Us vs The Volcano

We got off the bus in Pucon in the wee hours of the morning after the 12 hour journey from Valparaiso, we had taken posh semi-cama seats. We arrived into bus station which is not far out of town and then walked a little down the street towards the small village and looked to our left and... wow, there breaking out of the landscape is the magnificent active volcano Villarrica (2860m). Covered in snow (it's a glacier) the volcano dominates the entire landscape.

At the beginning of the climb

We had met a bloke in Valparaiso and got chatting and said our next stop was Pucon, 'There's nothing there but a volcano which you can climb' he said, Ellen looked and Angel and said that's what we were going for. Needless to say Angel was not aware of this volcano climbing decision, until now.
So we had come here to attempt to climb an active volcano. Nice. We checked into our hostel, it was just before 9am but Emma (the hostel owner) let us into the room anyway and we cleaned ourselves up and headed out to the Main Street, 'O'Higgins' to find somewhere for breakfast. As Pucon is one of those towns where early (like 5am) departures for adventure sports are the main attractions, hostels and hotels do not usually include breakfast, so we hoped to find a cafe open, but after all this is Sunday and this is South America (ie, very few things are open on Sundays). We did manage to find a cafe and had eggs and toast with more bad coffee (again, we do not understand the South American obsession with instant Nescafé). We then set out to find the volcano hiking company we (Ellen) had researched about. As in most tourist towns around the world, many companies in Pucon just want your money, they tell you that you will get to the summit and give you average quality gear, we went with Aquaventura, they have a very good safety record, they don't guarantee you will make it to the top and you do not actually pay for the adventure until you get back from the hike. They give several opportunities to back out with it costing you either nothing or just the cost of the transfer to the base of the volcano. 

Villarrica

We woke at 5am to get to the hiking office by 5.30 (it was 2 blocks away), the weather was good, a nice clear day. We were told the chairlift was not working the day we went up as it was too windy, so this added another hour onto the 4 hour hike to the top. At the top of the chairlift, after hiking an hour, single-file, up the volcanic shale we all sat down to put on our crampons, hard hats, gloves and ice picks. We then headed up the glacier.  It's a hard slog, not flat at any stage, you just put your head down, watch where you put your feet, single-file hiking. At approximately each hour of hiking they stop you for a rest, you carve out a seat in the snow and ice, sit down and have a snack and get up again, after 4 and a half hours of continuous 60-90 degree angle hiking we unfortunately reluctantly gave up. We were 3/4 of the way up the volcano but the remaining quarter was to take another 2 hours and it was about a 90 degree incline, Ellen's legs had given up and Angel's feet were macerated and blistered in the rented boots you have to wear (think rigid ski boots, and try hiking in them!), our guide had told us that walking down is harder as you have to concentrate more and this when a lot of accidents happen due to fatigue (a lot of hikers have died doing this trek) so we made the sensible decision to slowly walk back. We were disappointed with ourselves but there was no way we could have made it to the top in the condition we were in, if the chairlift had have been working there may have been a possibility that we might have made it further as it would have cut out the initial hour of hiking. We'll just need to come back another time and try again! The good thing about giving up was we were able to take our time and appreciate the view, it was magnificent, and as our guide said, the views from the top were the same view as where we'd got to. We sat and ate the empanadas we had brought along for our snack and took in the breathlessly beautiful view.

The next day we decided to stay in Pucon another day, mainly because we were so tired,and Angel could barely walk with the blisters and damaged feet from the boots so we took it easy, enquired about either going rafting or to the hot springs for the additional day and strolled around the town to the 2 lakes and had lunch (an awesome breakfast burrito!) and a siesta (when in Rome) and then dinner at the best steakhouse in town, La Maga. The steak was great, Angel had a 500g bife de chorizo and Ellen had the 350g one. 

We also did our laundry for probably the last time as we only have 5 days left!

We had dinner with Sarah and Brian, an Australian couple who were staying in the same hostel and Brian had done the volcano hike with us, but he had made it to the top. 

The following day we went rafting! It was brilliant fun, there were some straight sections of water but the guide made it interesting but either pushing us in the water or getting us to play games so we would fall in. We had wetsuits and helmets, gloves and special shoes but the water was still cold but so clear! The group was great and the Brazilian girls are going to send us photos they took with their waterproof camera. 

Our temporary dog

While we were in Pucon we adopted a stray dog, well she adopted us. She appeared on our first day, followed us around for a couple of hours so we bought her some dog food and she loved us more. The following day we could not find her in the evening after our hike, and the next day she found us near the market and then followed us the entire day, waiting outside stores we were in, sitting beside us when we had lunch outside, took us to the beach (she looked like she wanted to show us something and it ended up that she wanted to go for a swim), in the evening when we went back to the hostel to change for dinner she was not waiting for us when we came out, but we headed up to the Main Street and there she was, waiting at the end of our street and was so excited to see us, we walked to the restaurant and she waited outside while we had our steak, we cut the small bits of fat off and kept them for her, and she was there waiting for us when we came out. 

We hope someone else sees her sweet nature and takes her in, or other travellers feed her. None of the strays look starving, they are all in quite good condition, but the problem here in Pucon according to the owner of the place we had lunch is that everyone wants puppies so around Christmas there is a new wave of puppies and then by late summer they are dumped. It's very sad. If we had been locals we would have kept her. Angel really does not like dogs and this one he really liked and grew attached to. Such a sweet natured dog. We called her Bob, like our cat. 

Valparaiso, a city of dogs and graffiti

The first thing you notice about Valparaiso is the fresh sea air, the next is all the stray dogs! We thought there were a lot in San Pedro de Atacama, but here, they are everywhere.

Dogs & Graffiti

After checking into our B&B we took a 'free' 3 hour walking tour of the city and at each point there was another pack of dogs ready to follow us. The tour was great, it was the same company as the one we did in Santiago, tips4tours, you pay what you think the tour was worth. We began the tour in the old town, which is UNESCO listed, it's beautiful , if a bit run down and due to it's heritage listing it's difficult and expensive to renovate the buildings so many at left to deteriorate.
We then headed up one of the amazing old funiculars to one of Valaparaiso's many hills to see the magnificent views of the port town (the dogs didn't come up with us in the funicular - there was the next pack waiting for us at the top). Due to the nature of the hills, the economy and the poverty (Valparaiso has the highest unemployment rate in all of Chile) the houses are built with an eclectic mix of materials and designs which makes for a very interesting landscape, also the colours are a highlight as most houses are made of corrugated iron they paint with bright colours, a bit like La Boca in Buenos Aires. We headed down many narrow cobbled streets their walls covered in graffiti, apparently it originated during the Pinochet dictatorship as a form of protest but it has turned Valpo (as the locals call it) into an open air art gallery. In fact, so many of the worlds graffiti artists are drawn to the city and some house owners to prevent horrible 'tagging' on their properties either commission artists to paint murals on their facades or they give artists carte blanche to paint what they want if the owner can't afford to pay.

Piano stairs, Valparaiso

Apparently there is a code within the graffiti world where you don't mess with a other artists canvas, though there are always exceptions to this as you see around the city. 

The town is beautiful and while on the walking tour we met one American guy who arrived in the town 2 years ago planning to stay a couple of days and he has never left, you can see why as the city really does grow on you.
There are some brilliant restaurants in the city including Cocina Puerto, and some pretty good ice cream shops.

The B&B we stayed was called La Nona, a cozy, family-run place managed by a couple who own the house which was owned by Rene's grandfather, a immigrant from England. It's always been a B&B, Rene's grandmother ran it up until a couple of years ago when she died. Rene was really helpful in telling us what to do and where do go, and he laid out a pretty mean breakfast too!

Ah, Mendoza. Wine, beef, wine, beef...oh and some pasta.

Wine tasting

We had planned on popping back into Argentina to come to Mendoza all along, initially it was for 2 days but we stayed another we loved it so much.

With its wide avenues and boulevards, pretty parks and many restaurants, it is hard not to love Mendoza. Our B&B is near the centre, it's run by an older couple who treat you like one of theirs, they organise breakfast around you, give you a key if you will be out late (1am, latest of put whole trip! rock on!) and want to make sure you have a great time.

More Wine Tasting

We booked a full day wine tour for our first day with Kahuak, pricey but it took us on a private (no one else booked so it was just us) tour of 3 wineries; Navarro Correas, Trapiche and Familia Zuccardi. All big wineries but the latter is a bit more touristy with 2 restaurants. The best tour by far was the Navarro Correas, our guide was great - the tour we booked was a driver to take us to the wineries where we would have tours with the winery staff - it was just us and her and she showed us around the place and then sat with us and poured 3 large glasses of wine. 2 red and 1 white; Chardonnay, reserve Cab Sav and a Gran Reserve Cab Sav which was awesome, definitely our favourite, and hers too. The next 2 wineries were not as intimate, big flashy entrances and impersonal tour (felt a bit like going through the motions, but the wine was good).

We finished the day with a lunch at the pasta restaurant at Familia Zuccardi. It was good but not as good as we had hoped, the wine was great, the starters great but the pasta was a little tasteless. But after all we were there for the wine!

Abi & Kayleigh with bife de chorizo

The following day we decided to stay another day and just walked around the town, went to the markets and visited each of the 5 plazas in the city, interestingly built as evacuation points for earthquakes. (Plazas Chile, Italia, Espana, San Martin and the big one in the middle of town, independecia).

Bife de Chorizo

A couple of months ago back in in Brazil we had met Abi and Kayleigh who we noticed on Facebook were also going to be in town for a couple of days so we met up with them for dinners 2 of the 3 nights we spent here, it was great catching up on what each of us had done, we had similar routes and travel dates and had missed them a couple of places by a day or so. One of the places we ate was La Lucia (pic right and above) AMAZING. I dreamt about this steak for days afterwards and expect to for a very long time.

We really enjoyed Mendoza. The wide boulevards and beautiful buildings - the reason the streets are so wide is due to Earthquakes - back in 1861 they had a massive one which killed thousands and most  were killed by the falling rubble, so when they re-built they did so with wider streets for the people to escape into during earthquakes.

The squares are a beautiful place to sit and people watch while eating some snacks or your lunch.

The people were lovely, the wine was great and the steak was out of this world, cutting it was like cutting through butter, perfectly seasoned, perfectly cooked. 

36 hairpin turns!

The border crossing back to Chile was a little crap though, and all Chile's fault. 

When your bus arrives at the border, you get off the bus and queue at an Argentinian desk and get your exit stamp, then queue up at a desk beside this to get your Chilean entry stamp, then back on the bus and wait for the bus to move into the border building where your bags are removed from the bus to go through an x-ray. We had arrived at the border at lunchtime, rather than having shifts, the Chilean border staff stop for lunch. The minibus in front of us still had 5 bags on the belt to be checked, the border staff stopped, had lunch while the mini bus people had to wait. About 45 minutes later they continued checking the bags, then everyone from the minibus had to queue up to put their hand luggage through the X-ray machine. Then it was our turn. It has to be the most disorganised border entry we have been at, all in, including the bus queuing it took us about an hour and a half to get across the border. Chile is as strict as Australia in what it lets you bring into the country food wise. The main things are no fresh produce and no honey.

In San Pedro de Atacama we had the same process (though remember there was a strike of these border staff) but there was a French lady who's boyfriend had his bag searched for a garlic which he had forgot in his bag and they saw it on the scanner, but during the search, while she stood beside him during the search she had an apple in her hand and the border staff did not notice. 

Santiago, the first time.

Main plaza, Santiago

We decided to spend 3 nights in Santiago as we had come from San Pedro de Atacama on a 24 hour bus journey and we thought we deserved a few days of rest and hoping for some brilliant food.

The city is improving according to our guidebook. It's a pretty standard big non-coastal city. Big, dirty, hectic and people hassling you (dirty mainly because there is a strike by the municipal workers, yes a strike in South America, you would never believe it!).

Our hostel, Happy House, is brilliant. It's a gorgeous old converted house with high decorative ceilings, polished wood floors, a pool, massive comfortable rooms, and a pool. Did we mention they have a pool? It's located in Barrio Brazil, about 20 minutes walk from the main part of town, there are cool cafes and restaurants nearby, including an ice creamery. It's great. 

We ate at a local restaurant which was recommended by the guy on reception at the hotel, it's called  Varcas Gordas (the fat cow) and had the most amazing bife de chorizo and lomo steaks, with chips and salad, and wine, and cocktails. So amazing after so many weeks in Bolivia where pretty much the only option is pizza. We could hardly contain our excitement. 

There is a great ice cream place around the corner from the hostel, very cheap with great ice cream and it's right across the street from a park where you can watch the local teenagers ride skateboards. 

Santiago Markets

We bought empanadas on the street for lunch on our first day. The money in Chile is like Australian money (plastic) and when we got the change from the vendor we thought nothing of the ripped $2,000 note (£2 approx).  We discovered that ripped notes in Chile are not accepted ...anywhere (not even the banks), so we threw it on the floor and within seconds it was gone - not that whoever picked it up could use it either. Lesson learned. Don't accept damaged notes in Chile. 

Animita

We did an interesting free alternative walking tour of Santiago (with tips), the guide, Matthew, was really informative and walked us around the several markets and some of the old areas of Santiago finishing in the cemetery where he explained animitas. These are a bit of a cultural/religious phenomenon where an 'innocent' is killed in a tragic way and as they were 'pure' and taken in such a way they are considered kind of like saints (note: the catholic religion does not accept these 'saints' nor condone them), people prey to them and ask for things like jobs, health, money. It's quite widespread in South America.

We have booked to come back to the same hostel for a couple of nights before we leave for Australia. All set. 

San Pedro de Atacama

Floating

This place has to be the most expensive place in South America. Don't get me wrong it is a great place and there are some amazing things to see, but when you can get a very basic double room with shared bathroom for £58 here and a more superior room in the nations capital for £28 a night, something is very wrong. We had to watch our spending carefully here as everything is almost twice the price of Santiago, and about triple the price of Bolivia (water is £1 for 1.5 litres whereas in Bolivia it is 30 pence for the same size bottle). The restaurants are about £8 for a sandwich, compared to spending £8 on a full steak dinner for the two of us, with beer in Sucre. The food is of better quality than Bolivia though.

We arrived after a 2 day transfer from Uyuni in Bolivia, up at 4.30 am with probably the grumpiest driver in all of South America, and then arriving at the Chilean border to find (surprise, surprise) the border staff were on strike. A strike in South America? Unheard of! (Please excuse our sarcasm).

San Pedro (or San Perro as one of our tour guides called it, due to the high number of stray dogs in the town) is a small border town at the north east of Chile. It is the main base of tours to the Atacama desert. We took 2 tours, one to the salt pools and another to the luna valley. Both tours were with Cosmo Andino tours and were very good. Interestingly the first tour with our brilliant guide who did not speak English was a more enjoyable tour than then one with the English speaking guide!

Running the dunes

We spent 2 nights in San Pedro, our hostel was great, a little place with 5 rooms 15 minutes walk from downtown, with free bikes and a brilliant breakfast - with home made bread, it was a bit like soda bread with grains through it. The cleaner/cook Elizabeth was lovely and helpful and carried her English/Spanish dictionary around which was sweet, she wanted to learn more English, so our conversations were with broken Spanish and English.

The first tour was out to the salt springs, where you really struggle to get your body down into the water, you practically float on the top! We spent about an hour in the water but as the salt gets into wounds, and we still had mosquito bite marks it was a bit stingy, but good fun trying all the different positions to float in.
Our guide Ivan then drove us to the 'eyes' of the Atacama - 2 very deep fresh, but salty, water pools in the desert which are about 600m deep. Then he took us to a salt lake, one with water, and we drank Pisco Sours while watching the amazing sunset.

Amazing Sunset

The next day we had an afternoon tour of Dead Valley and the Luna Valley. This was a larger tour group in a bigger bus. The guide was great, but just didn't have the personality like Ivan had. We did a lot more walking on this one, but it was nice to walk through the rock formations and sandy valleys - you could hear the sand cracking with movement, one section was a very steep sand dune we had to run down - Angel did it at such speed he was really enjoying himself, straight down with the sand coming up to the knees with each step. Brilliant fun.

Boliva: Lagoons, Salt Flats, Volcanos and more

Cactus Rose

We booked a 4 day 'Salt Flats Tour' with La Torre Tours. Afder doing substantial research on Trip Advisor and other travel sites and reading blogs we decided that the tours are much better from Tupiza than Uyuni. In Uyuni they have very inconsistent reviews, which is mainly down to the fact there are so many tour companies there and most of the drivers and cooks are 'freelance' so someone who is a questionable driver can work for several companies. In Tupiza there are only a handful of companies and La Torre Tours are the best from what we can tell.

Lots of Land Cruisers, and a Nissan

Our tour started at 8am and we were shown to our Land Cruiser and introduced to our driver, Mario, and our cook, Isabella. Both very lovely and cheery people. We handed our stuff to Mario who was standing on top of the truck loading our gear and provisions for the trip. We also met the other couple on our tour, Sue and Tom from Switzerland. It was just the 4 of us on the tour, there is a maximum of 5 people on a La Torre Tour (from Uyuni they pack 6 people + the driver and cook in the jeep!) and we took turns in sitting in the small child seats in the back of the Land Cruiser.

Very cold at the lagoon

Day 1 is mostly driving to get us to the first nights' hotel, we start by passing the spectacular vertical red rock formations just outside Tupiza and then travel along winding dirt roads past some pretty amazing scenery(we will run out of superlatives in in this blog). We stopped for lunch at a small mining town where we had arrived on the day of the village school's 7th anniversary and they were having a presentation. It was quite sweet as the whole town (of less than a thousand) were out in the main square to celebrate the day. The food was great, Isabella had pre-made some chicken schnitzels and we had salad and potatoes to go with it.

We drove on through the Anawanapampa desert and Mario noticed one of the back tires had a small leak so we stopped on the road (dirt track) and he changed the tire (our second flat tire in 3 months, not bad considering all the miles we have covered!) we drove on and stopped in an abandoned town which the locals call a 'Ghost Town' it is where an army of Spanish lived after the invasion when they made the Inca's work the mines, at times not letting the Inca's out of the actual mine caves for months at a time, and they had to keep everything in there with them including the livestock! After a stop at our highest point of 4,855m we stayed overnight in San Antonio de Lipez at 4,200m in a hostel (no showers), all the acommodation on this tour is very basic and all 4 of us are in one room, with Isabella and Mario in another (even more basic than ours), there are toilets but as we said, no showers, not until the 3rd night when you can pay 10 Boliviano for a shower, well this is the desert and water is precious (and 10 Boliviano is less than a Pound!). Mario repaired the hole in the tire with the help of our torches - and removed the tire from the wheel by driving the jeep over the wheel and freeing the tube from inside, luckily Mario is a mechanic.

Day 2 began with an early start. Breakfast and we headed to the Lagoons, along the road we had to drive through several frozen streams which was quite amazing to see in the desert, it does get very cold in the desert at night. The first lagoon was our first glimpse of Flamingos, they were just eating around the edges of the lagoon, some of it was still frozen and they were sliding along the surface. A little longer along the road we stopped at a lagoon we thought was covered in salt, this was in fact borax, which is used in the manufacture of ceramics.

Any guesses?

About an hour later and we were at the gorgeous Laguna Verde (green lagoon). We stopped for photos before heading to the Aguas Termales just down the road, we all put our swimmers on and jumped in the springs, though very warm in the water outside it was blowing a gale and the wind was pushing the desert sand against us which meant we came out of the baths dirtier than when we went in, but as we keep saying 'it's an adventure!' After the springs we went to see the geisers, they were spewing hot gasses into the air - very cool to see. Next stop was at the red lagoon, this is where we saw hundreds of Flamingos. At our next hostel it was even more basic than the previous and colder too, so we used our rented sleeping bags which we really only needed because the beds looked like the sheets had not been changed, there were hairs and other bits in there. So we decided to sleep in the sleeping bags with the blankets over the top. We went outside before bed into the freezing night to see the stars, unfortunately the moon was very bright and this affected the ability to see all the stars, but being away from city lights and pollution it was still magnificent to see what we could.

Ah no, she's stuck

The first stop on day 3 is at the rock tree, it is a rock which has the form of a tree sticking out of the desert, there are other rocks around and it is quite something to see. Tom climbed on top of a few of them, while we took photos of him and stayed relatively close to the ground.
We then headed off to the next lagoon where we saw a fox, it seemed quite used to people, tourists probably feed it. Here we saw many more Flamingos, these were curiously more tame than the ones at the other lagoons. We were able to get within 2 meters of them and take some shots, it was extremely windy here and we had to really work hard to walk against the wind.

Viscacha

We stopped for lunch near some rocks, where we saw Viscachas (desert rabbit like animal) which were more than happy to see us as they eat all the crumbs left by the tours, probably not very good for them as you do not see carrots growing in the desert.
We stopped along the road to view the two volcanos Licancabur and Zaparelli before stopping in a town for Mario to have a break after hours of driving in the desert, he told us that this section is very tiring for the drivers and they are not sure why this particular section is so bad.

That night we had nice hot showers at the hotel which was made of salt. The floor was rock salt (you have to wear shoes or it is very uncomfortable) and the walls are all salt, even the pillars for the beds are salt.

Cactus Island

Up the next morning for the final day, we woke up 4.30 to see the sunset on the salt lake. It was magnificent and watching our shadows shorten as the sun rose was quite fun. We then drove to the Isla Incahuasi, which is covered in Cactus plants, it is at the heart of the desert, quite amazing to see. Here we climbed the island (it is like a small mountain) and then had breakfast where Isabella had made us a cake!

one of the 'Crazy photos'

It was then time for us to go to a section of the salt flats where we could take our crazy pictures. We spent 2 hours taking shots, some terrible, some quite good. Annoyingly our camera has some fluff and crap inside the lens so now all our shots have these spots. Will have to invest in photoshop when we get to Australia to clean our images. After our final lunch just on the shores of the flats, we arrived in Uyuni and went to see the train graveyard - Uyuni used to be the centre of all trains in Bolivia but then a new government changed the hub to another city and the trains were just left to rust.

This is where we said goodbye to Mario, Isabella, Sue and Tom and we organised our 2 day transfer across the border to San Pedro de Atacama while they all headed back to Tupiza.
It really was a brilliant trip, and having Sue and Tom with us was great - and not just because Sue can speak fluent Spanish and helped us out with the bits we could not understand.

The Mighty Amazon

Very very small plane

Going to the Amazon was something we really wanted to do and Ellen did some research and found that is was cheaper and far less touristy to do it from Bolivia.

We booked with Chatalan, this is a company which is highly reputable and not one of the cheapies. 

We got up at 3am to get out 6.20am flight from La Paz to Rurrenabaque which was in a really small plane. Angel was unfortunately terrified, it was the smallest plane he has ever been on and it was a very bumpy ride with several drops! 

The flight was only 30 minutes and we were met at the Airport (read: shack) by the manager of the Chatalan Rurrenabaque office. 10 minutes later we were in the office and getting a debrief on our trip.

We met our personal guide Nilo, there was one other group of Mexicans who had their own guide. Nilo  would take us up the river to the Chatalan site and take us out for walks and canoe trips to see the jungle. 

The journey to Chatalan

The Chatalan site is 5 hours up the river from Rurrenabaque, we stopped for a snack after about 2 hours and the arrive
d at Chatalan for lunch. The river was magnificent, we saw loads of birds (mostly vultures) along the way and. Some spectacular scenery.

Our cabin was simple, we opted for a twin room as it was about US$100 cheaper, and it had its own bathroom and electricity from 6pm - 10pm. Each bed had a mosquito net. There were no blinds or curtains or glass windows, just fly screen. No one could see in as each cabin is within a secluded section of the site. The room was perfect for sleeping, in fact Ellen has had her best nights sleep of the whole trip here! The rooms are so dark as with the lights off there is no light source, no city, no cars, just jungle. Pitch black.

Birds on the lake

Our first day Nilo took us out in a canoe (another bonus of your own guide - he did all the rowing) around the lodges lake, it's quite large, it took us about an hour and a half to get around it, slowly, we saw loads more birds and some monkeys, our first Toucan in the wild, and a couple of fish jumping out of the water. It's just so peaceful (especially away from the drunk Mexicans) 

We ate our beautifully prepared dinner and went off to bed, as it's dark there is not a lot to do, it's early  mornings and early bedtimes in the jungle. That night it started raining at about 1am, now this is proper Sydney rain, not London drizzle. It poured down in buckets for about 15 hours and when it finally stilled at about 4pm the next day we could venture out and see the carnage; the pathways to the cabins were ankle-deep in water, the lake had risen so high the canoe pier could not be seen, and when we did venture out for a walking trip we took a canoe to the other side of the lake and walked up a path as we knew that would be clearer, but there were still streams of water pouring down the hill. We walked up to a viewing platform they had made and stood watching the birds, mostly macaws, enjoying the respite from the rain. 

Howler Monkeys

The following day we woke to the sound of howler monkeys, which sounded Very eerie, Angel thought it was the plumbing!  Today we decided to do one of the paths which were along the flatter areas, hoping the water had subsided. It had, a bit. After slipping and sliding through mud and rocks we arrived at the first river crossing, though the bridge had been washed away, so Nilo walked us a bit further downstream where he found a tree which had fallen yesterday over the river, and we balanced ourselves and walked over it. Along this walk we encountered several more bridges whcih had washed away, unfortunately not every river gave us a fallen tree and Nilo had to make us bridges out of whatever he could find, it certainly was an adventure. We saw loads of wild pigs, more macaws, howler monkeys, frogs, a Toucan, and even a woodpecker, which looked exactly like Woody!

Most bridges had washed away.

Dinner was a local dish of trout with rice and vegetables followed by the Chatalan team band playing for us and we all danced, after we had tried 'puma milk' ( a milky alcohol dink) and chewed coco leaves.  Later that night Nilo and Angel went out in the canoe on the lake, it was pitch black, with only the reflections of the stars on the lake and our torches as light we went looking for caimans. Unfortunately we only saw one with its eyes reflecting red with the torchlight, but the most magnificent thing to see were the stars. Just breathtaking. 

Our final day we woke to the sound of a Toucan, we've learnt their call and easily spotted one, then two in the trees high above our cabin. We had breakfast and began the 3.5 hour boat journey back to Rurrenabaque (it's faster on the way back as you have the river flow with you), had lunch in the town and arrived at the airport to find, to Angel's relief, that there was a much larger plane for the journey back!

Beautiful scenery

Angels's note on the jungle and your clothes:

Unfortunately it rained a bit on the boat on the way to the lodge and although the guides wrap your bags in tarpaulins, my bag got a bit wet, which is fine, but in the jungle nothing dries. Nothing. It's so humid and you are sweating that the clothes you have on get damp, when you take them off they don't dry unless you put them in direct sunlight. Needless to say we had wet clothes, shoes and towels. Lesson learnt. 

Arequipa and the amazing Colca Canyon

After one full day in Puno (which is all you really need) we booked a bus (Cruz del Sur, again) to Arequipa. Arequipa has about 10 earth tremors a day (apparently) and is at the base of Misti, an active volcano.

This was not the most pleasant bus ride we have ever had, not the bus company's fault (though the driver did get lost twice!) unfortunately Angel had either eaten something or picked up a bug as he was sick all morning, we should have cancelled the bus but we took it anyway and he was sick the whole way, it was not fun. But we arrived in the evening and shared a taxi from the bus station to our hotel near the Plaza de Armas with a Spanish girl who was on our bus, this meant it only cost us 6 Soles (about £1.50).Public transport in South America is very cheap. Average taxi within a city/town is about 3 Soles, which is about 80 pence!

Monasterio Santa Catalina

We had booked the hotel via the Trip Advisor app, which then took us through to the Hostelworld site, which must have had a glitch as it booked our room for the 20th of November instead of the 20th of October, luckily they had a vacancy. The main problem with the hotel was they had let the person who was in the room before us take the key with them on a 3 day trek, so our room had no key, we could only lock it when we were in there. This meant we had to keep all our valuables with us all day.

We dropped off our dirty clothes (Angel had puked on himself) and booked our Colca Canyon Tour for the next day and headed to the magnificent Monasterio Santa Catalina, just a couple of blocks from the Plaza de Armas. This was built and rebuilt several times and was opened to the public in the 1970's there are still nuns in there now, not many and they are in a section of the monastery you cannot visit. It's the best example of colonial architecture in Arequipa.

On top of the monastary

After this we decided to do the free afternoon walking tour, put on by the local University and the guides are Tourism students, it was a brilliant tour and we learnt things about the city which we would have never learnt ourselves, the tour is tip-based and well worth the 2 and a half hours. By the end of the tour it was dark so we decided it was time to eat, we had been recommended a pizza place which turned out to be very tasty, as Angel had been ill we did not want anything too fancy, just some basic pizza and this place was just the ticket. It was called Los Lenos and was very reasonable!

on our way to the canyon

Off to bed for an early morning pick up for our tour to Colca Canyon. We booked with Colca Trek as Ellen (who has been doing all the reading) had read some really great things about them and Matt, Paul and Rachel who we met on the Inca Trail had done a tour with them and said they were great. We were not disappointed. Paul, our guide, was brilliant, really friendly, helpful and knowledgeable, our driver Willy was also great. We had another great crowd, everyone got along and no one was a pain in the arse. We drove out of Arequipa and stopped to see the active volcano Misti (5,822m), along with the other 2 Andes mountains you can see from the town Chachani (6,075m) and Pichu Pichu (5,571m). We stopped for Coca leaves and water and headed to the desert. After about an hour and a half of driving we stopped to see the most endangered (and expensive) of all, the Vicuna, there are only 110,000 in Peru, their wool is worth US$800 per kilo. There were also Llama's and Alpacas, which are domesticated, unlike the Vicuna which is a wild animal.

Forest of Stones

Another hour or so along the road we came to the Forest of Stones, a section of the desert which is sandstone and has been eroded over time to leave vertical pylons of rock, apparently Colca Tours are the only group which will take you there. After a quick snack and eating some native plants (very peppery) we then climbed (in the van) to 4,910m where we saw the stone stacks left by locals as an offering as they walked from their villages to Arequipa to sell their goods. 

at 4,910m

Then we started to descend, the driver stopped to show us the habitat of the Viscacha, an Andean rabbit-like animal, we were told you do not often see one and as we stopped one jumped out from behind the rock, Bonus! Along the road a bit further we were shown a cauliflower type plant (not edible) which the locals used to use to burn as there is no wood up here this high, unfortunately it became endangered and they have planted Australian Eucalyptus trees at lower levels to provide both building and fire wood to save other native species (but this has had some negative impack, gum trees suck a lot of moisture from the ground).

really did not want to leave!

After a very tasty local buffet late lunch (loads of Alpaca in different forms, some trout, local soups and salads) we were shown around the local markets and tried some black corn Chicha and local fruits.
We then headed to the Canyon. It was an hour to sunset so we checked into our magnificent hotel and then had a 45 minute walk down to the canyon edge where we arrived just at sunset, it was spectacular. 

Sunset over the canyon

The hotel is great, each room has a big fluffy bed, with flannel sheets, floor to ceiling windows overlooking the canyon and an amazing bathroom (well, amazing buy the standards we have had here in South America). So far the best place we have stayed. It well and truly trumps the hotel in Cartegena now.

Cruz del Condor

Next morning it was a 5am wake up to get to the Cruz del Condor (3,795m), the place within the canyon where the chance of sighting Condors is most likely, after nearly an hour and a half of waiting and watching, just as we were about to leave an adolescent Condor flew by us, it was such a magnificent creature, so elegant and huge! We were so stoked to have seen one, it would have been a disappointment to have missed out. We then had a short trek up a hill to see some more of the Andes mountains (there are 3 x short treks on this tour, it was not a 'trek'). Just before lunch we stopped off at some natural hot springs which we had to walk over a very dodgy suspension bridge to get to, no health & safety here.

Hot springs

After lunch our tour ended and the group split - those going back to Arequipa and those heading to Puno (us), and this was a bit of an adventure in its own right. We had been told of transport strikes in Puno, we were told we were ok as our bus was a private transfer, so we headed towards Puno, about 2 hours into the drive, in the middle of the desert, we got a flat tire, the jack the van had was not strong enough to support the van so we (there were 6 of us on the transfer) had to find the driver some rocks to help support the van while he changed the tire. About 30 mins later, just as it got dark, we were done and were on our way. Just before Juliaca our driver decided to stop at a police station to check the strike situation, and came back out stating that there were road blocks and that we had to go to down a 'new road' which was a back road. New this was, like unsurfaced, rocky, dirt path. We really should have been in a 4WD. It was an adventure, and we made it, AND we got to see the milky way so clearly as we were driving down the dirt path, in the middle of nowhere, with no street lights or lights from towns. 

Puno & Lake Titicaca

Lake Titicaca, looking towards Puno

Uros Island talk

We arrived in Puno from Cusco after our train journey (see post). There is not a hell of a lot to keep you here. A Plaza de Armas, a Plaza de Mayor, and Lima Street (tourist shops, banks and restaurants). That's about it. It is a gateway for tours to on Lake Titicaca.
We arrived at night and booked a tour for the next day. We were picked up at 7am and taken to a 'fast' boat (we paid more for the fast boat to get back to town at 4 instead of 6pm).

All dressed up..

The boat was comfortable and the Von Trapp lady and her husband from the train were on the tour.

First stop was Uros, the floating islands just 30 mins away from Puno. The people live on these islands (or some are just here for the tourists, the wealthier ones) and pretty much everything they do revolves around the reeds, their islands are man made from the reeds and the reeds roots, their huts are reeds, their boats, their beds, their roofs, and their handicrafts are, you guessed it, reeds.

Impressive reed boat

After a 20 minute talk on their lives and meeting the 'president' of the island (each island has a president), we were taken to see their huts and how they live by a little girl. It was just the two of us who the girl took, and she decided to dress Ellen up - skirt, jacket, hat, pom poms - while Angel laughed...until the girl began to dress him up. Quite fun, but we looked hilarious.
After the island tour we were put into a reed boat (quite impressive, 2 story seating area!) and two of the girls from the island rowed us down the 'river' to another island where our tour boat met us.

Taquile Island, our lunch view

After about 1.5 hours we arrived at the 2nd island of the tour - Taquile - the 3rd largest island on Lake Titicaca and home to several settlements (each one has an arched gate along the path to it). Here we learned that the men knit and the women weave. We bought some stuff and then headed for a small trek to the house of the family who were going to cook us lunch. Ellen had a great trout lunch and as Angel does not eat seafood, an omlet was made, it was tasty.
Then it was a 2 hour ride back to town.

Later that night we met up with Rosie & Darren who had been on our Inca Tour and Train trip and we had dinner together at Mojsa according to our hotel owner and Trip Advisor is 'the best restaurant in Puno' (which would not be hard).