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This was written ages ago but as each day has been coming rather swiftly, I haven’t had time to stop and publish. So, grab a cup of tea and some biscuits before you start reading this. You may get hungry!
Patagonia
After having spent the majority of the last 3 weeks in the Brazilian cities of Rio de Janeiro and the huge metropolis of Sao Paulo, it was time to take a (relatively) small flight to Santiago, Chile, and then an even smaller flight to Bariloche de Los Andes in Argentina. By this time we were ready to ditch our city gear for our outdoor stuff and were looking forward to inhaling some clean air, not that Rio wasn’t clean enough.
On arrival at the airport we took a taxi, known as a remise in these areas, to our hostel, Marco Polo Inn. As the remise pulled away from the airport, we had a brief glimpse of what Patagonia held instore for us for the next two weeks. All the way to the town of Bariloche we had a ginormous lake surrounded by snow capped mountains….absolutely breathtaking.
Once we’d gathered some info on what to see and do in the area we realised that we could have done with having more time here, so we tried to change our flights by a week or two to New Zealand. The flights were all completely full until new year and even paying for an upgrade to business class wouldn’t even give us the shift we wanted.
We arrived in Bariloche on 16th November and our next flight was from Puerto Montt, Chile to Santiago, Chile on 30th November. As time was short we had to make a plan quickly and this is what we did.
We were recommended a couple of routes around Bariloche by the tourist office, which could be done by car so we hired a car for the 2 days we spent in Bariloche. On the first day we drove, mainly by dirt track, to Cerro (mount) and glacier Tronador. This area of Patagonia is know as the Argentinean Lake District and believe me Windermere and Keswick pale into insignificance when compared to these lakes. Vast turquoise lakes surrounded by green surrounded by snow capped mountains, another WOW moment on this trip. Every other second a photo opportunity presented itself. The scenery was stunning.
When we finally got to the National Park we drove through winding dirt tracks towards Mt. Tronador, the glacier revealing more of itself as we got closer and closer.
Once we’d reached and seen the glacier we made hell for leather towards the Alerces waterfall, as we’d spent too much time stopping for photos en route to Mt. Tronador.
The waterfall was pretty but after being spoilt by Iguazu it seemed far less impressive than it really was.
On the second day we did the Seven Lakes drive to a small town called San Martin de Los Andes. This was a 236km route along amazing emerald lakes set amongst and amazing mountainous backdrop. Half the route was paved whilst for the other half I had to don my Carlos Sainz head. Once again we were blown away by the stunning beauty of these lakes and hence spent a lot longer on this route than we should have done, arriving in Bariloche at 11:15p.m that night.
The next morning we left the hostel at 6:00a.m. to get on the famous Ruta 40 bus towards Calafate. This bus runs every other day from Bariloche in northern Patagonia to Calafate in the south. The Ruta 40 runs from northern Argentina to southern Argentina and is mainly a dirt track with little else around it. To give you an idea of distances, that is the distance between Manchester and Morocco.
The first leg of the journey was a 13hour ride to a very small hick town called Perito Moreno. This town served no purpose other than to feed us and provide lodgings for the night. After leaving Bariloche the scenery went from breathtaking to barren land. Absolutely nothing for hundreds of dust filled miles. We stopped a couple of times en route for either lunch at a barn type café where we were the only trade of the day, or when the driver decided to jump out and chase after one of the few Armadillos that he had seen in his path. The first one he brought on board for all to see. The poor thing was frightened to death. It was shaking so much that it literally crapped its pants…….on the floor of the bus.
On day 2 of the bus journey, a dozen of us had an excursion early in the morning to Cueva de los Manos, Cave of Hands. This was a site 3 hours away from Perito Moreno where they had found handprints painted on the walls of a cave, some of the prints dating back to 7600 B.C. It was raining and the minibus we were travelling in developed a puncture on the very rough dirt track, so we all had to empty out and help the driver change the tyre, as he looked like he’d never changed one in his life.
The paintings were quite impressive as was the canyon they were in, although some people where not convinced as to the authenticity of them dating back so many years. It was recognised by UNESCO and for me that was convincing enough.
After the caves (not really caves but painting on the side of a canyon wall) we joined the others and the Ruta 40 bus for a 10hr ride to a very new and ickle town called El Chalten. En route the landscape was even more barren than the previous day. So much so that neither sex could find a tree or bush to hide behind for their undignified loo visit. We soldiered on and as the sun was setting, out of nowhere we could see the impressive outline of the Fitz Roy Range. We were lucky as the skies were not often clear to reveal the peak of Mount Fitz Roy. It was incredible seeing this beautiful mountain range surrounded by nothingness. It was as if god had looked at this barren land carefully, thought it too barren and literally plonked the Fitz Roy range in the middle of it, to keep our homo sapien interest. As we rolled into Chalten we were all in awe of this amazing mountain range before us.
We arrived in Chalten at 11:00p.m, checked in to our hostel, had some food and went to bed looking forward to a 6:00a.m. start the next morning for a 14hour glacier trek.
The next morning we hiked for three and a half hours before reaching the glacial lake and the glacier ahead of it. Behind the glacier intermittently we could see the peaks of Cerro Fitz Roy and Cerro Torres (towers).
We walked around the ridge of the lake before taking a canopy across a river towards the glacier. This involved dangling yourself from a rope and pulling yourself along, squirrel-like to the other side.
Once on the other side, we hiked up the side of a mountain before descending to the glacier. Once on the glacier our shoes were fitted with crampons to help us walk on the glacier and then we were briefly shown how to walk in them. It felt really weird walking in them but we were soon walking over crevasses filled with the purest, clearest blue waters we’d ever seen. The first part was quite tricky as there were quite a lot of crevasses to traverse but this presented us with visually the most attractive part of the glacier. We had lunch on the glacier and then had a go at climbing an ice wall with ice picks, using the crampons on our shoes to help us up the wall.
We then trekked back over the glacier, removed our crampons and trekked back to Chalten, Susan and I leading the pack, so much so that we got too far ahead from the rest of the group and went back the wrong way. As it worked out, we came out closer to our hostel than we should have done.
That evening we managed to find a place to eat that accepted Visa, as there were no cash machines in the town. A pleasant evening was had with Sarah and Steven, 2 complete strangers at the beginning of the day who were quickly becoming very good friends.
The next morning we were booked onto the 6:30a.m. bus to Calafate, 4 hours south of Chalten and at the edge of Los Glaciares National Park, a park full of a couple of hundred glaciers. After checking into our hostel we were picked up at 1:00pm for a visit to see the Jewel of the National Park, the Perito Moreno Glacier. The day could have been better as it was very grey and rainy but after an hour’s drive we arrived at the first viewpoint. The glacier was impressive at this distance but we really couldn’t appreciate the scale of it, so we took a boat onto the glacial lake to get up close and personal. As the boat got closer to the advancing face of the glacier the icebergs got larger and larger, and as we approached, the glacier was increasingly dwarfing us. The Perito Moreno glacier was s truly breathtaking. It was a much clearer blue than the one we traversed the previous day and the shapes of this glacier were much more jagged, more interesting. After the boat ride we walked around the viewing platforms to look at the glacier form different angles. It was huge and made even more incredible by the fact that this was one of the few advancing glaciers in the world.
It was 16km deep and about 4km wide, huge slabs of ice covering this vast area. We could hear the creak, groan and cannon like sounds of the glacier as it moved and chunks the size of 4 or 5 storey houses broke off and fell into the lake creating tsunami like waves from the displacement. It was very dramatic. All of the 10 or so people there at the time willing more chunks to fall so that the spectacle could be repeated. We could have stood and watched and listened all day and probably even all night.
Even though the day was rainy and grey, the Perito Moreno Glacier glistened. It was beautiful and any photograph or postcard could ever convey it’s true beauty. In fact we had a kiwi girl on the trip with us saying it was more beautiful than any glacier she had seen in her own country. Maybe, just maybe, we had seen the most beautiful one of all.
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4hrs drive Manchester to London, but for this marvellous city we had to sit tight for a 22hour bus journey from Iguazu to Rio. Once again we had our super duper first class bus seats and for what was awaiting us at the other end, we endured with smiley faces.
We arrived in Rio on the afternoon of Tuesday 24th October and were booked in to stay at Mellow Yellow hostel in Copacabana. This was a hostel that was on every backpacker’s lips in Iguazu and so we went with the universal recommendation. We checked into our room, which was the only double room with ensuite. The room was ok but the bathroom was a little small and dinghy. We settled in and decided to shower before going for a wander. Susan couldn’t manage to get any hot water so she had a cold shower and I managed to get hot water at the expense of being electrocuted! Yup! The shower had came with it’s own set of loose wires and trip switch which needed to be tripped far too frequently for a 5 min shower. Fortunately it wasn’t a huge shock (ha ha) but I was a little shook up nonetheless. We thought nothing more of it and went for a walk to Copacabana beach, 2 blocks away, an amazing place thronging with men in Speedos tighter and skimpier than an Essex skirt, and women wearing thongs finer than dental floss, letting arse, cellulite and flab all hang out for all to see. This was definitely a very traumatic start to our stay in Rio.
Later that evening we met up with Andy and Katherine, our Amazon buddies, on Ipanema beach, which is, a stones throw away from Copacabana beach. We sat and caught up with them whilst the sun was setting before grabbing a bite to eat. We then returned to Mellow Yellow at midnight for some well-needed shuteye.
Upon entering our room we were hit with an awful smell emanating from the bathroom and if that wasn’t bad enough the room felt damp too, even the bed sheets felt moist. So we decided to check out. After having tried half a dozen or so hotels, all having no availability we had to settle for another room without an ensuite and the size of a rabbit hutch.
After little sleep we checked out of Mellow Yellow, walked round the corner and stumbled upon a really nice, nearly new, 4 star hotel complete with rooftop pool and Jacuzzi bath. After all we did need to recover from our backpacking ordeal!!!! We checked in for 6 nights, which we then extended by another 6 nights.
Over the course of the next 2 weeks we spent time chilling on Copacabana beach, Ipanema beach, visiting Corcovado, better known as Christ The Redeemer (twice) and getting a cable car to the top of Pao de Acucar, better known as Sugar Loaf Mountain, both affording amazing views of Rio below us. If anything I think Corcovado definitely pips Pao de Acucar for views. I’ll let you decide from the photos!!!!
In the first week we went to a Favela Funk Party, which was organised, from Mellow Yellow Hostel (yes we were still taking advantage of our backpacker credentials even though we were living in abject luxury!!). We went with a 2 vanloads of people to a Favela, which is a slum area up in the hills. These areas are controlled by drug barons but for some reason foreigners are welcomed to these Sunday night parties as we are paying guests and the money we pay helps improve the facilities within the community. The drug barons are supposedly given a cut of this too, a) not to kill us and b) to stop others from killing us. So we’re safe then!!!!
We left the hostel at midnight and got there half an hour later. Clubs and bars in Rio don’t kick off until midnight, so our timing was perfect. The party was held in a huge warehouse, which was packed with Brazilians gyrating their hips to the local favourite tunes. We had our VIP area above the dance floor where we watched them strut their stuff. There was one guy who looked like a reject from a Madonna video. He was donning a cowboy hat, shirtless and buffed and keen to gyrate and simulate a humping movement against……..of all things…..a railing/pole. Couldn’t figure out whether he was gay or not but judging by what he was doing, I don’t think he was that fussy.
We were the last to leave and got into bed at 6:00a.m. on the morning of my 34th birthday.
For all you football fans (girlies feel free to switch off now), the 2006 Beach Soccer World Cup started during our second week and the whole tournament was set up in a stadium 5minutes away on Copacabana beach. Didn’t know the thing existed. Did you???
Anyway entrance was free. All you had to do was turn up early enough before the stadium filled up which it did most of the time when Brazil were playing.
It was 5-a-side with 3 halves (or 3 thirds as I liked to call it) of 12 mins. In between the halves we were entertained by bikini clad Brazilian cheerleaders making the crowd go wild. (See!! I told you it was traumatic.) Somehow England weren’t in the tournament but Bahrain and Iran were??!!!! I suppose this has something to do with the fact that their countries have more sand than us??? The tournament was fun as each game averaged 8 or 9 goals (loads of scissor kicks) and watching the games became our ritual every morning for 10 days. Susan wasn’t bored either. Watching fit men (physically of course!!!) running around kicking a ball whilst sunbathing in the stands. What more could a woman want???
We were greeted with the presence of Monsieur Eric Cantona who was coaching the French side, who won the tournament last year and were Brazil’s biggest rivals. France lost to Uruguay (unlikely finalists) in the semis, so it was a Brazil v Uruguay final. There were huge queues outside the stadium as the stadium was full very early, so we didn’t get in to the stadium. So I flung my camera round my neck with my huge zoom lens and made for the press entrance. I spoke to a FIFA press officer and tried to blag that I was a freelance photographer working for The Independent but he needed an email from my boss to confirm before we were to pass go. Not one to give up easily, we headed back to the hotel and emailed the Editor and Sports Editor of The Independent saying I could cover the story for them. In desperation I emailed The Times and Guardian too but wouldn’t sink as low as emailing either The Sun or The Mirror. After all, I do have my (future) journalistic credentials to maintain. Pretty much immediately I had a response from the Sports Editor of The Independent saying that they didn’t have room for this article but wishing me luck trying one of the other papers.
Half an hour later I still didn’t have a response from the other shmucks so we decided to go and watch the game on the big screen on the beach by the stadium.
Inevitably Brazil beat Uruguay comfortably and the celebrations began.
Ok girlies, you can switch on again now.
On my birthday we went hand gliding over Rio which was very calming and peaceful and not at all scary. We ran off a platform on a hill above Sao Conrado beach with our instructors and landed on the beach 15mins later. The views were incredible and we bought ‘in-flight’ photos, as even I wouldn’t dare hang from the sky with a camera round my neck!
We went to watch Flamengo play Vasco (another derby) at the Maracana Stadium, which at one time used to be the largest football stadium in the world holding 200,000 people. It was an ok game but we arrived 25 mins late due to the hostel staff not allowing enough travel time for a derby!! Anyway the game or the atmosphere wasn’t quite as good as watching River Plate play Boca Juniors in Buenos Aires.
The first Friday we went to The Lapa street party. This is the next best thing to The Rio Carnival and takes place in an area called Lapa every Friday night. People drinking and dancing to samba beats whilst unwitting tourists get their chains whipped off their necks as did happen to one of the lads in our group who looked remarkably like Froddo Baggins. Well at least they didn’t take the precious.
We clearly had spent too much time in Rio because towards the end of the trip we were being recognised by the locals; the cab drivers, the staff at Dominos Pizza, the Laundrette staff, but best of all the staff at Copa Lima Sucos Bar.
This was our favourite juice bar, on a street corner, where you could have any fruit milkshake or juice made for you freshly, instantly. We loved it!!!! We tried Guava juice and milkshake, melon juice; strawberry milkshakes, mango juice but our firm favourite became dois banana com leite e dois Americano sim presunto (2 banana milkshakes and 2 fried egg sandwiches without ham). Lurvely!!!! At any given opportunity at any time we would walk the one block for our favourite Rio meal.
Even though the language barrier was difficult we found the Brazilians to be very friendly, patient (with our lack of Portuguese) and chilled out. The Cariocas have a way of life, which seems pretty damn perfect, their attitude, nightlife, food (way better than the Argies) and of course the love of football. Somebody told me last night that when Brazil lost in the world cup, even the women cried. There were issues with safety at night but we didn’t feel threatened at all. Brazil has the largest Japanese community outside Japan so it is a sushi lovers (us) delight.
The setting of the city with the beautiful beaches, Sugar Loaf and Christ the Redeemer make for a fabulous city to live in and I for one could happily do just that!!!
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Now I know I haven’t blogged for a little while but I have been a little busy as of late. I, being of course, Khal. Yup! I am back!
A lot has happened since Lake Titicaca but rather than rewind and tell you all about the in betweens, I thought I’d give you something fresh. 2 days later and it would be a case of “where did we go???”
I think not!!!
Day 1 Brazil
On Saturday 21st October we arrived, after a 15hr bus ride to Iguazu, home of Iguazu National Park and Iguazu Falls. We checked into our hostel (bizarrely with large pool) and decided to see the Brazilian side of the falls, as we only needed half a day there as opposed to a full day on the Argentinean side. The falls sit in between 3 countries, Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay with most of it being on the Argentinean side.
We’d heard from other travellers that the falls were more impressive from the Argie side so we thought it would make sense to save the best for last.
Now, I’ve seen Niagara Falls on 2 separate occasions but nothing had prepared me for the spectacular falls I was about to see. These were higher than Niagara and twice as large.
Not many words could describe what we saw over the next two days, but at day 1 I was “WOW”. We walked along a trail that gave us a panoramic view of the vastness of the falls; the view ever changing with some new falls appearing whilst others disappeared. We then walked along a footbridge over the falls to Garganta del Diablo, otherwise known as the Devil’s Throat due to it’s shape, where a fine spray cooled us in the searing heat.
Day 2 Argentina
We entered the Argentinean side of the Park at 9a.m., as the whole day was needed to do the circuits on the map. We had an excursion booked which involved going on a 4×4 trail through the jungle then getting a speedboat right up to the bottom of one of the falls. We all got absolutely soaked but thankfully my camera was safe in the waterproof bag provided. Seeing the falls from the foot of them gave us a much better perspective on the size of them and the amount of water that was cascading down the side of these rocks. We then got a boat to Isla San Martin, which sits in the middle of the falls to get a different perspective on the falls. We had to a climb a hill and at the base of this hill there were hundreds of amazing yellow butterflies flying around. The park was full of beautifully coloured butterflies that were quite happy to come and sit on you making for great photo opportunities as you can see. The island also had hundreds of vultures circling the area.
Back on the main land we took the lower circuit, which was a gradual climb alongside one of the falls before doing the upper circuit. The upper circuit was a series of footbridges that went along the top of the falls so you were looking right down the top of them. It was amazing how close we were to the edge. What was really odd was that on one side of the footbridge it was chaos with the water going off the edge and on the other, total calm, almost still water. You could quite easily be swimming or sailing nearby and not know what fate you were about to meet.
For the final part of the day we got a small train within the park before walking a kilometre on another footbridge to the top of Devil’s Throat.
We thought that things couldn’t get any more impressive but the finale was just mind blowing. The rate of flow and force of the water was incomprehensible. This was the largest part of the falls and effectively was the centrepiece. It was almost like the waterfalls surrounded us.
I don’t think that either with words, pictures or video anybody can truly comprehend the immense and vast nature of these falls. I have tried to capture it with pictures to give you a glimpse of Iguazu falls, before you visit. I sincerely recommend that you do.
If this sounds a bit mumbo jumboish, then bare with me. I am 10hrs into a 22hr bus journey, but more about that later!
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This is a copy and paste and slight re-edit of Susan’s email, so some of you may recognise it!! Hello everyone! Well since our return from the jungle, it´s been non stop! We had 3 days in Cusco to relax, but spent a lot of time in internet cafes trying to download photos onto DVD and i pod etc.. and meeting up for food etc with our new jungle mates!!! On Tuesday 26th September, we departed Cusco on the Inca trail for 4 days and 3 nights. I have taken over as editor of the blog so you can read all about our little adventure there. (it should be posted in the next couple of days!) After an exhausting trip, (I now have buns of steel from all the hiking we did!) we took a bus journey to Puno, Lima the day after we returned on Saturday 30th September. The trip was 9 hours by bus but it went very quickly as we had 5 stops along the way to museums, inca sites etc.. The wierdest thing was that we’d be driving along a road that looked like nothing then…..bang……… we’d take a turn into a small village and come across either a very old quaint church or some Inca ruins. If I was driving(khal), (Southern U.S. drawl) I’d a driven right on thru!! I digress. Back to Susan’s email.
On Sunday 1st October we departed on a 2day 1night trip to Lake Titicaca. Our journey began with a 1 hour boat ride to the Uros Islands. These are floating islands made out of reeds. Even the houses and boats were made from reeds! It was like walking on a bouncy castle!!
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The blog has been taken over it´s official! Susan has been promoted and made editor…well of the Inca Trail anyway!
Tuesday 26th September 2006
Our first day on the Inca Trail! With an early pick up at 6am we met the rest of our group,3 people from Belgium for our latest adventure. The first part of our journey was an hour and a half by bus to a small town called Ollantaytambo where we purchased “made to measure” bamboo walking sticks. Another 45mins by bus and we arrived at the start of the trail. After a government check point we got well on our way. We walked with many ups and downs and carrying our own luggage proved more of a challenge than we anticipated! However, we soon got into the swing of things and were walking at the Porters pace! We arrived at our first campsite Wayllabamba (3,100m above sea level) at 4pm and settled ourselves into the tents before well deseved tea and toast at 5pm. Dinner followed shortly afterwards at 7pm and we had to make it quite clear that we were vegetarians, as most dishes contained or were garnished with sausage.
Wednesday 27th September
Following a bumpy nights sleep, as the sleeping mats were paper thin, we were woken at 5.40am by our porters with Coca tea, to help with altitude sickness. After discovering day 2 and 3 were the hardest on the trail we decided to hire a porter to carry our belongings. After breakfast we set of on the trail and as forwarned it was extremely difficult. 90% consisited of climbing, a 1200m climb to a height of 4200m. Steps after steps whilst not only having to handle the altitude we were reaching, but the sun was beating down on us too. The porters were incredible. They would be runing past us carrying 15-20kg on their backs and wearing sandals, still with a smile on their faces! We eventually reached the highest point called Dead Woman’s Pass(I wonder why!!) and the views were spectacular, it made it all worthwhile! We both felt a great sense of achievement that anything was possible! We had a short rest before descending downhill to our 2nd nights accomodation at Phuyupatamarka (3,600m). Despite our uphill struggle, we arrived ahead of schedule at 12.30pm. We took a well deserved siesta and patted ourselves on the back for our achievement and for hiring a porter. Just before 7pm we heard clapping and the last few people from a seperate group arrived. We couldn´t believe it! One of the group was a gentleman who looked in his 60’s with two walking sticks and which was just incredible! It just proved what determination can achieve.
Thursday 28th September
With an early start at 5.40am again we had the longest day ahead of us with a 9 hour hike. The morning was mainly all uphill and we visited 2 Inca sites before lunch. For the third day running now we were having problems with the chef understanding what vegetarian meant. Again the supposed veggie food was either garnished with suasage or contained suasage. Khal had had enough. He stormed out of the tent and refused to eat the stuff they had given us. Eventually he got an apology from the guide and he arranged for some real veggie food to be prepared. The message had finally gotten through!!
The afternoon was then all downhill and our legs and knees were crying in pain at the end! We visited one more Inca site in the afternoon before reaching our final campsite Wiñay Wayna at 4.30pm. Here we both took hot showers and felt human again!. After dinner we tipped the porters for all there hard work and we had an early night at 8.30pm to be our brighest for our 4am wake up call!
Friday 29th September
After little to nil sleep we departed camp at 5am and after a 5 minute walk we reached our final goverment check point. The check point didn´t open till 5.30am and we were the 2nd group to arrive, ready to reach the sun gate at sunrise. Queues were forming with people keen to get to the sungate early. Once the checkpoint opened, we all walked as fast as our little legs would carry us not wanting to be overtaken. The walk up to the sun gate was a lot harder than we imagined. It took an hour but we had a set of vertical steps to climb along the way carying our own belongings as the porters had gone home earlier that morning. We arrived at the sun gate and got our first glimpse of Machu Picchu. There wasn´t a good sunrise so we headed straight down and what an incredible sight, it was breath taking, literally! Being there so early Khal got some fantastic pictures before the invasion of tourists. Chris our guide took us around the main parts of Machu Picchu for a couple of hours. The sun was really intense and after our tour we had a further walk around by ourselves absorbing where we were and taking it all in. We were actually at Machu Picchu and because we had worked so hard to get there, it made us appreciate everything so much more. After getting our passports stamped, we caught the bus down to a small town, Agua Calientes where we collected our train tickets for our jouney back to Cusco. The town was really shabby and after having a walk around the market we caught our train. The journey was an hour and a half to Ollantaytambo where a pick up was arrangd for us. The train had little to no leg room and was quite an uncomfortable journey back. When we arrived at Ollantaytambo there was no one there to meet us. We were bombarded with taxi offers back to Cusco and after half an hour we were approached by a gentleman who rang our tour operator. They said we´d been given the wrong train tickets and should have gone directly back to Cusco with the other members of our group! We travelled in a coach back to Cusco and upon arrival we went to the agent and had a good winghe about the food and the travel arrangements and managed to get ourselves a free nights accom in the process. Not a bad result!
We were trying to arrange a bus to Puno for early next morning but wouldn’t know until 7a.m. that morning whether we had any places, so we left it to the agent as she was really going out of her way to make up for the poor experience with the Inka trail.
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Sat 16th September – arrived in Cusco – altitude 3500m, so I was dizzy and feeling sick for the whole day, but we managed to book ourselves on to a trip into The Amazon for 6 nights beginning 7:30a.m. with Manu Ecological Adventures.
Sun 17th – jumped onto tour coach on what was about to be an epic 7hr journey along a bumpy, hairpinned, single track dirt track right along the cliff face – I have never been so scared in my life!!! The coach often got perilously close to the edge and all the time I was thinking “One false move and it´s curtains”. If that wasn´t scary enough, every now and then we’d be suddenly faced with a huge truck coming the other way. After screeching to a halt and reversing to find a hedge to hide in, we’d let the truck past. This was working fine until round a bend we almost hit another coach and the driver landed our coach in the ditch. We were stuck for about 15mins, so we all had to move to one side of the coach and a few of the passengers from the truck pushed the coach before we were out of the ditch and moving again. Images of the closing scene of The Italian Job sprung to mind!!!
We made a quick pit stop at a village market where the locals were in typical Peruvian dress and selling everything on the stalls including a goat´s head.
We drove through a cloud forest( once again on the cliff edged winding road) on our way to our first lodge, a wooden hut with little electricity and lots of mossies and big insects. Susan was very pleased!!
Supper was taken with the rest of the group in the dining room(communal hut) and was ok but pretty basic.
Mon 18th Sept
Next morning we were up for 4:50 to see the mating dance of the national bird of Peru, The Cock of the Rock, had brekkie and then a few of the lads, including myself decided to mountain bike to the rainforest basin and were to meet the rest of the group at the river.
30 mins into the bumpy ride my left pedal fell off and I lost the nut. The best the group leader, Beto, could do was tape the pedal up with bandage! So from this point onwards I couldn´t pedal! 5mins later my right pedal fell off too. So now, not only did I have no pedals but nothing to balance or put my weight on but my arse. If that wasn´t difficult enough, on the flat parts of the course I was having to gain momentum by propelling myself with my legs a la scooter style. My arse was killing me!! An hour later the coach caught up with us and I swapped bikes with Amy, an american girl who wasn´t cut out for the course. Her bike wasn´t much better – the chain came off 4 times in 15mins – mountain biking my arse!!!
Once we got to the river we got into our respective dinghies we went white water rafting for a couple of hours, which was great fun. We had a swim in the river where it was calm and then stopped at a 9 metre high rock face, climbed up it and jumped into the river which was scarey but ace – something I’ve always wanted to do. We then stopped at a meeting point and then had 3 hr boat ride to our next camp, Erika Lodge – pretty basic, cold showers but had hammocks by the side of the river. We had a night walk spotting spiders and other weird insects before dinner and bed.
Tues 19th Sept
Again a very early start 6 a.m., breakfast then we had a walk to do the canopy tour( 4 zip lines in the jungle). We met the returning group(group sizes of eight) on the walk and got the equipment from them for the canopy. After a briefing we had 4 separate zip lines to do, each one getting faster than the previous one, followed by abseiling down the final canopy. Pretty scarey at first but was great fun.
At 10:30 a.m. we left Erika Lodge for a 8-9hour boat ride to our next Lodge Boca Manu. On route we had lunch on the boat, had loo breaks au naturale, and saw a lot of amazing birds along the way. In our group we had 3 Spaniards, Andy(aussie) his fiance Katherine(Brit), Laurens, his girlfriend, Jephta(both dutch), Andy, our guide, a cook, boat driver and his son, me and Susan. This was our group for the rest of the trip but we´d usually have breakfast and supper with the whole group, about 30, which was cool.
We stopped at Boca Manu village for some supplies and some much needed extra mossie spray – the buggers really liked me – then arrived at our lodge for supper and sleep. We even had an ensuite but yet no electricity???!!!
Wed 20th Sept
Another very early start 5a.m. followed by a 9hr, yep 9hr boat ride into the relatively deepest jungle towards our lodge fo the next 2 nights The Manu reserve. On route we spotted monkeys, birds, parrots, turtles and lots of caymens(crocs to some of you). Some of the caymens were very well camouflaged so a loo break in the bush was only taken if absolutely neccessary! We also spotted two Capybaras, also known as the Ratpig!
We got to our lodge, which for us and the 2 dutch was on the opposite side of the river to the rest of the group, late that afternoon. We took another night walk into the jungle, followed by a ride on a wooden hand made catamaran on a lake so we could go cayman spotting at night! With our torches we’d see the red of the caymans eye just above the water, then try and get as close as possible without running him over. I´m sure we did that at least once! Supper followed then a boat journey across the cayman ridden river in pitch darkness(no moon to be seen), no headlights on the boat and nothing to be recognised as a jetty for the boat to be docked on the other side. This was to happen for the next 2 nights and believe me was one hell of an experience! On the plus side we did have hot water for once although it was a little on the browner side of white.
Thurs 21st Sep
Our wake up call was 5:30 but were woken at 4am by some unusually loud American people on our camp. So strange.
After brekkie we went for a jungle walk, saw some very aggresive monkeys, possums, spiders and insects.Post lunch we went to another lake and saw some otters and caymans. That night we had to sleep fully clothed to avoid being bitten by the mossies as we now already had some lumps on our bodies.
Fri 22nd Sept
Wake up call 5a.m. then had breakfast on the boat before going to a watch tower on a lake where we had a vote on whether to do a long walk back to the boat or a short one. The majority voted for a short one much to the displeasure of the Spaniards but as a few people had hissy fits of one type or another, the delays this created was to be critical in our next discovery.
Back on the boat back to Boca Manu and half an hour into our journey, Andy shouted”animal on the beach”, followed by “it’s a cat……….it’s a jaguar”.
We all woke suddenly to see a jaguar getting into the river and swimming across taking a quick glance at us then legging it out of the water on the other side. It must have been no more than 7 metres away from us and we all jumped for joy once it got back into the jungle because these were very very rarely spotted, especially at such close quarters.
When we told the other groups they didn´t really believe us at first. Some were very pleased for us others seemed a little jealous as none of the other groups spotted one. One bright American woman asked Andy what colour it was. Need I say more!!! The experience was quite overwhelming when Andy our guide said that he will probably see one again in his lifetime but it was probably the only time we’d ever see one in our lifetime.
We got back to Boca Manu for our last night in the jungle and had a celebratery meal with our new friends, Sanj and his wife Louise(London), our group, Burt and his wife Megan (USA), Karin(Swiss) and some others from the other groups, including an Aussie, John who got pissed and was shouting “you leave us out here in the fucking jungle, you flaming wombats” for most of the night.
The next morning some of us got a flight back on a 12 seater Cessna from an airfield close by which really was just a long field. We had one chap who was cashier, passport control, airport security, air traffic controller and baggage handler rolled all into one. Multi-tasking indeed!!
The 45min flight back into Cusco gave us a better idea of how vast the jungle really was and how little an area of it we had seen. The flight then took in view of the ice capped mountains around cusco that we would climb on our 4 day trek up the Inca trail.
The next 3 days would be spent in Cusco acclimatising ourselves to the altitude(3500m), and going for lunch and supper with our new mates before departing Cusco on the morning of Tues 26th Sep for the Inca trail.
Being in the Amazon at times seemed quite harrowing due to the mossies, the lack of clean clothing and the inherent dangers of the jungle but being back in Cusco, I can’t wait do it all over again.
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Any guesses where this is going????
Prize for the person who gets closest to the real story.
PS We are flying to Cusco today and hopefully travelling to the Manu Reserve in the Amazon tomorrow for 3 nights.
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One would like to think that today, one could fly to the other side of the world safe in the knowledge that nothing, absolutely nothing, not even grandma’s lipstick could get through airport security(just in case, unbeknown to us, grandma has links to Al-Qaeeda).
Wrong!!
A one Susan that we know unwittingly got through not one, not two, but through three different airport security checks with half a dozen syringes,needles and plasters. Ok. So they were within a first aid kit but………..
Scarey eh!!
After what seemed to be a relatively short 12hr flight, consisting of crap…no I mean REALLY crap (e.g.American Dreamz)films and the new bread and butter diet(no veggie meals), we arrived at Lima Airport to be greeted by our pickup, Jo and Gordo(fatty). I thought the Italians were crazy drivers but after the first ten yards I was hunting for the seatbelt as was Susan. After much beep beeping and screeching we arrived at The Flying Dog, our home for the next 3 nights.
Our room was large and pretty clean so we were off to a good start as far as hostels go.
Next morning we went for breakfast with Edwin from New zealand and Cathy from Canada who were very nice and were travellling for 4 months befrore going to NZ for their nuptuals. They met 3yrs ago in Nepal whilst travelling alone and through tinternet kept in touch and are now getting hitched. For all you singles out there…..there is still hope, see.
The rest of the day we mooched and were inclined to just chill and do little.
Next step….. to rearrange our flight to Buenos Aires so we have enough time to go to the Amazon…..
