Well where do I start???
We have done so much since we last wrote, but will try not to bore you all as I fill you in on the goss!!
Right now, we are in Peru, crossed the Peru-Bolivia border on 10th March, our 1 month travel anniversary!! 3 countries down, 3 to go! We have been going pretty hard, never a dull moment, but have decided to take a chill pill when we get onto the Peruvian coast and relax on a beach for 5 days or so. Think we have earnt it!
So anyway, since we last wrote.... we left La Paz, which we both really enjoyed as a city. Daile was facinated in how the women dress, and took lots of sneaky photos of the many many ladies in traditional dress with their bowler hats... and thought that perhaps it might inspire Kelly Donovan´s first fashion collection?? Also the fact that it is 3800m high, meant that the view from almost anywhere was amazing as there are buildings perched on every space on the hillside! Part of the enjoyment of La Paz is that we made some friends, Brett and Heather from Melbourne, Cara from USA, Justine and Becs from UK, so on and off we were hanging with this group having lovely CHEAP meals (25 Bolivianos each for a 3 course set meal). NZD $1 is about 3 and a half Bolivianos, so obviously we were VERY well fed and watered!
While in La Paz, we signed up to do THE WORLD´s MOST DANGEROUS ROAD, downhill mountain biking! The company was a NZ company called Gravity and comes HIGHLY recommended from us both if any of you are ever tempted to do something so silly! So for those that dont know, the road has this name because it has the most annual deaths on it. Reason being, it is the width of one lane, and is a 2 way road, and it had sheer drop offs, and many vehicles literally do ´drop off´the side. On our way there in the bus, we saw a sign which said ´42 deaths this year´and it was only March 4th!!
So.... onto the ride itself! Rodney was a pro - the guide invited him to go biking with him and the guides that weekend, he was right behind the guide the whole time! We had strict instructions NOT to look at the scenery while we were riding, or our bikes would go there and we would be goners. We were also told many stories of people slamming on the brakes too hard, going over the handle bars and doing serious damage to their jaws. Apparently MOST tours they have an accident, which was not great news as we prepared to start the ride! We were then told that most of the people who do have accidents usually have cocaine in their system (they get tested in hospital) or are typically the Irish who stay out until all hours, get a couple hours sleep, and then attempt the bike ride! Duh!!! To make matters worse, after hearing all of this, we had to ride on the left hand side of the road, which is the cliff side! I dunno about Rodney´s but my heart was beating so loud I could hear it half the time and the adrenaline was pumping hard!
The ride itself was amazing! We got tips along the way on how to ride each section, and my confidence grew and I got faster and better, and was quite impressed with my efforts by the end of the day. It was a real sense of achievement finishing, and this is another highlight of our trip for sure! Even though I dont normally drink better, the free beer at the end was gone in seconds!
We finished at an animal refuge which the Mt bike company have an affiliation with, had a hot shower, a feed and then got to check out all the animals, mostly monkeys! I was busy playing with the cutest baby monkey and then I thought ¨DUH, rabies!¨and quickly stopped. Rodney then assured me that he saw a sign saying all of the animals are vaccinated, but you never can be sure, so that was the end of that!!
That night, we stayed at a cute town called Corioco, which is only about 1200m above sea level so was semi tropical which was so so nice! Up in altitude it has probably been an average of 15 degrees, so it was nice to get some sun and wear summer clothes again! We stayed there for two days with Brett and Heather our Aussie friends (they did bike ride with us), at a hostel with a pool and a restaurant and bar, and had an awesome time drinking cervezas and vino tintos! (beer and red wine!)
After a lovely two days of good company and chilling out, nursing any sore muscles from the Mt Bike ride, it was time to move on, so we said goodbye to Heather and Brett and caught a bus to Copacobana, which is a lakeside town, by Lake Titicaca, one of the worlds highest navigable lakes, also at 3800m. They supposidly have one of the biggest breeds of trout that you can catch (Trucha in español) but the ones we saw at the markets were not overly big! People outside restaurants were constantly cat calling ¨Trucha, Trucha¨trying to entice you into their restaurants. We were not tempted, gotta be careful what you eat around here, and neither of us are really trout fans to be honest! Copacobana produced our cheapest accommodation to date, at 50 Bolivianos total for a matromonial room (a queen sided bed with a bathroom), which if you do the conversion is probably only about $15 NZD give or take a few dollars! Score!
After two nights here, we decided to tackle another challenge (our adventurous feet were getting itchy again!) so decided to do the highly recommended 18km walk to the end of the pennisula where you can get a ride to Isla del Sol on a local´s boat for a small fee when you get to the end. Yes the scenery was lovely, but this walk was hilly and at over 4000m was tough!! After an exhausting walk, we did negotiate a boat ride with a local, but he ripped us off hard (its not like we had many options) for our 10min boat ride and charged us 70 Bolivanos, more than our accommodation!!! We then had to walk some more to the nearest town on Isla Del Sol, so all in all we comfortably walked a half marathon that day and were rather tired!!
We bought a 2L bottle of Coke, sat down in the sun, and Daile invited a UK couple over to share our much deserved drink and this is where we met Karen and Tom who we have been hanging out with for the last week. Isla Del Sol was lovely, and again we had good company to spend the night with. Caught the boat the next morning, and decided to go all the way to Arequipa in Peru which consisted of 2 bus rides, 3 hours to Puno, and then another 7 to Arequipa. You would think we like long bus rides or something!!!
Next up, all about Arequipa, Peru and our mountain climbing efforts.... Chau for now!
D X
16 March 2009
02 March 2009
Bolivian highlights including Salar de Uyuni
Well we have had a rather adventurous last week, and I think our trip has picked up a notch in terms of activity and excitement!
Chile was nice and a great way to ease into Sth America, but now that we have our 'travel legs' and are starting to meet new people and do unique experiences we are loving it even more!!!
San Pedro de Atacama was a very cool place and we loved the desert. I could have easily stayed there for more days, but we have to keep moving! The bike ride through the canyon was breathtaking (both literally because of the altitude and because of the scenery!)
The Valley of the Moon tour was cool with very unique scenery of large sand mountains and dunes...
We also had a very cool hostel that we found which had a mint kitchen so we cooked up a few feeds, including good ol scrambled eggs! We stumbled across a blender which had Daile in a frenzy wanting to make a fruit smoothie, which tasted awesome, but caused a sore belly for 2 to 3 days! Couldn't hack it after so little fruit for so long!!
Anyway moving on from the food cos I don't want to bore anyone senseless... Thursday morning was the beginning of an adventure we were very much looking foward to! A 3 day 4WD trip from San Pedro to Uyuni in Bolivia. It is so hard to describe how amazing this tour was! Day one was full of lots of Lagoons - a white lagoon, green lagoon, and red lagoon (and they really were these colours!!!) We saw our first flamingos (so pretty!) and geysers (sorta like the ones in Rotorua with no fences or anything!).
We topped 5000m that day and slept at 4200m, and there were lots of very big headaches amongst the group and people even vomitting! Rodney and I were very lucky, he got a pretty bad headache, but I was rather stoked with myself, I just felt a bit tired...
Day two was mostly making up the miles... and I am not sure if I should tell you this next part or not.... as we were driving along we saw some people waving us down (from another company) to find that they had rolled their 4WD. 3 people were injured, one with a broken arm, another with a sore back and ribs and another with a munted arm. It was not nice for those in that car and our first aid skills were not required as everything was under control by the time they got there, but we squeezed people into our car to get them to the next hostel while the injured got taken to hospital. This reinforced our decision that we are willing to pay a bit more money for the highly recommended companies (we did our research before we booked). Put a bit of a downer on the day, but at least no one got seriously injured. (I hope this doesn't make anyone worry about us!!!) FYI our company was called Estrellar del sur, and were very good, safe and fed us really well!
Day three was the highlight of the trip. The Salar de Uyuni Salt flats. 30 years ago this was a salt lake, but has since dried up and is now the largest salt flat in the world at 12,000 sq metres. It was unlike anything we have ever seen and was AMAZING!! We took some pretty cool pics, (sorry to tease you about those when we havent uploaded any yet). I can't describe in words how facinating the 360 degree views are. White salt on the ground, which meets the horizon all around. And it created amazing reflections of the clouds in the sky. A HUGE highlight for us!!! We also saw giant cactus which was over 1000 years old. They were massive, like 3 or 4 Rodney's high!! (aka 6 to 7 mtrs).
We then arrived in Uyuni which is a hole... and booked a bus to get out of there immediately. As it is rainy season we were told that the road was very wet, and there was a chance the bus may not go. We were also told that we would get 3 toilet stops over the 11 hours. Weeeeellll the bus did leave but the toilet stops were few and far between! The bus was an epic journey to say the least... The road was so rough it´s difficult to describe!!! We could feel our kidneys bouncing around in our guts which was not overly comfortable. More than once, we got bounced about 30 cm off our seats so we were totally airborne and all this in pitch black darkness. The aisle and drivers cabin where filled with locals, sleeping on the floor! Parts of the road had been washed out and after a few hours, we started to understand why they were hesitant to leave... We had to forge a number of rivers where the drivers lacky had to walk through first to make sure we could get across in our off road bus with around 1 and a half meters of ground clearance!!!! Was a few very dodgy moments where we thought we might roll it.... At 3 am (that is 7 hours folks!) we got our first bathroom stop much to everyones relief! As you can imagine, the constant jolting and bouncing were not helping!!! Rodney jumped off the bus straight into a knee deep puddle! Anyway, we eventually made it to La Paz some 14 hours later!!! Bus ride would have been quite fun if there was a bathroom on board and no people sleeping everywhere there was a bit of floor space!!! We were travelling with an Aussie couple we met and a cool chick from the US which made it more comfortable, having safety in numbers!
La Paz is pretty sweet. Got a nice place too stay and are spending some time with people we meet on the tour which is great. Food so far has been awesome and super cheap. 3 course meals, are only NZ$5 each!! Booked in our bike ride down the "Worlds Most Dangerous Road" for this Wednesday which sounds awesome and we are really looking forward to that. See http://www.gravitybolivia.com/ to read about it. Pic at the start of this post is a teaser for you from the website.
Chile was nice and a great way to ease into Sth America, but now that we have our 'travel legs' and are starting to meet new people and do unique experiences we are loving it even more!!!
San Pedro de Atacama was a very cool place and we loved the desert. I could have easily stayed there for more days, but we have to keep moving! The bike ride through the canyon was breathtaking (both literally because of the altitude and because of the scenery!)
The Valley of the Moon tour was cool with very unique scenery of large sand mountains and dunes...
We also had a very cool hostel that we found which had a mint kitchen so we cooked up a few feeds, including good ol scrambled eggs! We stumbled across a blender which had Daile in a frenzy wanting to make a fruit smoothie, which tasted awesome, but caused a sore belly for 2 to 3 days! Couldn't hack it after so little fruit for so long!!
Anyway moving on from the food cos I don't want to bore anyone senseless... Thursday morning was the beginning of an adventure we were very much looking foward to! A 3 day 4WD trip from San Pedro to Uyuni in Bolivia. It is so hard to describe how amazing this tour was! Day one was full of lots of Lagoons - a white lagoon, green lagoon, and red lagoon (and they really were these colours!!!) We saw our first flamingos (so pretty!) and geysers (sorta like the ones in Rotorua with no fences or anything!).
We topped 5000m that day and slept at 4200m, and there were lots of very big headaches amongst the group and people even vomitting! Rodney and I were very lucky, he got a pretty bad headache, but I was rather stoked with myself, I just felt a bit tired...
Day two was mostly making up the miles... and I am not sure if I should tell you this next part or not.... as we were driving along we saw some people waving us down (from another company) to find that they had rolled their 4WD. 3 people were injured, one with a broken arm, another with a sore back and ribs and another with a munted arm. It was not nice for those in that car and our first aid skills were not required as everything was under control by the time they got there, but we squeezed people into our car to get them to the next hostel while the injured got taken to hospital. This reinforced our decision that we are willing to pay a bit more money for the highly recommended companies (we did our research before we booked). Put a bit of a downer on the day, but at least no one got seriously injured. (I hope this doesn't make anyone worry about us!!!) FYI our company was called Estrellar del sur, and were very good, safe and fed us really well!
Day three was the highlight of the trip. The Salar de Uyuni Salt flats. 30 years ago this was a salt lake, but has since dried up and is now the largest salt flat in the world at 12,000 sq metres. It was unlike anything we have ever seen and was AMAZING!! We took some pretty cool pics, (sorry to tease you about those when we havent uploaded any yet). I can't describe in words how facinating the 360 degree views are. White salt on the ground, which meets the horizon all around. And it created amazing reflections of the clouds in the sky. A HUGE highlight for us!!! We also saw giant cactus which was over 1000 years old. They were massive, like 3 or 4 Rodney's high!! (aka 6 to 7 mtrs).
We then arrived in Uyuni which is a hole... and booked a bus to get out of there immediately. As it is rainy season we were told that the road was very wet, and there was a chance the bus may not go. We were also told that we would get 3 toilet stops over the 11 hours. Weeeeellll the bus did leave but the toilet stops were few and far between! The bus was an epic journey to say the least... The road was so rough it´s difficult to describe!!! We could feel our kidneys bouncing around in our guts which was not overly comfortable. More than once, we got bounced about 30 cm off our seats so we were totally airborne and all this in pitch black darkness. The aisle and drivers cabin where filled with locals, sleeping on the floor! Parts of the road had been washed out and after a few hours, we started to understand why they were hesitant to leave... We had to forge a number of rivers where the drivers lacky had to walk through first to make sure we could get across in our off road bus with around 1 and a half meters of ground clearance!!!! Was a few very dodgy moments where we thought we might roll it.... At 3 am (that is 7 hours folks!) we got our first bathroom stop much to everyones relief! As you can imagine, the constant jolting and bouncing were not helping!!! Rodney jumped off the bus straight into a knee deep puddle! Anyway, we eventually made it to La Paz some 14 hours later!!! Bus ride would have been quite fun if there was a bathroom on board and no people sleeping everywhere there was a bit of floor space!!! We were travelling with an Aussie couple we met and a cool chick from the US which made it more comfortable, having safety in numbers!
La Paz is pretty sweet. Got a nice place too stay and are spending some time with people we meet on the tour which is great. Food so far has been awesome and super cheap. 3 course meals, are only NZ$5 each!! Booked in our bike ride down the "Worlds Most Dangerous Road" for this Wednesday which sounds awesome and we are really looking forward to that. See http://www.gravitybolivia.com/ to read about it. Pic at the start of this post is a teaser for you from the website.
Had planned on catching a local football game but nothing on for a week so will have to wait for Bogata or Rio. Had planned a tour of the San Paedro prison but apparently a little girl living in the prison got killed a few days ago so theres a bit of clamp down at the moment so thats a no go unfortunately. Gonna do a bus tour of the city tomorrow and then the bike tour the next day. Gonna spend a night or 2 in Corioco which is at the end of the bike tour and then onto Copacabana on Lake Titicaca. Gonna spend a few days around there and do a walk for Copacabana to the end of the peninsula and then catch a boat over to Isla Del Sol for a couple days and then onto Puna and Cusco for the Machu Pichu trip.
So that is us for now!! Having an awesome time, living the dream completely! We think of you all lots and wonder how you all are! Thanks to those who have been emailing us and keeping us up to date, its great to hear the local goss!
Chau from La Paz, the highest capital city in the world!
xo
So that is us for now!! Having an awesome time, living the dream completely! We think of you all lots and wonder how you all are! Thanks to those who have been emailing us and keeping us up to date, its great to hear the local goss!
Chau from La Paz, the highest capital city in the world!
xo
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