of salts on the edge of the great flat. We continued down the road deeper and deeper into the white plains with the mountains around us looking like floating islands. In the middle of nothing we stopped again near an ugly black scar. This was the place where 5 Israeli girls and a local driver where killed in a terrible accident few months back. There was a small memorial site and we stood silently near it for a few minutes. The silence continued as we got back to the car but for a different reason: we were deep enough in the Salar and the place started to work it's magic. It doesn't matter what the guidebooks say, or how many photos of the place I've seen, nothing can be compared to the huge flat, blinding white surface that stretched around us hundreds of kilometers in every direction. Our driver navigated the vehicle over the featureless terrain until he pulled over near a small island where we would eat our lunch. The island was another wonder, an old reef, now covered with cacti that had a short hiking route that we walked while our food was being cooked enjoying the magnificent views composed of the Salar, the island's cacti and the volcanoes far on the horizon. After the walk and lunch we spend a few hours taking all kind of weird photographs exploiting the lack of perspective induced by the smooth white background. When we got tired we continued to our first lodge: a small hotel build from salt (everything including the tables and beds!) on the edge of the Salar. We drank tea and than Dennis and myself climbed the small ridge behind the hotel to catch the sunset before returning for dinner, a friendly game of cards and retiring to sleep.

On the next morning the group split. Some stay to sleep, others went into the Salar to see the sunrise while Dennis and myself climb the ridge again, playing hide and seek with big rabbits and enjoying the views offered by the first rays of dawn reflecting on the mirror like flats. After the early show we all boarded the jeep, left the Salar behind us and entered the Bolivian high desert heading towards one of the region's many active volcanoes. We stopped in the volcano mirador to gaze on the smoking giant, walked around in an old lava field and continued to visit a series of lagoons inhabited by pink flamingos . Just seeing the lagoons amids the colorful desert mountains was enough but for some reason mother nature decided to add the flamingos to the place to make the experience more special... After the lagoon we stopped at the "rock garden" where we saw and climbed strange rock formations surrounded by soft sand. But it seem that all of this was not enough, and on a whim, nature created an even a greater wonder: Lagona Colorada - a huge lake colored in deep blue, red white and turquoise with hundreds of flamingos - a place weird and impressive as it sounds... we ended the second day in a small hotel near the this natural world wonder after our driver informed us that tomorrow's wake up is at 4:30am.

After the early wake up we drove though the dark cold desert which reminded me similar drives back home, seeing the shadows of the mountains and the dust curling up in the jeep high beams as we covered the distance in the pre-dawn desert. But than the scenery changed and we entered a place that didn't look like it belong on earth. The horizon was covered with smoke and steam produced by a geyser field - where we run between the boiling mud pools, geysers and clouds of steam who all looked surreal in the slanted rays of sunrise. Cold but thrilled we returned to the jeep who took us to eat near another lagoon with hot springs, that were too cold for me but still gave great view of steam engulfed lagoon... we continued through more lagoons and flamingos to the last big lake: Lagona Verda - a green lagoon which reflected perfectly the volcano above it and the surrounding mountains. The ride ended few kilometers later on the Bolivian border post where we boarded a bus to Chile and watched from the window as a lone fox searched for food in the insane land of salt, lagoons flamingos and geysers...

The Potosi silver mines

"The most pitiful among men is he who turns his dreams into silver and gold."
~Kahlil Gibran

Wednesday, November 19th 2008

After finishing all the shopping and sending a big package home, it was time to take my backpack (which was considerably lighter now) and leave La Paz. The next destination was Salar de Uyuni, the famous salt flats, but there was another small detour on the way, the remote city of Potosi. Founded in 1546 as a mining town, it soon produced fabulous wealth, becoming one of the largest cities in the Americas and the world with a population exceeding 200,000 people. During that time it was also one of the richest cities in the world. But after 1800 the silver mines became depleted, making tin the main product. This eventually led to a slow economic decline. Still, the mountain continues to be mined for silver to this day. Due to poor worker conditions (lack of protective equipment from the constant inhalation of dust), the miners still have a short life expectancy with most of them dying around 40 years of age. It is estimated that in the past years roughly 8 million Indians died, "eaten" by the Cerro de Potosi— sometimes referred to as the Cerro Rico ("rich mountain").

Today the big mining companies have left the town and the local mines are operated by small groups of local miners who work collectively to produce what little silver that is still left under the ground. In an effort to find another source of income the city now uses the active mines as a tourist attraction. I reached Potosi early in the morning with Oded, Kathy and Dennis. We spent most of the morning waiting for the agencies to open up and looking for bathroom. finally at around 8:00 one of the agencies opened and we registered for a 5 hours tour that was supposed to start in half an hour. Since we were hungry, we went to eat breakfast in a nearby restaurant but although we explained to the owner that we are in a hurry, she took her time bringing out the food and I ended up running outside with an apple pie in a doggy bag. We boarded a small bus with about 20 other tourists and were taken to a receive our equipment that was composed of rubber boots, rubber jacket, over pants and a helmet with mining light. The next stop was to buy TNT. As it turns out, you can by TNT and detonators in the small market in Potosi. You don't need any certificate or special identification, in fact, many children come to by supplies for their fathers, brothers and uncles - including cases of dynamite. The reason we needed the TNT was that it is customary to give the miners you meet gifts and the best ones are explosives and soft drinks. After the shopping spree we returned to the bus and headed for the mines stopping for a short time in one of the plants to see how the local ore is processed

We spent the next few hours crawling in the tight dusty tunnels, smelling the gases of recent explosions and talking with real miners at their workplace. The first thing that comes to mind are the coal mines in Victorian times England. In Potosi, like England back than, you can find whole families (included teenagers) working hours and hours underground. It is hard to pass in writing how bad the working conditions are, how dusty and claustrophobic the mines are and how hard it is to stand hours and hours every days drilling by hand holes for the TNT, sorting the rubble and pushing the heavy loaded carts. I've been inside for only 2-3 hours and I was extremely happy when I saw the light in the end of the tunnel. Our tour in the mines started with a visit to the small mine museum which among other things included a statue of the "Devil of the mine" ,similar to other statues that are present in nearby mines, and that the miners treat with minerals, cigarettes the money. As we continued deeper, we saw up close and personal the men who works the mines and by talking to them learned that the main reason they work here is because of lack of alternatives but also due to the tradition that in the mining families put the family work in the mines before education or a chance for better life for the next generation.
We finally left mine to enjoy the sunlight and fresh air, blow up our remaining TNT (under the supervision of our guides) and returned to town to eat lunch leaving behind us the men in the mines who were just starting their long day in the dark...

Today Potosi is dying. "When a mine closes, all that's left is a ghost town," says the city's mayor. I am not sure that this is a bad thing...

Jungle boat to La Paz

"Mosquitoes remind us that we are not as high up on the food chain as we think."
~Tom Wilson

Thursday, November 13th to Monday, November 17th 2008

As you might remember I didn't want to get to Rurre by boat so I booked a round trip flight. Well, in Bolivia not everything goes according to plans... I returned from the Pampas on Monday, spent Tuesday in the pool and got myself a seat on the flight that leaves on Wednesday noon. However, Wednesday started with a tropical storm that flooded the local airfield canceling all flights for at least 2 days or more if it keeps raining. Not wanting to take a chance with the weather or the local buses, I went for the third option: a 4 days boat trip that includes jungle treks and than a 6-7 hours jeep ride to La Paz on the fifth day. My partners for this journey where Oded, Dennis and Kathy who were with me in the Pampas and two Swiss girls named Corin and Marilla who we met at Rurre. Early Thursday morning we went to the Flecha Tours office to meet our guide and help carry our equipment to the local port where we loaded it on a canoe with rather comfortable seats and a roof which was a nice addition in face of the dark grey sky. We spent 3 hours on the boat which were a little cold, but luckily not wet after which we unloaded the equipment at our first camp site. The first task we were charged with was building our camp. Unlike the previous jungle expeditions in which we slept in lodges - this time we'll sleep in the jungle proper. We started by taking bamboo sticks and striping the top layer of loose sand and dried leaves from a flat area about 5X5 meters in size. During this activity we found a nest of huge poisonous ants at the bottom of one of the trees adjacent to our planned campsite. Our guide didn't think to relocate and instead went to the boat and returned with gasoline which he used to start a small fire around to tree that hosted the hostile insects. While the ants burned, we finished clearing the camp ground and moved to phase II. In the second phase we built a frame using a machete, bamboo sticks and vines as ropes on which we stretched the blue plastic sheet so we will have a roof over our head. A black nylon for a floor and another construction to hold our mosquito nets finished our makeshift home. When the camp was ready we sat down to eat lunch that was cooked while we worked and than took our water bottles and went into the forest. Our guide, a native Indian from the Amazonian basin near the Brazilian border, explained about the different medicinal plants as well as about the different edible plants and how we can use that information to find different animals. As always, we were lucky enough to see some monkeys again. After 3 hours we returned to the camp to eat and set out again for a 3 and a half hours night walk with our flashlights in which we caught a glimpse of the night monkey - the only type of monkey that lives in this part of the world that we didn't see so far.

The second day started with breakfast and a long walk to a panoramic view point from which we scanned the surrounding jungle and than returned to camp. During our walk our boat driver was replaced with a new driver that had the necessary experience to navigate the treacherous river up ahead. The boat took us to our next camp, a little plateau near the river that was the home of a local Indian family. We said hello to the family and build our camp next to their home. We than returned to the boat and went fishing or more correctly our guide with the help of Oded, who volunteered to help, went fishing using a big net they borrowed from the Indians, while we watched them from the boat. After 20 minutes Oded returned proudly holding 3 fish but as it turned out somebody had a bigger fish to fry: the sand flies that had been bothering us all day caught Oded in his shorts wading through the shallow water and made a meal out of him. The nasty insects whose bite is bigger and much more scratchy than mosquito, covered his legs with more than 50 bites. I had few bites already on my lower legs and hands and felt sorry for each one - getting so many didn't looked like fun... We gave one fish to the locals and our cook prepared one of the other fish for us, but we also had spaghetti bolognese and the fish had a lot of bones - so nobody really ate them. Our boat driver suggested that we'll leave our bags in the boat for the night instead of carrying them up to the camp but since I left my big bag in La Paz and I needed most of the things in my small one for the night I decided to take it with me.

We were waken up a little early than we planned by Kathy who got up to brush her teeth and found that during the night water got into the boat and that all the bags that were left in it were soaked in water. Since Oded and myself had only a small bag and it was with us, and Marilla carried her bag up, it meant that only Dennis, Kathy and Corin bags suffered from this unfortunate accident. When we took the boat to nearby beach to dry everything, we found how bad things were,especially for Dennis and Kathy who lost an Ipod, many documents and their expensive crystal down were irrecoverably damaged. Dennis, who worked in a camping store before the trip, had a lot of good expensive gear and now all of it was scattered across the beach wet and damaged. This incident ruined our morning and Dennis and Kathy preferred to stay on the beach despite the heat and sand flies and watch over their equipment while we crossed the river and entered a virgin plot of jungle. We hacked our trail using a machete and search for wild pigs that we heard in the distance but failed to find them. As a consolation prize we got a rare view of a couple of majestic macaws from few meters away. Our guide showed us how we can drink purified water directly from a special kind of vine and we returned to our boat. We picked up Dennis and Kathy and continued to make our camp near a small gold finders settlement stopping on the way in a beautiful natural pool for a well needed shower. We spent the entire 4th day on the boat sailing against hard current and hard to navigate river in strong rain stopping in a small village for lunch (and witnessing a drunk fight while waiting for it) our next stop was to see how gold in found. Since it was a Sunday the main sites have been deserted, but our guide stopped near an old gold digger and his wife who were kind enough to show us how it's done. Basically you fill a little wooden bowl with dirt and than you take it to the river and wash it slowly until all that is left is one or two gold specks barely visible to the human eye - not exactly a "get rich quick" scheme. We finally reached our destination, a sandy beach near a small village accessible by road where we build our last camp and warmed ourselves next to a big bonfire. In the morning we said goodbye to our guide and cook and traded our boat for a rather new Toyota station wagon with four wheel drive. Our driver drove like crazy on the narrow beautiful dirt road and after long hard 7 hours ride during which we asked him more than once to lower his speed, dropped us off back at our hostel in La Paz.

Pampas

"You must have crossed the river before you tell the crocodile he has bad breath."
~Anonymous

Saturday, November 8th to Monday, November 10th 2008

In the course of my travels, I met several people who told me about the Pampas of Rio Yacuma , a lowland wetland area near Rurrenabaque. Most mentioned the place as the best place to see wildlife in South America, especially in the dry season which, luckily, was the time of year I reached Rurre. Since I didn't want to get stuck in the city, I started looking for partners for the trip on the same day I landed. I was with Oded, Arishi and Tanya who were with me from Peru, but the agency we wanted to set out with, had a hard minimum of 6 people per boat. I spend the day in town trying to get partners but I found too few or too many (there was also a maximum of 8 people for boat). At 20:00 in the evening we were 5: the original 4 and a girl named Rotem who joined us at our hostel. We convinced the agency (Flecha Tours) to agree to take us on on the premise that they may add others if they find them. As soon as we left Flecha, we saw across the street our 3 German friends from the death road: Dennis, Kathy and Peter. Since we didn't want to risk the addition of unwelcome personas to our boat, we "jumped" them and although they were weary from the long ride to town, they agreed to join us setting our final number to 8. So, on Saturday morning, eight of us, along with our guide Rambo and cook, piled into a four-by-four for the three-hour ride to the Rio Yacuma. When the ride ended we disembarked from the land cruiser and help carry the equipment to the river bank where we found that we are getting a new boat - but we have to push into the water first.. We needed the help of almost everyone around to push the heavy canoe into the shallow river and only then we loaded it and climbed in. The canoe was similar to the one we had in the Manu park but narrower and without a roof to protect us from the rain and blazing sun who already stood high in the sky.

We started to slowly float down the river and almost immediately saw a crocodile and after looking for one in the dark in Manu, we were excited to see one in daylight and took some pictures. Short distance after the crocodile we met our first capibara - the largest rodent in the world. We searched for this critter as well in Manu but all we found was footprints so it was a Kodak moment again... we continue down the river and than we started spotting another crocodile and than another and whole families of capibaras.. the river bed was full of animals and birds including eagles, herons, darters and the massive 'Condor of the Pampas' (which is not a condor at all). The large amount of animals was due to the fact that this was the end of the dry season so the river was very low and the rest of the pampas almost dry, forcing all the wildlife to concentrate on river as a source of water and food. Unfortunately the low river also meant that our loaded boat can't pass in many places forcing us to walk beside it or push it in the crocodile infested water. The slow wading through the shallow river brought us very late to our lodge which was not as plush as the one we had in Manu, but it had running water and good food. Before getting to bed we boarded the boat again and went looking again for crocodile eyes, finding them easily. Rambo went off the boat and caught a small croc for a short "show and tell" session (after he verified that the mother is not near...) before returing to the lodge and going to sleep.

The next day we woke up early due to the racket made by the howler monkeys and after breakfast started on foot through the pampas looking for the uncrowned king of the plains - the mighty anaconda. At first we had luck, shortly after reaching the first search spot, a small lake, we found a 3 meter long venomous cobra. Our guide held the snake so we can see it better - not a trivial thing since the snake venom can kill you in 2 hours and we were at least 3 hours by boat from the nearest doctor. But after the cobra our luck changed. We searched for hours in the blazing heat with nothing to show for it other than a pair of giant toads and small cuts on my hands that I got after I fell from a tree trunk that served as bridge over a small swamp. In the last minute before returning to camp, we split up and Arishi found the anaconda sleeping under a tree on the river bank. Our guide pulled the giant snake from its hiding place and after the necessary photo session we started to head back. We got back after exhausting 5 hours and immediately took a shower to cool down. After lunch and rest we were back in the boat and went fishing for piranhas which apparently can be easily found in the river we walked barefoot to push our boat. We didn't have a lot of luck with the fishing, with the exception of Oded who caught two small catfish and one piranha out of the three that we were able to fish. We than took the boat to see the sunset from a place called the Sunset bar where I enjoyed a cold coke on a high wooden platform above the river. Luckily we were also able to see some monkeys along the way.

On our last day we woke up early to see the sunrise. As we returned to our boat, we found a giant black caiman waiting next to it which was of course a great opportunity to feed and pet this dangerous animal. When we were tired of playing with our new friend, we sailed further up the river to look for more animals but after seeing a couple of coatis it started to rain so we returned to the safety of the lodge early and rested until lunch. After lunch we played with a band of squirrel monkeys who literally at out of hands and saw toucans in the trees above us. When the sky cleared a bit, we loaded our bags on the boat going 4 hours to the starting point stopping at one deep point to swim with pink river dolphins. After unloading the boat we took the 3 hours jeep ride back to Rurre, thanking all the people who sent us for this wildlife heaven.

Rurrenabaque

"Look closely at Central America, and try to imagine what would happen if this vital region were to fall into Communist hands. What would happen is a lot of Communists would be stung repeatedly by vivious tropical insects the size of mature hamsters."
~Dave Barry

Friday, November 7th 2008

Rurrenabaque, or Rurre as the locals calls it, is a hazy small town on the banks of the Beni river near the the Madidi biosphere reserve. The place got famous mainly amongst Israelis and later internationally when in the early 1980s an adventurer named Yossi Ghinsberg moved off the beaten track of backpackers and went into the jungle. He got separated from his group and wandered lost in the jungle for 25 days. He was near starvation when he was rescued and taken back to Rurre. The book he wrote about his adventure called "Back from Tuichi" inspired a whole generation of Israelis to follow in his footsteps and perhaps was responsible for the strong "after the army" backpacking movement that is still sweeping through South America today. Nowadays Rurre is famous as an entry point for the nearby Madidi jungle or Pampas swamps. After my experience on the death road and my knowledge of Bolivian driving style, I didn't felt like risking my skin again in a 18-23 hours ride in one of the tin cans the locals calls bus, so I booked a round trip flight from La Paz and hoped that they fly better than they drive..

The flight was scheduled for Friday noon, but as I got back to my hotel on Thursday night, I found a message from the travel agency that it was moved to 7:30 in the morning and that the airport transport will pick me up at 6:00am. Still drowsy from the early wake up I boarded the small van that drove for almost an hour through the insane traffic and dropped me off at the small airport located at staggering 4000m above sea level. After paying the airport tax I got my ticket and waited to board the plane who waited outside. No effort was made to check my luggage or that of the other passengers. Surprisingly the flight took off on time and was quite comfortable. I got a great view from the plane window of the Bolivian high plain called Altiplano, the impressive cliffs of the Yungas and the evergreen jungle with it's network of rivers below me. After little more than an hour the plane landed on a sandy runway with the wheels scraping the tops of the nearby palm trees. As soon as I entered the small terminal the place felt different than any other I visited so far. It seem that time itself moves slower here and together with the heat, the jungle covered mountains around and the street atmosphere, the place looks and feels more like a Central American resort - only the beach is missing. There are no Taxis to be found and almost no cars and the public transportation is made from river boats and Mototaxis - a motorcycle who takes you to and from the small airport or the mirador pool - the two only places that you can't walk to in less than 5 minutes. Other than small hotels and traveling agencies, Rurre also offers few good restaurants, a small french bakery (owned and operated by a french baker) and an American who sells great Falefel and banana bread on one of the street corners. I didn't stay long in the town and used it as a base for my Pampas and jungle expeditions but I enjoyed some good meals, good company and good sunset from the pool above the town during my short stay..

Biking down the Death Road

"I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference."
~Robert Frost

Thursday, November 6th 2008

The North Yungas Road is a 61 to 69 km road (depending on source) leading from La Paz to Coroico. It is legendary for its extreme danger and in 1995 the Inter-American Development Bank christened it as the "world's most dangerous road". One estimate is that 200-300 travelers were killed yearly along the road. In 2006 a new road replaced the old one which now have much lesser traffic. The danger of the road ironically made it a popular tourist destination starting in the 1990s, drawing some 25000 thrill seekers.Mountain biking enthusiasts, in particular, have made it a favorite destination for downhill biking, since there is a 64 kilometers (40 mi) stretch of continuous downhill riding. Even more ironically all the guide books now list the road as a "must see" attraction... Well I can proudly say that I biked down the road and survived. Well, almost...

The first step down the road was, as always, to find a good agency to get you there. The "Radical Rides" was highly recommended for their equipment and safety so it was the one that was chosen. The activity starts, as always, by boarding a small van that takes you to the starting point- in this case the La Cumbre pass about 40 minutes outside La Paz. In the starting point, as always, I met the guides and got my equipment: bike, helmet, gloves, safety vest, goggles and knee guards. After a short practice on the bikes I started going down a fast paved road towards the Unduavi tourist checkpoint. This was a fast wide twisty road with nice mountains views. I went really fast downhill and the morning wind chilled my bones despite the good jacket I wore. Just before the checkpoint we got to a tunnel in the road which we had to circumvent using a narrow dirt road. It was quite a difference than the good asphalt I had under my wheels so far and as our guide said, a taste of things to come. I got safely to the checkpoint and paid the entrance fee, so far so good...

Shortly after things changed dramatically. We veered off the beaten path into a narrow dirt road hanging on the side of a 600m cliff that you just can't believe that it was once used as a two way road - you had to be insane to take a bus down that path with trucks coming in the other direction! The road was not only narrow but also had steep downhill grade and was a little muddy and wet with waterfalls flowing from the sides as the scenery changed from the high mountains to a lush green cloud forest. Luckily we had a good clear day and the view was not obscured by the fog the characterize the place. The fast pace dictated by the slope together with the bumpy road and many turns put a lot of strain on the hands trying to keep the bikes steady or pressing the brakes - it was a real hard work.. after a frantic 40 minutes we stopped for a short break. I took my goggles off as they bothered me a little and as we continued riding I forgot to put them on. When I noticed that I don't wear them, I kept my distance from the bike in front not wanting to catch a small flying stone in the face. I thought for a second that I can safely continue this way, but than I felt a sting in my left eye. I cursed myself for not taking flies into account and tried to put my goggles down with my right hand while trying to blink out the bug with my left eye. Big mistake. Huge. I almost immediately started to loose my balance and with my right hand on my helmet, the brakes were out of reach.. I did the only thing I could think of and crashed the bike with me on them. Luckily it was a relatively wide section of the road and I was far from the edge. Not so luckily there was a repair crew in that spot and my forward slide was stopped by a wheelbarrow that stood on the side of the road. I crashed head on into the cart - and from the loud bang sound I deduct that it was a good thing that I was wearing a helmet.

Cursing and swearing I got up, put my goggles on and continued biking. In the first few seconds I didn't felt anything but than a stinging sensation from my right hand told me that I hurt more than my pride in the fall. After about 5 minutes the group stopped for taking pictures and the guide immediately saw that I crashed. I told him that I was OK but as I posed for the picture I started to fill dizzy and was sent for recovery in the support vehicle. I drank a little water which made me fill better and my wound was cleaned with alcohol and bandaged. It turned out I earned a nice long cut on my right forearm which didn't bled much but stung as hell. After a 15 minutes rest the group stopped for snacks and I joined them insisting that I want to continue riding. The rest of the road was more of the same insane downhill action through the green cloud forest with hard turns and beautiful views. This time I took it more slowly and made sure that my goggles or sun glasses are protecting my eyes. It took less than 5 hours including stops for pictures and snacks to cover the 67km from the pass to bottom of the road where we boarded the van for a short ride to a nearby hotel to have our lunch and shower. In the hotel I met by chance two old friends from Huaraz: Gili and Harel and rested a little before we boarded the van on our way back to La Paz. On the way back I learned an important lesson: the Death Road was so dangerous not because of the conditions - but because of the Bolivian driving style...

La Paz, Bolivia

"Bolivia has the lowest GDP per capita figures in South America. The country is rich in natural resources, and has been called a "donkey sitting on a gold-mine" because of this." ~Wikipedia

Tuesday, November 4th 2008

The morning bus took me to the Bolivian border early in the morning. The border crossing to Bolivia is probably the easiest in the world, just get off the bus,wait 1 minute to sign off you passport in Peru and another one to sign in to Bolivia - you don't even need to take your bags from the bus! So just like that in two minutes I left Peru (which I enjoyed very much) and found myself in a new country famous for it's fast pickpockets, bad buses and Salmonella inducing food. I don't know about the other two, but the Bolivian bus I boarded in Copacabana (the Bolivian side of lake Titicaca) lived up to it's reputation. Luckily, he bus ride to La Paz took only 3 hours although along the way I had to disembark the bus and cross the lake on a small ferry boat while the bus crossed on a bigger one. The first look I got of the city was intimidating - the city is made of red brick houses tightly clustered together in a canyon created by the Choqueyapu River. The impression didn't got any better as the bus stopped in the center of town somewhere and I found myself standing in the craziest traffic I ever seen. If in Peru the drivers don't stop when you try to cross the street, here it looks as they try to run you over on purpose.. The fact that the center of town is in constant traffic jam does not help either... It was a good thing that I was already accustomed to South America - La Paz is not a place for beginners. After the initial shock subsided a little, I started to notice that the street I stand on "feature" signs in Hebrew. Usually I don't like this kind of stuff but I knew that those signs means that I'm in the "Israeli quarter" of the city and that I should look around for familiar faces. It only took 2 minutes to spot one of the guys I went ice climbing with in Hauraz and 5 minutes more to get all the information about where to sleep, where to eat and what to do. I checked into the Sagarnaga hotel which was the best accommodation I had in my trip so far with nice rooms and an excellent shower. I only got to see very small part of the city in the next couple of days but in those I found all that I needed: I bought some presents for the folks back home, rested and organized the rest of my Bolivian tour. While big cities are not "my thing", and La Paz is certainly big and crowded, I kind of like the time I spent there because of the good hotel, the shopping and the extremely low prices... but as I said, I would not recommend this place as an entry point to the continent..

Puno and Lake Titicaca

"However far your travels take you, you will never find the girl who smiles out at you from the travel brochure."
~Source Unknown

Saturday, November 1st to Monday, November 3rd 2008

November 1st was my last day in Cuzco. I was there for over a month and enjoyed every day but it was time to say my goodbyes and continue to other places. Same as in Huaraz I said my goodbye by taking a short horse back trip to the surrounding area. The trip was only 2 and a half hours long but it included nice views of the city from above and a visit to some archaeological ruins close by, on top of one I sat down and ate pineapple that was picked in the Manu jungle. After the ride I descended down on foot from the white statue of Jesus overlooking the city to the central Plaza. The next station on my trip was Puno the city on the shore of the world's highest lake navigable to large vessels, located at 3810m above sea level in the Andes Mountains. I packed my bags, said goodbye to Tanya from the "Andes Path" agency who did a great job booking almost all of the Cuzco activities for me and boarded the night bus. The bus ride took 10 hours and I didn´t sleep well so when I arrived to Puno in 5am in the morning I was dead tired. Luckily I already booked the islands tour through Tanya in Cuzco so her local counterpart Edward was waiting for me in the desolate cold bus terminal. Edward took me and my companions to a local hotel where he explained about the next two days. I wanted to continue to La Paz, Bolivia right after the tour, but this was not possible due to the closing hours of the border checkpoint so I booked 1 night at the hotel and transportation to La Paz on the next day. After all the business was done, I sat down to eat breakfast and waited for my ride to the port.

The small van picked up my companions and myself a little later than planned and we headed to Puno´s small harbor. We boarded the motorboat and immediately got a taste of things to come as 2 musicians climbed with us, played for 2 minutes and asked for money in return. The boat than started the 40 minutes journey to the floating islands of Uros. Titicaca is notable for a population of people who live on the Uros, a group of 42 or so artificial islands made of floating reeds. These islands have become a major tourist attraction for Peru but unfortunately it feels that way. The islands themselves are interesting and the facts on how and why they were build fascinating, but the general feeling is that the place has become too touristic and that the whole thing is there for the "show". A little disappointed I boarded the boat for the next destination, the island of Amantaní who is another small island on Lake Titicaca populated by about 800 families. There are two mountain peaks on the island, called Pachatata (Father Earth) and Pachamama (Mother Earth), and ancient ruins on the top of both peaks. There are no cars on the island, and no hotels and I was supposed to stay at a local family as a guest and see from up close the life in this part of the earth. Unfortunately, the family house, although nice, looked more like a hostel. I got to eat the local food but instead of doing it with the local family, I ate alone with the Anna from Denmark who shared the family house with me - in the end I learned more about Denmark than Titicaca... After lunch I went up to see the sunset from the Pachatata temple which I circled 3 times for good luck. There was supposed to be a nightly traditional dance show for the tourists where I was supposed to dress up in traditional clothes, but it started to rain and I was really tired so me and Anna went to sleep early instead. In the next morning, before saying goodbye, I was dressed up in the traditional poncho and hat - but the only camera around was an analog camera with only one picture who belong to a crazy Danish girl - so no pictures from that event, sorry..

The last stop was in Taquile island where I walked around the island, stopped at the local high quality textile shop the island is famous for and had a fish for lunch while listening to our guide explaining about local clothes and traditions. The boat took me back to Puno at around 15:00 and although the lake itself was beautiful and history and customs fascinating - I felt that over tourism "killed" the original authentic feeling this place might had in the past. In contrast, by luck I found myself in Puno while the city celebrated it´s birthday in a very colorful carnival of dances and customs who went by my hotel window for hours and later in the crowded streets as I went to the plaza to grab something to eat. Although they were dancing in the streets from early in the morning and some of the dancers looked tired - it was amazing to see the number of participants who danced by the the plaza in what seems like an endless colorful stream. The pictures does not do justice with this event and in my humble opinion it was much more authentic and interesting then the islands that got me here in the first place. Sometimes you need luck when you travel...