Out Of Office Message:

Graham:

We left you last in Cusco...ok, so that was 3 weeks ago and I'm now in Mexico, but hey, travelling is a busy life! So here´s a little catch up on our 2 weeks in Peru, our last stop in South America, which is a shame because its been a brilliant, packed with interesting places and people, endless stunning landscapes and great food and drink (Bolivian beer aside). I´d highly recommend a trip there to anyone. Anyway....

Cusco, the centre of the old Inca empire, has to be the nicest looking city we have visited so far. In all of the central area the Spanish colonial buildings have been immaculately maintained with not a plate glass window in site. The Spanish destroyed or built over most of the Inca buildings but here and there a few remain which you stumble across as you wander the tight cobbled streets. By law you cant build a roof in Cusco with anything but tiles so from our hostel on the hill the city was a sea of red tiled roofs, white buildings and endless churches (they really are a religious bunch) and plazas. Puts most modern cities to shame for aesthetic quality. So that is where we wandered, drank, ate (very well!) and generally lazed about for 7 days whilst we waited to begin our Inca trail trek, one of the things I was most looking forward to on the trip.

On the road to Cusco

So that began with a 5am pick-up on the first morning. Excitement got us moving and after a 2hour drive into the sacred valley of the Incas we stopped for breakfast near our starting point at 2600m (already twice as high as the UK´s highest peak!). We also met our group of 11 new friends who we´d be spending the next 4 days with, and after the stinking French on our salt flats tour it was a relief to find that we had a very sound bunch of fellow trekkers. Even the 3 yanks werent too annoying once we got to know them! 3 Kiwis, and English couple and an Irish lad made up our group. On top of that there were the heroes of the trip, the porters, of whom there were 17 no less. Apart from a few bits in our own day packs, there guys carried everything...sleeping bags, tents, tables, chairs, food, water, gas canisters, the kitchen sink (ok, not the last one). Each carried about 25kg on his small peruvian frame, and this at twice our pace (so they had time to set up lunch, camp etc for our arrival), up steep rugged paths and at altitude! If there was an uphill bag lugging event at the olympics, Peru would surely clean up! 2nd in line for hero status was the cook..the stuff he rustled up each day was quality..3 course meals every time and all of them great. We may have been tired but we never got hungry. We even got a cup of coca tea at the tent door each morning.

So on to the trek. You only actually walk 32km over the 4 days but most of it is either sharply up or down rugged paths, which combined with the breathlessness due to altitude, and the either hot or wet conditions, made it one of the toughest things we have done. The first day was supposedly just a warm up, because we only climbed about 300 metres. They failed to mention all the ups and downs in between so it was still pretty tough. Fairly short day though with only 5 hours walking to the campsite at 2950m in a very awe inspiring setting at the bottom of the mountain we would walk up the next day. No showers but the dude selling cold beer from a bucket made up for that!

We´d been warned that the 2nd day was very tough with a climb of over 1200m to the highest point of the trek, 4200m, followed by a sharp drop to camp at 3800m, about 10 hours in total. I really enjoyed this day, the climb was tough but the views were amazing, and throw in a few Inca ruins on the way and a walk through some cloud forest and it made for a memorable day. We were also now walking on the original path the Incas used to reach Machu Picchu which made it feel a bit more special. Mentally challenging day but apart from a few aches we both pulled up pretty well. Still no showers and more tragically no dude with beer that night.

We found day 3 more physically challenging. Though we ended up 1000m lower, most of the downhill section was in the last 2 hours of a 10 hour day and the old Inca steps didnt half hurt the knees. Again we walked through very cool cloud forest and past several ruins but I was glad that day was over..and there was both hot showers and cold beers at the end of it so things were soon looking pretty fine again!

So on the final morning we were up at 4:30am for a final 2 hour push to the sun gate overlooking the ancient site of Machu Picchu, one of the new seven wonders of the word. Built by the Incas in the 15th century it´s an amazing place, not just because the ruins are vast and well preserved, but because it was built in such a remore and inaccessible place on a mountainside. What I found amazing is that it wasnt rediscovered until 1911. When the Spanish invaded in the 1500´s it was abandoned by the people who lived there so that the Spanish wouldnt find it. Despite it being a significant settlement and a spiritual centre for the Incas, no-one uttered a word about it to the Spaniards. You´d think that someone might have let it slip over a tankard of ale but the Spanish never found out about it so never got the chance to plunder and destroy it like they did with most Inca buildings (very diplomatic these conqueros). It was mostly covered in cloud when we arrived at the sun gate but as we walked down the mountain the morning sun burned away the clouds revealing the ruins. For the first hour we were able to wander around in relative peace, before the day trippers began to arrive. You can cheat and get there by train and bus and the place gets a zillion visitors a day. It was transformed from ancient wonder to american theme park so we headed off and that was the end of our Inca trail. Even though Machu Picchu was pretty special, at least before the crowds arrived, the trek itself was what made it for us...great stuff.

Machu Picchu

Back to familiar territory the following night as we met up with our trek group back in a Cusco bar and congratulted ourselves over a shed load of pisco sours, and said our farewells. We would be catching up with one of the lads, Irish Olly, again though the following day as he was on the same flight heading to the same jungle lodge as us.

We were heading to Puerto Maldonado, swapping altitude for the heat of the amazon basin. For 3 days we stayed at a very nice lodge, a 2 hour ride from civilisation on a ramshackle boat into the rainforest. Unfortunately there were a few more brash Americans and French than we would have liked but it was still fun, and a sweaty 15km walk aside we go in plenty of relaxation time in the riverside hammocks. Saw endless monkeys and colourful parrots, caimans, a 7 metre long fat anaconda snake and too Alicias horror a tarantula as big as my hand!

Amazon sunset from our hammocks

A quick but spectacular flight over the Andes to Lima and that was pretty much it for South America. This afternoon, I´ll be heading back to a quiet white sandy beach with a cold Corona or two about 2500 miles north on the Mexican Carribean coast.....tempted anyone???

Alicia: I know it´s been ages since we´ve been in touch, but you know this travelling thing is a 24 hour job..its hard to get some down time...
Following on from the last entry:From La Paz we caught a 4 hr bus to Copacabana, which also involved us piling into a small boat to cross part of lake TIticaca while our bus followed on a rickety old barge!
Copacabana is like a medittereanean seaside twon with lots of cafes, beer gardens and hippies/indians selling weaved jewellery on the streets. Set mostly on a hillside, you have a view of the lake whereever you are. Our hostel La Capula is awesome, set right on the hill with great lake views. Our time here was mostly spent reading our books, chilling out in hammocks in the hostel garden.Thought we would get in some training for the Inka Trail and walk to the top of the hill where the cemetary is - 20 mins of stairs in high altitude was more like an hour - beautiful view though!

After 2 days of sun and hammocks we hoped on a 2hr boat to Isla del Sol, an island where Inca´s believed the sun was born. We were dropped right at the bottom of the hill - the town on the top! A long walk up some Inka Steps and cobbled pathways, passing donkeys and Llamas with produce from the dock, we reached the top. The views, just breathtaking - blue lake for miles aurrounded by little islands and a backdrop of the snowcapped andes. Our room must have been the best on the island, with a full panormaic view of the lake and just $20 Aust! Found a great mud-brick woodfire place to have some trout - yum. Our last day on the island, we set off on a 3 hour walk to the South side of the island to visit the Inca Ruins. The sun was shining and the wind was cold so it was perfect for some more Inca Trail training! Most of the walk was pretty flat, but the uphills were a killer. Eventually making it to the top, we had under a minute to look around before leging it to catch our boat back to the other side of the island. 10 minutes later and we would have missed it! A hot, stuffy crammed boat ride dropped us off at a different part of the island, where we were faced with a huge steep Inka stairway. It was all take 10 steps, rest, take 10 steps, rest...
High fives as we made it to the top to check into our new hostel- Inti Kala for a much earnt beer. The other day we had seen this hostel with its huge balcony facing the sunset side of the lake and couldnt wait to reserve a room for the next night (always a sucker for a great place for afternoon beers!). Stupid really, booking in without seeing the room first - the place was an absolute dive! No hot water, the bathroom door didnt even close and they were still building half of it! HORRIBLE. We did make the most of the beers on the balcony with an amazing sunset to the sound of donkeys ee-oring!

2 nights on the island sent us back to Copa on a tiny boat - there must have been about 50 of us on there all crammed in sitting on seats sunken in from rotting wood and people (us included!) packed on the roof. Definately an experience. But definately never felt less safe in my life!

We arrived in Copa to the festivities of Day of the Dead, crowded streets with lots of people, live music and gaudy decorations. The sun still shining, we opted for two extra nights before heading to Cusco so we could catch up with a couple we met in Brazil.

So that was the end of our Bolivia travels as we are now in Cusco, Peru. Just sorry we couldnt see more of Bolivia because I think next to North West Argentina it was my favourite place - lots of character and colour and many diverse landscapes.

Graham:

So up to La Paz, the worlds highest capital city, where even walking is a bit of a chore thanks to the altitude and the cities spectacular location built in the mountains, meaning that a flat road is a very rare thing. Its a huge crazy place with street sellers everywhere and deathwish taxi drivers. We spent a couple of days mainly exploring the many markets. At the witches market the old dears were selling endless vitality potions, animal skins and most bizarre, dried llama foetus´s, considered a stylish & lucky housewarming gift! Poverty is pretty obvious here with lots of beggars and many streetside shoeshiners who wear balaclava masks to hide their identities from there families. I heard they can look a bit scary but it just took me back to good old english winters at primary school when balaclavas were essential kit, usually supplied by your nana!

Our main reason for coming to La Paz though was to cycle the worlds most dangerous road, which starts near there. Its a 64km long, almost completely downhill ride, dropping from 4,700 metres to 1,100 metres at the very different sub-tropical town of Coroico. Its reputation is mainly from the time (pre 2006) when it was the only road through the mountains and being gravel and only a few metres wide, and with sheer vertical drops most of the way, vans, buses and cars used to dissapear off the edge all the time (estimated that over 200 people a year perished on the road). Now they have built a new tarmac road for traffic, the old road is mainly just used for tour buses and mountain biking. Theres only been 14 cyclists bitten the dust in 10 years so we fancied our chances and signed up. The experience was brilliant, cycling from cold & snow to tropical heat, through streams and waterfalls, with amazing mountain scenery when you were brave enough to take your eyes off the road. A flow of stories of gruesome injuries from our guide ensured we didnt get too cocky and after 4 hours we made it to the bottom in one piece, a cold beer never having tasted so good.

The road...

On the road...

Alive!...

We´d decided to take advantage of the lower altitude and warm weather so headed into Coroico, sharing a taxi with a group of Irish who we had been with since the salt flats. When I say taxi I mean Bolivian style taxi, by which I mean 6 of us and rucksacks squeezed into the back of a pick up truck for 8km of bumpy roads! All good fun though and it was only appropriate to end the day back with the Irish, celebrating our survival over several jugs of sangria & cocktails. Coroico itself is small and there´s not much to do, but it has a stunning location at the foot of the mountains. Have to mention our hostel (Sol y Luna), up above the town, where we stayed in what was basically a bamboo tree house. Totally secluded (which was for the best seeing as the shower was outside!) in amongst the woods, hammock & deck chairs, a ladder up to our bedroom and only a flynet between us and an amazing view of the mountains to wake up to. Sort of thing that costs a small fortune usually, but not in Bolivia!

Could only justify 3 days of swinging in a hammock though and so we got the bus back to La Paz, this time on the slightly safer new road (still with sheer vertical drops!). And that is where we are, about to head off from the worlds highest capital, to the town of Copacabana on the worlds highest navigable lake, Lake Titicata, where we´re going to catch up with the Irish again with inevitable consequences I´m sure!

Alicia -
TILCARA-
After Tilcara, our next stop was crossing the border from Argentina into Villazon. It was a long and desolate road to nowhere, passing mountains in a million different colours and hundreds of Llamas, goats, wild donkeys and mini dust tornadoes. Not alot to say about Villazon, but we had to hold up for a night as our train to Tupiza was the next day. Awesome markets, really colourful - but as the only ATM in down was out of action, we were stuck! We settled for fried chicken and chips (what I have heard is a bolivian dish) in a very questionable restaurant/cinema. In the morning we were woken early by horrible, horrible church music and now that I think of it, ever since we have been in Bolivia, early morning church music on the town speakers is a permanent thing.
Trying to be safe about our food options before we got on our long train journey, we opted for soup. Well, what we thought was soup, but what we actually got was a three course meal! We were dumbfounded when all the dishes kept arriving! But for $5 aussie dollars it was a steal. It was the best meal we have had since being away and we were able to sample almost all the regional dishes in one sitting. I am amazed at how great the food is in Bolivia.

TUPIZA-
The train ride to Tupiza was great, travelling executive class we got drinks and food and there was so much room - a better way to travel than bus. We werent really taken by Tupiza. As a starting point for many of the Salt Flats tours, I thought it would be livlier, but our hostel was like a ghost town and the town had no character. There was no such thing as a cold drink and there was obviously no need to refridgerate things like yoghurt or meat!! As we are getting higher and higher in altitude, cocoa leaves are everywhere for sale and the locals chew it constantly to help with altitude sickness.

SALT FLATS TOUR - TUPIZA to UYUNI-
On day one we set off early on a 4WD with 2 french guys, our driver/guide and cook on what seemed like the longest day ever on a bumpy dirt road. Not alot to see on the first day, but we climbed to 4260m and saw towns so remote and based on as little as 8 families. Saw a beautiful sunset against the mountains and by nightfall we arrived in Quetena Grande and it was freezing! Even the thermals didnt cut it. Tried Cocoa tea that night, but really it just tasted like leaves, so we´re not a fan.

Llamas Crossing-

The second day of the tour was awesome. Rio Amergo was a place that has hot springs, but not brave enough to face the cold (I´m telling you, it was freezing!) winds, we just dipped our feet in and it was just beautiful, so warm I could have sat there for hours if they had sun chairs! Next stop was Laguna Verde, a beautiful turquoise green lake with Volcano Licancabur in the background - definately the highlight of my day. Laguna Colorada, our last stop, was set to break into the 7 new world wonders - a huge deep red lagoon with hundreds of flamingoes - Graham´s favourite. The hostel this night was extremely simple - no showers and freezing rooms with musty, sunken in mattresses - awful, but I am definately getting used to these sorts of living conditions! Our cook made up for it with awesome soup and a hot meal.

Laguna Colorada-

Laguna Verde-

By day three and still no showers, the french guys smelt like they hadn´t washed in months! It was so bad we had to have the windows open all day with our heads out most of the journey, which made the journey really uncomfortable (Graham says that this is just typical french). Today we toured through ´Desierto de Siloli´which was really impressive - a desert splashed with volcanic formed rocks and the famous Stone Tree. The sun was hot and it was awesome climbing up all the rocks and seeing desert and mountains for miles. It´s so hard to explain how amazing it is what we have seen - pictures even only tell half of it. For our last night we stayed in a Salt Hotel - made completely of salt! It was really funky with salt brick walls, salt grain floor, salt tables and chairs AND hot showers! Sooo what I needed - I was beginning to look like a cave man. I think the french guys must have started growing stuff on them by now. While we ate at our salt table, three boys came in dressed in their get-up and sung and played pan flutes and drums. Electricity in this place was scarce and packing at 5am in the morning by candlelight really made us appreciate that we have it all the time.

Our last day of the tour we left at 5am to watch the sun rise over the biggest salt plain in the world. ABSOLUTELY AMAZING. So remote and white salt and blue sky for miles. Even though my toes were numb from the cold, my food poisoning had returned and the french guys odour had increased, it was still beautiful and unreal at the same time. We also visited one of the islands on the Salar - Incahuasi Island - a real highlight! Formed by calcareous roacks, corals and marine shells. The island was covered by hundreds of cacti, some 13ft high. Taking a walk to the top, the views over the Salar were unreal.

Incahuasi Island-

Sunrise over the Salt Flats-

The Salt Flats tour was definately an experience that tested us in so many ways - I´ve never peed out in the open and on so many mountains so much, also never been on such rugged 4WD terrain with such beautiful backdrops. Definately a must do - perhaps with an english speaking guide next time??

Next stop, La Paz and Death Road

Alicia - so following on from where Graham left off, we left Salta for Tilcara, which is known as the liveliest of the Quebrada villages. Coming into the village, it was all dry with mud-brick houses, lots of cacti and pebbled streets. An awesome town with a rustic atmosphere. We spent most of our time here in a place called LA Pena de Carlitos, eating humitas, tamales and even tried our first Llama steak During the night there was lost of live music - they are obsessed with pan flutes here. The place we stayed in, Uwa Wasi was awesome - an old authentic house built by natives using indigenous materials, right down to the locally weaved blankets on our beds - the shower was even made out of rocks!I really loved this place. These small mountain villages have such a homey feel, and its funny because I´ve neverbeen a mountain-holiday person, always opting for sun and sand, but I tink I enjoy this more. Tilcara was out of power for most of our second day there so our options were limited, but we got some cheese and wine and walked an hour to the top of ´Pucara´ - a site where some of the first Inca ruins were found. Pretty cool area with lots of cacti and a great view of the mountains, but sooo windy.
This was our last stop in Argentina before crossing the border into Bolivia...