Out There and Away

Epilogue

2009-03-05T23:48:00.001-05:00

“Not all those who wander are lost.” ~J.R.R. Tolkien

Thursday, March 5th 2009

From the depths of the Bolivian jungle to the roof of the Andes it was one hell of a ride. When I set out I thought that I'll have enough after about 3-4 months, I end up traveling for more than half a year and still wanting more. But after returning from the Aconcagua summit it was the right time to get back home, I was tired and it started to get harder and harder to find places that will take my breath away. So I took the bus back from Mendoza to Santiago and boarded a flight to Israel after resting a few days in the familiar settings of Hostel de Sammy. I had an easy flight and an easy landing back home where everything stayed the way I left it in the end of August. I plugged in back into western lifestyle and the phone started ringing with calls from friends and relatives all wanting to know "How was it?". I guess they all wanted to see me put on a dreamy face and say it was "amazing..." with the final g trailing off into a significant silence... but unfortunately it's not that easy...

If you read this blog than you know that it contains dozens of pages which are just the tip of the iceberg, how can I summarize 6 months into one word or even one sentence? It was not a vacation, it was a journey, one that required a lot of determination and perseverance but was also awe filling and inspiring. It was full of great moments too many to list here, but also of trying times in long bus rides, moving around all the time and the discomforts of the road. Backpacking is hard work, carrying your home on your back and relaying on your wits to get around always adjusting to new environments. It's life back to the basics and I wouldn't want it any other way - it's the experience of living on the road and the people I met along the way that will stay with me longer than any lagoon or snowy peak. I didn't went "looking for myself" since I didn't feel lost before (or now), but I did learn new things about myself along the way and I guess that the experience has changed me - even if the change is subtle. I wore out my shoes, radically improved my physical fitness but more importantly I earned a new perspective on life.

So how was it you ask?
amazing...

Aconcagua

2009-02-26T21:26:00.000-05:00

“He who climbs upon the highest mountains laughs at all tragedies, real or imaginary.”
~Friedrich Nietzsche

Monday, February 9th to Thursday, February 26th 2009

The end was very much like the beginning. I found myself again struggling for air where every step is an effort. It's cold and high but none of that matters, just the next step, and than another one and another one. Slowly slowly I get nearer and nearer to my target. But this time the target is not an unknown pass in the Andes. At almost 7km the Aconcagua summit is the roof of the Americas and in fact the highest place in the world outside the Himalaya range in Asia. It took a lot of time and effort before I had the summit in view, in fact it took 15 days of climbing to reach it and only 2 going down... I didn't plan to do it at first, but I was looking for a grand finale for my South American adventure and the idea of finishing it on the highest point available appealed to me. So I dropped other plans such as to visit the Antarctic region or the carnival in Brazil and submitted myself to the cold long challenge of expedition climbing... To be honest, lying in a tent at 6000m in -40c temperature and howling winds I wished I had gone to Brazil...

It started OK though. I moved into the Hyatt in Mendoza on Feb 7th where I met Boe, my room mate and tent mate for the next weeks as well as the rest of the expedition, all Americans, all in great shape after practicing for this event and all ready to charge up the mountain. I was a little tired by now but the group atmosphere helped to fill me with enthusiasm as well. I also met our guides Mike and Larry with them we were a total of 9 climbers. On the next day we moved to the ski resort at Penitentes where we spent another night before starting our hike to base camp the next morning. The 3 days hike to Plaza Argentina was a nice walk in the Vacas valley in high desert settings with light clothes and almost nothing on our back since all the expedition gear was carried by mules. The only meaningful event happened on the 3rd day when I slipped during a river crossing and my MP3 player got fried, this will be a loss I will mourn for in the following weeks. After we arrived to base camp we had one day to rest and enjoy the dining tents and toilets - two things that we'll miss on the cold harsh mountain. After the rest we did our first carry. Basically you can't just carry all your gear in one time so you go to each camp twice: first to deposit food, fuel and group gear and than with your personal pack and tent you settle in. As Boe said, we climb the mountain twice... Due to the cold and altitude, from now on we will have to wear our double plastic mountaineering boots that weigh 2kg each but keeps our feet dry and warm. The carry was hard as it is not easy carrying 15-20kg on your back from 4300m to 5000m and the difficulty persuaded one of the members of the group to retire... The remaining 8 moved to camp I under a cover of snow the day after.

Weather started to be a problem. It snowed during our last night in base camp and while the mornings where nice, at around 16:00 the clouds formed, the sun disappeared and it started to snow again. The camp was nothing more that a rocky shelf on which we build our tents and once we moved in we had to keep going carrying all the equipment and garbage we produce (including "personal" waste that had to be deposited in special nylon bags). We didn't rest in camp I and immediately did a carry for camp II following by a move the next day. Camp II was higher, colder and windier but had much better views of the surrounding snowy peaks. We rested one day and made our last carry to camp III AKA high camp. The carry was incredibly hard due to the altitude and lack of oxygen and we struggled up the mountain in a very slow pace. We moved to camp III on a cold windy day and with the little energy we had left we set our camp and went to sleep. But sleep did not came. At 6000m there was not enough oxygen to sustain sleep and life on the mountain went from very hard to impossibly hard. We spent 3 nights in high camp, unable to sleep, having strong headaches and trying not to get out of the tent to avoid the cold -40c wind blowing outside. The wait was almost intolerable and after almost two weeks of climbing I had very little energy left to fight the cold and despair. Only on the 3rd morning the wind died and we set out at 6:00 with headlamps, wearing everything we had, crampons and ice axes to the long hard walk to the summit. It will take 13 hours before we will collapse back in our sleeping bags after a very very hard climb. The next two days will not be easy as well, as we descended down the other side of the mountain to the other base camp (we climbed from the steeper, harder side and went down the normal path) and than another 27km back to the road. It was the hardest, longest and most satisfying trek I had in my trip. Was it worth it? lets just say that I'm glad I did it but I don't think I'll do it again :)

Punta Arenas

2009-02-02T23:06:00.000-05:00

“Penguins mate for life. That doesn't surprise me much because they all look alike. It's not like they're going to meet a really new, great looking penguin someday.”
~Source unknown

Thursday, January 29nd to Monday, February 2nd 2009

I came to Punta Arenas, the biggest city in Patagonia, for two reasons: to find good equipment and to visit the Penguin colony on Magdalena island. I returned from the Torres del Paine trek just a day before and continued south on my own since Ron was traveling in the other direction after already visiting Punta Arenas. I did however got an hostel address from Ron and started walking for it as soon as the bus stopped. Near the hostel entrance I met Oren, Dani and Roni (despite their names only one of them was a man - can you guess who?). We arrived on the same bus, but their taxi and my walking pace united us again. Turned out that they had a reservation and I didn't. Since the only available bed was in their room, they kindly offered, and I accepted to share the room with them. After dinner at a local restaurant we decided to go see the Penguins tomorrow. The hostel owner, one of the most friendliest and helpful I met in my travels, helped us book the tickets and told us how to pick a local colectivo taxi to the local port. We boarded our ship - a large vessel that once served as a ferry in those waters for a two hours sail to Isla Magdalena deep inside the Magellan's straights. As we got closer to the island we saw the lighthouse on the highest point and something that looked like weird vegetation across the sandy surface. Turns out the the "vegetation" was nothing else but the 150,000 Penguins that populate the Island...

As we disembarked from the ship to steady land we found ourselves surrounded by thousands of Penguins who didn't seem to care much about our presence. They walked around, dug holes, fought, played and ate totally ignoring the large group of humans who suddenly invaded their sanctuary. We were told before going to shore that it is strictly forbidden to touch the Penguins but apparently the Penguins were not told the same as was demonstrated by a couple of them who came to check out my shoes (the common theory on the shore was that after 7 days of trekking the shoes smelled like fish - attracting the hungry birds...). We walked for about 2 hours surrounded by the funny birds and got a unique look into their behaviour outside captivity. As I boarded the ship I realized that this was as south as I'm going to get looked at Tierra del Fuego on the other side of the straights, promising myself to return if I'll find the time. Another 2 hours sail returned us to the city and after a good dinner in a good restaurant we retired to sleep. The second half of my mission was not as successful tough. The next day after getting more information from the hostel owner I took another colectivo to the local tax free zone to look for some good mountaineering equipment but found very few items from my long list. In the next two days I scanned the tax free zone and the local mall finding some of the items I needed but not enough. For that reason I changed my flight and instead of flying directly to Mendosa, I flew to Santiago, slept in the familiar Hostel de Sammy and found all that I needed in the town good equipment shops. It was time to move on to the last and biggest challenge of my travels so far...

Torres del Paine Circuit

2009-01-28T21:00:00.001-05:00

"We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard."
~John F Kennedy

Thursday, January 22nd to Wednesday, January 28th 2009

The full Paine circuit takes 7-8 days and is considered one of the best treks in South America. I didn't planned on doing the entire circuit and wanted to walk a shorter variant called the W which only take 5 days to complete. In fact, since my partners thought about covering the park in 3 days seeing only the main attractions (and using boats instead of walking) I arrived to Puerto Natales on the afternoon of January 21st a little disappointed that I'll only get to enjoy a short visit to the park. But when I entered the hostel I met Ron. Ron was an old acquaintance from the old days in Huaraz, Peru and I was happy to see him after all that time. He was looking for partners for the full circuit and after about an hour of talking with him decided that it will be a good idea to join him even if just as training for the big ending I was planning for my trip. It was already 19:00 by that time, but both of us were experienced trekkers so by 23:00 we had our bags ready to tomorrow after I changed my flight back north, bought food and arranged transportation to the park. It rained all through the night, and apparently all through the days before, but in the morning the sun was shining and we expected good weather and flooded trails.

The bus picked us up early in the morning and dropped us off in the park entrance were we paid, got a map and waited in line with many other trekkers for a truck that drove back and forth below us since the river overflowed the bridge. After the we got off the crowded truck we had the choice of taking a minivan or walk to Hosteria las Torres some 7 km away - we choose to walk. The walk was an easy one on a wide unpaved road, not very interesting but with good view of the granite towers in the distance. Although the usual way to do the circuit is counter clockwise, we decided to take advantage of the good weather and go see the towers first. It took about 3 hours from the Hosteria to the campsite, a trail that would have been easy if we didn't had heavy packs with 7 days worth of food on our backs. From the campsite it was a steep 30 minutes climb to the view point, a nice lagoon directly beneath the towers that although were very impressive - were not as spectacular as Fitz Roy in my eyes. After seeing the sunset, we head down back to camp cooked our dinner and went to sleep.

I woke up the next morning and immediately realized that I had a problem. I had a really bad cold and other than a leaky nose I felt a little weak and fever started creeping in. I decided to continue despite my condition and a 20 km of bad trail with flooded parts took us to our next destination: the Italian campsite. I didn't felt better the next morning so I slept in until 16:00 while Ron climbed to the view point in the French valley. When he got back we broke camp and walked for about 2 hours more to the big organized campsite near Pehoe lake - a paid site that had a minimarket, nice grassy slots and more important for me, a warm closed place to cook dinner instead of doing it in the cold windy night outside. Next morning I felt a little better but needed more toilet paper for my leaky nose. I went to the minimarket but they didn't have any. A young girl heard me asking for it and offered in English to give me all she had left since this camp is the last in the W and this was her last day. I saw some familiar objects on the girl and asked her where she is from. When I heard she was from Israel (as I suspected) I thanked her in Hebrew to her surprise and felt proud to be Israeli again after what I saw in the Perito Moreno Glacier - after all she didn't know me or even recognized me as Israeli yet she offered me help without me asking for it - something that is unique to the Israeli backpacker community I think. I felt even better when 10 minutes later another Israeli stepped up and gave more paper since he heard that I was looking for some...

The trail north from the campsite took us away form the crowd and towards the Grey glacier - a huge patch of ice that you get only to see from afar if you do the W while we had the pleasure of walking above it - the best view in the park so far. We walked fast and got to the Paso campsite early and a lot faster than the time posted on the signs we saw on the way. The trail was usually wide but had some very steep parts particularly when crossing narrow gullies. We knew that we are going to have a hard day when we woke up the next morning. Not only we had to cross the John Garner pass, we also had a long walk to our campsite afterwards. The climb to the pass was indeed hard, even more so because we walked the circuit in the "wrong" direction approaching the pass from the steeper harder side. The view was well worth the effort though with glacier Grey below us and the Ice Cap in the background, however the relentless cold wind and the physical effort brought back the fever that I managed to keep under control for the last couple of days. After the pass we had a hard walk down and harder walk across muddy wetland until we arrived to the Perros campsite where we had our lunch. I was feeling bad at this point and we almost spent the night there but Ron convinced me to pull through so I dragged myself for another 3 hours of great scenery with glaciers, waterfalls and lakes until we hit the Dickson campsite and I went straight to sleep.

The last two days were mainly walking in a wide prairie with very strong wind and a lot of mosquitoes at the campsites. The walk was not interesting but since we walked against the normal direction I found myself in a mini reunion: I met Rotem from Bolivia, Arishay who traveled with me in Peru, Alexi from the rafting in Cuzco, Shaked and Ela from central Chile and others. Almost every 30 minutes we stopped to talk with someone we knew. It added interest to the walk but slowed us down a bit. Luckily this was the easier part of the trek and we didn't worried about timetable with the mostly empty packs we had on our backs by now. We finally got back to the entrance and boarded the bus back to town. We than realized that we had an amazing stretch of 7 days without rain - something that is almost never heard of in this part of the world... guess you need to get lucky sometimes...

Perito Moreno Glacier

2009-01-20T21:53:00.000-05:00

"Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind."
~Dr. Seuss

Tuesday, January 20th 2009

The Perito Moreno Glacier is a glacier located in the Los Glaciares National Park. It is one of the most important tourist attractions in Argentinian Patagonia. Unfortunately this caused the prices of entrance and transportation to soar... The local bus companies will charge you no less than 80 ARS to get to the park and back a huge fee for the average backpacker. But you can count on the Israeli crowd to find an alternative solution. In this case, it turns out that car rental will only cost 225 ARS for 5 persons and even after adding the price of fuel you still get away with almost half the price. But there is also an ugly side to this story. Turns out that the park guards only arrive at 8:00 in the morning so all the young drivers simply wake up early and avoid the 60 ARS entry fee by driving pass the unmanned gates. I felt really bad about sneaking into the park and had a nasty argument with my partners for almost two hours before I lost the final vote by 2:3. So I woke up early drove through rain and rainbows to the glacier park and around 10:00 in the morning I thought I had my sweet revenge when a park ranger asked us for our tickets, which of course we didn't have... Unfortunately, the ranger didn't try to collect the money but instead throw us out of the park (after we saw all that we needed to see) spreading a big smile on my partners faces, who from their viewpoint not only that they beat the system, they also got caught and got away with it... I hope that the Argentinian authorities will do something both to lower the costs to more reasonable sums and will root out this ugly behaviour (there were about 50 other people with us that morning who skipped paying for the park). That incident later led to other arguments with other people about this despicable act, in which after many hot words many admitted that they knew that it's wrong and even felt a little ashamed doing it - so not all is lost.. (however it is a powerful example of peer pressure).

And how was the glacier you ask? well it was amazing. The pictures does not do it justice but you can still enjoy them (One note about perspective though: the glacier front wall is about 50 meters high and about 300 meters from where the pictures are taken - it looks much bigger in real life than in the pictures.)

Fitz Roy

2009-01-18T20:03:00.000-05:00

"The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind, The answer is blowin' in the wind”
~Bob Dylan

Saturday, January 17th to Sunday, January 18th 2009

Even after many months of traveling you may still wander upon a place that will take your breath away. The viewpoint near laguna de las tres under the mastiff of the incredible Fitz Roy mountain was one of those places. But it didn't started that well... It started with a 13 hours bus ride from Perito Moreno to the small village of El Chalten across the bleak windy stretches of Argentinian Patagonia. The ride on a bumpy dirt road was not an easy one and the view outside the window was nothing like the lakes and glaciers of the Chilean side. Instead, for every direction there were endless grassy plains stricken by the relentless Patagonian wind that drove you to seek shelter as soon as the bus stopped for one of its planned breaks. The sky were clear for most of the ride but as we got almost to our destination the weather has changed to a violent storm that stayed with us as we disembarked in El Chalten. We knew that there might be a problem with finding an hostel in the village, but we planned to open our tents if we encounter them. However, the combination of wind, rain and low temperatures sent us mans outside to look for a roof over our heads while the girls stayed in the small restaurant that doubled as a bus station. It took almost 2 hours and after midnight we finally found a room with an outrageous price. Waking up to the same bad weather the day after, we at least found a good hotel and went to the park office to look at the forecast. It was Thursday and the weather forecast promised a clear day only on Saturday meaning that we will have to shorten our planned trek.

We stayed in the village for 2 more days and at last shouldered our backpacks and started walking for the Poincenot campsite our home for the night. The trail was not hard, climbing a little at first and than continuing on a plateau for the rest of the way. We got good view of the cloud covered mountain in the distance as well as some wildlife activity of woodpeckers and hares. It took less than 4 hours to get to campsite where we set our tents and went to the higher viewpoint of laguna de las tres. We took the wrong trail in the beginning wasting almost an hour of daytime before we started the steep climb for the terrace the laguna is situated on. It took another 45 minutes of climbing but I finally found myself in one of the best places in South America. Directly in front of me the rock spires of Fitz Roy disappeared into the clouds, to my right the deep blue laguna de las tres mirrored that view and the glaciers below it. To my left and below, Ice floats dotted laguna Suica and behind me I could see laguna Capri, the mother and daughter lagoons and the hills of the Patagonian plains. I stayed almost 2 hours up there waiting for the sky to clear until the cold and the wind drove me back down to my tent. After warm dinner I stepped outside and the sky were without a cloud offering a great (although a little dark) view of the mountain. We thought about getting up early to see the sunrise hit the mastiff but the wind and rain painted the sky in deep grey reducing visibility to almost nothing sending us back to sleeping bags. Luckily the sun was shining when we woke up few hours later and we had a pleasant walk back to hostel. The mountain was still shrouded in clouds and the wind kept blowing the entire time but this is what you should expect in Patagonia... The view is well worth it though...

Carretera Austral

2009-01-13T20:43:00.000-05:00

"The one thing that unites all human beings, regardless of age, gender, religion, economic status or ethnic background, is that, deep down inside, we ALL believe that we are above average drivers."
~Dave Barry

Tuesday, January 6th to Tuesday, January 13th 2009

I got used to the road being the long bus ride that takes me between points of interest. But this time it was different, this time the road was the attraction.
The Carretera Austral (in English, Southern Highway) is the name given to Chile's Route 7. The highway runs about 1,240 kilometers (770 miles) from Puerto Montt to Villa O'Higgins through rural Patagonia. The road passes through snowy mountains, volcanoes, many lakes and on the south end many glaciers - it is considered one of the world's most scenic roads. There are many ways to traverse the road. Some do it by bicycle, others hitchhike interacting with the local population along the way, but I didn't have the time or energy to pedal for so many days or wait for the right car at the right time, so I went for the rental car option. Since the road is mostly unpaved, we hired a Nissan Pathfinder 4x4 truck for a week from a reputable company (Budget) so we can concentrate on the views instead of worrying about our car. I didn't want to drive and we had a strong argument about the importance of safety and the personal responsibility of the drivers before we started our trip. The argument almost led to the cancellation of the trip, but it proved important as the two designated drivers did a marvelous job in the week to come.

We rented the car in Bariloche and our first destination was the Argentinian Los Alerces park - a beautiful drive along the region lakes and forests. We hurried along the road stopping briefly to take a bath in one of the cold lakes since we wanted to cross the border into Chile in that same day. The border crossing at the small town of Futalefu went without problems and after buying supplies we found a great camping site next to a turquoise river. We woke up next day to a long and hard drive. we drove west until we hit the road at Santa Lucia and then turned north toward Chaiten, once the gateway to the Carretera with a good shuttle service to Puerto Montt and now a ghost town due the eruption of a volcano on May. We made a small detour to take a bath at one of the local hot springs and than continued north immediately noticing the piles of volcanic ash along the road. When we got to Chaiten we had a surprise waiting for us, the volcano was still active sending huge bales of smoke and steam into the sky - it made a perfect background to the ghost town with almost empty streets and very few inhabitants. We wanted to visit the Pumalin park north of the town but the offices in town were abandoned and a note on the door declared that the park is closed. We ventured north anyway through the magnificent vegetation that can be described as a cold jungle and witnessed the destruction caused by the volcano along side the road. We had to turn back after about an hour and a half due to a destroyed bridge - the voyage down the Carretera has started... When we got back to Chaiten, I noticed that we had an air leak in one of the tires and a friendly Chilean military truck used its compressor to fill up our tire. The temporary fix held almost until the town of La Junta were we were forced to change to our spare tire and find a place to sleep.

We woke up under a huge flies attack and hurried to get our tire fixed. We wanted to continue south, but the time we spent on the tire proved costly as the road was closed to repairs between 10:00 and 14:00. Instead, we went to explore a nearby dirt road but due to lack of time we turned back before we reached the ocean which proved to be a waste of our time - but at least we had an open road again... As we continued south we passed by the small fishing town of Puyuhuapi nestled on a beautiful fjord. About two more hours took us to Park National Queult with it's major attraction - the hanging glacier. We walked to a viewpoint 5 minutes from the parking lot and the view of the glaciers with the huge waterfalls below made me want to hike to the higher view point but nobody else wanted to come. Luckily they agreed that I'll hike alone and they will wait for me - I practically run up to glacier, got a rare moments of ice avalanche and run back down completing the circuit in 75 minutes instead of the advised 2 and a half hours... We spent the night at a nice paid camping site that unfortunately didn't have hot water. The next day we drove to the capital of the Carretera, the town of Coyhaique were we bought more supplies and spend half a day enjoying civilization. After we left the town we drove next to the impressive spires of Cerro Castillo and down an impressive road with glaciers appearing through the clouds on both sides. We found a great campsite in a small park that had an amazing wood stove to heat water allowing us to take long satisfying baths. The road continued south through lakes and small lagoons until we finally hit the shores of Lago General Carrera, a huge beautiful deep lake which is the second largest in South America. We took a detour again driving from Puerto Rio Tranquilo to the northern ice cap - one of the best parts of the Carretera with waterfalls and glaciers at every corner.

We slept on the shores of the lake waking up early to the sounds of a tractor being uploaded to a truck less than a meter from our heads! After this unpleasant experience we found old friends on the road and joined them for a short cruise to the marble caves, a nice although not overwhelming view of natural cave formations in the white-grey marble stone. The road took us east towards Argentina along the shores of the lake where we crossed the border in Chile Chico and went to sleep in the ugly town of Perito Moreno. The next morning Harel and myself woke up early and took the car to the drop off point in Comodoro Rivadavia driving through the bleak Argentinian side dotted with oil grasshoppers. After we dropped off our car we strolled along the shores of the Atlantic ocean - the first and probably last time that I'll see this side of South America during my travels...

Frey-Jacob

2009-01-01T19:54:00.002-05:00

"Of course I'm crazy, but that doesn't mean I'm wrong."
~Robert Anton Wilson quotes

Tuesday, December 30th 2008 to Thursday, January 1st 2009

The path was pure madness. Insane drops going down hundreds of meters of loose scree and huge rocks. The heavy backpack, riding high for more comfort, didn't help my balance as I sled down the sandy slopes (it was much more sliding than walking since the ground could not hold the combined weight of myself and the pack...). It was the first time that I honestly preferred going uphill than down since the steep decline hurt my feet and knees and it's not like that the ascents or even the straight parts were any better. The mountains were so rugged that you found yourself rock hopping all the time traversing and climbing huge rocks with your hands and knees being careful not to fall down the almost vertical mountain face to your right or left. The views were great though, at least in the moments that I took a breather or risked it and let my eyes scan the horizon instead of concentrating on the path ahead. And than after two days, the madness just stopped. The rugged mountain trail was replaced with a wide route running alongside a river in a lush green valley that took us back to main road in a few hours and back to Bariloche - just a few kilometers away the hard mountains were replaced by green hills and blue lakes, looking from below I could not see the path that I followed for two days...

The madness was a variation of the Frey-Jacob trek known as Lynch-Frey-Jacob since the Frey refugio is accessed from above through refugio Lynch instead of the typical access from the parking lot of the ski resort down below. Like in Pucon, my partners for the walk were Harel & Gili, by this time the three of us has become quite a team. It started quite easy with a cable card ride to the Lynch refugio where we traversed a small saddle and ate a quick lunch at a beautiful though windy viewpoint with the mountains around us and the lakes far below. shortly after the trail turned into the insane route described above. It took us almost 2 hour to cover the 4 km to the "Cancha de Futbol" another saddle where we took a left and headed down a very steep path to our campsite near the lagoon & refugio Frey. It was still quite early when we got there and after dinner I decided to climb up one of the local rock climber paths that are used to access Cerro Torre. While usually used by climbers, the path didn't require any special equipment or skills to reach the summit and enjoy the view, although, admittedly, the best views were from the beginning of the trail less than 15 minutes from our tent...

On the second day we left the small canyon through the same way we came in, climbing back to the "Cancha de Futbol", a climb that was easier and took less time than the decent we had a day before. Unfortunately after a short rest at the mirador at the top, the trail started descending very steeply to the valley below down a loose scree mountainside with very little footing. It took more than 2 hours to reach the riverbed below where the trail became flat again as it entered the wood. We had our lunch near a waterfall and continued up the trail that quickly got steeper and wilder again taking us to the top of a rocky pass. The descend down the other side was even wilder than the one before, but it compensated for it with better views of the Jacob lagoon and surrounding snowy mountains. After getting to the bottom we crossed a fast flowing river and a short walk through the wetland later we found ourselves at the campsite of refugio Jacob. It was already getting dark by the time we finished setting up our tents and ate our hot dinner but as the sun set the sky were colored in red and crimson making a superb backdrop to our new year's eve outdoors. The last day with a light backpack and an easy path we felt like walking and covered the 17km back to the road in less than 4 hours. Catching a lucky hitch and a bus we were able to get to Bariloche in time for a good steak dinner...

Bariloche

2008-12-26T19:56:00.000-05:00

"If we're not supposed to eat animals, how come they're made out of meat?"
~Tom Snyder

Friday , December 26th 2008

San Carlos de Bariloche is located in the heart of Argentina's lake district. An unashamedly touristic town, it's only manufacturing industries are chocolates, ice cream and steaks. Almost the entire town in employed in catering for visitors such as myself. Hearing so much about the place, I was full of high hopes but when I finally arrived from Pucon via Osorno, I quickly found that Bariloche was not entirely for my taste. What can go wrong in a touristic heaven you ask? well for first it's was so damn packed with tourists... arriving between Christmas and New year's eve, the town was packed and only grew more crowded as the time passed. The second bad thing was the hostels. I stayed in 4 different hostels during my short stay - a definite bad record. (compared to 2 hostels in places I spent a lot more time in..). The first hostel was a drug lair (getting off the bus penalty), the second was a shabby building without hot water, the third was noisy with a kitchen that was a certified health hazard and the forth was reasonable but not much more. But even with all the people and bad hostels I got to enjoy my stay, after all a place that sell great ice cream and thick steaks on every corner can't be all bad.. other than the culinary highlights I got to enjoy the city itself with the great views to the lake and surrounding mountains, the place looks like an ancient European ski resort although it was founded less than a 100 years ago and scenery around it is magnificent. I used my time to go on two short one day treks in the neighbourhood, one to Cerro Otto and the other to an observation point call the 17th kilometer- both offered great views in return to very little effort from my side. In the rest of my stay I went for a 3 day trek in the nearby national park, dined in the fine restaurants and ice cream parlors and shopped around for a place to rent a car into Chile's Carratera Austral, the next stop on my adventure...

Villarrica Traverse

2008-12-24T21:36:00.000-05:00

"So comes snow after fire, and even dragons have their ending."
~J.R.R. Tolkien

Monday, December 22nd to Wednesday, December 24th 2008

In the Villarica national park I understood how much my physical fitness has improved. I knew that I´m in good shape after the last few treks racing with Harel up mountains, but I was never big on aerobics and my only measurement was Harel - who was still in better shape than I was. So when I decided to hike across the Villarica park together with Harel and Gili just two days after my climb to Cerro San Sebastian, I opted for the shorter easier route. We set put from Pucon with a large group of about 20 Israelis that headed for the same park after the storm that raged on Saturday was replaced by a clear blue sky. Although we all shared a van, we were separated into smaller groups. I continued walking with my two friends quickly loosing the sounds of the others in the trees behinds us as we climbed to a saddle in a thick forest. We stopped briefly at the top to eat some cookies and continued down the marked path that led to Laguna los Patos - our planned campsite for the day. The forest quickly gave way to snow laden lava rocks as we approached the foothills of the small Quetrupillan volcano making us cross snow fields and small streams. Walking on snow was not as fun as it looks though, it´s cold, slippery and worst of all, hinder your steps, especially after the weekend storm who renewed the top layer. Still, we enjoyed the views and the new experience and even stopped to make a small snowman and take pictures with it - leaving him as a sign for those behind us. After about 3 hours we stood above the Lagoon with it´s clear blue waters and in less than 4 hours of walking we stood on the shores realizing that we have 8 more hours of daylight! We setup our tent, ate lunch and sunbathed on the beach waiting for the others. Since we hit the campsite at around 14:00 I figured that we should see the first bunch at around 16:00-16:30, but in reality the first couple showed up on 17:45 and people were still wandering into the campsite after 20:00 full 6 hours after we got there. I used the time well though taking a short hike on the surrounding hills. At around 22:00 it got darker and colder and after we lit Hanuka candles we all withdraw to our tents for a very cold night.

We woke up late on the next day figuring that since we walk fast we don't need a head start. In fact the campsite was long empty when we left after breakfast at around 11:00. We started walking north through a lava field and quickly found out how disorienting this landscape can be. Holding a map with 100m difference between elevation lines I had to count on my experience and common sense. After crossing 2 lava fields we found ourselves below a small saddle where we met part of the group that spent the night with us - apparently lost. I insisted that the correct path is to cross the saddle to the west and then search for a way out of the valley to the north. The other were not convinced, so I continued up with Harel and Gili. On the top we saw no path and Harel wanted to head back east. I convinced him to try it my way, since if I was wrong we will still hit our campsite but using a harder longer route. We descended into a bleak valley with a small stream in the middle and headed west along the north bank looking for a way out. after about 20 minutes we found both the exit and the trail and saw others way behind us going down from the saddle. We had a saddle of our own to climb, one that gave us a good view of Laguna Blanca and we rested and ate a snack watching it. The trail was well marked from this point taking us through a broad empty valley and up a small ridge that although unmarked, was also the Chile-Argentina border at that region. We ate our lunch after a hard climb to a viewpoint overlooking the majestic volcano Lanin and walked another two hours back to the forests and down to the sandy beach of Laguna Azul crossing several waterfalls along the way. We were surprised to find the beach empty at 17:00 but we enjoyed it all by ourselves for another 3 hours when it started to fill up with our friends telling long tells about hard walk and harder navigation... We lighted the candles again and went to sleep waking for a short 3 hours walk through the forest that took us to our waiting transportation back to Pucon which we reached just in time to be invited to a Christmas Asado by our friendly hostel owners...

Cerro San Sebastian

2008-12-20T22:40:00.000-05:00

"Scientists tell us that the fastest animal on earth, with a top speed of 120 feet per second, is a cow that has been dropped out of a helicopter."
~Dave Barry

Friday, December 20th 2008

Sometime you get to the most amazing places without planning for it. I wanted to set out to the Villarrica traverse trek but the Internet promised a stormy Saturday so I had to change my plans. Not wanting to spend the day doing nothing in Pucon, I remembered the Huerquehue National Park ranger suggesting to a local hiker a trek up to the summit of Cerro San Sebastian which can be completed in 8 hours. A quick check with the local bus company revealed that the bus can drop us off at 10:00 in the park entrance and pickup for the return trip is at 17:10 leaving us almost one hour short... ho well, I guess I will had to walk faster... Gili elected to stay at the hostel for this one, leaving me with Harel who is a Soccer couch and in fantastic shape... ho well, I guess I will had to walk faster... I packed a light pack with water, food and a good jacket and boarded the bus at 8:30 in the morning. The sky already showed the signs of the storm yet to come, and as we drove though the dense fog to the park we actually thought about aborting and returning to Pucon. The fog cleared by the time we arrived to the entrance, but the sky was still grey and cloudy and the rangers didn't look happy with the idea that two gringos will try to tackle the mountain all on their on and tried to persuade us to do the normal route (the one we already visited) under the pretence that it will take us 9 hours to get to the top and back. Again we almost returned to Pucon, but the bus already left so we decided to give it our best shot - worst case we´ll return before hitting the summit.

Feeling that we are racing against the clock we set an aggressive pace walking up the wooded ridge on a trail that zigzaged with moderate grade. I prefer steep grades and a good view of where I´m going so I didn´t like that part. After about an hour and a half we found ourselves in a small clearing seeing the summit above us for the first time as well as a nice panoramic view of the surrounding volcanoes and lakes. After the strong opening and seeing that the sky has cleared we felt more confidence in our abilities. We stopped shortly to eat a quick breakfast and continued up the trail that soon turned into an almost vertical climb that forced us to grab the trees and pull ourselves up to make any progress - exactly the way I like it. To make a long story short, I found myself on the summit in two hours and fifty minutes. Looking back to the tiny cubes that marked the beginning of the trail I understood for the first time how much I have improved my physical shape in the last 4 months. The climb was hard and fast, yet I almost didn´t stop and gained 1300 meters of altitude over 8 kilometers in less than 3 hours! It felt good... What made it feel even better was that the climb was really worth it. Being the highest peak around, the view was panoramic 360 degrees of the staff legends are made of. I rested on the summit and enjoyed the view for almost half an hour before we started to descend. Since the trail went into the forest again, we were bored and adopted an aggressive pace again.. You can imagine how surprised (and relived ?) were the rangers when we showed up after a little more than 5 hours... Since we had 2 hours to wait for the bus, we heeded their advice and walked 5 minutes down to the lake shore for a well deserved rest...

Climbing Volcan Villarrica

2008-12-17T19:02:00.000-05:00

"Remember what Bilbo used to say: It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to."
~J.R.R. Tolkien

Wednesday, December 17th 2008

An adventure sometimes puts you in unexpected situations. I never thought that an ice axe will be my most precious possession, but for a few hours, it was, mainly because as the guide put it- if you lose your balance only the ice axe can stop your fall into certain death hundreds of meters below. The above seem even more unusual as when you climb an active volcano, the last thing you expect is ice... But things does not always go the way you expect as I discovered the day before when I woke up at 4:30am only to get the volcano base to find a cloudy sky. After hearing the guide estimation that the climb has only 50% chance to make it to the top, I returned back to Pucon to try another day (As it will turned out later, the group did made it to the summit, but could not look into the crater due volcanic activity). The day after I got lucky twice, once for the clear blue sky and second for the chance to start the climb at 7:00 instead of 5:00 earning 2 extra hours of sleep. The climb itself was a straight forward business, a tight switchback climb on the steep snowy mountainside from the parking lot to the summit and all you need is equipment, guide and reasonable physical shape. The equipment consisted of warm water proof clothes, good snow shows, crampons and the aforementioned ice axe.

The guide started us walking in one group from the base of the volcano to the cable car station which marked the snow line and where we were divided into sub groups according to our walking speed. Surprisingly, I found myself in the strongest group directly behind the guide. As we started to climb, the snow was still a little frozen and slippery but it will get softer and easier to climb as we progress. The climb was also amazingly easy with the guide walking in moderate pace and stopping for 5-10 minutes breaks at more or less regular intervals. We followed the route carved into the ice by hundred before us and made our own trail only in one place where our guide preferred to walked around a covered crevice rather than to risk walking on top of it. Although I walked on snow and ice most of the way, it was hot enough to climb only with thin thermal shirt, putting on a warmer jacket only before the final summit accent. As I gained altitude, the entire region started to unravel below me with green mountains,blue lakes, and white volcanoes on the horizon. Finally I made it to the summit after 4 hours and the sky were blue and clear. Luckily the volcano was also dormant allowing me the rare experience to walk all around the crater peering deep into the sulphurous gases spawning hole that someone called the asshole of hell - to which we all agreed. Every few minutes the volcano made a deep gurgling sound followed by a stream of sulphuric gases that stung my eyes and lungs, but the experience was so cultivating that I could not walk away. As it turned out I didn´t need to walk away either as the way down was not by walking but by sliding on my ass down the entire mountain side using the ice axe as brakes! . Due to the conical shape of the volcano the ride started very fast with snow and ice shreds covering me as I sped down the slope and ended with a crawl down near the cable station where I stopped to exchange my clothes and clean out the frozen snow that somehow made it into every possible place on my body... Short walk later I was safely in the van feeling the fatigue of the climb overtake me on the way back to Pucon.

After seeing the volcano from so many angles in the last few days it felt good to finally climb it and make it to the top. Until my last day in Pucon I looked up and told myself that I was there, on the summit of this amazing snow capped volcano one of the few who peered into the bowls of the earth and lived to tell about it...

Huerquehue National Park

2008-12-14T21:00:00.000-05:00

"The civilized man has built a coach, but has lost the use of his feet."
~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Friday, December 12th to Sunday, December 14th 2008

One of the most noteworthy features of Huerquehue Park are its millenarian forests of Araucarias, which are the perfect backdrop for the small lakes and ponds that dot the park. Those strange trees that have an even stranger English name, monkey puzzle trees, are not the only reason to visit the park though. It´s easily accessible from Pucon, has great scenic hiking routes between forests and lakes and some incredible views, like the Pucon river to the Villarrica volcano. I set out with a group of four others to explore the park, Gili, Harel, Shaked and Ela. We bought our supplies in Pucon and got off the bus at the park entrance at about 10:00 in the morning. One of the great things about Chile is that during the summertime the sun sets at about 10:00pm so we had plenty of time to reach our planned camping site deep in the park and since we were walking with heavy packs - we were in no hurry... The trail from the entrance took us to a nice view point over lake Tilquilco and than continued into the forest starting on level ground but than climbing steeply to an unseen pass above. Luckily the climb was interrupted every hour or so by a short detour to a waterfall or a view point over the Pucon valley and volcano Villarrica allowing us to put down the heavy packs and enjoy a snack and the scenery around us. This was also the first time that I found that the walking sticks, that did me no good in the high Andes, are actually helpful when walking in lower altitudes with heavier packs.

When the climb ended we found ourselves amongst the park lake sector which consist of three small lakes surrounded by Araucaria trees and the snowy Andes. We leisurely walked amongst the lakes resting on their shore and dipping in Lago el Toro. When we had enough we shouldered our packs and headed up to cross another pass and down a dusty descend into our camping site where we setup our tents and ate a hot meal before retiring to sleep. In the next morning we woke up late and climbed through the forest out of the valley we camped in and down to the Rio Blanco valley on a well marked although a bit boring trail. We stopped in a forest clearing for lunch and 2 hours siesta before arriving to the San Sebastian hot springs at around 14:00. At the springs we got a camping site with bathrooms and running water on soft grass and free access to the hot pools as well as found a local family who agreed, for a small fee, to take us to Pucon on the next evening saving us 5 hours walk and the need to hitchhike. Since we had arranged transportation, we found ourselves with nothing to do but to rest, enjoy the hot springs and eat for a day and half. In fact we ate so much that we run out of the food we brought and paid for a mediocre asado. After an exhausting day in the springs (including a late night deep under the stars), 5 of us climbed to the back of the pickup for the drive to Pucon, to which we arrived tired and very dusty (the road was unpaved..) just in time to visit the local supermarket for supplies and cook a great Spaghetti Bolonese...

Pucon

2008-12-10T22:15:00.001-05:00

"Boredom is the feeling that everything is a waste of time; serenity, that nothing is."
~Thomas S. Szasz quotes

Wednesday, December 10th 2008

Pucon is one of those place I´ve heard about before I started my adventure. I heard about how lovely the town is and how impressive is the local volcano Villarrica looming overhead, and all the stories turned out to be true and than some. I again found myself in a new town late at night, but this time was different. Instead of frantically looking for an hotel for hours, we accepted the offer of an elderly lady to checkout her hostel which was near the bus terminal. We were taken to a small clean house where we had the first floor (including a kitchen and a living room) all to ourselves, the Seniora did our laundry for free and the price was dirt cheap. As an added bonus we were also invited to a Christmas asado and found a friendly bunch to play cards with on the second floor. My party was also expanded a little as a new couple which I met on the bus joined me for the first half of my stay in Pucon. The couple in question, Shaked and Ela might not stuck for long, but will be always remembered for the trekking cooking tricks learned from them and that improved my diet while on the road. I stayed with the friendly company in the friendly hostel at the friendly town for more than two weeks. During this time I hiked in nearby parks, peered into the mouth of a volcano and strolled the picturesque streets between wooden houses on the shore of the lake with a great white volcano billowing smoke above me. I also cooked a heck of a lot of spaghetti bolonese which was a great success in the hostel dining room. It was only after Christmas that I packed my bags again and left for the Argentinian side of the border...

Radal Siete Tazas

2008-12-10T12:55:00.000-05:00

"A strong man and a waterfall always channel their own path."
~Anonymous

Monday, December 8th to Wednesday, December 10th 2008

The Radal Siete Tazas park was a detour on my way to Pucon. It´s a one day trip between amazing waterfalls and clear rivers that was extended to 3 days of camping due to irrational public transportation. To get there I took with Gili and Harel a 4 hours bus to the small town of Molina and continued with another one that left at 17:00 to the park itself. The bus actually didn´t made it to the park entrance and dropped us off near the tiny village of Radal where we camped near a small clear river and shared a conversation with 2 more Israelis and a Chiliean\American couple. The next day we had a 6.5km to climb to reach the park main attraction, a series of 7 linked waterfalls, but after 30 minutes we caught a ride on the back of a local police pickup that toke us almost to the entrance. Few more minutes of walking took us through the ranger booth into a wooden boardwalk that descended to the Claro (clear in Spanish) river and the famous falls. Inside a narrow creek we found what we came for - a loud clear series of seven consecutive waterfalls falling into amazingly clear and colds pools of water. We spent almost an hour admiring the sight and climbed around to find better angles before we left. Continuing 400 meters down the trail we found ourselves looking from above at a 40m waterfall called Salto de la Leona. We descended further to the river itself only to found that the river is way too cold to swim in, in fact it was way to cold to deep your feet inside.. we completed the circle and returned to the main road going down 3km more to reach the observation terrace for the biggest waterfall yet - the 50m high majestic Velo de la Novia (Bride's Veil) fall where we ate a light lunch before hitching a ride back to our campsite. Since the only bus back leaves at 7:30am we spent another night camping next to a cheerful campfire after a bath in the nearby spring and before we packed our camp and headed towards Pucon...

Cajon del Maipo

2008-12-03T21:03:00.000-05:00

"The best-laid plans of mice and men, often go awry,"
~Robert Burns

Tuesday, December 2nd to Wednesday, December 3rd 2008

The original plan was to climb the peak of El Mirador del Morado - which at 3500 didn't sounds very intimidating after tackling 5200m passes in the Peruvians Andes. Transportation was a bit of a problem since the local bus took Dennis and myself (Kathy stayed in the hostel) only as far as the town of San Jose del Maipo where it dropped us off to hitch hike to our starting point in the small town of Baños Morales. We ate our breakfast at the side of the road and waited for another hour before a truck going to one of the local mines picked us up. Just few hours out of Santiago we found ourselves in a different world - the crowded city streets were magically replaced by a roaring river and snowy mountains backdrop. I picked up my heavy pack and immediately felt sorry for the extra weight. I wanted to test out my equipment so I volunteered to carry my tent to which I added cold weather gear, sleeping bag, water and food accumulating to more than 10kg that I felt from shoulders to knees with every step I took. I knew however, that I only need to carry the pack to the lagoon where we'll camp where it will stay for the summit hike - or at least that was the plan.. We hiked up to the town, bought cold cokes and continued to the CONAF post where our plans were laid to waist. The helpful ranger informed us that although we are in late spring, the trail above the lagoon is blocked with snow and ice and not only it is impossible to scale the summits above it - camping is also forbidden due to avalanche risk... We consulted the ranger and our map for our options and decided to hike the 6km the the lagoon and back and than walk another ~12km in full gear looking for a campsite before continuing with day pack to refugio Plantat - a small base camp used as a setting point for some of the higher peaks around.

The walk to the lagoon was magnificent walking up a comfortable trail that led up the valley with natural springs on the way, to a peaceful lagoon below the owe inspiring peak of El Morado and the lower El Mirador del Morado - still laden with heavy snow that prevented our planned accent. we rested a little in the lagoon and returned back to the CONAF post in under 3 hours, very aggressive timing that we picked in order to have enough time to hike to our planned campsite. The dirt road led from CONAF through the village and along the north bank of the river below us, opposite the better truck road on the south bank which led to our campsite but also required us to backtrack for for than 1km to cross the river - so we continued hoping to find a good crossing up ahead. To make a long story short, we failed to cross and instead climb down and up the steep bank and continued up the trail to find a good campsite almost at sun down at around 21:00. After setting up our tents our immediate concern was water - our bottles were empty and we were thirsty after the long walk. With lack of other options, Dennis made the risky descend to the river below and fill our bottle with muddy river water which we purified with chlorine tablets - the water were safe to drink but tasted like mud all the same... We woke up early next morning and as I went to the toilet I luckily found a good crossing spot directly below me. We packed our camp and made the perilous descend down to the river again - this time with the heavy pack on my back threatening my balance. Luck found us again as we hit a small spring of ice cold fresh water near the river. It wasn't easy but we crossed and climbed to other side, at which point I was starting to feel exhausted from the intensive hiking and climbing with the weight I'm not used to.

We walked a little further and hide the heavy pack below the truck road planning to pick it up on our return. We continued to the small bridge that was our planned campsite that we missed yesterday and started climbing the trail that led to the refugio. At around mid day we found ourselves in a green meadow that led to the refugio accent near a small spring. I filled up my water bottle and encouraged Dennis to refill his with the water since they were cold and looked inviting. That was a mistake. Tasting the water we found out that we replaced our fresh water from the morning with a new brand that had a strong aftertaste of horse shit... not as funny as it sounds... Even worse, it turned out the the green meadow we had to cross was a nightmare hike with knee high thorny vegetation and a lot of small stream to cross - no to mention that it was much wider than it looked. I got first to the refugio accent and throw myself down near a small waterfall of melted snow where I drunk and filled my bottle. Dennis joined me and after looking at each other and the sky that started to get dark and stormy we decided to head back and not try to tackle the accent in our current physical condition and with lack of cold weather clothes that stayed in the hidden pack. We returned to where we hidden the pack - a route that although going down was as hard as going up due to our mounting exhaustion. As I returned with the pack a condor soared up above us lifting our spirits as we started down the long dirt road back. We tried to stopped the mine trucks that passed us by but it took another 20 minutes of hiking before we got to a place where they could actually stop and there a friendly driver took us to the processing plant opposite our starting point in Baños Morales. We hiked another half a hour and than caught the hitch of a lifetime in a fast brand new Toyota pickup that dropped us off after just a hour and a half in the center of Santiago! We surprised Kathy by returning one day earlier than planned and hit a well deserved shower and good night sleep. I may have not completed my goals, but I enjoyed the view and got a good training and some helpful insights for the treks ahead.. All in all a well worth excursion just a hour an a half outside the city.

La Serena & Santiago

2008-11-27T02:00:00.001-05:00

" 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

2008-11-26T21:14:00.001-05:00

"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

2008-11-23T19:00:00.000-05:00

"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

2008-11-22T21:40:00.000-05:00

“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

2008-11-19T07:28:00.000-05:00

"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

2008-11-13T21:37:00.001-05:00

"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

2008-11-10T20:17:00.000-05:00

"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

2008-11-07T21:28:00.001-05:00

"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

2008-11-06T23:06:00.000-05:00

"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

2008-11-04T21:11:00.000-05:00

"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

2008-11-03T20:08:00.000-05:00

"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...

Manu Biosphere

2008-10-29T21:17:00.000-05:00

"Of all the peoples whom I have studied, from city dwellers to cliff dwellers, I always find that at least 50 percent would prefer to have at least one jungle between themselves and their mothers-in-law."
~Margaret Mead

Wednesday, October 22th to Wednesday, October 29th 2008

Along the eastern base of the Andes is a great red and winding river named Manu - the life blood and main highway for the Manu Biosphere Reserve. Cascading down from the dry, grassy plateaus at four thousand meters, and falling dramatically into a tangled cloud forest of dwarf trees, giant begonias, orchids and fern, Manu emerges into a spectacular land replete with howler monkeys, skimmers, egrets and macaws. To be honest though, I was not very enthusiastic about this trip. It was very expensive and sounded too touristic for my taste - something that suites old European bird watcher rather than a real jungle adventure. But the choice was between staying in Cuzco for eight days, continuing to Bolivia on my own or going to Manu, so I went to Manu - especially after hearing that this is one of the only places on earth where you can see the mighty Jaguar in its natural habitat.

Although I booked the tour in Cuzco, the park is actually quite far to the north, past the Andes and the rain forest so the journey started with a 10 hour bus ride to our first lodge. On our way we made two stops: one to see the century old "Tombs of Ninamarca", commonly know as Chullpas or burial chambers, of the Pre-Inca Lupaca people. Those are small round stone building about a meter in diameter and 1 and a half meter high overlooking the fertile valley below them from a high ridge. The next stop was for lunch at Acjanacu pass from which we had a superb view of the cloud forest engulfing the slopes below us and the jungle plains far below. After the pass we drove for about 3 more hours on a narrow dirt road on the edge of a few hundred meters drop, crossing waterfalls and descending deeper and deeper into the cloud forest and getting further and further away from civilization. Finally we arrived to our first station: the Cock of the Rock Lek. The Lek is the place where those weird red headed birds come to mate so we watched from a short distance away, standing on a wooden platform, about a dozen males showing off their feathers in this "birds pickup bar". Afterwards we continued on foot to our lodge enjoying the view of the dense cloud forest vegetation, the waterfalls on the way and the multitude of colorful butterflies. We were even lucky enough to spot a couple of monkeys on our way. We got to our lodge shortly before sunset, put our thing down in the comfortable rooms, took a flash light and went searching for some nightly action near the lodge. Our search brought up some frogs and water spiders.

On the next day we woke up for another short walk in the cloud forest enjoying the views and butterflies again until we boarded our bus again and headed down to the town of Pilcopata, stopping in a Coca plantation on our way to see how this controversial plant is grown. In Pilcopata we exchanged our bus for a rafting boat for a short (50 minutes) ride to Atalya port. The river, who is usually calm, was fast flowing with brown waters after recent rains, the level of guidance and equipment was very far from the professional expedition I had on the Apurimac river, but luckily the river didn´t have rapids higher than level 2 so we made it to the port safely although a little wet. After changing clothes and unloading the equipment it was time to meet our boat team and start our journey up the Alta Rio Madre de Dios river. Our boat was a 10 meter long canoe about a meter and a half wide with mattresses covered wooden benches and a plastic sheet stretched over a wooden frame as roof. In the back holding the controls of a speedboat engine sat our boat driver next to our food and water while in the front, covered in plastic sheets, lay our equipment and the driver assistant. It took us four hours of sailing down the river to reach our first jungle lodge called Erica. The Lodges we stayed in where a cluster of wooden huts with straw roofs and nets for windows. Some lodges offered bathrooms inside the rooms and in others those facilities where shared but in all of them we stayed two in a room with comfortable beds covered with mosquito nets. In the center of every lodge stood a central big room which housed the kitchen and dining room and each lodge had nice niches with sofas overlooking the jungle mere meters away or the river bank that the lodge stood on. The jungle proximity also meant that we had some visitors in the lodge rooms, bathrooms and paths in the form of giant insects, reptiles and birds - it was not a good idea to walk around barefoot...

As we settled into Erica lodge the sky got darker and darker and a than a tropical storm broke in such an intensity that it looks like someone is pouring buckets of water from the sky. From the safety of the river observation deck the storm looked quite impressive and although it continued while we ate our lunch, it was over shortly after and the sky cleared - it was time to taste the jungle for the first time. The next thing on the menu after lunch was a canopy zip line - sailing on steel cable between platforms installed high above ground just below the rain forest canopy. We met by the dining room and our guide handed us the equipment for the ride, a small bag with pulley, harness and gloves. It was recommend to wear rubber boots for this activity but I choose to wear my waterproof hiking shoes. As I entered the jungle for the first time and started walking on the narrow path, I quickly found out that I made a mistake, the tropical storm has passed, but the trail were flooded after the heavy rain and in more than one place the water was higher than my shoes... at first I let Oded carry me through the deep parts, but after we almost fell in one of the crossings, I changed tactic and simply took off my shoes and socks and crossed barefoot. The 40 minutes walk to the first platform took us almost an hour and a half due to the high water, at some point we had to cross a half meter deep stream. When we finally climb up the hill to the starting point it was starting to get dark and by the time we reached the 5th and last platform, night has descended on the jungle around us. The ride itself was fun offering 4 cables, the longest one more than 100m long and over 40m high, but due to the time visibility was limited. From the last platform we rappelled 20m down to solid ground and walked back with flashlights through the flooded rain forest with me walking barefoot most of the way.

On the next day we woke up very early before sunrise and sailed 15 minutes to an observation post on the river bank opposite a clay lick - a place where parrots and macaws come to feed on minerals from the clay walls. We watched the colorful birds for almost two hours using telescopes and binoculars and returned to the lodge for breakfast. After breakfast I had a chance to do the zip lines again, walking the now dry trails and not believing that I traversed them barefoot just few hours ago. From the first Platform I got a rare view of an eagle and two macaw who flow almost at eye level near the trees canopy. We returned to the lodge and boarded our canoe again and ventured deeper into the park going up the Manu river and into the reserved zone - an untouched wild jungle. We saw many birds on our way and impressive jungle landscapes, but no jaguars. We settled into another great lodge and again toured the jungle at dusk finding a giant ficus tree, a giant stick like insect and a giant spider among other insects. The next days were more of the same with boat rides and jungle walks, seeing more of the jungle from the canoe and paths and seeing more birds (including a king vulture) a caiman or two and monkeys. The fifth day was the best in that regards we saw a lot monkey including an angry territorial woolly monkeys who throw branches as us from the tree tops and a group of red howler monkeys who attacked another group of white fronted capuchins while making the unique howling sounds just over our heads! All in all I saw 6 different types monkeys most of them more than once. There was also a small lake near our camp on the 5th and 6th days that we paddles on primitive catamaran to see caimans at night and giant otters at day time. Somehow I managed to fall into the river in one of the mornings when I tried to enter the canoe while it was too far from the river bank

On the 6th day we started to head back, sailing up the Manu river, stopping at an observation tower and searching for a Jaguar and failing to find one. The rain which left us alone since the storm in our first lodge came back for a short but forceful visit while we were on the boat. The lodge at that night was one of the best with rocking chairs in the dining room and good shower inside the rooms. The 7th day we sailed back to Erica lodge against a strong river current which doubled the time we spent on the boat compared to trip down river. In Erica we went for a short walk to meet a local shaman but unfortunately he was drunk and not really impressive. On the 8th and last day we returned to Atalya port after an hour and a half boat ride, said goodbye to our boatmen and boarded the bus for a long and tiring 12 hours bus ride back to Cuzco. While going up the narrow path up the cloud forest, our bus lost two wheel studs and the hammering on the wheel hub induced landslides form the steep walls around us. We backed through the pass again and the Andes mountains and found ourselves in Cuzco at around 20:00 - tired, satisfied and without seeing a single Jaguar...

Machu Picchu

2008-10-19T19:52:00.000-05:00

"Machu Picchu is a trip to the serenity of the soul, to eternal fusion with the cosmos, there we feel our own fragility. It is one of the greatest marvels of South America. A resting place of butterflies at the epicenter of the great circle of life. Another miracle."
~Pablo Neruda

Sunday, October 19th 2008

There are two ways to get to Machu Picchu from the town of Aqua Caliente, to take a 20 minutes bus or climb the steep Inca steps. As I already walked 4 days just to get here, there was no way I was going to take a bus for the final climb and miss the feeling of entering the city on foot. But there was a catch, our guide set the meeting time for the group at 6:00am and estimated the climb time in about 90 minutes - meaning that I will have to set out at 4:30am ! as they say, no pain, no gain... I got up at 4:00am and met the rest of the climbers at 4:30 in the small plaza. Other than myself only two other Israelis (Tzippy and Beni) and the three Portuguese elected to walk and the rest of our group preferred the take the bus. As we started walking in the dark on the dirt road that led to the bridge over the Urubamba river, we saw the flashlights of other groups who got up before us and had a head start. After we crossed the bridge the dirt road ended and we stood and the base of the steep stone trail. The trail itself was made from big rock stones zigzagging through the dense forest with short sections of dirt road when the hiking trail crosses the bus road. When we started climbing it was still dark and the mountain was shrouded in thick fog. The climb was not easy due to the size of steps and the uneven spaces in which they were set but I felt good in the cold wet morning and stuck with the Portuguese who were in great shape and set a challenging speed. As the rest of the group started falling behind, we started to overtake the groups we saw earlier in the mist. It felt great running up the steps and the morning mists coupled with the dense vegetation and the first rays of sun added to the sense of coming discovery. However, after about 35 minutes I started to get tired, and not knowing how much longer I have to climb, I started falling behind the Portuguese who finally disappeared in the fog. I rested for a minute or so, cought my breath and started again with renewed strength. I got the site entrance at about 6:45 after about 50 minutes of climbing. The mountain was still shrouded in mists.

When the rest of the group and our guide got to the site gate I already cooled down and started to feel the cold morning wind who swirled the heavy fog who covered the site as a thick blanket. We all entered the city and immediately walked to the other side to register for the entrance to Waynapicchu which is limited to 400 people per day. After the registration we walked with our guide through the ruins as the fog cleared a bit, and heard about the site itself and some of the prominent buildings. The mysterious Inca citadel hidden deep in the green Urubamba Valley's jungle, high on a mountain top is the most well preserved city of the great Inca Empire. Around 200 stone structures have been erected on the plateau where except houses and temples with sacral objects, ancient Inca aqueducts/irrigation systems for the agricultural terraces, doorways with locking systems and a rock quarry can also be found. Interestingly, the Incas used no mortar at all when putting together large blocks of perfectly cut hard & heavy stones. Even today, fountains and aqueducts still function, most of the buildings are in very good condition and the rocks used for construction are so tightly put together that in many places one can't even push a razor blade between them! After the guided tour we said goodbye to our guide and started to explore the site on our own. The "Old Peak" guarding the skyline above the Sacred Valley is not just an archaeological site. It's much more. We enjoyed the spectacular unique views of the beautiful Andes and the Urubamba Jungle below. The nearby mountains still "swimming" in clouds, partially covered by mist, added more to the mystery and the beauty of the ancient Inca city. The place is special indeed, only those who have wandered on top of the mountain can experience the unique feelings generated by the beautiful view. Setting your foot into Machu Picchu can be a dreamlike trip back into the past...

There's also a less known part of Machu Picchu, located about 400 meters higher than the part that lies on the plateau. That part of the city is known as Waynapicchu, meaning "Young Peak" and it was built on the steep mountain arising right behind the main sectors of Machu Picchu, visible on most photographs about the ruins. We registered to climb the site at 10:00 hoping that the fog will disperse by than and luckily as we ended our independent tour the sky were almost clear. We approached the gate to Waynapicchu at 10:05 and our heart sank as we saw the line in the entrance - we had tickets for the 2 o'clock train and in thus had to leave the site by 12:00 so we were already on a tight schedule. The gate guards ignored our predicament and slowly slowly allowed people in, finally at 10:35 we signed the entry notebook and started again to climb a trail of steep Inca steps... Since we had so little time we again practically run up stopping briefly at the ruins below the summit to enjoy the view and take some pictures. We than climb with our hands the last 20m that led to summit itself, which was no more than a big rock about the size of a small room, where we rested for 10 minutes and enjoyed the magnificent view of the city and the surrounding region. Since time was of an assent, we quickly gathered ourselves and run down the steep steps again making the entire round trip in 80 minutes - about the time it takes to a visitor in reasonable shape just to get to the top...

I was tired from the climb but still elected, together with part of the group who walked with me in the morning, to use the steps down instead of taking the bus. The steps where not much easier to walk down perhaps due to my fatigue and the hot afternoon sun. I got back to Agua Caliente at around 13:20, drank a cold coke in the plaza and went to train station where I met the rest of the group who already brought my belonging from the hotel we slept in. The train ride to Ollyantaytambo took less than 2 hours and offered some nice views although admittingly, I was too tired to enjoy them. When we got to the small town of Ollyantaytambo we hit a bump in the road: the taxi driver who was supposed to meat us was no where in sight. We waited for almost two hours trying to catch the agency using the local phones until we gave up on the original ride and after we were promised a refund we finally organised a transport who landed us back near our hotel at Cuzco at around 20:00. This was definitely a day to remember...

Salkantay - the alternative Inca Trail

2008-10-18T19:30:00.000-05:00

"The name Salkantay is from salka, a quechua word meaning wild, uncivilized, savage, or invincible, and was recorded as early as 1583. The name is thus often translated as "Savage Mountain"."
~Wikipedia

Wednesday, October 15th to Sunday, October 18th 2008

Thinking about Trekking Machu Picchu?
The first thing that came to mind was probably the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu.
But there is a catch: because of excessive crowds the Peruvian government decided not only to limit daily access but also to impose strict Inca Trail regulations. It is impossible to get a permit unless you book at least 4 months in advance. But luckily there is an alternative to get to Machu Picchu on foot (which is how I felt it should be done) - The famous Salkantay Trek, recently named among the 25 best Treks in the World, by National Geographic Adventure Travel Magazine is a trek open to everybody, with no limitation on spaces or permits (at least for now). Connecting the city of Cuzco with Machu Picchu, The Salkantay Trek is an ancient and remote footpath located in the same region as the Inca Trail where massive snow capped mountains collide with lush tropical rain forests.

We departed from Cuzco at about 06:00 and traveled by bus to the start of the trail at Mollepata. We stopped for breakfast at a typical restaurant and met our guide Darwin and the rest of the group which consisted other than the 7 of us of 3 Portuguese and 2 brothers and a sister from England. We trekked for about 3 hours on an unpaved truck road passing through small Andean communities until we stopped for lunch at a cluster of 2-3 small straw covered huts above the canyon of Rio Blanco. On the way to our lunch we stopped at a small store. It turned out the the trek is popular enough that you can find those stores in intervals of 1 hour walking almost all through the path. Since your heavy equipment in on the donkeys - you can do this trek with just your wallet if you want to... At the first store we also had to say goodbye to Ilan who recently came from Israel and could not cope with hiking in those altitudes. After lunch we continued to hike on the truck road for another 4 hours through the green mountain side catching glimpses of the Huamantay and Salkantay snowy peaks through the clouds to our campsite at Soraypampa . We had a good hot meal and retired to our tents for a good night sleep despite the biting cold night outside.

On the second day we woke up early and after one hour of hiking on a moderate trail we started climbing up a steep series of switchbacks known as the 7 Culebras (7 snakes) to El Paso or Salkantay Pass which at 4600m is the highest point of the trek. The mountain pass was shrouded in clouds and visibility was limited to about 100 meters adding to the atmosphere of the climb and pass itself with its ceremonial stone piles. When we got to the pass it started to snow and we offered some coca leaves to the Inca gods, took a group photo and hurried down the steep muddy path. The light snow turned into a snow storm and than torrential rain as we got lower and lower and we were completely wet when we got to our designated lunch spot: a small village of 4 houses at the edge of the cloud forest named Huaracmachay. Because of the rain we ate our lunch inside one of locals huts which was smoky and dark but also relatively warm and dry. After lunch and a well deserved rest we got out and found out that the sky has cleared so we enjoyed sun warmth and the view of the dramatic cloud forest and the many waterfalls who flowed down the lush vegetation of the steep canyon walls. We descended into the forest on a muddy narrow trail along the Salkantay river and passed small lakes and moraines along the route. From now on the scenery started to change from high mountain terrain to a more tropical climate. It took us another 3 and hours of walking downhill to get to Colpapampa where we camped for the night.

The third day was an easy day, walking mainly downhill for about 3 hours through the sense forest to Lluscamayo where we boarded a van and rode for 30 minutes to eat our lunch at La Playa. We noticed the climate becoming much warmer as we entered a zone of high-jungle known locally as Ceja de Selva (or the eyebrow of the jungle). We saw many small plantations in this area growing coffee, coca and several types of fruit such as bananas. From La Playa we boarded the van again for a hour and a half ride to the town of Santa Teresa where we met a friendly domesticated monkey, locked our belongings and got on the van again for a ride to the local hot springs. While not bas eing hot as the previous springs I experienced in Peru, it was still very nice to take a shower and soak in the hot water for a couple of hours. The only downside was that the local mosquitoes turned out to be of a particularly vicious kind.. refreshed from the shower we got back to our campsite, ate dinner and played poker into the night.

We started our last day with a hike on a dirt road along the Santa Teresa river to the old hydro electric station. I felt a need for good exercise and practically run the first section which ended in an amazing view of the water from the station gushing into the river through a natural tunnel in an incredibly strong stream. I waited almost an hour watching the water current until the rest of the group joined me. After another short walk with a nice mountain side waterfall and a bridge crossing we got to the station itself where we ate lunch at the local train station to Machu Picchu. The last part of the day took us along the train rails to the town of Agua Caliente which is the base camp for lost city of the Inca. While walking on the rails offered nice views it was an extremely irritating walk and I was happy when it ended. We checked into a hotel which was arranged as part of the trek, had a hot shower met in one of the local restaurants for our final dinner. After dinner and some explanations from our guide about the next day we cruised the town for some beers and pancakes, bought some supplies and got ready for our final accent to the ruins themselves - a story that will be told in my next post...

Apurimac River Rafting

2008-10-12T18:37:00.001-05:00

"We'd go down to the river
And into the river we'd dive
Oh down to the river we'd ride."
~Bruce Springsteen - The River

Friday, October 10th to Sunday, October 12th 2008

This time I went deep into the heart of the 3000-meter deep Apurimac Canyon to challenge the rapids of the mighty Apurimac, once known as "The Great Speaker" by the Incas. The river, arguably one of the world's top ten rafting rivers is also considered a dangerous one claiming on average two lives per year. For that reason I didn´t save my funds and choose the biggest, safest and most expensive company for this activity - Mayuc. After 3 days on the river I can confidentially say that it´s not the river who is responsible for those deaths but the stupidity humans. As long as you set out with good equipment and good guide and you and all the passengers on the boat obey the instructions of that guide - your safer on the river than on the Andes narrow roads.

The river expedition set out early morning from Cuzco to what was supposed to be 4 hours ride to the take-in point. When I boarded the private bus I found that my partners for this adventure are the same group who I met on the way back from the Ausagate and didn´t like the way they behaved, needless to say I was not thrilled to see them. Fortunately we were already 4 and we added 2 Scottish girls to our group making the necessary crew of 6 to fill a boat. Half way through the Andes we met an unexpected delay: the road was closed for repairs and we had to sit and wait for almost two hours. Fortunately the spot we got stuck in had nice view and we ate our lunch at that place to save some time later. Fashionably late we arrived to the take-in point at Huallpachaca bridge where we were handed our gear: wetsuit, spray jacket, life jacket and helmet. We organized into boats, 7 people per boat: 6 passengers and one guide. The expedition also included a cargo boat expertly guided by a huge Bolivian and 2 rescue kayaks. After we loaded up the equipment we started with an instruction in security and how to paddle and follow the commands we are given. It's really important that everyone do exactly what the guide say, or we could end up in the river all of us... After a bit of theory, we jumped in the boat, and practiced the different techniques, including capsizing the boat and rescuing each other. We than continue down stream practicing our rowing and experienced our first class II and class III rapids. After 2-3 hours on the river we arrived to our campsite a narrow gorge with impressive walls, sandy beach and a huge avocado tree. It was already getting dark and we were wet from the practice we had on the river so we built a small campfire and warmed up beside it as our crew made an excellent dinner. After dinner we had a chance to sit down, talk and know each other better - this is when I discovered that the noisy group were not as bad as the impression they made after all... We retired to our tents where I had a great sleep on the soft sands in the warm night, finally sleeping with an open sleeping bag after so many cold nights in the mountains.

After a healthy breakfast we got back into the river. Our rowing and work team improved as we went through several level III and IV rapids which was a good thing since we had a level V rapid waiting for us up ahead. In the calm stretches between the rapids we swam in the river and had water fights with the other boats using our oars to splash water on each other. Since safety was a primary concern, we had to leave the boat on 3 rapids deemed too dangerous by our guides who guided the boat alone as we walked around by foot with all our equipment. At noon we stopped for lunch on a rocky beach in the searing sun after which we got back to the boats for more of the same. We continued like that for few more hours until we reached our first level V rapid. After a short stop in which our guide prepared us for things to come and gave us some specific instructions we started rowing strongly down stream and into a narrow canyon with roaring white waters. It was over so fast we hardly had the chance to mess up and flip the boat.. after the rapid we continued floating filling our water bottles from a natural spring that flowed from the rock walls of the canyon, stopped for a natural shower under a wide waterfall, passed below a bridge that was used in the famous last scene from "Indiana Johns and the temple of doom" and enjoyed a couple more rapids. After 8 hours of rafting we made our camp on a wide sandy beach where we had the opportunity to jump into the river from a 12m cliff and swim in the slow current. As the sun set we lay on the warm white rocks and enjoyed a quiet rest while tea and cookies were being served. We had another great dinner and another great night sleep, this time is was warm enough to sleep outside the sleeping bag...
We started our 3rd day with a level III rapid called "the wake up" since it splashed water all over boat getting us ready for our last hours of rafting. The day was similar to the second day but shorter and with 2 level V rapids. We also had another opportunity to jump into the river this time from a lower 7m ledge and experience body rafting (floating without the boat) on two level II rapids which made it clear to us why it is better to stay on the boat... The day ended at noon as we reached the take-out point where we helped take out the boats, organized our equipment and enjoyed a barbecue for lunch. After lunch we had an easy 1 and half hours ride to Cuzco on a wide paved road which marked the end of this wet adventure. Since I enjoyed it so much I wrote down the locations of two more rafting rivers in Chile who came recommended by our Israeli safety Kayaker...

Quad bikes near Cuzco

2008-10-09T18:57:00.000-05:00

"Ozzy won't be on a quad bike again. He learnt the hard way that he can't ride a bike."
~Kelly Osbourne

Thursday, October 9th 2008

I looked for something easy and fun to do in my spare time and the choice fell on quad bikes. It was a half day activity in which we toured the area around Cuzco and run wild with our bikes on muddy trails, jumping a small ramp and getting a nice views of the lower Andes along the way. In mid morning it started to rain and at one point I took a turn too fast and ended up in a ditch. It was a few hours of pure fun and mud. Enjoy the photos...

The Ausangate Trek

2008-10-06T22:48:00.001-05:00

"It´s a good thing that you don´t get used to this kind of beauty."
~Tzippy Shamir

Thursday, October 2nd to Monday, October 6th 2008

After a few days in Cuzco I was starting to feel I´m beginning to rot. Don´t get me wrong I could use the rest after all the trekking in Huaraz and the hectic run through coastal Peru, but somehow I felt that if I won´t do something I will get stuck in the city itself like many others I met at my hotel - and I shuddered at the thought. Fortunately I got an offer from Benjamin, Tzippy and Arishai who I met at Ica and again at Cuzco to join them for the Ausangate circuit. The plan was to rest on Saturday making the circuit 6 days long instead of the usual 5 which was fine by me. Another couple - Alon and Tamar joined us setting our final number to 6. Looking back the whole experience looks a little surreal: I came with very low expectations after the views of the more famous previous treks, we went on a 6 days trek instead of 5 and ended up doing it in 5, a 10 years boy led us most of the way, we walked most of the trail although it was suppose to be a horseback trek and the actual route we followed was not the one we originally planed... but we had a good guide, a good group, amazing views and great weather making the Ausangate trek one of the best so far.

On Thursday morning we got up early and took a bus ride with a guy from the agency who arranged the trek for us to the small town of Tinqui. The town itself was very colorful with a small market on the main street. We were introduced to our guide Enrica who invited us to sit in a small courtyard and went to get organized. We walked the streets of Tinqui for a short while until it started to rain and we hurried to the safety of the courtyard. Enrica came back, gave us an avocado sandwich lunch and told us that we will go to first destination, a village called Pachanta, by a small van rather than by horseback. Although we were a little surprised the heavy rain that kept falling made us agree with this decision. We arrived to Pachanta at around 16:00 and settled into a small stone house with a table on the first floor and a ladder that led to a second floor with mattresses on a wooden floor - this was our accommodations for the night. We sat around the small table and played cards to a candle light while the rain kept falling outside. At some point Enrica got in and started to cook our dinner on a portable stove heating up the small stone room. We ate our dinner and kept on playing cards until we decided it´s time to call it a day and retired to our beds.

We woke to a cold but clear morning and as we got out we saw the steam rising from the local hot springs. The small stream near our house was actually partially fed by the hot water so we could wash our faces in warm water. After breakfast we wanted to set out as early as possible since we had a long day, but Enrica was not ready with the horses yet. At some point he got tired with us bothering him and he send us with his 10 years old boy Romario to start walking saying he will catch us up with the horses in 20 minutes. In the coming days this will be the norm we walked with Romario when we were on foot and with Enrica when we mounted the horses. We walked for 20 minutes and stopped but Enrica and the horses were still not anywhere in sight. I used the time practice climbing on a big rock while we waited. When Enrica finally arrived we questioned him a little about the route since it didn´t look like what the agency explained and found out that we are going to do the trek from the opposite direction since Enrica wanted us to rest at a warmer campsite on Saturday. The horses also looked more like mules than horses and we started to have doubts... We mounted our horses and started walking up a moderately steep path that led to the 5000m Q`ampa pass. After about 1 hour we started to enjoy the view of the snowy mountains on both our side and started to get glimpses of the Qomerqocha lake up ahead and our fears melted in the warm morning sun. We continued for another 2-3 hours on horseback until we stopped for lunch at a beautiful spot before the pass. Since we felt sorry for the horses and our asses were soar from the long ride we continued by foot crossing the pass after about one hour of walking enjoying the great view around us. We kept descending by foot under the guidance of Romario into the green Rio Q'ampa valley for 2-3 more hours and decided to setup camp near the river and not risk walking in the dark for the stone house where we planned to stay on Saturday.

We woke up late to a beautiful Saturday morning and found that local Alpaca and Llama herds moved to the meadows around us. We spend the morning resting and reading on blankets by the river on the soft grass until we decided to move to the stone house some hour and half of walking away to find better shelter in the coming cold night. We arrived to our lodging around 16:30 finding another simple mud brick house with a single floor divided into sleeping and eating areas. The sleeping area was made from one big bed with straw filled mattress and two other smaller beds. The biting cold made us decide that we better share the big bed and our body heat. As we waited for dinner it got colder and colder and I was happy when I went to sleep in the warm sleeping bag.

We started the morning climbing the twisty path to the 5200m Palomoni pass - the highest so far I climbed in Peru. When Enrica caught up with us with the horses about 40 minutes later we decided to complete the pass on foot. At one point we stopped on a small rocky ledge and sat down to enjoy the view of the impressive Ausanagate mountain. Shortly after we sat we heard a loud thundering noise and a huge snow avalanche just manifested itself before us. We felt tiny as the huge mountain slope just collapsed down creating an amazing snow cloud in the valley below us. The Pass itself was also amazing. The Huayhuash veterans amongst us agreed that it was one of the best even when compared to that legendary trek. The snowy mountains and the 360 degrees panorama of the colorful Cordillera Vilcanota with a turquoise lagoon below us made us stay at the windy cold pass for almost an hour. As we descended on foot to the lagoon below us and got a better view of the glacier and waterfall who fed it, the comparison to the views of Huaraz came up - we decided that you can´t compare the beauty but we are lucky that we got to see them both. Near the small lagoon Enrica insisted that we will mount the horses for the climb to the 4900m Apuchata pass. The trail to the pass was an unimpressive simple rocky path but from the top we had good view of 3 lagoons, one turquoise, one green and one red. We ate our lunch next to the red lagoon and continued by food along the shores of the turquoise one where the trail left the valley and started climbing the shoulder of the Ausangate were we made our camp on a small ridge near a small black lagoon at roughly 4500m.

We woke up to a white morning. It snowed during the night and the entire region was covered with a thin white blanket. We played around in the snow who melted fast in the morning sun and set out on foot to cross the Arapa pass. On the way Benjamin convinced Enrica, who by now proved himself to be a great guide together with his son Romario who we started to called "the little man", to catch fresh fishes for dinner. we crossed the pass and descended on foot through a green valley to the village of Upis where Enrica asked us to mount to horses again since he feared that rain is coming. We rode for 3 hours through the green low hills until we arrived back to Pachanta again. We moved into a better lodge with real beds and set out immediately for the hot springs. The water were hot and welcoming and it was great to feel the warmth and clean ourselves after 4 and half days in the cold mountains. The water was so hot that we didn´t care that it started to rain again. As we walked back to the lodge, clean and with fresh clothes, we heard a disturbing rummer: the road from Tinqui to Cuzco is going to closed for 3 days starting from tomorrow. The news made us change our plans and we canceled our fish dinner, ate a quick lunch, said goodbye to Enrica´s family and particularly Romario and set out on horseback to catch the last bus to Cuzco. We rode for 1 and a half hours through the rain until we boarded a bus with another group who was in Pachanta with us. The 4 hours ride to Cuzco was tiring and I´m still ashamed by the behaviour of the group who shared the bus with us but we got to Cuzco late at night before the road closed after a very enjoyable 5 days trek.

Cuzco

2008-09-29T00:00:00.002-05:00

"Your emperor may be a great prince; I do not doubt it, seeing that he has sent his subjects so far across the waters; and I am willing to treat him as a brother. As for your pope of whom you speak, he must be mad to speak of giving away countries that do not belong to him. As for my faith, I will not change it. Your own God, as you tell me, was put to death by the very men he created. But my God still looks down on His children."
~Atahualpa, Inca Chief (On hearing Pope Alexander VI had declared Peru to be a possession of Spain.)

I arrived to the ancient Inca capital early on the morning of the Jewish new year´s eve. It was after my third night without proper sleep and at 6:00am the city haven`t properly woke up yet. As I wandered in the impressive Plaza de Armes waiting for the hostels to open their doors I was approached by an Hebrew speaking man who tried to convince me to try his hotel. I kindly refused but the Hebrew the man spoke was a clear sign on how big and influential is the Israeli tourist movment around the town, soon after when I started to see the signs in Hebrew and the Israeli flags I started to understand why they call Cuzco "The Israeli capital of South America". Since it was new year´s eve the city was packed with more Israelis than usual who came to spend the holidays in the city so finding a decent hostel proved to be a difficult task. After more than half a day I settled for a bad room with a very good shower and decided to find a better place as soon as I´ll find the time. All the wondering around got me a good understanding of the area around the central plaza where I will spend most of my time.After a decent dinner I decided to skip the traditional new year´s meal and catch a badly needed sleep instead. I slept for 14 hours through all the noise of people coming and going from the different parties.

In the next morning I moved to a better room at the same hotel and start talking with the other tenants. Almost immediately I found out that Cuzco is not Huaraz. Where in Huaraz people were always on a trek, organizing for one or out for one day activities - in Cuzco it seem that most people were content with just hanging around the city. Since the Cuzco area has so much to offer I found this a little bit surprising but after a while I realized that it just that since Huaraz biggest attraction was the treks people came there to trek while in Cuzco I met the rest of the Israeli crowd, many of whom were interested only in clubbing, cheap dining and perhaps some thrills that didn´t required too much hard work. The trekking crowd was here as well - it was just a minority. The lazy environment and the fact that the end of the season was fast approaching worried me a little at first as I didn´t want to get stuck - but all well that ends well and I found a good group to hang around with and got to enjoy the city and rest a little more than I got to up to this point - which was a good thing since I needed the rest after a very hectic month.

In the end I found that Cuzco is a great town. while not as comfortable as Huaraz, it has a lot more to offer between activities such as Salsa clubs (I even participated in a Salsa lesson), Museums and big markets all easily and readily accessible. I found two great places for breakfast or a light lunch - which were very useful since I often woke up late and hungry, at least 3-4 good restaurants for dinner and a good deal on Ice cream at the local McDonald's.. I also got to enjoy a variety of advantures outside the city from snowy mountains to jungles and lost Inca cities and one memorable afternoon on a hill at the outskirts...

Arequipa and Colca canyon

2008-09-28T21:13:00.000-05:00

"The early bird gets the worm."
~American Proverb

Saturday, September 27th to Sunday, September 28th 2008

We arrived to Arequipa on an early Saturday morning after an exhausting night bus ride from Ica. We had a list of recommended hotels but they were all full so we settled for one who was recommended by our taxi driver which looked good, was near the Plaza and came with a reasonable price tag - we didn't plan to stay long so we settled for the "good enough". After a short rest we went to find some breakfast and see what there is to do around town. Arequipa is not considered a safe place so we didn't plan to wander away from the Plaza de Armes or try any independent activities. We found a good cheap breakfast right next to our hotel but finding something to do proved to be a lot more challenging. It turns out that all the local museums are closed on the weekend and as luck would have it - it was Saturday all day long... The only thing to do in the city itself was to hang around the beautiful central Plaza.

We came to Arequipa for two reasons: it was the sane way to get to Cuzco and to see Colca canyon and the condors that inhibit it. We pondered what will be the best way to see the canyon: a 3 day trek, using the local transportation or an organized one day tour. After seeing some pictures from the Canyon trek and checking the local buses timetable we decided to go for the organized tour. We checked around several agencies and finally closed a deal with the first one we visited. We also bought a bus ticket to Cuzco for the night including transportation to the bus terminal through the same agency. Since Colca canyon is almost 6 hours drive away from Arequipa the pickup from the hotel was planned to around 2am so I went to work on this blog and got to bed early after having a bad pizza for dinner.

We all woke up at 1:30 and half asleep climbed to the small van that picked us up and proceeded through the sleeping city to gather all the other participants: a Danish family, a French couple and an elderly lady from Argentina. We silently drove though the night trying to catch some sleep despite the shaky ride through the mountains until we finally stopped for breakfast at around 6:00am in the town of Chivay which while not much more than a big village, is the capital city of the Colca district. The breakfast was very simple: hot tea with bread, butter and marmalade but at this early hour the bread came straight from the bakery making it a very good breakfast indeed. After the breakfast we left the paved road and drove along the south edge of the canyon, one of the deepest in the world, stopping in small towns and good viewpoints along the way and getting some explanations on the region. We got to the main attraction the Mirador Cruz del Condor at about 8:00. Just a little further down the road from the tiny village of Pinchollo, the mirador is the most popular point for looking into the depths of the canyon – it's around 1200m deep there – and where you can almost guarantee seeing several condors circling up from the depths against breathtaking scenery. We read on the Internet the the condors usually show up around 9:00 and amazingly enough as if performing on a clock the first condor show up at exactly that time. We show 4 condors circling the canyon on the hot air that rose from the ground in the hot morning sun but unfortunately none were close enough to see in full majesty. It was an impressive view and I was lucky to catch a few glimpses through a binocular. At around 10:00 we returned to the van and just as we got in - the driver pointed out to a magnificent condor rising from the canyon just a few meters from where we stood 2 minutes before. We followed the lonely condor as he soared up above us and became a black dot in the clear blue morning sky.

We drove back to Chivay stopping at one or two more viewpoints for another 2 hours. It was noon and time for lunch. Our guide took us to a local restaurant who featured an all you can eat local cuisine including Alpaca meat and we couldn´t resist the temptation to try it. It turned out that the local food is not that good (other than the Alpaca ribs that got to the table too late to change our opinion) next time we´ll take a sandwich... We drove back to Arequipa stopping for a brief time in the freezing Mirador del Volcanoes where we got a good view of the snowy mountains around us and got back to the Plaza and around 17:00 where we had about 2 and a half hours to spent before being picked up to the bus station. We hanged around the Plaza some more (museums still closed...) and read a little until the agency owner came to pick us up. We immediately saw that we have a problem: the tiny cab already had the driver and the agency owner inside and the 3 of us with our big backpacks still outside... Let´s just say that we had to open the windows and keep part of the backpack outside the cab for the short ride to the bus terminal. We were very tired after two nights with very little sleep when we boarded the night bus to Cuzco.

Nazca

2008-09-26T20:10:00.001-05:00

"You win some, you lose some.."
~English proverb

Friday, September 26th 2008

This is the story about how I almost got to see the famous Nazca lines. I assume that you all heard about those drawings that were carved into the desert ground by a mysterious culture long ago and if you didn´t than they are featured in the last Indiana Johns movie. The thing is that you can only see those lines from the air and I hate small planes taking tight turns - a lesson I learned during my army service. I did however got to Nazca, I did get to see the desert plain that was used as canvas for the ancient Nazcans and I did get to see the Chauchilla cemetery so it was not a complete loss. After I got back from Paracas I bought a bus ticket to Areqipa for the next day at 20:30 and arranged through the hotel a transportation to Nazca and back, flight ticket for Oded and a tour with an English speaking guide of the Nazca cemetery. I was not sure if I want to fly or not and I was promised that I could get a ticket at the airport. I was also promised that we will get back in time to catch the bus.

We woke up at a comfortable hour, ate breakfast and a taxi waited to take us to the bus terminal where we boarded a local bus to Nazca. The bus was not as comfortable as the one we got used to in our long rides across Peru but we were told that it´s a 2 hours drive so we didn´t mind. The bus trip took more than 2 and a half hours which should have made us a little worried but we met our local contact, a women named Ruth as we disembarked which made us feel a little better. Ruth crammed us into a small taxi and drove around town for a while. She than stopped an announced that we will go to the cemetery now and fly later. The guide she tried to set us up with didn´t knew English though so with disappointed face she reversed the plans and took us to the small airport. I felt a little quizzy after the bus ride and the heavy drinking two days ago and after taking one look at the small Cessna plans I decided that flying is out of the question. Ruth went inside with us, handed Oded to one of the local flight agencies and told us she will be back later. We sat down on the wooden benches and waited. And waited. And waited... I spend almost 3 hours on the uncomfortable bench only 45 minutes of which Oded was on the plane. Luckily there was a small information center in the airport who screened a collection of the discovery channel specials on the Nazca area who were very interesting and helped me pass the time.

When Oded finally landed it was already late and we were starting to get worried since Ruth was no were in sight. We were finally approached by a local driver who told us that he will take us to a local restaurant where we will eat lunch and wait for our cemetery guide. It took another 35 minutes before we left the airport (the driver waited to other passengers) and we found ourselves in a restaurant that we didn´t feel like eating in so we waited outside nervously looking at our watches. A small van picked us up after a nerve racking wait. The guide spoke excellent English and stopped on few locations on the way to the cemetery explaining us about the region around us - it was the best guidance I got in Peru so far. We finally left the main road for the long, lonely dirt road that steers off the highway from Nazca to Chauchilla heading straight into low hills, crossing a vacant, almost lunar landscape. It is difficult to imagine even an isolated farm thriving amidst this inhospitable desolation.

Located about 30 kilometers from the small town of Nazca, the Chauchilla Cemetery, features bones, textiles, hair, and even some skin that were preserved in underground vaults constructed of mud bricks and buried for over 1000 years. The Nazca people wrapped their deceased in finely embroidered cotton cloths before coating them with a resin and placing them into tombs in crouched positions. Grave offerings were stored beside them, possibly in anticipation of their protection in the next realm.Centuries later, bleached white skeletons, some still with dreadlocks, crouch upright on the floors of their ancient tombs, favoring visitors with creepy grins. We stood by silently, mystified. The mummies stared back, appearing just as amazed at the passage of time that has brought them together with us. We finished the tour and our guide took us to the bus terminal just in time to meet Ruth again and board the last bus that could bring us back in time for our planned night trip to Areqipa.

Paracas

2008-09-25T20:46:00.001-05:00

"Birds of feather flock together."
~English proverb

Thursday, September 25th 2008

The Parker´s national reserve in Peru is also known as "Galapagos for the poor". I don´t feel poor for visiting the place- it was a great tour making me wonder how would a tour to Galapagos be. I closed the deal before I got wasted and Oded had enough sense to wake me up so I could undress and go to sleep inside the bad instead of on it and to set up the alarm clock to 5:30 since our transportation picked us up at 6:00. We rode for about an hour with another couple to the town of Paracas and than sat on the dock and drank coffee while we waited for the boat ride to the Ballestas islands. While waiting we were impressed by the sheer amount of pelicans and sea goals that flew above diving to get a fish from time to time. At about 8:30 we boarded a long speed boat with roughly 50 tourists and started to head off the bay. After 10 minutes we stopped and watched the famous three-pronged Candelabro (Candelabrum), carved into the sand with a similar technique to the Nazca Lines, although possibly of a different origin: theories range from pirates marking a treasure hiding place to soldiers fighting for Latin-American independence from Spain. The one that made most sense though is that it represent the San Pedro cactus and used for religious ceremonies - the true nature of the huge geoglyph, who made it and why will probably remain a mystery...

After taking some pictures we continued to the islands themselves. These islands are eroded by water and wind (Paracas means sand storm, Ballestas means Arc) creating surreal formations that are covered by sea birds and I mean covered! almost every horizontal piece of rock have some kind of bird sitting on it. As we got closer we got better and better view of the islands and the wildlife that inhibit it. Sea birds of all shape and size, Penguins, Sea lions and we even got a glimpse of a few dolphins who played around our boats. We sailed around the islands getting close enough to the rocks and the sea lions who sunbathed on them that we could touch them. While the sea lions seemed used to the commotion around them and even posed for some pictures, the sea birds did not pay us any attention and were more interested in flocking in huge groups or looking for fish, we did get however a very good show from 3 penguins who went for a morning swim. After about 2 hours we got back to the dock and took the taxi back to our hotel. I spent the rest of the day by the pool enjoying the hot sun after the weeks I spent in the cold mountains.

Sandboarding and getting wasted at Ica

2008-09-24T20:49:00.001-05:00

"Let not the sands of time get in your lunch."
~National Lampoon, "Deteriorata"

Tuesday, September 23rd Wednesday, September 24th 2008

The night bus landed me in Lima at around 5:30 in the morning. I met Oded there and together we boarded another bus who took us to the coastal town of Ica. We immediately proceeded by taxi and foot to the Huacachina desert oasis and settled in a small hotel called "Casa de Arena". This was quite a change of scenery from Huaraz. The cold, business like atmosphere was replaced by girls in bikinis bathing by the poolside in the hot afternoon sun, when looking up instead of mountains all I saw were huge sand dunes and the general feeling was of an ocean resort. I read a little by the pool and put my head down when it got a little colder. When I woke up it was just in time to climb a huge sand dune to watch the sunset over the sea of sand surrounding us to the sound music performed by two friendly Kiwi girls. While it took almost 30 minutes to climb to the top of the dune I run down, or more accurately jumped down, in under two minutes feeling great with the soft sand under my feet and the wind in my hair. We ate at a very disappointing all-you-can-eat barbecue and played pool on a badly shaped table until it was time to say good night..

The next day started at 10:00 with a sandboarding tour. I boarded I weird buggy that once was some kind of Toyota truck and the driver took us for a roller coaster ride in the dunes around the small oasis. The ride was fun and the view of the seemingly endless sea of dunes was amazing. After about 20 minutes the buggy stopped at the top of a big dune and I was handed a sandboard and a candle to wax it. I took the first ride laying on my stomach enjoying the thrill of racing down the almost vertical slope on a thin plywood board. I tried the next one standing up, but it was not as fun since concentrating on keeping your balance took the edge from the ride. We continued like that for another two hours trying to survive taller and steeper dunes and enjoying the buggy roller coaster in between. When we returned to the hotel after 12:00 we still felt the adrenaline but we were also hungry as hell.

After launch I had some free time and decided to go on a winery tour instead of spending it by the pool, to learn how the local drink called Pisco is being made. In my time in Peru I learned to love their national cocktail "Pisco Sour" so I thought that this kind of education might be useful. A short round local driver called Tony picked Oded and myself up at around 16:30. We first drove to a more touristic location where an English speaking guide run us through the steps of making Pisco (basically it´s distilled young wine). The brewery itself was old but it does not look active - they probably moved to a more modern facility and kept the old one for the tourists. After the tour we were invited to try the local products of wine, Pisco and local delicacies. We tried everything and I was a little tipsy as I sat back in Tony´s BMW. We were than taken to anther location off the beaten path were our driver became our guide. Tony first run us through the facilities which were still active and than took us to the main attraction: the storage hall. Try to imagine a big stone room with no windows filled with big ceramic jars and all kinds of things you expect to find in a museum: weapons from pre and post colonial time, stuffed animals from the Amazons, mummies from Nazca and various other weird and eccentric stuff from around Peru. Tony concentrated on the ceramic jars though and ignored the rest. Every jar contained different kind of wine or Pisco and Tony handed us small plastic cups and started walking us through the room opening different jars and filling our cups with an hollow cane made specifically for that purpose. We tried between 20 to 30 different types of grape alcohol in different stages and tastes with Tony explaining us for what its good for and what is the correct way to taste it. Considering that Pisco is 43% alcohol it is quite understandable why I don´t remember a lot from the tour. I do remember that we got back to the hotel where I fell asleep still in my clothes...

My last day in Huaraz

2008-09-22T20:51:00.001-05:00

¨Happy trails to you, until we meet again.
Some trails are happy ones,
Others are blue.
It's the way you ride the trail that counts,
Here's a happy one for you.¨
~Dale Evans

Monday, September 22nd 2008

I didn´t plan anything special for my last day. In fact I had in mind a quiet day of hanging around the town and working on this blog. But as I woke up I found a note on the door from Orit that she and some friends are going horse riding in the area and if I´m interested I should meet them downstairs at 9:00am. since it was already 9:30 I thought I missed them but as I went down I found the small cheerful group still in the hotel... I should have remembered that I´m in Peru - not Switzerland... I joined the group and we set out for the last time to the small collectivo station where we boarded a small van to the small town of Yungar. In Yungar we met the horse master and the horses, I got a beautiful white mare named Penelope and we set out westwards towards the Cordillera Negra.

It turned out that me and Penelope got along great. She liked to calmly walk at the head of our small convoy but at the same time hated when some other horse tried to pass her biting the horses who tried and kicked them if horse or rider were too persistent. I ignored the calls to control my horse explaining that this is the way I like as well and that everyone should remain where they are: behind me.. We rode up westwards and up the Cordillera Negra gaining an incredible view of the Cordillera Blanca Who I learned to love so much rising to meet the sky to the east. As the view got better and better I thought to myself that this is a very good way to say goodbye. After 2 hours we stopped at an observation point for Coca tea and local ice cream. We than mounted our horses again and rode back with the sun at our backs.

We said goodbye to the friendly horse master and went back to the main road to catch a collectivo to Huaraz. Unfortunately a group of 7 big gringos are not a very appealing clients to the full vans who passed us by and preferred to cram more locals than to take us. As we debated what will be the best course of action to split up or stop a taxi and watched worriedly as the sky got darker - a police pickup truck stopped next to us noticing that we are standing for a long time next to the road it was patrolling. With the help of the Police we boarded a semi empty van and got back to Huaraz. I had very little time left so I went to see the Plaza de Armes one last time and ate a Spaghetti Bolognese at my favorite restaurant leaving a big tip. I than returned to ¨Casa Haimes¨ checked out, shouldered my mochila and walked to the bus station. I boarded the night bus to Lima and as I watched through the window the lights of Huaraz fading behind me I silently said goodbye to this unforgettable town.

Lake Churup

2008-09-21T19:48:00.002-05:00

"A lake is the landscape's most beautiful and expressive feature. It is earth's eye; looking into which the beholder measures the depth of his own nature."
~Henry David Thoreau

Sunday, September 21st 2008

You see one you see them all you probably think. You're wrong.
A beautiful lagoon always mesmerize me no matter how many I saw the week before, and the Churup lagoon is painfully beautiful. After trekking north of Huaraz (Santa Cruz) and then south (Huayhuash) I opted for something in the middle and the Churup lagoon located about 20km east of Huaraz was just perfect for that cause. Since it´s a short trek and so close to home it was also very easy to execute and can be done independently without an agency all you need is a photocopy of the route (obtainable at any reputable agency for free) water and some snacks.

On the morning of September 21st Oded and myself woke up around 8:00 ate breakfast at our favorite Cafe and set out to find a taxi. The trek starts near the small village of Pitec, but the local public transportation only takes you as far as Yupa which adds another hour of walking to the starting line. We felt a little lazy so we stopped a taxi and negotiated for a good price to the beginning of the trail. It took about one hour to get to the big wooden sign that mark the end of the drivable road and the beginning of the trek itself. We paid 5 soles entrance fee and set out on the very evident trail that climb a steep ridge above us.

After we felt we had enough we started descending back the way we came. We slowly and carefully found our way down the rock wall next to the waterfall and down the ridge to our starting point. This time there was no taxi to take so we headed for the trail to Yupa which took us another hour or so of very boring walking making us happy that we choose to pay a taxi rather than walking this route twice. We waited almost another hour before the public van picked us up at Yupa. Unfortunately for us the van engine died about halfway to Huaraz but fortunately to the van driver the road was downhill only so he had gravity on his side... We glided down the badly paved road to Huaraz, using the starter motor for the rare cases when gravity was not enough and made it to one block away from the collectivo station. We paid the driver and walked back to the hotel. Since we bought tickets to Ica the day before I said goodbye to Oded who wanted to spend another day in Lima and went to sleep knowing that this is my last night in the amazing town of Huaraz..

Chavin

2008-09-20T11:45:00.000-05:00

"The mystery surrounding the ancient civilization of Chavin, a prosperous and mystifyingly unfortified civilization high in the Andes Mountains of Peru in 1,000 B.C., has plagued historians for thousands of years, but recently the veil that shrouded the truth for centuries has been removed and facts have come to light. One of the most surprising ancient civilizations this world has ever seen, historians have learned that Chavin was an intricate society which used methods of total control, manipulation, and religious ritual that have only recently been understood.."
~Digging for the Truth: The Real Temple of Doom

Saturday, September 20th 2008

How many times in your lifetime do you get a chance to see a god ?
housed in the central cruciform chamber of a labyrinthine series of underground passages in the ancient temple in Chavin you can find The Lanzón is the colloquial name for the most important statue of the central deity of the ancient Chavín culture of the central highlands of Peru. Thousands of years ago the most important devotees would be led into the maze of pitch-black tunnels, eventually coming face to face with the sculpture's snarling mouth and upturned eyes. The worshipers' disorientation, in addition to the hallucinogenic effects of the San Pedro cactus they were given before entering, only heightened the visual and psychological impact of the sculpture. Years passed, the temple was forgotten and sealed and the original statue once a god in those lands patiently awaited its rediscovery surviving the Spanish conquest and other countless rise and fall of cultures and religions..

But as usual I get ahead of myself. If you remember I finished my ice climbing experience with a hurt shoulder and a bad cold from hiking through a snow storm. One day of rest just won´t do... So I spent the day after mainly working on this blog and realizing that two consecutive days of doing nothing will drive me crazy. So together with Oded and Orit (who I met at the ice climbing and needed some time to adjust to the altitude) we decided to tour Chavin: a nearby archaeological site on which we knew almost nothing about. After a short inquiry we found that an organized tour will cost as much as a public transport, so we registered to one in one of the many small agencies.

After a good breakfast we went and boarded our bus finding out that the majority of our partners to the tour are a small class of 16 years old schoolgirls from Lima and their teacher. The road led us south of Huaraz and than east with the guide explaining various things in Spanish. We stopped for 15 minutes near the beautiful lake Querocoha for a photo opportunity with the lake and some local Llamas and Alpacas and it was than that we discovered that we are an attraction! the school girls stood in line to get their pictures taken with us almost completely ignoring the exotic animals.. The bus climbed up through the Kawish tunnel at 4555m at which point we gave the girls altitude sickness pills and got sweets in return. After a stop for lunch, we got to the main attraction of the day: the temple of Chavin.

We paid a little extra for an English speaking guide for our small group which was money well spent - the guide walked us through the site explaining in great details the things we saw such as the underground water tunnels the great plaza, the black and white portal and the importance of the number seven throughout the site. We than descended into the maze of tunnels once walked by secretive priests and tribes chieftains and finally got to meet face to face the once proud god of the realm still in in original stand after all those years. The tour took roughly two hours and was fascinating especially since the site is in such a good condition and the whole experience reminded me an Indiana Johns movie.

The experience ended with a tour in the small local museum and getting back to Huaraz at around 19:00.

Ice wall climbing

2008-09-18T19:59:00.000-05:00

"Some say the world will end in fire, some say in ice."
~Robert Frost

Thursday, September 18th 2008

As soon as I put on the gear our guide handed us near lake Llaca I knew I made a mistake.
My shoulder blade started to hurt during the last few days of the Huayuash and one day of rest was not enough to let it heal. However when during the afternoon on the day before I got invited to try this activity I could not say no. We started with a small group of 4 but by the time we boarded the van early in the morning there were ten of us. The small van jumped along the rough road to Llaca where we disembarked and got our climbing gear. The wall itself waited us at the end of an hour-hour and a half of uneven path at 4500 meters. As soon as I took the the first step with the heavy climbing equipment my shoulder started to bother me and I knew I made a mistake...

However one of the group was new to Huaraz and this was her first walk in those heights so we took the trail very slowly even stopping for coca tea on the way. The weather was hot making carrying the equipment even harder. We hiked along the small green lake and advanced to the glacier that feeds it - the landscape was filled with jagged rocks and pools with floating ice it didn´t look earthly or welcoming. When we got to the base of the grey ice of wall we could see that it was slowly melting in the hot afternoon sun. We sat below the wall as the guides setup the ropes and starting wearing the heavy ice boot and crampons. I was the first one who was ready and I confidentially went and stand beneath the harder route remembering my rock climbing experience.

Another mistake...

Turns out that I´m not as good in ice climbing as in rock climbing - the exact opposite - I suck at it! While rock climbing is about finding your way up across the rock face looking for handholds and footholds and keeping your balance, ice climbing is about kicking and hitting the ice with your crampons and axes into submission. And in my case, the ice didn´t yield.
My kicks and blows either weren´t deep enough to support my weight or I shattered the ice creating unusable shallow holes. I kept kicking and hacking but half way through I run out of air and got off from the wall defeated...

Others were not as bad as I was and on the easier route almost everyone got to the top. I felt a little better when I saw that only one other made it higher than me on the hard one (although he did made it all the way up). Although the sky turned grey and the guides were worried that it will start snowing - I wanted to try the other route to see if I can redeem myself. I didn´t. I did marginally better on that route and although I was determined to reach the top on muscle power and sheer will power alone, I tried too hard and the crampon broke from my boot under the force of my kicks - the ice wall has won again...

At this point the sky turned black and fearsome the exact opposite of the hot summer sun that followed us in. We quickly packed our bags and although my shoulder gave me hell, started walking back as fast as I could in the heavy snow that started falling. The snow turned into a storm when I was near the starting point, I almost run the last 500 meters slipping a few time on the icy rocks but I made it back in roughly half an hour. I put on my warm clothes and rested my shoulder while I waited close to an hour to last of the group to huddle through the storm.

All in all it was quite a memorable experience ;)

The Huayhuash circuit

2008-09-16T21:19:00.001-05:00

"By its very nature the beautiful is isolated from everything else. From beauty no road leads to reality."
~Hannah Arendt

Tuesday, September 9th to Tuesday, September 16th 2008

The landscapes of the Huayhuash take your breath away.Magnificent black snow capped mountains who watch guard over impossibly blue lagoons who feed roaring waterfalls and fast flowing streams. Such beauty cannot be described in words, it can not be reproduced in a photograph, in fact the photos attached to this post are a mere shadow of the real thing and I can just hope that they will help me revive my memory from those wonderful moments, don´t think that you can understand the beauty of the place by looking at them - if you can come to Huaraz and experience them for yourself, you won´t regret that decision. However you should know that as always such beauty comes with a price.The Huayhuash trekking area is difficult. you need to be acclimatized to heights, fit and willing to suffer. you should also be prepared to huge range of temperatures change as in blistering sun, torrential rain and wind driven sleet and snow - all in the course of a single day. Almost the entire trek take place between 4000 and 5000 meters above sea level and you need to traverse a mountain pass almost every day and some days you´ll have two passes to overcome ! But still the feeling you get when you finally make it to the pass and the view opens before you is more than a fair reward for all the hard work you put in...

Before the trek started we had some last minutes changes: First we were informed that our Santa Cruz guide we asked for will join us again, second another couple of friends will join us setting our final number to 11 and lastly, Alex found a driver willing to drive us to the base camp saving up half a day walking. The sunny morning who met us outside the hotel as we loaded the van lifted our spirit a little as well. The good weather lasted almost through the entire ride, however as the van slowly progressed through the rough road to our first camping site near Matacancha, dark clouds covered the sun and as we disembark we got greeted by torrential rain and hail storm in which we setup our tents. We huddled inside the main tent and passed the time talking and playing cards, hot tea and popcorn did wonders to our moral. After a good hot meal we retired to our tents getting some rest for the hard day that awaited us.

We woke up early and almost immediately started climbing the steep accent that led to the Cacananpunte pass, the trail zigzaged along the green mountain side and disappeared somewhere between the glaciers above us. There were still signs for the rain and sleet that continued all through the night, but it was a fine weather for climbing. When we got to the pass we were treated with a wonderful view of a wide green grass valley that reminded me the land of Rohan from the "Lord of the Rings" movie. As we descended we knew that there is still one more pass to traverse today and felt sorry for every hard gained meter of altitude lost... we at our launch on the shores of lake Mitucocha and headed for the Carhuac pass. The Carhuac was a mean pass. It did not seem hard at first with the relatively easy incline but as you gain altitude every step is hard and the pass itself was nowhere to be seen.. 10-15 we climbed up a small hill thinking that this is the pass - and every time we were disappointed to find out that the pass eluded us once again... by the time I got to the pass itself I was already exhausted and didn´t even noticed that finally the pass was under my feet. We got to our camping site on the shores of the beautiful lake Carhuacocha at sunset just in the right moment to see the last rays of sun bounce off the huge glacier that hanged over the mirror smooth lagoon.

We got up early again to a frosty morning, still a bit tired from yesterday´s work but as we circumvented the lagoon the majestic view of the Yerupaja mountain lifted our spirits. We know that today´s trail was especially steep and that the emergency horse will not be following us. We walked for 2 hours and rested near the Quesillacocha lagoons also known as the "Mother and Daughter" as we rested we could see the trail up ahead - an almost vertical decent to the mighty Silla pass... Fortunately, at least for me, the climb was the easiest one so far and the spectacular view of the lagoons from above which got better and better as I climbed higher was a nice bonus. I felt a little sad as two thirds through the climb, the trail twisted into a small ravine blocking the view of the lagoons below. before making the last turn I stopped for a moment and tried to etch every detail into my mind. When we got to the pass itself it was snowing hard. Our cook, who walked with us, opened his backpack and started to make guacamole sandwiches, so we sat down on the ground and enjoyed the food and the view while snow started to pile on the ground. We walked through a weird valley of shallow rivers and shallow lakes for 2-3 hours before getting to our camp at Huayhuash. We´ve seen torrential rail fall on the mountains on both sides but luckily we only had to walk through a light drizzle.

As we woke up and started walking we all felt a little excited - not only was this going to be an easy day, but we had a special treat waiting for us at the end - natural hot springs! we were so anxious to get a bath after 4 days that we tackled the nasty Portachuelo pass without a single complaint and as we descended to to Viconga lake thorough herds of llamas and Alpacas we had an extra bounce in our steps. We got to the campsite around noon, ate our lunch, packed towels and change of clothes and rushed to the springs. The springs were everything we expected to be and more.. a clear round pool with 40 degrees hot water that soothed our muscles and weary feet. We stayed for a couple of hours, showered in the smaller hotter pool and got to the camp slowly not wanting sweat in our fresh clothes.We all had a very good night sleep that day...

Our fifth morning on the trail was the coldest one yet. As we started to walk in the harsh cold morning we hoped that the climb to the Punta Cuyoc pass, the highest pass on the circuit at 5000 meters, will warm us. However the wind was relentless and moral started to drop. Suddenly out of nowhere, the two friends who joined us in the last day started to sing. It was hard to sing while you climb and struggle for air so the songs came out a little funny and people had to stop in mid sentence to breath from time to time, but the singing did the trick and the Cuyoc was later remembered as the easiest pass on the trek. By the time we got up, the small ponds were still frozen but the sun has come out and we were all in a very good mood. The amazing views at the pass lifted our spirits even further. It was with high spirit that we descended from the pass and sat down to eat and rest in the meadow below. We each had a decision to make - climb to the San Antonio pass to see the view or rest for half a day at the camp just one hour away. With the exception of two, we almost all decided to test ourselves in the climb - and what a climb it was! almost 700 meters of a trail so steep that on some parts I found myself crawling on all four limbs.. The last part was hard in particular consisting of fine brown gravel that sent you back one step down for every two steps up. I also managed to execute a spectacular fall into a 3 meter deep crevice - but other than my pride and a hole in pants I got off easy - in fact I got so pissed off from the fall that I almost run the remaining part. The pass did gave us a magnificent view for our efforts and we stayed for almost an hour enjoying it before we carefully returned the way we came and hiked to the camp.

On our sixth day we had no pass to conquer and we started descending right off the bat for a change. The trail eased us down along a small river for almost 5 hours before we got to a small village called Huayllapa. Huayllapa who is reachable on foot and horses only was a very small village and the only one we saw during the trek. It was an opportunity to get some supplies, drink a cold coke and tend to our horse who needed a horseshoe replaced. Although not officially a pass, the climb back from the village proved to be a long and tiring affair. Gaining almost 1000 meters of altitude, it was easy to begin with and we enjoyed the oxygen filled air, but as we got higher and higher our legs needed rest and we struggled to breath again in the thin mountains air. By the time we got to our camp we all dropped like sacks of potatoes and drank our coca tea and eat our popcorn where we dropped.

Our seventh day was one of the hardest but also one of the best in terms of views. We started with the Tapush pass who gave us a nice view of both the Huayhuash and Cordillera Blanca and than descended into a forested valley (very rare at those altitudes) and up again to the Punta Yauche pass which was steep and hard but also showed us the Yerupaja mountain from a good angle. As we descended down to camp near lake Jahuacocha, we had a magnificent view of the lake, Yerupaja above it and two hawks soaring up beneath us. We were also able to catch a mighty snow avalanche which roared and thundered for almost five minutes from the mountains to the lake below. We all felt a twinge of sorrow as we got ready to spend our last night on the road.

On our eighth and final day we got up early than usual. It was still dark outside when we ate and we started our hike with the first rays of sunlight. The day startd off easy walking an almost straight path along a water pipe that was laid deep into the mountain side, but as the hours progressed the sun and monotonous walk started to take their toil and we all wished that the trail will end and we´ll finally board the bus back to Huaraz. However the trail had one last surprise waiting for us and we found ourselves after 5 hours of walking 1000 meter above the bus station which awaited to us in Llamac. It was a harsh decend for our knees and legs. Needless to say that we were all very tired when we finally got on the bus... After settling in "Casa Jaimes" again and a very good shower, we all met for a very good dinner at a place called "Chilli Heaven" where I celebrated over a big dish of Chilli con Carne. It wasn´t even needed to be said that tomorrow will be dedicated to rest alone...

Back in Huaraz: getting ready to Huayhuash and canyoning

2008-09-08T20:08:00.000-05:00

"You can't have a better tomorrow if you are thinking about yesterday all the time."
~Charles F. Kettering

Sunday, September 7th 2008

I got back from the Santa Cruz trek with a taste for more of the same. I was not the only one.
Six out of our original group of eight wanted to put more miles on our trekking boots.
We had a hard choice to make. The trek in question was the Huayhuash circuit known to be one of the most beautiful but also one of the toughest trails in the world. The experience of the Santa Cruz pass was still etched in our brains and Huayhuash had 8-9 of those in the course of eight grueling days... However this was a once in a lifetime chance to see one of the world´s greatest landscapes - something that if you miss you may regret the rest of your life...

So with a little trepidation and over a good meal in Huaraz we all agreed to test ourselves in the trails and passes of the mighty Huayhuash circuit. We found another three brave souls to join us and together we went back to Alex from "Andes explora" and closed a deal for the trek starting Tuesday morning. This time we used our experience from the Santa Cruz and asked for a couple of extra things that will make our lives a little better on the road. We also asked for our Santa Cruz guide again. It was almost dark by now and we wanted to try something fun and relaxing for the day we had left before the trek, the choice fell on Canyoning also know and waterfall rappelling. I was still a tired from the Santa Cruz and went to bed early.

Monday, September 8th 2008

I woke up early and packed all the thing I needed in a small bag: a change of socks, a towel and a dry shirt.
As I went outside clouds still covered the sun, I hoped that the day will warm up later.
We boarded a small van for a 20 minutes ride outside of Huaraz. The van stopped on a small bridge and we all disembarked. I looked up at the sky trying to find a window in the grey blanket of clouds above up but to no avail. We climb the hill above the road and stood above the first waterfall - a 20 meter drop of ice cold water in the chilling morning wind. The guides tied the ropes and we started descending one by one, the screams for below were a clear indication for times when a poor soul could not avoid the ice cold water..
As we stood shivering below the fall the guides moved the ropes to next waterfall and the process repeated itself.
Descending down the rope was an
enjoyable experience made better by the futile attempt to avoid getting wet and the laughter of the people below when the inevitable happened... We rappelled down a third waterfall which was a bit taller and narrower than the previous one and rushed to our towels and dry clothes by the bridge. While we tried to get the blood flowing again through our frozen limbs the guides setup the rope for one more decent, this time it was a free rappel from the bridge to the river below - no walls to support you just you and rope, but also no freezing water to avoid - it was the best descend of the day for me.

As we took the van back to Huaraz it started to rain.
While I was happy that I managed to avoid the rain during the canyoning, I was not happy with the prospect of trekking in pouring rain.
I spent the rest of the day looking for better rain protection and some extra aids to keep me warm in the cold nights like a hot water bottle and a warm blanket to help my sleeping bag drive away the harsh cold when I sleep. It rained all through the day and the Internet weather forecast promised us more rain for the coming week. This was not a good beginning for such a hard trek but still we didn´t cancelled. Huayhuash here I come !

The Santa Cruz trek

2008-09-06T20:00:00.007-05:00

Life is brought down to the basics: if you are warm, regular, healthy, not thirsty or hungry, then you are not on a mountain... Climbing at altitude is like hitting your head against a brick wall — it's great when you stop."
~Chris Darwin.
Wednesday, September 3rd to Saturday September 6th 2008

Air. I need air. The mountain pass looms up above me guarded by snow caped mountains, but at 4750 meters above sea level - every step is an effort. Snow is starting to fall, I don't care. There is only one thought in my mind - reaching the V shape crack in the seemingly impassable cliffs above me. But to do so I need air. I'm panting like crazy, slowly slowly with small steps I climb up the trail. The last few steps are done on sheer will power alone. climbing an almost vertical wall to the pass itself I finally stand on the small rock shelf and again find it hard to breath - but this time it's because of the breath taking view of the Santa river valley that opens before me with it's green meadows, waterfalls and sky-blue lagoons.

But I'm getting a little ahead of myself.

The trek started early Wednesday morning with a four and a half hours long bus trip to a small town called Vaqueria deep in the Cordillera Blanca. The ride itself was beautiful passing through the mountains and next to two lagoons giving us a glimpse of things to come. We met our donkey drivers, tied the camp and unnecessary equipment to the donkeys and with only water and a light lunch in our day packs started walking to our first campsite.

The road passes through few small villages first going down to the river bed and than slowly up along the river. The scenery changes from wide meadows with horses and cattle to narrow trails in the local dense vegetation. Although it's not a hard walk, this is my first encounter with the high altitude thin air and my head is throbbing. I feel a little better when I see the camp already set up and we all sit in the common tent for some hot tea and popcorn. Knowing that tomorrow will be a hard day I decide to call it a day early and retire to my tent to get some sleep - I'm later informed that I missed a very good hot meal..

The second day starts with a light decent up the river. We climb above the tree line and the terrain becomes more rocky and steep. I can see the mountains in the distance, but the pass itself is still not visible. The thin air and physical effort are starting to take their toll and the horse that walks behind us for emergencies looks inviting.. I make a decision that I will not ride the horse unless absolutely necessary, greet my teeth and carry on. The feeling when reaching the pass is pure bliss from the view, the sense of accomplishment and the knowledge that from now on the direction is down.

We reach the camp just before night fall tired but very satisfied. The camp is already set up again by our donkey drivers who rushed ahead of us and the smell of popcorn is in the air. We all eat a good hot meal and talk a little until the harsh cold drives us to our warm sleeping bags. The last two days are a leisurely walk through the Santa river valley passing the waterfalls and lagoons we saw from the pass and stopping from time to appreciate the impressive mountains towering high above us.

The trail ends in the small town of Cashapampa with it's impressive irrigation channels.
We take a local van back to Huaraz and after a good shower and a good meal I go to sleep in the same familiar bed at "Casa Jaimes" dreaming about my next trek..

Rock climbing

2008-09-02T19:00:00.006-05:00

"Real Programmers don't play tennis, or any sport that requires you to change clothes. Mountain climbing is OK, and real programmers always wear their climbing boots to work in case a mountain should suddenly spring up in the middle of a machine room."

~From Real programmers don't write specs.

Tuesday, September 2nd 2008

The rock wall is a challenge.

It stands tall above you dares you to try and climb if, find nukes and crannies for your hands and feet, slowly pull yourself up secured by a line of rope anchored high above you.

I love a good challenge.

Turns out I have an affinity for climbing.

With very little previous experience I was able to easily pull off the hardest routes on the rock face near Chancos that 10 of us approached on a beautiful sunny morning. In fact I was the only one who climbed the negative accent and I did it without breaking a sweat..

Maybe I found my sport?

I should defiantly try and purse this activity in the future.

Base camp Huaraz

2008-09-01T19:00:00.001-05:00

"No city should be too large for a man to walk out of in a morning."
~Cyril Connolly

Sunday, August 31st 2008

The afternoon bus from Lima got me to Huaraz at around 19:00.
It was already dark and cold and I directed my weary fit to an Hostel called "El Tambo" which was highly recommended on the net. The place seem nice enough but the only available bed was in a shared room near the entrance.
It was not a good night.
People came in and out all through the night, the ceiling creaked horribly and worst of all the bed had a big dent in the middle which made a well needed good night sleep impossible.

Monday, September 1st 2008

The morning Finally came and the first order of the day was to find another place to stay and find my way around the city.
Fortunately the first mission was easy enough - just 2 blocks from away I found a cosy room with private bathroom at another recommended hostel called "Casa Jaimes" which is run by a nice local family. So I put my backpack down and went outside to explore the city. While nestled in the middle of the Peruvian Andes, Huaraz was nothing like the quiet red roof Swiss town I imagined it to be. It hit you hard as soon as you leave the comfort of your hotel. The narrow streets surrounded with 2-3 stories grey building look like an endless maze of people, activities and insane traffic. The streets are full with store fronts with all kind of shapes and the narrow sidewalks are partly obscured by merchandise and street paddlers.
The first impression is of a dirty disorienting unfriendly place.

But after a deeper look there are some order in the madness, the people are nice and welcoming, the food and lodging are cheep and every thing you need is a short walking distance away in one of the colorful stores. But the real attraction of Huaraz is not the city itself but the surrounding mountains and travel agencies who offer endless activities for passing adventurer. I choose a local agency call "Andes explora", found a few new friends (two of which I already met in my stay in Lima) and together we decided to get our hiking boots tested on the famous Santa Cruz trail. The trek was scheduled for the day after tomorrow, so I decided to try rock climbing and get organized for my first trek...

The door where it began

2008-08-29T19:00:00.001-05:00

"The road goes ever on and on down from the door where it began. Now far ahead the road has gone, and I must follow, if I can, pursuing it with eager feet, until it joins some larger way where many paths and errands meet. And whither then? I cannot say."

~Bilbo Bagginsss

So I decided to take a break.

I´m 34 years old and it´s time to see the world..

Not easy at this age to put everything on hold for a while. It took weeks to organise the equipment and put (almost) everything in order with the different authorities and entities that are part of my adult life.

When I told everyone that I´m planning a 5-6 months backpacking trip in South America, I was surprised but the most common response was not "why?" but rather "I envy you..." but still, here is why:

1. because I want to

2. because I can

3. because the time is right

Now that "The Why" is behind us, and after a Business class flight to Lima, 2 days unplanned stay in Lima because the Airline company misplaced my friend's backpack (how typical...) I got on a bus to Huaraz where the adventure will begin..

First step out there and way...