TravelStream™ news feed for member viajar on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/viajar en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Fri, 10 Jun 2005 03:29:55 -0400 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/viajar/viajar/1106596620/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/viajar/viajar/1106596620/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/viajar/viajar/1106596620/tpod.html Fri, 10 Jun 2005 03:29:55 -0400 A journey of 800 omlettes: Our search for fresh vegetable produce in South America.

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Puerto Natales, Chile

You can see that we are now right down in the South of the Chile. We left Santiago and took a 2500 mile flight (5 and a half hours, same as coast to coast US!!) to Punto Arenas which is the Southernmost city in Chile - it really feels like the end of the world here! Most of the buildings are made of wood and have metal sheeting on the outside to hold back the incessant 90mph winds which blast across Patagonia. Being one of the world´s last great wildernesses this is a place where nature rules and people just try and get along whilst negiotiating the elements. We are here in Summer but in the space of an hour you can get blown across the street, rained on and then burnt by the sun in 10 minutes (not much ozone here so my nose is now just ribbons of peeling skin - nice!).

We took a 5 hour boat ride to see one of the world´s most remote Magellan Penguin colony´s. I´d never thought that much about Penguins but close up they are really interesting - they keep the same wife/husband all their lives and go fishing for their kids until they can swim - bit like us really.

We have just come back from a 4 day trek in Chile´s main national park the Torres Del Paines. Pain(e) was endured and I couldn´t make it into my bunk bed the night after a greulling 8 hour trek up to the granite Torres (towers) that you can see in the picture (actually Dan you couldn't get up to your bunk coz you were pissed on 4 bottles of beer and you fell going up the ladder - S).

In the Park Seema scampered up the morraine a little like a mountain goat and managed to haul herself up boulders 3 times her size (came down mostly on her arse on the way back though!). We also spent a day ice hiking on a glacier which involved a bit of climbing with ice axes. I don´t know if you´ve seen Touching the Void but I felt like a proper mountaineer with my harness, axes and crampons - until both my shoes came off and I was sliding around on the ice wall with just my socks on!

Today we left Chile and slipped into Argentina. We´re heading North to the ´Lake District´and will update after a 5 day mountain bike tour.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/viajar/viajar/1116463920/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/viajar/viajar/1116463920/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/viajar/viajar/1116463920/tpod.html Tue, 24 May 2005 05:50:01 -0400 A journey of 800 omlettes: Our search for fresh vegetable produce in South America.

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Salta, Argentina

Yes, it´s true - it's the final entry.

Having spent every minute of over 120 days with Mr Davies I strangely found myself missing his presence and this has rather impeded the enjoyment factor of my trip. So, after 2 weeks sans-Dan, I've decided to come back early to spend my second summer of the year in London with him - the lucky bugger!

I think we last left you in Natal with a surfing dog. Shortly after we were joined by Rachel and friends Rupert and Geoff for some hot beach action. We went to a beach resort called Ponta Negra which we lovingly called Puta Negra as it's teeming with prostitutes and sex tourists (just our style)!

The highlight of the week for Dan was finding an all you can eat Prawn Rodizio where waiters circulate the tables offering you 14 different prawn dishes (including prawn crepe and prawn lasagne) and you have a little flag which you put down if you need a prawn rest (uma pausa) or you stick up if you're ready for more prawn action! It was at this restaurant that I learnt that there is no limit to the amount of prawns Dan can eat.

After 5 days of serious sunning and drinking we left the others and headed to Saõ Paulo ,the world's second largest city with 25 million inhabitants. This was Dan's last stop and, on our last day together, we decided it would be fun to finish off with something truley Brazilian - a football match.

We went to see Corinthians (Sao Paulo's biggest club with 17 million followers) play Sao Paulo FC (with a modest 9.2 mil). This match was a league derby so we were expecting things to get a little heated. Some years ago, after a particularly dismal performance by the Corinthians, the fans got so angry that they chased the player's bus after the match and set it on fire! We also heard a few days before the match that the mother of a Corinthians player was kidnapped, possibly by their own supporters as a warning to play well or else..!

The match started well enough and it was great fun to see all the fans dancing and chanting insults at eachothers' teams but then within 2 minutes a penalty was awarded against Corinthians and the SPFC goal keeper (yes, goal keeper) scored. Another 2 minutes later the SP goalkeeper scored again. This time after a foul just outside the Corinthians penalty box.

At 3-0 (to SPFC) the Corinthians fans started shouting insults to the president of the club.

At 4-0 the Corinthians fans started chanting the opposition´s songs and anthems.

At 5-0 there was a pitch invasion and full scale riot. We decided this would be a good time to leave!

The next day Dan and I went our separate ways, he to London, me to Buenos Aires, Argentina.

I spent 3 days in Buenos Aires staying, for the first time in my life, at a youth hostel. The hostel lived up to the stereotype of being a club 18-30 with bunkbeds. Having stayed in fairly nice places with Dan it was quite hard to get used to this downgrading of accommodation (where's my complementary fluffy white dressing gown and 24 hour room service?) but I soon fell into the lifestyle (drinking until 6 in the morning, sleeping all day and smelling slightly funny).

After BA I headed to Salta, in the northwest of the country, in search of some mountains . I met Julia (from Germany), Sam (from Switzerland) and Angel (from Spain) on the first night and we decided to hire a car to explore the region (a VW Gol which is a dodgy South American version of a Polo).

It was a fabulous trip taking us through some very isolated, breathtaking scenery. We had the roads completely to ourselves which meant it was very difficult to prevent Sam (now renamed El Niño) from tearing through mountain roads at over 120K an hour.

There was the obligatory shouting of ¨ROAD TRIP¨ at the tops of our voices every 5 minutes, constant insults about eachothers driving and some serious worries about the size of Julia´s bladder (one morning I think we stopped 3 times in 90 minutes).

Apart from having to dodge suicidal donkeys standing in the middle of the road, rabid dogs chasing the car and the occasional boulder falling from the top of the mountainside, we finished the trip relatively unscathed.

Back in Salta I studied the map of Argentina really long and hard. I decided that there are so many other things that I want to see in this amazing country but it doesn´t mean anything if I can´t see them with Dan (yes, I know, it´s vomit-inducing).

So I´m heading home tomorrow, but Dan and I have decided we´re definitely coming back and it won´t be too long before you´ll be subjected to a brand new journey and travelogue.

So watch this space chicos........
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Copiapo, Chile

For the last 2 weeks we've been making our way north from Santiago. It gives you an idea of the scale of this place when I tell you that we've made 5 stops and spent over 20 hours on buses and we're still over 1500 Km from the northern most part of Chile.

After our biking adventures over the Argentine and Chilean Andes we thought we could do with a rest so we decided to check out the Pacific beaches of the Litoral Central which starts close to Santiago.

We started off in a small fishing village on the Coast called Quintay. Using our "trusty" guide book we manage to stay in the rankest accommodation so far. "Spotless and romantic" the book wrote - more like a research centre for the breeding of biting insects with a kitchen that looked like Charly had recently been cooking there.

On the beach the sun got to work and burnt through the first 4 layers of my skin, taking roughly 20 minutes. Now I've hit layer 5 or 6 I'm pleased to report that I'm going a nice charred salmon colour. Seema is now so dark that I lose her whenever we turn the lights out.

After some more beach-life in a town called Maitencillo we hit on north to a place called Vicuña. This area has among the most transparent skies in the world and the most observatories. It´s home to the largest telescope in the Southern Hemisphere (imaginatively called VLT - Very Large Telescope) with four 8.2-metre telescopes. We went to one which was open to the public and is home to a massive 30 cm telescope! We got to see Saturn at 250x magnification (it was still pretty small) but oddly, more amazing was looking closely at our own moon (see photo). Even more amazing than the moon was the staggering stupidity of our tour group who ask questions such as:
"Can the moon repair its craters?"
"Why can't we live on Jupiter?" (our Guide had just told us it's a gas planet with a surface temprature of about -200 degrees)
"What is the difference between a sun and a moon" (I knew the answer to this when I was 4)

It took all our strength not to laugh when a Dutch tourist insisted on taking a digital movie of a star system that hadn´t changed for a billion years and was so far away that if it ever did change it would take a billion more years until we could see it.

Vicuña is in the Elqui Valley which is famous for its grapes which are used to make the Chilean national drink, Pisco (a powerful distilled wine also made in Peru and the cause of many nights of debauchery for Vicki and I in 1998 - Seema). We decided to visit Pisco Elqui (the home of Pisco) by bike. We went with Eduardo (our super-cool bike guide) who we have nominated The Nicest Man in Chile.

Seema (bless her) is the only person I know who contradicts that timeless expression "you never forget how to ride a bike". This time though (and to her credit) the saddle was raised above Hobbit-height which made mounts and dismounts a bit trickier (she needed a small wall to help her on to the saddle. The ride was beautiful (50 km each way) with lush green vineyards set against semi-barren mountains. We visited the oldest Pisco distillery (Tres Eres).There was a tasting at the end of the tour and Seema insisted I try some (you know me, anything other than beer is the work of Satan). Pisco tastes rather like fermented cat sick.

Anyway, we are now in a town called Copiapo (means cup of gold in Entish or something) which is on the edge of the Atacama desert which stretches 1000km north into Peru. We´re going to travel into the desert to the highest active volcano in the world and see how ill with altitude sickness we can make ourselves. After that we´ll be in San Pedro de Atacama which will be our last stop before entering Bolivia.

We are loving the guestbook so please keep it coming.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/viajar/viajar/1114807020/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/viajar/viajar/1114807020/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/viajar/viajar/1114807020/tpod.html Mon, 02 May 2005 19:04:07 -0400 A journey of 800 omlettes: Our search for fresh vegetable produce in South America.

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Olinda, Brazil

Hello once more! We last left you in Ouro Preto where we saw a zillion churches and drank beer with mining students (OP has the biggest mining school in the country and did you know that 90% of the world´s gems are produced by Brasil)? we also stuck around to watch Brazilians celebrate their nearly-independence day when they almost threw out the Portuguese in 1789 (a rather drab military affair with the Portuguese President there as guest of honour)!? We then headed to the Argentine (and Paraguayan) border to spend a couple of days at the Iguacu Falls. The pictures do the talking and there´s a video of a mad speedboat ride we did that drives you right under one of the waterfalls. We stupidly sat at the front of the boat so while I was swallowing water and being pummelled into the floor of the boat all I could hear (apart from the several tonnes of falling water) was Seema´s muffled screams. Somehow they reverse the boat out and then turn it around to give you another dousing before they are satisfied and leave you to walk around in your wet clothes for the rest of the day.

Fancying a change of scene we thought we´d get on a plane and visit the spiritual heart of Brazil - the North East. The region is famous for truly living up to the Brazilian stereotype of live music in the streets, football on the beaches and a constant party atmosphere! It´s here you can´t help but wiggle your hips to the beats of forró and frevo.

We went along to an open air concert in Recife to take in some of this culture first hand, only to find that three thousand or so Brazilians had actually turned up to watch a death metal act called "Jesus Hammer" or something. We couldn´t understand why no-one was really getting into the Cuban warm up act and then there was this endless tune-up session (or was it music) before someone started howling "I am the crucifier" in Portuguese and then the crowd erupted. So much for traditional Brazilizan culture...

The last few days have been spent lazing around neighbouring Olinda (a beautiful colonial town full of musicians and artists). We met up with Rachel who has a house here and had come for a little holiday. It was great to see her although her visit lead to serious over-drinking, dancing extremely badly to forró and buying some very good (but expensive) art from her lovely friend Walter who lives in an abandoned church full of bats(and where the town sometimes houses dead people before they are buried - an occurrence which coincided with our visit)!

At the moment we´re up the coast near Natal getting in some more beach action (the obligatory burning has already happened).

This is my last week before returning to London (fortunately for all of Brasil´s beach lovers) just in time to watch Villa claim a UEFA cup place. I´ll try and bring a bit of sunshine back with me.

Seema is going to carry the torch into Argentina and will keep writing the travel notes.

See you all soon!

PS. Iain wins last weeks caption competition and is the lucky recipient of three pints of foaming Staropramen in the Wrestlers.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/viajar/viajar/1113852720/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/viajar/viajar/1113852720/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/viajar/viajar/1113852720/tpod.html Mon, 02 May 2005 18:53:45 -0400 A journey of 800 omlettes: Our search for fresh vegetable produce in South America.

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Ouro Preto, Brazil

Sorry we´ve been away so long - Dan´s only got a few weeks left and he´s spent every daylight hour furiously trying to get brown with no time to use the internet. Unfortunately the results have been poor and he continues to emit harmful UV rays as he dazzles Brazil´s beaches with his white torso. We´ve now both come to the conclusion that it´s a lost cause and he shall be returning home the same familiar pink you last saw him.

Now, lets talk about Brazil....
It´s big, really BIG!
In fact it´s the same size as the US - 8.5 million sqm with a population of 180 million
- two thirds of whom live on the coast. The reason for this now seems pretty clear - Brazilian men and women have such amazing bodies that they feel compelled to show them off on the beach at every possible opportunity! In fact the day we got here we saw hundreds of men wandering around the streets of Rio in bare feet, wearing nothing but their skimpy speedos (Nicks, book your flights here NOW!).

We spent a couple of days in Rio - did the usual Jesus/Sugar Loaf thing before heading to a magical place called Buzios which is a super chic beach resort ´discovered´ by Bridget Bardot in the 1960´s. Here Dan changed from white to er.. white while I developed a deep charcol complexion (he´s so jealous!).

Now boys, you do not need to read the next paragraph - girls, you may
not want to either...you have been warned....

Before I was able to put myself into a Bikini I needed to address 3 months of severe neglect in the bikini bottom area. In my rubbish Portuguese I pleaded with the beautician that all I needed was a wax ´para um bikini europea´ but what she did was far more extreme and within seconds I was in a world of hot-wax pain and I think the whole of Brazil must have heard me screaming.
When I looked down at the damage I barely recognised myself, the word "Airstrip" springs to mind!

Anyway, moving swiftly on....After a week of bronzing (or not), snorkelling, boat trips and eating far too much we thought -

"It´s time to climb a mountain!".

Now Brazil only has about 5 of them but we managed to hunt down the 3rd highest (Pico da Bandeira) which was in Rio´s neighbouring state, Minas Gerais.

Doing this involved coming off the "tourist trail" and having to employ our embarrassingly bad Portuguese. In fact, on one of our stops at the amazing Pedra Azul (see photos) we were so far away from Gringo land and so unable to communicate that the hotel receptionist took pity on us and booked us buses, taxis and hotels for the next 4 days!- God knows we needed the help - as you can imagine Dan´s version of Portuguese involves shouting in English more loudly.

The mountain (when we finally made it there) was really a hill by our current standards at a mere 2850 metres and only took 6 hours to summit. When we got to the top we were greeted by a cloud whiteout and we couldn´t see a thing. At least we got the chance to work off some of the beach fat!

Now we are in Ouro Preto - a beautifully preserved colonial town (although we secretly wish the Spanish had got here first so we could understand what people are saying!). Next stop is the North East so until then...
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/viajar/viajar/1112218380/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/viajar/viajar/1112218380/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/viajar/viajar/1112218380/tpod.html Fri, 01 Apr 2005 13:12:05 -0500 A journey of 800 omlettes: Our search for fresh vegetable produce in South America.

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Rurrenabaque, Bolivia

Normally the word "eco" bofore anything conjures up images of people with braided hair smoking joss sticks and stroking dolphins (in a suspiciously sexual way) but a stay in a "eco-lodge" in the Bolivian Amazon has opened my mind (a bit).

The Chalalan Lodge is 5 hours by river boat from the nearest town and in the heart of Parque Nacional Madidi in Northwest Bolivia. A stay there is a fairly winning "eco" arrangement for all concerned. The lodge is owned by local tribespeople who used to hack down the forest trees but now they look on with mystified glee as toursits pay them hundreds of dollars for a room in a treehouse and then stay up all night waiting to watch otters have a shit. The tribe run the lodge and provide rainforest guides while the money raised goes to provide medicine and school books in the local community. Logging has stopped and wildlife is returning to the forest in force. In fact, at times, there´s too much wildlife for my liking (jungle frog staring up at us from inside our toilet!) but other than the intense humidity and swarms of insects we had an unforgettable experience including jungle gems like:

Dan to guide, "Why are you making that noise of a baby Caiman (Alligator type thing) in distress?" "Because then the mother (12ft/big teeth) will think we are a threat and come over to us." Dan, "great."

In bed in dark (no electricty) Seema to Dan "Is that large bat in our room for the night or is it just having a rest?"

Guide to both of us, "Don't leave clothes outside overnight. Forest insects are attracted to the sweat in clothes and lay eggs on them which hatch worms that live UNDER YOUR SKIN!!!"

The noises coming from outside our cabin at night sounded like someone had recorded rainforest noises and then pressed a Play button as soon as we got into bed. We had howling monkey's, insects that (ironically) sounded like chain saws and birds singing backwards. We haven't been able to capture much on camera because either the animal was 50m up a tree, gone as soon as I was about to press the button or frankly because the rucksack the camera was in was stuck to my back with sweat (euck).

On my happy customer questionnaire I told them that the animals were pretty good and stuff but they really needed air-con, a pool and a mini-bar. I was told that most tourists liked to immerse themselves in nature while at the lodge. I mean I'm all up for seeing poison earred dwarf frogs at 6am in 90% humidity but I really need a hot shower when I get back (my clothes haved evolved into a separate lifeform able to perform most domestic chores). Still we whiled away the evenings counting each others bites and playing the is it a bird or insect game (hard to tell because they are about the same size).

Check out the photos to get a feel.
We are off to Rio now (always wanted to say that) so catch up with you from Brasil!

Ciao

Ps - hope Gran and her knees are recovering well!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/viajar/viajar/1111097580/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/viajar/viajar/1111097580/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/viajar/viajar/1111097580/tpod.html Fri, 18 Mar 2005 19:40:06 -0500 A journey of 800 omlettes: Our search for fresh vegetable produce in South America.

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La Paz, Bolivia

Hola Chicos,

When we last wrote we'd just entered Bolivia and had quickly learnt that the next few weeks here would involve heavy consumption of immodium. I never knew it was possible to make 12 visits to the loo before breakfast but it is my friends.

It's been an interesting 10 days. There have been loads of road blocks across Bolivia including all routes to La Paz. The blockades have been set up by the poor Aymara population living in the highlands who are angry about fuel prices, restrictions on coca production and just about everything else really. We spent a few days in Potosi (the highest city in the world - 4100 m) and then tried to head to Sucre (Bolivia's official capital) to get a flight to La Paz. During this time the Bolivian President decided to resign as he was quite pissed off that his country had ground to a complete halt and everything went a bit crazy. Then Congress refused to accept his resignation, the President decided to give it another go, people started marching against the blockades and a lot of them were cleared. We still ended up driving right into one on the way to Sucre. Now what you´re supposed to do when you run into a blockade is clearly described in our Guide Book, I quote " keep your head down and get out of the area, and don't try running the blockade unless you really have to...blockade-running buses sometimes get stoned or torched". So what did we do? Well first we decided it would be a good idea to start removing some of the rocks blocking the road, then we decided to get closer and take some nice photos, lastly we thought it would be a great idea to casually walk through the blockade whilst our driver took a sneaky short cut through the near-dry river. Very, very silly behaviour but thankfully the locals were so bemused that no stones or Molotov´s were thrown.

We finally reached La Paz (some 6 or 7 days later than planned) and to celebrate promptly tried to get ourselves injured/killed once more. There is a road from La Paz to Coroico (in the Amazon Basin) which is officially the world's most dangerous road. It starts at an altitude of 4700m and drops to 1300m over just 64 km. The road is carved out of the mountain with drops off the side of over 1300m - and there are no barriers. Each year an average of 26 vehicles veer off the road plunging 100 or so people to their deaths. So obviously we decided that biking down this road would be very good fun and not at all stupid considering I've only been on a bike 20 or so times! Anyway the ride was amazing, terrifying, at times ridiculous (there are waterfalls that land directly on to the road, usually exactly on a hairpin bend and you also have to bike through 2 rivers, also running right through the road). We survived uninjured but a bloke in our group managed to fly over his handle bars and lost the majority of his teeth - ouch! Later that day we learnt that 7 people have died doing the bike ride over the last few years.

Well, now we're on to "stupid things we've been doing number 3 ". This beats all past silliness even beating the time when I tried to ride a motorbike in Goa - when I didn't even know how to ride a push bike - and promptly drove it into a brick wall in front of the owner, or the time I sailed a boat into a tree, or the time I decided I needed to buy a pair of shoes in Oxford Street the day after drinking 24 shots of gin and then fainted in the shop and the manager had to call an ambulance.
What possessed us to try and climb a 6100 metre mountain I will never really know, but before I knew it we were at the base of Huayna Potosi setting up camp at 4780 m.

Huayna Potosi is one of the few 6000+ summits you can climb without any previous mountaineering experience. The two main technical bits are firstly, a 70 metre ice wall which is about 70 degrees and then right before the summit a 250 metre ice wall ranging from 60 - 80 degrees - not easy at that sort of altitude.

Day 1 was for acclimatization. We walked up to the Old Glacier, got used to the gear (harness, ropes, crampons, ice axes) and practiced some ice climbing.
Day 2 we hiked up to the High Camp (5100m) which was meant to take only 2 hours. It took me just over 3, breathing was not really happening for me and every 10 minutes or so I was reduced to an emphysematous 90 year old. High Camp was basically a huge mass of rocks by the side of the glacier. The plan was to set up our tents on the ever so comfy terrain, have dinner at 5pm, go to sleep at 6 pm, wake up at 11.30 PM for breakfast (!), and start climbing at 12 am in the dark. The reasons for starting at night are that when the sun comes up the snow goes all mushy and you're more likely to slip, slide, cause an avalanche or fall into a crevasse. Secondly, the glare and heat from the sun and snow can become unbearable.

Sleeping at 6 pm was difficult. Firstly it was still light, secondly we were pitched on bloody huge rocks, thirdly I was pooing my pants with utter fear! We got up at 11.30, put on all our gear and started making our way through the dark with our head torches on , roped together. It was about minus 10 and pretty soon Dan was 2 % less happy. We couldn't really see where we were going but we could definitely feel it was all up, up, up. We got to the first ice wall and instantly realised climbing these things was much easier when you could actually see them. Anyway we started going up, Jose (our excellent guide) first, then me, then Dan. About 10 metres up I suddenly felt the rope go taught and heard a bit of a yelp. I looked down and saw Dan "Hillary" Davies hanging 15 foot down on the end of the rope in mid air. When I asked him "What exactly are you doing Dan?" he just started thrashing around with his ice axe.

We made it up Wall 1 eventually and continued our slow trudge up to the summit. Jose kept saying something like "with patience an ant can eat an elephant", Dan was not in the mood for the Zen-like chat and every few minutes you'd hear "who's bloody idea was this" or "I want to get off this f*ing mountain now".

By about 7.30 (yes, that's 7 hours from when we started) we reached the second ice wall. It took us around an hour and a half to climb. I'd manage about 5 metres each time before having to stop for a complete breathing break down ( not easy when you're on a near vertical face). Finally we got to the top. We were so buggered it was really hard to get our heads around it. We only spent around 10 minutes at the top before having to come back down (the summit is a narrow ridge of about 2 metres so not a good place for a spot of tea). Going back down was really, really hard. Dan and I had been absolutely broken by the climb and poor Jose had to use every technique in the book to get us home (including at one point physically pulling me down the mountain on my arse)! We got back to base camp at 5 pm (17 hours later) where Dan looked at me and said " never a-f*ing-gain Seema". We've even decided to post all our extreme weather gear back home so there's no way we can try to do something as crazy as that again!

Anyway we've spent the past 2 days trying to get over the whole ordeal. Our faces are wind-blasted pulps, we've got big dents in our legs from where our crampon boots dug into our skin and everything hurts. We going off to relax by Lake Titicaca. Enjoy the photos and find out who won the caption comp. See ya.
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Uyuni, Bolivia

The food thing is starting to get interesting. Omllettes are now a distant luxury that bring tears of joy when I think about them. For lunch today we were given Llama steaks, goats cheese (a distant cousin from the goats cheese you know) and a sort of pasta broth that seemed to have quite a bit of hair in it. This was consumed about an hour ago and so far so good on the bowel front. Maybe the breakfast of two day old bread, a sort of marmalade syrup and dayglo orange "juice" set me up for the day and gave my stomach such a scare that it took on lunch without a fight.

Its strange eating Llama because for the last few days we've seen thousands of them and they don't look like the sort of animals you'd eat. They are quite "pretty" with big eyes and colourful earrings that their farmers attach so they can recognise their herd (see pics). Once on the plate though they look and taste like old shoes.

This is our second day in Bolivia and we arrived overland from Chile, some 400 km in a jeep. Our driver had a casette with 4 Bolivian hits on it that he played on rotation for over 20 hours. It sounds like a guy talking loudly in Spanish with a 1982 casio keyboard backing beat. The tune (in so far you could call it a tune) was a 3 note ditty involving random keystrokes from either end of the keyboard. Combined with occasional shouts of "amigo" and "cantamos" you have the basis of what passes for Bolivian popular music. This wouldn't have been so bad but I couldn't tell the difference between the 4 songs and only knew when another one started when the shouting stopped for 10 seconds or so.

As you can imagine, opportunities to get out of the jeep were warmly welcomed and as has been consistent with our trip so far, the landscape and its sheer variety has been mindboggling. The pictures tell the story but we have seen desert where no rain has ever been recorded, lakes where mineral deposits turn the water into impossible white, green and red colours, flocks of bright pink Flamingos, rocks that have been blasted into crazy shapes by wind and rain and the world's biggest salt plane where land and sky merge across a 12000kmsq "mirror".

Amongst all of this we have also managed to:
- survive our first earthquake which measured a shattering 3 on the Richter scale (a bit like a lorry going past you) but an unusual sensation nonetheless
- teach Seema how to get moving on a bike without a small wall to help her onto the saddle
- "see" our first mirage in the desert(they really do look like water)
- walk on the moon (see the pictures!)
- endure an over night bus ride with only a spongey cheese roll and a dubbed Russell Crowe movie for comfort
- visit the world's highest geyser field at the crack of dawn (god it was cold)
- go from sea level to 4500m in a day (not recommended)

Tomorrow we are off to Potosi which in the world's highest city at 4100m and once a major silver mining town.

My stomach is starting to feel a bit odd now and keeps making squelching noises so I'd better head off.

Enjoy the pictures (there's a caption competition for the last one) and thanks for guestbook entries - we like to know you still care.

Ciao
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/viajar/viajar/1108235460/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/viajar/viajar/1108235460/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/viajar/viajar/1108235460/tpod.html Sat, 12 Feb 2005 18:03:48 -0500 A journey of 800 omlettes: Our search for fresh vegetable produce in South America.

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Puerto Varas, Chile

Dear All.

It´s been almost 8 months since I first mounted a bicycle in my parents back garden, at the age of 29, with my 13 year old neice laughing wildly as I struggled to connect 2 revolutions of the peddles together - at my age having stabilizers wasn´t an option.

Luckily things improved fairly quickly and it wasn´t long before I was being dragged along on bike rides with "Lance" Davies everytime we went away (I particularly enjoyed my first bike ride in Kinsale where several of our friends thought it would be helpful to drive up really close to me, shouting and blowing on their car horns - you know who you are)!

Anyway the purpose of all of this was to be able to go on a mountain bike trip of a lifetime: Crossing the Andes from San Carlos de Bariloche (Argentina) to Puerto Varas (Chile) combining biking with lake crossings by boat.

Trip Facts:

The distance -
39 nautical miles by catamaran, 165 Km on the bikes, 3 days. See map in Photos.

Who we went with -
Jorge, Maria and German. Jorge is a great guy who owns an adventure-tour company "Andescross" and was the only person in Bariloche willing to do this trip with us (who wants to mountain bike when there are idyllic lakeside beaches to sunbathe on and great steak to be eaten?). Jorge likes nothing better than waking up at 4am to go climb a mountain before starting his day´s work! Maria - Jorge´s brilliant girlfriend - is a Spanish/English teacher and owns a company called "Spanish in the Mountains" (combining learning Spanish with hiking - what a cool idea). German (our wonderful MTB guide) has been mountain bike guiding for over 10 years and owns a company called "Tehuelche Patagonia" making really cool climbing equipment (crampon bags, rucksacs etc). They were a really excellent bunch of guys and we became good pals.

The Injuries -
5 falls in total.
First fall was the most embarassing - within about 2 minutes of the journey, at low speed, infront of loads of tourists.
Second fall was the most painful - at speed, landed on a tree stump. Would have been alright if I´d done it Andy-style using my ample arse but unfortunately I stopped using my chin. Scared the crap out of German.
Third fall was quite skillful - managed to skip off the bike and land on my feet, watching as the bike tumbled down the hill before crashing onto the ground (luckily the bikes didn´t belong to Andescross).
Can´t remember fourth fall, fifth was the most annoying - a huge horsefly called a "tabano" (the most annoying creature on earth, created by the devil) landed on my nose. I tried to swat it and completely forgot I was still on the bike and that balance, peddling and steering were all essential aspects of keeping a bike upright.

The highlight -
Biking down Volcan Osorno. The Volcano is 2661m high. We biked from the refugio at the 1200m level, 17 km downhill on rough and bumby dirt roads (I still can´t use my hands properly from clutching on to the brakes for dear life). Although I took it much slower than "Lance" Davies and Maria "Armstrong" it was still a real achievement for me - couldn´t have done it without you German.

What now?
Well we´ve spent a few days recovering in Puerto Varas (one of which was spent on a 6 hour kayak trip - yes we are mad). We´re heading back up North and going to the coast where we promise we won´t do anything more than lie on the beach and read (although Dan has been talking about paragliding across the sand dunes)...
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/viajar/viajar/1107615180/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/viajar/viajar/1107615180/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/viajar/viajar/1107615180/tpod.html Sat, 05 Feb 2005 11:33:47 -0500 A journey of 800 omlettes: Our search for fresh vegetable produce in South America.

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entry & travel map

Bariloche, Argentina

Hola Chicos. We are about to endure a four day bike ride back into Chile so we thought we´d tell you what we´ve been up to in Argentina.

First up - big birthday shouts to Mat, Vibe, Kay, Vicky and Ryan. Some of you are hitting the big 30. Try not to think about it too much and get yourselves down the pub - you´ll feel just like you were 23 in no time.

Anyway - food update:

Currently meals are 12% cheese, 8% bread, 80% cow.
Omlettes: surprisingly only had 8 or 9 between us(don´t worry - shall be in the 100s by the time we´re in Bolivia)
Courgettes: nearly but turned out to be a cucumber variant.
Aubergines: identified in many supermarkets - shelves always full - aubergines always shrivelled - if any attempt to cook with them is made strange looks are received.
Cow: they are not lying to you - steaks here are the size of a football. If you ask for medium it´s practically mooing (jealous Jimbo?)

Dan has learnt some Spanish! He can now ask for draught beer (cerveza tirada) which would be very useful if more than 3 places in the country had it! He also got very excited when he saw Warsteiner on tap here - unfortunately this is Warsteiner brewed in Argentina not Germany and in taste closely resembles Old Mans Scrott - yum.

Anyway apart from eating steak and hunting for premium imported draught lager we have also been:
Kayaking on the lakes (Dan did 90% of the paddling - I just screamed lots when the wind tried to beach us on rocks)
Playing with Argentine traffic on our bikes (buses here drive you off the road)
Getting insanely lost on hikes, having to walk 13 k instead of 8 in the mid-afternoon sun ("this looks like a good short cut" - Dan)
Getting sunburnt (had to put Dan in a cold bath for an hour yesterday).

Will sign off now but will leave you with a selection of photos from the recent days.

x x D + S
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